11-01-2010, 09:00 AM
Had to check on the house in Knoxville and start blowing leaves around so decided to take the day off and first check to see if any of my Ft. Loudon pet crappie were still around. Got on the water about 11 and a boat is sitting on my #1 spot, a huge submerged tree. First time I've ever seen anyone on "my" hole . emoBang Headed to my favorite stretch of docks and the wind was blowing straight in to them. To make it even more challenging for this dock shooting novice, the water is up as high as I've seen it so there isn't a whole lot of room to get back in to the sweet spots. Spent the first hour mostly retying as the 1/32 oz jigheads were skipping off the waves and going over the docks, ropes, cross beams, etc, etc, basically everywhere but where they needed to be to catch fish. A frustration shot ended up trimming my favorite crappie rod from 4'8" to about 4'6" and after a few choice words I decided to go exploring away from the wind. Managed to find a fish here and there, nothing bunched up at all. Ended up putting 5 keepers in the well, 8 or 10 non-keepers, and more little bluegill than I could count. Two biggest were pushing 13".