Hal, All Over The Chick, Crappie & Bass, 9-13-09, Alone

[FishNews]

Stopped off at Soddy Tackle and picked up some Bobby Garlands to feed to the Crappie today. Put in about 7 and the hunt started, emoSmile It was VERY slow for the 1st part of the day and when I ran into M17Glock (good to see you out there), and we were discussing the whys and why not's of the days crappie. He said that all the cows were lying down in the pastures when he went by so I guess that explained why we weren't catchin' anything, emoScratch The day did finally pick up about 12:30, (guess the cows got up and started eating, emoSmile ) and I ended up with a total of 27 crappie, about half keeper size and 4 small bass, emoSmile The lure of the day seemed to be BG Bleeding Shad with a tail light. I tried everything else and the only thing that I could get a bite on other than the Bleeding Shad was 2 or 3 fish on the BG Crystal Shad. The crappie were not very hungry and if you didn't watch the line very carefully you'd miss the hit cause it was light, emoTongue Fish were caught on a 12 count in 20 FOW or more under docks and around structure. Water temp ran from 73* up to 81*. There was a pretty good breeze which made boat control difficult at times. It was cloudy with a temp in the 70's this morning and up to 81* when I quit at 2 PM. The sun did come out for the last hour and so did the chiggers and destroyers. <br />I had one back out of his slip and it was "all ahead full" as soon as he cleared the end of his slip. I was fishing only 30 feet away and didn't have time to get the boat pointed at the wake that he caused, (at least 4 foot) and he put about 5 or 10 gallons of water in my boat. It was a bunch of teenage boys and I guess the driver was doing a little showing out. So, being the SOB that I am, I just motored over to their dock and summoned his dad to come down so we could discuss the actions of his son, emoAngry Since the guy was apologetic for the actions of his boy I was nice to him, (he said that he understood because he was a fisherman too!). He must have called the boy on the cell phone 'cause when he came back he had his brain back in his head and went by me very slowly, without much of a wake at all.<br />All in all it turned into a pretty good day but I was worried that it was gonna be a 5 or 6 fish day at first, emoThumbsup Maybe in a week or two the pleasure boaters will slow down and we can catch some good fish. I had 4 crappie over 13 today so not too bad, several 11 inchers but also about a half dozen 9 inchers emoThumbsup Lost a couple nice fish on dock posts and didn't get to see what they were, one really pulled hard so I'm sure he was either a bass or a cat 'cause I couldn't turn him and he cut the line on a sharp corner of a dock post