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Shearon Harris Report 8-18-11
After a few failed attempts over at Jordan the past few weeks and just not picking up any quality fish, we decided to try our luck over at Shearon Harris. We arrived at the boat ramp around 6pm and having not been on this lake in 10 years or so I cruised around just scanning the bottom and looking for fish. Almost immediately I was noticing fish stacked up from 8 ft all the way down to 18 ft in 25FOW. The Lowrance would look like floating telephone poles on the graph.
Everywhere there was bait, there were fish. We eased over to an area of the lake in about 18fow that dropped off really slow to 26-27fow and began slow trolling jigs/jigs tipped with minnows. Water temp was reading 90 degrees but the weather outside was wonderful and made for an easy afternoon fishing. No longer than my brother and friend got the rods set along the back of the boat, they had two fish on. Two nice respectful 1.5 Largemouth that put a great fight on the long poles. Next 10 fish or so were decent size white perch and was beginning to wonder if we'd ever find a crappie.
Two 12 ftrs and Two 10 ft B'nM rods on the front with me manning the trolling motor the action died just as fast as it started and we made a long slow troll across a nice flat with the graph showing all kinds of bait, fish, and even witnessed on the graph bait balls that were stirred up tremendously by feeding fish. I'm assuming Largemouth or white perch because some of the baitballs looked like the letter S on the graph with fish surrounding them. Pretty neat to say the least.
While watching the graph and talking about all the images showing up it was apparent that the fish in this lake were ACTIVELY feeding and all it would take is the right place at the right time and we'd find fish. All of sudden, 12ftr in the front of the boat is slammed, knew immediately this wasn't a crappie. Drag peeling and me working the fish on the 6lb test I finally managed to get him to the side of the boat and it turned out to be a nice right at 5lb. Largemouth. Released, and admired by a few big bass anglers nearby at a job well done, we moved on to what we came for.....CRAPPIE!!
Steep drop offs were the ticket, we made a troll across this ledge and picked up two nice 12 inch fish. I decided to spin around and set anchor nearby because it was getting dark and we needed to set up the lights. Once the lights were set up, it only took 20-30 mins and the minnows were surrounding the light. Couple of minutes later, first rod down. From there it was NON-STOP from dark till 12:30am. Over 100 fish put in the boat. I could count on both hands how many fish were "dinks". Every fish was 9.5- 14 inches. There were 3 of us in the boat and we had decided on a limit of 10 per person to take home. Ended up taking home 35 as some were hooked too deep and wouldn't have made it so on to the ice they went.
A dozen-dozen minnows used with only a few dead soldiers in the bucket being tossed into the lake as we eased back towards the ramp. I'll add more pictures to the post in a few hours. But for now, here's the bass from the 12ftr.
http://www.crappie.com/crappie/attac...8-11-bass2.jpg
****Highlight of the trip****
Aside from the big bass on the 12ftr earlier in the day, the highlight of the trip came right towards the end of the night when my buddies 12ftr off the back started swimming off to the left. We hollered to him to grab that rod, he picked the rod up fought a fish then ended up getting hung on the anchor rope. He decided to just set that rod back in the rod holder and deal with the others since we were getting ready to leave anyways. 20 mins later all the rods are in the boat and he and my brother start pulling the anchor rope up so they could get his line untangled. 14 inch crappie wrapped around the anchor line attached to the end of his 12 ftr. Hands ClappingThis fish was released on technicalities. Thumbs Up
****Basic Run Down on Set up and conditions****
Steep drop offs in 20-27FOW
Fish were being caught from 6ft-15ft deep.
Tightlining minnows under the lights.
Water temp during prime time was 88.2*
Slight breeze from time to time which helped with the bugs but when it stopped, LOOK OUT!!
