Mid Lake mixed bag 11/12 - 11/14 with near disaster

1 hour ago, Bill Jr. said:

Thanks to Aarchdale on his post on the crappie he was catching last week.  The pictures really got me in the mood to catch some.  Got out for an hour on Thursday and caught some mostly small bass.  A couple on a jig but most were on 3.3" Keitechs.  Focused on the steeper banks 

Friday, we got out around 9:00 after watching a bit of the Masters.   Still on the steeper banks we started picking up a crappie or 2 on the same 3.3" swimbaits.  When we would catch one, we would stop and cover the area and would pick up a couple more.  Also isolated pole timber would also hold a few but we couldn't catch more than four on one spot.  Lost 4 HUGE slabs at the boat as I forgot to put the net in the boat.  We took a break for lunch and returned with the net.  Wonderful afternoon for mid November and had a good time with the bass turning on in the afternoon.  Same stuff, steeper banks and 3.3" swimbaits.  Lots of SM and spots with only 1 or 2 small LM.  Found some more crappie off a main lake steep point but only ended up keeping 12 after the early losses at the boat.  Best thing is we never caught a short crappie.  all were 12 - 14" and most were over 13".  

Saturday had about 45 min in the morning until the rains came.  I was able to catch a bonus 21.5" Walleye for the basket on the same swimbait.  Went out again in the afternoon and continued to catch a few more slabs in the same spots we caught them on Friday.  Since the first basket was fairly full from the Friday fish and early walleye, I added the 9 more to a 2nd basket to all be cleaned on Sunday.

That evening the front came through and thought the house was going to blow away around 3:30 Sunday morning.  I went down to start cleaning the fish around 9:00 and... SOB! the basket with 12 slabs and the walleye had the line severed by the wind on the dock iron!  I just use trot line cord and I guess it rubbed against the dock all night in the wind and sunk!  After a call to my bros to help, we were able to find the basket with a naked jig head and then made a homemade grappling hook with a big treble, padlock for weight and dropped it down to retrieve the basket!  Totally made the weekend as I was so bummed to have those fish just sitting on the bottom. 

All were still good and got several bags of filets for a future fish fry.  All and all great weekend and beautiful weather for mid November.  I'll be down Thanksgiving weekend and may be able to see if the crappie are still there and maybe catch a few wiggle wart fish.  

WT was 62-63 all over.  

 

Love it! You go!

Man that’s Awesome! I’m Jealous Of your trip. I’d really suggest you clean your fish after each day. An otter is going treat your dock like a drive through eventually.

 

Nice report!

dang and promoted to an article!  

I've been posting on here for 7 or 8 years and have never once been promoted that I recall. I guess none of my content meets moderator criteria 😄 but it doesn't matter. 

I'm done contributing to OAF after this year anyway. After so many years you just get bored with it. A LOT of people I used to see here on Bull never come around or post anymore, and that was what always kept me coming back.

 

😆

2 hours ago, Ham said:

Man that’s Awesome! I’m Jealous Of your trip. I’d really suggest you clean your fish after each day. An otter is going treat your dock like a drive through eventually.

 

Woodland critters ,they will steal. I watched a raccoon untie a knot to get into a bucket full of minnows! Obviously not his first. Wasn't my bucket

Hillbillies with pocket knives can be hard on fish baskets too.  Many years ago dad and I had a wire basket full of big truman crappie.  We moved to a new spot, tossed the basket over the side and my teenage kid knot didn't hold it just sank out of sight.  Dad and I just looked at each other, to his credit he didn't get mad and best me (should have probably).  Several days layer we were fishing the exact same spot with a friend whim we had never fished with, we're telling him the story of the lost fish bask full of big crappie (weren't biting this particular day) and you could tell he was skeptical. About that time he looks toward the bank and says "what is that"?  Yep the dang basket full of very smelly bloated crappie had floated up, I did get tasked to dump them things out, but that was fair since I lost them to start with.

15 hours ago, Fish24/7 said:

Nice report!

dang and promoted to an article!  

I've been posting on here for 7 or 8 years and have never once been promoted that I recall. I guess none of my content meets moderator criteria 😄 but it doesn't matter. 

I'm done contributing to OAF after this year anyway. After so many years you just get bored with it. A LOT of people I used to see here on Bull never come around or post anymore, and that was what always kept me coming back.

 

😆

Fish 

I get it and I haven't posted much in the past but will try to do it more often.  Problem is I normally only get to fish for a couple hours in the morning when the family is down.  I hope you continue to post as I love reading them and seeing your hand painted cranks! 

16 hours ago, Ham said:

Man that’s Awesome! I’m Jealous Of your trip. I’d really suggest you clean your fish after each day. An otter is going treat your dock like a drive through eventually.

 

I'm going to do it from now on!  Enough of that MacGyver stuff but actually made the trip!

Fish, i havent posted much on here about Bull because i kinda quit going with all the high water the last couple years.   I always enjoy your posts and reports