03-12-2013, 09:00 AM
Monday, 3-04-13, TN River fishing trip.<br />Got a late start, 24*, today by putting in at the Soddy Daisy Ramp<br />about 8:30 AM and went crappie hunting. Day started out slow and<br />only had 8 small ones and 1 small bass by 10:00 but as I scanned a<br />different place I spotted a really big school of crappie on a ledge<br />going from 10 FOW down to 21 FOW and these proved to be some<br />hungry fish!<br />I had 19 catches in a row and could have continued the string if I <br />hadn’t had a bad, short cast and didn’t get the jig where the fish<br />were. On the 21 cast I continued the string with 5 more straight<br />before missing a fish. That’s a lot of fun when you can get a string<br />like that going! I was using one of the new Soddy Tackle crappie plastics. <br />I wasn’t keeping fish today so didn’t even have the net out of the<br />box when this big fish hit which I thought, at first, was a stripper<br />but finally got him to the boat and then the scramble was on to get<br />the net out of the box. Of course it was under everything in the <br />box and I thought for sure that the fish would get off before I<br />could get the net out but got lucky. Dipped the fish up and brought<br />it into the boat then started looking for the scales. Well guess they<br />are at home so got out the measuring stick and found him to be<br />22 &amp; 3/4 inches long and really fat.<br />I put him in the live well, of course that was a fight to because I<br />didn’t have any water in the well and had the back plug in the boat<br />so no water could get into the live well. So here I am with enough<br />clothes on for an Eskimo trying to get some of them off so that<br />I can reach down below the boat to take this plug out so I can get<br />some water flowing into the live well. Finally got the water flowing<br />and put this big ole bass in so he wouldn’t die. Everything cool,<br />right? Well no, still can’t find the scales. What to do? Tried to call<br />someone who I thought might be bass fishing today but couldn’t<br />get him to answer so I went back to crappie fishing, leaving this<br />big ole bass in the live well with the water running full blast so <br />“maybe†he won’t die cause I wanted to know how much he weighed.<br />Finally a guy came up and I asked if he had a set of scales which he<br />did so we weighed this bass. He was 7 lb. &amp; 6 oz. my personal best<br />bass catch! We took some pictures and I put him back in the water<br />where he seemed to be just fine and swam off into the deep.<br />That was fun!!!!!!! Man, this whole day is being fun!<br />I quit fishing at 4 PM with a total of 2 bass and 85 crappie of which<br />only 12 were under the minimum 10 inch limit. I had several that were<br />11 and 12 inches with 2 that were TARP size, (14&#43; inches), 2 that were<br />13 &amp; a half and 1 that was 13 &amp; 3/4 inches. Several 12 inch crappie<br />caught too.<br />This was the best day that I’ve had since the middle of the summer of<br />2012. We just haven’t been catching any big crappie plus the numbers<br />haven’t been there either.<br />The count was 10 to 15 off that ledge. All in All a great fishing day!!!!!!!!!<br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br />