Part 2 Smith Mountain Crappie

After waiting for what seemed like months, I finally had time to get to Smith Mountain Lake to get at those slab size crappie! Though I was skeptical about the size of crappie that my friend Tony (Killer-Hog-Head) claimed to be catching, I knew that a lake of that size could hold slabs as big as he claimed.

We hit the lake at sun up. Now I know that most folks believe that you have to be on the water early, but I don’t subscribe to this point of view. Now there are exceptions. For example, I do believe that you can catch surface feeding fish at dawn and sun up. That’s another story. We were there at sun up because Killer-Hog-Head said that he caught his fish early. And, I wasn’t going to give him any reason (excuse) for not putting us on some slab size crappie.

It was a short ride from the ramp to slab crappie spot. I was just getting hunkered down good in the boat when we turned in to a cove. My first words were, “we have fished this area a hundred times and I’ve never seen a slab sized crappie come out of here.” Tony said “I know, but this is where we were catching them.” I started casting jigs towards the shore. However, I had one eye on Tony at all times to see what he fishing. The first thing I noticed was that he was rigging up a slip bobber to use minnows. Now I know minnows are good bait for crappie, but I like to think of them as the equivalent of putting on training wheels on a bike. Correction, I used to think of them that way.

As soon as he was rigged up, he started up the boat and headed us to the opposite side of the cove. I should have known that there was no way Killer-Hog-Head was going to put me on fish while he still had to rig up. I know he thought he was going to catch me without a slip bobber rig but he was wrong. I had one rod rig that way just incase I couldn’t get the jigs to do the trick.

He put us so close to shore, I could have jumped to shore with no problem. Tony’s bobber went under almost immediately. That one went 16 or 17 inches! I had a minnow under a float before he could get his fish in the live well. We worked that side of the cove for most of the morning. We caught just about a limit of slab size crappie! I did manage to get a few on jigs, but the majority of the fish were caught using minnows or minnas as Killer-hog-head calls them.

Since then, we learned how to find other coves that held the same size fish. I my next blog, I’ll tell you what type of coves we look for when we are fishing for slab size crappie in the spring.

How to make a gill net

Gill netting is a very productive method of catching fish. Although a lot of states do not allow the use of gill nets, Virginia is one of the few that does. In fact, it allows recreation gillnetting as well as commercial gill netting. The recreational fisherman is limited to one gill net whereas the commercial guys have as many as they want. They just buy as many gill net licenses as the need.

I started out as a recreational fisherman/gill netter. It was more fun than I expected and I found that I could catch enough for a weekend fish fry whenever I wanted. Later, I wanted to sell fish and that required me to become a commercial waterman. I did pretty good my first year considering I only had one gill net.

I needed more nets and found that I needed to learn how to make my own nets. The cost of a gill net is cut just about in half when you build it yourself. Gillnets consists of three major parts. The top line, the netting, and the bottom line or lead line are the main parts of the gill net. The top line is usually made of float line. Float line is a line that has a foam core to make it float. Floats spaced out on a line also works but the foam core line is easier to handle when deploying your net.
the netting comes in different size meshes as well as thickness. The size of the mesh determines the size fish that can be caught in the net. A three inch mesh will catch fish as small as 6" and as big as 12inches with the average fish being about 8 to 10 inches.
To build my nets, I used 1/2" foam core top line and 65LB. bottom line. I used 600 feet of each. I used three inch net mesh for catching Spot and medium Croakers. For the large Croakers and sea trout I used 3 3/4 " mesh. When you order your netting, order twice the the length of the size of the net you will build. For example, to build a 100 yd gill net, order 200 yd of netting. Netting is usually measured in "stretched yards". Tie the netting to the top and bottom line at intervals of about 7 to 9 meshes. At each end of your net, run a rope from the top line to the bottom line and secure at both the top and bottom. These are your end lines. You will attach a buoy to the top line and an anchor to the bottom line at both ends.

All that's left to do now, is to set the net in you favorite spot and get ready for a fish fry!


  

Smith Mountain Lake Crappie trip

It will be that time of year again soon! By that, I mean the spring Crappie season! Some of the best fishing in Virginia is at Smith Mountain Lake. With 22000 acres of water and endless tributaries, it's no wonder why Smith Mountain Lake has some of the best fishing in Virginia.

My first trip to SML was about 20 years ago. On that trip I caught my limit of 10 to 14 inch crappie and I was the man. I continued to have that same kind of success year after year. Now, fast forward to about 3 years ago. A friend of mine, which I'll refer to as "Killer-Hog-Head", called me up and told me that he was catching 18" crappie, and lots of them. Now you and I both know that the way to tell if a fisherman is lying is to see if his lips are moving. Since he was on the phone and I couldn't see his lips, I took the bait and said, "Where and when?". He proceeded to tell me how big they were and how they fought, but was a little closed mouth on exactly where they were caught. Oh, he would tell me at SML, but 22000 acres is a lot of water. I wanted the specifics! Needless to say, there was a whole lot of talk, but not a lot of information. I was pretty tired of hearing about the "secret crappie bait" and the "special crappie techniques" that were needed to land the slab size crappie. After what seem to me to be about a good 30 min. of flapping his jowls, we finally set up a time that we could meet at the lake and I could get a first hand look at some of these monster crappie. I'll tell you all about that trip in my next Blog. Below are a few pictures.