My Crappie Morning

I recently retired and became a fair weather fisherman. No point in freezing my Fanny off unnecessarily anymore. Checked the weather for the week and it looks like four good days in a row so I told my wife I’d be fishing all four mornings and my goal was to get at least 60 crappie over the four days. Seemed easy enough.

Set out at at 6:20 this morning and was fishing by 6:45. I put out my 6th pole for long line trolling and looked up to the sky to talk to Jim my fishing buddy for 25 plus years. He passed away a few years ago. Just about everything I know about fishing I learned from or while fishing with Jim. He was a retired Marine and worked on base as a civilian when I met him. I was in the Air Force and got stationed in South Carolina towards the end of my 20 years. I had never done much fishing and he had all these fishing pictures on his desk so I convinced him to take me. We were inseparable after that first trip. I’ll tell one funny story. Jim grew up poor and wasn’t going to spend a penny if it wasn’t necessary. His garage remote had broke before I met him and every morning for years I’d go to his house and he would hit the garage button on the wall and run out just before the door closed. Well he was older than me and had heart problems and I was always worried he’d have a heart attack while we were out hunting or fishing. Anyway one morning I told him about my concerns and said that the day he couldn’t make it out of the garage before it closed would be our last fishing or hunting day. The next morning he comes out the door, doesn’t close the garage and gets in the truck. I asked him why he didn’t close the garage and he reached in his pocket, pulled out a remote and closed the garage. Then he looked at me and said “your not going anywhere without me”. Haha

Anyway back to the fishing. I started trolling in 13 to 18 feet of water and caught 8 the first hour. Slowed down a bit after that. I was using two jigs per pole with black and chartreuse jig bodies. After fish 18 which came about 9 o’clock I speed the trolling motor up from .8 mph to 1 mph to get back to a certain area and apparently the speed increase was the ticket. I caught 12 more crappie in the next 40 minutes for my limit of 30 and was heading home by 10 am. A great morning. Water temp was 57 degrees and most of the fish were a really good size.

One thing I’ve learned over the years long lining is that one little change can make a difference. It can be speed, jig color or even the color of the jig head.

Another little story. I remember asking Jim one morning why he thought we got along so well and he looked at me dead serious and said “I know you think I like you, but your the only person I could find that would help pay for stuff”. Haha



Well I have half my 60 for the week in one day so might have to find something else to do after tomorrows trip. Nah, I don’t think so!