So I just walk in the door to the grocery store and my phone rings. It's Dan Byrne from DuPage Angler and Pondboy's DuPage Fishing Guide Service.
Dan: Whacha doin?
Buying Air Freshener then getting a haircut
Dan: No you aren't. Let's go walk a lake.
Ummmm....OK. I'm buying the air freshener however. You haven't smelled my living room.
A phone call was all it took for me to head over to Dan's then we head to the lake. We each take rods rigged with Crabby Bass plastics and start near a water feature.
I still had my Crabby Helgie rigged up from last Sunday so I decided to work that first.
I tossed the Helgie out into some light current generated by the water feature. The bait sank to the bottom slowly. I raised my rod tip a bit and reeled four or five turns of my reel handle. The bait would have lifted off the bottom and glided up like it was trying to swim to the surface before running out of energy and getting EATEN by a lovely crappie!
The funny thing about this crappie is I don't know how long it was. We had intended to measure what we caught. Dan asked me before we got out of the car if I had a tape measure. I told him I did, and I do. I just didn't use it. My bad.
After playing photographer Dan got to working a Crabby Bass 4"ring worm called The Zipper. Pretty soon he got a bass to bite.
I rotated around Dan's position and began fan casting my Helgie. I scored another nice crappie.
Dan rotated past me and began casting. He was still working The Zipper with great success. Many bass would eat The Zipper today. This one was lucky enough to get caught on Dan's PivotHead sunglasses.
More rotating, more fish. It was great to get on some nice crappie and bass. I had just cast my light weight presentation directly in front of me when something caused a commotion near shore ten feet to my right. I reeled in very quickly and flipped the 2" plastic bug called a Helgie right into the area of disturbance.
My slack line swam for deeper water. As the fish took the bait deep it pulled in all my slack line. The circle hook slid right where it's supposed to and the hook found lip. A drag-peeling fight was on and with 6# test monofilament line I didn't want to horse the fish in. Boy was I pumped to get my thumb in this bass' mouth.
I checked the weight on my Boga-Grip Scale and she was a tiny bit over four pounds.
See the circle hook right where it's designed to go? In between the top lip plate and the bottom lip. Hung perfectly right in the corner of the mouth. Little bait; Big Bass!
As we lost light I caught a few more crappie then started catching hybrid sunfish, left and right. Dan had the last fish of the evening and it must have been hungry.
The purple nub of plastic hanging out of that crappie's mouth is the top inch of a 4" CBL Zipper.
What a way to end a work day. I'm glad Dan called.
I'm happy the lakes and ponds are finally warming up. Crappie spawn before bluegills, then come bass. Depending on the water temperature something should be spawning and something else should be really hungry before they spawn. That makes it an exciting time of year to be fishing.
Check out Crabby Bass Lures on the web. I highly recommend the Crabby Helgie and I hear the Zipper catches fish too. Pick your color, pick your scent, salt or no, glitter or no you pick and Chuck and Brad make it the way you want it.
