Thread: Hillsdale Weekday report 7/1/09

Fished Hillsdale from daylight to about 3 pm. Caught 35 total with 17 legals. It was a catch and release day for me. The last legal caught was the only one not caught with minnows. At last a fun day on Hillsdale catching some fish and the weather was very tolerable. I used all the minnows up and this was the first time in ages that I didn't dump 90% of the minnows on the bank or give them when away when leaving the lake.

If I would have hooked the minnows through the lips like the Chattester says he does I would have lost 60% of them as soon as I put them in the water. I had to hook them so that the hook went through some of the hard skull cap in front of their eyes so I wouldn't loose them so easily.

Anyhow thanks to SlabbyJoe for his scouting trip the day before.

Today's notes of the lengths and time legals were caught.


14 inch


13 1/4 inch


13 1/2 inch

Nice catch, should of been with you today. Chased the cats two of us caught 6 and 3 bass. The biggest channel was 24 inches long. Had fun, also was a catch and release day.

Nice day LBM,

Hairy and I went out this afternoon and fished brush in 15 to 20 ft of water today and the bite was hot when we got there. Lots of fish, started fishing 3 pulls and couldn't keep 2 in the water at a time most of the day.

Ended with a nice 2 man limit in about 3 hours while throwing back 2 x what we kept and off the water by 8. Great afternoon and the lake was DEAD. There where 5 other trucks at Maryville. HV took some bucket pictures and hopefully will be able to post them... Should be a good weekend if the weather holds.

I am headed to LOZ tomorrow to my parents house. Hope the 13's mom has been catching off the dock hange around till I get there...

EVERYONE HAVE A SAFE WEEKEND!!!! BE CAREFULL

Great catch! If you don't mind me asking,what area of the lake produced the best.

Originally Posted by Springhill Duckman

Nice day LBM,

Hairy and I went out this afternoon and fished brush in 15 to 20 ft of water today and the bite was hot when we got there. Lots of fish, started fishing 3 pulls and couldn't keep 2 in the water at a time most of the day.

Ended with a nice 2 man limit in about 3 hours while throwing back 2 x what we kept and off the water by 8. Great afternoon and the lake was DEAD. There where 5 other trucks at Maryville. HV took some bucket pictures and hopefully will be able to post them... Should be a good weekend if the weather holds.

I am headed to LOZ tomorrow to my parents house. Hope the 13's mom has been catching off the dock hange around till I get there...

EVERYONE HAVE A SAFE WEEKEND!!!! BE CAREFULL

Here is a pic a SHDM(Nick) and a few fish

We fished main lake and it is interesting that the bigger fish are definately being caught dipping trees. We didn't catch near the size that LBM was catching. I will be at Fall River the rest of the weekend and I sure hope it does not get rained out. I hope to ook into a few pigs down there. Maybe even a few drum :D :D if I'. lucky.

Originally Posted by PurpleCrappie

Great catch! If you don't mind me asking,what area of the lake produced the best.

It was the Big Bull. I know that answer isn't much more informative than saying I was fishing at Hillsdale but with that, the pictures probably divulge more than I really wanted. After yesterday my confidence level was such that silly thoughts of maybe attempting to fish the Thursday evening tournaments did enter my mind. But on second thought determined that that is just like the club bass tournaments I used to fish in the 90's and figured I threw away enough money by just doing my fun fishing as it is.

I wonder if anyone would be interested in efforts at getting a GPS tracking device planted on the boat Duckman and Hairy Vetch fish out of. From that we sure could be getting some really good fishing information on Hillsdale Lake. :D

Originally Posted by LBM

After yesterday my confidence level was such that silly thoughts of maybe attempting to fish the Thursday evening tournaments did enter my mind. But on second thought determined that that is just like the club bass tournaments I used to fish in the 90's and figured I threw away enough money by just doing my fun fishing as it is.

I wonder if anyone would be interested in efforts at getting a GPS tracking device planted on the boat Duckman and Hairy Vetch fish out of. From that we sure could be getting some really good fishing information on Hillsdale Lake. :D

Those are nice fish you have and if you can put fish like that in the boat there is a good shot of winning. If we fish again next Thusday we will be changing our tactics. Putting 4 11" fish in the boat will not cut it. You are right in that it is throwing money away doing something you enjoy anyway. I thought more CDC members would be there and would sit around and BS but most fishers weighed and left. Hopefully more from the board show up next week. 9:00 is late for folks to stick around too long.


On a side note from yesterday and I know I am preaching to the chior on this but as Nick mentioned there was not another boat within eye site, we throw out a marker bouy, not to mark anything other then depth so what are the odds this boat shows up and could go anywhere around where we were at but had to sit right on top of our bouy? By on top I mean within 10 feet of it. Some folks are just shameless when it comes to that and even though he was fishing a different species I just could not believe having access to the whole lake he needed to fish right on our bouy. I started to take a picture but decided to let it go.

LBM you should come out Thursday night, you have just as good of a chance as anyone with the quality fish you have been catching. HV I was really hoping more people would have stuck around too. But some of the guys had a decent trip back home and I think the heat took it out of some of them too. Next week we will be better organized and get it wrapped up quicker so there is more bs time.

LBM do you notice when using minners that you catch more dinks for every keeper then compared to jigs? I have really good luck hooking my minners through the bottom lip and coming up into one there nostrils. I guess fish have nostrils? They stay on better and it doesnt seem to effect there life span on a hook.

Originally Posted by labsnslabs

LBM you should come out Thursday night, you have just as good of a chance as anyone with the quality fish you have been catching. HV I was really hoping more people would have stuck around too. But some of the guys had a decent trip back home and I think the heat took it out of some of them too. Next week we will be better organized and get it wrapped up quicker so there is more bs time.

LBM do you notice when using minners that you catch more dinks for every keeper then compared to jigs? I have really good luck hooking my minners through the bottom lip and coming up into one there nostrils. I guess fish have nostrils? They stay on better and it doesnt seem to effect there life span on a hook.

I would sure like to meet more fellow crappie comers but like I said before with mid 90's temps I am more inclined to stay home and soak up the air conditioning. Hopefully another beer and burgers event will get scheduled sometime soon.

As for minnows catching many more smaller crappie I would tend to agree with that. There was a couple times yesterday that I thought about moving to find larger crappie but decided since it was all catch and release I would just stay and catch smaller fish.