rsimms, Chickamauga, Crappie (LOTS of 'em), March 17, 2015, Keith and Ben

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rsimms

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On Tuesday I hit the water guiding Keith Buddemeyer from Spring Hill and Ben Pitts from Flintville (Nimrod and lung-buster on the TNDeer.com Forum). It was a very slow start for us. Lots of short fish and just a few keepers. But a little later, cuonthelake (who has come to the Dark Side emoEvil, BTW) clued me in on a productive section of creek.

Slowly but surely we started catching a good number of keepers. I always tell folks that when you're trolling, "It's a marathon, not a sprint." When she had to leave, Candi gave us nine fish. We finished out our limit of 45 keepers at 1:47 pm. Probably caught 100 throwbacks and yellow bass. We kept trolling and culled a few smaller crappie. We caught several more ten-inchers but we really weren't checking unless it was an obvious cull fish.

After doing that a while, I asked the guys if they wanted to try casting some jigs under floats just to do something different (I knew that would make DrumKing proud emoAngel). We fished three or four different areas with very poor results. Just a few bluegill, yellow bass and one keeper crappie.

Then I told them "last spot," sort of like "Last Call" at the bar. The wind was howling by now as we started down one particular bank. Keith caught a good keeper and I hit "Spotlock" on the trusty i-Pilot Minn Kota Trolling Motor. We sat there in the howling wind, with only minor adjustments up and down a 40-yard stretch of bank and hammered crappie on jigs under floats. We were throwing everything back at that point, but I'm sure we caught 40 or 50 fish of six assorted species in an hour-and-a-half. We figured we caught at least 15 or 20 more good keeper crappie. Keith did have the hot hand. Sort of put the guide to shame. emoRedface But it was the hottest spot I've ever been on fishing jigs under floats. What a blast! Although it was killing Keith and Ben to sit there and catch nice keepin' crappie and have to throw them back #goodproblemtohave

Strangest occurence of the day (maybe the year) ... trolling along midday Keith said, "Look at that!" A drake mallard came out of the trees and landed in the creek. Keith said when he saw it, it looked like it had come out of a tree, or maybe hit a tree. We watched him try to get up and fly, and then flop around... and then he rolled over stone cold dead. I trolled out and we picked him up. He was dead as a doornail, but didn't have a mark him... but was "shore 'nuff dead!" Weird!

Keith and Ben left with 45 crappie (one TARP), a blue cat and a few big yellow bass. But I'm sure that we caught at least four limits, and maybe five? That means life is good and gettin' better everyday.
 

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Them's sure some good looking planner boards she's using. Maybe she will tell us where to get those.
 
That Mallard duck was trying to tell you something, Richard. He knew that what you guys were doing was cheating and it just killed him to see it. emoPoke emoUpsmile emoUpsmile Candi's goal now is to be better at planer board fishing than Chris, but she has confessed to me that it really isn't all that much fun. She is better than me catching crappie now and ready for new challenges. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve that she hasn't seen yet though. But then again, I have much to learn. emoBigsmile emoGeezer
 
D K she has just opened the lid on the jar so to speak. Her best day so far has been a 5 on a 1-10 scale. The next 30 days I predict will be insane fishing and my bet is the little lady will experience a 10 day. Next comes the phone call from R Simms and I that we have pulled another to the Dark Side!!! The Good news is pre-spawn and spawn doesn't last forever and dock shooting and deep structure fishing will be in the prime again. But wait! Tenncrappie always keeps one up his sleeve and a new technique is around the corner and this one you might even go for. There's always an open seat in my boat for The Drumking!!!!
 
Sure was great to meet you guest, and pick up the box of road runners from TJ that are donated for Crappie for Canines. Thank You! emoApplause
You witnessed my second day of darkness. What can I say, I love to catch fish, Love it...and this is just another technique for loading the boat. These "Lil Spoiler" planer board that Chris (Tenncrappie) and Tim (Sailfish) are making and selling about as fast as they can make them, has have made a believer out of me and yes brought me over the to dark side...I plan to get DK in the boat with me so I can show off, I won't tell anyone DK if you pick the rod up when all of them go down at once...What a rush! emoBigsmile
 

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cuonthelake - 3/19/2015 8:34 AM

Sure was great to meet you guest, and pick up the box of road runners from TJ that are donated for Crappie for Canines. Thank You! emoApplause
You witnessed my second day of darkness. What can I say, I love to catch fish, Love it...and this is just another technique for loading the boat. These "Lil Spoiler" planer board that Chris (Tenncrappie) and Tim (Sailfish) are making and selling about as fast as they can make them, has have made a believer out of me and yes brought me over the to dark side...I plan to get DK in the boat with me so I can show off, I won't tell anyone DK if you pick the rod up when all of them go down at once...What a rush! emoBigsmile

I'll watch your technique and that's about all I'll say about that. Forrest Gump. emoBigsmile emoGeezer Grin.

I never said that I would never troll. But, I'll never troll on purpose. Actually, I might, but if I did, my goodness, Richard Simms would never let me live it down. I have gigged him so much over the years, that he owes me a 55 gallon barrel of payback.
 
the second pic looks like the original crappie shark which was copied also,lol, but seriously both kinds work fantastic on crappie that are suspended no doubt
 
The board in the second picture is the Crappie Reaper board that I build which is copied from the Crappie Shark just like the lil spoiler that you and Chris are building. Tim your right they all work great.
 
That's a good days fishing.How do you measure that,crappie per gallon or miles per crappie? That's a fun way to catch um.
 

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