Not bad for being a second choice

Despite the weather man saying hot and humid, Jeff and I made the decision to try and catch a few crappie today. We picked Pine Lake in Barry Counties Prairieville Township. Neither of us had ever fished it but the satellite view looked promising. We got there shortly after daylight to find all 6 parking spots full and signs promising that the truck would be towed if we parked along the road so instead headed a few miles south west to Crooked Lake.

Long line trolling proved to be a challenge due to tons of floating vegetation but we managed to put a couple of 10 inchers in the box shortly after we started. We moved to the up wind end of the lake and found cleaner water and started picking up some throw backs, bass and small pike. I hooked what I thought was another decent bass but when it surfaced 10' behind the boat I saw that it was a decent crappie. I swung it into the boat and saw that it was more than decent, it was BIG. A quick measure put it at just over 14", big enough to qualify for master angler.

We eventually worked our way to our "old reliable" spot and we both hooked up on good fish. Mine was a nice bass and Jeff netted a crappie just over 13". We picked away at 10"-11" fish as well as some throw backs before I stuck another good fish. When I saw it in the net I broke out singing "oops, I did it again", thinking that I had landed a second master angler but it came up 13 7/8, 1/8" short. Still a real nice fish. Finally the heat got to be too much so we headed for the launch with maybe 15 good fish and a bit of sun burn.