Georgie and I launched from Wethersfield Cove at 6 and headed down to White Oaks in search of crappie. It was a bit foggy and flat assed calm. It felt great to be out on the water again. No problem getting in the cove at all this morning. I had all of our small bait separated in a bucket with holes in the same tank I keep my pondies at home. Some how they all died overnight, the pondies were fine. Oh well, dead shiners would have to work. It didn't take long to find the cribs. There were a few crappie on them but not what we were hoping for.
We caught a few but decided to move on to look for a bigger school.
As we moved down the bank towards the next crib, the Humminbird lit up with fish. It was a pretty big school. We dropped down and instantly were both hooked up... These weren't crappie
We had a ball pounding the cats. Small jigs tipped with dead shiners on 4 pound test. I had one that was over 12 pounds on the Boga... A new PB cat for me. I've seen them balled up in the deep holes of the river when the water is at it's coldest but I've never seen so many of them in the cove together.
Ater a many cats, we got back in to crappie mode and located a crib that was loaded with what we were looking for.
We made a pass directly over the crib and tossed out a marker bouy on top of it. For the next hour we put a hurting on them
We fished within a 20 foot radius and used 2 rods each. One rod was actively jigged with a new Lindy Darter. I dead sticked a dead shiner on a 1/16 oz head on the other rod. At times it was hard to keep up.
Georgie kept 5 for a couple of meals and the rest were put back for the ice season
The club land surrounding the cove sounded like a war zone with all the members gunning for pheasant this morning. A couple of times we even had shot raining down in the water near the boat. We even watched a pheasant fly from the woods and crash in to the cove. Kinda weird to watch one swim. If anyone had asked me if they could swim I would have said no way but the little guy made it to shore in no time and ran back into the brush to hide.
We were back on the trailer by 10:45. Not a bad few hours on the river. The conditions were perfect and the fishing just as good.
