Poverty Point may be the hottest crappie lake in the state right now.
It doesn’t take much to make Bobby Phillips happy. All he really needs is a couple shiners and a few willing white perch.
In fact, Phillips recently sold his tackle shop in West Monroe, The Honey Hole, so he could spend a little more time chasing his favorite fish across North Louisiana.
Not to worry, through.
Anglers who have grown accustomed to dropping by The Honey Hole in hopes that a little of Phillips’ crappie charisma would rub off on them can still find him around every now and then. As part of the sale, Phillips agreed to work a few days a week to smooth the transition and to continue offering a little white-perch wisdom to customers.
With his newfound freedom, Phillips says he’s going to be spending a lot of his time looking to catch slabs at Poverty Point in Delhi. Anybody who pays attention to fishing in Louisiana knows that Poverty Point Reservoir opened to rave reviews from bass anglers a few years ago. Few outside of North Louisiana, however, knew much about the fantastic crappie fishing that the lake was dishing up.
“For a while, we had nothing but big slabs biting over there,” said Phillips. “It seemed like every fish you caught was around the 2-pound mark. That’s tailed off a little; we’re now seeing a mix of small, medium and large fish.”
District 2 Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologist Mike Wood explained the reason why so many large white perch were caught in the early going at Poverty Point.
“We stocked crappie when the lake was impounded,” he said, “but just two years later, we were looking at super slabs that didn’t match the timing of the stocking. We essentially had a super stocking because some crappie came in from Bayou Macon through a few pipes. People were consistently catching 2-pound crappie. It looked like a phenomenal success.”
Wood knew, though, that this was an artificial situation. He realized the lake couldn’t have all adult crappie — there had to be some small and medium-sized fish too.
“We knew this kind of bite wasn’t going to last forever,” he said. “The crappie population at Poverty Point has moved from a top-heavy population to a healthy mixture of smaller fish and larger fish. Even though the giant stringers full of 2-pound fish are gone, there are no problems with the lake. We’re very happy with the crappie fishing, and expect it will continue to be one of the top crappie lakes in North Louisiana into the future.”
Even though there aren’t any problems with the crappie population at Poverty Point, Phillips has found there is a little problem with when they bite.
“They don’t like to bite over there during the middle of summer,” he said. “But they begin to take on a different attitude come September when the weather gets a little milder. They aren’t in a solid fall pattern yet, but they’re heading that way.”
Phillips and Wood both say there are several key features about Poverty Point Reservoir that make it such an excellent crappie lake, and that these features are also what make it an awesome place to catch crappie in September.
Form Follows Function
The basic design rule that “form follows function” states that if an object has to perform a certain function, its design must support that function to the fullest extent possible. This rule is an overused stereotype in the industrial and web design worlds, but it’s probably never been associated with a crappie lake.
Wood said that having the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of management of the lake was instrumental in creating a lake that’s form follows the function of producing a healthy population of willing crappie.
“We were able to walk the lake bottom when it was nothing but fields,” he said. “I remember looking and trying to figure out what would hold fish. And, to be honest, there wasn’t much.”
Wood recommended that the timber and brush that was being cut to clear the lake bottom be pushed up in big piles around the lake. The Poverty Point Reservoir District agreed, and they teamed up with the LDWF to build approximately 50 piles.
“The piles are actually a combination of logs, brush and dirt,” Wood said. “They’re scattered around the lake. Some have nothing more than a stick sticking out of the water today, but if you cruise on the west side of the lake, you’ll see them. You can also locate them pretty easily by all the boats fishing around them.”
Wood also explained that Poverty Point is essentially lacking what he calls “complex cover.” This cover is all the cover in a lake that a fish can hang around — trees, grass, docks, etc. A lake that is 15 to 30 percent complex cover is more conducive to bass and sunfish. According to Wood, Poverty Point just doesn’t have that right now.
“The lake is an excellent crappie lake because of the lack of complex cover (crappie love open water), and it’s based on shad. Crappie, channel cats and yellow bass love this type of environment. Couple that with the fact the lake maintains a greenish, algae color and you can see why the design of Poverty Point makes it a great crappie fishery.”
September Shift
While crappie fishing can be a little tough at Poverty Point during the summer, Phillips said the bite starts to really pick up in September. This is a month of change for the entire aquatic world, and the crappie sense one of their most important factors for survival begin to make a move.
“A crappie spends its life as close as it can to its primary food source,” said Phillips. “This lake is full of shad, and the crappie pretty much follow them no matter where they go. By the end of September, the shad will begin to shift to shallow water, and you can bet the crappie will shift with them.”
Phillips further explained that the move wouldn’t be immediate. It’s a gradual process, and the crappie could be anywhere. By the end of the month, they should be up shallow, but you may have to look a little deeper early on.
Wood says that white perch suspend during the summer, thus making them difficult to catch. However, he agreed with Phillips, and pointed out that they will start moving this month rather than suspending.
“We’ll see a lot of them move shallow to take advantage of the shad,” he said. “They’ll feed heavily in preparation for winter. I’d look for fish to be around any available cover they can find like docks and brushpiles.”
The neat thing about the many piles pushed up during the creation of the lake is that several actually extend from deep water to shallow water, thus creating a perfect migration route. Plenty of the crappie that suspend around the piles will take advantage of this short move to shallow water. All it takes to catch them is a move toward the bank.
Hidden Structure
The lack of complex cover in Poverty Point leads many anglers to fish the pushed-up piles. The docks also get a little attention. However, if you really want to load up on the big slabs, Phillips said you’re going to have to look for the structure you can’t see.
“There’s a creek channel that parallels Highway 17 from the marina south toward the south landing,” Phillips revealed. “There’s a lot of brush pushed up close to the channel. During September, the fish will start moving up and down that channel looking for an easy meal.”
Other pieces of treasure that Phillips makes sure to fish during September are the old Bayou Macon oxbows on the east side of the lake. Bayou Macon actually runs outside the lake, but there are a few old oxbows that are contained within the lake. The water in the oxbows runs anywhere from 30 to 35 feet deep, and there is some flooded timber on the edges.
“Both of these areas hold lots of baitfish during the fall,” said Phillips. “It can be a little tricky, because the baitfish can vary their depth every day. It definitely pays to have some good electronics and know how to use them.”
Finding Fish
The entire key to finding crappie at Poverty Point during September is to first find the depth of the shad. And the depth of the shad is dependent upon weather factors and the amount of oxygen in the water.
“Shad are extremely susceptible to stress,” said Phillips. “They have to have high levels of oxygen. It could be in deep water, or it could be at the surface. A lot of times, the surface oxygen is better than the other layers in the water column. That’s why we often see shad flipping around on top where the wind is stirring up the surface and creating oxygen.”
Phillips says the first thing he does after launching his boat is to turn on his depthfinder. He’s not looking for white perch as much as he is looking for concentrations of fish — any fish. He looks for the depth where most of the fish symbols are showing up, and assumes that’s where the highest levels of oxygen are.
After figuring out the depth he wants to target, Phillips begins examining the returns on his screen to try to figure out which are crappie.
“You can usually identify crappie because they tend to stack up on the screen,” he said. “Bass will be more scattered, and catfish will be on the bottom.”
Crappie Tactics
One of Phillips’ favorite ways to fish Poverty Point is to use a spider rig. He figures that the odds of finding fish are stacked in his favor with as many as eight poles out at different depths. And the ability to cover water helps him quickly locate schools of slabs.
“Spider-rigging over the channel or the oxbows can be really productive,” Phillips said. “You can put out all those poles and troll back and forth across the deep water until you make contact. Once you home in on the most productive depth, you can set all your poles to it.”
During September, Phillips said he expects plenty crappie to be in the standing timber around the oxbows. He fishes through the timber first, and will move to the open water if he fails to catch fish in the timber.
Phillips tries different baits when fishing the spider rig. He always tries a few shiners, but includes a gray/chartreuse Black Lake hair jig and a blue-thunder Bobby Garland Baby Shad in his list of Poverty Point favorites.
“A Road Runner is also excellent over there,” he added. “One of my most productive colors has been a 1/16-ounce chartreuse head with a tomato seed Bass Assassin body.”
Of course, tight-lining any of Phillips’ favorite baits can also be productive for anglers not equipped to fish a spider rig.
“The main thing to remember is to try different depths to locate the fish,” said Phillips, “and to fish a little above them once you find them. Most of their lives are spent looking up. They normally won’t go down for a bait, so if you’re fishing right in the middle of the school, you won’t catch as many as you could by simply moving it up about a foot.”
Phillips also made sure to mention that anglers should try to fish during what he calls the “rally.” This rally time is from approximately 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
“There’s always a good early and late bite,” he said, “but a lot of anglers go home around 10. If you’ll stick it out through the noon rally period, you should get into a flurry of activity that can produce a lot of fish.”
On The Water Issues
“There is a new regulation on the lake that sets the crappie limit at 25,” said Wood. “We’re the only lake in the state that has a 25-fish limit right now.
“The change came about after listening to concerns about those giant 50-fish limits that could have filled up a coffin. We’re doing this right now on an experimental basis to see if there is any impact at all.”
Wood also explained that he frequently has biological personnel on the lake checking fish.
“We aren’t checking the fishermen,” he said. “Rather, we’re simply conducting a creel census. We try to find out things like how long anglers have been out and what they’ve caught. This is very beneficial information in our management of the lake, and it will help us ensure that Poverty Point continues to produce slab crappie well into the future.”