Three Fun Days on the Hill

After missing out on fishing for over a month following hand surgery, I finally got to make up for lost time this past week, fishing on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

I brought the boat out of mothballs, and I spent three fun mornings on the Hill, starting around 8:30 and finishing around noon.

The lake showed heavy stain, high water, and an abundance of floating trash ranging from tiny stuff to trees longer than my boat.

I did notice the lake levels drop significantly from Wednesday to Saturday.

The good news was an abundance of bites and bent rods. I totaled approximately 130 crappie over the three mornings and had a ton of fun. All were caught long line trolling in 6-20 ft of water.

If there was a downside, it was that the overall size of the fish decreased significantly from the previous week according to the photos and reports of those who were able to go during both times.

But it was a joy to be out there, and I can't wait to go again!

Congrats! Still full of eggs?

Very well done brother. Keep after 'em cause your still makin' up lost time on the water.
Glad your healing is going so well... and hopefully you'll be better than ever.

Good to see you getting out and catching good numbers of fish. Nice looking box of fish :ThumbsUp

Nice catch and thanks for sharing. Thinking of trying the hill tomorrow can't find them on murray.

Thank you all for the well wishes! While I missed out (hopefully only for the time being) on the 1.5-2 lb fish that bit earlier, I definitely paid close attention to the fish I kept and cleaned. The vast majority were no where near ready to lay. In many cases, their eggs are still small. Only a handful of the larger fish even showed a "belly bump". The medium fish eggs are creamy, some pale and some bright yellow. No veins running through and no individual eggs separating. I suspect many of the larger fish developed quicker and a large percentage spawned during the bright "super moon" nights.

To be fair, I didn't fish the shorelines where the spawners would be. Consequently, I think I only cleaned one male across three trips. I think the spawn will be a drawn out process, partly due to fronts/temps and also to the rapidly falling/drawn down water levels.

Thanks for the report and glad to hear you’ve got the hand surgery behind you. I am looking at back surgery according to my physician. Ironically, my last activity before my back went out was loading a brush pile onto my boat. That was Sunday. And the boat and brush haven’t moved.

Glad to hear your getting back out and man for 3 days that's a lot of fish! That had to be a blast.

Sent from my VS501 using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

Sounds like 3 good days of fishing William. Congrats and I know it had to feel good getting back on the water again feeling that pull!;)