Crappie and Bluegill
 

I didn't have to be anywhere until 9 today so I took advantage of that and fished from sunup until 8. I headed down to below Percy priest. They are letting a ton of water out and my spot that had the hybrid and bass in it was not fishable. After an hour of unsuccessfully trying for some big fish, I grabbed the TM rig. I scoped out the area and found some nice calm water near the current and I started tossing the trout magnet. I was pleased to find an abundance of crappie in there! I caught about 20 or so before I had to leave. They were very nice fish! I probably had 5 or so that were under 10 inches, the rest were 10-12" I also caught my first TN rockbass down there! I guess you all call them black perch or red eye. To a MN native, they will always be rock bass! HAHA!

When I got home this afternoon, I checked out a local pond. This pond is shallow and I assume the water is much warmer than the reservoirs, because there were Bluegill on bed everywhere!!

I spent about 3 hours catching well over 100 bluegill. It was as fast as I could cast with the TM. I caught 5 bass too, one was about a 17-18 incher, but as soon as i caught it, I could hear someone yelling that they wanted to eat it, due to the size of this pond, i felt it shouldn't be kept, so i quickly released it without a picture.

I caught several female bluegill that were ready to burst they were so full of eggs. I could clearly see the beds in about 2 ft of water where I was fishing.

Lots of aggressive males chasing eachother out of eachothers territory.

It was a blast! I didn't have any huge ones, but several that were pushing the half pound mark. They were beautiful fish too!

I gave away 2 trout mags because of 2 people fishing with live worms and not getting even a bite. But they had heavy line and not your ideal rig to effectively fish the TM. So unfortunately it still wasn;t working for them. But maybe i made some new TM fans!

Man those are great pics! I bet those male Gills gave you a good tussle.


Regards

Congrats on the rockbass. Those lil dudes are a blast on light gear.

You've had quite a productive year fishing so far.

very nice! excellent photos!

My dad was down there this morning scoping out the action cause we're going to go fishing tomorrow. He said what mnfisher said, that a few guys were flat wearing the crappie out and some were catching the white bass. I'm undecided on whether to try priest or to put in on the stones. I haven't been out in my boat for about a month and I haven't been out with my dad in over a year.

Congratulations on your catches!!!!

Thanks guys! It was lots of fun!

What color trout magnet did you catch the bass on?

All fish were on purple redemption with black head.

good deal

Nice bluegill/pics!