Eating Good in the Neighborhood

Saturday made it out to MacBride, it was tent city. Fished from 10am-2pm. Most people in the area I fished were all over the brush piles in 10-12 fow. I moved out to the break and fished in 16 fow. This seemed to make all the difference in the time I was there. The shallow bite dried up for the herd in tight, guessing that some of those fish were pushed off of the brush and out to where I fished alone. Caught 35 fish and 2 of the biggest MacBride gills I’ve ever caught there a solid 8 inches a piece. I kept a few crappie for a meal. Big was just short of 12in and small was 9in. No small fish caught today, no little MacBride gills or smaller crappie. I was using bigger lures which I’m sure helped, but that is the first time I haven’t been bothered by those pesky little runts. I’ve been down on MacBride due to wildly inconsistent results but when it’s on it’s pretty good. I’ll take 10in+ crappie any day of the week.

Jon, my son and I were at McBride
Saturday from 7:30 to 1:30 and saw the same thing. Houses all along the shore over brush. Guys started pulling out around 11:00 saying they caught nothing but dinks or nothing at all. We set up out deeper in 22′ over brush and started catching crappies at 16′ to 18′. Caught 40 to 50 and took home a dozen with 10″ and 11″ crappies in the mix of whites and black crappies. My son was using a spoon tipped with waxies and I used a Gill Pill tipped with two waxies. It was a great day to be out on the ice.

Thanks for the update…I watched the ice houses out on the north arm all day long- It seemed like nobody ever moved. And from your report, I wonder why? If they weren’t catching anything, it seems like a simple adjustment for you made a world of a difference.

Those bigger baits really help keep the dinks off the end of your line. However, I have caught some gills on macbride that were bigger than my lightning spoon…

Hersh, good to hear you got into them on the same pattern. Always nice to get into a good bite with the kids. Luke, I was very surprised not to have to mess with the dinks and even more surprised at the size of 2 bluegills I caught. I followed the advice of some of your posts and went bigger and away from the crowds. Worked well, did you do any good Saturday?

Nope,…pretty slow around here for me. That and that fact that work is crazy right now…

That darn work always gets in the way of things