Went fishing on April Fools Day. The first time this year I have been out fishing. Got a late start and got on the water about 11:30 am. We fished until 3:00 PM without any luck. We tried several different spots and the water temp was 49-50 degrees all over the lake. Finally I decided to try a shallow cove on the NW corner of the lake and the first thing I noticed was that the water started getting warmer. The temp was 59-60 degrees back in the shallow cove. We had been trying minnows all day and I decided to put a Chartruse 1/16 RR jig on and my first cast to the outside edge of a boat station and I nailed a 12 inch Crappie. A few more cast and I had a couple more in the boat. I went to the back of the cove and started back out on the opposite bank and a boat was coming in and seen me catching fish so cut in front of me and started fishing in front of me. They had watched me catching Crappie with the Chartruse jig and so they started using the same Chartruse jig. I just stopped and let them go ahead for a couple of lifts before I started fishing again. They was catching a lot of small Crappie. I lost my RR so I tied on a 1-1/6 lead head with a red hook and RR Umbrella tail Black and Chartruse, with the salt in it. I started fishing and that is when I started getting the better Crappie. Before they was getting hooking in the lip, but now they was taking the jig way down so there was no chance on losing one. The other boat noticed that I was catching all big ones and turned around and came back and watched to see what I was doing and using, I speeded up my retrive and started catching smaller Crappie like they were catching. They asked how I was doing and I told them I appreciated them catching all the little ones so I didn't have to bother with them. They turned around and left. I slowed back down and started catching the big one again. They was throwing to the bank and burning the jig back to the boat and was getting all small fish. I would cast to the lifts and let it drop a foot or two and then reeled it in with a medium retrive letting the jig down about 3 foot. I caught the bigger females on the outside of the lifts in about 6-8 foot of water, and the smaller males came on the front side of the lift next to the banks.
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We fished for an hour and took home 17 fish with 3 of them 10-1/2 inches and the rest between 12 and 13 inches.
The weather is up and down so often the fish are going to be messed up for awhile until the temp level out. Spawn is going to be fairly early this year. The egg sacks were kinda small this year. EB
