Oconee Fri

Fished Oconee Fri with limited results. Lake is stained but not as bad as I've seen it. As we were putting in talked with a fellow from Vidalia that had been there for a couple of days. He was coming out -- had fished very early and had a few smaller fish -- but was coming out to rest til mid-afternoon. Both days before he had caught most of his fish after 2:00. We should have listened. Had only 1 keeper fish by afternoon but from 3-6:00 caught 10-12 and brought home 10 nice slabs. I cleaned some this morning and all were black crappie, with eggs. Water was mid 50's early, but by 5:00 was in mid-60's -- very hot and bright day. We wasted far too much time dipping minnows and casting jigs around usual bedding areas before slow trolling. Tight line with jigs produced 1 crappie and 1 broken 12' BPS rod -- fishing 4 12's out front something hit hard, ran left then straight back under boat and pow - scratch one pole. Later switched to long line trolling -- 7-8 ft in coves - 1/48 & 1/32 oz jigs with anything blue seemed to be the ticket. Had several small hybreds also. Did talk to a cabin owner who came in with a basket of about 20 - but his fished were smaller than what we were catching in his backyard. He said if we would just go and tie up in trees in Appalachee and put out minnows could catch all we wanted. He was using plain jigheads under a float with minnows -- no jig. Lot of boats, slow trolling with floats, or tightlining and some longlining. At ramp were more coming in to night fish than were leaving. Good Luck, JimA