FRIDAY THE 13th NOT ALWAYS UNLUCKY

A couple buddies and I went to Glen Elder last Thursday to spend a few vacation days fishing.  We caught about 40 walleye that afternoon before we had to leave our spot due to a storm.  It was a great trip to that point and the fillets from five keepers would look good later on the grill.  Smeared with a little olive oil and liberally sprinkled with Cavender's Greek seasoning it just doesn't get much better than grilled walleye.

But fast forward and oh what a difference a day makes.  Friday was drastically different and the wind howled 25-30 mph out of the north and it was cold.  We launched and tried walleye fishing close to the ramp with no luck.  I'd been wanting to try crappie fishing so we headed to the "calm" side of the lake and pulled into a cove near the marina.  There's a ton of brush piles in the lake and we located one and started fishing.  It wasn't long and I felt the first "thump" and set the hook.  As I fought the fish I wondered if I'd hooked a smallmouth bass.  But when it surfaced I discovered otherwise.

The first crappie of the day was a giant and even drew a few accolades from a nearby boat.  The big slab looked deeper than it was long and I had to grab the line to land it as my drag was slipping when I tried to lift it in the boat with my rod.  The spawned-out female was likely much heavier a couple weeks ago, but now tipped the scale at about 2.25 pounds.

We didnt' stop with that one.  Trying to hold the boat in 14 feet of water we caught more crappie in less than ideal conditions.  A 2-inch Carolina pumpkin and chartreuse plastic on a 1/8-ounce jig fished two cranks off the bottom was the hot ticket.  We caught plenty more and soon the livewell was stacking up with tasty slabs.  Friday the 13th wasn't so unlucky after all!

It would have been easy enough to pass on fishing on a day like that but we were there to fish.  I hate bad weather, but I've always heard that the weather affects fishermen moreso than the fish and we found that to be true, particularly the next couple days walleye fishing (check my next Blog entry to hear the details of that adventure).  It's almost unbelievable!