Working the dock pays off this morning

[6poundtest]

My friends sometime accuse me of being hard headed; in fact if you compared my head to the pail of concrete that makes up the anchor for my boat, my head is probably denser than that concrete by a good bit BUT......I sometimes have the ability to reason and that is one trick that the concrete will never learn.
Went out this morning full of ideas and tidbits from the boards here and proceeded to fish some great looking spots and weedlines, weedbeds, etc. I had only about 2 1/2 hrs. of free time before I would have to head for home due to plans for the afternoon. Well, getting close to quitting time and only had 3 average gills to show for my efforts in the cooler. So much for confidence. However, the bass had been hitting real well, just no keepers, but that was OK with me.
So, the clock is ticking and I had a rogue thought: I've never tried fishing the private docks on this lake, they say docks are good "cover", lets see what happens. I picked one where the water was calm and protected somewhat from the wind and still just happened to be in the shade as the sun had not yet cleared the hill on the south side. Holy cow............it was like someone started pouring crappie in to my boat.
Everything I've been reading came together. Clear water, softer colors, more neutral colors, smaller profile baits, cast to "cover", which I'm embarrassed to say I've never considered docks as cover, even though I've read how good they can be countless times; all these things gelled this morning. Cranial concrete can be tough to penetrate, it seems.
I was laughing to myself as I reaped what you all have attempted to sow to us beginners. 3 casts, on each to the left, center, right of the dock resulted in crappie before the lure could drop 2 feet. I continued to cast around that dock and let it fall, keeping the belly out of the line as it dropped down and back toward my boat. They tore up my soft plastic in nothing flat and I had to stop to put on a new one. As I'm reloading, I glance at the HB and see all kinds of flat lines at the 15' mark; I'm sitting in 23 FOW. Dropped my jig over the side and gave it a shake or 2 and started hooking them using a straight vertical presentation. This is the first time I have ever seen fish like this on my electronics. I wouldn't have known how to interpret that without reading and seeing screenshots from the electronics board. It was so cool!
Anyway, in the space of about 20 minutes, I landed 10 nice crappie and lost a few others on poor hooksets or bad luck, whatever. I had a grin on that my wife would have laughed at, I'm sure, laughing out loud as I netted them. Biggest right at 12" but all very nice none-the-less.
I think I know where I'm going to try 1st, next time. I know nothing is guaranteed but it will be worth a shot, I'm sure. Ken

[ifish4redd]

NICE FISH,way to go!

[kycreek]

Good deal, I bet you head straight for that spot next time. I would.

[Donald@CrappieLogic]

very nice those are some gorgeous fish CONGRATS

[STUMP HUNTER]

Good report and those are awesome colored crappie. Congrats on putting it all together and catching a nice mess of keeper fish.

[huntinslabs]

Buddy, you do one heck of a good write up! Very well done and congrats on putting the pieces together. Some very admirable fish to boot.

[oldbigun]

Nice looking catch!

[NIMROD]

Those dark specks are purty fish!

[big minnow]

Boy you got some good eating rite there.!

[6poundtest]

Boy you got some good eating rite there.!

You're not kidding! I filleted them up and couldn't believe how big the platter of fillet's was in comparison to the pile I get from the bluegills I usually bring home. I had my wife divvy them up in to the freezer since we had fish just the other day for dinner.


Thanks for all the kind comments, gents, and for the tips that are sprinkled throughout the various boards on this site. Today I felt like a kid who wants "just one more cast, please? Do we have to leave now?" I felt surrounded by fish just begging to be caught and I had to leave...pout, pout..........