Thread: Classic Report

Man Jerry your memory going out I told you every trip I went last year when and what I caught em on. Can't say I didn't try to put you on some.

Nice effort Russ!!!! We're proud of y'all!!!

ABH----Minners AND CRITTERS!!! NUFF said. Lol


Big River Marine
Bill Burnett
870-635-0202

We offer Xpress, Excel, and Alweld Boats. Yamaha, Suzuki, Evinrude, Mud Buddy, and Tohatsu/Nissan Engines.
Pro Staff, Southern Pro Tackle and Ozark Rods.
Member, Tri-State Crappie Anglers

Waiting for blue thunder and luvpt's report, are they laying low.

We just ain't got nuthin to brag about J.W.!!! Seriously, it was a perfect storm that went downhill from the git-go. We did not do our homework and got a good spanking for it. Prefishing tourney waters is an absolute must and we did not get to do that at all this time. Three days before the tourney I nearly tore my shoulder off and had to keep my left arm in a sling for two days. During the tourney I had maybe 20% function of my left arm (the jury is still out on whether I tore the rotator cuff muscles enough for surgery or tuff it out) which is the one I always grab the rods with.

We arrived in Columbus late Thursday and had to run Paul down to get our weigh-in vouchers because we were unable to be at the seminar and dinner Wednesday night where they were given out. We did not get to prefish the water at all and in fact had to find a boat to follow to the water on the first morning just to find a boat ramp. This was our first sight of the classic water and it was really an eye opener.......nothin like the river oxbows around here for sure!! We found a creek mouth running into the main river and started trolling. The water was pretty muddy and the bite was poor. We were just not in the fish. After changing locations several times we finally caught a good 1.5 lb crappie about 11:00 but it had swallowed a roadrunner and was bleeding around both sides of the gills pretty good. We managed to keep this fish alive until about one hour before the weigh-in! By 12:30 we only had that one fish and decided we needed to do something drastic. We cranked up and headed south to the Aliceville pool (which I understand covers more than 8,000 acres) and after about 45 minutes of riding we finally found a cluster of boats (14 in all) in a good looking area of the water and headed into that area. We knew it would take us approx two hours to get back to the marina, load up and make it to the weigh-in so we decided to fish it until 2:30 which didn't give us very much time. We caught 7 fish in the next hour but they were not good ones (9-10 inch) and we would have been throwing those dinks back if we had been back on our home waters. One of the other teams told us on the water that the larger fish bit early that morning.....just our luck! Those 7 fish are what we weighed in for a total weight of 4.09 lbs! I didn't know a weigh-in could be so low! We were so far down in the rankings after the first day that it was obvious that we could not catch up and a top 20 weigh-in total was impossible. The next morning saw a 20 degree temp drop and 25 mph winds plus a flat tire on David's ride.....we figured that it would be futile to continue. We cut our losses and headed home without weighing in the second day. We wound up with 95th place out of 142 which was a disappointment but we do feel like we learned from it and will be ready for the next one. We are also qualified for the Crappie USA Classic which will be held in two weeks on Lake Barkley in Cadiz, KY but will prob not fish it unless we find a way to get a few days prefishing in. I will not risk a repeat performance of last weekend. These large tourneys are extremely hard for a working person to be successful at because of the inability to learn the water before the event. BTW, David used minners and did have his RR tipped when he caught the big one. I did not use minners and could not tell any difference in the number of fish caught with either one. Maybe the big one bit because the minner made the difference...who knows? The only time we consider using minners is during a tourney....for us they just don't make a big enough difference to justify using any other time.

Sorry to hear your shoulder is hurt bud. Glad y'all made it home in one piece. Thanks for the story. David I got minner patch for ya.

jw ,just fyi 7 of the top 10 was spiderrigen minners and the other 3 was single poling ???? MINNERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks JJ Nice Pic