MrGiggles

Had a couple spare hours so I went down over to Crabtree for a couple hours. Crappie were cooperating. Firetiger was the ticket once again. No walleyes though, not sure where they went.

Try going 50ft ahead of the bait. Unless you're trolling in >50 fow, you should be able to pull up enough line to unclip the weight and use a plug knocker. I don't have much experience with them, the clips that I have are a terrible design, but I followed the 50/50 method, let 50 feet of line out, attach weight, let out another 50 feet. I'm going to get some better snaps, in hopes that it'll be a little less aggravating than lead core.

I usually have the best luck from now till mid October. Once the water dips below 60 it's pretty well over with.

1.5-2.5 mph typically. Speed has a much greater impact on depth if you are using weights of any kind, be it lead core, snap weights, etc. In that case, the slower you go, the deeper. Otherwise, within the speed window above, depth will not change much. I also use metered Fireline or braid, with a short mono leader.

Every once in a while I would run through a cluster like that, and maybe pull a crappie out of it. Once the cloud cover went away in the afternoon, the crappie bite seemed to diminish.

Spent a few hours at Mutton today. Pulled flickers all over the place, caught 6 crappie, 4 eyes, and a smallie. Firetiger was the ticket. Never did find any consistent crappie, just one here, one there. Caught one more eye and a spot with a jig and crawler. No big eyes unfortunately, three shorts and two that were barely legal.

Haven't been since the 5th, water was clear but had lots of debris up by the dam. Still caught crappie spawning, mostly small males, keepers but barely. I had to look pretty hard to find them, any sort of structure that hung out past the flooded brush in 10-12 feet would have fish, like a laydown, dock, etc. Docks were especially productive. I talked to some other guys that were catching them deeper. I think you can find them just about anywhere now.

Compared to last year, I sure won't mind a cool, wet summer.

Great fish. Went out of Masters last night, worked a jig and crawler on main lake points. Caught a bunch of whites, a channel cat, and a couple drum. No walleye though.

Reel capacity is more for trolling rods. That would never be a factor for casting rods. When I said degrade, I meant that from a fishing stand point, not biodegrading in the environment. Braid won't be junk from sitting in the sun for a few weeks like mono would. I change mono pretty frequently, I have yet to change a spool of braid for any other reason than wanting to try something different. Lines with little stretch are better for structure fishing, you can feel bottom, rocks, brush, or tree limbs much easier. The actual strike is much easier to detect as well. Fishing brush with mono, sometimes I get excited and sink the hook into a limb, with braid/nanofil I can easily tell the difference between something solid and a fish. Makes working a brush pile much less frustrating.

Braid is more sensitive (no stretch, mono is like a rubber band), much smaller in diameter (cranks run deeper, can fit more on a reel), takes much longer to degrade, and has very little memory. It's also less abrasion resistant, and requires different knots than mono.

Don't know about you guys, but I usually welcome a little downpour in July.

It's so slick and tough that most knots will slip, or it will cut through itself. Palomar or double palomar works well. I stink at tying knots, so I use a mono leader, since a trilene knot is one that I can remember.

I have little to no experience with those reels. Braid does cast a little further than mono, but not a whole lot more. Nanofil is king for casting distance, and it has more memory than braid, which may make it better for a spincaster. Knots are a pain in the butt though. It's a lot cheaper on ebay if you want to buy some to try it out.

How deep were you running the Flickers?

Put in at Masters tonight. Water is clear in the main lake. Some debris in coves. Water was more stained further down the lake. I only caught two crappie. Both females, 20 feet of water. One full of eggs, one not. Not sure what to think of that.

I caught them around 10ft deep, close to the bank. They may be even shallower, but fishing there is next to impossible with all of the bushes and trees.

I took the boat out tonight. Water was high, clear with lots of debris at Wheatland, chocolate milk if you went any further south. The crappie are in full spawn, I caught jet black males in 10ft with torn up tails. Females moved in later at dusk. Water was 63 degrees, give or take. Fishing was difficult with all the bushes and vegetation on the bank. Be careful out there, lots of debris and logs floating out in the main channel.

Amazon. I tried Ebay first but had issues with them. Get OEM if you can, probably Zama.

Just buy a new carb. $20 and 5 minutes will have it purring like new. I don't even rebuild those small 2 stroke carbs. They're really tricky to get right, and it's not worth the time when a replacement is so cheap. I refurbed a pair of Mantises (manti?) a couple years ago. All they needed was fuel lines and a new carb.

I have some trouble sometimes. But I have trouble with even the simplest knots, not much of a boy scout.

I also use the alberto/albright. With Nanofil I like to double it. Usually the mono breaks further down before the knot fails.

Better bring a rain coat...