Crappie Fishing Big Bear Lake

It was the beginning of November and my younger brother Tyson was visiting us in Southern California from Canada.  We decided to head up to Big Bear Lake since the fish usually start biting well as the water cools down in the fall.  We stopped at the North Side of the dam and were trying to use slip bobbers and power bait   It was a very slow morning and we only managed to catch one small rainbow trout from shore.   

Since fishing wasn't the greatest we decided to head off down to Big Bear Creek.  From the Dam you drive down the hi way a little over a mile until there is a large turnout with a gravel road leading down the mountain.  If you have an all wheel drive vehicle you should be able to make it since the road gets a little rough towards the end.  Drive down to the parking area and then hike down a short but very steep decent down the valley.  We arrived to the creek and started making our way down.  We saw a few brown trout but they were not paying our mini jigs any attention today.  Seems like the fish were in an off mood today.  After giving it a good try we decided to hike out and give Big Bear Lake another try for the evening bite.  The hike out is pretty tough.  My younger brother was calling out for the Mountain Lion to come put him out of his misery.  We made it out though and headed back to the lake.

Back at the dam we cast out our slip bobbers with pieces of night crawlers.  Right away our bobbers started going down.  It wasn't trout pulling them down though, it was crappie.  We started to catch a bunch of crappie and had a great time as the sun set.  Turned out to be a beautiful fall day and a bit different of an experience for my brother since he had never caught crappie before.