Cordele —
For the past few days I have been pre-fishing for a crappie tournament to be held Saturday here on Lake Blackshear. I have made the statement I would never fish another tournament but I have a friend who lives in Cartersville that needs a partner for this tourney and I promised him I would it with him.
As I said before, I have been pre-fishing. In other words, I’m scouting out the lake to try and locate some of those big Lake Blackshear slabs. I think I’ve found a few nice spots to fish Saturday. Over the past five days I have witnessed at least three big slab crappie that weighed around two pounds each come out of the area we’ll be fishing.
While fishing earlier this week around a few pylons under Smoak Bridge, I had a very rude fisherman come under the bridge and tie his darn boat off to the exact pylon I was fishing.
I should have said something to this jerk but felt it would have made things worse. I was able to move a little bit off from him and catch a slab that was 13 inches long so it wasn't all that bad. By the way, I caught it on a chartreuse head/pink body/chartreuse tail R.A.G. Fly jig.
I did notice there were a lot of fish still showing up in the river channel especially north of the Highway 280 bridge. I wasn't able to get them to bite what I was presenting to them but hopefully they will find my partner and me this Saturday.
The big slab I caught under Smoak Bridge was full of eggs and they looked like they were ready for the spawn. The water was only seven ft deep and the surface temperature was 54 degrees.
This bolsters my contention that crappie will spawn by the end of this month or either they will begin the spawn by then. They are now staging at the mouth's of the major creeks ready to run in the shallows to spawn.
The tournament this Saturday is being done by Georgia Slabmasters and sign-up is at Leroy's One Stop Bait and Tackle starting at 6 a.m. The weigh-in will be around 3 p.m. that day at the same site so if you’d like to see several large crappie then come on out to the west side of Stripling’s General Store on U.S. 280.
With the spawn right around the corner, I again encourage you to please find the time to take a kid(s) fishing and show them how much fun catching crappie can be.
Until next time, may all of your fish be large and plentiful and may God bless everyone.
Rusty Parker is a guest outdoors columnist. He can be written to in care of this newspaper at P.O. Box 1058, Cordele, 31010, or contacted by e-mail at ragfly@bellsouth.net
Local Sports
Crappie tournament set for Saturday at Lake Blackshear
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Crisp Academy sweeps Robert Toombs, earns trip to GISA Final Four
Crisp Academy's Wildcats have advanced to the GISA Class A Final Four for a fourth straight year and in doing so had to rally for a second-game win over Robert Toombs' Crusaders here Friday.
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