Muskrat, Chickamauga Lake, crappie / crazy mixed bag, 8-14-13, Debbie

[Muskrat]

What a nice day day to be on the lake in March...um...I mean August. Deb and I and got an early start for us anyway at 9:00 am and the wind was already blowing with white cap waves. We were in the pontoon again and fishing our spot was just about impossible with the trolling motor as we were out in the main lake. I had to use an anchor which I almost never do. It caught at 13 feet so that's where we started fishing and we started to catch very nice crappie within 5 minutes. We caught around 10 keepers in the first 45 minutes but then a major shut-off after about an hour as I guess the frontal passage was kicking in. Another problem was my anchor wouldn't hold and the next thing I knew that when it did catch it was hung...in my crappie brushpiles ! emoBang I guess I ran all of the crappie off for awhile. We kept at it and with a little hard work and patience our total fish numbers for the day were... 38 crappie... 8 bream... 7 "very" small bass... 7 channel cats... 3 yellow bass... 2 white bass ... 1 shellcracker ... 1 drum ... and a partridge in a pear tree. The crappie keeper ratio was great as close to 30 were keepers and we didn't run into the runts that we found a couple of days ago. The smallest crappie were around 9 inches this time. We caught 18 black crappie this trip before we caught a white crappie this time but wound up with close to 10 whites total as they started showing up around 1:00 o'clock. The crappie bite really picked back up around 2:00 so we kept fishing until almost 4:00 o'clock. The only bummer for the day was losing two nice crappie on a Kentucky rig that I had in a rod holder. I almost had them in the boat...when they broke my Mr.Crappie 4lb. test line ! Nooooooooo ! We ended our day with both of us hooking up two small white bass at the same time which was fun and a little unexpected. Most of the fish were caught on minnows again but we probably caught 15 out of the mix on 1/16 oz. Road Runner jig heads using BG Scent Wigglr's and Baby Shad in various colors. Water temperature was down to 81-83 degrees. Debbie is going to Florida for a week so we tried to pack in as much fun as we possibly could today and I'm glad things worked out well for the both of us.

 

[Kingfish]

You did good! Great pictures. emoThumbsup

 

[EricM]

Nice!

 

[Gator]

Good day for sure. Excellent report.
Thanks

 

[Nauticman]

Good action!

 

[drumking]

Good fishing. Thanks for the report, Muskrat and Debbie. Enjoy the trip. Be safe. emoThumbsup emoBigsmile emoGeezer

 

[the maddog]

Now that's stretching some line on a windy day! I have found that Mr. Crappie line to become brittle and hold lots of curl memory in just a couple of months after use...I am hooked on the Stren Gold 4lb line for the best buy in light tackle fishing.emoFishemoAngler

 

[cuonthelake]

Thats some great fishing for August! emoWorthy emoBigsmile

 

[BassERT]

emoThumbsup emoThumbsup

emoCool

 

[Muskrat]

the maddog - 8/14/2013 10:18 PM

Now that's stretching some line on a windy day! I have found that Mr. Crappie line to become brittle and hold lots of curl memory in just a couple of months after use...I am hooked on the Stren Gold 4lb line for the best buy in light tackle fishing.emoFish  emoAngler

Thanks for the info Mark. I think my biggest problem might have been operator error with a poor knot that I had tied and also just having a rig like that on 4 lb. test line. I usually put it on 8 lb. test line. I wasn't expecting to hook up two fish as I mostly use the two hook rig to give me a better idea of the depth to fish a jig. I'll try some of the Stren Gold and maybe both me and the fish will stay "hooked" on it.

 

[drumking]

Muskrat - 8/15/2013 11:48 AM

the maddog - 8/14/2013 10:18 PM

Now that's stretching some line on a windy day! I have found that Mr. Crappie line to become brittle and hold lots of curl memory in just a couple of months after use...I am hooked on the Stren Gold 4lb line for the best buy in light tackle fishing.emoFish  emoAngler

Thanks for the info Mark. I think my biggest problem might have been operator error with a poor knot that I had tied and also just having a rig like that on 4 lb. test line. I usually put it on 8 lb. test line. I wasn't expecting to hook up two fish as I mostly use the two hook rig to give me a better idea of the depth to fish a jig. I'll try some of the Stren Gold and maybe both me and the fish will stay "hooked" on it.

Unless they have made a dramatic change for the better in the Stren, I wouldn't ever put that junk on my reels. I haven't tried it lately though. Sorry, Maddog.

 

[tennfisher]

Great report Muskrat, thanks.

Tennfisher

 

[redneckfishgeter]

Great report, and good pics,Aint nothing like catching a big ole slab