Posted By: Thump My Jig
Valentine's Day on Hubbard - 02/15/15 05:55 PM
Did a little spider rigging with minnows, caught a few dink crappie and about a dozen drum off of several brush piles.
Decided to change it up and hit the bridges. I love to jig fish, so I tied on a sample Thump Chubby that Lane sent me with one of my orders. The Chubby is dark grey almost black. When I jig fish I use a fly rod, it has decent back bone, it's super sensitive and I have alot of confidence in it. It's my go to rod for jigging.. Water depth is about 18 ft. I drop the chubby down and jig for a few minutes, moving around from pillar to pillar. Nothing happening. So I decide, let's increase my chances, I drop down three rods with minnows and set them up in my Bee Readys. Picture spider rigging in and around the pillars. All the while, the jig rod is laying on the deck. I get everthing squared away and start back bouncing the jig. Watching three rods, moving boat in and out of pillars with trolling motor and jigging with my left hand. Then it happened, something whacks the [censored] out of the jig, I set the hook and was not prepared for what happened next. Drag starts screaming, fish taking line straight out from the boat. My first thought was this is a good fish, dont know what it is but it's pulling drag like I threw my jig on top of I30 and hooked a car going by at 60 mph.. my next thought is reel up the minnow poles. This is a big fish, you're not gonna be able to muscle him. My only chance is to try and follow with the trolling motor and try and wear him out. Got the 3 poles out of the way, look at spool and there's very little orange left on the reel. I use the orange suffix line. Turn the boat towards the direction of the fish and pow. Spooled.... line pops. Adrenaline rush at 100... I suspect that it was a large cat or possbily a big hybrid. I always kick myself when something like this happens. Your finesse fishing for crappie and you hook into a toad.
Well anyway.... landed a few solid crappie, one big girl that was just shy of 15 inches and right at 2 lbs. All fish released to be caught another day.
Thanks to the better half for letting me hit the water on a beautiful Valentine's day.
Decided to change it up and hit the bridges. I love to jig fish, so I tied on a sample Thump Chubby that Lane sent me with one of my orders. The Chubby is dark grey almost black. When I jig fish I use a fly rod, it has decent back bone, it's super sensitive and I have alot of confidence in it. It's my go to rod for jigging.. Water depth is about 18 ft. I drop the chubby down and jig for a few minutes, moving around from pillar to pillar. Nothing happening. So I decide, let's increase my chances, I drop down three rods with minnows and set them up in my Bee Readys. Picture spider rigging in and around the pillars. All the while, the jig rod is laying on the deck. I get everthing squared away and start back bouncing the jig. Watching three rods, moving boat in and out of pillars with trolling motor and jigging with my left hand. Then it happened, something whacks the [censored] out of the jig, I set the hook and was not prepared for what happened next. Drag starts screaming, fish taking line straight out from the boat. My first thought was this is a good fish, dont know what it is but it's pulling drag like I threw my jig on top of I30 and hooked a car going by at 60 mph.. my next thought is reel up the minnow poles. This is a big fish, you're not gonna be able to muscle him. My only chance is to try and follow with the trolling motor and try and wear him out. Got the 3 poles out of the way, look at spool and there's very little orange left on the reel. I use the orange suffix line. Turn the boat towards the direction of the fish and pow. Spooled.... line pops. Adrenaline rush at 100... I suspect that it was a large cat or possbily a big hybrid. I always kick myself when something like this happens. Your finesse fishing for crappie and you hook into a toad.
Well anyway.... landed a few solid crappie, one big girl that was just shy of 15 inches and right at 2 lbs. All fish released to be caught another day.
Thanks to the better half for letting me hit the water on a beautiful Valentine's day.
