5/16/08 Toga Fish on! & 5/20/08**
Friday 16th, 2008
Toga, Toga, Toga
Air temp. not out of the 60's
Water temp. in the low 60's
Wind: 10-25 mph
Fishing time: 10:00am - 2:30pm (didn't want to leave)
Tackle: 5' 6" Cherrywood rods and Okuma reels with 6#, 1/16oz minnow style jig heads w/ 2" rib grub (brim)
Depth of water fished: 2' - 20' FOW mostly 3' - 7' FOW
Target species: crappie
The wind was blowing like crazy but not the hardest that I've been out in. But enough to make control of the boat hard, which anchoring up was the best way to fish. Plus, I forgot the depth finders for the boat so I just guessed and dropped the anchor, time to fish. The 1st place that we stopped and fished ended up being the place that we spent 75% of our fishing time. I was just about to pull anchor and move when SLAM-O, fish on. This largie took my 2" brim rib grub on the fall and caught me off guard. A fun fight with 6# line and a 5' 6" light action rod.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...051608_01a.jpg
Need less to say, I left the anchor alone and stayed in the spot for a while and let my grub take the fall and counted to 5-7 mississippi before I started to work it back to the boat. The best method was fish the deeper side of the drop and fish down close to the bottom with a reel/pause/reel/pause retrieve.
But, in our search for crappie, we moved in a little closer and shallower water. The wind was making some choppy water so I figured time to try a tubejig and bobber approach, put the waves to good use. But, ended up with another bass.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...051608_02a.jpg
While moving shallower did yield some crappie, but the numbers weren't there so we moved back out to the deeper water to play with the masses of bass. Here is my fishing partner for the day, a well seasoned net'er, hehe.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...051608_03a.jpg
We then pulled the anchor and ventured down the lake. We worked the mass drop off 3' to over 20' FOW within a few feet. We found masses of bass hanging in the rocks down 10'-12' FOW. I had 4 bass boated in 4 casts, never even gave my buddy and chance to get his line wet.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...051608_05a.jpg
This one is for TPB, thank you for the plastics, I just love these 2" rib grubs, so do the fish.
"Open Wide"
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...1608_04tpb.jpg
Once my buddy figured out to cast close and work the drop, he was into the fish.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...051608_06a.jpg
All the bass along this break were 15"-17" and all seemed to average the 2# range. Lots of 2.2#ers and the largest one was just 2.3#, but one hell of a fun fight on the light action rods and 6# line. BTW, out of the many crappies that I caught, most in the 10" range. I ended up keeping 2 - 10.5"ers and these nice 12" and 13"ers for supper, that my son and I ate this evening along with venison steaks. Our wild game surf and turf was yummmmmmy.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...051608_09a.jpg
Till next time, maybe Tuesday with NAD42.
Fish On!