4-22-12 – Lots Of Crappie

I hit the water this morning with my buddy Mark to fish the Connecticut River. The fishing was good once we found a few pockets that held fish. The water temperature maxed out at 61 degrees in the calmer water. The fish were relating to structure very tight and as long as you didn’t hook into the woody debris, the fish held tight. We found a pattern that once we did hook into the trees that held fish or even bumped it pulling one in, it took about 20 minutes for the fish to return.

We had two spots on a northern turn in the section of river we were fishing that were about 75 yards apart that were packed tight with fish; mostly crappie. We found a distinct size distribution separation between the two. On one hand, we could jack crappie after crappie that were less than 8 inches or we could chose to get fewer bites from quality fish.

We picked the best of both worlds. Fish one hole until we spooked the fish and then putt over hit the other. The cycle worked well. We caught well over 100 crappie and some bull bluegill. Two gills were 10.5″ on the dot! It was the first time I can remember catching crappies this dark in coloration. It’s like what you see coming from southern states!

We spent the majority of the day casting with the “live” baby shad by Lake Fork under a bobber. The hot ticket color was chartreuse for the bigger fish but we found that any color combination for jig and plastic was working. We were just on fish. The deal breaker for catching fish today was to work it fast. Popping the bobber up and down around brush and other submerged structure drove the fish nuts.

Back at it in the morning. It’s suppose to rain throughout the night so we will see how the cooler rain water changes the bite!