Barkley 7/11/18

I had a very soft-spoken gentleman call me about a month ago. He had been setting up his aluminum bass boat to a more relaxing style of fishing. He had already done the Terrova and high-end electronics. He was down to rod holders and tackle. My job was to be show him and a friend how I put it all together to catch summertime crappie.

I told him it could be very tough in July and August but whether we caught fish or not, I’d answer every question honestly and do my very best to put them in fish.

We put the 1st cranks down by flashlight. The first keeper came 5 minutes later. We were trying an area I had never fished due to insane amount of boat traffic normally there later in the day. A couple catfish, bunch of yellows and another keeper and we were off to another spot.

These instructional trips where folks are learning how I run the boat, look for fish, then go about trying to make them bite are allowing me to spend paid time finding new spots and burning up new waypoints. It also gives the clients a multitude of options if and when they decide to come back to Barkley and fish the spots themselves.

One bay in particular held good crappie but a couple of passes around it and they shut down completely. The catfish and yellows felt obliged to jump on the variety of different brands of cranks I chose to pull.

In the end we had a 40 quart cooler packed full of crappie, catfish, yellows plus a surprise of the likes I’ve never caught in a crank—-a 3 foot long spoonbill that was missing its bill. It had obviously tangled with a propeller






and lost the battle. It was foul hooked in the adapose fin and took more than 5 minutes to finally wear down and let me net. The clients debated whether to keep it since it had been dealt a death sentence when it lost its bill. It went with the clients,wrapped all the way around in the bottom of the cooler.

Great day with great guys. It became very obvious the heat was really getting to the friend by the time we loaded the Excel on my trailer.



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Hey Doug,
I enjoy your reports,your honesty,and the way you help your fellow fisherman.Keep up the good work.

Good job Doug

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

Good job buddy.

Great job Doug


Sent from my iPhone using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

Good job Doug

That water looks really flat,. Nice job.