Spring Crappie(New PB)

[big-o]

Since it was the Easter weekend, My fishing partner and good friend RJ(Rob Jackson) hit a local lake for Spring time crappie.The water temps were in the high 40's ,low 50's last spring RJ and my self got in to a pile of them and the water temp was in the low forty's... so we knew we were going to pound them.... wrong, in over seven hours of fishing we managed to boat 2 small Crappie one Jumbo Perch and a small pike.... not what we were hoping for.We hit every spot on the lake that has produced Big Crappie over the years... Nada.... nothing On the way home we decided that the fish were there ..but we were going to have to work hard to find them, we worked out a plan for the following day.. Sunday we were on the lake around 8:00 am... headed to the spot that had given up the only two crappie the day before... were working some weeds when Rob calls out got one.. just has he got that out the G loomis Ultra light rod buckled over and the drag stared to sing... this isn't a crappie Using the boat to help corral this monster.. RJ fought it for about 10 minutes ..when he finally got a look at it... it was about a 20 pound carp... hooked up on 4 Pound test line a 1/32 once jig...His line had about 5 pounds of weeds on it... while trying to take of the weeds the fish came unpinned.. it straightened out the hook... after a few hours of searching we finally started to hook into them, RJ had the hot stick that day landing near 60 fish including a monster 14.5 incher. I managed about 40 fish...

I was boating fish... but no monsters, here are a couple that i caught,most of the ones I was getting were cookie cutters... about the same size.As you can see i did manage to get my first sun burn of 2010

This next picture is of the 2 biggest caught, that monster dinner plate 14.5 incher and it's smaller sister a 14 incher

Sunday My Brother and i hit the same lake... we Stared off in the same spot where RJ hooked in to the dinner plate... but this time there was no big ones.. in fact there were no fish at all.Saturday night we had some major winds,that scattered the fish. So we had to search for the smaller groups , we started at 9:00 am and found the fish around 2:00 pm. we were into a pile of 8 to 10 inchers when i watched mt slip bobber disappear.. and the drag started to work, i thought i hooked into a Bass... turns out that I hooked into my PB crappie... a twin to RJ's another 14.5 dinner plate. As you can see by the expression on my face.. this was a monster for this part of the country.

Mike was into the fish also landing many 10 to 13 inchers .. here's Mike with a 13 and 12 incher

I picked up another good one a short time after 14 inches

we managed to boat about 60 fish.. taking home a few for the pan.The two big ones i caught are going to be mounted together with a 12 incher and a 10 incher,here are my 2 biggest of the day

going to hit the same lake next weekend.. i hope to get a 15 incher

Thanks for looking

Phil

[Jax]

Great job guys, you put a hurting on them slab sides!!

[jimski2]

Great report, got my fire going.

[Kevin J Legg]

Great crappies! I can't seem to break the 14 1/4 " mark. I need to get out this week and try them myself but have been having to much fun chasing browns and perch.

[33canuck]

What were they hitting? Jig and fathead? What color if you don't mind me asking

[big-o]

What were they hitting? Jig and fathead? What color if you don't mind me asking

Don't mind at all, I'm usine 1.5 inch tube pink and white the hook is a home made tube hook 1/32 once and a red sickle hook, attached to 4 pound mono, I use a slip bobber,with a split shot stopping the bobber going all the way down to the bait, I do this so i can very slowly swim the bait back to the boat,stopping every once and a while to let the bobber go upright, i dip my tubes in Gulp alive juice, we are fishing in about 4 feet of water, so i set my bobber stop at 3 feet,hope this helps

[33canuck]

Thanks for the info I appreciate it, I'm new to the crappie game and still trying to learn. caught 30+ the other day but all small under 8" on jig nad fatheads or gold hook and fatheads under a slip bobber setup like yours. Guess its just a matter of havinghte bigger fish active.