Mid December crappie fishing with my son

[Jim Uran]

It was an awful day for traveling, with the rain, freezing rain turning to snow, you know if you were going to get out and find fish that they would bite due to the wicked low pressure system. Jim Jr and I decided to brave the roads to head out for some crappie fishing. We didn't have too far to go though so it wasn't too much of a concern. We hit the ice at about 2:30 and I punched us about 20 holes as Jimmy followed behind me with the Vexilar checking the depth and scanning for active fish. We were looking in the 12-24 foot range to see where they were feeding.

The first 45 minutes or so we fished the holes over and not much luck but perch, small perch at that! I had Jimmy fishing out in the shallow range and I was out hole hopping looking for active fish, but they were hard to come by. After a while I hit the deepest hole I drilled and found a school of active fish about 8 feet from the bottom. I caught a few fish and they moved on. That's when the light bulb went off, I grabbed the auger and drilled us about 15 holes scattered out in the depths and we were going to do some hole hopping looking for the hungry ones.

Here is Jimmy with what we were catching, mostly 9" crappies but fun regardless of the size.

We caught those for the next hour, bouncing from hole to hole, they were just out roaming the basin. From our experience in the past we knew there were big ones in the lake, and that there was a chance that we would hone in on a trophy crappie. Much to my delight, it was Jimmy that tagged the beast. I was fishing a hole about 30 feet away from him when I heard splash-splash-splash, and then a half scream of joy or disbelief, not sure which one!

There he was standing there holding this big crappie. Right around the 15" mark, his voice was shaky and he had the jitters, almost like he had buck fever!! I'm not kidding you when I say this, he literally had tears of joy coming down his cheeks. He is going to be, well heck, he IS an amazing angler!!! This will go down as one of the most memorable nights on the ice for me, and I'm sure he will feel the same way!

Oh, btw, we kept it and I'm going to get it mounted for him. Great memories last a lifetime!

[highlife4me]

Way to Jimmy! Congrats on a trophy crappie!

[eyedawg]

Great story Jim!!

[dairyman]

wow-----------congrats to Jimmy. Very nice fish!!!!! way to go Dad!!!!!!

[slicjigger]

That's awesome! Can't wait till my little guy can go with! Congrats!

[delmuts]

great story!! When you get that fish back; he'll be telling that story for a long time!

[simple1]

Nice fish! And what lake did you say you were on?

[Coldwater Crappie Guy]

Awesome job!

[Scott M]

Great job, thanks for sharing Dad and Jimmy!

[bbfenatic]

You have taught him well! Keep up the good work, congrats man.

[g_anoka]

Nice fish. Nothing better then having your children or grandcildren enjoying the great outdoors.

[Big Country]

Beastly fish. Nice work there Jr. BC

[popriveter]

That's fantastic! Well done, Jimmy!

Can't wait to have that experience with my kids.

[amateurfishing]

awesome story & i hope to copy it one day with my kids

[Jim Uran]

bumping this up to the top, I'll never forget this trip. He has grown so much since then but his desire to fish hasn't shrunk at all!!