Big Crappie in one hand, big camera in the other. The result is a bad picture.

[ChrisCarter]

So i landed this 10" crappie today, had the fish in one hand, big camera in the other trying to take a picture before i put her back, this is cropped because the majority of the picture caught the lake in the background and not the entire fish. Next time I'll look and the picture when i take it before i put the fish back.


First I'll start out by saying that i did go fishing Friday afternoon after the storm system that brought severe weather to our area Thursday moved out. The bite was very active as a southeast wind blew into the cove where crappie, bluegill, wipers and bass have been setting up pretty much for the past two weeks. The niche was finding out what color they were into, which turned out to be a dark blue or dark green with a spinner blade to create some flash, the size wasn't very much, 5 - 7" crappie and smaller bluegill, once in a while i got wiper or small bass. What i didn't count on was a few severe storms firing out to the west that blocked out the sun, once that happened, the bite turned off. Couldn't make it out Saturday, but i decided to make up for it Sunday.

Sunday, i finally made it out around 4pm and went to the inline spinner and retrieved it very slowly, just enough to keep it from hitting the bottom, caught another wiper but nothing else. Probably too much sun for them to care about flash and too windy to care about vibrations. So i went on to put a few jigs in the water and retrieve that even more slowly than the spinners. There was no luck at first with the light/bright colors like white, pink, yellow, orange, and gray. A few guys came over and told to switch to larger jig body and fish near the brush, they were catching some small crappie and bluegills on that with a charteuse color. But i chose to keep my jig the same but go a darker color and fish the deeper water that lead into the cove, within a couple of cast, i landed the 10" crappie pictured above. Both guys packed up their stuff and left. So the color choice worked out to be black/blue/dark red/dark green.

I lost 4 out of my 5 Blue Fox Vibrax deep spinners that i have been catching the majority of my crappie on. The last one i have is the Firetiger and they have been turned off to the color of it. The others i lost were the dark blue, light blue, rainbow trout, and green. So I'll have to order some new ones from Bass Pro Shop or Cabelas since neither of them carry what i want in the store.

[Eager Beaver]

Hate when you loose the ones that the fish are biting on and are only left with what the fish don't care for. EB

[gabowman]

Glad you got out and were able to catch a few. Congrats. Thanks for the report and pic.

[ChrisCarter]

Amazing enough, i heard from a few local fishermen and an article in NebraskaLAND magazine, walleyes have yet to lay their eggs despite the warm March we have had. Guess it really goes to say that photoperiod has more of an effect on the spawn than water temps, heard most waters are anywhere between 65 - 68 degrees on most eastern Nebraska lakes.

[Eager Beaver]

Not that warm around here yet. 63 is the warmest I have heard of so far. With this cooler weather this week with a little wind and the temps will go down a little. That North wind this morning was a bone chiller. EB

[TSC]

Hey everyone,

My name is Andy T fairly new to the site, anyone from the Omaha area?

[Eager Beaver]

TSC! Chris and I are both from around Omaha. Maybe we can get together sometime and make a fishing trip of it. EB

[TSC]

I would be down with that, we should set a date, I will be fishing in the tourney down at Clinton Lake April 29th, either of you guys going to be there? We should find a time and hit the water around Omaha!, let me know what works for you guys...