5/15 Playing around up by Shorty's

[Flatbottom Boy]

I took all my girls (4 total including my wife) up to Shortys for lunch today. Figured it would be a good day for a boat ride. I finally found a good concentration of 10" bluegills on LOZ....just have to figure out how to tie a fly that resembles that fish food they sell there at the restaurant...and how to keep the ducks off! After lunch we motored to the back of the cove and started drowning some crawlers. My oldest caught a nice 12" crappie right off the bat. I switched her to a red/white jig and she put the whoopin on some decent crappies. They were right up on the bank and cooperating pretty good. 

When we got done and motored back to the Glaize state park area we started fishing a cove adjacent to the boat ramp. Huge schools of 6-8" shad all over. I see these every year but Im curious, are these the same schools I see in the fall all grown up? Do they grow that fast, or are they an older class of shad? 

[Johnsfolly]

Sounds like a great time with the family!

[fishinwrench]

Very cool!

We played with the spawning bass all day. Caught 8 keepers and a ton of shorts, but not a single 3+ pounder in the bunch.   Spook jr., C-rig lizard, tube jigs, and Senko's all got bit equally well. 

We didn't see any big shad but the little farts you see everywhere in the Fall are from a different brood than the big gizzards you see in the Spring.  LO has both gizzards and threadfins along with another long skinny minnow that my partner calls Brook Silversides.....but I'm not sure that's really what they are.   Plenty for fish to eat here that's for sure.

[Old plug]

They are silersides Wrench. They have really came on like gang buster this past year. i have tried netting  them when fishing night under light. Crappie seem to hate them. They were about 90% at least of the schools of bait fish in my dock under light.