Thread: Not a crappie! Not a crappie!

This evening we stunk it up. I got blanked period! My partner took half a dozen or so dink bass. Not a crappie, not a sunfish! We hit four spots on two different lakes and still came up empty.

Last evening was a different story. We moved to a different pool where we often find crappies on and off all summer long. It was cold with a stiff cold breeze. We didn't do very well; some initial sunfish nibble and then what seemed like a tentative version of the classic crappie one tunker beneath them, but no fish. My partner ended up with 7 crappies and a small handful of sunfish and he worked for them. I couldn't turn more than a couple of sunnies despite changing tails, changing presentations whatever I could think of. We even bobbered up to no avail. Finally I put on a black 1.5" twister.

The second cast along the wall we were standing on, I hung up and then the hang up began to move. For 15 minutes I put as much strain on the 4# line and my UL rod as I dared. The drag worked perfectly, and the hen below ran all over that pool, before she ended up in the net.

32" and fat as a pig, wide across the back and carrying quite a belly.



Needless to say that pool was really stirred up; so I ran back to the car and got a noodle ice rod rigged with a yellow #10 Fat Boy tipped with an inch and a quarter luv nub, hoping that downsizing would turn a fish or two. A news crew from WCCO TV showed up to do a bit on the effects of the very early spring. Something grabbed the Fat Boy about then. I found myself hooked up to a 20.5" largemouth on the ice rod. No pictures for here, but they caught a bunch of the fight on tape and the fish after she came to the net, too. And then they announced it to the whole community where I caught her in the 10:00 news. All of our fish came from right tight against the wall we were standing on which drops down to about 4' of water at the most. Both of the bonus fish came from just about exactly the same spot along that wall.

We were out about 2 1/2 hours, but the half hour part that spanned those two bonus fish was pretty much the highlight. I pretty much struck out on the crappies but there was some compensation...

The TV crew tried to do an interview, but I found myself at a loss for words and thankfully they cut that out of the broadcast. By the way both fish were definitely returned to the water, which I would have done anyway, and seemed to recover pretty well and swam away on their own. The season for pike doesn't open here until early May, and for bass until mid-May; so I couldn't have kept either one anyway even if I had wanted to.

You just never know what's going to take those darn little plastics next.