drumking, chickamauga, crackers, crappies, bluegills, 5/9/09, Hal

[FishNews]

Hal and I were default winners of the May crappie tx as we were the only ones to show up. When I went to bed last night, there wasn't any notice that the tx had been canceled. Hal got up this morning and left Signal Mtn at 4:30 just to be at the ramp on time. You guys won't have to worry about us fishing the crappie txs anymore. <br /><br />On the other hand, we had a fabulous day of fishing. No storms either. Just perfect fishing weather. We started off shellcracker fishing as Hal wanted some for the freezer. We fished until about 9:30 and caught a bunch for him. Then we decided to crappie fish. We fished from 9:30 until 1:45. I didn't keep an accurate count, but we caught in the neighborhood of 60-75 crappie. Most were keeper size. I don't know for sure how many that Hal kept for a fish fry at work, but the cooler was full of crackers and crappie. I'm guessing he kept 20-25 crappie and maybe 30 crackers.<br /><br />Water temp was about 66 degrees the only time that I looked at it. Southeast wind finally shifting to NW around 12:30. The crackers were caught on panfish assassins and the crappie were caught on bg shads in every color that we tried. A 3 to 4 count was the best count, but late, the fish went deep and a 10-12 count was necessary.<br /><br />We had a great day and Hal will post a picture of the fish when he gets home. I forgot my camera this morning. I actually thought that I had it in my pocket and reached for it and emoBang emoBang it was still on my computer desk. emoBig emoGeezer