Thread: Butchers Creek Wed thru Sat Report

Arrived Wed afternoon about 2:30 and found the lake down. Unloaded the boat and set up camp. We where ready to go out fishing at 4:00 but found I had bumped the bottom with the prop when beaching the boat and guess what? Well off to Clarksville to get a new one. Was back to camp and ready to try again by 5. We fished until 6:45 catching 24 with only 3 keepers. Saw some of the men who work for the same Engineering firm which Dave works for and put out the word to let him know AC was on site 75. Thur. worked our way down Butchers then into Panhandle. Never saw so many crappie fishermen on the lake at one time. I have never had so many boats sitting over the brush piles I wanted to fish when I arrived. We caught 87 fish with only 10 keepers. Friday we left at first light and ran all the way down to the Power Line cove thinking since we couldn't fish it on Thur. we would be the first there and lay claim to it for a few hours. Guess what. The same boat who was sitting on the brush all day Thur was already there when we pulled up. Sure liked to know how big the slabs where that he was catching. By noon the wind was up and rain was moving in. We return to camp and went to Triangle to get gas for the boat. As we pull up to the pump Dave pulls in. We talked for a few minutes then left to go back to camp and Dave showed up in a few minutes at the site. Dave said he was doing fine and he was OK. Said to say hello to everyone and said he has just been so busy over the summer he just hasn't taken the time to sit down at the computer and check in. The last time he'd been out on his boat was in May. Dave left I guess somewhere about 3:30 and shortly afterward the rain began coming down. The temps begain to fall and it began to get a little uncomfortable. Then about 4 the power went out on the site. Went down to the gate and reported outage. With in an hour a park ranger showed up and looked the situation over. He had given his last amp converter away so he left saying he'd be back. We needed electricity both for our minnows in the tank and heaters for the night. About 6:00 the ranger followed by Dave and his son pull up. Dave check things out then produced an amp converter and we where back in business. Dave stayed for awhile then left saying he'd be back in the morning to change the ground fault breaker out. Not 1/2 hour after he left I started up my truck and ran a power cord thru the passenger window for the heater. Well when I shut the doors I realized I had locked myself out with the truck running. No problem, I keep a spare key in my wallet. Only problem my wallet is on the dash board from when we where at Triangle. It took an hour but we managed to get the door open. Back to the crappie. Got up Saturday morning got the coffee on and began cooking eggs and bacon. Dave shows up on schedule and changes out the breaker. Dave told us where a brush pile was that he felt not many people knew about and we found it on our second pass. Fished it for most the morning Saturday going on down Butchers to two other piles then back to this one. Wind was up when we left camp and began to get stronger. We fished till 12 catching 47 with only 7 keepers. The biggest fish was 14" for the trip with 3 at 12". The rest where in the 10" range. As you see from the figures there are alot of small fish to be caught with the larger ones being limited, at least on the piles we fished. The wind was up so bad yesterday afternoon we packed up and came on home. Looking out the window this morning I guess we did the right thing.

AC

Originally Posted by ShellQuacker

Thanks for the report Andy!
Sorry about your run of luck.
Now....you mentioned "camping"....then "electricity.....hmmmm.

ShellQuacker the last time I went "camping" without electricity was in November 1963, Infantry Combat Training and Vietnam 1965 compliments of the United States Marine Corps. Tahoe50 sorry I missed you. Sure glad to see you post on the baord. Been sometime since I've seen you here.