Saturday's May 5th '07 opener

[birddogwi]

Well, the weather wasn't what we hoped for on the Madison chain but, some fish did turn on for a few hours for us. At first light we decided to get the energy out of our sytems and cast cranks and plastics for Smallmouths while we slipped the edges of drop-offs. Had a few dinks take a Texas rigged Yum Boogee Tail and Wooly Hawgtail but, nothing to get excited over. We rushed through a few shallows and saw some LM's lounging around in weed pockets so we gave some shallow runners a bath. Nothing much but a 1-Minus caused @ a 3lber to come out and play - it flopped off at the boat.. gotta love a clean release! []

After that we went out to deeper water and tried a few chunks of structure in 30' and kept getting hit on the fall by suspended Crappies in that 12-18' mark so we down sized and drifted a few watermelon and purple tube jigs into 'em and pulled up a dinner of 10-1/2" to 12" fish .. what a hoot on UL rods. While moving around on the ledges we noticed a lot of boats anchored up in 8-12' slip floating them over the new weeds so I think its safe to say the Crappie bite was good. We did locate a few Muskys up in some calm shallows sighted a little 15-18" Tiger laying tight on some rocks and not much further down from it was a few others in the mid 30's just layin' there probably digesting their breakfast. Seeing those things spurred us to pull out a few sticks of lumber and roll a few baits over the weeds and weedline.. nothing on the wood but a single miss on a 6" perch Grandma. Tried the cast back and even a chaser rigged Bagley but, all we got was the one gill flash.. could've even been a Pike since thats all we saw of it. Exciting though!

All in all an alright day on the water but, nothing to write home to mom about. Heading back out tonight to burn some more gas..

Good luck out there everyone!
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[davetclown]

well how did the second half go?

I spent my weekend cutting down over growth in the yard. got more to cut down tomarow, but I am thinking fishing if the wind stays down...

should have gone out yesterday and today... perfect for fishing, but dicided to work in the garden... planted pears trees and cherries trees this year... corn & pole beans giant pumpkins summer squash zuccinni squash beaf tomatos early girl tomatos big boy tomatos pear tomatos and feild corn for the deer...

now I need to go out and get some fish to plant in between the rows to make every thing grow good.[cool]
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[birddogwi]

Well, Dave I probably would've been better off planting my garden.. would've been more productive, thats for sure! As I was powering out to the area I was going to fish I spun the hub in my prop @ 70mph.. I was close to 3 miles from the launch. [crazy] .. so I tried draggin' some baits in the area where I was not expect anything. I know the system pretty well and the fish just aren't around there this early. Did get to fool around with a White Bass and a Sheepshead though but, shortly after I pulled up and headed for shore with the kicker. Figured I midas well fish my way back so I dropped the bow-mount and tossed a bunch of junk while I worked my way back to the launch .. didn't have any takers though.

Got the prop back on Tuesday and should be good to go now. I figure I hit a stick or branch under the surface since the prop needed to be tuned also but it could've just wore out. I haven't had it in for two seasons and since I run some tough waters it was probably overdue.

speaking of gardens I just tilled mine last night. A bit behind schedule but I should be OK yet. Need to stop by the garden center tonight and get tomato, pepper and cabbage plants thougth. []
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[davetclown]

I found my way back on to the water today, another half dozen gills and nothin else, I did see a few bass and a few walleye, but trying to get them to bite was another story.

I was fishing on the back side of the low preasure front so that is the biggest mistake. I shoud have gone out two days ago before the rain.... but ya know when it is time to get the garden in you have to do the gettin while the gettin is good.

I went out last night and picked up some rattle snake sized crawler for this weeks fishing... we used crawlers leaf worms wax worms cranks and soft plastics.... still a bit early I guess maybe tomarow they will be in...[angelic]
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[birddogwi]

[cool]
any size to the gills?

yea, we've been expecting (well, the weather man has been tellin' us) T-storms possible so I had to jump a bit to get things in the ground.

Darned crawlers here are deep yet .. need the rain and lightning so I can stock up!.. made a call to my nephew and told him I'll come pick him up if he wants to pull worms out of the grass come the next rain. He said "Heck yea!.. that mean we're goin' fishin'!?"

[]
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[davetclown]

6-8 inches so far, I aint keepin any thing under 7 inches.... I have seen some bigger ones but not on my line yet...
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[birddogwi]

hey thats all good ... action is action []
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[davetclown]

the fish were hittin so good last fryday they were spying on me by plain to see what my secreate lure is... [url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/photos/showphoto.php/photo/6979/cat/500/ppuser/89"][/url]

by the way, did I mention I didnt get a bite in the twelve hours I sat on the lake? except for the hot dog and boston cooler from the DQ just a couple hundred feet off the publick boat launch...

ya gotta love the DQ being next to the launch...[]
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[birddogwi]

[cool]
Funny you should mention DQ ... I'm addicted to Butterfinger Blizzards with just a dab of chocolate ice cream in the mix and butterscotch dip cones..

[crazy]
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