My daughter is a pro.

We took her over to a local lake by my office this morning, for her first time fishing. I rigged up her Princess pole with a size 10 aberdeen hook , a small split shot, a weighted float, and half a crawler. I helped her cast off of the fishing pier into an area of submergent vegeation, where fish were likely holding. Within a minute her float was under and a fish was on. She reeled in the fish like she had been doing it her whole life. Her first catch was a pumpkinseed.

Now all she says around the house is fish, or as she says, "pesch".

I think I've got her hooked for life.

It's been a few years since I've targeted crappies with spinning gear. It's almost a rite of passage in these parts during the spring, but the past couple years saw me riding out the sucker spawning wave through late May/early June. I had a couple free hours this afternoon, so I joined up with a couple buddies that I haven't fished with in a while, and hit a local lake.

The fish were sitting right on their spawning beds, and holding tight. If you could find where their nests were, they were willing bite. Setup was a chartreuse 1/32 oz jig tipped with a 2" yellow curly tail, suspended about 2' below a weighted float on 6 lb Gamma Copoly. I managed to catch a few nicely colored males; they were almost jet black. Doesn't quite come through in a photo.

We brought a bunch of nice black crappies to the boat, as well as a few bluegills, rock bass, and largemouth bass. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon and a change of pace is good once in awhile. Of course, it's not the same as sucker fishing on the fly.

I met up with a member of FishingMinnesota this evening and went sight fishing for carp. This guy had caught a brute 40 lb carp here before, and pulled in a nice mirror carp the other day. Suffice to say, I had my hopes up. We fished a gin clear South Central MN lake. We saw plenty of nice carp and a few buffalo in the shallows. Seeing that there were midges everywhere, I tied on a soft hackle chironomid pattern. No dice. I tried next a size 10 rust colored clouser swimming nymph, but nary a look. These fish were spooky and very guarded, much like fishing bones on the flat. We broke out the bait and artificials, no luck either. Wanting to avoid the skunk, we went to a different spot in the lake where a feeder stream entered the lake.

We saw a ton of crappies and built nests. Knowing that there were white crappies present in the lake, I had hoped to catch one for my life list. I cast my clouser swimming nymph into a pod of fish and let the fly settle. I pulled my line back and had a fish on. As I brought the fish to the boat, I realized I had just caught my first white crappie! We targeted a few trees near the water and caught a few crappies and sunfish before calling it a day. At least the day was not a complete bust, and the weather was near perfect. Next time I'm in South Central MN, I'm definitely gonna come back. This lake definitely has potential...

Black Crappie, Pomoxis nigromaculatus

Fighting carp in a slough