Kowboy and I went back to the Hill yesterday along with Spiderman and Quick. We put in about 6:45 a.m. and the air temperature was in the low 30's and the water temperature was 59 degrees. The bite started right away and we had 6 nice fish in the box by 9:00. After that the bite stopped with the exception of the white perch. I think they are always biting. We fished all day and our persistence began to pay dividends from 3:30 until 5:00. Jim and I ended the day with 17 very nice fish. The average fish being about 13 inches. Jim caught two fish that were 15 inches (2 lbs). Spiderman and Quick fared even better. I took the honors for the smallest fish of the day. However, I am quite proud of that distinction. Think about it. Catching a 3 inch fish on a 2 inch grub is not an easy thing to do. We started with Jim fishing out of the back of the boat and later swapped positions. He was pushing and I was long lining. I only had one snag all day. That lake is a long liner's dream. The fish caught early were caught in about 25-30 feet of water and those caught later in the day were in 20-25 feet of water. Traveling that far (131 miles for me) makes for a long day. I was up at 2:30 a.m. and got home at 8:30 p.m. It was worth it. We had good luck early with acid rain and Arkansas shiner curly tails. Later in the afternoon the popsicle curly tail jig, that Jody Stephens made famous, along with a blue silver curly tail and a bright orange/chartreuse curly tail worked good. The Hill is a different deal. We trolled all day and marked very few fish that I thought were crappie. When we were not catching fish we weren't marking fish and when we were catching fish we weren't marking fish???
