DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Just got back yesterday evening from 2 straight weeks of camping and fishing. The fishing was fantastic. After a while, I got tired of targeting bass - I usually get bored of them each year. Quite a few 5 pounders. Did some kayak fishing on a smaller (2 miles long) nearby lake - wife and I were the only two humans around - no one on the shores or in the lake. We mostly trolled for crappie from the kayaks, but came up mostly empty - a few really nice 14" bullhead though (like catfish). There was some structure along the shoreline, so I went over there with one of my crappie jigs - I was nailing the bass left and right; 20" and 21" were the larger ones. The 20" was a smallmouth - holy crap did he put up a fight.
Back to the lake we stayed at, we continued to target crappie. I had some errands to run one morning, so I got off to a late start - didn't start until almost 10am. I ended up fishing alone - not a cloud in site, and it was hot. The Canadian station about 15 miles to the north said "feels like 42" - yeah, it felt that hot. But, oddly, the fishing was just as hot on and off. I set out a drift sock and just trolled along with a crappie jig - two or three different brands of twist tails, white, on four different colored jig heads. I don't know how many times I brought in 2 crappie at once, and even landed 3 crappie at once. Plus, I had a jig on a second pole - I'd reel in one pole, leave the fish at the surface of the water, hold the pole with my feet, and reel in the 2nd pole. Threw the vast, vast majority back in, but kept about 20 each day and fileted them up for the freezer. We'll be having crappie for dinner once a week for quite a while. Kept a few bullhead one of the days so we can have a southern style catfish fry. Perch were incredibly annoying while fishing for crappie - you could always tell whether it was a perch hitting the jig or a crappie. Kept a few larger perch for lunch, but the little 4-7" perch seemed to be everywhere. (Including the stomach of one of the crappie that were in the live well, evidenced by it being spit out and floating in the live well.) Usually, I take a few pictures of the fish, but I can't recall if I took a single picture of a bass this year, and never took the camera or phone down to the fish house while I was filleting the fish.
(And by good fishing, we're talking triple figures for fish caught on many of the days.)
Back to the lake we stayed at, we continued to target crappie. I had some errands to run one morning, so I got off to a late start - didn't start until almost 10am. I ended up fishing alone - not a cloud in site, and it was hot. The Canadian station about 15 miles to the north said "feels like 42" - yeah, it felt that hot. But, oddly, the fishing was just as hot on and off. I set out a drift sock and just trolled along with a crappie jig - two or three different brands of twist tails, white, on four different colored jig heads. I don't know how many times I brought in 2 crappie at once, and even landed 3 crappie at once. Plus, I had a jig on a second pole - I'd reel in one pole, leave the fish at the surface of the water, hold the pole with my feet, and reel in the 2nd pole. Threw the vast, vast majority back in, but kept about 20 each day and fileted them up for the freezer. We'll be having crappie for dinner once a week for quite a while. Kept a few bullhead one of the days so we can have a southern style catfish fry. Perch were incredibly annoying while fishing for crappie - you could always tell whether it was a perch hitting the jig or a crappie. Kept a few larger perch for lunch, but the little 4-7" perch seemed to be everywhere. (Including the stomach of one of the crappie that were in the live well, evidenced by it being spit out and floating in the live well.) Usually, I take a few pictures of the fish, but I can't recall if I took a single picture of a bass this year, and never took the camera or phone down to the fish house while I was filleting the fish.
(And by good fishing, we're talking triple figures for fish caught on many of the days.)
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