Had a blast fishing yesterday! right out of the gate, i got into some crappies shallow, not a ton, but it was a small section with 1 tree there but some big chunk rock....pulled 4 off the tree in 4 casts....then i snag the tree in typical John fashion when things are going good so that put an end to that after i finally got my jig to pull free. LOL.
changed gears to do some bass cranking. found alot of small fish with one nice one mixed in off an island. got it on a shallow diving crankbait. put down that and went after crappies again near one of my summer areas off a main point. found a tree in 11ft and popped 2 more crappies right away landed a few shorts, broke a big fish off then that was that. picked up the wife at the dock around noon to get some lunch at 4-corners. she snoozed on the boat while i casted more for bass off a series of points. 2 casts in i lose my small shallow diver to a snag....re-tied to my bigger shallow diver and got it snagged on the first cast....im pulling and pulling, get over the top of it in the boat and im pulling straight up, the snag breaks free and is coming up. i snagged a friggin rock....who the hell can snag a rock and actually hook the thing and bring it in the boat, THEN struggle with un-hooking it???? LOL. i can tell you who...this guy! Not a small rock either. close to the size of a basket ball if you cut it in half.
that was about all that fun i could handle so i went back after crappies at my good summer spot. the screen just lit UP! it was a buffet of fish in the 6-9ft range. gills, small bass, whites, hybrids, drum and my crappies. almost every cast brought something to the boat. hooked 2 hybrids that just screamed drag but never got em in the boat before the hook pulled out. you could see bait popping on the bank then all hell would break lose, the screen would just cover up and i would start drilling em. after the surface mayhem stopped, i just fan casted parallel to the bank in that depth range and find em again. i lost a couple of slab crappies too...i was gonna net em, but the hooks pulled free. my drag is plenty loose so i gets it was just bad luck.
i wanted to stay till dark but we left about 5-ish. if we would have stayed and i had another crappie rod for my wife, we could have got our 2 limits by dark. this trip was mostly white crappies. they had thier spawn colors still but were pretty slim
if yesterday was any indication of the summer fishing ahead, its gonna be a doozy!
surface temp when i left yesterday was 69-70.
That's a good day of catching! I wanted to go fish but stayed home. I'm going Wednesday after work and maybe tomorrow. Don't you just feel like a kid on Christmas morning when you find a school of fish like that?
yeah it was a riot! i would cast, set the hook and she would reel em in. you know its good when you cast into the wind, good little belly in the line, and as soon as your jig hits the water you see and feel that hit....thats what it was like, ya just didnt know what it was gonna be which was more fun.
i should have changed to my bait caster to target the hybrids, to let her tangle with one of those.
i get usually 1 day a year total on the water where i can do no wrong. could be winter saugers, JPP fish (of any kind, cats, bass, ect) or even those small lakes out in Crossville by mom. could be just an hour in the morning, or the last 15 minutes of light, but it all just goes super crazy!
i hope i didnt jinx myself for the rest of the year! LOL.
that rock though dude, i had to bend the heck out of that hook to get it out of that thing. blew my mind! add the constant barage of gravity defying spiders, spider webs flying in your face, sun beating on ya...lol....i was getting miffed! lol.
i guess over the season, it equals out.
cause i certainly have my share of bad days. last summer was a total bomb for me for crappies. very few crappies hit my boat so in the grand scheme of fishing, i think i come out pretty good. no complaints. but those sure are some fun days! LOL
Had almost the same experience as you on Sunday TNBronzeback! About 2 hours before dark I had moved to another point I fish and upon pulling up fish were pushing baitfish right up to the bank on the point. I caught fish non stop for 2 hours. Crappie, whites, and hybrid. Biggest was 8lb which on 6lb test was a blast.... I left right before dark and they hadn't slacked off any but had to get home.
Jpp 04-17-16
