I haven't posted really at all this year and read Danny's post about his back and thought I would share. It was a long trip so bear with me. My family as well as my mom and dad rented a houseboat at Dale from EastPort Marina. I never knew this place existed and i have fished this lake for 25 years. it is about 14 miles past sunset marina up in Obey and while they are out of the way, they have some of the nicest houseboats for rent on the lake there. Good folks. Check them out if you ever are in need of a houseboat. My son caught the first keeper crappie from that dock while we were getting the houseboat settled, btw.
Well, i was planning on doing some night fishing for crappie/bass and just having a good week. First night we made it just past sunset marina and i set up the lights for crappie. First 5 minutes had a good keeper. Next 3 hours had maybe 20 more (but not a single keeper). That is my typical night experience. I am no expert and had never even fished DH for crappie at night or day but it was a dink fest for sure.
Next day, we move up closer to mid lake where i like to bass fish and took the boys out in the afternoon for a little bass fishing. While fishing a slide, i had to check out my new Garmin LS unit and there at 20' was what i thought a pile of crappie. while they bass fished, i pulled out a jig and caught a nice 13" fish but that was it. Later that day i got some minnows and headed back to that slide. I ended up catching probably 25 total with a few really nice ones from that one tree over the next few days. I caught a few more here and there but even when i could find slides with good cover in deep water, i just couldn't really get more than a few off of those other spots. That one tree really saved my week crappie wise.
As for the bass, it was quite good some evenings/nights and really good on others. it changed every day it seemed. Had a few days with a really good topwater bite. One in particular we had 3 doubles and 2 triples in an hour. All fish in the 3lb+ class. It was awesome. 90% of the smallmouth were really healthy slot fish 19-20.5". The LM were for the most part very fat and healthy although we caught several that looked just a few weeks removed from their spawn and were beat up and still had bloody tails.
Was a great trip, learned alot using my new Garmin. that thing is really going to help me put more fish in the boat whether white, black, green, or brown.
I'll try to post a few pics although i have almost none of the crappie. The one i do have is of my Mom and I. She never fishes and probably has caught 10 fish her whole life but she had the big crappie of the week at 14.5" from the aforementioned tree. Was a great trip on my favorite lake in our area.
Hope all is well with everyone. Take care
