Fall may be for hunting for most folks. But there’s a lot of excitement building on Lake D’Arbonne when it comes to crappie fishing. The Crappie Masters National Championship will be on the lake Sept. 22-25.
And this past weekend, the regional North Louisiana Crappie Masters Trail held it’s championship won by Chris Fields and Jared Riser. The talented local duo caught two seven-fish limits weighing 10.97 and 10.83 for a total of 21.80. That also included a $1,700 championship payday! William and Parker Whetstone landed 20.36 for second and Scotty Johnson and Kevin Dinkins also broke the 20 pound mark at 20.07 for third. Heath and Katie Rogers had big fish of the event with 1.88 and finished fourth followed by Trey and Tucker Underwood in fifth.
Besides just holding their championship tournament, this group also gave a pretty good preview of what we might expect in the national championship, which could have up to 100 boats from 17 or 18 different states. Thanks to Jason and Jen Redding for making the circuit a keeper the past two years!
The key takeaway — the two-pound trend that we see in early season tournaments won’t happen here. The “good ones” right now on the ‘Bone are between 1.7-1.9 pounds for the most part. Even if the weather cools and they fish start feeding for the Fall, they still won’t put on much weight by tournament time.
And that just makes it more exciting. Even tenths of an ounce will make a difference! What does Jason Redding, tournament director of the North Louisiana Crappie Masters Trail forsee for the National Championship, based on this weekend?
“Looks like the fish are feeding on shad. As the shad move, so will the fish, ” Jason said. “So some fish will be caught on the channel but a lot will be caught in the flats roaming around chasing schools of shad. It will take about 12 pounds a day to be competitive.”
Congratulations to the NoLa championship winners. We’ll be bringing you lots more in the coming weeks on the national championship from Farmerville, La.
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