Wednesday, May 5
The annual gathering. Every year, same guys, same time, same place… We’re pretty consistent. The only variables here are the weather, and of course, the crappie. We were really hoping for some fun and easy beat-the-bank bobber-down action, but with a full day of rain the day before, and a cold front, (we started our morning on the water at under 40 degrees!) we had our work cut out for us. While we caught fish on the bank, overall they were pretty scattered, and picked them up all over the place. We finished that day short a few fish apiece from limits… not bad, but took a full day on the water to get them. Mostly 9″ males, with only a handful of decent slabs, and I think we cleaned ONE female with eggs. Fortunately, we ran into a couple of “old guys” (because we’re not old!) who had a bucket of toads… It was quickly determined that we would adjust tactics a bit more the next day, and explore the water column for staging females.
Thursday, May 6
Day Two was sure to get better… right? Weather would improve, we knew where and how to expand our search for the fish… stage was set. Started the morning off with an amazing breakfast bowl right off the flat top… Until we started backing the boat down… Blew a bearing in the axel. Cost us a half a day of fishing, and a few new gray hairs for Paul, but teamwork and scrambling at least had us sitting with a handful of parts for later and half day of chasing fin still ahead of us.
Fishing was significantly better. Size changed from primarily 9-9.5″ fish to a lot of 11-12″s, and a few pushing 13″ weather and wind jumped around on us, but we were able to do a bit better. Still scattered, but finding fish in 10-12′, 4-6′ down, and on up to the bank. Still picking up males, but this day was definitely majority bigger fish. No limits, but we only fished half a day. And had work to back at the cabin.
Half the crew went into mechanic-mode, under the spotlight, and the other half went into dinner prep. Al pastor street tacos, and all the fixins, were on tonight’s menu. We tend to eat really well on these trips, as you can see here. All of our meat and fixings and sauces came from San Antonio Carniceria y Tortilleria in Kansas City, KS. An outstanding spots for authentic cuisine. Worth a visit down to KCK.
Friday, May 7
Day three we had it nailed down – going to be easy today, right? Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy, but it was significantly better. We employed the previous days tactics and tied up, spending more time over the spots that had produced the first couple days, fishing from boat to bank, all depths, and picking up more fish. They were by no means concentrated, but we could at least pick a few up from some of these spots, before revisiting our pattern. We basically repeated the same loop all day long, and ended up pretty close to a five man limit. Best part? A wonderful majority of these fish were big. It did take us all day to get it done again, but it was worth it.
Time on the water with this crew is what it’s all about. It’s never about how many you clean. We do this once a year as a group, so we try hard to enjoy our time together, to laugh, get goofy, and just be the “boys” we all grew together as once again.
*Thanks to the whole crew for the photos here, all phone camera shots.
How about a little throwback action?
We’ve been doing this “officially” – same date, tee-shirts and swag and all – for 13 years as of 2021. Here are just a few that I took the time to document.
