Fishing with 89Ranger

[mlakrid]

Well as some of you know, I mentioned previously that I found out by pure luck this summer that my pond holds big crappie.

The one that my neighbor hooked into was easily 14 inches, he was playing it out at the side of the boat, all while I was vigorously urging him to get it in the boat.
He said something to the effect of; "Its just a small one..." and that was when the crappie got away... He looked confused when I told him; "That was not a small one, it was a very nice fish."

He didnt seem to understand so I explained to him what he had hooked into that time was not the bass we had been targeting but a very large and unhappy crappie.
So ,that was when I decided to look online to see what kind of websites that were devoted to crappie fishing, and when I finaly looked online; I found Crappie.com
I registered, looked around a bit and saw that there were people mentioning many of the lakes I normally went bass fishing on.

Right after I registered, I posted an introductory thread asking for help in learning to fish for crappies. Well, I got several replies on what to use, and that I was in a really good area to catch a mess of nice crappie. One of the PM's I got was from 89Ranger, he invited me to go fishing either with him on his boat or in mine.

I told him some particulars about the lake, and all he said was; "When we going fishing?"

I responded I could go any evening as long as I told my wife, so today I called him and let him know this was a good day, what time to meet, and where to meet me.
After stopping to pickup some bait, he showed me the rigs he was using and how to deploy them.

In my little 12 foot Jon boat there was not much room. Ranger setup his three rigs, while I was fine with trying out my ultralight. This outfit was one my wife bought me for Xmas last year for fishing for all varieties of panfsh; including crappie. I told Ranger how I had caught a nice sized crappie after my friend saw some hanging on a drop off that quickly drops to 30 feet from 18 on his fishfinder. I tried keeping us moving slow enough that we could troll the minnows over the area, and that was not working, we were simply moving too fast.

So we changed tactics, I used the trolling motor to get us over the depth I had caught the crappie biting my rig befoe, and that was not working either, so I moved us over deeper water, where I finally saw fish stacked up. Just after I mentioned to Ranger I saw a bunch fish, I told him I had just missed a bite, little did I know the crappie still had the bait, and as I tightened up my line to reel it in to see if I had my bait stolen, my rod loaded up... Fish On! About that time Ranger had one as well.

This same scenario happened several times twice with a double and once with a triple, that easily could have been a quadruple, but alas, Ranger has only two arms, so we had to settle for three fish instead of 4.

Needless to say we had a GREAT first outing, which I am pretty sure will happen many more times.

Thanks to Ranger and everyone else who PM'd and posted on my previous post:
http://www.crappie.com/crappie/florida/229782-anyone-near-land-o-lakes-fl.html

I am now happy to know I live a pond capable of providing such good crappie; I will let the pictures tell you the rest of the story:

Ranger with his double:


Cooler shot:


Cooler shot close-up:


Zoom of the biggun:


Ranger Holding the Biggun:


Hope everyone enjoyed the story and especially the pictures ... Not a bad haul for less thn 2 hours work!

Tight Lines!

Mike A!
Land O Lakes, FL

[huntinslabs]

Nice feeshes!!

[fishin813]

excellant story and pictures to back it up....................
happy fisherman to say the least..........Ranger is pretty good guy, always willing
to help out

stay with us this is fun - forum and everyone is always willing to help a fellow out
when Spec's (crappie) are involved.

Your shown as from Land-O-Lakes area............come visit with us as we will be
having Crappie tournament on November 17th at Lake Tarpon............
Don's have to enter tournament, just come visit at weigh in which will be around
3 - 3:30 on 17th out of Anderson Park off hwy 19 west side of lake.
Have plenty of comradship along with question & answer session...

[Fiishergurl]

How neat! Love the pics and great story to go with it. Glad you had a great time. We have met so many nice people on this forum... always willing to help.

Ginny

[Crappiegirl1]

Ranger, where have u been? Hardly hear anything out of you anymore

[Phantom309]

I'm gettin that fever again ! ! !
Oh, we got a slabfest next Sat .....
OK, I'll be alright.....
WTG guys ! ! ! !

[Speckanator]

great post

[89ranger]

Ranger, where have u been? Hardly hear anything out of you anymore

Real busy with Church, work, school and just had another little boy 8lbs 8ozs so trying to make time to fish like I used to hope all is well with you.
Be Blessed

[Crappielover]

Nice write-up Mike A. You and Ranger appeared to have cleaned them up. I really enjoyed the details in your story. Thx for sharing with all of us who cannot get out on the water just yet.

[SlowRideStu]

Ranger is the man

Blessed to call him a friend