ETCC Club Tournament

I fished the East Texas Crappie Club January Tournament yesterday, 1/21 and finished in the middle of the pack, 4 of 7. I weighed in the 7 fish limit with 9.56 lbs. The winning weight was 10.87 lbs.

This event was on Lake Conroe and based at Stow-A-Way marina. The conditions were windy but very warm for January. The morning started off in the high 50's and by mid day was in the mid 60's. It was cloudy most of the time with some sun shinning through for an hour or so. All of the fish that I caught were on the main lake or just inside a main lake point. The magic depth seemed to be 23-27 feet of water. I fished 2 locations one being the old trestle on the tramway and Hunters Point.

Fishing the trestle was challenging due to the wind and it being out in the wide open main lake body. I wasn't able to control the boat with the trolling motor so I anchored upwind from the structure and drifted back to it, tying off when I got to the place I wanted to fish. I really needed an additional anchor to drop off the back of the boat to keep it from swaying to and fro but,I made do without it. I was able to pick up 5 fish from this location with 4 of the larger fish weighed in coming from there. These fish were structure oriented. They were tight to the submerged remnant trestle structure that was in place to cross the river prior to the lake being impounded. Finding this spot requires you to read your map and use a depth finder or gps. Once you find it, learn it, fish of all species are there fall through pre-spawn. I caught a boat load of yellow bass, a few white bass and one largemouth. The largemouth was about 17" and I would guess about 3 and a half pounds.

Fishing Hunter's point was just the opposite. Fish were not holding on vertical structure but rather they were on the bottom of the old creek channel that dips in close to that point just inside the cove. The depth would change from 23-27 feet and as I would transgress that depth change is when I would catch a fish. I never found a group of fish but would pick one up here and there strolling the area back and forth spider rigging. I caught more fish in that area than the trestle but, they were smaller on average. I ended up the day with 12 keepers (10"+) to choose from for my 7 fish to weigh in.

I wish I would of taken some pictures to go along with this post but, my handheld gps only lasted about 5 minutes due to having bad batteries (forgot to check how charged up they were before leaving). So, the camera got robbed of its batteries to power the gps. Finding fishing locations was more important than taking pictures. Maybe next time I snap some photos.