On the last day of summer vacation I decided to head over to the lake behind my Grandparents house and fish off of their neighbors dock. Ended up being a very productive day! I arrived at the dock feeling good about the day ahead. With a low pressure system moving in, all of the fish were on the move. The first thing that I did was throw on a crawler and a bobber and get a couple seeds and perch under my belt to get the skunk off the dock. It was then that I changed tactics and started throwing hard baits for whatever would bite. On the first cast with a Pearl White Big-O by Cotton Cordell, I watched a pickerel launch out of a weed patch and smash my lure ambitiously and dart back into the weeds. I have to say that it was good to see that there were some fish in the area and that they were hungry, this isn't always the case with Arrowhead. Two casts later, I had the first pickerel of the day on the dock. After that, I threw on a ***** ******* and caught a little northern and a foot long largemouth. An hour later, with the fish not cooperating, the rain started to pick up. I wasn't going to let the rain ruin my last day of summer vacation, so I fished on into the rain. For some unknown reason, fate maybe, I had a sudden urge to put my ***** ******* back on. Suddenly, a fish snatched my bait. I could feel the fish on the end of my line and wasn't really sure what it was. As I stared into the rain rippled water to spot my quarry, it broke the surface. With a paper thin mouth, and scales speckled in a stunning pattern of black and silver, the Crappie tried to shake the hook in it's desperate jump for freedom. (To be honest with you my heart started pumping a little faster once I saw that it was a crappie, there's something mysterious about this elusive fish that truly intrigues me!) Once I got the fish to shore I delicately pulled it out of the water and flung it up onto the shore.
My new personal best crappie measured in at 10 1/2 inches! It was a great morning indeed!
Part 2: That Afternoon
After putting a PB and J in the tank, I headed back down to the dock. The rain had stopped and I was hoping that the bite hadn't yet. I only caught 3 fish that afternoon, and I'll skip the part where I tried every lure in my tackle bag and just get to the good part.
It was probably around three in the afternoon by the time I hooked up with a fish. I could tell that this was a good fish, just by the strong head shakes. As the fish neared the dock, I noticed that it was hugging the bottom closely, which is a problem in this weed infested area. As I tried to bring the fish to the surface, I saw the distinctive flash of a golden Walleye! I carefully brought the fish into shore and snaked it up onto dry ground. Although the 17.5 walleye wasn't the biggest one I've caught, I still was amazed that I caught it from a dock in 6 FOW!(BY THE WAY, I RELEASED THE WALLEYE.)
It wasn't until this point in time that I noticed that I only had to catch a smallmouth bass in order to have landed almost every species of fish in this body of water in a single day! I examined my tackle and selected a bass jig that I thought would be suitable for smallmouth. God must of been having a good day that day, because, wouldn't you know, a smallmouth sucked up the jig on the first cast!!! He was only a 14 incher, if you saw me jumping for joy on that dock, you would've thought I just caught a state record. It was one of my best days out on the water, and it just goes to show that you don't need a fancy boat to catch fish, just a good day and perseverance.
Fish Tally for the Day:
- 1 Smallmouth
- 2 Largemouth
- 1 Walleye
- 1 Crappie
- 1 Pickerel
- 1 Northern
- 1 Golden Shiner
- A couple Yellow Perch
- 1 Bluegill
- 1 Rock Bass
- A couple Pumpkinseeds
