Epic day for shellcracker.

Epic day at Nickajack! Hit the lake at 8:00 a.m and started looking for bedding fish. Found a bed of shell cracker bedding in 2 feet of water. I cast to those fish for 40 minutes and only got one. I have run into this before.....bedding shellcracker are subject to get lockjaw at sometime during the spawn. So I just went to work scanning with the Helix Mega si and found plenty of beds out in the middle of the bay I was fishing. After I had boated 60 shellcracker decided it was time to go. Did a quick check of my video and found the audio was corrupted. Needless to say I was ticked. So I just went back to work and found more beds. Boated another 40 shellcracker and called it a day after 6.5 hours on the water. I never intended to fish that long but you keep finding fish and you don’t want to leave. Plus this isn’t going to last long. All fish caught using a Fine Tail Banshee Area Trout Rod Super Ultra 6 foot model. Used a Daiwa Gekkabijin 1.5 gram jig head #8 hook with a Sow Bug colored Trout Magnet. Ninety nine of my shellcracker came out of water 5 foot deep. Line today was 2.1# test ester mono and a 5 foot section of 2# test Phantom FC leader. Most fish were in between the 9-10 inch range with a couple at 10.5 inches. Life is good!

Regards


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Great catch, I hope to go later in the week. Cooled off a little up here, BlackBerry Winter they say, two nights in the 40s may slow them down a bit. Scanning with the SI sounds like an easy way to locate the nests. I watched a guy doing it last year for Gill beds. Have not seen a LiveScope shot of Cracker or Gillbeds, might look cool if it did not spook the fish. I am in dire need of an electronics upgrade.

Nice catch!


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You are the man would love to have a day like that

Thanks......water temps were 70 degrees when I put in. No Gills at all today or redbreast.....I think the cold pushed them back out. The good news is they are still to spawn. Without the Helix si I could not have caught the number of fish I did. I’ve been using si for quite a few years and using si and spot lock is a game changer. The bay I was in is fairly large and blind casting would maybe have gotten me a few fish. The beds I found had around 10-15 fish in them. I would catch around a dozen fish and find another bed. One of my first videos I did I had found a huge bed with over 200 fish in it but today the beds were scattered and small. Going to take my son Thursday and I hope the shellcracker are still bedding.

Regards


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Tremendous day! Congrats!!

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Originally Posted by no luck

You are the man would love to have a day like that

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Thanks much...but if not for the side imaging sonar it would not have been possible......at least not in that bay.


Regards

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Originally Posted by redearhoosier

Tremendous day! Congrats!!

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Thanks...

Regards

Have you tested the Phantom FC leader to see what it breaks at?

That's a fantastic day!!


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Whewwwww, that'd make me quit crappie fishing! Congrats on a great day.

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Originally Posted by Gillfishn

Have you tested the Phantom FC leader to see what it breaks at?

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Yes, it breaks right at 4 pounds.

Regards

Glad you had a great day. I have HB SI and cant wait to find beds on Center Hill. I have been checking for two weeks off and on only to catch a few scattered fish. Hope it gets better real soon.

Congrats on another great day!

Beautiful crackers. Great job.

Sounds like a great day congrats


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Great catchin'. Thanks for sharing.

Wow, is all I can say, congrats!

thats good stuff right there. im afraid i missed the bulk of our cracker spawn down here because of that snakebite. ive caught a few on beds but their mixed in with the gills.

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Originally Posted by Dollfly

Glad you had a great day. I have HB SI and cant wait to find beds on Center Hill. I have been checking for two weeks off and on only to catch a few scattered fish. Hope it gets better real soon.

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Hope you find some good ones and I see a report. Hoping the "Hill" gets back to what it was before they started the work on the dam.

Regards

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Originally Posted by murdok

thats good stuff right there. im afraid i missed the bulk of our cracker spawn down here because of that snakebite. ive caught a few on beds but their mixed in with the gills.

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Thanks....I hate that you missed that time on the water...but glad all came out OK. I was going to tie the boat off to a pile of driftwood that had washed up on the ramp the other day and thought about your incident...I decided to do just a little more work and tie off at the dock....LOL. That pile of wood could have had something I didn't want any part of. Since you told me about your snake bite I'm a lot more aware.

Regards

yeah, i've been in the outdoors all my life. never really gave em a second thought. if i saw em i just killed em or avoided em. but this has changed my outlook big time. last time i went out i had a buddy with me and i pulled up the trolling motor about 30min before dark and he was like what are you doing you always stay till we cant see. i told him you don't honestly think im walking across the same ground where i got bit in the dark. we laughed about it but it has changed my level of caution quite a bit

What happened?? You were bitten by a snake??

https://www.crappie.com/crappie/off-...e-help-fellas/

Murdok's snakebite thread.

Sure beats anything I’ve done in a while. Good job hunting them up.

Great quality gills! Bet the fight was incredible on light tackle.

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Originally Posted by murdok

yeah, i've been in the outdoors all my life. never really gave em a second thought. if i saw em i just killed em or avoided em. but this has changed my outlook big time. last time i went out i had a buddy with me and i pulled up the trolling motor about 30min before dark and he was like what are you doing you always stay till we cant see. i told him you don't honestly think im walking across the same ground where i got bit in the dark. we laughed about it but it has changed my level of caution quite a bit

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I was walking my dog the other day and the lady across the street ask me if we have water moccasins around here, I kinda laughed and said no...why. She said because she killed one and had pictures,sure enough it was one.She said her neighbor came back from a fishing trip the day before,so I'm thinking it might of fell in his boat without him knowing it , I live in the city with no water around.

Congrats on an awesome day! Beautiful fish.

Awesome day of fishing... I need to find some shellcrackers soon!

red ear sunfish are so cool , I am trying not to be jealous over here …..congrats

Thanks for the comments guys.

Regards


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Dang Old Age, thought I had posted a comment on this page! :dono As always a great report Randy, thanks for sharing your day with us. :ThumbsUp

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Originally Posted by pescador

Dang Old Age, thought I had posted a comment on this page! :dono As always a great report Randy, thanks for sharing your day with us. :ThumbsUp

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Thanks Marv.

Regards


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Originally Posted by Alphahawk

Thanks for the comments guys.

Regards


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Just got mine in, OMG...these things are like hypodermic needles, I just wish they made plan 8# hooks also.