Sports - Outdoors

Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009

Central Texas lake is abundant with crappie

LAKE LBJ, Texas — John Gilbert stood with a cast net in hand and surveyed his favorite shad-catching creek. It was murky with runoff from recent rains. I was wondering about our chances of catching enough shad to make the morning.

He needn’t have worried.

We moved, found enough small bait to cover us, then took a position near a submerged brush pile. The first cast with a tiny chartreuse jig yielded a sharp hit and an 11-inch crappie, just right for the skillet.

“That’s a typical Lake LBJ crappie,” said Gilbert, holding the fish in his hand. “Some years they’re big and some years they’re like this, just over the limit.”

Whatever size the fish may be in relation to the 10-inch minimum limit, they are plentiful in the 6,300-acre impoundment on the Llano and Colorado rivers. Long known for its white bass and, years ago, for black bass, LBJ has managed to keep secret the quality of its crappie fishing, even among Central Texas anglers.

“I’ve been fishing for them here a long time,” Gilbert said. “And I’ve been guiding here for three years. We catch lots of crappie.”

Mike Leggett writes for the Austin American-Statesmen.