Saturday fishing

Made it down to Harlan Saturday to fish a place I don’t spend very much time at. I struggled to get any fish into the boat all day, and I trolled numerous locations with different baits, colors, depths, all kinds of different things. Tossing jigs didn’t really work for me either. Until almost dark, that is. I found a lot of feeding fish in a small area throwing jigs, and continued to catch about 40 crappies and 12-15 gills and one walleye until about 10:30 or so. Made up for a slow day, which was nice.

There are tons and tons of shad in that lake right now, too. I saw balls of bait nearly everywhere I went. The shad still have a lot of places to hide with all the cover still in the water, and they are definitely using it. I imagine quite a few fish are chasing them in the trees, and I didn’t feel like jungle fishing because on the edges of the trees, the shad still looked thick. Didn’t really see anyone catch anything slabbing, and never saw any whites up on top. Water temp was around 75, warmer than I was planning on. That water temp drops a little, maybe the crappies will move up on the dam, who knows.

Thanks for the update, I was wondering about Harlan. If it wasn’t quite as far I may have went there on Saturday. Water temp of 75 surprises me, it was 68-69 up this way.

I was there this past weekend and caught limits both Saturday and Sunday of whites. They were nice sized with no dinks like last year. The best times were the first two, and last two hours of the day between Hunter and Mill Creek in around 9 foot or shallower. The gulls weren’t there all the time, but you could see the shads busting all around. I tried slabbing on the deeper dropoffs during the day, but didn’t do as well as last year with the slabs. Rattle Traps in chrome were the ticket as well as Vibrax spinners. I caught them mostly casting.

Good stuff, thanks for the update.
I just wasn’t in the mood to go after whites, otherwise I’m sure I would have tried harder. But listening to the Huskers on the radio, I was a little lazy.

Nice to hear they had good size. Things sure seem to be cyclical in that respect on that lake, and on Johnson as well.
Think the next couple of weeks I might stay close….or possibly hit another not-to-be-named lake that’s a drive.

I was out on Harlan listening to the game with the in-laws and had not been to the lake this year, but came down to “listen to the game” as far as everyone else knew. I can’t beleive that no one said anything about me bringing my boat. I figured I would try the trolling thing for a while just to see if I couldn’t find a willing walleye. Whites and drum were all I could find. I can’t believe the size of drum that I caught troling cranks. One of these days that lake will take off. I am really anxious for ice season down there.