# Granger Lake--San Gabriel River -- Whites & Crappie 3-30-10



## fishytx (Jan 22, 2010)

Ok, I can sure see were someone could catch a limit of crappie and whites from this river. I just returned from there and I caught over forty crappie and over twenty whites. These numbers are low numbers too. I wish I had taken my counter with me, because I know I caught a lot more than I'm posting. I will say this though, out of all those fish I caught today, I only had two crappie that were legal, and three of the whites were legal, everything else was small. 
Now I don't fish this area very much, so I'm sure there are some holes that are really holding some good fish, I just never did find it.
Here are my thoughts; I think the bigger fish are downstream. The reason behind this is that the river water is very cold there around the steps; therefore I think the fish are further downstream where the water is moving slower and the water temp has a chance to warm up during the day by several degrees before the sun goes back down. It is in this warmer water where these whites are spawning at. 
But this is the most crappie I have ever pulled out of this river there around the steps.
All of my fish were caught on a 1/32 oz. white crappie jig. The water is still moving very fast through every hole I fished today, so I have no clue as to how far downstream someone would have to go to get into some bigger fish.
Saw these three women floating down the river on those float things called noodles right. Well when they get to the bottom of the steps and they see this huge tree that has fell over the river and they see that this could be a problem, they try to get out of the water. Two of them got some what easy, but the other one couldn't stop and she kept going downstream hollering for her friends to help her. One of them went back into the water to help, and she did get her friend out before it was too late. I just knew I was about to watch someone drown. Speaking of drowning, I could not believe the amount of small children that were out there running around real close to the rivers edge. These parents didn't seem to see the danger involved if one of them had ever slipped into the rushing current. I sure wouldn't take small child out there, it's way to dangerous. 
I'm still having some issues with these pictures on photo bucket, so I'll post some pictures tomorrow when I have more time.

In this snap shot, the little hole just to the right of the logs you can see is a little deep pocket that was holding some crappie. The pocket is just under that tree limb in the snap shot. You can see where it's a darker green, that's the hole. There was very little current flow in there and the crappie were feeding up against the shore line where it drops off into the hole. I was hooking up with crappie about ten to fifteen feet from the shore line.









This is the that same hole, but I'm now standing on the shore line looking downstream a little.








This is the 11 to 12 inch crappie I caught out of that hole. I can't tell you how many under size crappie I caught there, but it was a bunch, so I moved on downstream looking for some bigger ones.









I walked down to another gravel bar about a half mile downstream and caught most of my small whites, and as I was returning back to the steps, I saw this cotton tail laying on the trail on its side just chilling. When he heard me turn on the camera he got up, looked at me and moved a few feet off the trail. So I got a close up shot of this little critter.









This is the bluff just downstream from the rapids at the bottom of the steps, just before the big tree in the water. I was standing up here throwing my jig just upstream and as it came towards me and sank into this deep little pocket, I was hooking up with a lot of crappie. I must have pulled 20 to 30 crappie out of this one hole. I also hooked about a 13 or 14 inch crappie here. It wads a nice slab for sure.


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## Sunbeam (Feb 24, 2009)

What a great trip. Having grown up in the hill country and west Texas I learned early that a successful trip was not measured in quality. Just catching what normally are native fish out of those small lakes and streams is goal. These few months of spring are the best. The tubers and all those young'ins sort of clutter up the scenery later in the summer.


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## fishytx (Jan 22, 2010)

Man, just give me a little of Mother Nature to look at, a fishing pole, some water, and I am one happy camper. Fresh water or salt water, it makes no difference.


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## Aggieangler (May 28, 2004)

Thanks for the post fishytx, I was sitting here at my desk wondering if it would be worth it to hit that area this evening. I may give it a whirl now that I see you had some luck there yesterday.


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## fishytx (Jan 22, 2010)

Aggieangler said:


> Thanks for the post fishytx, I was sitting here at my desk wondering if it would be worth it to hit that area this evening. I may give it a whirl now that I see you had some luck there yesterday.


Glad I was able to accommodate on your decision in going. There are a lot of crappie up in there. I think the bigger crappie can be had towards the later part of the day. In the past, I have noticed that the larger crappie move up into these holes around the rapids to feed close to sun down. If you stay until it gets dark, throw some yellow jigs. I don't know why yellow produces more bites during this time period, but it does.
Since the white bass run is over now, I may slip back down there in the evenings to see if I can get on a good crappie bite. I need some more crappie fillets in my freezer.


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