drumking, chickamauga, crappie, 12/17/09, alone

[FishNews]

I only had a very short time to be on the water this morning, so I went alone. I had to check on the stake buckets that Hal and I put out last week. I had some floaters on them and the water was deeper than the line that I had the floaters on, so I have been going out to check on them. Still haven't seen the floaters yet. Then I went to the off shore structure that Polo has been fishing and caught a keeper sized bass this morning on a dropshot rig. <br /><br />Ran upriver to look at a new crappie hotel that has been recently planted. I found it, but no fish on it. I didn't expect any fish to be on it this early. Usually takes about one year for these things to get productive.<br /><br />Then I ran back downriver and fished one of the bluffs on the lower end and caught 6 crappie in the 30 minutes that I had left to fish. Had an appointment that I had to keep. emoBang This is one day that I wish that I had 3 more hours to fish. 4 of the 6 fish were over 12.5 including my 22nd TARP black crappie of the year. The fish today fought harder than any other time that I can remember. Three of the fish were 5 feet deep and 3 of them were about 14 feet deep. BG shads in the patriot color with a chartreuse tail light. The lake is clearing up some. Water temp 77 to 79 degrees. Water flow was 87,000 cfs. emoBig emoGeezer