Crappies in the canal!

[davethetrout]

I have to say that for the past month on my "Only have an hour to fish days", I walk down to the canal in Lambertville and litterly catch some of the biggest crappies I have seen in NJ. These fish somtimes are over 13-14 inches and like a lb.?! anyway they all make it back safe and treat me well to a rod twisting time in the d+r. I`d take these crappies over a stocked trout all day long..and somtimes thats not hard to do if you find the color/pocket combo. they move up and down the canal and its luck of the draw to find em. definetly wooly buggers are the all time fav.(I lose 5 a day in the underwaterbushes)..hint hint hint
have fun and dont forget the sewage plant is near there so you probly wanna throw em back for me to catch

 

[sandfly]

wait till you hook a musky in there or a walleye, since the jersey side enters from bull's island any species in the river can be in there including shad..

 

[davethetrout]

wait till you hook a musky in there or a walleye, since the jersey side enters from bull's island any species in the river can be in there including shad..

Oh you bet your arse I`m waiting..I wait every time I cast my rod...thanks:bigfish:

 

[flyin]

maybe try a bigger fly rod and just take one of those crappies and hook them by the dorsal, chuck and duck and THEN hang on hint hint hint

(oops, then it wouldn't be FLY fishing !!!)

:bigfish:

 

[davethetrout]

Ther`re still in here..just walk up and down the banks and look for a spot that is almost impossible top get at or cast and just figure out how to get off a roll cast about 3/4 of the way across and let the current bring it back toward the shore. Hopefully this will get you under the bushes or tree and slightly jig a white bugger with flash and silver bead, on the retrieve they slam it. Tonite I picked a random spot minuites before dark and 5 casts produced 3 fish. The first two casts were to find em. There must be millions of crappies this year because they are big and healthy and rip strait for the bottom and shake like a rainbow stocker but way harder...Hope this helps and enjoy!

 

[davethetrout]

today is sunday the 16th..I lost count of all the fish I caught last night in a section of the canal withen Lambertville city limits. Only two trout but it didnt matter. The crappies and smallies I stumbled upon made a trout fight look like chumps! 13-15 inch crappies put up a heck of a fight. Got a few real nice gills too. I got a smallie last night that was topping all of three pounds and 15-17 inches..HUGE! Thought I might of had a breeder at first. Dont unnderestimate the fish in this canal as some are just monsters..all sent back home safely to their freinds and family(oh yeah,still using those saltwater streamers I pictured in another post)

 

[Chuckfish]

I fished the canal in Lambertville on quick 1 hour trips with similar success last summer and fall- only one crappie, though. 90% of the action on white buggers. I'll probably bump into you there or at "The Hawk" for a cold post-fishing beverage. BTW, how's the Stony Brook fishing?:beer:

 

[davethetrout]

i stopped by stony brook yesterday and there wasnt even any stocking signs up?! no trout in hopewell section it looks like. So its crazy low and only has puddles instead of pools..we need rain! I fished the Lockatong and Wickecheoke creeks today and caught nothing till I went to the D...

 

[Eagle Claw]

What is the difference between a crappie, blue gill and a sunfish ? To me they are all the same but you seem to indicate a difference.

 

[Eagle Claw]

above post-----can someone answer this for me, thanks.

 

[davethetrout]

answered in a pm..

 

[DJ]

Crappie are not sunfish (no stiff spiny dorsal fins) most sunfish (bream in part of the country) eat insects, crappie are primarily fish eaters! Blugills are plateshaped with a blue coloring arung their gills especially during breeding season. When they get big (over 1/2 pund rarely caught on anything but fly grear after the spawn. (Hint 1lb bream are not that uncommon in deep holes in heavily weeded areas near deep water! now what kinda of lure small emough to fit their mouths can get there?) Sunifish (bream, sunnies) are general calss of warm water fish including robins (redbreast), pumpkins seeds, green sunfish, longear, shellcrackers, warmouth, rockbass and hybrids of the above. They also include the balck basses (largemouth, smallmouth, spotted, redeye, shoal and kentucky.

 

[AKSkim]

Lad's a point of order here.

I believe you could have picked a better title for this string. If I heard someone yelling "crappies in the canal!", my first thought would be I am glad I wasn't out there swimming this morning.

Augh...

 

[JeffK]

Crappie is a poor name for a fish. Maybe we should use the French Sac au lait? Us fly guys have to keep it upper crust.

 

[RedTag2000]

Eagle Claw, check this out

Panfish

 

[AKSkim]

très bien

JeffK:

Lad you are picking it up. I agree with you whole heartedly.

 

[Scott]

Crappie is a poor name for a fish. Maybe we should use the French Sac au lait? Us fly guys have to keep it upper crust.

I believe it's pronounced "craw-pea". I've caught them a time or two while out looking for big bass. A friend of mine got a big crappie while night fishing. We let it swim around in the livewell with the largemouth he caught about 20 minutes earlier to keep it company until the camera batteries charged and I could get a pic. It measured 13.5", but doesn't look it because of the angle. Well, that and the fact it's right next to a 8 pound largemouth.

As always all fish were released unharmed...

 

[DJ]

Well in the southeast we call them FOOD! there is no better fish to eat in North Amreica than Black Crappies! Period. I know trout are gourmet, but trust me on this! They are unbeleivable battered and fried with some hushpuppies and collards! Having said that, most biologists encourage keeping them, because young crappie will eat eat a samller pond clean! They are great forage for bass (soft fins) but they spawn in large numbers resulting in stunting without adequate culling. In the midwest/midsouth (Ky, Tenn, Miss, Ala, LA, OK) they do call them Craw-peas. In the Souhteast (VA, NC, SC, GA, FLa.) we called them Crap-EE, perch or calicoes. When the crappies school that is a time you'll find folks shoulder to shoulder. In fact most ponds are loaded with old christmas trees placed there in the winter to draw crappie in the spring. People map out brush piles and trees like secret family recipes, because in the summer the crappie will suspend over them mid lake. Hoxever in NJ........... I won't eat any fish that consumes other fish as a primarly food source. Perhaps a bream or stocked trout. That is about it.

 

[JeffK]

I've generally heard crap' ee (as in refering to crappie fishing you're not sure what someone is talking about right away - is the fishing poor or are you after crappie), but have also heard crop' ee and the midwest accent is a nasal sort of crah pee (listen to Al Lindner on In-Fishermen). Have heard them called calicos up in NJ too. My old boss is a crappie lover (one of few I know in NJ) who can catch a crappie anywhere, even if it is the only crappie for miles, with the old jig under a bobber technique. In Lousiana I often heard Sac-au-lait/Sacolet/Sackolay/ and many other corruptions for crappie. In the Midwest and South crappie are very high on the good eats list, but somehow they don't show up on the menu much in NJ. This C&R stuff can get out of hand.

Bream (pronounced "brim") isn't heard much in NJ.

Pronounciations can be weird. It used to bother me that in NJ they spell crawfish and say crayfish and in NC they spell crayfish and say crawfish.

 

[switlikbob]

:drunk: Well guys...I am headed up to the canal today after work...I hope the crappers are still there...I know the trout are...this will be my 1st time fly fishing in over 4 years...wish me luck!

 

[switlikbob]

Well guys...All I got was 2 sunnies and a small mouth...no crappies to be seen, but a bunch of soon to be spawning large mouth...got them all on wooly buggers...no of the currenly hatching flies even got me a bite...