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Katie and I contemplating a Valentine's Day spec trip if the weather holds. You know, wine instead of beer, picnic sandwiches cut into 4ths, less salt spray and wind, watching bobbers do their thing and quality time on the water with my Valentine.

Having caught the only specs in my life in Reelfoot Lake, TN, I'm kind of at a loss. I know people fish certain creeks around Talquin, Otter Lake and a couple other locations that aren't coming to mind right now. Should Iamonia be on the list of possibilities as well? I assume most people fish with jigs and/or minnows and drift multiple rods at varying depths?

If any of you spec slayers would be willing to shed some high level insight that may help us find handful of 'em this weekend, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance. We'll let you know how it goes on Monday.

Lake Talquin....in front of the Boyscout camp on into Oklawaha creek

We used to fish Freeman creek alot on Lake Talquin for specks...the boyscout camp and seems like another place, hobbs creek?

We trolled Hal fly's (small jig with rubber body and marabou tail) for ours...trolled like four rods at different depths and colors

Chalk Wrote:

We trolled Hal fly's (small jig with rubber body and marabou tail) for ours...trolled like four rods at different depths and colors

Showboat.... you can borrow a couple of rods from Kattie!

SHOWBOAT wrote: Valentine's Day spec trip if the weather holds. You know quality time on the water with my Valentine.

So that's what the young folks are calling it nowadays.

Chalk wrote:We used to fish Freeman creek alot on Lake Talquin for specks...the boyscout camp and seems like another place, hobbs creek?

We trolled Hal fly's (small jig with rubber body and marabou tail) for ours...trolled like four rods at different depths and colors

Stayed on Talquin for a week last month, fished with my girlfriends father and we caught prolly 300 over 5 days with 130 being keepers we trolled curly-tailed jigs in green/chartrouse with red head. Had several just over 2lbs. Most fish were caught between Coe's landing and the east end of the Iron curtain fishing right off the river channel in 12-15 foot of water.......GOOD LUCK.

I would recommend Talquin. I don't think Iamonia or sukkee have been doing too good. For quiet bobber fishing get in the mouth of a creek, get near some stumps. Look for other boats in an area. Use your depth finder to mark fish and try that spot.

If you troll Talquin this time of year can be tricky.

Also I hear below the dam has been good too. No length limit.

Good Luck

Thanks everybody. Looking forward to giving it a try, and you folks have given me some great info.

I would have never guessed trolling to be the answer.

Showboat,
I'm putting it out here for you and I hope I don't regret it. Trolling jigs is the way to catch more and bigger crappie at Talquin. When I say trolling, I mean SLOW trolling. The key is to get your jigs at 12 to 14 ft. deep in 16 to 20 ft. of water. Buy extras because you will lose a few. Use light line #4 or #6 with 1/16 oz. jigheads (black is my favorite). The real secret is this....color. I have decided that I cannot reveal my favorite colors on the world wide web, but if you will take the trouble to drive to Talquin Lodge, Rusty will tell you what and where. I say drive there because he has the jigs you need and noone else around here does. As for location, the Iron Curtain almost always holds fish and is trolling friendly. Good luck!

Be sure to get the lightwirehook jigs from Rusty. When you hang up they will pull loose, better than retying 100 times...

Thanks for all 411 guys.

Katie and I stopped by the boat show Friday evening; spoke with the gents from Parkway, picked up a Talquin map and some assorted crappie supplies. We were excited to try a new type of fishing, but as predicted the weather conditions were not favorable when we woke up Saturday. We left the boat in the garage and decided to explore the Talquin area by land. We rode up to the Talquin Lodge, spoke with Rusty and bought some jigs. We then made are away around to Coe's and ultimately to the trails just West of Coe's. That is a beautiful area and Boo enjoyed some time off leash. Probably walked 2.5 or 3 miles in total before it was time to return home to meet our dinner reservations.

Sunday we hitched up the boat and made our move. Several other boats had the same idea and our first troll past the Iron Curtain didn't provide any love. However, we saw a couple fish caught and soon boated two of our own. Neither was a keeper with the larger fish being just over 9". Having never been on Talquin before and with the fishing being slow we weaved our way through the middle of the Lake down past Goat Island to Boy Scout Camp.

Nobody we spoke with seemed to be catching large #'s of fish except for one boat, but they too seemed discouraged with the bite (everything is relative I guess).We had a lot of fun and learned a little about very pretty body of water. Hope ya'll had good Valentine's Day weekends as well.

Glad you got to go....First week in March....fishin should start to pick up just before the full moon which is on the 11th

Glad ya got out there. Sounds like you covered a lot of the lake.