Night hunting

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03-30-2019, 12:50 AM
FurFlyin

Night hunting

A buddy and I went for a quick trip after work today. We got the lines in the water a little after 5pm. The water temp was around 59 degrees. We were pulling jigs in a large cove that has lots of grass. Mitch and I found lots of fish yesterday morning in 8-10 FOW so we started there first. Yellow bass were lighting us up. We were moving around the east side of the cove when we got our first crappie. We trolled 1/2 mile or so and picked up a few. We caught fish in water from 3-8’ deep. As we worked the east side I found a little protected area where the water was a little over 61 degrees. There was more crappie in that area and we had 11 solid keepers in the boat at dark. We talked about how the fish shut down at sunset just like they did in that same area last spring. I told my buddy that it didn’t make sense. I know guys fish under the bridges here all night and catch crappie all during the night.

It took me a talking through this and then I decided to reel in my jigs and try fishing very shallow even though we had moved to an area in 8 FOW. Less than 30 seconds later I had a crappie on. After that we headed back to an area we found that was the warmest. We both put on black jig bodies and were fishing with 5-6 feet of line out. We were pulling single 16’s with straight tailed jigs in 3-5 FOW while trolling .8mph with barely enough line out to keep our jigs a foot under the surface. We got on them pretty good. We fished until 10:30 and wound up with 35 quality keepers. We never got the measuring board out. Anything under 10 1/2 or so we threw back. 90% of the fish we caught were beautiful dark males.

My partner had his head lamp with him. I had to use the flashlight on my phone, stuck in my shirt pocket just to have enough light to barely make out my poles.

Pulling jigs at night is an absolute blast! I will be rigging up an elevated flood light of some sort before the next full moon.

https://i.postimg.cc/WpB239LR/00-EB8...777-C75217.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/nMbwJjP5/887625...1-F0-C58-E.jpg

There is an awesome story to go with this particular yellow bass. It’s too late and I’m too tired to type it tonight. If I hadn’t had a witness I wouldn’t even bother to type it tomorrow. LOL

https://i.postimg.cc/KzWH0srm/55-A46...FFE6-CA9-D.jpg
03-30-2019, 04:16 AM
Slabprowler

Don’t be telling folks that you can catch em after dark pulling jigs! They will start believing you!:Rofl You did good buddy! Congrats on a good evening!
03-30-2019, 06:34 AM
CrappieFlopper

Good job Brad.
03-30-2019, 07:35 AM
bill_collector

I guess I had bad service when you called to invite me, cause i didnt get it.
03-30-2019, 07:36 AM
Barnettcrew

Sounds like a great trip!

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03-30-2019, 08:32 AM
mighty

You put it on them. I lost two rods and got skunked. Guess I was fishing to deep

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03-30-2019, 09:25 AM
FurFlyin

Thanks guys. We left the shop for a 2 hour fishing trip and ended up fishing 5 1/2 hours. I was just glad to have figured out a new way (for me) to try and catch em. If T'storms weren't coming in tonight I'd go again this evening and try em in a different place. This time last year I'd never done any long lining or spider rigging. I was trying to learn figure out where to crappie fish and how to crappie fish. I'm far from having either figured out but at least now I'm confident enough in the techniques that I can focus on finding areas to catch them. These huge, wide, backwater areas on the south end of the lake are hard for me to hem them up in. LOL

Oh and for the YELLOW BASS STORY. A couple of you guys know Jason that works with us. He's fishes with me a lot. I know Mitch and Phillip both have met him. He's my witness to this story. He even told me after this happened. He said, "you've got a witness and it's a good thing you do, because I don't think anybody would believe this without one."

We had been fishing about 20 minutes and were catching nothing but yellow bass. I had a pole load up so I reached to grab it. About the time I got my hand on it, it really loaded up. I assumed I had on a big drum, since I'm quickly becoming one of the top drum guides in the state. I grab the rod and start trying to reel. I'm not gaining much ground. The fish comes up. It's a huge LM bass. It's one of those that's big enough that it can't jump and it's big enough that it looks like it's shaking it's head in slow motion. I reel down and pull the fish closer to the boat several times. It comes up to the top to try and dance a few times. Jason gets the net in hand waiting for her to get close enough. When the fish was about 30 feet behind the boat, much of the load comes off the rod. I told him she was swimming straight at the boat. About that time, the yellow bass pictured above pops up on the surface and it's attached to the jig on the end of my line. Apparently I had hooked the yellow bass, then quickly afterwards, the big bass had tried to eat the yellow bass, which had lost the yellow bass, before it got to the boat.

Obviously we don't know what the LM weighed but I'd say a good guess was 7 1/2 - 8 lbs.
03-30-2019, 04:01 PM
Barnettcrew

Cool story. I wish you could have landed it! Making memories. That’s what this fishing thing is all about. Right?

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03-30-2019, 06:54 PM
lowe175

Glad you got on them congratulations

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03-30-2019, 07:35 PM
Redge

Really cool post, thanks for that!

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03-30-2019, 09:43 PM
Bob D

That's a great report and story Brad. It's those type of trips and memories that build your knowledge base to make you a better fisherman able to handle the different conditions. WTG!!
03-30-2019, 09:49 PM
crappieseeker

That use to be a regular occurrence for me. I use to heavily fish a certain area and this has happened to may several times. Had several on 7 to over 10 pounds but have never got one in. They either broke my line or let go. I did see a guy get one in last year that took a crappie he was reeling in. It weighed 10 and a half.
03-30-2019, 10:21 PM
FurFlyin

Quote:

Originally Posted by crappieseeker

That use to be a regular occurrence for me. I use to heavily fish a certain area and this has happened to may several times. Had several on 7 to over 10 pounds but have never got one in. They either broke my line or let go. I did see a guy get one in last year that took a crappie he was reeling in. It weighed 10 and a half.

If I would have had a large rod with me, I would have put a big hook in that yellow bass and pulled it behind the boat.
03-31-2019, 09:15 AM
crappieseeker

Quote:

Originally Posted by FurFlyin

If I would have had a large rod with me, I would have put a big hook in that yellow bass and pulled it behind the boat.

Good thinking. I never thought of that. I do remember a few times when I was catfishing (which I no longer do) that when I would use cut up stripe I caught several decent bass on them, but never seemed to catch bass on other types of fish cut up.
04-01-2019, 05:58 AM
footballcoach

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slabprowler

Don’t be telling folks that you can catch em after dark pulling jigs! They will start believing you!:Rofl You did good buddy! Congrats on a good evening!

:hesaid