Crappie Fishing turned into Amazing Fishing!!

Like I mentioned in my last entry yesterday I planned to go crappie fishing today to catch some more points for KW, maybe even the 42 more crappie our team can catch for the month, but I knew that would be a little outrageous.

Welp I hit the water about 10:30am today and it was chilly with the water team already below 50 degrees. Headed the area where I left the crappie the afternoon before and caught 2 quickly while casting a 1/8 oz jig with a smoke clear curly tail grub on my Overboard Ultra lite rod.

 

 

But the bite slowed down as the fish were moving around so I started to troll for them, using my fish finder to mark suspended fish in about 9-12ft of water.

 

Then, a soft bite and tug.... fish on and it felt good, much tougher to bring up the water column than a standard crappie.... I start thinking is this the 15" crappie citation I have been chasing in this lake my whole life?..... a few short drag burning runs and I can see a FAT largemouth come to the surface.... Holy cow I was not expecting that... I was trying to catch crappie and I've never caught big bass this late in the year and in this cold of water.

 

21" 5.2lb Largemouth Bass (MD Citation #6)

 

 

 

Release the LMB and went back to trolling... BAM while going in the opposite direction on the same area of the lake.... Another chunky bass...

 

19.5" Largemouth bass

 

 

Sure enough I kept slow trolling around an got another, snapped a two quick pics and tossed here back, didn't even realize this one was a citation too until I uploaded it.

 

21.25" Largemouth Bass (MD citation #7)

 

Ended the day with 4 bass over 17.75" and 4 crappie over 12". I was not exactly what I was expecting, but I'm not complaining by any means.

On the other hand, I'm very concerned about my favorite fishery. While fishing the last two days I spotted a new critter in our ecosystem. We now have two Otters that are residing at our lake. I'm not surprised that they found the lake as the creek system that connect to the lake dam runs all the way to Fishing Creek in Chesapeake Beach and out to the bay. Their food source where they were living must have depleted and not they have found our lake which has an abundance of crappie, bluegill, golden shiners, and of course largemouth bass. I'm especially worried because it is the cold season and the fish become extremely sluggish which would allow the otters to ravage through what has become in my opinion the most consistent small water trophy bass ecosystem in our southern Maryland region.

Hopefully these otters won't deplete this trophy fishery and I will be able to catch great fish there for years to come.