Fishing Forum

Friday the 13th turned out to be an unlucky day for the crappie. For the conditions, we had a very good day. We landed 40 crappie, 1 drum, 1 smallmouth, 1 golden shiner, 1 spotted bass, and 2 bluegills. Hal almost had a TARP, but alas, it was 1/16 short of 14". My biggest crappie today was 13.5 inches. Hal caught the smallie and my pet drum and the golden shiner. I chipped in with 1 of the bluegills and several of the crappie.<br /><br />We launched from Tyner Lane this morning around 7:45 and ran upriver for a ways. Our first stop was to a dock that I had never fished before and it was in shallow water. Hal had caught a few fish off this dock in the summer time and although the water was only 3-4 feet deep and the current was flowing a brisk 94,000 cfs and pushing straight in on this dock, we wedged up against the dock and I made a 10 foot cast and caught 5 crappie in a row and 7 total before we left that spot. Talk about a surprise. I had no idea that the crappie were as shallow as this. We used this clue to sort of order our day. <br /><br />We left that dock and ran into a creek and caught fish in shallow water over brush. We saw Labman and Gator out there today and they had a few crappie when we talked to them. After we wore the creek out, we went back to the river and tried one deep spot, but all that was biting was 1 bass. A few more docks yielded shallow crappie on them. I think that most people were fishing deeper today. I talked to a few people today who were having a little trouble finding fish. We shared what we had learned with a couple of them and hopefully, they found fish.<br /><br />The hot lure today was the stubby butt in albino shad color. I also caught fish on BG shads in albino color as well. These two baits are extremely close in color. The stubby butt in 1/2 inch shorter than the BG shads. We only had about 2 or 3 throwback crappie today. We caught a bunch of quality 12-13 inch fish. I fished this color exclusively today and Hal was changing lures, colors, sizes, often but really didn't get on a hot bite until he put the albino color on and then he started catching fish like he is supposed to. Now before everone makes a run and buys out all the albino colors today or tomorrow, just remember. Don't fall in love with a particular lure or color. Tomorrow, the fish may not touch them and will be on red/chartreuse like gangbusters.<br /><br />Hal surprised me with a T-shirt today and a thank you card for helping him and Marty with the fish fry a few weeks ago. I wore it fishing today and it brought me good luck. I will wear it everytime now until I have another bad day. emoBig emoGeezer