A cold one in January 2023, but a fun one

 

It was a very cold day yesterday. I know the air temps were in the high 30s while I was fishing, and the water temperature was in the 30s as well. Lil' Shaka and me already hit up the crappie two weeks ago, and the good news is they were biting on this day as well. I caught a total of 15 crappies.  

The water is so cold right now that I doubt their is much life, or much movement by anything in the water right now.  I did try some moving baits, and even some jerkbaits to see if there were any patterns using these techniques.  No Go! 

So, stuck with more of a traditional crappie rig with a bobber and a jig.  We like the Berkley Gulp Minnows with our jigs.  Any jig will basically work.  We use Strike King Mr. Crappie Jigs but many jigs will work.

The key during this time of year is to get the jig right in front of them. Let them take a look and "suck" the lure in! It is a very subtle bite at this time of year, and you basically keep reeling in to set the hook. There is really no "Big Bass" hookset, that is not how you hookset crappie! LOL.

Locating crappie takes skill. I was fishing from the bank of a specific pond. I know where the crappies camp during this time of year in this specific pond.  So that helps to find them obviously. I am very appreciative that I got a few hours to catch these little beauties. I was fortunate that they were biting.  Until next time!

New Year 2023 fish in the books

We did not plan to go fishing yesterday which was Sunday January 1, 2023.  But Lil' Shaka and I remember fishing on January 1st in 2022 and catching our first fish on that day.  

We were outside getting fresh air, cleaned up the garage a bit while momma was putting away some Christmas lights...The air temps were favorable, close to 60 degrees again.  So, we packed some poles and headed to one of our all time favorite ponds to see if we could catch a few.

As you can see from both pictures, we were both able to catch fish on January 1st, 2023 so now this is starting to turn into a tradition 😆.  It was fun to get out for an hour and screw around a bit.

✅ Goal 1 - Catch your first fish in 2023

COMPLETED!

Stay Committed Stay Driven in this early beginning of 2023! 👊🏽🤙🏽

Dec 29th End of Year Fishing

Been a little bit behind in my writing.  There has been a lot going on during the holiday season.  I was just able to stop for a second and do a couple of blog posts.

What else can I say here? The picture says it all. This is the reason you get up and go fishing! Caught a really nice smallmouth bass at Maramec Springs Park to close out the year.

Lil' Shaka also caught two nice smallmouth bass on this day as well.  He hit one on a hair jig and the other one on a jerkbait.  I caught all my smallmouth bass on jerkbaits as well.

We also caught a bunch of rainbow trout and brown trout on this day as well.  The only species that we did not catch was the "Goggle Eyes" which are normally found in the park as well.

As you can see from my notes, I caught plenty of Brown Trout, Rainbow Trout, and Smallmouth Bass.  What a day to remember.  Lil' Shaka caught the same amounts as well.

This was one hell of a way to close out the year with a great fishing day.  It is normally much colder when we go too.  But on this day the air temp was close to 60 degrees.  You could feel a warm breeze blow against your face for most of the time we were fishing.

I am usually wearing 5 more layers of clothes, but it was quite pleasant outside in just a sweatshirt and long sleeve undershirt. A great memory shared with my son on this day.  Any day you catch 20 fish together is a win, especially in December!

Stay Committed, Stay Driven!