After launching, we tried an offshore feeding area close to the dock and were pleasantly surprised to catch 2 8" shell crackers on the 1st 2 casts and as we fished deeper into the heart of the feeding ground, we caught 2 9-10" shell crackers before they quit biting. It was about 10:30am when we moved on. We tried a couple of less productive offshore spots with no luck. Around 11:00am we located a very nice offshore feeding ground, and discovered 3 migration routes. The minor feeding for the day was about to begin at 11:30am and we quickly positioned and anchored the boat near 2 of the migration routes. We werent sure what to expect, but we were not dissappointed in the results. Over the next 2 hours we caught about 40 shell crackers, a couple blue gills, and a couple LMB. Weve had better hours of fishing numbers wise in days past, but weve never had this many titty bream cross our paths as we did today. The majority of what we caught seemed to be 9" and over. We threw back all unharmed shell crackers and BG that were under 7.5" because we had so many. I theorized that this was one of the first prespawn feedings which is probably why we did so well. The feeding came to a close around 1:30pm and we drifted offshore to try and pick up non feeding bream before making our way to one of our better holes from the year prior. After zero luck at our hole we decided since we were so close to the next lunar feeding time we would stay another 2 hrs and wait for it. Days like this dont come along too often and good things always end sooner than we think. To our dismay a couple boats had moved on our spot after seeing us catch fish, and they were camping so we went to another good spot, the North shore of the crowder side of the lake. We caught a few nice shell crackers including a 10.5" cracker before heading back to our new favorite spot. The boats that had parked there were gone, they apparently had no luck in the non-feeding hours and had skedaddled. With the spot to ourselves we were able to take all 3 migration routes. Around 6pm the major lunar feeding time began and it was on. Like magic our corks all went under at the same time around this time. I was dead sticking two poles in the rear and working another pole and I had all I could handle. Every pole had a fish on it at what seemed at all times. We caught close to another 50, keeping only fish above 8". At 8:20pm the feeding concluded, and we headed in. On the day we caught about 100 fish, nearly all were shellcrackers, with some BG scattered here and there and a random catfish and bass or two. We kept 44, about 40 were shell crackers, with 1 bullhead catfish and a few random BG. We caught everything on pinks, corked to the bottom on fluorocarbon leaders with size 8 hooks. Over half of our keepers were 9" and above, including a nearly 2lb coppernose blue gill which is our largest to date. He was the just under the size of a frisbee and nearly broke J's black widow bream buster in the process of landing him. There were tons of boats out today, and everyone seemed to be finding what they were looking for, except for the bass fisherman. I'm taking a couple days off, you guys enjoy the lake!
11" nearly 2lb Coppernose Blue Gill
9.5" early morning shell cracker
10.5" midday shell cracker caught on the north shore of the Crowder side of the lake.
end of the day catch!
) for being so nice all those 49 years. Hope she catches lots of fish! I'll even take them off for her.