I'm a one-trick pony... and getting bored with it

[thill]

A good friend of mine says he spends as much time searching as he does fishing. And he is very good at catching. He searches for laydowns, stumps, underwater trees and small brush piles that most crappie anglers never fish. He doesn't keep anything smaller than 11" and usually limits out on his trips. He has recently retired and is now guiding.

He converted me to devoting more time to searching and really learning one area of a lake.

As to crappie being spooky, livescope taught me that they are that way the year around. It also taught me they don't like large jerky movements of the jig. I have watched large crappie swim to a jig and the run away when I jerked it up and down to try and entice them to bite. It amazed me to see a large crappie run from a small 1/32nd oz jig.

So now when a crappie approaches my jig I hold it still to see if he will take it. If not, I slowly swim it up a few inches and stop again to see if he will take it moving up. If not I stop it again to see what he does. If he does not take it, I will slowly swim it in a circle then wait. I continue alternating between slowly moving it up and swimming in a circle until he takes it or moves away. But livescope taught me to slow my fishing style down.

I've heard moving it slowly from several sources, but haven't heard the circling trick. I like that, and I'm going to copycat you. Thanks for sharing that! Hopefully, I'll come back with reports of limiting out on big fish soon.

Man,,,
They slow cast net fishing for game fish???
Go to jail here in Indiana for that!!


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NO, it is NOT legal. They were supposedly throwing for bait shad. They dumped all the crappie out, but why they felt the need to pull up to the bridge where boats were crappie fishing and throw their net, I don't know. Some people spoke their mind to those guys, but they were jerks, and said something to the effect of, "You can't tell us where to fish, you don't own the water." and probably not as nicely.

I grumbled aloud, but said nothing to them directly and left. No one owns the water, but everyone should be considerate of others. I could have told them about a nearby cove that's always packed with shad, but they were not worthy of giving that information to.

[CrappiePappy]

Man,,,
They slow cast net fishing for game fish???
Go to jail here in Indiana for that!!


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I would think they were likely cast netting for baitfish and the Crappie were an accidental catch. (unless, of course, they kept the Crappie caught in the cast net)

[ezgoing]

NO, it is NOT legal. They were supposedly throwing for bait shad. They dumped all the crappie out, but why they felt the need to pull up to the bridge where boats were crappie fishing and throw their net, I don't know. Some people spoke their mind to those guys, but they were jerks, and said something to the effect of, "You can't tell us where to fish, you don't own the water." and probably not as nicely.

I grumbled aloud, but said nothing to them directly and left. No one owns the water, but everyone should be considerate of others. I could have told them about a nearby cove that's always packed with shad, but they were not worthy of giving that information to.

They were right. You do not own the water and can not tell them where to fish. But from the same token, they don't own the water and can't tell you where to fish. So if you accidentally cast into the water where their nets were and damaged their nets when cutting you jigs out of their nets they have no complaints since you can't tell them where to fish and they can't tell you where to fish.

I learnt that trick years ago when I was fishing the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Most of the shore fishermen had a rod with either a very large weight or a very large plug with treble hooks on it. If a boat came to close to shore they would grab that rod and cast it toward the boat. If the boat complained they would say if I could hit your boat then you were too close to shore. And the harbor police agreed with them.

The only time I ever did this was at the State Park marina on Joe Pool lake. We had a lot of bass boats that would fish the slips and bounce their lures off the sides of the boats in the slips. You could hear their lures bouncing off the sides of the boats as they advanced down the line of slips. I finally got tired of it and bought a casting practice plastic plug. I then spend the next several afternoons fishing my slips and whenever I heard a plug being bounced off the boats on my dock I would cast the plug at their boat when they came in line with my slips. Made them mad as Hades but it got better for a while after that.

[Chuck Adams]

Most places I fish you can’t fish marinas.


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[thill]

In some of the salt water places I've fished, when boats would troll around guys catching fish, some guys would cast in front of the boat and when the line gets in the prop they would freespool and let them take a whole spool of braid around their prop. That will damage the prop seals and could even disable the boat. Not smart. I've also seen sinker wars and fist fights. Foolish and dangerous behavior.

Personally, I don't want to be anywhere near that kind of nonsense, and I get out of there.

[ezgoing]

In some of the salt water places I've fished, when boats would troll around guys catching fish, some guys would cast in front of the boat and when the line gets in the prop they would freespool and let them take a whole spool of braid around their prop. That will damage the prop seals and could even disable the boat. Not smart. I've also seen sinker wars and fist fights. Foolish and dangerous behavior.

Personally, I don't want to be anywhere near that kind of nonsense, and I get out of there.

I agree with you, I would prefer not to be involved in those situations. But I also would prefer people respect my property that I have in the slip I pay to use. If I catch people damaging my property while they are fishing I am going to say something.

I don't think most people who shoot slips with boats in them realize the damage they can cause to the boats in the slips.

I've had boat covers ripped and had to replace my mooring lines every six months due to damage from jigs and lures being jerked or cut out of them. I had one high pressure gas line punctured on my pontoon. They will keep jerking on the line to keep from losing their jigs or lures, ripping holes in $1000 custom boat covers to save a $5 lure.

But people who bounce their lures off boats in a slip know what they are doing. And these same people get mad if you bounce a lure off their boat. They don't care about your boat but are very protective with their boat.

I shoot docks myself but only shoot docks that have space under them and the boats are in slings. If the dock is floating on the water and has a boat in the slip that is not on a sling I don't fish that slip.

[ezgoing]

Most places I fish you can’t fish marinas.


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Most of the marinas I've been in had signs at the end of the docks stating you couldn't fish them but the signs were ignored. My new marina on Lake Washington has big signs at the entrance to the marina saying Private Property, Slip Holders only, Keep Out but I don't know yet if that is obeyed or ignored by those who shoot docks.

Legally you can not stop people from fishing the waters the marina is on and most boat fishermen know that.

[thill]

If everyone followed the Golden rule of "Treat others the way you want to be treated", this would be a very different world in a good way.

Fortunately, at least some people still live that way.

I agree about speaking up if someone is damaging your property. Maybe they don't know. A long time ago, I was fishing around a boat slip, and a fellow mentioned that every time I broke line off, someone could get it wrapped around their prop and damage their lower unit. Back then, I had no idea it could do that, so after that, I have been a lot more careful, and do everything I can to not leave line around someone's dock. In fact, if a dock is very snaggy, I'll stop fishing it for just that reason.

[skeetbum]

Merry Christmas, and while rereading this I had a few thoughts. You were correct in your thought that trolling cranks doesn’t work as well in lakes with mostly black crappie. In TN we had a good amount of whites and they were most of our catch with an occasional black. Trolling jigs is another story, blacks like em fine and I do a lot of that here where there’s no whites at all. You also asked how to get the jigs down 20’. Depending on your speed I wouldn’t change much on your setup but I would try a 1/4 oz egg sinker a few feet up the line, maybe on a dropper loop til you could see if it worked and then refine and clean it up. Marking brush piles and downed trees into deeper water will also help find a few fish. Keep in mind some work better at different times of the year. Cold water I used to catch 30 to 35’ deep in 55fow. Shad were key and so was standing timber if you can find any. Just some more to try, good luck and have fun.