I wanted to chase a new lifer...a white crappie (Pomoxis anularis). There is only one reliable location within 2 hours drive radius that has white crappie...unfortunately, they were outnumbered by the black crappie in the lake and it's never a guarantee what you'll catch.
I only had worms for bait...I wasn't about to pay $16 for a scoop of small minnows...I thought I misheard about the price...no...so no thanks!
I fished with a float rig today.
There wasn't any action for about an hour. I kept hearing these sucking and gulping noises around me. I pay a little more attention and saw that there were carp in the dead bulrush flats leisurely rising and sucking mouthfuls of floating algae from the surface.
With all the bulrush stalks around, it's very difficult to present the worm to these fish. They were at least 20 feet away and they were feeding on the surface. I set the float about 2" from the jighead tipped with worm and craftly swung the bait into the little spot where a carp was hiding under a log framed by 3 bulrush stalks. It wasn't an easy presentation, but somehow everything went right...FISH ON! I had to horse this fish out with 8lb mono.
After catching the carp, I went back to looking for my white crappie. There were a lot of floating vegetation debris near shore. These provided some cover for fish with about 1.5 feet of depth under the cover. I cast parallel to the debris line and retrieve with a stop and go cadence. About 20 minutes later, I got a hit and had a bass came off the small hook.
I continued to work the area and another 15 minutes later I hooked into a crappie! I took a look and thought this was a black crappie based on the pattern. However, I did a dorsal spine count and I counted 6 spines. There was no small spine that I've missed. The body looks a little more elongated than the black crappies I've caught before. This crappie was only a 6" juvenile, so maybe the barring pattern had not established yet. Or perhaps it was a hybrid between white and black crappie? What do you think? A new species for me?
I went back to fishing hoping to connect into another one. It took another 30 minutes before I got a hit right at my feet. It was a larger fish and it ended up being a 15" northern pike. I was just going to grab it behind the head when the pike thrashed and the 8lb mono parted. Oh well. It was fun anyways.
A little later, I saw my float went down a little but it wasn't moving. I pulled on it thinking I may have snagged some weeds. The float settled and sank a bit again. I reeled in all the way to clear the weeds off the hook, but found a 3" pumpkinseed on the hook. Wow!
A few more cast later, my float did the same thing again...but this time it was a 4" perch.
As I was casting, I saw some fish about 3" long scooted close to the surface. It looked like it was escaping a predator. I flipped my rig to where I thought the predator might be, and the float went down immediately! I set the hook into a crappie that looked about 12" long, but the hook came out since my worm was wrapped around and the hook point was covered by the worm.
After missing the crappie, it took another 10 minutes before I was hit again. This was a better fish and up came a largemouth bass! Bass was out of season, so it was one quick picture and then released.
The next cast back to the area was grabbed immediately, but the hook came out again. I was using a #14 octopus hook for crappies...so it was a little small for the larger fish.
It was now getting late in the afternoon. I decided to try the waters on the other side of the culvert. There was a nice log jam right by the culvert with lots of floating vegetation around. I gently lowered the worm around any little holes I could found and on one drop, I saw a crappie came up to grab the worm but it dropped the worm.
I heard a little sucking sound to my right and I thought it may be another carp. I could still see the swirling on the surface of the water where the fish just came up. I lowered the worm down and the float settled. Suddenly, the float twitched and resettled. I just went for the hookset and horsed out a 10" crappie! This crappie had pattern similar to a white crappie, but when I counted the dorsal fin spines, I count 7. Hm...another hybrid?
I know colour is not the definitive identification key. White crappies has 5-6 dorsal spines and black crappies has 7 or more dorsal spines. But these two crappies I caught were quiet intermediate in appearance. It's hard to say if they are hybrids or not since both whites and blacks are in the lake.
It was 6pm so I had to leave. I caught a crappie that by fin count was a white crappie, so I was happy. It was also nice to catch all the other bonus fish since I skunked out on my last 3 trips.
I'd love to hear what you think about the crappies. It would be my #207 species. Just not very confident calling it just yet.
Illegitimus Non Carborundum