Catchin' Crappie

Last week I was able to find a few hours that I could get away and team up with Matt to smack some crappie on the river. Matt picked up about 3 dozen minnows and we headed out. The weather wasn't real promising as there was a 95% chance of rain that turned out to be all of a sprinkle and a cold front had moved through taking the temperature south with it.

The spot we fish on the Little River is well known and if you don't get there early, or on a week day, you are liable to have people walking all over you. There is an "S" curve in the river which pushes the bait fish, and in turn, the crappie up against the south bank where plenty of dead trees and brush abound for the fish. Here's an overview video of the immediate area.



The crappie are wrapping up their spawning soon, so we have been trying to make the fishing days count. We've ran into multiple fishermen while in this spot and each time they've had 15+ fish on their stringer. This particular day, I made an effort to film what I could with my iPhone, and will be taking the video camera on our next outing. We ended up with a fairly heavy stringer and a total of 23 crappie. Here's a couple videos of catches.






One of the last fish that I caught looked a bit nicked up. His skin was missing on a section of his back and Matt decided to take a closer look at him. That's when we noticed the fishing line sticking out of his mouth that wasn't mine. With his mouth propped open, we could see a minnow in the back of his mouth with another hook lodged in the roof of his mouth. Unfortunately I didn't get as detailed of video as I would have liked to, but it sure was interesting. I've always been told that when a fish has a hook in it's mouth, or has been caught recently, that it will not bite again. We proved that wrong.