Fishing Report 8-26-06 – Tri-County Canal

Was able to make it out this past Saturday to try for some crappie. Ended up having a excellent day. Caught roughly 150-200 crappie, 5 white bass, 3 walleye, and 3 LMB. Water temps are dropping pretty fast as it was almost 10 degrees cooler than 3 weeks ago. Shad were EVERYWHERE too. I seen 1 area that had to of had 10 million 1-2″ shad in it. Now for the catching info!

For the crappie I was casting or vertical jigging 1/16 oz jigs in a wide variety of colors. I was fishing mainly structure(bridge&brush). About 3/4 of all the crappie I caught were only 5-6″ long but did manage my share of decent fish also. Alot of the nicer fish came from less than 1′ of water also. I felt like I was fishing the bass spawn. I would spot the fish then dip a jig on em with a 20′ rod.

The whites and walleye were all caught pulling cranks. I made 3 passes in this area and that was it. Might have caught more but was wanting to fish jigs instead. I would like to send a SHOUT OUT to Todd for the advice on customizing crankbaits. All the fish caught while trolling were on cranks that I painted.

The LMB were caught around some standing timber on buzzbaits. Biggest was over 18″ and I bet it weighed close to 5#. They were really aggressive too. It has been a long time since I had a bass scare the heck out of me when it hit. JUST AWESOME!!!!!!!!

Till next time,

Thanks for the report Greg. Sounds like you had fun.
Is fishing the canal even an option once the irigation season is over?

Ben

Great job Greg. Sounds like you had a lot better luck than me with the crappies last week. If you don’t mind me asking, where on the canal where you fishing? Don’t have to worry about catching me there as I will be spending all of my free time at Sherman but I am curious. Thanks for the report Greg

Thats one mess of crappies. Good time to get a youngster out there to take advantage of it.

Sounds like you had a pretty productive day.

Walleye4, do you guys get white crappies down there? When I lived in Iowa, some of the lakes had white crappies, just wondering what you were catching?

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They were really aggressive too. It has been a long time since I had a bass scare the heck out of me when it hit. JUST AWESOME!!!!!!!!

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Oh yea! Don’t ya just love it! Nice reports greg!

Yea we have both whites and blacks down here Scott. And there are some really nice ones if you can find the right place.

Ben,

We fished the canal all the way up till we had to break ice with boat last winter. Water comes down a little but not enough to keep me off the lake. If your down this way this fall, let me know, I usually have an empty seat in the Yarcraft.

Zach,

I fish all over in the canal above Johnson’s Lake. I was at Plum Creek this past week. With gas prices going down, I will be hitting Sherman soon also. Anxious to hit the crappie&eyes up there!

I am thinking about starting up a Guide Service since I am always going by myself it seems like. How do you guys like my slogin(sp)?

Buy the gas & I’ll put you on the FISH!

Think that might work?

Here is a pic of one of last falls trips over to the canal. The boat don’t look very good in these pics! I did a bunch of work on it this past winter and added a new trolling motor and LMS-332c. I’ll post up a new pic of it someday.

Hey if it works let me know. Sounds likea great way to go fishing and cover the overhead.

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Sounds likea great way to go fishing and cover the overhead.

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No kidding!

Might not be so bad now that gas is going down!

Scott,
Ya, we have mainly white crappies down here, but once in a while we will catch some blacks. The area Greg is fishing is a good one….we caught probably 300 in three trips over there this spring, one of those trips was with Greg. Think you’ll see my Crestliner out there real soon….