Daily Routine: Crappie Sighting

Since the winter pattern bass bite has slowed down and the weather has begun to feel like spring it was time to switch gears. Eager to start catching some spring crappie we decided to target them instead of bass. One of the best local crappie areas the  Potomac  river has been running high from rain and melting snow so we were still going to stay in the ponds. Our previous attempts at catching crappie this year have failed but we were encouraged by the signs I had the previous trip. We decided we needed to give ourselves a little boost by using live minnows which are always a good bait for tempting the sometimes tricky crappie.

Monthly online tournaments arent good for blog quality

I started writing this way back in september and never finished it.

KBF State challenge series is a month long online tournament series where the winner each month gets a entry into the KBF Championship. The best part is there are tournaments for every state so there are many opportunities to participate. I have been fishing almost everyday after work and even taking a few night trips to maximize fishing time.  

Daily Routine: Springtime feel

We had our first warm day of 2016 all the ice from the pond was melted and for once my hands were fully functioning and not burning from the cold. We  were searching for the first crappie of 2016 but this pond has been producing bass all winter its actually hard to avoid them. Today Collin and I struggled to get a bite we gave the dropshot and the jig a good try with no luck. Since we were not catching any bass we switched over to crappie sized lures to see if they were starting to move early.  I rigged my 2 inch jig under a small cork collin opted to jig his along the bottom.  Over the course of þe day I had 4 or five take downs on the cork but I couldnt get a good hookset. Collin on the other hand landed a nice large mouth on his third cast. This turned out to be the only fish of the day but it was the biggest bass we have caught tn this pond.

Daily routine: Avoiding the Ice

We got back out to the ponds this pond had been completely frozen but with temps in the high 40s for a couple days there was some open water especially in the shallows. We fished the larger open water shallows but couldnt find any fish. I thought some would move up on the sunny side of the pond since the water was warm enough on that side to melt the ice. We fished the shallow patch thoroughly but nothing was there. I dont exactly know the bottom contour but that side had any adjacent deeper water to hold fish through the winter on that side of the pond. After coming up empty we moved to a small open patch near the dam. This was the last open spot left it was a little on the edge of the deeper area where we caught them the last time. I got my Black and Blue, 3/8 oz jig as far as possible by throwing onto the ice and dragging so it fell off the edge and into the water.