Well the first UPL report is in the books, pretty up and down. During pre-fishing we found a lot of places of where not to fish. I got soaking wet and to make matters worse I backed the trailer into my dads barn door….
Juan and I had a fairly solid game plan and I told him the night before that I was gonna camp it out in the fish house and hope the reel weeds would do their job and slow down the nomadic wondering schools of gills, seeds and crappies.
This is such a great event, great guys to fish with and learn from and to generally just be around.
The 8 am start time came and we whistled out to our spot. We were fishing a fairly community spot, with at any given time during the tournament atleast 3 and up to 12 other teams were in the general area. What we found during prefishing was one lone weed stalk still standing and it was like a magnet to the fish. If I never made the use of the camera during prefishing I never would have found that little spot on the spot sort of thing. We could chase and chase and chase. So it kind of made sense to try some reel weeds. Now mind you, I am a run and gun kinda guy, sitting in one hole for 6 hours, is not my normal cup of tea. I cut 7 holes today and that was it. 5 for the reel weeds, 1 for the camera and one to fish out of.
It was an incredibly tough bite for a lot of people, and it was a super finicky bite. I never turned my LX-5 on the whole day. As soon as I got the reel weeds set up and the camera down, I was covered up in pannies.
During out prefishing, crappies were a rare commodity. So the plan was to get our crappies as soon as possible and then play with the gills the rest of the day. Something changed and I never caught on to it. I was picking the fish I wanted, letting the smaller fish and gills suck the baits in and spit back out and taking the larger fish instead. So we put our bag of nice crappies on the ice and a few gills and upgraded the crappies and then the gills just disappeared. Not sure if it was the constant noise, or the pressure but what we had going was gone.
I have always thought cameras were something for mainly permanent shacks. I had a camera about 5 years ago and I was never happy with it and it has collected dust and lots of it…my 825 sd will be going with me every trip now. Just to see how the fish interact and to help understand what makes or breaks that spot. Even understanding how the fish are responding to how your jigging, the little things that you can not fully pick up with just a flasher. When the fish are just mouthing and inhaling baits. Very, very impressed with that camera!
We were working about 14 feet of water focusing on the bottom 5 feet of water on an outside turn of the break to the shallows with a surprising amount of current sweeping around the corner.
A #12 Gold Fatboy with a J&S plastic, this was a great bait to get me down, and on top of that about a foot I had a small #16 fly tied as a drop shot of sorts. I noticed a lot of bugs and small critters in the water and pounding the fatboy/fly combo down in the muck and raising it up slow, it did not account for the numbers that the fatboy did, but it did add a few fish that were extremely sluggish…
The 3 biggest crappies that I got were on a Lindy Rattl’n flyer spoon in a perch pattern.
Finally came time to pack up and head for the scale. I thought we had a good bag, but that we would come up short. A team next to us had a good bag going. Then the new faces from the league you wonder about as well and then like a fingernails on the chalkboard is wondering how that darn Michael Thompson and Jack had in their buckets. Ended up weighing in just over 6 pounds to take the win, winning by just over a pound. Extra icing on the cake was taking big fish pot as well.
After the weigh in, we had an awesome fish fry on shore, complete with potato salad, french fries, onion rings!
Was a lot of fun and looking forward to North Arm in a month! Should be another interesting lake to try and figure out!
If you need someone to help you figure out that lake just gimmie a call!!
Way to go guys. Those are some nice crappies from that lake. Did you ever find your lost fishing pole? Good points on using the camera and reel weeds. Mine see very little use to.
great job Chris and Juan and congrats on the win.
It for sure was a tough bite out there and im glad i was there as a spectator and not a participant.
Charles Schmidtbauer
Using a camera can make things more interesting from time to time, I would definitely say you made excellent use of yours. And the reel weeds, just a couple days ago I was thinking that I have not read anything about anyone using them. Not only did you use them but they helped you win. I enjoyed your tale of the tape and am pumped to get out on the ice, once we get some or I hop in my truck and head north. Thanks for the read, I enjoyed it a lot.
BTW how was your trip yesterday? Did anyone make it out with you? I would have if I lived closer but… well maybe some other time.
Using a camera can make things more interesting from time to time, I would definitely say you made excellent use of yours. And the reel weeds, just a couple days ago I was thinking that I have not read anything about anyone using them. Not only did you use them but they helped you win. I enjoyed your tale of the tape and am pumped to get out on the ice, once we get some or I hop in my truck and head north. Thanks for the read, I enjoyed it a lot.
BTW how was your trip yesterday? Did anyone make it out with you? I would have if I lived closer but… well maybe some other time.
The one thing I would like to say about our win, is when you work as a team and as well as Chris and I work together, everything will fall in place.. he is a great fisherman.