drumking, Tims Ford, Black Nose Crappie, 08 Jan 2013, Bent Rod aka Rick

[FishNews]

We had a favorable weather report for today, so I called Rick last night and asked him if he wanted to fish for crappie on the Tims today and he agreed to go. It was such a pretty day. Chilly to run the boat, but we were both dressed for it. I had an alien mask that blocked the wind off the face and head, so I was really toasty most of the day.<br /><br />We found fish on some different docks today and that is always a good thing. But, the only drawback was we could only get 2 or 3 per dock to bite. It seemed that after we caught one or two and maybe had a breakoff or a pulloff, the rest of the school got lockjaw. So, it was on to the next dock and one or two more. It was that way all 1/2 day that we fished.<br /><br />We actually landed 10 really nice Crappie including my first TARP of the year, a beautiful 14.25 inch Black Nose Crappie. I had another that was 1/16" short of being a TARP and a couple 13.5 inch fish. Rick had a 13.25 inch Black crappie and had a big Crappie break his 6 pound test Mr Crappie line. It had to be a huge fish from the flex that the fish put on his rod. emoBang We didn't even get to see this fish. It stayed down for 15 to 20 seconds and then made a fast surge and broke his line. <br /><br />On this same dock, I hooked a big crappie that we got to the surface and it pulled off before Rick could even get the net, but he saw the fish and said it looked like a 16" fish. Bummer. Later on at another dock, I had a fish that looked to me to be my PB Crappie, break my 4 lb test Mr Crappie line, but I think that I had a bad place up the line from my knot. I had just tied on a new jig and the knot was good. I got a good look at the fish and it was a monster. It broke my line as Rick was scrambling for the net. Again. emoBang emoBang emoBang .<br /><br />We caught most of our fish using 1/32 oz jigs with Bobby Garland 2" shad minnows glued in place. Fish were mostly deep, just off bottom and about 20 feet deep. The water temp at Tims early was 50 degrees and rose to 51 degrees by 2:30 when we quit fishing. The water was clear. I'm going back for another trip very soon. Hopefully, before the weather decides that it is winter time. We didn't take but a couple of pics, so we have a little bit more than just a fishing tale. emoBig emoGeezer I wish that we had taken more pics. I took 10 home for the freezer.