JPP Report 7/18/20

I had the pleasure of taking a couple of my friends, Dana and Joe, fishing this morning. Dana arrived a couple of minutes early and was helping me get everything ready to go. As we finished up, I received a text from Joe explaining that his alarm didn't go off - he set it for PM instead of AM. :yikesHe was willing to meet us at the lake, but he lives close by so I told him to just come on to my house and we would wait for him - we left at 4:45 AM instead of 4:30 so not too bad. As good friends will do, Dana and I talked about how we would likely miss the feeding frenzy since we were going to be 15 minutes late!

We arrived at the park and there were deer moving everywhere we looked. I told the guys that's a great sign and that it should be a good morning for the bite. We launched the boat and headed over to my favorite cove. There was almost no wind and it was a smooth ride.

After we pulled up in the cove, I put the trolling motor down and for whatever reason the remote didn't want to work properly. :scratchhead Joe wanted a few catfish, so I put out 6 jugs with the gas motor. After that I tried the iPilot remote again and it turned on no problem. Whew! What a relief!

We started trolling crank baits and jigs and it wasn't long before we had a crappie hit! Joe reeled it in and it was a keeper! That was followed pretty quickly with another hit and another keeper crappie reeled in by Dana (all his fish were cross-eyed). rotflThe bite remained steady for the rest of the morning until the water lice chased us off of the lake about 11 AM. We ended up with 3 catfish and 17 nice crappie with the biggest being just short of 14 inches. Most were whites but a couple of black crappie ended up in the live well too. The best crank bait this morning was the Academy house brand H2O Express CRULD model in chartreuse shad - it caught at least half of the fish today. The fish hit anywhere from 12 to 28 FOW and anywhere from 7 to 12 feet down, but most were shallower - 7 to 10 feet down. It was a great morning of fishing! The only downside was that we lost 2 crank baits on hang ups.

Having a fun day fishin'!
Thanks for the report

Great job. Thanks for sharing.

Excellent haul! Great report!

Cnette, we troll Center Hill some and we have found out, when you hang up, we only troll with 2 rods, we pull in the other rod. Circle the boat back to the hung up lure and go past it on a slack line until you go past, while holding your rod tip low to the water and let it tighten up on the back side. We get back most of the plugs back. Great catch.

Thanks tnduxcaller, that's a good tip and we do that just about every time we get hung up. On yesterday's trip, that tip did not work as the lures were hung up good.

I have also found that just stopping forward motion and giving it some slack will sometimes free up the plug if it is a floating type. Another tip on freeing up plugs is to reel the rod tip all the way down to the lure if it isn't too deep and jiggle it. I've gotten some plugs back like that as well.

Great report! Due to the heat and being busier, I sort of gave up on my Saturday morning trolls at Priest. Maybe I should keep at it. I usually fish mid-lake out of Longhunter or Bryant's Grove. Heard reports that it's been better below Hobson Pike lately.

Great catch, been finding some here one pole but thinking about pulling some cranks next week. Water temps were 91 up this way on Wednesday, and I am sure its even warmer now. Never used that lure from Academy, Picos are the favorite, but always looking for other lures to run past them.

Great job. Even convincing myself to go is an accomplishment in this heat. Glad you caught a bunch.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cnette01

I had the pleasure of taking a couple of my friends, Dana and Joe, fishing this morning. Dana arrived a couple of minutes early and was helping me get everything ready to go. As we finished up, I received a text from Joe explaining that his alarm didn't go off - he set it for PM instead of AM. :yikesHe was willing to meet us at the lake, but he lives close by so I told him to just come on to my house and we would wait for him - we left at 4:45 AM instead of 4:30 so not too bad. As good friends will do, Dana and I talked about how we would likely miss the feeding frenzy since we were going to be 15 minutes late!

We arrived at the park and there were deer moving everywhere we looked. I told the guys that's a great sign and that it should be a good morning for the bite. We launched the boat and headed over to my favorite cove. There was almost no wind and it was a smooth ride.

After we pulled up in the cove, I put the trolling motor down and for whatever reason the remote didn't want to work properly. :scratchhead Joe wanted a few catfish, so I put out 6 jugs with the gas motor. After that I tried the iPilot remote again and it turned on no problem. Whew! What a relief!

We started trolling crank baits and jigs and it wasn't long before we had a crappie hit! Joe reeled it in and it was a keeper! That was followed pretty quickly with another hit and another keeper crappie reeled in by Dana (all his fish were cross-eyed). rotflThe bite remained steady for the rest of the morning until the water lice chased us off of the lake about 11 AM. We ended up with 3 catfish and 17 nice crappie with the biggest being just short of 14 inches. Most were whites but a couple of black crappie ended up in the live well too. The best crank bait this morning was the Academy house brand H2O Express CRULD model in chartreuse shad - it caught at least half of the fish today. The fish hit anywhere from 12 to 28 FOW and anywhere from 7 to 12 feet down, but most were shallower - 7 to 10 feet down. It was a great morning of fishing! The only downside was that we lost 2 crank baits on hang ups.

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Great work. What area of the lake were you targeting? I’m on the north end and haven’t managed a crappie in a couple weeks.


Sent from my iPhone using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

I have had my tm remote fool me more than once, but a most of the time it is because I deployed the motor and forgot to push the little button that turns the remote on. Once I didn’t even have it plugged up. It. Really won’t work when it is unplugged. Lolol. Slow learner : fast forgetter. rotfl:Rofl

I usually fish the middle of the lake near Long Hunter State park.