september 13th fishing report

[marcus]

couple more fishing trips left this year than its back to chasing around big bucks......hope your trip goes well dave couple crappie in the fryer would be nice 

 

[David Unnerstall]

Marcus,

 

Thanks for the report.  I have the old Chrysler out of storage and heading up there Friday morning.  I will rent a slip at Black Jack.

[marcus]

cant catch em from the couch thats for sure 

[Haris122]

I headed out towards there late Monday morning with my kayak, and literally 5 minutes from the cabins got a phone call that someone had got into an accident driving their car into my sister's front porch somehow and that my dad needed help putting up support beams so the porch roof doesn't collapse. So I offloaded the kayak, and headed back to St. Louis, barely just getting to see the lake before I went back. Finally after finishing that up, I headed back up there, reaching my room at cannondam cabins right at midnight. Yesterday I got up early, but still didn't make it out on the water until 6:30. Anyways, water was a decent olive color, and pretty clear from what I hear about Mark Twain usually. Fished mainly around the smaller coves right by the Ray Behren ramp. First fish turned out being best one. A 11" Largemouth that fought on the light action rod like he was a lot bigger. The rest of the time there I got 5 Green Sunfish, mainly smaller ones, and 4 White Crappie. 3 of 4 being only 7", and the "big" one being 8". Green Sunfish I got both in deep crappie-looking water, and in shallow bass looking water. The crappie I too got between 8-13 feet but mainly in water not much deeper than that. Had to get back to St. Louis by 4 so got to the ramp and secured the kayak, and headed out by 2. I was pretty happy the way the fishing started. Unfortunately the bite died down some after the first 2-2.5 hours. Still, relatively satisfied with the trip overall, since I didn't have to relive the defeat from the first trip. 10 fish is pretty good for me numbers wise in that amount of time, just wish they would've been a little bigger. One thing I will say, Mark Twain Lake sure looks nice, and on a clear night the stars up there do too.

[marcus]

nice report harris seems like keeper crappie on the lake are harder to come by than i remember hopefully ill get a limit next time im out there. my roommate my brother and i caught over 100 crappie 2 weeks ago there and only 2 or 3 were over 9 inches....i know those slabs are in there its just how do u get them to bite? 

[Haris122]

i know those slabs are in there its just how do u get them to bite? 

The annual prospect report for Mark Twain this year mentioned that you'd have to go through a lot more smaller fish to get enough big ones, compared to the last few years, I just didn't think it would be that hard that you'd go through 100 fish without a single even crossing into the 10 mark. I expected not getting many big ones but I still hoped I'd get 4-5 at 10" or bigger, that I could take home. In the end I just released everything back again but truthfully even last fall none of us caught anything over 10", and even the 10s were few and far between. First time out I could not get anything besides crappie to bite, and even them not easily. This time was a bit different but I still didn't have much variety, and all of them were relatively small ones. I'm surprised I didn't get any white bass or at least a few more regular bass. Cause I did try trolling a crankbait behind me as I paddled between spots. Maybe it was diving too deep, since I saw 2 schools of small shad near the surface, but nothing hit a roostertail fished on top around them either. I need to learn how to catch more different types of fish, and bigger fish in general. I think had I been able to fish that first day, the 2nd I would've got more adventurous in what I try. Next time I'll force myself to try to catch any one species of fish, with at least 2 if not 3 different methods while I'm up there. As many of them as there are, at least the Crappie should cooperate.

[marcus]

i wonder what the bags are weighing in at for the tournaments down there the past year or so....

[brother dave]

Nice report haris122.  

I didn't make it to M.T.  chores came first.

[Haris122]

I wish I could head out there again this weekend, since I didn't get to fish it any that monday. At the same time I do need to start scouting areas for deer hunting pretty soon, before it gets too late.