[AZfisherdude]

First of all, thanks to mrokusek who suggested we go here over Rosy. My buddy and I set out to have a fun night of fishing and we succeeded. We started out fishing for bass and my buddy was nailing them. Probably caught about 10 or so and I only had three. Not sure what was up with that but sometimes you got it and sometimes you don't. At dusk, we headed for the Yellow Cliffs area and set up. I forgot to bring my big lights because I was rushing but fortunately I had an Aurora in the boat so we made do. Set up in 40' and threw out some rods for catfish baited with small sunfish we netted earlier. It took a while for a crappie bite to get started but it happened. While we were in the midst of the crappie bite I hear a catfish clicker go off and my buddy says it is mine. It pulled good twice for short bursts and that was it. I was perplexed and checked it out and I had the clicker on but the freaking bail closed! That was a big cat to pull that drag and clicker like that. Can't believe I made that rookie error Never got another catfish bite the rest of the night either. Anyway, we ended up with 15 crappie in the 10-12" range and three slabs to top them off. Caught a few more crappie but they were smaller and tossed back. Pretty good night and a fun time for sure. We fished from about 4 till midnight. The water is ridiculously stained and visibility is like a foot or so.

[cousinlll]

Nice report Dude!  First night time fishing report we've had from Bartlett in quite a while.  Glad you found some keeper size Crappie to take home.  Assuming you caught them on minnow rigs?  Too bad on "da big one that got away" 

I've been shying away from Bartlett with rumors of nothing but dink Crappie.  Concentrating my time on catching 1 or 5 Crappie at Roosevelt.  Not quite sure how that equates to fish caught per gallon of diesel fuel used....

But hey, it's sure better than sitting at home!  Thanks for da report.

LLL

[AZfisherdude]

Yeah, I usually do grubs and then maybe tipped with minnows but for some reason I didn't this time. We caught some dinks and plenty were at the 10-11" but it was a good time. Definitely better than my last outing there. Way more dinks that night.

I wonder what kind of difference the bigger lights would have made? Oh, whenever the bite slowed we would tip the minnows with some crappie nibbles too. I figured with the muddy water it would help and it did. Caught several crappie in dead minnows after tipping with the nibbles.

[sparkchaser]

Nice report, glad you got some fish for the freezer, and if not for the fryer....

[Halibut Warrior]

Hey nice report. Where are we launching these days at Bartlett?  I am going fishing somewhere, soon.

[AZfisherdude]

We launched at the main ramp.