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Tried my luck after work yesterday
After my last trip, I was hoping for a more relaxing evening and the crappie gods were agreeable with that request. I launched at 5:30 and pulled off at 8pm. I chose to go back to the smaller water and found it to have calm water conditions. As I drove to the pond, the fair weather clouds were thickening a bit, with one a bit darker than the rest and I thought, "what are the chances........?" Turns out the chances were pretty good and it began to sprinkle about 30 minutes in to my trip, very lightly so it wasn't a problem but still, just my luck. Lasted about 20 minutes. After I got set up and got the lines out behind, 1st fish was a small, very energetic bass that immediately tangled all 3 lines. Seemed as though my poor karma from the last trip might carry over in a big way but thankfully, that was the last bad thing that happened on this trip. Here is a sample of what came in to the boat:
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No one else was fishing tonight when I arrived; a boat with 2 guys arrived about about an hour later, and headed over to work the shoreline where I was trolling. As they got closer, the friendly guy in front noticed I was trolling and asked how much line I had out, I assume to be sure they didn't come too close and get tangled in their prop. I told him about 50' or so and he commented that they'd go by in front of me, if that was OK. I said sure, no problem. I really appreciated them asking so I felt sure that we could work around each other.
Friendly guy (FG): "Whatcha trolling for, trout?"
Me:" Nope, crappie."
FG:" Never heard of that, does it work?"
Right on cue, left hand pole, #1, takes a good hit, I scoop it up and set the hook into what turned out to be a nice 12 incher. As I set the hook, pole #2 in the center loads up with another fish. I tighten my grip with my left hand on #1 and grab and set the hook on #2 and quickly stick it vertical between my legs and get ready to reel in #1.
Me: "Sometimes......."
Before he can reply, pole #3 on the right takes a couple of jerks....
Me: "Now I have a problem"
Reach over with right hand again and give a tug but whatever was there didn't get hooked and he dropped right off and the line was empty. I reel in #1 and lay him in the net in the bottom of the boat and then reel in #2 with a slightly smaller crappie and release him and #1 back in.
FG: "I guess it does. If anybody doesn't believe that you hooked 2 at once, I'll vouch for you! What are you using?"
Me, very non-committaly, " a couple of small light jigs"
FG: "Hmmmmmmmm......looks like they work pretty good."
We then parted ways, them tossing bigger baits, probably for bass; we gave each other room and managed not to encroach on each other for the rest of the evening.
Final tally for me was 1 small bass, 18-20 nice crappie (most were 11"+, only 1 or 2 less than 10") and about 7-8 bluegill. All were returned for another evening when I might bring a cooler and bring a few home for dinner.
