We had a lot of heavy rain day before yesterday, then rain and drizzle yesterday, and finally this morning clear skies, but cold. Temp when I got up was 32F and there was frost on the porch steps. I had errands in town until 10:30, but driving back home I thought I'd test the waters of a small pond on the way back and see it the crappies had arrived along the roadside shore. I had my boat on the roof racks, but I just had time to do about 20 minutes of spot checking, so fishing from shore was the plan.

I tied a crappie magnet onto my 4# test line, with a narrow Thill bobber set at a little less than 2 feet above. The pond here was shallow and fairly full of submerged sticks from a beaver den and masses of last years dead vegetation. I had to cast to the small channels between old cabbage growth. Well, I didn't expect much on a clear day at 11 AM after a cold front. But surprise, first cast, the bobber just hit the water and sat maybe half a minute before down it went.

I hit back good in my excitement, as if it was a tuna. Probably could have shown a little more finesse. But the crappie was solidly hooked in the upper jaw, so stayed on for a nice little cold water struggle.

When beached on the new grass, I laid it along my rod markings, and it was a decent 10" Vermont crappie -- good for this small pond, which until about 5 years ago did not have crappie at all. Anyway they clearly were biting here now and it made the start of the season for me.

After releasing the first fish, I didn't get a second for about 10 more minutes of casting -- the second was a 9", and it took just as long a wait to get a third crappie, its twin in size. Finally I cast further from shore than I had been and picked up a large golden shiner again -- just like I did yesterday -- about 8". Kind of surprising even a large shiner can fit a #4 crappie jig in its small mouth.

Well I'd missed a number of un-crappie like tapping bites just before I hooked this one, so there was probably a school of them working on it. Maybe the biggest dog managed to gulp it!

It was though, a beautiful fish, bright shining gold, large dark forked tail and orange red fins. And it sure fought like a dinky bass. If they got a lot bigger golden shiner's would probably be a prized game fish.

By then it was time to go, all fish released. Below is my first crappie this season:

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