Sometimes, in our pursuit of fish of all species, we get caught up in the latest and greatest, the biggest and best, and forget that decent fish can be taken with the most basic of tackle.
Today was one of those days where fancy wasn't necessary and simple worked just fine. My neighbor Lee, you know him as Capt. Sinky, invited me along to fish a canal connected to a lake near Hastings. We usually fish this canal right after ice out but for some reason the fish didn't come in until this week. We picked up 3 dozen speck minnows and headed to the canal.
This canal is on a private lake and we have permission from the property owner. We got there about 8 am and before I could get a minnow on my #10 treble, Lee had a crappie in the cooler, a fat 10" female. He was fishing the left side of the dock, using a teardrop and minnow 18" under a set bobber and was getting hit as soon as his minnow hit the water. Most were less than 9" and were released back to the water. I fished the right side of the dock and, while I wasn't getting as many bites, my fish were bigger, easily making the 9" self imposed limit for the day. I was using a #10 treble under a slip bobber set at 2'.
By 9:00 our cooler was getting full and the minnows were gone so we switched to 1/32 oz jigs and small tubes under our bobbers. The crappie weren't as aggeresive with the tubes but we still managed to catch them at a steady pace. On one bite, when I set the hook, I had something WAY bigger than a crappie on my line. After a short game of tug-of-war I beached a 30+" northern pike. I'm glad season is open, pike is my favorite, so he went into the cooler. A few minutes later I got bit again by something big and, to both our surprise, a HUGE largemouth made a jump just off the end of the dock. I caught a 22" a couple of years ago and this one looked bigger than that. Lee says 24" at least but we'll never know for sure. I had her ready to beach when she changed her mind and made a run for deeper water. I was able to let her take some line and had her headed back to shore when my line snapped. I should have retied after the pike but oh well, the only thing I don't have is a picture. I still have the story.
We played a little catch and release until 11:00 then headed home to clean fish. We ended up with 49 crappie, biggest 12" smallest 9", one bluegill and one nice northern. Plus a story of the one that got away.Attachment 300910Attachment 300911Attachment 300912Attachment 300911Attachment 300913Attachment 300914
