Bartlett Lake 10-26-13 back on our bite!

[Bob M]

Launched at daylight and started catching fish on the very first spot we stopped on.   Caught good fish at each spot we stopped and burned through 4 doz minnows by 0900 then hit the marina in hopes they finally started keeping good ones.  Bought another 4 doz of the best minnows I have ever been sold.  Most were 3 inches and very strong.  Looked at a few more spots with the SI that "should" hold fish and some did , some didn't .  Pulled into the river and SI'd a couple of stacks that we didn't fish .  We saw a club member (sorry we didn't get your name) and stopped to look around and chat, he hadn't caught anything yesterday or yet today but we saw some fish on the SI so we started our routine and started landing fish pretty quick.  Gave him some advice trying to help and saw him land several fish also.  We ran out of minnows again and left the lake by 2:30 with them still biting.  Good meeting you  .

A first for me today was a double hookup at the exact same time on my two 16' rods.  One got netted the other jackpoled into the boat.  Love those rods for their sensitive tip and backbone.

Caught 3 year classes of fish and kept all around 2 pounds or better, did keep one under 12" that swallowed the hook deep and bled out.  Best bite by far was before the sun hit the water, once it did things slowed down a lot.  Fish were from 12' to the bottom in 12' to 35' of water.  Left the lake with "limits" of very nice crappie.

[sparkchaser]

Nice report, heading out in the morning. Did you use the SB ramp, if so how was it, or should I plan on the main ramp.

[cousinlll]

Thanks for the great report!  I'm still debating over 14 ft ers - BnM PST's or your/Brian's recommendation of Southern Crappie Rods...

[ArZFisher]

Special thx goes out to bob and his partner. Like he said I have been out for two days with nothing till bob and his buddy showed up.  It was crazy to watch them. The basically put on a clinic right in frot of me. Gave me some pointers on boom I was in the slabs. I ended up with 6 nice slabs.  And we also fished back and forth  all around each other with plenty of room for all.  Again thk you Bob and your buddy it was some good fishing today. 

[ArZFisher]

Special thx goes out to bob and his partner. Like he said I have been out for two days with nothing till bob and his buddy showed up.  It was crazy to watch them. The basically put on a clinic right in frot of me. Gave me some pointers on boom I was in the slabs. I ended up with 6 nice slabs.  And we also fished back and forth  all around each other with plenty of room for all.  Again thk you Bob and your buddy it was some good fishing today.

Wish we could have spent more time discussing the finer details of what we were doing.  Try dipping your minnows in scent but most importantly find a way to really watch your rod tips for any tiny odd movement and just lift.  That bite was the typical very light bite for Bartlett.  The only bobber rig we've found that works well is an almost neutral buoyancy bobber that shows the little twitch of a light bite.  Depth control is also critical for crappie.

The few hrs we were fishing around each other I really learned a lot. It was cool seeing some people who can pull up crappies and make it look easy. Here is a pic of the slabs I caught and kept.

[OneBlade]

Thanks for the report.  Good stuff!

[Fishless]

Nice report, heading out in the morning. Did you use the SB ramp, if so how was it, or should I plan on the main ramp.

the dock at SB was stuck but g and f was going to go out and fix it since TNF does not seem to do that. Be careful if you walk in the water on the ramp it be slickery. Better fish today, dang storm coming in tomorrow (we sure there is not an AZCA event ) winds to 25MPH Monday and Tuesday and a big cool off high of 70 Wednesday with slight chance of showers. SRP has slowed down the releases from bartlett and still some water flowing in from horseshoe so the quick drop at bartlett has slowed down at least

[BloodyDuck2]

NICE.