Fishing Forum

I was on my way home from work today and decided to hit the lake. The wind was kicked up pretty bad, so I opted to throw on the waders and go for a walk instead of heading out in the canoe. I decided to pack only bass fishing gear, and walked several miles taking pictures of all the exposed structure, considering that next year the water levels will be much higher.


I worked crank baits along the shoreline until I finally picked up my first smallmouth - a dink. But I noticed that my crank was getting harassed pretty heavily on the way up, so I thought maybe downsize the hard bait and see what was going on down there. Sure enough, first cast pulled in a nice Crappie. I threw him back without thinking twice, and since I didn’t have any pan fishing gear on me, I didn’t expect to get another. I was wrong.

Decided to throw the smallest lures I had – small plastic swim baits. After pulling in another nice crappie, I needed a stringer. After almost giving up on keeping anything, I realized that I had two perfectly good stringers on my feet. I ended up spending the evening without shoelaces. The swim baits didn’t last very long, and soon I ended up replacing the bodies with modified (cut to fit the hook) single curly tail grubs.

What an awesome night! On top of a nice haul of crappies, I caught my personal best Smallmouth at 17.5 and a nice little bluegill. No picture of the bass, I spent too long working him in and taping him. The smallest crappie came in at 8 inches with the largest at 12. Anyways, it was a great autumn day to be out on the lake and what a nice bonus to have a fridge full of fillets.
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I tried to post pics inline. here goes a different method
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Awesome! Thanks for the report! Where did you find all the crappie if you don't mind me asking? (pm is fine too). I still have yet to catch one this year.
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holy crappie!
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That is awesome!! Nicely done!!
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Nice going. Love them panfish - they sure can fight with all them sideways muscles.

Don't kid yourself - Crappie have big mouths for a reason. I catch most of smaller offerings, but doesn't mean they won't slam a crank. They do seem to like "action". Seems like under a bobber gets next to no love, yet - fast food is on the hit list!

So - didn't get any musky coming in to snarf your flailing panfish? It could happen!

Good to hear form ya Carl.

As for inliners - if you check it - you have to "point" to a location where the pic gets places. Use the "picture" icon below the italic, and it'll let you select the upload But you need to place the cursor first in your post.

If you check "inline" but don't tell it where to go, it goes nowhere. Sort of.

nice job on the crappie. Ha ha ha talking about fridge full of fish look at these pics.
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Ya talking about small fish and crank baits oh the good days last year using a rapala shad rap and caught a 8 in blue gill off of it last year. I was surprised by catching a blue gill on a big lure like that . [laugh]
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Wow those are a couple of big hauls. I wouldnt be able to take that much home because it wouldnt get eaten fast enough. I fried up most of the crappie tonight with a new beer batter recipe I found online. Man were they good!

Coyote- I didnt actually have any epic fights other than the smallmouth, because I was using a medium sized bass rod with 8 lb line. But still, those crappie do put up a pretty good fight for fish their size.
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Ya this year the perches treat me pretty go as well for white bass. Just gota buy one of those bag air sucker machine. Put fish in suck it out and put to freezer and good for another few months . Ya gota love fried fish. The tiger trout feast TDT and I was amazing can beat early morning pan fry feast to fill us up.
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I'll second that. Don't get much for gifts from the familia anymore - they figger I've already bought it for myself, - but a vacuum sealer was a wicked awesome deal!

Must say I love it. Between vacuum sealing filets, smoked fish, buying meat in bulk and "packaging" servings - that and a deep freezer - made room for bait, and dinners to be. Airtight - minimal ( to no_) freezer burn. Dig it! Freeze it!

Just label it before it goes in is all I can suggest.

Ya it's an amazin invention when u got tons of perches this year ha ha ha. I remember when my dad calls me crazy because the freezer is fill up with tons of fish this year mainly wb and perch.
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