Thread: allatoona or westpoint tommorow 2/10/08?

me and my buddy have killed a lot of time on the lakes the past few years w/out much success. hoping this year is different. He has talked me into going tommorrow and said he heard the crappie were starting to bite at westpoint at yellow jacket creek. I would rather head to lake allatoona since it's closer to the house and we will probably be getting caught by the rain.

It looks like the water temperatures are about the same but I have not seen much on the reports. I would appreciate any feedback from you anglers out there that know about either lake and what's going on. Is it time yet or are we a couple weeks too early?

Allatoona crappie report 2/12/08 (by div3 and zac)

My buddy Zac arrived at my house in Marietta to pick me up at ~12:30 pm.. We had planned to be on the water fishing by 2:00 and would go until “dark thirty”. Earlier he had indicated he had some trouble with the trailer lights. Surely he would have them fixed by the time he came to pick me up? No such luck. We fiddled around with the lights for about 30 minutes and decided to “wing it”.

We stopped at the store at the corner of bells ferry rd and Kellog creek rd to gas up and get minnows. They have always got good snacks and bait there and we also loaded up on Vidalia boiled peanuts. We put in at kellog creek at about 2:00 pm (Have no clue what the water temperature was). We proceeded up toward the damn towards the "s-turns" with the intent of “trolling for deep water crappie”. Having scoured all these wonderful sites and forums for the past few days I knew exactly what to get at Sports Authority the previous day; I got one of everything!. The most expensive things were the sinkers at about $3/each but somehow the total was $188!

We arrive at our first stop and begin tying up jigheads with different colors on them. I am even getting fancy and tying two on with a live minnow on the bottom with a jig head about 14” above. Everything seems perfect. First Bite guide service boat zings around us and stops several hundred yards down so we know everything has got to be good.

My buddy Zac’s boat is a bit small and we also wonder if it may be a bit light for trying to hold a position. We had the continuous situation of having to untangle at least three rods out of the 8 we were trying to fish. Each time I would get those untangled, cut loose, re-jigged and baited, Zac had either driven the trolling motor through another set of lines or the wind had turned us into the rear motor, etc.! We proceeded in this manner for nearly 2 hours before I finally had enough. I pulled in all of my poles except one lying to the side which had not tangled up. I had not taken a sip of beer in over 2 hrs! (no worries with a BUI here!) I opened up a beverage and started on those boiled peanuts.

I only had out about 15 feet of line out on that one pole. Zac was busy working his spinner bait around the rocks and throwing some other bass lures? (we are suppose to be crappie fishing here #$%^&*!!) “Zacky” indicates he will put on some crappie rigs after he loses whatever rig/jig he’s fishing. His position is “there’s no sense taking something off just to re-tie something else”. Well whatever. I kick back and begin consuming beer and eating boiled peanuts before I am rudely interrupted by a 12” striper that somehow works his way onto that one pole. I had read somewhere about the fish hitting that pink jig and it was true! Hey “Zac you want to try these I got tons of them”. Thanks anyway he says, “I will try those after a while after I lose my new rig I am now fishin with this here bobber”. (Never mind he’s bass fishing and these things are catching bass by themselves? Go figure! Well of course he did lose that rig a few minutes later; I threw him "bobber" back to him after I cut it lose from the rear motor!)

Well the sun is starting to go down and we decide to hit a few more holes on the way back to the landing. We also remember we were not able to get those trailer lights fixed and will have to leave before dark as opposed to “dark-thirty”. My cell phone has been ringing quite a bit but it was in the bottom of a cooler and I was not going to answer it. While “motoring” to the next whole I decided to check my messages and hear that I apparently left the lights on in the truck! (Oops! we had the truck lights on earlier while we were trying to diagnose the trailer lights @#$%^&!). Some nice people saw my phone number on the side of the truck and were kind enough to call my office to let them know. I kindly explained the situation to zac and reminded him we have jumper cables and are going to be OK.

We stopped at one more intermediate location and put out a couple of poles. I got out my GPS receiver to try to check our speed for 1 mph. I think we were going a bit fast because at least one of the jigs was breaking the surface of the water. It is pretty reasonable to assume that we are going way to fast and I don’t really need to wait for the satellites to finally “acquire our position”!! We could never really get the speed right all day. Reel-em up! (there go first bite guides again zinging buy!)

Good new is the truck cranked and zac made it home w/out a ticket. All the equipment worked good, boat, etc. and we don’t have to worry about cleaning a mess of fish! I think folks were catching fish out on the lake that day, just not us. We have since concluded we are more the “drop anchor near a dock” type of fishermen and/or “tying to the bridge with a nightlight” type of anglers. We realize we are not quite ready for our own TV show unless it’s a comedy (it would be a hit!). We will have a little bit more experience but probably still not have our act together before hitting the lake again soon.
Till next time,
div3(and zac)

hehee sounds like a hunterofmore trip lol

thank goodness for cold beer and peanuts!!!!!

Ha ha I've been there and done all that,keep at it get's better and you get poorer,but it's enjoyment that's priceless.