I needed some crappie fillets but the weather has been too hot and the wind too high and unpredictable to head out to Mother Fork for a 3 or 4 day trip. Just for fun, I thought I'd see what the fishing was like on Lake Lewisville and see if I could get some nice crappie and still sleep in my own bed. As you can see above, things worked out well.
I googled around and found a nice website for Phill's guide service on Lewisville. He had everything I needed to see, so after some phone tag, we finally settled on a last minute afternoon trip on a Monday.
We met up on the Little Elm boat ramp and headed out about 4 pm. Phill uses minnows and, yup, they work just fine. I don't think I had fished with minnows in 20 years or so, but the proof was in the "dead"well. It took us about 2 hours to limit out, hitting different crappie piles Phill has set up around the lake. I hooked one errant 5 pound largemouth and that was a fun fight on light tackle. We were both convinced it was a catfish til I got it to the surface. It never did try to jump, which is probably a good thing with crappie tackle and hooks. She was 19 inches long.
After we got our 25 crappie, we headed out to deeper water and threw slabs at hybrids. Phill hooked a nice 5 pounder and handed me the rod. That was a fun fight.
We spent awhile looking for some sand bass to add to our catch but we never found a good enough school to stop. Maybe next time. We headed in about 7 pm and Phill got the fish all cleaned up and I came home with a big gallon sack full of crappie. Tomorrow they will go on the smoker. I want to see if smoked crappie is as good as smoke salmon. I betcha it is.
