Fri. Afternoon at Stonehouse

I am leaving now, w 3 doz small minnows and a bunch of new jigs. first decent day in a while. will report later tonight. hopefully I get to feel the thump today :biggrin

What are your new jigs?

how did you do???

Blake

New jigs are several different BGBS, Kalins Money Jig, some of my favorite Mid South Tubes, a few Southern Pro Hot Grubs.

Caught about 20 crappie in all; released all but 4. Two of the 4 kept were nice ones 11+ (will verify tomorrow), the other 2 kept were smaller than I normally keep but I wanted to have enough to fry up tomorrow evening.

Fished from 2-8. Didn't catch a crappie until almost 5pm. I started catching them all of the sudden in the same area I had trolled through and cast in all afternoon. It was weird how fast it changed but I am not complaining. I caught the 2 nice ones, which I think are two of the best I have caught out of this lake ,within minutes of each other.

All crappie were caught in 10-12 fow about 6-8 ft deep around submerged structure. I caught most tight-lining double minnow rigs. I did catch 3 crappie casting as well and probably 10-15 blue gill. WT was 62-64. Fish were not on the lay downs and really close to the bank like there were on my last trip. I think they have spawned on this lake and are starting to move out a little.

I had a great time today and marked 3 new brush piles or some kind of major structure in several good spots. I now have 8 large structure marks and this lake is so small I think I can just start hitting those first and search only when I am not catching on any of these spots.

Sounds like a good day on the water... As close as we are to each other I am sure its the same but I noticed that the water temps dropped about 4 degrees from Monday to Thursday... I found that the fish had moved much deeper than usual Thursday... I had my best luck 9-11 foot deep in 11-17 foot of water... More than likely you saw the difference at 5 due to the water temps rising through the day causing the fish to move a littlte shallower...

Is the boat ramp nice? Could you post some pics of the lake? I am always looking for new waters to try...

Blake

Blake

Blake,

The ramp is good. It is small, but I have seen some really big boats in the lake and they don't seem to have any issues.

Pic of the lake a couple of trips ago on a nice cool, spring morning and a pic of one of the 12 inchers caught Fri. I cleaned all fish today. Both the 12 and one other were full of eggs and they were not bloody. Kind of surprised me; I guess I will still have to look shallow for a couple more weeks.

Attachment 88546Attachment 88547

Thats a really good fish... I looked it up on google maps it would be about an hour and a half drive for me but I think that I may plan a trip that way... Which one of the three amherst lakes is best for crappie? PM me if you would like...

Blake

I stick to Stonehouse and Thrasher bc Mill Creek is always full of boats. Mill Creek is much bigger and may have better numbers but i like the smaller two lakes quite a bit.

Good report, thanks. That's a nice fish in the photo.