Thread: Hillsboro Report

Fished yesterday with my Dad at both lakes in Hillsboro. Started on the little lake, water there was a strange color. Looked muddy, but the prop wash was clear. We'll just call it a heavy stain I guess. Didn't spend much more than an hour on the water there, and caught several small Crappie and Bluegill. Moved over to the big lake and the fishing wasn't much better. The North half of the lake is muddy, the South half has a perfect stain to it. We fished deep brush, shallow brush, rock banks......nothing. We tried casting slider rigs, jig and cork, verticle jig.......nothing. Got to be about 2:30, and for 7 hours of fishing we had 3 Crappie and one Cat (she was caught by mistake. Dad hooked her in the back, but it made for a nice fight and some good eatin.) We were getting ready to head for the ramp and decided to try one more spot out of desperation and salvation of pride and dignity. Ended up finding two different OLD laydowns that produced a total of 30 nice Crappie, and one HUGE snapping turtle. The fish, when we found them, were deep. We were casting slider rigs, and if you thought you were retrieving it slow enough, you had better slow down more. Dad was casting a curly tail grub the same color scheme as my slider rig to the same spot with the same presentation and kept getting nothing. He switched to the slider rig, and started catching fish. Ended the day with 33 Crappie and the Cat. Most of the fish were female and I think the spawn is about over there. The females were skinny and tired, and what few eggs they did have left in them were almost transparent in color. We did have a few males, and they were more aggressive when they hit.

nice report desperation paid off