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Awesome day on the water in Southern California, 6/19, King Crappie and more
My fishing buddy and I had a rough day bass fishing when we went out last at the end of May, and I ended up having a session saver at the dock pulling in some nice crappie while he watched guys on spincasting gear roping bass nonstop, so we've been planning to get back out when we could to just fish the dock from afternoon to night instead of waking up at an unholy hour and dealing with a boat all day. He called me up a couple days ago asking if I was free and I told him heck yeah, let's do it. Packed gear, water, 3 bass rods and my rod tube with my UL in it, picked him up and headed to the lake. We both brought 4 setups, I laughed and told him I really only needed the 1.
Lake we're at is a world class bass fishery, but it puts out monster panfish as well. The secret to it is pretty simple. It's only open a few months a year, and only 3 days a week when it's open, catch and release only, artificials only, barbless hooks only. It's also the only lake that allows you to fish at the boat dock, and was the only lake that allowed you to fish at the dam. Bummer to lose access to the dam as it was great for bass fishing and holds a massive concentration of mutant sized gills. The dock holds some nice ones in the .75-1lb range but to get the true monsters you needed to go deep at the dam. Crappie and bass rule the dock. I'm not super familiar with all sunfish species but I believe the lake holds just regular bluegill which get chunky but not huge, and then coppernose which are the gigantos. You can luck out and find a school of crappie anywhere on the lake, but the bigger ones only concentrate at the dock.
We are very fortunate to have this wonderful fishery in San Diego as Bay fishing is a shell of what it was 20+ years ago and freshwater has always been tough. Bass fishing is as good as it's always been, which is to say not very good. I've lucked into incredible bites at shore access only lakes more than at the fancy bigger ones. There used to be a couple decent crappie lakes but I never hear about good bites anymore. One of the shore access lakes had some monster crappie. I don't know if people were keeping it a secret or if it was a secret only I knew about, but the city or county in all its infinite wisdom decided to drain the lake and kill everything so they're gone now. We have 2 lakes that produce big redear, one I figured out when I was in elementary school (I am almost 40 now), the other I can't catch any sunfish at to save my life.
Anyway, on to today's session. Fished from about 2-730pm. Tackle used: Bellezza Prototype, Stradic C2000S, .2 PE Varivas Super Trout whatever, .8gr jighead with #6 super sharp hook, 1.5" black/silverish stinger tail bait I buy on eBay
Approx 20 Crappie, 2 under 1lb, about 6 1-1.5lbish, 2 giga crappie close to 2.5lb, the rest about 2lb
Approx 6 Bass all 2-2.5lb while fishing UL. Bonus 4 bass caught while fishing for bass when the crappie temporarily went into hiding.
Approx 8 Bluegill all around 2/3-3/4lb. Great quality but no monsters. Bonus 1 bluegill while fishing for bass.
My buddy fishing for bass went 2+ hrs without a bite as he watched my rod perpetually bent over but my bite had died by the time I gave him my UL. He eventually found them in a new spot, picked up 3 solid 1.5lb+ crappie and had his fill before moving back to bass and ended up having a solid day himself with 10+ fish when someone flipped the bass switch on.
I don't have any pictures, I'm sorry! Almost every crappie there feels like a trophy and I just want to get them back in the water quickly. I'll be back there very soon. I love taking other people fishing and it was good enough today that I told a non fishing friend I'd take him and his wife out so I'll definitely have a net to make it faster and easier on the fish and snap a couple pics. Here's a picture of a beautiful woman holding a crappie to make up for it. I'll do you guys a favor when I post my pictures and stick to the fish and keep the ugly guy that caught the fish out of it.
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