Top 5 Crappie in the spring.

Spring time is once again upon us.  It is the time of the "big uns"  I know that big crappie can be caught in other times of years and I have caught quite a few in the cooler and warmer months, but there's something about the spring when they just get easier to catch.  They migrate towards the banks and they hit more readily, and they are there in larger numbers.  On any little stick or structure sometimes it seems like they hold there and are just waiting for a jig to drop in on them to snatch up.

I haven't kept track of all the fish I have caught through the years, but I know consistently spring time is the time when I have caught my biggest fish hands down.  When their bellies swell, and they close in on the banks and shorelines they just tend to draw me to the water every chance I get and draw my mind there on a much more frequent basis than my body gets to follow.

I am not able to list out all the top 5 largest crappie I have caught, but I have had a few years where they just seem to be more abundant.  The older I get the more I like to look back on the photos and attempt to remember to take the photos in the first place.  They take me back to that day in particular and let me relive the entire experience.  I mostly measure my fish with a ruler rather than a scale, and that's enough for me normally.

1.  My personal best fish, I caught with another fish that would have been on any other day the highlight of my trip.  Its one of the few that I've actually put on a scale,  at 4 lbs and 1 oz.  I drove immediately to buy a scale and just had to know.  I was fishing with my children and it hit a slider grub under a float.  The spring was getting hot fast and the fish were ganged up near a pile of brush that had blown into a cove.  She was fat with eggs and I thought I was fighting a bass for the first few minutes before I got her to my boat.  The other fish actually made the list as well or tied with others on it.  It was 16" and a great fish.








 2.  My normal fishing time starts really early in the morning before daylight and ends around 9-10 am in order to make it to work, or if I have a day off and it rains preventing me from working my side hustle.  Rainy day fish when the water is muddy and they just came up from the depths.  The fish still aren't colored up but they can be hungry and ready to grab your bait.  This one was just that, I caught a rainy day with a few hours to hit the water.  She popped a small 1/32 oz jig with a berkley power bait minnow in chartreuse and white.  She was on a dock and had probably just come up not too long before.  I love that big head swing those bigger fish do to let you know their size.  She was 16" and had a good belly.   Up towards the head of the lake in the river channel she was on a dock in a cove.







3.  I ducked out of a bass tournament I was asked to fish because the weather was horrible in the tournament area, the weather at home was wonderful and it was prime time for the crappie in the spring.  I spent the days I had taken off for the tournament to just fish one of my home lakes and pulled in both a huge white crappie and a huge black crappie off the same large brush pile.  Both came in on a baby shad 1/32 oz jig head.  I dropped it down into the brush and bumped it a few times.  They snatched it up and I had to fight them out of the brush slowly and carefully.  both cracked 17".  This is the white.

4.  Another rainy day fish.  The weather was getting much warmer and the fish in the lower portion of the lake had started going shallow.  Throwing right beside a stake from a broken old dock she was sitting on the shady side and I could actually see the fish flip when it struck.  She pulled back down into the depths and disappeared as she fought and I didn't see her again until she pulled up by the boat.  She hit a chartreuse and black panfish assassin on a 1/32 oz jig head.











5.  First moving back home and fishing one of my home lakes then not having to drive for hours to get back to the house was nice.  The first spring I moved back home in 2015 I was able to have a banner spring and put some huge fish in the cooler.  They just seemed to welcome me home.  I was able to cull until I had the cooler full of fish all over 13".  They all were from shooting docks with a 1/64 oz jig and a variety of colors of jigs through the morning.  I was done before lunch, but it was a very nice change of pace and I was very thankful for the haul.











The lord has blessed me with some good waters close to home and although I cannot fish saltwater regularly as I hope to some day it is wonderful to have some good freshwater capabilities within easy driving distance of home.

Deuteronomy 11:14

Winter trolling for crappie

Winter time can be a tough time to fish period.  Its mostly a battle just to mentally get out of the nice warmth of home and go sit in the wind and weather.  Once you get out though it seems to get much easier with the prospect of actually catching fish.  Crappie are still active in the cold, the bite seems to be lighter but they will still bite and you can still put them in the boat.  They seem to slow down significantly when the water temperatures drop and like a very slow presentation which makes slow trolling quite an effective way to catch them.  

The crappie tend to group up in the cold and if you catch one you tend to catch several in the same spot.  Sometimes they like a smaller bait and almost always a slower presentation.  They tend to follow the water temperature changes pretty readily when the water is shallow and the surface warms.  They go from deep early to shallow if the sun beats down on the water and warms it during the heat of the day.  It seems in the winter they can focus on a single color or color combination with more intensity than at other times of year as well.

Crappie in winter are a wonderful table fare, their fillets grow very firm and they make almost any fish recipe "pop"  There are few fish that are equal in fresh water.  The water I fish tends to hold quite a few yellow perch and bluegill as well which are both very tasty, but crappie are by far easier to fillet.  

Proverbs 25:13

Catfish Jugging with noodles

Deeply seated within my nature is a love of passive things that generate value.  I love the concept of trapping, be it for furbearing animals, or bait fish, there is just something about setting up a system that hunts for you while you are doing other things.  In this spirit I have gotten into jug fishing for catfish.  I have the good fortune to be on the water quite often and after a good storm it is very easy to find pool noodles strewn all over the place where they have been blown away by the wind or washed away by the rain.  I also have the good fortune to work in construction and have access to quite a lot of scrap PVC.  I also collect lead weights etc and make my own sinkers.  I decided years ago to begin making my own catfish jugs, and found that with a combination of all my aforementioned treasures that I have found that I had to simply pay for fishing line and for swivels in order to make jugs out of pool noodle floats and PVC.  

While making my fishing jugs I decided to experiment with some other materials and found that bamboo actually makes a very good substitute for the PVC and pool noodles.  It floats well, its readily available, not nearly as much work goes into its construction, and it actually seems to catch fish better.  I attribute this ability to catch more to its less noticeable colors.  I do wrap each one with some visible tape and according to NC laws with my pertinent information, but the bamboo still doesn't have the conspicuous colors that the noodles do.  I have quite enjoyed trying it out though and have had great success in jug fishing through the past summer and fall.  

There are lots of different methods for constructing these noodles, mine is not the most complicated by far, but has been very successful for me.  I simply attach a swivel to each jug, and tie a length of line onto each.  I put an egg sinker in the middle a few feet above the hook at the end and I bait each up and simply toss them out a few yards away from each other out in one cove or one area, then go and fish somewhere for a few hours then come back and run down each noodle with a fish on it.  

Catfish make wonderful table fare and can be caught on the scraps and junk of other fishing forays or hunting forays.  I have caught them on dove hearts and livers as well as rabbit innards, and I have also used the heads and pieces of smaller fish I filleted.  I save all these and freeze them.  Catfish seem to be the ultimate "something for nothing" fish in freshwater.  I plan to catch as many as possible this year and in years to come.  Its tough to beat a catfish fillet or catfish sandwich.  I'm thankful for discovering how fun these fish can be.  Chasing down jugs at the end of a day of fishing adds that much more flavor to the experience as a whole.  

John 16:33

Yellow Perch

Yellow Perch

Yellow perch have to be some of the most aggressive and "user friendly" fish that there are out there in the freshwater realm of fishing.  I have recently found them as a target species and they have more than exceeded any expectations for them that I might previously have held.  

Yellow perch do not have very discerning tastes when it comes to the baits they will hit.  I have had a great deal of luck with them hitting similar colors to themselves in the areas I fish.  They seem to have cannibalistic tendencies, but they seem to be voracious and are very fun to fight.

Yellow perch have a lot more meat on them than I thought they might, but are not so easy to fillet as some other fish.  I have found that scaling them first and then filleting them seems to keep the edge on a fillet knife much more easily.  They have quite a bit of meat over top of their ribs and have a very firm fillet.  Even the small fish have a good fillet on them.  

I have had more fun catching these little orange and green warriors than most anything and they have been very consistent throughout the year regardless of the season.  They seem to be more consistently caught at very slow speeds or even sitting still, but I have caught quite a few on crank baits at certain times of year and they hit them at a pretty fast clip.  These are fast moving up the ladder of popularity with me and I hope to enjoy many years to come fishing them.  I am thankful that these little orange titans are out there and have been certainly blessed to do battle with them.  

Matthew 13:45-50

Rabbits

Rabbits

At a very early age I learned to appreciate rabbits.  My papaw raised rabbits and I did not know it at the time, but they were some of the most prolific and easiest to keep and raise of all the critters he had on his farm.  He would keep great quantities of them and sell or eat them.  They were much quieter than his chickens and much smaller and easier to house than his larger critters like hogs and goats. 

Getting old enough to start hunting I learned a new appreciation for them as table fare and as very apt quarry in the field.  I learned to love the development of beagles who would pursue them and learned the importance of habitat to keep them safe from their natural predators which have since decimated the populations locally.  I fondly remember the rabbit hunts I used to go on with my dad and my uncles and my cousins. 

Rabbits seem to be a great indicator species for the health of a habitat in an area.  I notice they seem to require just a bit more than other more adaptable animals such as squirrels or even deer.  Though I might have strayed in my interests into waterfowl hunting, or other upland and wingshooting quarry, my heart always brings me back to my love of the pursuit of rabbits.  There’s something special about watching a beagle work a brush pile or hearing and seeing a pack of beagles burn up a rabbit trail.  I hope that the rabbits make a come back around my area and I appreciate them all the more now that they are not as common as they used to be.  The farmers have begun cleaning their fields down into the ditch lines and leave nowhere for the rabbits to hide and escape their predators. 

Rabbits are one of God’s most efficient creations that can eat nearly any vegetation and survive on nearly nothing.  They can even re-process their own waste if need be.  They live in the roughest and nastiest thickets and brush and they repopulate an area quickly when allowed to be left alone.  I’ve heard it said that the rabbit doesn’t have a friend in the world, the coyotes and the house cats and hawks have really worked on them here and the owls have taken a toll at night, but still my nature seems to be naturally drawn to this efficiency.  I for one am glad and thankful that they are out there.  I hope that our farming practices can in the future allow for them to return to their former numbers and that my children and grandchildren can enjoy pursuing rabbits in the future.

Proverbs 30-26

Cutting Teeth on Wingshooting

Dove Hunting

The Beginning

As quite a few have, I cut my wingshooting teeth on doves.  My first hunt was more exciting than I’d ever experienced.  My cousin and a friend who had a driver’s license and I all went to a local corn field with a power line running the length of the field almost directly through its middle.  The birds were really flooding to the line to sit and watch for danger below before they trickled into the field below to feed.  My cousin and I sat on the edge of the woodline while my friend sat in a thick patch of weeds directly below a power pole.  He quickly began shooting the birds as they put down their landing gear and began to back pedal, making for fairly easy shots.  As he shot, their companions quickly realized the safety of the line was not quite what they had hoped and sped down the field past my cousin and me like lightning in their attempt to flee the field.  He and I shot and shot, he crushed several birds and I just watched as they kept going.  After my first box of shells I finally figured out the lead they needed and began to connect.  Within less than an hour we had all collected limits. 

The Infection

From that day forward I really couldn’t see any reason not to dove hunt every single day.  Unfortunately there were quite a few limiting factors that prevented that from being a reality.  The season wasn’t open every day, I had no license to get to locations suitable for a dove shoot, and I was poor and couldn’t afford the shells to maintain my new found habit.  As time progressed that gave me a reason to go to work and obtain a license and ask every local farmer and land owner I knew for hunting permission.  Before the onslaught of relentless construction in the county I had nearly free reign of the place for hunting.  After school, weekends and holidays were solely devoted to chasing doves as often as season would allow.  I learned new recipes to cook and fought the elements through all the splits of the dove season.  I was so eaten up by it that I lost interest in most everything else.  It was a wonderful time and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. 

The Aftermath

Unfortunately after having lived that for years realities have set in and that life has been a thing of the past for quite a few years now.  The homes that line the fields that I once roamed and the nature of having a regular job and family have built quite a wall around those prospects.  I work every day though knowing that I’m gaining on a time in my life when I can move away to somewhere I can once again delve into that sort of life style on a more limited basis.  The memories keep me pushing forward and the hopes of doves falling from the sky are all I need and want to drive me on when my day has not gone to plan.  I don’t know what people do who don’t enjoy such endeavors in life.  It seems to be quite a boring way to not experience the outdoors and God’s natural world in such fashion at least once in one’s life. 

John 1:32

My Favorite Fisherman

Of my top favorite fishermen in history George Washington has to rank at the top.  While he did not so much fish in the same manner that I do, he did turn fishing into quite an industry for himself and not only did the income spur on his fortune, the fish were used to benefit his farming operations.  There are not many men in history so well rounded as he.  George Washington has long been one of the historical figures I admire the most, and his full-frontal assault on life is nothing short of astounding.  He knew how to attack so many aspects of life in pursuit of being all he could possibly be that he rose in so many areas and so many ways through strategy and hard work and determination.  Not only did he achieve great things which can still be viewed today in his estate on the Potomac, he also was part of the founding of the greatest nation the world has ever known, and lead it into its birth as well as its infancy, setting it on the course that is still standing strong today.

                                                        Diversification 

While my interests vary slightly from his, I take quite a lot of my inspiration in their pursuit from learning about his life.  I have no desire to achieve the level of social standing nor fame he rose to, but his hustle has always been something that attracted my attention.  He made some strategic moves within his personal life, he made some moves with the connections that he maintained and he made some moves through his career choices, but his farm and the many facets that generated income around and through his farming operations was nothing short of impressive.  His crops, his distillery, his livestock, his mill, and his fishing operation all piece together his various streams of income.                                                                                          Washington was strategic and intelligent. 

Fish With Purpose

Since a very young age I always strived to broaden my pursuits and interests to levels where everything made a return, rather than simply being a wasted effort and even the waste from one operation flowed directly into productivity in another.  While farming has not been a feasible option for me on any real scale, I have tried to tailor my other work options in similar fashion.  Efficiency, productivity, and quality.  Even my fishing methods have taken on the same traits.  My kayaks do not require gas, oil, nor other electrical upkeep, nor do they currently require a yearly registration fee with the state, thus my overhead is low, also my fish I tend to only fish species I can and will consume, thus cutting back on my grocery bill as often as I can.  Someday I hope to achieve the sort of freedom George Washington enjoyed for brief stints between his duties to his country, but until then I will maintain as similar approach to his farming and fishing operations as I possibly can.  God truly blessed George Washington with many opportunities which he capitalized on more often than not and allowed him the insight to use his failures as learning experiences and stepping stones into the greatness he achieved.  May that be true of my own life and yours’ as well. 

Micah 4:4

(said to be Washington’s favorite verse)

Top 5 Reasons to Fish For Crappie

As fish go, there are not many I care to pursue in freshwater other than crappie.  Every other fish comes further down on my list.  While there are many reasons one should fish for crappie.  The top 5 reasons in my humble opinion are as follows: 

Almost Never Alone 

5.  They use the buddy system most of the time.  If you catch one fish, it was most likely not alone wherever you caught it.  Crappie tend to hang around in groups either big or small.  Most of the time I find they are with other fish of similar size.  Of course, as with anything this is not some set in stone rule, and the fish will always do what they do without asking the opinion of whoever is fishing for them. 

Minimal Equipment

4.  They do not require you to “load for bear”.  The largest fish can put up quite a fight when they turn in the water and can pull like mad when they are heated up in the warmer months, but even they do not require the heavy line, and heavy tackle and gear one would set up for bass or other larger fish.  This means one doesn’t have to necessarily spend the entire sum of the family fortune to successfully pursue them. Although there are certainly higher dollar options for fishing crappie, it seems that actually the cheaper my gear gets the more fish I put in my boat. 

Many Methods

3.  There are many different methods to be successful fishing for them.  Depending on what season certain methods work better than others, but quite often its “dealer’s choice” and several different methods may work at the same time depending on how you are set up to fish, or which way you prefer to fish.  In the spring time quite a few people troll for them, but dock shooting works well, as does jigging.  In the winter time long lining or slow trolling works well, but jigging may also be a key for connecting with fish.  In the summer night fishing under lights, or trolling crankbaits can both be deadly.  They bring something to the table for nearly every taste. 

Great For Anyone 

2.  They are great for all ages.  Kids and adults can both enjoy catching crappie.  The numbers allowed for limits in most places is pretty generous, and when the bite is on the cooler can be filled up quickly.  They can be fished as simply as putting a minnow on a hook and throwing it out under a bobber, or they can peak the interest of even the most seasoned veteran in some of the tougher times of year fishing with artificial baits. 

                                 Awesome Eating

1.  They are made of delicious and wonderful meat.  As far as fresh water dinner fare is concerned crappie are one of the top on the list.  Fried, smoked, baked...almost any way can be great.  Fish and grits, fish tacos, fried fish, fish stew, it’s tough to go wrong.  I can’t seem to cook it fast enough when my kids are eating fried fish, they almost inevitably end up asking me to hurry up and bring out some more. 

God made crappie to eat, and eating them is the main reason I pursue them.  The fun had catching them and the challenges they present also add to the allure of fishing for them.  I really can’t speak highly enough of them it seems.  I think God connected me to crappie and I hope to never have to break that connection. 

Matthew 4:18-21

Apple Cobbler

Apples are one of my favorite fruits and I could spend days cooking with them.  I love this time of year when most of the varieties are getting ripe and ready.  When I was first learning to cook my mother showed me a recipe for cobbler that is well suited to apples, peaches, cherries or any other fruit one has a notion to put into it, although my list here narrows it down to the ones I care to use in it.  I’ve seen blackberries, blueberries, and quite a few other variations.  I will eat them, but I don’t care for them. 

The Memories

She would say “A cup of flour, a cup of sugar, a cup of milk and a stick of butter.”  Melt the butter into a baking pan or glass baking dish in the oven at 350 degrees.  Mix the other ingredients in a bowl and when the butter is melted and the pan pre-heated pour them over the butter.  If you pour into the middle of the pan the butter will push out to the edges and upwards so as to keep the cobbler from sticking.  She would normally use pie filling from a can, but I have since preferred to prepare my apples myself. 

The Work

I prepare my apples in the same manner I do for most of the baking applications I use them in.  I peel and cut them into a pan with enough water to coat the bottom.  I cook them on a medium high heat and sprinkle in some white sugar, some brown sugar, some cinnamon, nutmeg and a splash of vanilla.  I cook them into a thick apple sauce and leave some of the pieces larger. 

The Mix

I pour the apples into the batter in the baking dish and spread them out towards the edges and as evenly as possible.  I then bake the cobbler in the oven on 350 for around 45 minutes or until the top gets a nice golden color and the sides develop a darker crust and begin to draw back from the sides of the dish. 

The Reward

A glass of milk or a scoop of vanilla ice cream tops off a bowl or plate full of cobbler nicely and warms the body up wonderfully when the weather turns cooler.  God made apples to grow in the soils in this area on slopes that are not well suited to other types of crops and he planted me right here as well, so maybe it’s a natural thing that I love apples. 

Proverbs 25:11

Pecans

I’ve always had a taste for pecans, but when I was living on the coast of NC I got the chance to really develop that taste and for certain I can say they are my favorite type of nut.  There were pecan trees growing in nearly every yard and on most clearings where there had been homes at one time.  The vast majority of these trees grew just a handful of tiny pecans each year.  I was very fortunate though and my next-door neighbors had quite a few very large pecan trees growing in their yard.  They were remodeling the house that sat on the lot slowly by themselves and thus were not living there and would not be for quite some time.  The major difference between these trees and the rest of the trees everywhere else I looked was that the neighbors had several rabbit hutches, and quite a number of chicken coops sitting under these pecan trees.  As one might imagine the trees were incredibly lush and green and were well fed to put out a mast crop like no others that I knew of.  They put out pecans in extremely prolific quantities and I must have been the only person who had any desire to gather and process them.  I asked if I could collect the pecans and they said they would not be using them for anything, and that I could have all that I wanted. 

 Processing Tasks

I commenced to gathering pecans in several buckets I had and soon filled up two five-gallon buckets.  I sat in the house shelling them out into a bowl night after night with every intention of using them for cooking or eating in some way or another.  I soon had the idea to put them up for sale as a shelled out finished product, and that turned into one of the best ideas that I had come up with in the struggling and strapped for cash condition we were living in at the time.  I don’t remember how many buckets I filled with the pecans as they continued to fall through the season, but I do know I spent every night for weeks on end shelling and processing pecans.  Since I love menial tasks of that nature it was absolutely therapeutic to me.  I enjoyed the actual work, I relished the fact that it was providing for my family and it also played directly into my nature that I was using something that would have otherwise have gone to waste. 

For Sale

I filled quart freezer bags full of pecan meat and sold bag after bag with no problem.  It turned into a way to put food on the table in more ways than one.  Not only was the revenue a very needed blessing, but I also kept the pieces that broke for my own family’s use.  I incorporated the pecans into so many dishes, I have forgotten all the uses I came up with.  My most notable and the one that turned out the best, and also, I was most pleased with was adding crushed bits into a crab cake mixture.  I thoroughly enjoyed the crab cake recipe that I came up with and ate them often, being the crab was free as well with a little bit of time spent on one end of a piece of twine tied to a chicken neck in the black water around the area. 

God's Provisions

I am so thankful God provided what we needed down there, not much at all that we wanted, but he always had something up his sleeve to pull out when I felt all hope was lost and the boat would sink.  The pecans were one of the biggest I remember, some of the others turned out to be curses in the long run in some ways, but several others were blessings as well.  I may disclose in the future some of the other means of supporting the family, but my scavenging and resourcefulness was put to the ultimate survival test when we lived there.  Necessity is the mother of invention they say, and there God caused me to invent quite a few new ways of getting through. 

Proverbs 13:11

Zucchini Bread

Truck farming as I once saw it called in a western novel that I read used to be a way of life for so many people in this area, simply to feed the family they would grow and the kids would all be charged with picking and breaking and hoeing weeds and carrying water and tending the garden in all ways they seem to need.  I sometimes miss parts of taking care of a garden, but not often.  I’ve had terrible luck as of late with my gardening attempts it seems, but I do still love the efficient and self-sufficient nature of a garden.  I had a great time pouring my mind into it and doing the work itself for the most part in the limited attempts I’ve made.  Zucchini and yellow squash were two of the easier plants to grow and after I got a vacuum sealer I quickly found they would keep very well in the freezer. 

Zucchini also has grown to become one of my favorite in quite a few dishes, but most of all I have grown fond of zucchini bread.  It tastes incredible, its full of zucchini, and it freezes really well and tastes just as good if not better after it thaws.  I’ve found quite a few recipes for it, and really have not had one turn out bad yet.  My last was as follows: 

3 cups flour                                                                                          1 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp salt                                                                                               2 ¼ cups white sugar

1 tsp baking soda                                                                                3 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking powder                                                                           2 cups grated zucchini

1 tbsp ground cinnamon                                                                    1 cup chopped walnuts

3 eggs

Preheat the oven to 325.  Grease two small 8x4” glass baking dishes over both the bottom and all the sides. 

Mix flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and baking powder in a bowl together well. 

Mix well the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla in a larger bowl.   Stir in all the dry ingredients mixing well as you go.  Mix in the zucchini and walnuts.  Pour mixture into the two pans evenly.  Bake in oven for around 50-60 minutes or until a fork inserted into the middle comes out clean. 

Remove from the oven and let the pans cool completely.  Then flip over pans and bread loaves should fall out. 

Working the Garden

This has been one of the tastiest and warming ways to get green vegetables.  I’m certain God intended man to work the fields or tend to some sort of manual labor for at least a portion of his life and I fear the up and coming generation and entirely too much of this one does without the lessons which that teaches, if only that it can be unpleasant and can allow less tedious and strenuous work to be more appreciated.  So much goes unlearned and unnoticed without a stint as such in ones’ life. 

Matthew 9:37-38