Nocturnal Nibbles

Night time is the right time to slay slabs during summer at Jordan Lake.

Gary Knight and his client for the evening had been on a pretty good run.

They started catching stripers during the last two hours of daylight, hooked a few decent channel cats and caught two bass weighing more than 6 pounds.But the fun really began about an hour after sunset.

“We wound up catching a bunch of big crappie after dark,” Knight said. “We decided to pull in the lines just a little before 1 a.m.

“I pulled in the front poles and stored them so we could head in. There was one left in the back, so I asked him to bring it in.”

The chore took a little longer than expected. After the angler felt an unmistakable tap on the line, a deeply-bowed spinning rod made Knight think this fish might be something other than a crappie.

“He finally got it up where we could see it, and we immediately knew this was a large crappie,” Knight said. “It wound up weighing right at 3 pounds.

“That’s what you can expect at Jordan. The lake is set up perfect for crappie fishing, and the best summer bite happens well into the night.”

Jordan Lake’s 14,000 acre are a popular fishery approximately 20 miles southwest of Raleigh in Chatham County. While those outside North Carolina probably associate Jordan Lake with bass and stripers, those that frequently fish the lake know what the real draw is — crappies. In fact, Knight ranks with Kerr Lake (Buggs Island) as one of the top-two crappie fisheries in the state.

“As far as quality of fish goes, you’ve got to put it with Buggs Island,” Knight said. “Of course, Jordan has a 20-fish creel limit with a 10-inch minimum length. That’s been in effect for about two years.”

The relatively new crappie regulations at the lake were somewhat controversial at the start because some anglers didn’t think they were necessary. However, District 5 fisheries biologist Corey Oakley said a good reason forced the Wildlife Resources Commission to create them.

“The new regulations have been in existence two years this July (2006),” Oakley said. “The reason we went to it was that we saw a dramatic decline in certain age classes. We reached a stage where the two-year-old age class was the dominant age class in the lake. That meant we were putting all our reproductive eggs in the basket of one age class of fish. The new regulation was meant to try and keep the fish in the fishery longer and to protect the younger age classes.”

Since the change was implemented, Oakley said anglers have seen dramatic growth rates in the younger-age classes. Two-year-old fish that would normally be 7 to 8 inches are now reaching 10 inches, and one-year-old fish are hitting 8 inches.

“If we hadn’t put the limits on the fish, I think we would have seen the lake collapse as far as the crappie fishery goes,” he said. “It’s important to remember, though, that the regulations aren’t permanent. We evaluate them every year and watch the trends.

“We can usually tell what kind of effect we’re having five years out from initial implementation. This has been an effort to make the crappie fishing stable and sustainable for future generations.”

Knight said crappies are able to thrive at Jordan Lake because of its near perfect combination of structure and food. Several excellent feeder creeks and rivers dump into the lake that has drop-offs to provide first-rate summer crappie structure.

Several old road beds, channel holes and a few flooded ponds also provide the ingredients for some good summer holes. These structure areas are enhanced by cover at these places.

For example, Beaver Creek contains lots of standing timber at the main channel, and the combination of a bottom change with the wood cover makes it a prime crappie spot.

“Even with all that good structure, it all comes back to the shad,” Knight said. “Jordan Lake has one of the best shad populations around. The shad are drawn to the structure areas where crappies are naturally gathered. That’s what makes these areas such good summer holes.”

Knight said he knows how good the shad population is at Jordan because his cast nets are full of them during January and February.

“I always tell anybody complaining about having problems catching bait at Jordan that they must have holes in their nets,” he chided. “There have been times when I didn’t think I could squeeze another shad in my net. If you want to see just how many shad are in the lake without throwing a net, set out a light at night and watch them come swarming to it.”

Obviously, shad make up a large part of the crappie diet at Jordan. Knight recalled several times when he checked the stomach of crappies he found them full of 2- to 3-inch shad. With the exception of the spawn, crappies are going to be near shad. Anglers may not always find crappies near shad, but at Jordan they’ll always find shad near crappies.

To explain summertime crappie locations, Knight said learning winter and spring crappie hangouts and why the fish orient themselves at certain spots should help anglers better understand their movements.

“From December through February, we’re fishing for crappie in 20- to 30-feet of water,” Knight said. “They’ll be anywhere from 15 feet to the bottom. Slow trolling the bridges at White Oak or U.S. 64 is a sure way to get bit at this time.

“Once the water temperature reaches 55 degrees or so, they’ll start staging at the creek mouths that have good drop-offs. They’ll stay there until the water climbs into the lower 60s. That’s when the males will move shallow en masse. The bigger females will move in a little later, and they’ll do the spawn thing in shallow water until about the first of May.”

When the spawn ends, crappies reverse direction and move back to deeper water. While some of them stay shallow a while longer, most will back out to 20 to 25 feet where they’ll suspend about 15-feet deep. And they’ll typically hang out at the same structures that held them during the winter.

“Once the water temperature breaks 70 degrees, I switch to night fishing,” Knight said. “The main reason is for my comfort and the comfort of my clients, but we also fish at night because the fish are more active, and they’re easier to catch.”

Knight said the daytime crappie bite slows tremendously during the summer. These deep fish aren’t nearly as aggressive during days as they are during the winter. However, the summer sun setting over the horizon acts like a light switch to crappies’ appetites. The cloak of darkness is the signal to get aggressive and start feeding.

“The species is very much nocturnal,” Oakley said. “In fact, we catch most of our crappie when we’re sampling at night. Of course, they’ll feed whenever they have the opportunity, but they tend to be more lethargic during the day once summer rolls around, and they typically make most of their feeding runs at night.”

While the fact crappies are generally more aggressive at night means anglers should have an easier time catching them, Knight has a few tips and tricks to make them bite even better.

Anglers may have to pick through a few non-keepers, but putting Knight’s methods into practice is a sure-fire way to fill a freezer with enough crappie fillets to make the whole family happy.

“When I’m night fishing, you’ll usually find me tied up to the bridges at either Beaver Creek or Farrington Point,” Knight said. “Those are two consistently good night areas, and they’re real close to boat ramps.”

Knight uses attractor lights that are clear out of the water but fluorescent green under water. He lowers a light from each side of his boat 5 or 6 feet beneath the surface.

“I generally set the lights out in the water about 30 minutes before dark,” he said, “and I start seeing concentrations of bait about 30 minutes after dark. The game fish move in about 30 minutes after that. It’s crappie mainly, but anything that eats shad is subject to show up.

“Sometimes you’ll get a bunch of white bass or white perch move in on the lights. If you get to where that’s all you’re catching, you need to pull up and move someplace else because they tend to run the crappie off.”

While the terms crappie and white perch are synonymous in some parts of the country, these white perch are something entirely different at Jordan, Oakley said.

“They’re originally a coastal species, in the same family as the striped bass and white bass,” he said. “They were introduced to most reservoirs in North Carolina, and they’ve been OK because they haven’t overrun everything else.

“They’re actually a sought-after species in estuary-type brackish waters at the coast where they get up to 2 pounds. White perch are an invasive species, though, and aren’t natural to the reservoir.”

Oakley said anglers could expect to mainly catch black crappies at Jordan Lake. In fact, he estimated the breakdown of black crappie to white crappie to be 97 percent and 3 percent, respectively.

White crappies are generally found in the Haw River section of the lake by the dam, as they tend to favor flowing water, whereas black crappies do better in a lake environment.

“The key to catching them at night is to get the lights out and be patient,” Knight said. “Fishing at the bridges is key, too, as that’s where the fish are anyway. All you’re really doing by dropping the lights is enhancing the situation and putting the odds in your favor.”

Knight compared fishing for crappie at night to fishing from a pier. Anglers drop down baits and wait on fish to find and eat them. In this case, Knight fishes a jig tipped with a minnow or a plain minnow below his lights.

“You’ll catch anywhere from 50 to 100 (crappies) most nights,” Knight said. “These are the same kind of numbers you’d expect to catch during the day in January and February.

“These fish just aren’t as big as they are then. You can certainly find bigger ones like the near 3-pounder we caught that night, but you’re going to have to pick through some 7- to 9-inch fish that won’t keep.”

Knight keeps a log of his fishing trips, and he hasn’t been able to tell much difference between moonlit and no moon nights. The moon phase doesn’t seem to make much difference either.

While Knight’s way of fishing works for him, he readily admits it isn’t the only way.

“I see a lot of people fishing under floating lights,” he said. “And they catch just as many fish, but I don’t like them because they bring the bugs to me, and I’d rather spend my time fishing than swatting bugs.”

Anglers interested in trying the summer night crappie at Jordan Lake can give Knight a call at 336-451-0827. He supplies everything but food and drink. And since there aren’t any fish-cleaning stations, he doesn’t clean fish.

“Folks can bring a cooler to take home some fish, and I’ll provide the ice,” he said. “We provide rods, reels, bait and all terminal tackle. I’d recommend bringing plenty of water because it can stay hot well after the sun goes down.”

The bottom line is Jordan Lake is one of the premier crappie lakes in North Carolina. The WRC’s new regulations, while aggravating to some, should help the lake maintain a quality crappie fishery well into the future.

Jordan Lake contains lots of shad and crappies. And, as Knight knows, night time is the right time for catching crappie.