CHRIS SMITH

If you don’t have a couple of bags of crappie filets stockpiled in your freezer, you are in luck.

At Lake O’ the Pines and Lake Fork, this weekend is the last weekend of the “Winter Crappie Season.”

Each year at these two East Texas reservoirs, the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department suspends the daily crappie limit of 25 fish with a 10 inch minimum length limit. From Dec. 1 until the last day of February the rules are as follows: The first 25 crappie caught must be retained, regardless of length. This season has become an annual event that thousands of crappie anglers from all over the nation travel to these two reservoirs to stock up on these tasty filets.

Recent Lake Fork reports have the crappie beginning to move.

Catches are coming from 20 to 50 feet of water, in other words: some crappie are starting their shallow migration for their spawning run and some crappie are still hanging out deep in winter mode and feasting on the shad. There are still plenty on the deep main lake points and timber and these fish are still eating jigs and of course shiners.

The advent of the forward facing sonar has changed many things but it has yet to make a crappie bite your bait. Over on “LOP” the dam area is still in winter mode and anglers are catching them at a fair rate. Scanning the bottom to look for small sloughs or channel swings, anything different in the bottom contour to hold schools of bait (shad).

The depth change may be subtle of even a foot or two may make a huge difference. Many crappie anglers will slowly drift (if winds allow) and once a fish is caught, try to duplicate the conditions that held the biting fish. If your first fish came 28 feet deep on a main lake point, concentrate your search in the immediate vicinity and expand the search to other points etc.

Finding schools of shad will usually put you in the filet business. If there is plenty of bait the crappie will be along shortly and typically a foot or two beneath the shad.

Load the entire family and neighbor kids. Make sure everyone has a life jacket that fits, proper licenses and get to one of these lakes this weekend. Bring along plenty of minnows and jigs as both will work but some prefer one over the other.

Bring along a cooler to put your fish in for the trip home, filet them as soon as possible and keep them on ice until you get them to the freezer. For those without a boat or fancy electronics, look around on the internet for crappie guides. Some of the better equipped guides can have you and your party back on shore by lunch with multiple limits and at an affordable rate.

A bonus here is the guide normally cleans your fish while you wait.

And as always tip your guide and fish cleaner … it is well worth the 20%.