dennis like you said, the key to catch bigger fish most of the time is to fish spots that other fisherman are not beating to death and are not obvious to everone that come's along !!!
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dennis like you said, the key to catch bigger fish most of the time is to fish spots that other fisherman are not beating to death and are not obvious to everone that come's along !!!
It's hard for me to decide which is better cos for me they always go hand in hand...I always try to fish quality and quantity when I hit the water. That's my objective anyways. The question is a little subjective for me. Let's say i go fishing and catch two... two pounders all day. The next day I go catch 20 fish 11-14 inches. Which day would you think I would say I enjoyed better? As far as crowds yes this applies most times... but not always IMHO there are some locations that consistently produce big fish reguardles of crowds...the folks that spend time in these crowded locations and learn how to fish the area... can bring great stringers in cos they have spent the time to learn the waters and fish around the crowds. There are a couple of places on Lake Dardanelle and Conway that fit this billing cos of the spots ability to consistently reload for whatever reason from the main lake. Good Read tho Dennis thanks.
Good read Dennis, I was telling somebody the other day that my problem tourney fishing was to try to catch 7 big fish instead of a limit of eater fish, like you I was raised on fish deer meat and squirrels.
You got that right, some lakes are so full of fish limits or even 100's possiable. You up the odds of better fish by hitting small hidden cover.Quote:
Originally Posted by MEATGETTER
Good read. Thanks for sharing. Both thoughts, quantity vs quality each have there place and time. :twocents
Absolutely and it was my point of the writing. I love to see people catch good limits of eating size fish. On the other hand, I personally choose to chase after the super slabs 99% of the time. Both means of fishing are rewarding.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingfish1
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Great read, Dennis, and a lot can be said for both approaches. I'm kinda like you with my deer hunting. I started out many years ago just trying to kill a deer, then it was a buck, then a bigger buck and so on until I got to the point where my sole purpose in a given deer season was to kill a specific buck that I usually had a game cam picture of, and every other buck was safe with me on the stand. I'm not bragging, just saying that my objective had changed over the years and I had reached a point in my deer hunting maturity that I set out for the big ones, not just a buck. Many years have gone by with me killing only a couple of does for meat and no buck because the one I was hunting never showed up. Unfortunately, I'm not there with my crappie fishing! I don't always catch a limit, in fact, more often than not I don't, but that is my objective when I back the boat in the water. I enjoy every minute on the water, and keep fish only 10" and above, and sometimes bigger than that, depending on how the day is going. If I catch a big gun, that's just a bonus for me! So, I think there is a place for both, and perhaps you have reached that point where your butter gets melted by catching the bigguns, not the table fare. Anyway, I thought this was a great read and I personally think you should send it to slab and let him publish it as an article. Good job, dude!
Groing up in NE Oklahoma we did not have the areas that held a large number of BIG fish and we were usually fishing to eat so we were glad to ahve a limit of 11-14 inch fish. Now that I have the lakes here in AR to fish, finding and catching BIG fish seems allot more fun that catching the smaller ones, but I still will take some over none.
Good article Dennis. If I'm fishing by myself (which I do 90% of the time) I am definitely after quality fish. I caught two fish the other day during a 5 hour trip to the local lake....one was a good solid 17 inch slab and the other was 9.5 inches. That big black Crappie was pushing 3 lbs and I couldn't have been happier if I had caught a hundred10-12 inch fish. I guess it's the adrenaline rush I get when I know a big one is on the hook! As far as eating I don't know that there is any difference in taste with respect to size. I filet'd both of them and they fed two adults with fish left over. I cut the larger slabs into six smaller pieces each and fried them all together in olive oil in a cast iron skillet. I couldn't tell any difference in the flavor of the large fish vs the smaller one......they were all "out of this world good"!
I catch a limit on occasion, but when I started crappie fishing, I started out tournament fishing. I didn't do very well, but I learned as much as I could from some of the best in the country at that time. When I go fishing now, I concentrate on locating big fish. Sometimes I find them, and sometimes I don't, but I try to learn something new or different every time I go about catching and locating bigger fish. Thats just the way I learned to do it. I do like eatin em too, and I like the 10-11" fish the best for table fare, and sometimes that's what I go to catch, Eaters. Nuttin wrong with either way.
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