Before Work, After School

[ChrisWallace]

Got out today after class, before work, ok I was late for work, by a few hours, but it was worth it.

Started out looking inside a bay, the deepest the bay gets is 7 feet of water, this is a great place to be, due to the muddy bottom and the decomposing of all of the leaves and weeds that have fallen into the bay, all add to the increased water temp, which may only be a few degrees but those make all the difference in the world. I also had an inlet flowing in, which was kicking out alot of bugs and invertbrates, the creek also caused a nice mudline. Which I really keyed in on.

I was working 4 to 6 feet of water with paddle tails, troo floos and crappie knockers. The sunfish came on the true floos and a minnow and the bigger crappies, the females, came on the paddle tails, in both black/red and black/silver.

Right now, the females are not in the shallows yet, almost 90% of the fish I caught today were younger males, you can still tell the spawn is a ways off, they haven't quite turned their dark black yet. I did pick up a few females, and one or two were actually pretty chunky, they were released and hopefully can complete the spring ritual.

After I had fun with the crappies, I looked around for some gills, I only found dozen or so, but they were in the 7 1/2 to 9 inch range, some real nice ones. I had the area all to myself today, which was really nice, I was lucky enough to have a guy stop to snap a few pictures for me.

The highlight of the day was having three Big Pike take three different crappies right at the shore as I was pulling them in. Within 8 feet of my, I had a legitamate 40 incher causing a lot of problems. Way Cool to see happen, not once, not twice but three times. All three times had the same result, no crappie, a lost float and a lost jig!

I don't know what it is, but there is something about fishing from the shore on a great spring day, makes you feel like a kid again.

[Spinach]

Nice report CW, can i possibly use the pic for one of the next issues of Outdoors Weekly?

[ChrisWallace]

Not a problem Pat.

[Mayfly]

Hey! Heck of a report and heck of a picture!! Nice Hat!

Thanks Wallace!