Today I was planning on a crappie trip to Priest. So far this year has not been vary friendly to me for the big slabs. I have only had one slab over 12". I have caught alot but just not the size of last year.   I met Wayne and his grandson for a day of crappie fishing. We met at Fate Sanders about 6:30 a.m.   The plan was for us to hit some deep brush as my shallow bite had dissapeared. 

Our first stop was not far from Fate Sanders.  We were tight-lining some minnows.  Our first stop produced 5 crappie but only one barely keeper fish.  We moved on to the next tree and found the bite tough there as well.  One thing for certain was the bite was very very light and hard to feel.  I tell you if it was not for these Challenger Rods we were using I really don't think we could have caught as many as we did.  Wayne even made a comment that you could actually feel the minnow swimming on the hook.  Now that is some sensitivity.  We continued to bounce around on some deep trees and catching fish but mostly short and even a catfish.
We finally came to our 2nd to last stop and I boated a 14" crappie the biggest I have had this year.  But, the next several bites were small fish.  We had about 15 minutes to go because Wayne's grandson had soccer practice to go to.  So we headed out to our last deep tree. The tree was in about 19ft of water.  We made one pass and BAMM!   Dean yelled that he had a big one.  I looked back and saw his rod doubled over and thought for sure it was a bass.  The more it came up the whiter the fish looked and as soon as I saw it I was like holy smokes that is a giant crappie.  We managed to get it in the boat and measured the fish. She was 15.5" long, what a toad.  I think that is one of the biggest crappie I have ever seen. I bet it was a couple pounds for sure.


All in all we ened up with 10 keeper fish out of about 20 crappie caught.  Not too bad I guess.  It will make a good meal anyway.

Thanks Wayne and Dean for another great day on the water!