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Great day with Dad in central Arkansas
So, Had an amazing day on the water with my dad Saturday. Very special day for us both. I want this post to represent how much I enjoyed the day with my dad, as well as maybe pass on a little information that may be of some use along the way to someone.
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We start out meeting in the we hours of the morning and driving to a lake where some of my earliest memories of fishing are. He took me back then in a 12 foot john boat with a paddle. Fell in love with it then, and still am.
Today, I haven’t seen this lake in thirty plus years. Its 25 feet high, and water is falling. Now this lake is not much more than a swamp at normal pool, now it’s a flooded swamp! Front just blew thru over night, and the winds are out of the NE. No fishing reports exist. So, its going to be a nice day spent on the water with my dad. Best we can hope for.
Launch the boat, water is 56 degrees. Two weeks away from a full moon. Crappie should be looking for a place to spawn. Water clarity is 10-12 inches but no turbidity, so that’s good. It’s a flooded forest, so we head up the creek where we launched. Been my experience that at this time of year, fish travel channels and breaklines to a point of contact with a spawning flat. I’m looking for that.
Just a little ways in, the channel contacts a steep shoreline for about a 100 yards. Green Briars line the bank. It’s 7:00am. Light, but not sun-up. I put on an orange/chart ringed tube, slathered in slab sauce. Need all the help I can get, right? Start off on some standing timber, nothing. Try some of the really great looking bushes, still nothing. Flip that little tube up by a patch of briars, boom. Big old male, all dressed in black. Hummm. Tell dad “this is a good sign”. 10 feet down the bank, did it again! Great!
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Now, Dad gets to thinking, and digs around and gets this Silver and pearl tube out. In the water, it looks just like a shad. You know, in that muddy water, those shad are just about pure white, with some flash to them. That’s just what that tube looked like in the water. I’ve noticed that when fish, of any kind, move up in the spring, it takes some color on a lure to get them to bite. Once they are up, and get feeding and reproduction on their mind, something that represents forage (shad) works better.
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Boy, did dad call that one! He dips that thing by a stick laying in those briars, boom, 2lber. I’m still messing with those males on that Orange/chart ringed tube! Well, its about now that I started running the net. Dad went on one of those 12 to 2 runs that most Arkansas fans have gotten used to lately! White was the key!
Now, here’s a little tip…. If you can see a white lure 12 inches down, that means the light has traveled down 12 inches, and up 12 inches, so that you can see it. 2 feet of light penetration. At, or just below light penetration, is where fish like to make their bed. Now we know the right depth. And by now, we’ve figured out that 2-3 foot of water, with briars, was key, but had to be a steep channel bank ‘cause the water is falling.
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So, I break down and put on the Pearl Pepper Point Shad, not quite as flashy as dads Tube, but still looks shad like in the water. On up the creek, and another briar patch on a channel drop equals more fish. Ended the day about noon, had 33 above average fish, and both of us grinning like we just went thru a revolving door on somebody else’s push! Had a great day with my dad, and look forward to may many more.
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