Thread: My DIY Projects and Great Adventures

Excellent and that does look good! What’s the batter you used?

Originally Posted by DrNip

Excellent and that does look good! What’s the batter you used?

Dried fillets…..smattered in sour cream…..mixture of Panko crumbs and Ritz crackers.


I don’t really like to fry my fish as other ways can be so flavorful and non greasy, but for tacos I figured why not. We like blackened fish and I want to bake some fish as well. I have always wanted to try Pompano en papilotte ( pompano in parchment paper- substituting crappie ). This is a recipe that is supposed to be THE king of all fish dishes. Hollywood A listers would travel to the restaurant in New Orleans just to get it.

Crappie are such a delicate little fish that they can be used to make crab cakes, or baked. So many recipes for baked fish where crappie would be excellent choices. No need to add too much seasoning as there is no bad flavors or smells to overcome. I don’t think anyone should eat them as sushi or ceviche due to parasitic infections. Many freshwater fish suffer from these little guys and most are microscopic so you don’t see them in the fillets. Also I don’t plan to consume huge amounts of crappie either due to mercury levels. So fixing really good crappie is my goal, and the. eat it couple of times a month.

I am getting better at cleaning them, and that ain’t all bad.

Up top- 1/16th ounce, size #1 hook, chenille and mop, painted blade. This should do well as it is compact and about 1 3/4” long.

Lower jig is longer and has a bigger blade but it can go deeper.

I had used Tail Gunners a few months back and had some success, but I really was not a very good fisherman at that point. Time to bring them back. I like the two tone fat belly profile as it mimics shad.

I have been reading again and there are some suggestions that the major portion of a crappie’s diet is not shad. Here in my local lakes we have large populations of freshwater shrimp. These shrimp cling to aquatic vegetation and grow to be almost 2” long. They might even be an invasive specie having been dumped by aquarium enthusiasts. So many varieties of shrimp hard to know unless a biologist examines under a microscope.

However, the point is that shrimp are eaten by many fish, both saltwater and fresh. It is possible that there are huge pods of shrimp roaming around in the middle of the lake. There could also be other creatures hanging out. Plankton blooms for example. So it is a guess as to why there are crappie in the middle of the lake, hanging out. They have been there since I first started fishing for them in January. So my choice of using a shad profile might be good, might be a huge swing and a miss. Might be they think jigs are shrimp swimming past.

I have been considering the colors that seem to do well, and none look anything like a shrimp, or a shad or a creature of any kind. So I am not really tricking them with a bait-n-switch kind of deal, rather I suspect it is a reaction bite. Much like a spinner bait or buzz bait with bass. It doesn’t try to look like something, it just screams- “Here I am catch me if you can”.

The curly tail grub looks enticing, but in my horribly stained water I suspect it is the vibration/sound that it emits that is the lure. Could just be the noise something small makes as it goes thru the water, and everything is determined by size and streamlining. I know that speed is very important in this entire matter. Could be certain speeds cause grubs to emit better sounds, or a certain speed allows the crappie to home in better because the vibrations are better. Most likely it is all based on the day of the week and whether Jupiter aligns with Mars. Mumbo Jumbo.

I know that my wife’s chihuahua is finicky. Sometimes she turns her nose up to “filet mignon” in the little container marked Cesar. Drop a crunchy dry dog pellet on the floor as if a treat and she gobbles it down. So it isn’t what it is, rather how it is being served. My wife will be more happy eating a horrible burger at a restaurant than a great burger I make at home. Same thing. I wonder if crappie get tired of eating the same old thing and see my jigs and wham.

Trout fishermen have spent their lifetimes trying to make flies that look just like flies. They seem to believe it matters. We do not however see them using neon green and Atomic Yellow. So it probably follows that crappie do not also require some exactness of nature to be considered.

We see these new age robots designed to appear as lifelike as possible. They kind of give us the creeps. Then we see a robot that makes no attempt to look human and we love it. My wife mentioned that to me some months back and it could be that attempting to make a lifelike, true to form mimic is exactly the wrong thing to be doing. Baby fish must discover food sources and they do that by observation of others and trial and error on their own. Like the man who was the first ever to eat a crab. Someone had to be first to try, but there wasn’t a line for him to wait in.

I like the 1/16th ounce jig above because it is compact, colorful, a good weight for my technique and selection of shallow lakes, and it has a special noise/vibration feature to it. I think it will do well. I will test it against my curly tailed plastic baits when I get to go fishing again.

Originally Posted by Micanopy

Dried fillets…..smattered in sour cream…..mixture of Panko crumbs and Ritz crackers.


I don’t really like to fry my fish as other ways can be so flavorful and non greasy, but for tacos I figured why not. We like blackened fish and I want to bake some fish as well. I have always wanted to try Pompano en papilotte ( pompano in parchment paper- substituting crappie ). This is a recipe that is supposed to be THE king of all fish dishes. Hollywood A listers would travel to the restaurant in New Orleans just to get it.

Crappie are such a delicate little fish that they can be used to make crab cakes, or baked. So many recipes for baked fish where crappie would be excellent choices. No need to add too much seasoning as there is no bad flavors or smells to overcome. I don’t think anyone should eat them as sushi or ceviche due to parasitic infections. Many freshwater fish suffer from these little guys and most are microscopic so you don’t see them in the fillets. Also I don’t plan to consume huge amounts of crappie either due to mercury levels. So fixing really good crappie is my goal, and the. eat it couple of times a month.

I am getting better at cleaning them, and that ain’t all bad.

Yeah I’m not big on frying as I am blackened but something about that color on yours had me.

They sure taste better out of cast iron also

Back from Don Cesar’s in St Pete Beach. The palace was beautiful but the room was small ( $350 a night ) and they charged extra for everything. Parking was $50 for two days. To rent a chair with umbrella on the beach was $200. Drinks at the pool $20 a pop. We explored the castle which was built 100 years ago and found many secrets. We ventured up the staircases into the towers and the views were awesome. Grand ballrooms sit idyl and unused, relics of a bygone age. Learned that the building was almost destroyed and had served as an Army hospital during the great war. Supposedly haunted by ghosts though we heard no plaintiff wails.




The beach was white sand and clean water with horseshoe crabs. I found a large conch shell and upon lifting it discovered a huge hermit crab living inside. Saw ospreys catching fish within feet of us as we floated about. I got a little too much Sun and had to go hide myself at the pool, of which they have two.





They have several restaurants inside the resort and we dined at the fanciest of them. She had triple tail on a bed of rice with with squid ink. Very nice.



I had cobia.



Four diamond rating and the deserts were super good and she had some wine. She was beautiful and dressed very nicely and she loved everything. Worth every penny to see her shining.






Then back home and we went out on the boat this morning.



We started our morning searching for large lizards as she is quite good at spotting them. There were some little ones and a few big devils swimming about for her amusement.

She let me fish a little and we landed couple dozen pretty quickly.




Felt great to start fishing and have four rods out……and catch fish so quickly. Had three on at same time. I wanted to stay and troll for more but she wanted to explore some. She enjoys getting back into the cypress trees and seeing what is waiting for her back in there.

My Lady of the Lake.






And of course she wanted to swim with the dragons. Says she has nightmares couple of times a month about being eaten by gators. I get nervous but she insists.



It got a little too hot for her so we headed home. Buying that boat was a great idea and happy I found this new hobby.

Sorry about the sideways pictures.

Almost forgot. As we maneuvered the boat between the cypress trees and the Spanish moss, we kind of got hung up a little. The moss and some limbs had captured us. That was when she started screaming about the bees. YUP…..huge wasp nest staring me straight in the face. They were flying around going crazy and the trolling motor was unable to extract us. I finally started the engine and got us out of there. Grateful no stings although I don’t know how we managed that one.

Originally Posted by Micanopy

Almost forgot. As we maneuvered the boat between the cypress trees and the Spanish moss, we kind of got hung up a little. The moss and some limbs had captured us. That was when she started screaming about the bees. YUP…..huge wasp nest staring me straight in the face. They were flying around going crazy and the trolling motor was unable to extract us. I finally started the engine and got us out of there. Grateful no stings although I don’t know how we managed that one.

Those wasp up in the cypress trees seem especially mean when disturbed.