With surface temps in the mid 70s and real nice crappie thumping a bare jig “On-The-Fall” as shallow as 5-feet well over the top of our brushpiles this morning I officially declared that the Fall Feeding Frenzy is ON!!!
Darryl, Jim and I had a ball this morning while we were supposed to be doing some scouting and putting down some more condos on Greeson. After an hour or so of catching more tight-lining jigs with pole-in-hand than we were on minnows under slip floats that we had out in rod holders we headed for shallower water and just fished jigs. We kept 30 and released about that many.
Jim caught the Green Carp in the picture, several smaller ones and a baby striper.
The crappie have been gradually getting a lot more aggressive lately (especially the white crappie) and fighting harder and we’ve had several jump right out of the water this week. I had a 15-incher jump about 2-feet out of the water this morning right at the boat, with slack in the line. When he hit my jig about 15-feet deep I knew he was on his way up like a rocket because I immediately had slack in the line. Even though I set the hook and was sweeping my 11-foot pole up over my shoulder and reeling as fast as I could I never did catch up with him before he jumped. Fortunately he was hooked real well in the roof of his mouth so I was able to get him in the net after he splashed down.
It's the fish on the far right in the picture - yep it's a crappie. It was the thickest white crappie I've seen in a long time.
Anyway, we did end up getting three good bamboo condos dropped so we’ll have even more fall spots to fish.