Persistence Pays Off With a Few Crappies!

Well, it had been nearly a month and a half since I had done any kind of fishing, and, for me, that was a very, very long time off the water. And I couldn't remember the last time I had seen a mess of crappies.

So, encouraged by Stumphunter's recent report, I loaded the trolling rods and a few minnow drop shot rigs, and decided to give the Hill a try. The morning started off very slow. Trolling for a couple hours yielded only six crappie, with only 2 of them big enough to fillet. I thought I could find a school of perch to eat my minnows, but I struck out completely there also.

By now it was 10 am, and the sun had broken through the clouds, on its way to getting hot. I had to decide whether to call it a morning or try to catch some mid day fish...Thankfully, just being out in God's Creation was success enough so I decided to try one more place.

On the way I saw a few arches on the bottom in 15-20 feet that I thought might be perch. I put out my minnow rods and didn't get bit, but I did hang one rod on an unmarked brush pile. As I eased over to try and get it free, my two minnow rods went down with crappie!

I tossed a marker, and really got to understand what a fine line existed between success and failure as I get bit every time I got near the marker on this one bit of brush. A fellow fisherman fished minnows all around me with zero bites while I caught 12-15 a few feet from him. When I had a wonderful mess, I insisted he come over and fish the brush too, and I hope he did well also. All the fish bit between 10:30 and 11:30 am around 8 to 12 feet down in 16-20 ft of 80° water.

What a blessing to be on the water again!