Thread: Anybody fishing?

I've been catching some lrg bream on micro spoons tipped with minnows while I'm spider rigging for crappie.

Catching some in Florida

We cuaght 8 crappie yesterday on KY lake and 11 gills that we kept. The crappie were cuaght between 9 & 15 fow with a jig no minnow. the jigs were my version of a firetiger, green, chart and orange, and an emerald shiner, green, blue and white. We cuaght a bunch more crappie but they were short, the gills we cuaght drifting around trying to find them, mostly in 6 to 12 fow. We didn't hit the water till noon so today we'll hopefully go a little earlier and do a little better.

I hope to go today, and try out the new terrova as well.

Going Tommorrow

Originally Posted by jimp

I hope to go today, and try out the new terrova as well.

You'll like the Terrova, we only caught 7 keeper crappie today, again no minnows. My wife was using a chart jig and i was using a firetiger. This afternoon we were looking for some gills, we were in about 7 fow, we used the spotlock on a small brushpile, caught a bunch of crappie but only 2 were big enough to keep but it was still alot of fun. We cuaght all of those on all whit jigs tied with chart or pink tiped with wax worms & without. We can't find any decent sized gills, everywhere we try we get a bunch of little ones but we wound up with 9 decent sized ones. Gonna have a fish fry with 9 people so we gotta do a little bettter

I definitely like the Terrova, great boat control and speed control. Installed the Ipilot last night and going this morning to test it out this morning/today. Definitely a big upgrade for my boat over the 5 speed MG I had, where the speed was set, with little/no control over speed control.

Last evening after work, I picked up 9 crappies and some three or four others that came unbuttoned within in sight of the surface under one of the few docks that are still out, a couple of small perch off the deep bottom (about 20') and a few bluegills.

There were bluegills all over from concentrations just under the dock to scattered fish all the way down, but nothing of any size and they are feeding very, very tiny on something. I have been working luv nubs pretty heavily, both sizes, fishing vertically on a tight line. Standard crappie tubes are also working when one gets the color and subtle settle down right for crappies with the tiny GULPs also taking bluegills, but needing to be rebaited all the time.

Crappies are suspended these days and can be anywhere from deep on the bottom in 20' all the way up to 6 or 8' down but with most fish coming deeper than shallower. Bluegills and crappies are taking 10 and 12 size shad darts and the crappies are also taking 32nd oz round head jigs with size 6 and smaller hooks, which the bluegills only nibble on. I have had to drop down to 2# line to get the shad darts deep enough and still have a tight enough line to detect the ghosts. My best crappie response has come from starting on the bottom and working slowly up the water column using a soft lift and settle until I make contact. Most of that for crappies has been close to the bottom where the dock shadow crosses 12 to 20' of water. Perch have been on the bottom, and sunnies anywhere from surface on down with the better ones tending to be deeper but not always.

I release everything and have been able to put back limits + (Minnesota crappie daily and possession limit is 10) working the deep ends of the fishing and boat docks for a couple of weeks now. Lots of ghost bite these days, too; so holding the one rod we are allowed here in Minnesota has not been a limiter. The last of the fishing docks around here that reach the necessary deep water go away around here this week; so access to the deep dock shadow pretty much disappears around here then, too. Most of my crappies recently have been coming from beyond the outside weedline off open flats at the second or third break out; so without the docks shoreline fishermen like me will no longer be able to reach them and without the additional structure of the dock shadow many of those crappies will relocate then, too, but not all of them.

There aren't many up here still going after open water crappies and bluegills with most panfishermen around here now waiting for ice up. Mostly I am fishing along side the muskie hunters with their big sucker baits these days. When their quarry moves in my bite pretty naturally stops as the panfish duck for cover, and vice versa when my bite is on; so we kind of watch each other . Interesting social interaction when neither bite is active, friendly enough, too. There are a surprisingly large number of common observations.

I haven't put down a live minnow for crappies now for several years; for me plastics simply work better in general and much better in any active bite, and with a whole lot less fuss about keeping bait alive, and almost never a deep hook either; so survival after release is very dependable, too.