Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Fishin' 2010

For skinnybass...wish it was mine. Wow. NOT a skinny bass.

Yeah...that's not in my parent's lake...lol....dad could only be so lucky.

Here are some crappie we caught today. Nice to see everyone fishing already.





And if you want to know, but don't feel like counting that's 110 crappie and 8cc

Nice haul.

That one cat is nice looking as well... Lot's of tasty fish fries will come out of that catch!

Is one a bullhead? It looks kinda yellow in the last pic. Nice mess of white crappies!

I hope you don't not have to clean all of them by yourself.

Caught with minnows ?

where you been hiding all winter???
how about a HSB update!!

Cason, yeah, where you been?

No FPPT?

esshup,
I thought the same thing when I saw it come out of the water, but it turned out to be a CC.

Ewest,
Thankfully some friends of mine that are retired love Crappie, and love to cook them. They help me harvest, and I let them keep them. It's really been paying great dividends. When I first joined PB in 2007 our Crappie were stunted at 7"-8". Now we're catching some in the 2lb range.

n8ly and Sunil,
With all the rain we had last summer, fall, and winter I've just been trying to keep my head above water. It was a rough year for farming. Our HSB seem to have peaked at about 5lbs. However, we didn't get to feed LMB pellets much at all last year. We never had to run the well into the pond (the HSB congregate at the cool well water and that is were we feed them). We catch the occasional fish above that size, but with the exception of last years stockers our average size is 4-5lbs. Sorry about no FPPT Sunil. Can I make it up to you this weekend?
BTW it's good to talk with everyone again.

Yes, of course!

I have no pic, but I thought i would add this in, fished the Mississippi yesterday (are rivers allowed on pondboss?) and pulled a 2lb sauger on a texas rigged purple swimtail (aka big plastic grub).

Where i fish on the Miss is the mouth of "piasa creek," it's a big muddy mess. I've seen some people pull out big flatheads there, but this is the first sauger i saw over a pound. Put up a hell of a fight on light tackle.

Usually I just pull in white crappie. this one was a welcome change.

Not without pictures they're not...

I usually don't bring my cam down to the Muddy, it's really wet there even on the firm land (and i usually just tread across the lumber that's mostly still floating, washed up on the shore). Too much of a risk of dropping something (like a phone....). so my adventures on the Muddy are off-limits unless i risk the digi. Dang.

Got get yourself a waterproof camera...

Unlike most, sensible people, i prefer to avoid the simple solutions to anything. Instead, I'll take measurements and make detailed wood engravings by memory. Any idea on how to upload one of those to pb?

in all seriousness, the amount that i have spent on fishing gear lately doesn't allow me to justify a new camera to the wife. Did i just hear a whip crack? Yes. I think i did.

I'll start bringing the cam, and just keep it close on-hand and only bring it out if necessary (like if i get another good looking sauger, or i land one of those flatty's on light tackle...however unlikely that is). You guys don't want a pic of every Muddy fish I catch anyway.

Zip lock bags work for me, or a waterproof case from a company like Pelican will also keep things dry a bit more reliably...

Are the greatest thing ever. That was my plan.

Can you give some more detailed information on how you caught the crappie? How deep of water were they in and did they have eggs? Were they in cover or open water?

My couple of crappie were not near as impressive as the above haul, but maybe you guys could give me a few tips on getting a better catch if i elaborate the details.

The entire area I fish is filled with cover, except the deepest spots that i can't cast to, where the boat launches are, i wouldn't be able to tell you. Mainly 12 ft of water, with a quick draw up to 3ft depth about 10ft out from shore, then slowly raising up to me. a fast current comes out of the creek, but slows in the mississippi. I don't hit any fast current parts of the Miss. Depending on the lure i am using and the time of day, i either cast straight out perpendicular to the miss, or diagonally into piasa creek and let the current put a little more action on the lure.

Tons of cover. There are thousands of old dead trees that have washed up on shore, and tons of them submerged (damn snags, never use an expensive lure there) or hung up on each other. Can't wait till summer when i can throw a topwater in there, should be awesome.

There's even an old fridge that's submerged there, when the river draws down you can see it popping out of the water.

Not many good sized crappie, all are pretty small. Once and a while you get a good one, but honestly, it's not all that exciting. The sauger are the real draw. (Which i assume means there would also be walleye around, but i never see them). No i haven't seen any eggs, although i honestly wouldn't know what to look for. h20 temp was pretty frigid, i'd say just over 30 degrees to tell by touch (yeah, still big sheets of ice floating down the Miss too...not optimal fishing conditions).

This is just south of where the illinois dumps into the miss, so the lumber littering the river is abundant, and you have less than 5, 6 inches of water clarity through the silt at the creek mouth, a little more when you're in the river proper, or upstream in the creek from the mouth. I guess i never really have tried much besides different plastics, but i would assume otherwise there are tons of fish in the area.

Any thoughts?
-SB

We were catching them on jigs in about 2' of water. Keep in mind that my pond is only 4' deep during our winter draw down. I didn't do any of the cleaning so I'll have to check on the eggs.

Well, I got skunked again yesterday at my pond but, finally saw some fish breaking the surface and I actually scared one - didn't see it but it broke a big ol' swirl in the water when my bait hit the water near it.

So, it's encouraging to see that we actually do have fish still in our pond - I was beginning to wonder if they had all escaped during some recent flooding.

The past few days have seen sunny days with highs in the mid-50's. Right this minute, it's snowing. Go figure.

Al this has been a long winter here in Texas. My water temps this weekend were in the low forties but the ten day forecast has some seventy degree temps in it. We havn't seen seventy in months and our average by now is in the middle sixties. Yesterday we had a high of about forty five.

This winter we have averaged 8 degrees colder than last winter.

Well if it makes you guys feel any better it has been very nice here in Saskatchewan. Above freezing almost every day since the middle of feb. They are forcasting a high of 42F for sunday. It could be -40.