Slaying Crappie

So there are days when you slay them and days when you don’t. Wednesday I slayed the Crappie!  It started off with a big confusion in terms of who was going fishing with us, what time we were going fishing and ultimately whether or not we were going fishing at all.  I seem to befriend a lot of people that are bad at communicating! Lol

Finally, we set the trip to meet up at 415 at a gas station in Sacramento and follow my buddy Russell to one of his secret crappie spots. A few days prior Russell had caught a huge 18 inch crappie at this spot.  I followed him out to a spot that was dead

center of the city but it blends in by standing out. It is a very public place but by looking at it, you would never be able to tell that it was a good fishing spot.

You know my sub-heading that reads, “Fishing clear creeks to dirty ditches?” Well this is a dirty little ditch! Its muddy brown water in the center of the city but it comes straight out of the Sac River so it’s not the worst water you can fish, it just gives you the idea that it is. 

beat the skunk!

We had our lines in by 4:30 but wouldn’t get bites for another couple of hours. The crew was me, Russell, His girlfriend Ivy and his other buddy Gene. Russell had warned me that the bite didn’t pick up until sundown but we had beer to drink while we waited so we were good. I also killed time by throwing out some flies to no avail. I tossed out a royal humpy, a mosquito pattern, a beaded wooley bugger and a thin mint but no takers. The sun started going down at around 7. And that is right around when I hooked into the first fish of the day. It was a small crappie but it beat the skunk. I was happy to finally get into one but little did I know it wouldn’t be my last. 

A few moments later, Gene got into his first one, and then a second one. From that moment forward, I was in full on competitive mode! Sure enough the bite got crazy when the sun went down. Gene and I were going fish for fish until we both reached 6 crappies a piece.  I wanted to catch one more to put me on top, which I did. 

2nd double of the night

1st double

At one point I had a rod in the water, saw my bobber disappear, hooked that fish and while I was removing the hook, saw my other bobber go down and hooked that one as well. Alas, my first double of the night. Oh yeah, I said first double! After catching one more fish I got into another double and at that point it was just easy.  Russell didn’t end up getting into many fish but Ivy ended the night with 5, which was pretty good considering that she just started fishing. 

Last fish of the night was also the biggest but that doesn’t mean it was huge. These crappie were on the small side so the biggest one was about 8 inches.  We were hoping for the big 18inchers like Russell caught a few days ago but they either weren’t around or weren’t biting.  In all it was a pretty good day. A few more days like this and I will meet my goal of 70 Panfish this year!

Total Fish: 12 Crappie