Fish Catching Travel
I was under the weather for a few days so had not hit the water for a couple of days. When I got up this morning I felt good enough to head to Coleto, so off I went. My main goal was to catch a few crappies for a Christmas fish fry my father-in-law in Iowa.
Lots of gators out right now, this guy is big enough to be scary.
First I stopped at the bridge, a well know spot on Coleto with a few brush piles scattered around the pilings. I caught at least 15 small bass on the crappie jig, but no crappie. I worked my way up lake hitting trees in at least 10 feet of water. And it was still a small bass killing. They were on every tree and log I tried. So next time you aren’t catching bass, remember there are lots of them in Coleto. So with small bass on every tree I fished, out came the Rapala shallow running Shad Rap.
For the next 5 hours I caught the snot out of them. What is interesting about that is that a month ago I was catching a much better class of fish. So while the numbers have climbed dramatically, the quality has declined. But it is good to know that the lake is full of small fish. As soon as the weather cools some, and we get closer to the spawn, fishing should be great. In fact, I only caught one keeper the whole time. So no pics, there was nothing to look at – well not really.
Well maybe there was something to look at!
But an interesting thing did happen. After fishing for crappie for an hour first thing and not catching one, I caught a real nice one on the Rapala. That bait will catch anything. So I grab the crappie rod, make a cast, get a bite, and break the rod in half. I think it was the second time I used it. On average I seem to break at least one rod a year setting the hook. Drag maybe a little to light? Cheap rod? Operator error, who knows. Either way I just caught a good crappie, and now I had no extra crappe rod. I do have 5 bass rods in the boat, at least 4 light enough for crappie at the house, and I have no spare with me. Nice work on my part.
As far as where, I caugh fish on every bank I tried. I only threw a buzzbait for a little while, and did add topwater, which I caught several on. So things are actually looking up and the good bite is right around the corner. The gators were out, lots of geese headed over, and a nice flock of turkey on the bank right before dark. And I was also lucky enought to see a buck chasing a couple of does. So the rest of the outdoors knows it is winter, it is time for the weather to act like it. It appears winter will be here Sunday night.
This little guy liked the heat of the rocks on the bridge in late afternoon.
Random Thoughts
I was thumbing through the Bass Pro catalog the other night and notice that there marine service was rated as the “Champion”. Made me laugh. Lets see, the console not connected to the floor and breaking lose, the 50 amp breaker on a trolling motor that requires a 65 amp, wire spliced on the on board charger which causes 2 failures even though it says right in the directions do not splice, especially when it is run in the area of the bilge, the nose hitting the frame on loading, the trailer lights that they just got working when we picked the boat up, you can guess how long that kept working, the 60 day stay for the first basic service, and on and on. Obviously when they took the survey they forgot to call me, but I still love the boat.
Catching Small Ones
As the small ones are biting right now the thought crossed my mind that Coleto would make a great slot lake. At least with the number of fish in Coleto there is no fear we are going to run out anytime soon. Where do you come down? Is catching a lot of fish better than catching a few big ones?
Football
Now I know this is not about football, or any of the other things I rant about occasionally, but I am happy with the Arkansas hire of Bielema as the new Razorback coach. Of course the results are yet to be seen, but this may be a home run. Nothing can be worse than last year. Go Hogs.
And how about that Johnnie Football! I had the good fortune to see him play this year and it took about 2 seconds to see he is the real deal. When you add him to a great coaching hire they are going to be a handful. I wish him good luck Saturday, he earned it.
And what about those Longhorns? According to reports Johnnie Football wanted to go there, but he was not offerred. Whoever was responsble for that call must have been smoking crack that day, a terrible decision, and I love it.
And one final word about football. Will Jerry Jones please fire the GM of the Dallas Cowboys. Oh thats right, he would have to fire himself. Now Jerry is no idiot, you do not get that rich being stupid. But in this case he is delusional. Usually someone who has made that much money realizes the importance of hiring people who know exactly what they are doing in a specific area. Somewhere along the line his pride has gotten the best of him. It is time to bring in a an experienced GM who knows football.
Coleto 12/5/12.
With an order for a crappie fry in Iowa over Christmas I headed back out to Coleto to try to catch a couple. Now I have done exactly zero crappie fishing there. Of course when I was guiding in Arkansas, crappie fishing was a staple of the spring trips. So armed with 2 rods, remember yesterdays fiasco, I began to hit trees and stick ups on the upper end.
Just like yesterday the action was fast and furious….with small bass. I mean those things are everywhere, and they are from about 4″ to 10″. But crappie, now that is another story. I fished for several hours and just did not hit the right spot. I fished shallow, deep, and somewhere in between. Guess I am just going to have to keep working at it.
I did catch a bunch of fish on topwater. A balsa minnow bait about 4″ long seems to be the top choice. And points still seem to be the place to do it. I think I caught 4 or 5 keepers, nothing big, but lots of action. I am just twitching it along on the surface and they are blowing up on it. I did manage to break my line on a big one, rookie mistake with a new rod and reel. The thing I hated about it was those dang Rapalas are about $8.
So while the fishing was not the greatest for good fish the last couple of days, it is really fun if you like fish blowing up on the topwater. And I caught them from the dam to the upper end, with grass and points being the main areas. There are lots of fish shallow. It would be a great time to take a kid fishing, plenty of action.
So thanks for reading my stuff. I promise to write a little more regularly. I can tell you one thing, with the big weather change coming I can promise you I will fish more. So stop in anytime.
Good Luck and Tight Lines
