Anyone Fishing in all this Rain

[Moose1am]

Man I will sure be glad when it stops raining for a while. I think it has rained for 5 days straight now. I want to see some sunlight and go fishing without getting soaked.

I bet that the fish have been biting good with all this cloud cover that we have had.

[Mike Sutton]

Moose, it's not been as bad up here. I was able to get out this morning before the rain came in. It's so dry up here I've not mowed my lawn in over 3 weeks. Hope you get out soon!

Mike

[Moose1am]

It's drying up here too. But now it's hot and humid. Heat Index is in the Miserable range. LOL I went out shopping for a new microwave today and my 20 year old unit finally died this morning. Spent several hours driving around the East side of town and man it was hot. My truck's ac went out a few years back and I have not fixed it yet. Long story. Suffice it to say I didn't get to go fishing today.

I did manage to sneak out a few days ago inbetween the rain showers and fished Loon Pit on the Blue Grass Fish and Wildlife Area. Loon pit is over 200 acreas which makes it the largest pit at BG that has a concrete boat ramp. I found a spot of water about 7 to 8 ft deep that was right next to 25 ft water and caught a nice crappie in a stickup on the top of the dropoff.

Picture will be attached it all works out right. I used my neighbors digital camera to take the picture and then he downloaded the pic from a media card to his laptop and then emailed it to me. Man I need to get my own digital camera soon. I did get my SLR Pentax camera working again. The mirror has been glued into the up position somehow and the shutter spring was weakened or something. I would push the shutter release and the shutter would not close. I found that the miror was in the up position and stuck to the foam padding at the top. Not suppose to do that. I finally got the mirror back down where it belongs and cleaned the foam off the edge of the mirror where it has stuck to the mirror. Need to sent the unit in to be checked out and cleaned and lubricated and or repaired. I am going to try to take a few picture with it using film and then try to scan the prints into the computer with my scanner. Then maybe I can post some pictures of what I am talking about instead of trying to type so much.

So here is the crappie pictures. Most of the crappie in the Blue Grass F&W area pits are small. They average only about 8" long and are all underfed.

This fish was one of the exceptions. I took some scale samples off this fish and looked at them under the microscope and aged the fish. It was underdeveloped for it's age IMHO. The water quality of these fairly new strip pits is not very good.

There are lots of crappie in these lakes but they are mostly stunted and small. The idea is to cull a lot of these small fish out of the pits so that those that are left will have enough to eat and may grow bigger. I spoke with the fisheries biologist about this and with one of his employees who did fish surveys at these lakes last summer. Crappie can easily overpopulate these small waters as they lay hundreds of thousands of eggs when they mature. I caught many a 10" and 9" female crappie from these lakes this spring and they were all laiden with eggs from April unit well into May.

Even the very small fish have lots of eggs.

I didn't make it out in the rain very much as we had some thunderstorms too and I don't go out when there is a chance of lighting striking nearby. My last trip out was interupted by a thunderstorm. I headed in under electric trolling motor power at the first sound of thunder. Two other boats stayed but they were heading back to the ramp under gas powered motor as I was pulling my boat out of the lake. They waited until the last minute and then fired up their gasoline motor and came back in pretty fast. Trouble is this lake is posted as a electric trolling motor only lake. ie not gasoline motors are allowed on the lake. Most guys with bass boats just tilt the big motors out of the water and use their trolling motors to get around. But when the winds kick up and a thunderstorm brews up they fire up the big motors and head back to the ramp. The last boat to come back used his electric motor and it was getting pretty bad by the time they got back to the ramp. One guy (japanese guy) was out in a canoe and he was without a life jacket and was fishing in the canoe standing up. He didn't get hit by lightning as I saw him at the ramp later that day. He had stayed out on the lake standing up in that canoe and had lucked out and not fallen out or hit by lighting. I don't think he realized just how dangerous his actions could have been. He didn't speak English very well as all he could do was utter a few words in English. So I didn't get a chance to talk to him as he recovered his canoe that evening. I was fishing with my fly rod from the ramp as he came back to the ramp. I had driven to the other end of the lake where there is a gravel launch ramp and had observed him up on the North end of the pit. He had canoed about 1 mile south to the south launch ramp when I saw him recover his canoe.

There have been a lot of shoreline fisherman braving the weather inbetween thunderstorms here.

I wish I could have fished more when it was overcast as I wanted to see if the fish were biting good. I suspect that they were scattered and not hanging real close to the cover. I did notice that my favorite spot (deep water drop off with lots of submerged trees or brush) didn't produce as it did normally. I normally fish it during the day in bright sunlight conditions and then the fish are right in the brush piles in 20ft to 10ft deep water. Only in the early morning and late evening do they come up into the shallower 4 ft water.

The day I didn't catch many crappie I ended up catching several 1lb largemouth bass. I figure the bass ran the crappie off the spot. I found the crappie out over 30ft of water further away from the shore and they were suspending down around 12 ft from the surface. I caught one of the suspended fish so I know that the school had crappie in it. I have found that if they are not on the drops then they will move out about 100ft away and suspend over the deeper water. You have to be at the right depth to catch those suspended fish. I used the vertical casting method that Crappie Pappy describes to get the depth right. I let the jig or bait down to the bottom and reel up really slow. At one point in time the bait will go though the zone that the crappie are suspended and they will hit the bait. I suspect that they think its an insect larve rising up from the bottom getting ready to pupate and fly off the water's surface when it reaches the adult insect stage. (mayflies do this)

I took my #5 graphite fly rod and matched with my Scientific Anglers System One reel and some floating WF fly line and a 9ft taperless leader with 2lb tippet and a #22 hook that looked like a small KNAT. I tore up the small bluegills with this bait. I was catching them left and right while everyone else was fishing with big hooks and not catching a thing. In these clear water strip pits you really have to downsize the baits to catch these fish. The pit is so heavily fished day in and day out that the fish are pretty smart.

I may try out some 1/64th ounce jigs someday and see if they work better than the 1/16oz jig head.

Moose, it's not been as bad up here. I was able to get out this morning before the rain came in. It's so dry up here I've not mowed my lawn in over 3 weeks. Hope you get out soon!

Mike

[Mike Sutton]

Moose, good pic of a nice crappie. I have a digital camera and love it. It makes sharing my catches so easy. I'd recommend a Cannon if you get one, they are built solid. The price is coming down on a lot of these too. Thanks for the report on your fishing!!!

Mike