February anglers liable to run into Jordan’s biggest crappie of the year.
Although everyone knows the spring spawn makes crappie as vulnerable as carnival kewpie dolls, March and April actually aren’t the best months to catch trophy fish.
The biggest of slabs are more likely to be landed in February, when big females “stage” offshore in anticipation of the spring bacchanal. And one piedmont lake has returned to the top of the pile as a veritable Studio 54 of crappie fishing.
“Jordan Lake is come back as the state’s best crappie lake,” said Freddie Sinclair of Sinclair’s Guide Service.
Along with countless Triangle-area fishermen, Sinclair, who lives in Clayton, watched in consternation as a fierce winter freeze, wiped out most of the lake’s threadfin shad in 2011. Because of a dearth of baitfish in deep water that summer, thousands of Jordan’s black crappie starved to death.
As a result, springtime fishing in 2011 and 2012 took a nose dive that resembled the 2008 stock market. Many Jordan Lake regulars stopped trailering their boats to the 14,000-acre impoundment north of Pittsboro and moved to other lakes.
But after the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission stocked thousands of threadfins in 2012, the lake’s crappie began to rebound.
“In (2013), I thought Jordan would really start to jump in the fall (2014), and it did, so it ought to be really good in 2015,” Sinclair said. “And you can catch some really big crappie starting in February when females start to stage off places where they’ll spawn.”
Sinclair said most people believe cold weather dictates deep-water fishing at channel ledges, with crappie hanging out 18- to 25-feet deep. But as the month progresses, fish start to move toward coves.
Some crappie fishermen look for staging fish by trolling from 1.2 to 1.3 miles per hour, starting in deep water and working toward the backs of coves.
“I go the other way,” Sinclair said. “I start at the midpoint of a cove and work my way deeper. I don’t know that it matters; that’s just how I do it.”
Sinclair doesn’t spend a lot of time in non-productive coves, often searching without putting a jig or minnow in the water, sometimes cruising in 5 or 6 feet of water along shorelines while looking for water that’s at least 46 degrees.
When Sinclair targets crappie in February, he “long-line” trolls. That involves casting jigs about 30 to 40 feet behind his boat, putting rods in rod holders and moving quickly to cover a lot of water, making sure to watch his depth finder so he doesn’t hang the bottom. It’s a speedier way of fishing than slow-trolling, which is a spring tactic.
“Usually (staging) starts, I think, when the water temperature gets to 46 or 47 degrees,” Sinclair said. “From there, it picks up.”
When he first starts catching slab females, the 57-year-old former facilities manager at N.C. State’s McKimmon Center usually finds them in 12 to 15 feet of water.
Sinclair likes to set up as many rods as he can manage while trolling. He normally places four rods in holders on either side of his bass boat’s bow, within easy reaching distance.
His prefers 6-pound line with 1/32-ounce jigs and soft-plastic curlytails or jigs tipped with live minnows.
“The color depends on clarity and whether we’re in a high-pressure or low-pressure weather situation,” he said.
With clear water and clear skies, he’ll mostly use light colors — blue or white. Under cloudy skies with stained water, Sinclair prefers brown, orange or black lures with some red mixed into the curlytails.
“But chartreuse will be somewhere on just about every jig I use,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s the color I use 99 percent of the time. I also like pink in stained water. I don’t think pink works in clear water, but Jordan’s not clear. The water’s always some kind of tea color.”
Sinclair believes male crappies go to the shallows before females, perhaps scoping out good spawning sites.
“I think they go shallow and try to attract females,” he said. “But in February, in the early stages of the spawn, I seldom catch a male crappie in shallow water.
“If you catch a crappie in a staging area in February, they’ll almost always be bigger females with eggs in their bellies.”
Crappies, he said, will deposit eggs on submerged shoreline structures.
“They’ll lay eggs on rocks and stuff like that,” Sinclair said. “I’ve seen egg sacks attached to laydowns and on pea gravel.”
If Jordan’s winter crappie sizes are an indication, the spring of 2015 should bring some shocking sizes.
“I caught a 14 ¾-inch crappie during mid-December,” Sinclair said. “And a lot of people caught big Jordan crappie last fall. They’ll be fatter come spring.”
DESTINATION INFORMATION
HOW TO GET THERE/WHEN TO GO — US 64 is the key access to Jordan. Dozens of public boat landings are within a mile or two of the US 64 causeway across the lake. North-South routes to Jordan including Farmington Road and NC 751 from the Chapel Hill and Durham areas, and US 1 from the south. January through March are excellent months to catch big, female crappie staging offshore preparing for the spawn.
TACKLE/TECHNIQUES —Tight-line troll with 1/32-ounce crappie jigs in brown/chartreuse/ice blue, black/chartreuse/ice blue or blue/black/ice blue, or fish live minnows on bare jigheads. Use crappie rods in 10- to 16-foot lengths with 4-pound mono. Begin at the midpoint in creeks or coves and move from shallow to deep water and toward the mouth of creeks looking for fish. Look for 46- to 47-degree water; if you find it shallow, move in that direction.
FISHING INFO/GUIDES — Freddie Sinclair, Sinclair’s Guide Service, 919-219-2804; Wilsonville General Store, 919-362-7101; Army Corps of Engineers, 919-542-4501 for lake-level reports. See also Guides and Charters in Classifieds.
ACCOMMODATIONS — For camping, Jordan Lake State Recreation Area, 919-362-0586; Hampton Inn and Suites, Holly Springs, 800-230-4134; Comfort Inn, Apex, 800-997-5148; Holiday Inn Express, Apex, 800-997-5149.
MAPS — GMCO Maps, 888-420-6277, www.gmcomaps.com; FHS Maps, 800-500-MAPS.
