Murray Report 4/3/16

Its been a while since I've posted a Murray report and quite honesty, it's been a while since I've fished my local waters.

Yesterday morning the wife and I took our future fisherwoman to church and enjoyed some family time before lunch. I found some time to cut the grass after church and decided with the warm temperatures and the wind easing up that I needed to make a trip to the lake.

Me and my dad headed out, and after a stop by the bait shop, started fishing about 4 PM. We started out jigging some shallow brush and it didn't take long to strike. About the 3rd lay down, I flipped into about 4 FOW next to the trunk and saw my line twitch ever so slightly. I reared back and a nice spawning female rolled up to the top. We fished a few other likely looking places with no success and decided to break out the dock shooting rods. Dock number 1 held a nice keeper about a pound but wouldn't give up another. While trolling to the next dock I saw a few fish flipping up next to the bank so I made a cast and bam! I was hooked up with another respectable keeper. We continued down the bank and I saw a foreign species bust the water chasing bait. Before I knew what I was doing, my fishing reflexes had kicked in my little jig was in route! It didn't take long before it was hammered and I mean hammered. I kicked the trolling motor into high gear and followed the fish to deeper water. My little 4.5' shooting rod was getting a workout, but the fish proved to be no match for my light tackle and up floated a large striped fish! Another one removed from the waters of Murray!

After that brief, but exciting battle we continued on to Dock number 2 which also gave up a few fish from the darkness under it and we decided with the sun getting low to try to tightline for a while before dark.

Tightlining proved to be equally productive and we boated several fish before calling it quits. Fish were in 8-12 FOW about 6 ft down. We had a few nice quality fish and some eaters in our livewell. A total of 12 crappie made the trip home and several little fish were put back for next year. It appears that fish were in every stage of the spawn and post spawn. The bigger fish were looking a little thin, but the smaller fish still appeared to have their bellies in tact.

All in all it was a great afternoon on the water with my Dad. We went out exploring and found just about every idea we had to work in our favor. We didn't wear them out, but I was sure satisfied with our results for a quick afternoon trip!

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Good job Derek. I haven't been since March 14. The boat is getting some work done to it.

Enjoyed the report. A afternoon on the lake sounds like just the ticket. Congrats

Another epic tale of adventure Derek. The best thing about afternoons, the winds usually wind down making for a beautiful day on the water. Congrats on the catch.

Nice catch Derek and thanks for sharing. Hope you enjoy the motor

Sounds like quite a day all around. Congrats and thanks for posting. :)