I had spoken with guide Terry Blankenship after him being recommended by some good crappie dot com folks down on the Missouri end of the board. He agreed to to take us fishing on the morning of 06/02. Even though he is a great tournament crappie fisherman and an extremely likable guy with several corporate sponsors I did not know if he actually realized the challenge of what he would face on this day. My wife and I have managed over the years to completly shut down the bite on several small bodies of water, have caused monsoons and tornades at the end of July, and once completly shut down the bite on the Gulf of Mexico. If people knew it was us bringing the bad luck fishing, I'm sure we would be paid to stay away so good fishing trips would be had by all. I tried to keep this information hid from him, but I think he sensed a challenge and would pull out all stops to put us on fish. For years I was a closet minner fisherman, but after age set in, I would blatantly flaunt my minners openly for everyone to see. I told Terry this and he said we would not be using minners but would be casting jigs. I had never heard of such nonsense. Catch a mess of crappie on plastic and on top of that, cast the plastic out and reel it back in deep water. Nonsense is what I said, but Terry said I may stand a chance at learning something even though I was thinking I had passed the learning stage long ago.
The morning of the trip, Terry picked us up at the end of the dock in his boat and after a small disagreement over the minners I had attempted to smuggle onboard in a 2 liter mountain dew bottle, he convinced me to leave the live bait and we set out for some structure he had marked fish on with his 997 side imaging Humminbird the day before. We arrived and Terry rigged us up with some Bobby Garland jigs in various colors and showed me how to tie what he called the tournament knot which is blazingly quick and easy to tie. He demonstrated to us the technique and before long had both the wife, and I, catching suspended crappie with a spinning rod and jigs. We limited on 9 to 11 inch crappie and released a bunch more. The lake was calm and water temps were in the 80's. I had a great time learning new stuff and seeing neat electronics and catching a whole bunch of fish. The place we were staying had a really nice cleaning station.
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Where I was able to convert this
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To this
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Did we have a good time? You betcha. Can hardly wait till the next.
Thanks Terry.
