Thread: Guessing is my game

To be very sure of this part , I guess most of the time and even visualize in my head, where the crappie might be and what they might want to eat . The last 3 days I have visited 3 different types of water bodies off the bank and or dock . Spot one , Small lake with a fishing dock in it ,they were in 12 fow parked on the bottom in the shade and really tricky to ketch . Very light bites and it had to be very still to get bit, in that location for sure . Spot 2 , Big lake , and again I was on a dock in 12 fow and those fish were about 3 to 4 foot deep and either slacking the line hard or thumping it hard as it went very slowly along the edges of the dock . Spot 3 was a river bank and that is another totally different fish story ,,,,,but it was WAY different than either of the other 2 spots I visited except for the shade part of it all. Mind you this , all the spots were midday visits and the weather has been very stable , for about a week now and it's been rather warm as well .
So in the end what drives them to do what they do, and act how they act is still a mystery to me on many of my local waters . They never cease to amaze me on the variables it seems , and to be very sure of this, what works well today in one spot , may not tomorrow and the same goes from lake to lake and pond to pond and river to river .
Now let's explore what common variables were in in the mix ....
the only parallels in the mix other than the shade part that I noticed, was the size of what they wanted . All 3 spots had fish that had very little interest in larger bait profiles , 1/16 jigs with the ole regular standard size bait bodies on them were just not what they really wanted . I did manage a few in each spot with them , but as soon as I went really small , I became a player and not just a spectator ..... in the end it goes like this , if you want to fish and that's your thing , it's all good with me , but if you are into ketchn fish instead of that , downsizing your bait this time of year is likely going to be the best way to ketch them .....just saying
and then , KABOOM is always near ya'll

Originally Posted by JUNGLEJIMJIGS

The little tiny jigs work great this time of year with all the fry from the spawn swimming around. Some gills are spawning again to add more food to the food chain. Yesterday I saw quite a few small bass from this year's spawn and looked like they were less than 2" long. Crappie will eat those in a heart beat. Matching the hatch will get you bit. Proof is in the pictures above. Fun times for sure.

They will often get bit when regular size jigs get ignored, and not just small fish as is often mentioned in some circles