Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Attack Of The Crappie

My home lake (Burke Lake) features three handicapped accessible fishing piers. At two of these piers there are two giant wooden crates sticking out of the water. I assume whoever maintains the lake has created some sunken wooden structures in order to attract fish. I decided to leave my secret cove and cast out here...and wow, what a great decision!

As soon as my jig hit the water beyond the structure my bobber was underwater. The fish jumped out of the water, over the exposed portion of the wood and headed towards shore. As I was reeling, I could that the mouth was enormous, so I assumed I had bagged my second largemouth bass (my first).

*Note: I was using a 1/16th minnow head jig with Gulp Alive chartreuse minnows. My first time using this new bait I picked up.

However, when I pulled the fish all the way in, I noticed it didn't really look like a bass. I wasn't exactly sure what it was. The fish was between 10-12 inches long, a pretty nice size. It was covered in black spots and the round look seemed more like a bluegill and less like a bass.  I took my photo, sent it to a friend for species confirmation, and released the critter.




Moments later, I cast out the same exact setup to the same exact spot. Once again within seconds I hooked another fish. I reeled it in and noticed it was the black spotted fish again, just about the same size. This one flopped off the hook before I could dehook him and at about the same time it hit the water the guy at the next pier reeled in one of his own.

After that second fish, I decided to Google "Crappie" as I thought I heard the man at the next pier mention that fish. Sure enough, the fish I caught was a Black Crappie.

The next 30 minutes was Crappie bonanza. Every 5 minutes or so myself or the man a pier over, would reel in another 12 incher. Between the two of us we probably caught about 8 of them. I had 4 of them myself.

As the sun faded a little bit so did the fishing. After the 30 minute fishing frenzy the Crappie must have gone away. I only ended up catching one more over the next hour before I decided it was time to head back home.

This was my first experience with a Crappie and man was it fun.

Click Here To See The Day's Official Fishing Log

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