A tale of two fish

Here’s the honest truth, May and June are God’s apology for August and September. May to me is the best weather we experience after November. It’s usually not so hot I am dying, drowning in sweat and not cold. We rarely get extended periods of rain. It’s usually in short, AWESOME! Lately that is the truth and we have been taking advantage of it.

For instance, Richard Malcom (Jigslinger Guide service) and I got together around the first of the month. Despite dodging a thunderstorm, we nailed some big crappie all evening. We started off with a little old school slip bobber fishing with a live crappie minnow. First cast Richard landed a solid one-pound crappie and it just kept on. This is a simple technique that honestly doesn’t require livescope or anything fancy. Just find the treetops, or better yet a treetop that is broken off and laying horizontal in the water column. Crappie love the shade. Toss a live minnow up there with a slip bobber set correctly and hold on.

Next, we moved on to tossing some jigs and actively hunting for fish on the livescope. This has become one of my favorite tactics. I love hunting for these crappie and honestly, I will tell you it’s addictive. We played with some jigs that KBDbaits.com sent me to try and we caught a ton on them. Kevin over there does great work and his multicolor jigs did a number for us. We ended the night with more than 20 good crappie in the box and another 15 or so tossed back.

During the middle of the month, I brought my son, Beau, and together we fished with the winner of our April Striper Club tournament for a morning of fishing. Kevin Harris is a guide on Lake Oconee, a member of our club and he’s become a good friend and fishing buddy. He won the April Tournament with a combined total of 72.25” and he won big fish as well. As usual, we met Kevin at Fishtales Marina on Lick Creek and headed out at 7am. We pulled planer boards with BIG gizzard shad that Kevin had caught that morning and unfortunately, we truck out. The planer board bite is either hero or zero in my experience, even though Kevin won the tournament on the boards in April. After trying the boards for a while, we started down lining. That paid off for us. We ended the day with somewhere around 20 -25 fish by noon. Beau was wore out from reeling and fighting fish! We kept a good many and will fry those coming up for some guests we are having.

The down line bite is one I’ve described before but honestly, it’s another simple tactic that doesn’t require a lot of electronics. Just good sonar. Look for actively feeding or moving fish. Pay attention to how and where you see them and look for patterns. Those may change every day. Stripers and hybrids move, and hunt so pay attention to bait balls, edges of channels, funnels, and pinch points. Right now, if you find singles, or doubles even, stop and fish. You never know what might happen!

Bottom line is don’t miss this time of year. Get out there and fish!