Saturday morning temperatures were a chilly 43 degrees at 8:00am as I headed for the lake with the boat in tow to meet Tom and Todd Pike for a half day of crappie fishing. Typically, I see the crappie bite improve dramatically as the day warms up on chilly mornings like this so we were in no hurry to hit the lake bright & early this morning. And true to form, the first few hours of fishing was slow. But we did eventually see some active fish moving into the shallows as the day wore on and the water warmed up.
Surface waters in the main lake were at 55 degrees and the bays were not any warmer during the morning hours. With very sunny skies and strong, but warm westerly winds, we did see surface waters in the protected, shallower areas warm up to 59 degrees in the afternoon.
We tried the deeper water first but only managed to pull one or two fish from there. Around 11:00am, we headed to a shallow, well protected area and slowly, we saw a few more fish become active. It was a tough bite and we had to keep moving around and casting into lots of different shoreline areas to catch a few fish. Our best rig this morning was a medium fathead fished 2 to 3' below a bobber on a gold hook. The other rig we used to take a few fish was a small jig/plastic combo tipped with a waxworm.
It appeared to me as though Todd and his dad, Tom were enjoying the chance to fish together more than anything. Fish stories flowed freely making the time between bites pass quickly. These two guys already knew how to fish, they just needed someone to show them around the lake .
Despite the tough bite, they did catch some very nice crappies. Todd bested his dad on this day with a beautiful 15 incher. Congrats on that really nice fish Todd.
It was a pleasure to share my boat with you two gentleman. I always enjoy the stories that people tell while fishing.
Thanks again guys!
