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Crappie bad, Flathead good. 8/12/20
You just have to have a bad morning fishing for crappie every once in a while just so you will stay humble and the crappie humbled Scottie and me today. We hit my favorite offshore structure before daylight and began throwing our crappie jigs.
Bites were non existent for a while. Scottie broke the ice with a largemouth bass that was 1/2” short of keeper size. Bass were breaking on top all around us, but I couldn’t get them to bite my minnow type jig. I finally hooked a nice crappie over 12” and got it to the boat and then contemplated getting the net or just flipping it into the boat. I flipped it alright, back into the water and that was the only crappie bite all morning on that spot.
Once the sun got up and we didn’t have anymore bites, we ran to Chadwick Rock. There was a school of crappie on the big rock, so I eased us into position and finally after downsizing my jig, I caught 3 nine inch crappie and then finally a 12.25” keeper that we ultimately released. Then the fun began.
I was using my 5 foot ultralight rod that I normally use for bluegills and I had a 1/32 oz jig with a 1.5” Southern Pro Pearl Stinger when an 11 pound 5 ounce Flathead decided to have a tiny snack before breakfast. We were sitting in 18 feet of water when I stuck the fish. Before we finally netted it, it got my wrist to hurting, came to the surface 4 times to look us over, released bubbles 3 times and got stronger each time it released the bubble of air and finally went into my net. What a battle with the fish being in charge most of the time. I’m having it for dinner tonight. Grin.
84.6 water temp early, 12,000 cfs and clear skies with north wind picking up pretty good. I’m taking Richard Simms, editor of Crappie Now online magazine in the morning and then I’m done until Sunday. If you want to learn a little about dock shooting, check out the June issue. Grin.
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