Crappies, Huckleberry, a blank, and God

Mike here with a late report from the weekend.



Starting on Friday I hit a local Strip Pit on my lunch hour for a few casts and to clear my head. This pit/pond was deep and clear and the bass we still in prespawn.

Caught 4 small males and one decent 16” with great color. Worked a smoke Hula grub on a gravel hump and found it really hard to go back to the office that afternoon.



Saturday a front came through and the weather was sunny,rainy,cloudy,rainy,sunny with the wind changing directions every 10 minutes. That would explain why I’m wearing sunglasses in the rain… really! It’s not because I want to look cool… I’d need a lot more than sunglasses to pull that off.



Anyways the Crappies were biting and catching a nice fat 12” on the 9’ ultralight was a blast. I did a little scouting for family fishing day on Sunday and they were just slurping up the Chartreuse 2.5” Gulp Minnows. It’s the bait of choice on this lake for panfish and almost anything else that eats small minnows.



The next morning the weather cleared so the kids and I went out and they slayed em’. Rachel was a Crappie machine getting 7 beauties all by herself while her brother Christopher wasn’t to be outdone with 3 Crappie and nice fat Bass that cleared the water at least 3 times! I was so excited I forgot to take a photo.

We kept just enough for a fish fry and threw the rest back for another day. Working a slip bobber set at 2’, casting out to 8 foot of water and just slowly bring it in with a stop and go motion was the trick. Some fish were deep, some were shallow but they all wanted the Gulp. A great time was had by all and later the kids still had time to ride scooters and play with their furry friend Bailey. If your’e a crappie fisherman, those Gulp baits are awesome. Though they are a little on the pricey side, we used only 3 bodies between the three of us for 2.5 hours and over 30 fish.


In other news:
Jamie went out yesterday for a short 45 minutes. And being the honest site that we are we proudly report that he blanked ( c'mon, one 6" yellow bass and one 10" largemouth is a blank) He hooked into yet another monster-class smallie that nailed the lure, jumped and got off immediately.
Alot of spawning big bass were seen and passed by. We DO NOT fish for spawning fish. No exceptions. Sometimes it's good enough to see a couple of huge fish at your feet just doing their thing. Then just walk away knowing that there will be more fish in coming years. ( Note* The missed monster smallie came from deep water. She wasn't a spawning fish yet. Not all bass spawn at exactly the same time. You can still effectively fish for bass at this time...just don't cast shallow,please). Hey..would you like to be hooked while you're gettin' your freak on???


It's time for the Jade "Huckleberry" Miller report from Rock Island,IL Mississippi River:
"Well last night produced more from the multispecies bonanza for Mark on a new crankbait he bought including a nice largemouth, especially for river standards. He also managed a nice 19" walleye at dusk. This morning we both managed some smallies with the largest of mine going around 15-16". Actually had some showers start and caught 3 smallies on four casts."


And finally..It's random photo time!!!!:
This one was taken by Jamie Riani last night as the storms came in from the west.
So not only did he see some spawning fish....he also saw God.


Keep your pole in the water!