Lake Talquin 4/18/14

[Poopong McPlop]

Today was a true test of will and strength. I had many dreams and aspirations for this last 3rd day of the April full moon. I haven't fished Talquin since early last summer and have been trying to Crappie fish at the closer lakes (Hall, Jackson and Piney Z) I had assumed since it had rained 2 days prior that it wouldnt rain today, boy was I wrong and woefully unprepared. My normal Talquin routine is to check the dam release schedule to see if the water is stagnant, rising, at full pool, or dropping. Even a slow drop can completely move the fish to weird spots. Obviously with the rain there was a rise and strong 5-6mph current in the main lake. I stayed the night at Williams to try and make the crack of dawn feeding time, so my horse was hitched to this wagon for better or worse. It was pouring all night and into the morning. My plan was to fish the Williams cove and stay there no matter what. It was dumping buckets until about 1pm after which it slowed to a steady down pour, good enough for me, so I launched and trolled into the cove. I was supposed to have a bow man, but I called him and told him to stay home. The surface temps in the Williams cove was about 64, the main lake was 62 and the current was ripping. I checked the pads to see if the specks were doing anything, and I got absolutely nothing. I moved to the open water and fished the only structures in the cove and managed to catch a few peanut stripers, and one small fat cheeked blue gill over an hours time. I was trying to avoid the main lake since it was white capping, but I managed to scan the channel ledge for the missing Crappie, and I believe I saw them suspended on the drop off in 15FOW about 7.5ft down. All of my poles were rigged for shallow fishing, I had no marker buoys on this boat, and the chop was absolutely pounding me, so I left what I saw on the sonar alone. Drenched and cold, I carefully ran to another cove where I had caught crappie in the prior year. In an hour I had managed only one nice blue gill and thats it. It was about 6pm and the rain had finally stopped. I wanted to quit, but I had a bucket of minnow martyrs and I hadnt fished my best spot in the cove. I began working my way down the pads and within 20 minutes I had found Crappie. The first several rejected my bait outright, they molested them enough to make me aware of their presence, but didnt even put a bruise on my minnows upon retrieve and inspection. I made some quick adjustments to my rig and soon saw my cork going under consistently. The crappie were biting very finicky, and I was having quite a bit of trouble getting a hook in them after finally getting them to take my minnows. I changed minnow sizes and colors, and waited longer on my pulls and was able to get my hook ratio up. I was able to boat a bunch but only about 5 were keepers. The 3 best were between 13- 14" and they were very difficult to coerce into biting. After landing the 14" speck, it began raining again, and the crappie left the pads and returned to open water. I was disappointed I only got to fish my best spot for about 40 minutes before the rain scattered my prey, but I was very appreciative that I got what I came here for, and didnt hit a floater I saw while crossing the main lake. Ill have a hastily taken pic up tomorrow, my phone may have sacrificed its life providing me with song on this epic journey. The short stripers were caught in the Williams cove in the 8ft flats adjacent to the channel using live fatheads. The crappies were caught 20ft into the pads, and the slabs were in the first 3ft of pads. After perfecting my rig, I fished em about 1.3ft down and was getting instant strikes when thrown into the correct gap in the pads. For anyone going out to Talquin soon, watch for floaters in the main lake dont run 45mph and wonder why you died. DO NOT even attempt a stern anchor in the main lake, or you will get swamped and sunk within 10 minutes. I hope you have all the main lake visible stumps marked in GPS like I do, because a lot of them are impossible to see right now.


From the day before, we caught about 20 with about 6-7 keepers. The best was a 13" Male. Caught in the Williams Cove.





Hastily taken photo of some 4/18 Crappie, all were female, one appeared to be slightly gravid.

[SS-342]

I always enjoy your reports and this one is exceptional! Reminds me of the Marines, "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going."

[tallykenj]

Nice report. You're clearly addicted to fishing.


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[Poopong McPlop]

I think its just my insatiable male urge to kill and win. Sig ep hell week, prepared me for far worse than what i experienced yesterday. lol

[cast-n-stone]

Thanks for the post, I'm another one that enjoys reading about your fishing expeditions!