Lake Redman 05/01/05

[Big Zig]

Here's the morning in a nutshell:

Put-in: 7:30 am. Overcast with light breeze
Water Temp: 55-57º
Fish caught:37 crappie 9¾"-12½"
12 bluegill 7"-8"
2 bass (6" largemouth, 8½" smallmouth)
2 yellow perch 8"
1 carp 7lb. 5 oz. - no length measurement
Take out: 12:25pm Bright blue skies and whitecaps

Lures used: 1/64oz. rust/chartreuse chenille jig
1/32oz. white jighead w/ white 1¼" Exude nymph
1/32oz insert tube jig w/a ¾" red/white tube tipped with a crappie nibble (red glitter)

[Zimmy]

Hi Zig,
Sounds like you had a Good Day, Did you keep the Carp? How many sticks of TNT did you use? I have a new shipment comming in a week!
Iam planning on a Thursday trip to Shenango Lake to check out the Lake conditions . Will post Friday on my outing. todoodles , Zimmy

[Tube4Slabs]

Zig sounds like a good day. What depths were ya targetting? Are fish moving up yet? Were you getting a mix of males and females? Tightlines

[Big Zig]

Hi Zig,
Sounds like you had a Good Day, Did you keep the Carp? How many sticks of TNT did you use? I have a new shipment comming in a week!
Iam planning on a Thursday trip to Shenango Lake to check out the Lake conditions . Will post Friday on my outing. todoodles , Zimmy

Nope, carp went back to fight again - lot of fun on a 10' rod and 2lb. line, I want to do that again.
TNT? - naw, Zigs Jigs :D
Good Luck @ Shenango! Looking forward to reading about your trip.

[Big Zig]

Zig sounds like a good day. What depths were ya targetting? Are fish moving up yet? Were you getting a mix of males and females? Tightlines

I chaulked it up as a decent day, considering I was fishing during a moving front (major weather change within 2 hours).
All the fish were shallow (<8 feet), and extremely tight to wood. The bluegills were coming from the outside edges, but the crappie I had to go in after. Vertical jigging any underwater wood.
I kept two crappie for lunch - what I thought were two males. Turns out it was one male and one female w/eggs. I'll be posting pics of what I saw, because I'm not 100% sure what I saw. I'm not sure if the egg sac in this female was just beginning to swell, or if it is starting to get reabsorbed.
We've had water temps in the high 50's, low 60's for some time now - I fully expected to see crappie in post spawn actually from the unstable weather we've been having.
I can only presume it was a mixed bag of males and females - but there were no fish that stuck out with the telltale "full belly" of a female with eggs. (the only way I know to distinquish between male/female crappie)
Keep in touch, I'd like to see you at a KCA meeting for the eastern Pa. region sometime.

[Tube4Slabs]

Thanks for the report Zig, Ive been experiencing same sorts of things on Pinchot lately. I think the good part of the spawn has passed us in this area. I got one good day in 2 weeks ago when we had those 85 degree days. Had a 50 fish day and everything else has been tough, picking up a few shallow males here and there.

[Big Zig]

I'm looking at the next two weeks. Warm spell coming through again this weekend, if the bottom doesn't drop out of it the middle of next week I think we will be seeing a lot of shallow water fish.