A buddy and I hit a Mississippi backwater this morning trying to sneak in ahead of a big storm system and it worked. We were targeting crappies and for an hour and a half it was game on featuring crappies in the 12"-13" range on darned near every cast. It was a balmy 28 degrees when we started casting in heavy overcast at about 7 am. Still darned near dark. The bite started about 10 minutes later with a healthy 13 1/2" male black on my line. Between us we landed right about 50 fish before the weather cut loose with lightning, thunder and radical straight down rain then rain at 90 degrees when the wind kicked in.
The water temps have dropped down into the mid-40s and the sunfish have now vacated the area and are headed to wintering spots but the big crappies are pouring in off the main river channel now and the bite has been steadily getting better. Today was just crazy until the weather set in, then the bite simply came to a crashing halt.
We each kept five fish for dinner tonight and there'll be enough left over for a fish sandwich tomorrow at noon. Bites like this can spoil a person.
