rsimms
Well-known member
Tim Maharrey with Woodbridge Foam here in Chattanooga is kind enough to call on me occasionally to "entertain" business clients or associates. Today we got out for a short morning foray with his friend, Fred Moss, who came all the way from the great state of Maine.
Fred is an experienced angler. That's always nice.
Sadly, as everyone knows Mother Nature has thrown a curve ball at my traditional Spring tailwater fishing. emoBang We were forced to head lakeside in search of crappie (or whatever else we could find). We did not find nearly enough to suit me, but I think Fred had fun. We started on a relatively new ace-in-the-hole spot that didn't pay off. We caught a handful of small crappie and a few miscellaneous species. I resorted to trying to teach Fred & Company to shoot docks. With water levels what they are... one and two-inch slots between wood & water... it's a really bad time to try and teach somebody how to shoot. Heck, I can hardly do it myself. I hit about one-out-of-five shots. But every time I hit, there was a fish there.
Nick, another of Tim's associates actually picked it up pretty well. Fred and Tim -- not so much. We (I) put a few crappie in the livewell. I didn't like being the only one catching fish so we bailed on shooting docks.
I failed miserably in a couple of catfish holes so we went back shallow with the little stuff. I was actually searching for an early bluegill bed when darned if we didn't start catching a few spawning crappie up in three feet of water. This has been one crazy spring. I couldn't believe we were still catching a decent number of spawners. Even though it was horribly muddy back in Wolftever, we caught a nice mixed bag of fish up shallow.
A couple of us were casting 1/32nd oz. jigs plain, a couple of us were fishing the jigs under floats. The better crappie came under the floats because I think we could fish slower (good in the muddy water).
I didn't count total numbers but I did count that we had eight species on the morning ... white/black crappie, bluegill, shellcracker, drum, yellow perch, a little smallmouth and yellow bass. There wasn't a lot of quality and it wasn't a guide trip I'm proud of... but under some not-so-great conditions, we managed to have fun. That means life is good and getting better every day.
Fred is an experienced angler. That's always nice.
Sadly, as everyone knows Mother Nature has thrown a curve ball at my traditional Spring tailwater fishing. emoBang We were forced to head lakeside in search of crappie (or whatever else we could find). We did not find nearly enough to suit me, but I think Fred had fun. We started on a relatively new ace-in-the-hole spot that didn't pay off. We caught a handful of small crappie and a few miscellaneous species. I resorted to trying to teach Fred & Company to shoot docks. With water levels what they are... one and two-inch slots between wood & water... it's a really bad time to try and teach somebody how to shoot. Heck, I can hardly do it myself. I hit about one-out-of-five shots. But every time I hit, there was a fish there.
Nick, another of Tim's associates actually picked it up pretty well. Fred and Tim -- not so much. We (I) put a few crappie in the livewell. I didn't like being the only one catching fish so we bailed on shooting docks.
I failed miserably in a couple of catfish holes so we went back shallow with the little stuff. I was actually searching for an early bluegill bed when darned if we didn't start catching a few spawning crappie up in three feet of water. This has been one crazy spring. I couldn't believe we were still catching a decent number of spawners. Even though it was horribly muddy back in Wolftever, we caught a nice mixed bag of fish up shallow.
A couple of us were casting 1/32nd oz. jigs plain, a couple of us were fishing the jigs under floats. The better crappie came under the floats because I think we could fish slower (good in the muddy water).
I didn't count total numbers but I did count that we had eight species on the morning ... white/black crappie, bluegill, shellcracker, drum, yellow perch, a little smallmouth and yellow bass. There wasn't a lot of quality and it wasn't a guide trip I'm proud of... but under some not-so-great conditions, we managed to have fun. That means life is good and getting better every day.
