BY AARON BALL
The 2024 crappie fishing season is underway with the year’s first three-pound plus fish registered at Buggs Island, and if the weights from the first stop of the Richmond Crappie Club Tournament Series are any indication of what is to come, hold on folks, because it’s going to be an entertaining season!
One thing is clear to me after the first stop is that the talent level within the club has risen significantly over the past few years. The men and women of the Richmond Crappie Club have been honing their angling skills, and the results speak for themselves.
One thing that keeps the club’s schedule interesting is even though we mainly fish the same bodies of water, Tournament Director Josh Morris juggles the schedule around so different patterns will play on the same bodies of water from year to year.
Last year we fished the Chick River in May, and a lot of fish were caught off docks, but this year, with the tournament falling in February, I don’t think a single fish was caught off a dock. This year’s main pattern was targeting fish near the channel edges that many felt were in a pre-spawn phase ready to make their push up on the nearby flats.
My partner Brian Green was able to spend a little time on the river Friday prior to the tourney but was not able to find much that solidified a game plan for tournament morning. The night before the event we discussed our options and decided we would start in the back of a popular creek off the main river and see if we could get anything going.
Tournament day dawned cloudy, 45 degrees and with the threat of rain. The river water temperatures were around 44-46 degrees. Unfortunately, our idea did not produce a single sac-a-lait, and at about 10 am we decided we needed to do something different if we were going to salvage the day!
I have not spent any time on the Chickahominy River this time of year, but I had always read that the fish would get stack up below Walkers Dam at Rockahock Campground, so we decided to make the run up the river to check that out.
As we rounded the last bend in the river it became immediately apparent that we had missed the invitation to the party as it seemed every boat in the club was in that area along with plenty of others.
We settled into an area and after a few minutes I was able to put our first crappie into the boat with a 2.8 Keitech, and I said to Brian at least we won’t be getting skunked today.
We worked that area hard for the remainder of the day and at about 2:30 during a heavy rainstorm we finally managed our 7th fish to fill our limit and we raced back to the ramp at Riverside Marina soaking wet. I felt that we had a solid bag, but I would see learn that almost everyone had a solid bag.
Our seven fish limit weighed 7.79 pounds anchored by a 1.66 slab. However, there was an incredible four bags over 10 pounds weighed in and our 7.79 was good enough for only 7th place!
Jack and James impressed the crowd with a bag of black crappie weighing in at 10.88 pounds. They reported catching all their fish using a combination of single pole/live scoping in the front and long poling crappie jigs out of the back of the boat.
Cameron and his partner Cash had 10.46 pounds along with a hammer of a crappie that went 1.87 pounds and took big fish honors. Rumor has it that Cash caught that fish, but Cameron denies it. Cameron reported catching all of his fish with single jigs and live scope.
Mark “Wooduck” Wood took third place with 10.40 pounds. Mark’s bag was even more impressive because he fishes without the benefit of live scope and reported spider rigging along the channel edges to secure his top three finish!
Unfortunately, last year’s team of the year, Morris and his wife Farahdale experienced a motor issue and were unable to make it back to weigh-in on time.
Next month’s stop will be on Lake Anna on March 13 going out of Fish Tales at Anna Point Marina at 8 pm. I expect there will be a huge turn out for this event and we would love to have you all join us!
We’ll return to the Chickahominy region April 28 for an event on Chickahominy Lake. Then we visit the tidal James River May 19 and Lake Chesdin June 19.
More information on the club can be found on the Richmond Crappie Club Facebook group –
www.facebook.com/richmondcrappieclub.
