Doodler Road Report...chapter 3...dink city

[yankee doodler]

So we pulled out of KY camp on Monday mid morning in great driving weather. The weatherman has warned us though that the afternoon holds some storms. Well, sure enough, by the team we hit I-240 around the bottom of Memphis, we are in a toad strangler of a down pour. 30 mph is the tops and the rain is running like a river down the road. It finally eased up some on I-55 just south of Memphis, but we were going to set camp at Cossar State park on the rain without a doubt.


Billbob and Inspector Mike were already there when we arrived. We set camp, and shared stories for the rest of the night. It was pretty obvious that Tue. was going to be a wash for fishing. The weather report was not good.

Tues. was, in fact laundry day, and a day to recover from the road.
ScottyV and Steve pulled in, along with the Crappiestalkers, and we enjoyed catching up with eveyone.
Jigflinger, Clfarms and Gobob also made an appearance. It was a good night of stories.

Wed. morning came with sun and no rain...finally. It was time to fish! We started marking fish right off the bat along the dam at the break from 14 FOW down to 24. We set poles for spider rigging and went to work.
By the time we had pulled off the lake around noon, we had boated a dozen fish,but all were well below the 12 " size limit. Billbob and the Inspector were pulling crank baits, and when they came in a couple hours after we did, they had 8 keepers. Later that afternoon TomTom showed up traveling solo. He had wanted to bring his 97 yr. old father, but medical conditions prevented that.
A number of other Crappie.com folks rolled in that aftermoon, and we all gathered at ScottyV's for a great dinner and lots of jawing.

Thu. turned out to be the nicest day yet. Winds were less than 5 mph and the temp was in the mid 70's. Ed and I decided to try pushing/pulling cranks since that seemed to be the one technique that was producing fish. We did an manage to boat fish alright, but they still fell short of the one foot mark. In the mean time, TomTom was out with Bird down cleaning up on some dandy Slabs up the lake. All together, they brought in 18! Way to go gewbers!

Later that evening, the Crappiestalkers hosted a shrimp creole dinner that was just plain awesome. Bowbender and his buddy Fishinelectrician showed up bearing gifts, including a jacket for abbey.

Friday we were back out on the lake looking to boat a legal fish. After the success TomTom had up the lake, we decided to give that a try. It didn't work out as well for us unfortunately. The wind had soon picked up so much that we needed to retreat back down to the dam for refuge. That didn't prove to be very good either, and even with the drift sock out, we were having control issues. We decided that some lunch was in order, and got off the water. More members began to roll in as the day progressed. We started to formulate a new plan for Saturday.

Tomorrow would be a new day with new opportunities...er, challenges.