Attachment 101383Mikes first crappie
I've been promising a friend (Mike), who is also the worship minister at church, that I would take him out crappie fishing. A couple of weeks ago I said, "We keep sayin we're gonna go, so what days of the week are good for you?" He says, "Thursdays and Fridays are best." Well OK then this last Thursday the weather was supposed to be good according to the forecast at the time, but by Thursday afternoon it looked like maybe not. We had already made the plans and I had a bucket o' minners so off we went after work.
I took him down to Muskrat lake in Allegan Co. as thats a pretty sure bet for some fish. We went to the far end of the lake and I set him up w/ my 9' light weight rod rigged with Franks bubble bobber and a 1/8 oz. chartreuse jig tipped w/ a minner. I had my UL rigged the same only a pink head. We worked along in 12-15 FOW just off a weed line casting and slow retreiving, but nada. I moved us over to a spot where a point comes out into the lake and the break line drops steeply from 8' with weeds, down to 18'. I had switched to an 1/32 oz. orange jig w/ a watermelon shad plastic body and no bobber. Bang, Bang, Bang...three casts and slow retrieve and three nice crappie. Mike says, "Dude your killin' me back here"! I really wanted him to catch some fish so I told him to try slowing down his retrieve and stop for a bit occasionally. Well that seemed to make a difference and he pulled in a few fish and lost a couple. Meanwhile, I hooked a couple more and I told him I wanted to go try another spot that usually hold fish.
We motored around to a small bay off the main lake where there is another weed line that drops from 8' down to 16'. We found them there too. All in all we boated a dozen fish in a couple hours, which isn't a marathon by any means. We kept 8 eaters, and I had to try to catch a couple w/ my long poles out the front just to show him another tactic...not a fish???
We pulled the boat out at 7:30 and covered her up. Not sooner did we get on the road than the rain started. Pretty good timing I think.
:biggrin
