Western Pennsylvania Slabfest

My most recent blog post, which regrettably wasn't especially recent, was part of my countdown of 10 favorite fishing destinations. In that post. I mentioned being excited to soon be headed toward the destination that was featured, Lake Pymatuning, for a media fishing event. I've since made that trip and done some other productive fishing, so I figured it might be good to briefly stray from the countdown posts for a few updates.

The short version of the Western Pennsylvania report is that the crappie bite is sizzling right now, and fish can be caught many different ways. I fished three days on two lakes (Pymatuning and Shenango) and spent time in four different boats, using various techniques, with the only real common denominator being fast action from quality crappie. I spent time spider rigging with "Crappie Dan" Dannenmueller, drifting with Dale Black and Kenny Smith and casting with Darl Black. All produced good numbers and size, an we caught black and white crappie plus a mix of other species, including bluegills, pumpkinseeds, yellow perch, bass, catfish and more.

Of course, such a report is anything but surprising from these waters (which is part of why Pymatuning landed so high on my favorites list). When the spring bite gets going, the action tends to be fast, with plenty of good fish in the mix. We stayed in cabins in Pymatuning State Park, which offers fabulous lakeside access for boating and bank-fishing alike and spent a pretty good portion of our waking hours out on the water catching fish!

Thursday Tips: Hands-On Approach

When the B'n'M Poles pro team of Kevin Jones and Billy Don Surface slow troll, they always hold their hands so that at least one finger is touching every rod.

"I'll feel a lot of strikes that I would never see," Jones said. "And I usually feel the strike before I see the rod tip move."

If either angler feels anything, he sets the hook. Sometimes that means coming up empty, but with slow trolling, you simply drop the bait back into place so nothing is lost, and they catch a lot of fish that they otherwise would have missed simply by staying in touch with their rods.

If you watch the hands of top anglers, you'll notice similarities in casting and jigging approaches. It might be a fingertip on the rod blank or on the line or something about their hand positioning that aids sensitivity. For some, it's highly intentional. For others it's more intuitive. Either way, it's something worth considering and imitating in many situations and something that can help you catch more fish.

Unrelated to this specific tip, I sort of forgot about Thursday Tips and intend to regain consistency with posting a specific fishing tip once a week.

Tiny Floats & Fussy Crappie

"Anytime fish get fussy. Like cold front conditions. Like we have today, in fact," Russ Bailey said, as he explained when a really small float can make a major difference. Sometimes the crappie want the bait just hanging there or barely moving, and the bites are so light that you never detect them with a traditional float. That's where Bailey's tiny pear-shaped floats come into play.

I asked if there was somewhere he could show me the presentation, even with the wind whipping pretty hard, so I could get photos and see it for myself. He said that was easy as he idled toward a nearby riprap bank and said that we'd probably catch some fish doing it.

That was an understatement.

Three anglers aboard, three float rigs and at times three fish hooked. Excepting when we paused for photos, at least one of us was virtually always setting a hook or landing a fish from the time we picked up Russ' signature B'nM Poles until the sun was gone from the sky.  I don't have any idea how many fish we caught in a short time and between photo sessions, but it was a bunch.

Making the fish bite and hooking them wasn't just a given, though. At least not at first, for me. Drawing strikes took a very understated presentation, jiggling the rod only enough to make the little float rock and maybe move just a bit and then leaving it suspended. And when the fish bit, they almost never took even those tiny floats all the way under. If the float move sideways an inch, changed angles or bobbed ever so slightly, you had to set the hook immediately.

I'm convinced we wouldn't have caught most of those fish swimming jigs over the same rocks or even float fishing with bigger floats. Russ' point was very well illustrated, and the lesson made for a fun afternoon on Rend Lake.

Draw of the Docks

I've just returned from Rend Lake Resort in Illinois, where I spent three fun and productive days catching crappie and taking photos with pros from B'n'M Poles. While I was there, I couldn't help but notice that there were ALWAYS anglers on every set of docks at the resort -- and that someone on any given dock usually had a fish on the line. They weren't big fish, necessarily, but everyone seemed to be catching their share. They were out there at first light, even it was 35 degrees outside, and they remained there when the sun went down.

Eventually I couldn't stand it.

Although I'd probably caught a 100 fish by the time we wrapped up our time on the water on day 3 and I had been out in boats fishing some of the lake's best spots with top pros, the allure of the simple dock fishing became more than I could resist. An hour or so before sunset on Day 3 I grabbed a B'n'M jig pole, tied a tandem rig with an Ugly Bug and a Road Runner Original Marabou, stuck a couple of spare lures in my sweatshirt pocket, and walked down to the dock behind my room.

It wasn't long before I was in on the catching game, and while my fish were no bigger than most others I'd seen, the basic dock fishing with a single pole in hand was every big as fun as it looked. I caught about 10 crappie before returning to my room, content and ready to begin packing my gear for the drive home.

Thursday Tips: Really Wrap Your Rods

We all know that we never should lay our rods in the boat or in the truck with lures hanging loose or simply reeled to the tips. Hooks or lures need to be hung in a hook-holder, onto the reel or through a low rod eye, and the line should be wrapped around the rod. In fact, at day's end, it doesn't hurt to remove lures or to put covers over lures and/or rods. So today's tip isn't about how to do those things. Today's tip -- and it may be more to Jeff Samsel than anyone else -- it simply TO do those things. Properly hanging a lure and wrapping a rod only takes a moment, and it spares so many problems caused by lines tangling, lures grabbing one another, hooks finding truck seats or raingear...

Of course, the more rods you use, the more important the wrapping becomes and the more essential it becomes that you use a good system. No one know that better than a crappie fisherman who uses spider rigs, so I asked Crappie NOW co-publisher TJ Stallings for his input about effective rod wrapping. Here's what TJ had to say:

Targeting Bigger Crappie

When Kevin Rogers and his dad, Charlie Rogers, head out to go crappie fishing, they're never concerned about finding frenzied action. As tournament anglers, they only care about catching seven fish -- as long as they are the right fish. Even when they are just "fun fishing," though, they have more fun catching a handful of slabs than a whole bunch of slivers. In the video below, Kevin shares some of the things that he and his dad do to attract the interest of larger fish.

Video Tip: Keeping Rods Untangled

When you routinely fish with spreads of eight rods, and you keep two or three sets of rods rigged and ready in your boat, it's critical to have a good system for wrapping your rods. Legendary crappie fisherman Ronnie Capps shares his system.

For more video tips and fishing clips, please visit the Samsel Communications YouTube Channel.

Crappie Biting?

Yesterday was a travel day, with a big bird carrying me from Atlanta to Pittsburgh. This morning, I'm an hour and half north of Pittsburgh, where I'll spend the next three days fishing lakes Pymatuning and Shenango. All reports remain great for the lakes, both of which are supposed to be excellent crappie producers, so we'll see if the good action holds up for the next few days. I believe today's plan is to drift for black crappie. If there's internet access at the cabin where I"ll be staying for the next three nights, I'll post fishing reports. If the blog gets quiet, the computer is not connecting with the rest of the world!

Pymatuning Crappie Bite Hot

This time next week I'll be plying the fish-filled waters of Pennsylvania's Pymatuning Lake, primarily for crappie, although it sounds like any cast of a Road Runner might produce a crappie, white bass, walleye, largemouth, smallmouth or some other variety of fish. Recent reports suggest that the crappie bite is red hot, with both black and white crappie serving up big fun, and that walleyes are likewise feeding well. I'll also spend time fishing Shenango Lake, where crappie and walleyes are also tearing it up based on recent reports. It should be interesting because it sounds like fish are being caught both deep and shallow and with a variety of techniques. The fishing begins on Monday. I'll do my best to post reports about what we catch and how we catch them.