I hit woodburn lake on Sunday evening. I knew the other lakes leading to it would be crowded. Just kept my cool, planned ahead for waiting at the launch, and took my time. We ended up keeping 15 crappies. We lost way more than we caught including one giant that gave a good thump, shook his head, let me see him, and then he was gone! I think he gave me the middle finger (or fin).

The good news is that the fish size this year is way better than last year! The fish are really healthy. The length has been there but the width has not. They are now starting to look like dinner plates! The bad news is there are 30 less fish to catch during crappie camp

The water temperate was really hot on Friday and Sunday (79 plus surfaced temp). I assume the fish would be deep so I skirted the weeds in 16ft of water. Marked nothing. It took a minute to realize the fish surface feeding were in fact crappies. I used my spring tactics to catch a lot of them. Single gold Aberdeen hook 3 feet under a weighted float with no sinkers. The other hot bait was a big bite twister tail "Parrot". I think the key is the orange tail as it really showed up good in the water.

I did locate a few more spots where we have not previously caught crappies. Things are setting up nice for the camp!