More shore fishing with kids....

I bought Genna, Lucas, and my nephew Ryan out for a little shore fishing last night. Action was non-stop with some nice gills and a couple decent crappies mixed in. I didn't get alot of pictures, you know how it is fishing with a bunch of kids trying to keep things going. Here's a few though...

The cold front didn't affect these fish!

I had a half day of work friday and got off around 1:30 in the afternoon. A cold front came through the area yesterday and conditions were very breezy and temps about 10 degrees colder than the day before. I couldn't decide if I should go fishing in my float tube or forget about fishing and do something else....I thought the fishing would suck with the post-frontal conditions. Well, I decided to go fishing and I made the right choice. I was surprised that the panfish were very active and eager to bite anything that was put in front of them. I caught probably 75-80 fish in about two hours. Mostly gills but a few crappies mixed in.

I started off with a 1" Berkley micro tube. I also used Culprit paddletails...



Working the presentation about 18" under a float...







Lots of bluegills between 8 and 9 inches long....







Crappies were ok. Largest was probably 10.5". Not very thick though...

These next four pictures I took of the same fish. Pretty cool me thinks!

Springtime slammin' with Crappie Keith

I had a couple days off from work after working the weekend, so I paid a visit to Crappie Keith for two days of fishing. Keith lives about 2.5 hours north of the metro area in Palisade. Being just a few days after ice out on the lakes up there, it's traditionally a tough time of the year for fishing. Once the shallows warm up, then panfish are generally active in those areas, but things were too early and we knew fish would be tough to locate.

Monday morning we tried a proven spot of Keith's, but that didn't produce much except for a couple big perch and a couple slabs, so we decided to try another lake. It was quite a ways away, but Keith heard of a good bite there and we decided to drive the miles and give it a try. There was a small cove off the main lake, so we headed over to the cove and started killin' the crappies in the shallows, most fish between 9-11" with a few in the 12" class. The wind was key. If the wind died down, so did the bite. We tried a few other spots on that lake, but with little to show. The cove was where it was happening. It was absolutely crawling with crappies. Blueglls and LM bass also caught.

A good way to start the day with some big perch...

Keith get's a sumo too...

We caught a couple crappies too at that spot before we buzzed over to the other lake where we caught hundreds of crappies over the two days. Here's some more photos I took of my trip...

There were alot of bass in the shallows and were easy to catch. Here's the biggest I caught...

Crappie cancer?




T.H.E. jig strikes again!


CK living up to his name...


Here's a cool eagle's nest we found complete with a pair of eagles!


Another slab for the fry pan...

Here's two fish I snagged within about five minutes of each other!

I think I got the "Mike Thompson" method of self-portrait down...

Shore fishing with Genna and Lucas

Despite trying to get things ready for a fishing trip up north tomorrow the kiddies were pressuring me to bring them out for a little fishing, so I brought them to a little lake for about an hour. The fish were active, and both caught fish. Lucas can cast, he can work the float and catch fish all on his own. Genna on the other hand is pretty much a novice when it comes to fishing so I had to teach her some basics and she still didn't really get it. Here's a few pictures I took...

Genna didn't want me to publish this picture. haha too bad Genna!

BIG BASS LUCAS!

This gill was a real metro lunker, about 9.25"

Green sunny. What a face Lucas!


Tomorrow I get up bright and early and visit Crappie Keith for a couple days of fishin'. I'll be bringing my boat for it's first outing this year. Weather looks to be a bit unstable with some wind and a possibility for showers and thunder. Yikes! Oh well, you know what they say, bad weather=good fishing.

First time out this spring

I got a chance to get out for the first time this spring and do some tubin' on a local lake. I was anxious to try my new 6'5" Cabela's Prodigy ML panfish rod coupled with a Tica Cetus SS500 UL reel spooled up with 5lb Gamma Ice. It was funny, as I made my way to the launch area I found Andy there fishing away on shore. He said it had been slow. I decided to try the bay where I really pounded 'em last spring. The water was really low, probably down two feet from last year, and I had to work hard to get to that bay. I popped one gill around 9", but there wasn't much there except for a bunch of little gills and some dink bass. No crappies either.

I decided to make my way out onto the main lake. There was alot of algae up shallow...yuck! And that made fishing difficult, so I went out a bit deeper and sure enough, the crappies and gills were everywhere! There was quite a bit of movement on the surface from the fish underneath, and they were smackin' my float with vigor! I was getting fish on practically every cast using a Culprit paddletail about a foot under a float. Color didn't matter. Caught lots of gills, a couple in the 9" class, with plenty between 7.5" and 8.5". They looked healthy with bright colors, but the crappies were thin, with nothing much larger than 10".

My Cabela's Prodigy rod was awesome, it casted great with the Gamma line. The only thing that sucked was this terrible thumping and vibration I got when reeling in a fish. I figured it was the older Tica Cetus reel I had on. When I got home I tested it out and discovered it was the reel after all. I put on a Cabela's Fish Eagle UL and now it should work fine. I never was impressed by Tica reels, although lot's of people are. IMO the Cabela's UL Fish Eagle is the best reels for about $30.

I didn't get a whole lot of good pics, but here's a few from my outing...