Little Atom Open Water Finicky December Crappie

Open Water Finicky December Crappie

It was the day after Christmas and there was no ice to be found in the Chicago area. It was a balmy 50 degrees! Not fishing on such a warm day would just be wrong.

I managed to catch about 14 fish from 3 out of 4 ponds. A couple fish were caught on Lake Fork Shads the rest on Little Atom plastics. In fact Little Atom saved the day. Using these micro plastics on ice jigs got the finicky fish to bite and were perfect for the small fish. The baits I used today were the micro Nuggie and the Wedgee. I used weighted Thill floats to get the long casts I needed to reach the deeper water I would normally be ice fishing. The fish were small But I was not complaining to be catching when other were still in bed.

It was great to catch some fish with no ice, especially with the crappie being shut off in a lot of the area. Next time you head out in cold weather or slow conditions bring Little Atom along to save the day! 

Bring on the THUNDER

Bass fishing had been pretty slow in our area. Ted (Soonerbass), Chunsum (JC Crappies), and I decided that kayaking for crappie might be a better idea. A cold front passed just an hour before we started and I actually did not think we were going to do much of anything.

We put in and it was still dark with mist on the water, God I love that. Ted and a few others have been throwing crappie thunders for sometime. I have never liked the way they look or their action. These guys crush fish on them so I have joined the Thunder wagon.

Wal-Mart sells them pretty cheap in about three color combos. JC made a smart move and bought similar bodies from Strike king.This way he does not have to keep buying whole baits and can reuse the heads after the bodies get shredded.

The bite was slow but not terrible. Considering I was expecting the skunk, I was pretty happy to hook up. All three of us were hooking bass. I would like to say that bass was our target and in our genius we decided to use smaller crappie baits, but the truth is we only caught a few crappies.

I had brought minnows because of the cold front and my low expectations for the day but they only caught a couple fish. However, one of them was a beautiful 19 bass!

The crappie thunder out produced live bait even in tough conditions I was a bit taken back by that. I really thought I would be double minnowing it and only catching crappie.

I am now a thunder addict and it will be a go to on most of my crappie trips in the future.

EIGHT SUMMER ANGLING ADVENTURES

6-26-13 Kayak fishing with Dupageangler.com member Soonerbass aka Ted Yates:

We fished a suburban pond from out yaks and just crushed the fish! Sooner scored his on top water and I landed over 20 on four-inch Berkley Power worms it was an awesome summer night and a great way to break up the workweek. I landed an 18-inch fish on this trip! More on the trip click HERE

6-30-13 Whacker pond fishing with DA member JcCrappies (aka Chunsum Choi):

We hit three ponds and we had a blast!!! We went through so many whackers we had to stop at the house of Crabby Bass Lures partner Charles S and get some more plastics!! I landed an 18 and a 17-inch fish on this trip!

7-1-13 Kayaking and bassing a local lake solo to start my vacation:

I landed over ten bass with Crabby Bass Whackers and 4 in worms! My big fish for this day was a toad that measured 21 inches!!

7-3-13 Kayaking for summer panfish:

I was able to yak a private lake and got a bunch of 10-inch crappies and 7-inch gills. I used little atom plastics and night crawlers

7-4-13 Kayaking with Dupage Anglers and our kayak wars team:

Sooner Bass, Brim, JcCrappies, and myself all met at a small lake at dawn. The top water bite was non-stop for about an hour. Many bass were caught. Once the sun popped the bite all but shut down leaving us with only a few opportunities with plastics. I had so much fun. I landed 3 big fish on this trip a 17,18, and a 20 incher.

7-5-13 Short DuPage River wading trip fishing with Wacky Bass aka Marty R.:

Wacky and I had a couple hours and got a late start. We fished a stretch of the west branch in Plainfield and were covered in sweat before we even started fishing. We drifted live bait and grubs. We caught about 10 between us, had some fun, and then decided to get out of the heat.

7-6-13 Wading the West Branch with Chunsum (aka JcCrappies) in Shorewood:

We arrived very early and started drifting crawlers and crabby helgies. The Bite was not hot and heavy but persistence paid off. We did not catch many in our tradition holes many of the fish were hugging the shores under trees. I am glad Jc noticed this or we would not of caught at least 12 of our fish. My big fish for the day was 17 inches!

7-7-13 Guide Trip Booked with DuPage Anger Member Mcalla:

Mike want to learn more about wading and with the fox up and running we hit a tributary instead. We fished from 5:30 – 10:30 dodging most of the heat. We used my drifting technique with minnows, leeches, and crawlers. Mike scored big with 25 fish, six species, and several nice fish!! www.dupageguideservice.com

Fathers Day Catfish At Lasalle Lake

As usual I was up before light and ready to go. DuPageAngler.com Member Darkstar and I decided to go to Lasalle Lake for channel catfish and blue catfish.

Earlier in the week I bought a four-foot casting net for catching cat bait. I had some trouble learning to cast it right. I watched YouTube videos and got aggravated as this kid in this video made it look so easy!! I realized I was leading with the wrong arm. That made all the difference in the world. It really is not that hard. With and endless supply of shad in the ponds by me catching bait will never be an issue.

My partner’s johnboat is just big enough for this cooling lake. At the beginning of our trip a front was finishing going through and the waves were getting a little high so we tucked behind a shoreline were the wind just did not have enough room to produce big waves. We were in 13 feet of water. We did not see any blues here but we slowly built up a gigantic mass of small channel cats under us. In two hours we landed forty fish. We were using small pieces of chicken liver and the bite was fast and furious. It was a blast! I could not count to ten before I had a cat on. The chicken liver went as fast as our bite. We only had some scraps left and needed more bait. I had a very old package of cheese Magic Bait. We took the pre-made balls and washed them with the liver remains. It was disgusting but effective and added 20 fish to our day!

A funny thing happened in the mist of small channel cat madness. I set the hook and finally felt some decent weight on the line. We got excited and scrambled for the net. After a few exciting moments the fish was at the boat and with it a bit of shock. I had just caught a hybrid striper on chicken liver!!! The other weird part of this was the fish’s back appeared to be injured or deformed. To be honest if I had this fish’s issues, I would be eating whatever past in front of me as well.

The weather was finally stable and had left the lake almost like glass. Jason (Darkstar) wanted to search for blues, which we believed we could find in the deeper water. He watched his Lowrance intensely until we found a drop to 30 feet. We dropped two anchors preventing the boat from spinning or moving. We each had two rigs.  We had a modified wolf river rig on the bottom and we had slip float rigs set two feet of the bottom both loaded with the shad I caught earlier. The slip floats ended up being the hotter rig. I think better bait visibility and less drag or weight sensation improved our success.  We managed to score 7 blue catfish quickly, but all fairly small. The biggest was only about 17 inches. We were still looking for that big fish and the heat, hunger and fatigue after hours of fishing were starting to take it toll. Jason had his bottom rod in a holder when suddenly he got a drive by hit. His rod quickly bent then straightened back out. He set his float rod down grabbed his bottom rig and was waiting for a bite when suddenly we heard a short scream of drag, a loud bang, and a splash!!! His float rod got slammed while he was checking the other rod. The blue whale hit so hard that the rod slammed the side of the boat popped up in the air and flew into the abyss. It was so fast you could not even say “OH SH_T!”  We sat there stunned and could only imagine what was now towing his 100 dollar combo around the bottom of the lake. 

It was a long and fun Fathers day outing. We caught plenty of fish, had some great snacks the wife and kids packed, we had some great laughs, and now we have some great fish stories to pass on.

This weeks podcast has this story and more:
http://www.dupageangler.com/media/com_podcastmanager/Fishing-With-DuPage-Angler-062013.mp3