Lake Redman - 09/05/04

5:15am - pick up brother-in-law to put someone else on this crappie bite besides myself

5:30am - boat is in the water, and we're headed to the south end of the lake. Water temp is 77 degrees, dead calm surface - zero wind.

5:45am - Aqua-View is in 13 feet of water to get a good look at exactly what I've been fishing at this blowdown..........there's a few of my jigs I lost...........there's a ball of frog eggs............ :eek: there's a lot of branches down here......

5:50am - anchor is dropped at the same place I was located last week, and fishing starts.

6:30am - still waiting for our first fish - what's going on here?

6:45am - finally connect with a tator, and my partner has missed a few hits.

7:30am - a few 9" fish in the boat, nothing like the last two weeks. Wind is starting to blow ever so lightly. Time to move, we're not setting the world on fire here.

We started working the 15 foot depth line, slow trolling jigs tipped with nibbles and small crankbaits. Each time a crappie was hooked, we'd drift the area - but would only pick up two/three fish on each pass. Very slow morning, but fish are still coming into the boat. I found that a 9" Redman white crappie weighs 5 oz., and another inch pulls the scales to 8 oz.

9:40am - Head to the west shoreline, by the ramp cove, to fish two brushpiles that are known crappie holders. Ended up putting a few more fish into the boat, but they were deep - 20 foot, and very close to the bottom. If I have my lake bottom laid out correct, the fish seemed to be hanging just in front of the end of the brush piles in deep water. Did I mention the wind by now? I have a 65 lb. thrust trolling motor on a 17' Fisher bass boat, and on level three(3) I was staying even with wind. Ended up dropping anchor just to stay close to the brushpiles (which I've never had to do on this side of the lake).

11:30am - called it quits when I had to cut the anchor rope. Lost my Fluke style river anchor, 2 feet of anchor chain, and about 18 feet of anchor rope. Seems I found a complete tree (as verified by the Aqua-View), that's laying out along the creek channel - never knew that was there before.

1/32 and 1/16 oz. jigs rigged with 1" twister tails in white, orange, green, and char., tipped with red or silver glitter nibbles is what we used to put 25-30 9" white crappie in the boat. Each fish was exactly 9-9.25" - talk about fishing a specific age class of fish. We did put one(1) 10" fish in the boat, but that one went back to put some weight on for a later trip. May be a few weeks before I can do anymore serious fishing - I promised my soon to be 5 year old that he would be my fishing partner from here on. I'm really looking forward to it, but know if I'm going to get him hooked on this sport I'll need to leave my rods at home for the first few trips. Bucket of minnows, slip bobber, and a boatload of willing 4-6" crappie I think will be the ticket.

I saw in the latest PA Fish & Boat magazine that they had Redman listed as a top panfish producer for the southeast. Look out boys, you may be in for some company!

That's really no secret - the real secret is Lake Williams that Redman spills into. this lake has no ramps, and the lanes into the only dock won't support boat trailers - so unless you have something that can be carried 20 feet to the waters edge, you won't be fishing it.

Redman gets pounded pretty hard throughout the summer months, and the lake isn't large at all - more like a farm pond. The lake is very hard to fish, esp. for first timers. I've spent years slowly trying to unlock the tatics to constantly produce decent fish there, and am just now beginning to have the confidence to know where to go under certain conditions. I'd really like to spend some time chasing the stripers that call the lake home, but the crappies just keep me on my toes..........