Lake Blackshear Fishing Report March 2015

Blackshear: Level: 0.2 feet below full pool. Temp: 49-51 degrees. Clarity: Stained.

Bass: Tournament angler and guide Jimmie Troxell did our Map-of-the-Month article on Blackshear for March. “Bass move into the spawning areas in waves, starting in late February,” Jimmie said. You can go into these areas and look for fish on the bed, while also catching those staging to spawn. Later in the month there will be spawning fish as well as prespawn and postspawn bass in these areas. Rattle baits like the Red Eye Shad or Rat-L-Trap will catch prespawn and postspawn bass while you are searching for concentrations of fish. A shallow-running Sanford Cedar Shad, a flat-sided crankbait, is also good. Red and shad colors in both baits work well this time of year on Blackshear. When the grass is thick, a good bait is a 3/8-oz. Terminator spinnerbait with a chartreuse-and-white skirt and one gold and one silver blade. You can keep it above the grass easier than the hard baits, and it won’t get clogged with grass as much as they do. For slower fishing, when the fish are holding tight on the cypress trees or are on the bed, Jimmie will rig a Bruiser 5.5-inch stick bait or a Diamond Tail worm behind a Vike Tungsten 1/8-oz. sinker. Watermelon red for clear water or junebug in stained water are his color choices. These baits should be skipped under the trees, dropped into beds and also fished around docks.

Crappie: Rusty Parker reports, “This cold weather will knock them in the head, but they will bite soon after the fronts. The crappie have been biting really great on Lake Blackshear. What’s so great about the crappie this year is that they have been some really big slabs caught on Blackshear lately. Swift Creek which is the last creek on the south end of the lake has been producing some big slabs for me. A few spots under Smoak Bridge have been producing a lot of those big slabs. I’ve caught most of the slabs using the R.A.G. Fly jigs by pitching through the pylons and letting it sink all the way to the bottom then retrieving it very slowly. I have also tight-lined minnows close to these pylons. There is also an area at the mouth of Swift Creek that is around 22 feet and by tight-lining minnows you should be able to get a good amount of crappie. The surface temp has been averaging around 49 to 51 degrees and a little higher on deeper into the creek. I have had several reports that the slabs have been doing great on the channel ledges and have been hanging deep. A couple of good places to try would be just north of the Highway 280 bridge. Just before you get to Spring Creek there is an island on the left side of the channel, and if you can find that in about 27 feet of water, you will see loads of crappie in that area. I feel that by the time you read this report, the crappie will be moving up into the shallows starting their spawn, and to me that also means they will be under those shallow-water docks for you dock shooters.”