A slow day for crappie catching (10-21)

[6poundtest]

But by golly, did we put a hurtin' on the bluegill and the yellow perch!

I had plans to work most of the day on my firewood for next year but my partner came by and said his plans for today had changed and how bout we go fishing. Hmmmmmm.....letmethhinkaminuteOKwe'llgofishing! My firewood will be there tomorrow I'm sure, so off we went to that lake I posted about in the past, the one with the limited access. We launched about 12:45 and pulled off at 4pm. The surface water temperature was 57-58 and the breeze was stronger than I would have hoped; it made for a nice trolling drift, however. We didn't have an anchor so went where we go pushed. I did a LOT of rowing and steering and very little fan casting.







Right off the bat, I had a beast of a snarl that put me out of action for a while while my partner cast around with a minnow tube and a gold Phoebe. Nothing doing and I figured we were in for a slow day with the late start and bright blue sky. I kept seeing stacked fish on the SI display as I got my rod re-rigged with with a Southern Pro Stinger in black/chartruse tail. The other rod had the Roadrunner with the green Stinger with white tail. Within minutes of my casting them out and getting our drift under control, I had a big 'gill on the RR. In the cooler. Tossed it back out and had a perch take the other line. In the cooler. Tossed that line back out and the RR had another perch. I fished all afternoon with those 2 choices, never changing them out other than to replace the plastic when they got beat up.

So much for a slow day. We drifted along with some steering and some rowing, towing my lines and Ed's Phoebe and tube, with me getting fish and him a front row seat to my catching. With a little arm twisting, he soon decided that he should change lures and put on a BG baby shad in Tennessee shad color and a purple/chartruse something out of his box and he began to get in to fish right away. He stuck with those all day, never changing out either. We never kept count but I'd bet we kept 40-50 perch and bluegill. We tossed back a large number of smaller 'gills and perch as well, along with 2 bass and 1 pickerel that he hooked. We were chuckling about our "poor luck with the crappie" all the while. Battery in the camera died early in the trip; I meant to charge it after the last trip so couldn't get any fish pictures.

Finally decided we had to head in and as we got closer to the landing, the stacked fish were more numerous and I just knew they were crappie. Sure enough, as we went over some, his line went tight and the first crappie of the day came aboard. Bingo! A little further along, he hooked another and just as he did, my pole with the Roadrunner bent over hard and I had my first calico of the day. We landed them at the same time; in fact, I netted mine and swung the net over to his fish and scooped his right on top of mine! A nice double! We managed 2 more on the way to the landing making 5 for the day.
I'd told him earlier that I was pretty sure they were crappie and we could work this area and probably get some but he talked me in to going out into deeper water where we'd had such good results in the past. As long as we were catching, we were in the right spot as far as I was concerned.

Once again, this pond has provided a memorable fishing trip on a beautiful New England fall day.

[Fishin' Fool MA]

Glad to see you got out to wet a line. Good to hear you are trying a drift method, it has worked for me for 40+ years. Hope the weather keeps co-operating for us up here in New England. Best of luck to you and tight lines.

[Crestliner08]

Very nice report! And you caught a bunch of fish to boot. Doesn't get much better. I don't think you'll have to worry about prepping for winter anytime soon. The forecasts are looking pretty decent for fishing!