1/17/15 catch report

[mouse4x4]

Went out on upper pocomoke today got big goose egg. Tyres some plastic an minnows, my minnows were on the big side. Was out thru out going an incoming tides, had some good structure an deep holes just didn't have any luck. Any suggestions I am new to just focusing on panfish.

[Mikeguard01]

Sorry to hear you had bad luck. Any deep water around the bridge pilings? The sun heating up the concrete will draw in some bait fish and crappie. This last cold spell moved some fish out of the areas we were fishing. Found some suspended in deeper water on the sunny side of a point in a creek mouth.

[Zippy]

Went out today and they were tough! Water was 37 degrees. Marked big schools but man they were barely touching the hook. Really hard to hook and even harder to feel. They were not tugging at all just sucking it in and sitting there. Verticle jigging was difficult because they weren't pulling or even coming up with the bait so unless you happened to raise your rod tip at the moment it was in their mouth you would miss them. I went with a slip float about 16 inches off the bottom and finally was able to see the bite. No sinking floats, just surface dimples and you had to be fast. Caught 7 decent fish in about 3 hours, missed just as many or more. This is one type of crappie fishing where years of ice fishing has paid off, really similar bite. Got them all on tubes with half the tails cut off.

[Mikeguard01]

Zippy bring out the spring bobbers. I thought about rigging one up for vertical jigging in the boat. They came out with a ice rod with a very soft tip that acts like a spring bobber. They need to come out with a soft water rod with the same concept.

I use my 12 foot crappie rod and the mid size weighted torpedo float. I'm using a very light ice jig with plastic and only wrap the line around the top of the float. It's a balancing act, but the float has a slight lean which a light bite will either make the float stand straight up or lay flat to the water. I can cast about 15 foot of line with this setup. This works great in windy conditions also, as soon as one grabs the bait it lays flat to the water.

I just might have to take a ride to Deep Creek for some hard water action.

Mike

[Zippy]

Yeah I like the idea of spring bobbers. I'm gonna go through my ice fishing equipment and take some ice jigs next time out. Maybe tip them with a bit of powerbait meal worm t se if that might work.

[Mikeguard01]

I have been using some really small plastics on the ice jigs. They seem to hold on to the bait a little longer. Let us know how it works out.

[Zippy]

Ok I will. I have some really small trigger x bodies that might work good on a small jig.