Crappie/Bream
Perfect time for panfish
Bill McCarty cleans a lot of panfish for frying this time every year as he taps the bream, chinquapin and sac-a-lait population in the lower Spillway, better known as the Atchafalaya Basin.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
Crappie/Bream
Catch big bream on little Finch Lake
It was a bad year for flooding on Finch Lake and the Ouachita River near the small community of Haile — so that means it’s a good year for big bream.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Pop a ‘top’
It’s prime time to target Ouachita River crappie in the tops. Here’s how one noted angler catches his share of summertime slabs hunkered down in the brush.[…]
Crappie/Bream
High noon at Crackerhead
“There’s a good one,” he said, glancing over his right shoulder. “And there’s a good one,” he said, throwing an eye over his left shoulder. “That’s a good one, too,” he nodded at another one.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Marsh Man Masson vid: Where, how to catch summertime crappie — and bass
My son, Joel, and I set out on a recent fishing trip to compare and contrast the bass-catching capabilities of Zoom Flukes and floating worms. With the test well underway, however, we became distracted by a smoking-hot crappie bite we just couldn’t ignore.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Be a fish listener
Forget being a fish whisperer — when it comes to catching crappie, Nick Young is a fish listener.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Adjusting on the fly is key
Earlier this year, Nick Young and father Jock beat 100 of the best crappie fishing teams in the South to claim the Crappie Masters Louisiana State Championship on Lake D’Arbonne with two seven-fish limits weighing 24.4 pounds.[…]
Catfish
How to make your own catfishing bottles
Jeremy Gremillion and Ray Ramagos both make their catfishing bottles from emptied, metal, 30-pound R-22 refrigerant bottles. Gremillion gets his from friends who do residential cooling work. Ramagos noted that they can also be purchased from scrap yard dealers.[…]
Catfish
Catfish genes
Six catchable sized catfish species occur in Louisiana waters. They can be divided into two groups: bullheads and true catfish.[…]
Catfish
Treasured catfish tips
Make a small gaff hook to use to pull stubborn fish from their bottle. “Sometimes I wonder how the fish get in the bottle when I can hardly get them out,” mused Gremillion. […]
Crappie/Bream
Look down for slabs
Jerry “J.T.” Thompson stared intently at the screen of his 12-inch down-scan unit as he brought the pontoon boat off plane.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Flat out crappie
“The fish have it backwards when it comes to the weather,” Nick Young said as he cruised his big Ranger down the edge of the boat channel, scanning his electronics for suspended crappie.[…]
Catfish
Look, mom: No bait!
Catfishing is supposed to be all about a gob of slimy worms, or bloody chicken liver, or smelly cut bait — or better yet some concoction of secret ingredients, usually including spoiled sour cheese.[…]
Crappie/Bream
How to create effective crappie brush piles
When crappie finish their spawning rituals, they head to deeper water and look for two things: Food and cover.[…]
Apex Predator
Apex Predator: Catfishing with double-baited hooks
One of the most important things when catching catfish is bait selection. After many experiments, I found a double-bait trick that has worked for catching more fish: I use a chunk of fresh cut bait — with the addition of a small pogy on the hook’s tip.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Crappie making converts on Black Bayou Lake
A few years back, the only time Randy Smith ever caught a crappie was by accident.
Now, he dedicates most of his time on the water chasing them.[…]