What's Workin Now, Fall...

[delmuts]

i couldn't resist corey!! i remember when my twins came home from a carnival at school with different colored hair too.

[The Grebe]

Del...Did those crappies turn on for you yet? We picked up about a dozen and a half tonight, nice ones again.

Most of them were let go, but we saved afew for a friend of mine. I give him some fresh fish once in awhile, he gives me a free bucket of minnows when I come into his place. Works for both of us. They are still bottom hugging and biting the same way on the same baits.

[delmuts]

not yet on the small lake i fish. i tried monday morning with poor results.( caught one little one and lost one in a brush pile) but i was fishing from shore too. the gils are still hitting well with bait.i'm heading to the faribault area next wed. finally!!( will be fising thurs. - sunday . so if any one see a iowa F150 with FM decals on the topper, pulling a ranger, say hi !!

[The Grebe]

Del...We have been banging them from shore also, it drops quick right off the shoreline, into about 9 feet at one place, 12 feet at another.

We went again this morning before work, we got there early before the wind started and the crappies were again cooperative, very large crappies today, but you really had to work for them.

We managed to bag 5 and probably had that many get away. Them biggies don't give a rip about tearing the jig loose from their mouths, they come to fight!

I think the water is pretty dirty, being so roiled up from the wind and it probably has some influence on the bite, once the wind started again this morning, the crappies turned right off and we could'nt get a one.

Hard casting the light weight stuff into the breeze, we had to go to a little heavier jig just to get it out far enough!

[Corey Bechtold]

Glad to hear you guys are finding a few fish.

I went out today after an early day at work. I wasn't going to clown around so I began my search for suspended fish over some deeper water. I was suprised to see that the fish were actually hugging the bottom in 12' of water. The Crappies were stacked 3' solid and they were agressive. I started switching around baits/colors to see if there was one pattern that worked better than another. What I found was that they preferred White Berkley Power tubes. I had some luck on the minnow baits but the tube was the ticket!

Fishing was actually better around 2:00 than any other time of the afternoon. Staying around the bottom and fishing slow was the best presentation for me. If the fish moved than I would slowly troll my bait along the bottom and pick up a few fish that way too.

Later in the afternoon my wife brought Cole out to fish with me. We switched to Sunfish for some more action and found them to be very shallow. They were hiding near the weeds in 2'-5' of water. The funny thing is that with all the baits we tried there, Power Minnows were the only thing we could get the Sunfish to bite on. There also was a few Bass hanging in the shallows along with the Sunfish. Cole managed to reel in one 17"er that gave him quite a tussel!

A beautiful evening on the water and I was glad that the fish cooperated too.

Here are a few pics from the day...

How's this for a new dew?

Cole about to unhook a Sunfish.

Cole's Sunfish.

Have a great Holiday weekend everybody! I hope you find some fish to boot.

Corey Bechtold

[delmuts]

that thing on your head looks like jig material to me !!

[Matt Johnson]

LOL ... Corey cracks me up

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[CrappieJohn]

That's his natural hair color!

[delmuts]

atleast his has hair! eh TOM ?? (is yours that short of just missing ??)

[CrappieJohn]

Just tied too many jigs is all.

[Corey Bechtold]

Man, I love this forum... lots of comedians!

Gald to be a part of such a fun forum!!!

Later,

Corey Bechtold

[united jigsticker]

Ohhh the planning that went into that photo...

First, a trip to the corner of the musty basement to dig out the Halloween outfits...

"I wasn't going to clown around so I started my pursuit looking for suspended fish....."

HA!!! I scroll down and Corey has a wig on!!!!

Corey, you a funny man!

Did ya keep the hair on the whole trip? I would have!

HAHAHA!!!

[Corey Bechtold]

Nope, It was a loaner! With Halloween coming up maybe there will be some Elvis sightings on the lakes?!

We'll see,

Corey Bechtold

[rosspj59]

I hit a north metro lake with my father on saturday morning with some good fish making it to the boat. We found a nice little of school of crappies in 5 feet of water near some pads that liked a tube jig in red/chartruese tail or a roadrunner with a white tail. Also, caught a few on crawlers. We hit a couple other spots too. There was some structure in 15 feet of water that held a bunch of fish, but only a couple of hungry fish which wanted a tube jig/minnow, so we moved again to a point with weeds nearby. Tubes and crawlers caught a couple sunfish, one 10 inch perch and a couple crappies. Next we fished a small weed flat next some deep water and stumbled on some rocky bottom in about 5-6 feet of water that had some dandy bulls and a few crappies on it. These fish preferred a crawler to the plastics. Too bad the storm came and pushed us off the water because we only fished this rocky area for about 15 minutes and it produced two nice 9 inch gills.

[Corey Bechtold]

Glad to hear you put together a pattern and caught some fish! Also sorry to hear that the weather took you away from the fishing.

Good Luck,

Corey Bechtold

[CrappieJohn]

The sunnies wanted some meat(waxie) with their small plastics and hair this AM. Crappies were playing the tight lip game and I was finally able to taunt some into hitting an ice jigging spoon ( glow red 1/16 oz) tipped with a waxie. Crappies were real deep and the better sunfish came from about five feet down over 23+ feet of water.

[The Grebe]

This a.m., the crappies would'nt touch the minnies, we got everything, which was'nt much, on 1/32 oz. white feather jigs.

We fished our normal haunts in 7- 12 feet and got 5 crappies for 2 guys, in about 1 1/2 hours of fishing.

The fish we did get were still hugging the bottom and they were'nt rapping it like they have been, more of an inhale and " Hey, I've got one on...did'nt even know it?"

We tried a few different colors and even some tubs, but they wanted the white jigs if they took anything at all.

I'm sure this weather has them muddled up for awhile, once we stabilize, they'll start in again.

[Corey Bechtold]

I also made it out tonight for a couple hours. I picked a new lake and wasn't expecting much but thought it would be worth a shot. Boy was I suprised on what I found! There were large schools of small Bluegills all over the place and getting the big ones to bite seemed impossible as the small ones were quick to the bait. I upsized my presentation and quickly found that there were some larger fish down there. The small fish would rap away at my 2" Power Minnow but weren't able to get the hook. After the little ones gave up then it was the bigger fish's turn. Although the occasional little guy got the hook, the bigger ones were down there.

As the evening progressed I started to pick up some Crappies. Nice Crappies! The fish would intercept the bait on the fall or hit when the bait was at a stand still. Fishing the swing was a good way to get some of these Slabs. After a few good Crappies in the 10"-11.5" range I suddenly set into a good fish. When I got the fish to the boat I realized that there was no way I was going to hoist this hawg into the boat. I grabbed the net and landed a beautiful 14" Crappie! This was a really thick and tall fish! After a couple pictures I slid her back into the water. Man was I pumped .

I really didn't expect the fish to be so cooperative after the storms rumbled through the last few days. But I guess that you can't catch fish unless you go out and try.

Here is a quick note on the night...

Water temps 73 degrees

Water clarity clear-mild stained

Fish, scattered/suspended in 10'-20' of water

Berkley 2" Power Minnows (Black shad/Smelt)

1/16oz white jighead

Medium light 6' spinning rod

4lb Sensation clear line

Gotta love putting it all together!

Good Luck,

Corey Bechtold

[Matt Johnson]

Nice slab Corey! Man do I need to chase some pannies! I'm going crazy right now

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[The Grebe]

Nice fish! You sure have a way with those crappie pictures!

Now you have me wondering if maybe yesterday was an afternnon/evening bite, instead of the morning? I guess it would'nt have mattered I could'nt have went then anyways, it was morning, or nothing!

These fish are really hard to figure out? So many variables that change in such a short period of time, or distance? I guess that if it was'nt like that and went by the book, it would'nt take long to negatively impact the resource. I do know that hunting them can be a challenge sometimes....thats the fun of it.

[CRET]

Nice Fish! Was out last night on Green Lake, we nailed some nice 10" Crapies in 18-19 feet of water. Again, the ringin Rat was the ticket.

Cretbo

[Corey Bechtold]

Glad to hear the Crappies are snappin your way too CRET. I took the Big 3 out last night to brave the wind and see if we could find some active fish. The Sunfish were more tight to the weeds and the Crappies were more scattered. Brooke caught some nice Crappies and Cole was the only one who was able to manage some Bluegills. Bailey wanted to learn how to run the trolling motor but I told her on a calm day. Boat control was key as the fish were on the move. I even had something happen to me that has never happened to me before. I caught a Carp on a Power Minnow! Man, did I think I had one heck of a nice Crappie at first . It was a nice evening with the kids and they seem to really be learning the tricks I am showing them. Bailey seems to really concentrate on what triggers the fish into biting. Pretty soon they will be outfishing me!

I forgot to show the release picture from the other night so here it is...

Here's Bailey's release picture from last night...

11.5" Crappie

Have a great weekend,

Corey Bechtold

[Jim Hudson]

Well this past week I had the opportunity to make it out a couple times to some inland waters... The first day was to take my nephew out in search of some fast and furious panfish action.... In our search, we found both bluegills and crappies relating to some deep weeds (15FOW) adjacent a big flat. And the action was indeed fast and furious... Brandon was on fire that day, catching fish one after another... Most of the fish were on the small size, especially the crappies, but we did manage to pick up a few decent sized gills... All fish were caught on Lil Nipper Hair Jigs tipped with a Berkley Gulp Maggot... I did try to mix it up to try and locate some bigger fish, but nothing outproduced the above set-up. Heres a few photos from that outing...

Brandon and I with one of Brandon's Gills...

Brandon a little timid after being "spiked" by a gill...

And another decent gill...

A few days after that trip, a friend and I went in search of some esox action where conditions were down right tough for them critters. Coming up near a main lake point, I graphed huge schools of suspened fish... I deployed the aqua vu and found these critters to be schooled up gills suspended from 10 to 15 feet over a hard bottom area in 20FOW off this point... Again, the Lil Nipper and gulp presentation shined on these fish... My buddy was in the mood for a bluegill dinner, so we quickly caught a few fish for his table. No pictures from this trip but we did manage to catch a few bigger gills that we released along with the ones we kept.

[delmuts]

i stand corrected!! i got to meet CT last week. he does have some hair!( it looked like it would be perfect for a white jig though!! ) it was great to meet and talk to him !

[CrappieJohn]

And it was great to finally meet you too! Too bad it wasn't the chit chat didn't happen over a pole.