Wake Up to 2:00 AM Cold Weather Crappie Fishing at Alabama’s Lake Guntersville
Day 1: Answering the 2:00 AM Cold Weather Crappie Fishing Alarm at Alabama’s Lake Guntersville
Editor’s Note: No one really wants to get up at 2:00 am on a cold morning, dress like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and go out on any lake in pitch-black dark. The only reason to answer that 2:00 am alarm is the vision of big slab crappie coming to your dip net on almost every cast at Lake Guntersville.
  “John, if you can leave home right now and come to my house, we’ll fish tomorrow night with some of the best crappie fishermen on Lake Guntersville,” my longtime friend, Captain Phillip Criss of Scottsboro, Alabama, a bass and crappie guide, told me. “They're catching slab crappie from 2:00 am, until well after sun-up. I know you want to catch some crappie for a fish fry on Thanksgiving and also some crappie to fillet and put in your freezer to eat the rest of the winter. All you need to bring is a change of clothes, your camera gear and whatever else you want to bring.” I said, “Phillip, I have to finish my work today, and I've got work to do in the morning. Let me check with Miz Denise (the lady I work for - and also my wife) and see if I can leave Friday afternoon and fish on Saturday.”
So, on a cold Friday afternoon in mid-November, I drove to Lake Guntersville in north Alabama to go on a crappie-fishing adventure. While there, I learned why there had been very-little information published on crappie fishing at Lake Guntersville, which was and is known nationwide as one of the best bass-fishing lakes in the U.S. I found out that the majority of the best crappie fishermen at Guntersville fish at night – even in the wintertime. They vanish in the daytime and don’t tell anybody what they’ve caught. Here’s another reason few people know the story of the Guntersville crappie. According to Criss, “The colder and nastier the weather is, the more crappie we catch here at Lake Guntersville.”
  On most lakes throughout the nation, most traditional crappie fishermen generally don’t start fishing until March or just before the spring spawn. They fish through the crappie spawn, which usually will last until mid-April or the first of June. There are very-few serious crappie fishermen who will get up at 2:00 am in terribly cold weather and fish for crappie. I realized that to get a story on the best crappie fishing on the best bass lake in the nation in cold weather, I had to answer my 2:00 am crappie alarm.
To contact Captain Phillip Criss about fishing Lake Guntersville, call him at 205-461-5549, or email him at pdcriss@hotmail.com.
To learn much more about crappie fishing, get John E. Phillips’ Kindle eBooks and some print books, “Crappie: How to Catch Them Fall & Winter,” “Crappie: How to Catch Them Spring and Summer” and “Catch Cold Water Crappie Now” by clicking on each, or go to www.amazon.com/kindle-ebooks, type in the name of the book, and download it to your Kindle, and/or download a Kindle app for your iPad, SmartPhone or computer.
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About the Author
John Phillips, winner of the 2012 Homer Circle Fishing Award for outstanding fishing writer by the American Sportfishing Association (ASA) and the Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA), the 2008 Crossbow Communicator of the year and the 2007 Legendary Communicator chosen for induction into the National Fresh Water Hall of Fame, is a freelance writer (over 6,000 magazine articles for about 100 magazines and several thousand newspaper columns published), magazine editor, photographer for print media as well as industry catalogues (over 25,000 photos published), lecturer, outdoor consultant, marketing consultant, book author and daily internet content provider with an overview of the outdoors. Click here for more information and a list of all the books available from John E. Phillips.
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