Thread: A Proper Sore Lipping in VA

5:45am comes early, but in Mid June the sun can get warm in a hurry and shut down the shallow small lake bite even faster.

My means of transportation today, pedal power in my first boat, an early 60’s model aluminum flat bottom passed down from my father. My weapons for the next 1.5 hours, two JDM rods with different actions and lines to do comparisons on what ever finned friends were to be found.

The Corto with the 3lb Ester got the call first, last nights foray helped to set the line and it behaved much better this morning, with no over runs or spool loop issues. The Largemouth were on the early prowl, with 7 total caught, only 1 or 2 pictures of the Green Carp made the cut.


Shell crackers were my hopeful victims targeted and it wasn’t long until my PB for this little lake was stuck and photographed.

Thick and long, he gave up a good fight on the Corto, and the line dictated his bite clearly and sharply. I can see the line on top of the water and would consider the visibility fair to good, but not like a Hi Vis Ester or PE. I bought this line to night fish with the Black lights on the big boat and so far it has impressed me enough to keep spooled up on the Presso. I picked up the Nylon strung Mebaru rod and stuck a couple pretty Gills, nothing huge but enough to realize the nylon was almost impossible to see on the water and lacking on bite detection, despite the limber tipped sensitive Shimano Soare.

15 total Cricket Crunchers, mostly males in breeding plumage, and I found an area where they were cleaning the beds for the upcoming Full Moon.

Each of the clear places had a tending male ready to attack anything in sight. A few more Crackers


and I noticed an audience of one in her sleek red coat.

A Crappie or two was found, fought, photographed and released, most about 8-9 inches long.

I switched jig heads to a Diawa Gekajibin 1/32oz with a number 10 hook ( # 8) US and quickly found out what all the hype was about with the sharp hooks, this thing stuck everything, bites, branches most small nibbles.


A fun morning, sharply at 7:30am I received a text that the grand babies were awake and asking for Pepaw, my morning was over. I put on just a plain Berkeley White Honey Worm ( whatever that is?) and made a few more casts as I paddled in

Crackers must like them, but I think most fish in this small lake are just hungry and will attack any small offering that looks palatable. 34 fish total, all properly sore lipped and released to fight again another time. I hope to get back out there, but if I don’t my trip to VA is more than complete.


Sent from my iPhone using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

Good read and good catches!