Trolling continues to work well (9-12)

After a frustrating day at work on Monday, I decided a bit of quiet trolling would help alleviate the stress of the day so off I went; took a bigger cooler to get more of the fish direct on the ice. Not to keep more, mind you, but to better care for the ones I chose to keep.

After helping a gent at the landing get his boat loaded and secured to his trailer, I headed out, trolling 3 poles. I know what you're thinking but it worked out great last night. The action was steady but not crazy, with all 3 lures accounting for a near equal share of the catch. The green and white was a bluegill catching critter, I think every one I hooked came on it. Only kept one average 'gill as I hooked him deep and did some damage getting him unhooked. I probably landed a dozen average or smaller 'gills. The grey Stinger and the BG slab slayer, blueish with a chartreuse tail both did well with the crappie, keeping 13 and tossing back a few that were 8" or shorter. Most of the calico's were 9-11", with perhaps 2 hitting the 12" mark.
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As I fished, I marveled at the modern electronics and how they've changed the sport of fishing. With the SI on, as I trolled I could see groups of fish off to the side of my current track. I'd go down the line a bit, turn around move over to the side a bit as needed and troll back over the spot and usually, 1 or sometimes 2 of the poles would load up with a fish. Easy as pie!

Occasionally, I'd drift right over them:
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In which case a bit of vertical jigging usually resulted in at least one fish. On one such occasion, as a homeowner sat in his lawnchair at water's edge asking if I'd had any luck, I jigged up a nice crappie of about 11". I held it up for him, stating that is was around 11" or so; he gave me 2 thumbs up and said it was a nice one for sure.

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In this shot, I was moving a bit more and you can see the individual fish better; I was right on top of them and later adjusted the SI range to show more water column, that's why they are pixelated more than usual, that and the fact I was using the 455 rather than the 800 setting. The long lines on either side of my boat track are my oars hanging below the boat while I'm probably pulling in a fish.

Those are good pictures and a nice mess of fish.

Nice post, and pretty fish


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Great to hear you're having a string of good luck. Keep up the good times, time is short for us up here.
Tight lines to you.

Excellent post and pictures! One of my go-to patterns is what I call the "gray ghost", which is pretty much all gray marabou on a horsehead jig with small spinner. When the fishing gets tough, the gray ghost pulls them in.

Congrats on a fine trip. Enjoyed reading your report and the pics were great. However, the best part to me was you helping a guy out that needed it. cudos to ya buddy.

There's a bit of a story behind that fella at the landing. As I drove in, it seemed as though he was just getting ready to come for his vehicle and trailer to back down for loading up. I walked down to see if he wanted to load up before I unloaded my boat out of the pickup, sort of a you first or me first situation. I could see that he was pretty wet on just the right side but didn't say anything, but he offered up that he had lost his footing just as he got to shore and had gone over on his side. I'm in my mid 50's and he had probably 10-12 years on me so I was concerned that he might have fallen a little harder than he said he had. There are some pretty good size rocks at water's edge and it would have been easy to really get hurt with a fall on them. He insisted that I off-load first so I did, and he grabbed right on to my boat and helped me lift it down. He was obviously still in good shape as he handled his portion of the load with no problem. I then offered again to help him load up (actually, I sort of insisted!) and it turns out what he needed help the most with was backing up his trailer! We all have an Achilles heel of some sort and that was his. Finally, as he pulled ahead for the umpteenth time to try again, I told him to back as straight as he could and to stop when I told him, then simply lifted his trailer straight and told him to keep coming back. Took 6-8 stop and lifts, but we got him to water's edge and loaded up.

Great job helping this guy out like you did. Wish there were more people like you at the ramps. I've seen some really crazy stuff unfortunately.