in some respects my travels to and fro looking for crappie are in my opinion are just wasting time . not that it isn't fun ketchn them and not that I don't look forward to the bite . its just the thing I do in a lot of cases when I am a bit bored with things . so....my day starts with a customer calling out of product , darnit I say but onward to try and remedy the situation . quite a few phone calls later it seems I need to go to work ! well I am the ONLY one working at our facility and it seems my vendors and even some employees are off to parts unknown . so I do my best to create a scenario that might lessen the disaster Monday will bring if this situation does not get some needed attention .
afterwards I find myself on the other side of town and begin to think I might need a bit of ketchn therapy to soothe my frazzled nerves . so I call and I tell the other half I am pretty close to the river and probably should toss a jig in the water since I am already there . well as I drive over the river I think hey ...
maybe a different part of the ole trinity river ? so down the road I drive and roll up to a spot I have been to a few times . uh oh ! trucks all over the place !! could it be ? KABOOM time ...I think quite possibly I have stumbled onto a good spot at a good time ...NOT !
seems I stumbled into a sandy run from what I heard and they wasn't touching anything that day
cept for my thermocline natural shad slab bug on the second toss !

well after repeated attempts to repeat the ketchn of sandbass and watching the other 4 anglers ketch nothing except a small bluegill on a worm ...I tuned up my presentation a bit and went back at it . not sure what thermocline it was but on a lighter pink head 1/32 and VERY lightly twitched and not moving the jig much
KABOOOM crappie on !

anyway it was for sure slow and the other folks one kayak and 3 bank anglers told me other than the one bluegill a young man managed that was it for them ....so after a bit I went on down the road
here is the bait I used to ketch the crappie and it looks like one was an escapee from another angler
thought it may have been the east texas killer but the colors were not near as bright ?
it was a loose bait from the console of the truck and I do know it was a thermocline small fry

and I almost forgot one lil tiny sandy liked that bait as well

that's my story and for sure it was pretty much just wasting time
off to check the hog trap I go .....
KABOOM

Well Ketchn, it looks like you pulled it off when nobody else could. Nice job

That is turning lemons into lemon aide. Nothing beats feeling a Crappie thump to ease the nerves.


Nice fish and nicely done! "KABOOM"!

Looks like you found a new fishing spot that paid off! Nice ones as always Ketchn.

Ketchn is a good name for you. You seem to ketch em even in this nasty winter weather.

Congrats!

thank you for the kind words sir
i guess sorta ketched a couple i spose ...but....
brother a lot of the time I see things on the ends of line that don't produce well for me
the one man had shiners that exceeded 4 inches in length
the other guy had a large jig to close to his float and fished it to fast
the kid only had worms and kept complaining his rod was to long
and the yak guy had a something BIG tied on in a VERY bright chart
downsizing bait in frequently fished waters will almost always give you the edge
fish that have been educated by lots of angling pressure can get rather finicky
wish i could a borrowed that yak for a few hours
i bet there was a bunch somewhere up or downstream just waiting to be ketched

That's good ketchn.

Time spent on the water is never wasted. Catching is just a bonus of fishing.

My grandsons were down for a few days over Christmas and wanted to go fishing. Since Christmas Day had the nicest weather I took them out that afternoon.

The wind was so bad we could not stay on point for fishing anywhere on the lake. After several hours of running up and down the lake trying we came back to the slip to fish there for awhile.

Unfortunately the fish did not cooperate for us at the slip. But it was a great day for them.

My grandsons totally enjoyed driving the pontoon up and down the lake, even through the chop was bad. They look forward to their next visit, when they can go "fishing" with me again.

And yes, we got soaked from the waves splashing over the front of the pontoon but the grandsons loved it. Sixty degrees was a warm day to them, since they live up North. I was the only one trying to stay dry, which was a waste of time with them driving.

So, in MY opinion, you are never wasting time when you are on a creek, river or lake, trying to catch a few fish. Even when you plan on catch and release it is not a waste of time. Fishing allows you to slow down and contemplate how life is to be enjoyed, not just lived.

I often think of the time I put into chasn crappie, I always come to the conclusion I don't get enough time to fish.....
I love it when that time I've spent fishn gives me the techniques & tools to put'em in the boat when they seem to have lock jaw....WTG Ketchn!

for sure i learn a bit every time i go
most of the time its what NOT to do on the next trip though

for instance i will NOT return to this spot until it rains a bunch
stopped on the bridge to give it a look
and the creek wasn't a creek anymore

YOU IN MY POND AGAIN

I may need to visit your pond soon sir
most of mine is out of water