Report; 4/11/19

Our first outing this season! We use to be on the water by mid March. Guess we're just getting old. Besides, the weather hasn't been stellar as of late. Today was suppose to be rain free and decent air temps. We launched around 11:15 am this morning, with the air at a brisk 44 degrees and the water at 50 degrees. Calm to moderate breezes.

We had wanted to hit the Oxbow for some yellow perch and crappie, but the river is near flood stage and the parking lot is half underwater! So we opted for Hampton Ponds. Not a great fishery, but last fall it did ok by us, so we figured we'd give it a shot.

This is what she looked like a bit after lunch:

Attachment 338659

Looks idyllic, doesn't it. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the crappie! When we pulled off around 2:30 pm, we had caught & released two crappie, two puny pickeral and one bluegill to show for our efforts. (Definitely not up to par!) We side pulled 1/16 oz. & 1/18 oz. ball head jigs (with various plastics), over 12 - 24 fow throughout the lakes basin. Got my crappie on a skiptomylu hand tied horse head jig. (The BEST!) :)

The enhancements to the small boat worked well, so we were pleased with that aspect anyway. Oh well, it was a beautiful day to be on the water regardless of the bag. Here's a couple of our GIANTS for today (LOL!):

Attachment 338660

Attachment 338661

Hopefully, the water will be down tomorrow in the river? If so, we'll target the Oxbow on Saturday. We'll just have to see what Mother Nature decides to deal us. :)

Nice to see you guys back at it. It's been a long winter. Good to see your work to the boat turned out like you hoped. Good luck on Saturday. I plan on driving an hour south myself on Saturday for my first open water trip this year.

Sent from my SM-G530R4 using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

Good to see you 2 back in action.