This is more like it.....

Today we're at 74 degrees. Yesterday we were just a tad bit cooler, but still darned nice. We fished this morning and had some decent success on crappies, both of us bringing home 6 or 7 each for dinner tonight. The bite was 100% plastic and no doubt about hits at all.

The wind jumped up and bit us before we were ready to quit but boat control got the better of us or we'd have enjoyed hitting a couple other spots on the lake, but this day was nice as is. Temperatures are supposed to stay quite nice for a while now so maybe the lake will set some solid warmth and get fish in the mood to play. I know I'm ready any time they are.

I think we are all ready for some settled down weather. Too many changes going on right now.

As a rule I won't be found on this particular lake on a weekend day. My buddy got an early pass for this morning so he and I hit the water real early....we were to the fishing spot at 5:30 am, just as the sun started to lighten up the eastern horizon. We did a quick water temp check and found the surface at about 54 degrees and we had to go down about four feet to find the layer of cooler water. The crappies were laying right on top of that cool water in the warmer stuff. I set my cork at 3.5 feet and the first cast was hit immediately. As long as something purple with a chartreuse tail was on the jig the fish hit.

We caught only three short crappies today and they were at 9 1/2". Our "norm" today was between 11" and 12 ", nice fish but not huge fish. We each kept a half a dozen for the table tonight but caught significantly more fish than that. Total was well over 100 crappies. As long as we stayed along the primary break where the deep water started at about 7 feet we had fish to catch. Docks that extended out over deeper water were hot too as long as the jig was worked under a float and along the length of the dock from shallow to deep. The bright sun right off put those crappies under the decking looking for shade. Docks gave up about 75% of today's fish. Not many smallies today, but we did see more sunfish action...big sunfish too.

By 9 the wind ramped up to about gale force so we pulled it before the weekend idiots converged on the lake. We had the ramp to ourselves long enough to get the trailer backed down in the water and then 5 big rigs pulled in. Half were sucking beers while getting the boats ready to launch so I don't think we missed much by getting off the water early. Nice morningon the water while it lasted though.

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Originally Posted by RetiredRR

I think we are all ready for some settled down weather. Too many changes going on right now.

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Ain't that the truth! I am really tired of wind I know that

A friend and I hit the lake again this morning real early and were greeted with rain and wind, however the elements didn't matter much as we fished a dock. Our third member of the party for today got a call with a family emergency late last night and he had to cancel....and he had the boat. I didn't have time to get mine ready so we just did the dock. But once again we had a field day on crappies. 11" to 12"....every crappie caught fell inside those tape marks. Unreal. And the purple/chartreuse held strong again for color preference. It didn't matter what the bait's profile was as long as it was under two inches and purple with a chartreuse tail.

We literally were able to just drop the line in the water right off the edge of the dock and get bit. Three feet deep from the time we made our first casts just before the sun rose until we decided we'd had enough rain and wind. This has been about the craziest bite I have ever seen on this lake and the crappies haven't begun to move shallow yet. Its nuts.

Thursday will be my turn to take the yacht. The weather is calling for rain and wind again....what else. But if the fish bite, what does it matter?

Temp backed off a bit. Thurs and Friday only into the 60's. City crappies are out and about taking the sun just like the young ladies are around the City Lakes. I finally got out Thurs evening for the first real fishing of the year. No crappies, but I hooked up with my fishing buddy for over a decade now and we managed a couple of sunnies, a couple of bass - one of which was real nice - and we both had freight train carp pick up the little crappie plastics and then take off for the next county and may still be going for all I know.

Last evening the witching hour bite finally turned on a bit before 7. Bite was at the surface in a shallow warming pool that they always use this time of the year on a fast retrieve of dark or black spike tail shad plastics on 1/32 oz head. Oddly retrieve turned out to be faster than I have ever caught crappies on using plastics. We were literally buzzing the black (and electric chicken - 2nd best at best) along the surface. A lot of the bite was sidways line movement too light to feel; so the line had to be visible. The two of us had a huge number of doubles. Size was a bit above city normal - IOW we took a couple that beat 10" but most ran 8" or 9".
I suppose we threw back maybe 90 crappies and an additional 25 or 30 sunnies to 7". All the fish we caught were in good flesh, not a skinny one among em.

We had to try quite a number of patterns and retrieves until it became clear that black shads buzzed right at the surface turned the trick. Also there seemed to be one hump that pods of crappies would stop at to eat. Most of the rest of the water was much less active. Most of the meat fishermen around us had real slow pickings. Minnows under bobbers went wanting. It was amazing how many of the sunfish took a full 2" plastic bait and the jig head completely down in the mouth.

All fish were released.

Hey there bud! I sent you a pm.

I was on the water last on the 26th and since then things have gone to the dogs. We've had overnight lows of 38, 38 and 37 starting on the evening of the 26th. Wind all night long and rains that have been cold haven't helped a thing. We were dry when the rains began so at least the lake levels haven't shot up. On the Tuesday trip the water was at 60 degrees just about everywhere we went on the lake but the cold front was bearing down on us with icy wind so we quit with ten fish and got off the lake by about 9AM. As we readied the boat for the ride home another boat hurried into the lot and launched. We got to talking with a couple guys who were camping next door and as we chit-chatted the boat that just left came right back in and loaded. They said as soon as they turned the corner onto the open lake the wind changed their minds. lol It sure changed ours and we were in a much smaller boat! I've heard rumors of a 15 degree drop in water temperature but that sounds a bit extreme. I can a ten degree drop though. And that'll mess up the fishing big time. Oh well, we're early this spring so there's plenty of time for things to come around. I hope to get out next Tuesday.