Reintrodction after 16 years

Hey everybody!

Happy to see my username wasn't retired in my absence.

I was an avid crappie fisherman (mostly from the shoreline, hence the username) 15-20 years ago--Jordan is my home lake. Life intervened and fishing took a backseat (broken back from car accident, multiple job changes, raising a family, etc.). Happy to be back and now fishing out of a Native Propel Titan X kayak.

Anglers I remember from projects and socials back in the day include: poppop, bigascanbe, ncnat, Whompus Cat, sea-sons, mikefish, CrappieKrazy, Crataegus, anchorpuller, imfishin, KonaMan, crappyhappy, todobien, crappy_dan, JordanLimit, PG24, hawkman, and chief

I hope some of y'all are still fishin'.

I had a role in organizing a large crappie habitat build back in 2009. We built and sunk 114 crappie condos in Jordon lake. You can read about it here:
https://www.crappie.com/crappie/nort...ight=skiffless

Those condos have long deteriorated but I'm sure others have been sunk since.

Spending some time coming up to speed on electronics (Humminbird Helix 9) while refamiliarizing myself with Jordan. Finding those crappie to be fairly elusive now that the water temps have heated up. I'm sure it will all come back to me with more time on the water.

Good fishin' y'all. Glad to be back.

Skiffless

Welcome back to the addiction fella! BTW- I remember when Jordan was filled up back in the 70s. Crossed over the river when I was traveling to Raleigh and NC State for college.

Glad you're back. How do you like the Titan X kayak?

So far I've been pleased with the Titan X although I can only compare it with the Old Town Sportsman AP 120 as that is what I had previously. The stability is rock solid--even at my age I often stand to fish, or at least to just stretch my legs. The kayak is purpose built to be motorized (mounts already in place). I have the Newport NK300 stern-mounted on my main kayak. It's good for getting to further fishing holes as it will top out at 7mph. Once there, I use pedals to maneuver about. On my second titan, "friends and family", I bow mounted a Minn Kota Kayak Terrova trolling motor. This maxes out at 3.8mph but it provides Spotlock (virtual anchor), Jog, and allows me to effortlessly follow lake contours when coupled with my Humminbird graph. All in all, I enjoy both setups and switch between them depending on the type of fishing I'm doing. I still have lots to learn, but that's where the fun lies.

My buddy and I have the Titan and have looked at the newer model. I think we will stick to ours since neither of us want anything motorized. We actually are possibly looking for a lighter kayak like the Slayer.

Understood. All great kayaks. I pedal often and really enjoy it--I also mountain bike with my daughter--but it gets to be a bit much for me at times. I've also ended up in pretty rough conditions on the water and I wouldn't want to be without the assist. I'm an old guy though.

There's still lots of crappie in Jordan, though they have implemented an 8" minimum size restriction and a 20 fish limit there since you last fished.

Warmwater Game Fish Regulations - North Carolina Fishing | eRegulations

There's also WAY more White Perch out there than what there used to be, but I'm sure you've already realized that by now. Since there's no minimum size restriction and no limit on White Perch, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a round-up kind of tournament to help reduce numbers. The question is, what whould you do with all those caught fish?

I was out there 10 days ago and caught one on the front and back hook of my crankbait at least 10 times. The reason I quit fishing that day was the wind picked up and I got tired of unhooking those pests.

Jim

Thanks for your message, Jim. Oh, I know about the white perch. Between them and cats, it's about all I'm catching right now. I catch white perch on a bare hook on one rod as I'm trying to unhook one on another. And they invariably swallow hooks and jigs because they're so aggressive. When I hit a school, I just move on. In trying to find crappie on my graph, I almost always end up locating white perch instead. But then I'm new to electronics so I'm sure a more seasoned angler could spot the difference. I'm going to attempt to troll some flats next time I'm out to see if I can locate any crappie.

Welcome back!

Happy to hear from you Skiffy, welcome back.

Good to hear you are back and fishing again. I'm one of the old timers that is still around. On a tournament on Jordan back in February, I saw seven fish weigh in at 16.15 pounds. I saw it in person and believe me, the slabs are in Jordan Lake. I called the NC Fisheries biologist for Jordan and he said the lake is very healthy right now. It's not easy catching them in mid-summer, but the bite will turn on in the Fall.

Great to hear from you, JordanLimit. Thanks for checking in.

That’s great news about the health of the Jordan Lake crappie population. I plan to get reacquainted with them at my earliest opportunity—at least, that’s my hope.