Thread: Hillsdale 7/6/09

SlabbyJoe and I fished Hillsdale from daylight till 2:30pm. The bait for the day was minnows dead or alive it mattered not. We started with picking up 4 dozen minnows and got good counts. We caught 105 total with 23 legals with none greater than 12 inches.
Fished brush from 9 fow to 15 fow fishing 10 to 11 ft down. Pretty much caught fish everywhere we fished.
Sure is nice to be catching fish again at HD. :D

Same story kinda. I tried tree dipping from 6 to 7:30 PM an nada fish. This is not my specialty but I need to learn it. My patience only last for so long so to boost my confidence I go back to the deeper water and brush and eureka!! From 7:30 to 9 I could not keep 2 poles in the water. I did not keep any but the crappie were in full feed mode. Not many over 10" but I bet I had at least 20 that would have kept. I noticed the mayflies are hatching so I wonder if that has something to do with the big schools. It was a great evening with not much traffic. Ran into another guy out with his boy who looked like they were having a good time, that is until he launched his pole into the water

im gettin ready to head out to hillsdale, hopefully i'll have the same results you guys had. i'll give a report when i get back.

Hairy, were you tipping with minnows also? any colors working better than others?

jigs tipped with minnows but I could have probably saved myself the headache of rebaiting had I used tubes. I had a ton of minnows so I stuck with them.

While tree dipping I tried using the .32 oz jig with minnow but it falls so slow and my boats is hard to hold within a reasonable distance from the tree without either drifting away from it or into it. I switched to a 16th oz but I wonder if I am fishing too deep. With practice comes perfection right? I'd like to have the patieince to avoid places I know work to find other unknown options for bigger fish but I struggle with the will power to do so.

well one good thing about minnows for sure, is that you don't have to worry about what color to use :-) i haven't bought minnows for several months now and have never done so well using plastics.

i'm the same way, i'll sit and wonder if they are still where i caught them last and will hit up that spot first, and then after i've got my fix, i'll go looking for new spots.

got out on the water at about 6 last night. caught about 40 crappie with only two being 10" or bigger. all on minnows. 27 fow about 10-15 feet down. tried jigs and had no luck. gonna try and get out there again tonight, hopefully find some bigger fish.