dinner plans had to change….

I had a doc apt early this morning and got great news on that front and figured I’d celebrate some with a fishing pole in hand. I hit up some local water and the purple/chartreuse paddletail bait got nailed on the first cast. A nice 12 1/2 crappie. Over the next hour or so I took five more like the first for dinner tonight and released several more that were smaller. The highlight today was a smallie in the 20+ inch bracket. Man what struggle on a 7 foot panfish rod spooled with 4 pound mono….same purple bait.

I had 44 degree water at 5 feet and that was the depth the fist were hitting at. 2 degrees difference from last Friday and what a difference it was. I plan to hit it again in the morning, but for tonight the dinner plans got changed with fresh fish in a bowl.

Happy to hear your doc appt had great news. What a better way to celebrate than catching a few crappies and a nice bonus smallmouth too.

Great to hear, Tom! Fish it up!

Congratulations on a good day overall….

The portion of the lake I fished yesterday had turned over since as I found out this morning. The fishing was tougher today given the flip and the colder weather. The water had lots of the crap that comes up off the bottom during the spring turn-over and the fish seemed off the bite. Yesterday’s heat is to blame.

I had to drop down to a 1.5″ paddle tail today as anything longer and all the crappies would do is hang onto the tip of the tail. A shorter bait solved that problem. Purple/chartreuse tail was the only producing color today except for one fish that hit a clear glitter/chartreuse tai bait. Yesterday deeper water and fishing deeper was the key as I had to have at least 8 feet of water and have the cork at at least 5 feet. The same water depth was key today except the fish were hitting in everything from 5 feet to 2 foot of water under the cork. Yesterday all I had to do was cast and keep the slack taken up, not a lot of action put on the jig on my part. Today they needed action almost constantly.

The angle of the fishing held here makes the critter look about nine inches but in fact I have only seen three fish smaller than 12″ in the two days of fishing and they were all caught yesterday.

The water right now is great and hopefully we’ll see a good spring bite shape up here soon.

The cold night and water temp that dropped a full 5 degrees at five feet of depth sure stuck a fork in the morning fishing. I couldn’t even tempt a carp or smallie into hitting this morning. The high skies didn’t do me any favors either. The afternoon bite might come around but this morning’s bite was bad. I fished down to 9 feet and found zip.

I can’t wait to get out and try! Normally I would have been poking around out there by now but the last month has been a struggle between both the wife and I working and closed daycare. My oldest is 4 so I’m excited to get her chasing some panfish here soon. At least we aren’t dealing with sky high water levels so far this spring! Happen to know if fisherman’s is available as a launch?

Fisherman’s is coned off and I would assume that with the county owning it now launching will be a fineable thing until the new area is finished and formally opened.

The water level is coming down nicely but the water temperature is dropping about as fast and that has really screwed things up. The weather is calling for both rain and snow beginning tonight thru Sunday night. The Easter snow we’re supposed to get is still a mystery as far as how much…sort of worries me. Spring snowfalls can be super wet and we don’t need a pile of water back in the lake right now. Things were really shaping up nice until this morning. If it stays dry today and the sun stays out we could see an afternoon bite but then things go downhill on the temperature end and will really have the bite off for a while.