Friday, April 1Got on the water around 3:00 pm and went straight back to the river (salt end) past cougar point. With the water temp around 74 I thought they would be shallow and up near the trees. Fished about a mile+ of shoreline tossing light jigs with all sorts of color combos. I didn't catch anything but a few bluegills and some tiny bass. Stopped tossing jigs around 6-6:30 and began trolling. Passed by a bunch of boats getting ready to do some night fishing and still didn't have a crappie. By this time I had seen tons of shad boiling the surface. Wasn't sure if it was crappie coming up to them or all the diving ducks... regardless, I started to troll where I saw all the shad popping the surface and got about 200 yards from the group of people night fishing and boated a double of dinks (2 crappie under 10 inches). Tossed them back, and ended up landing another crappie on my other pole immediately (another dink). Continued on and got another dink 50 yards later. With the sun about to set, I decided to anchor up and drop a light over the side where I was catching all these dinks. Started seeing some shad 5 minutes after setting up the light and getting nibbles within 10 minutes but couldn't connect with anything. Landed my 1st one around 8:05 and was still getting nibbles all night. Packed up and went in for the night around 9:30 and finished the night with 10 crappie (1 keeper, 9 dinks) and 1 two pound LMB.
Totals:
14 crappie (13 dinks, 1 keeper), 4 LMB, 5 BluegillSaturday, April 2 (Spring Crappie Fest)Got on the water around 8-8:30... long after most guys since I was up late drinking from MeNRats' Molson keg.
Went straight back to where I was fishing the day before. Was gonna give myself a few hours and head out if I wasn't successful. Started trolling at the cove I anchored up at and didn't get anything. Trolled past some submerged trees and my sister got a hit and landed a keeper! Whoo hoo! Continued trolling shoreline with no crappie (just another bass) for another hour until I passed that tree again and my g/f landed a 1.75 lber. Decided there was were crappie hanging out in these trees and fished this tree area all day. The boat ended up with 5 keepers weighing 6.10oz and gave us 2nd place in the SCF. Lost 1st place by 3 ounces... Would have been great to be able to weigh-in those dinks! haha, oh well. Rules are rules. My girlfriend's big crappie ended up being the 2nd largest crappie weighed in, and it was the 1st fish I had ever seen her actually catch by herself (and it's been 4 years!).
Totals:
7 crappie (2 dinks, 5 keepers), 2 LMB, 1 tiny channel cat
