The Mighty Zum..... What a difference a day makes

[Down to Earth]

Since the weather finally cooperated and gave us 2 nice days in a row, I thought I'd head out for some evening fishing. How things have changed since yesterday morning. Water temps have climbed from sub 50 to the mid 50 both at surface and 8'. The key now at least with evening fishing is to target shorelines that have the western sun shining on it as the sun is going down. This warmer water seems to be drawing the fish as daylight winds down. My first stretch I fished was not sun lit and success was very poor. After changing locations I was greeted with a dozen or so mixed bag of sunnies and crappies. Everything came working the shoreline. Paddletails under a float at 2-3' brought in the fish. Largest sunny was 8.5" and the crappies all ran in the 9-11" range. Had my 3 year old out with me tonight. On that note, if anyone happens to snag into a red Taz pole with a hookless firetiger Rapala on it let me know. Its in there somewhere after coming out of my son's hand on a one handed cast attempt. Just after I reminded him to use 2 hands.

Andy

[carlcmc]

:-)

[g'eye pilot]

Found some crappies willing to cooperate last evening... The fish were off of, and adjacent to submerged wood. Tubes fished under a float about 18" did the trick, no bait.

[Dan Thiem]

Alex and I went out tonight and did real good on some huge gills. We were using Crappie Tom's new plastics. We got 18 total, with a couple that were an honest 8 3/4". All went back.

These fish absolutely inhaled our jigs.

We used floats set at about 3 feet. Cast to the shore and reel back. Them fish just nailed the jig.

We'll get pictures developed and post here later.

Wait untill you see the BONUS fish we got! I should get the pictures posted tomorrow sometime.

[winona walleye]

crappie tom makes his own plastics? what kind of plastics? are the good? and if so how do i get my hands on em? crappie tom, your a legend on here man, i apprieciate all the information you and dan give on these forums, you guys help both the roch area and 4-11 areas alot, thanx guys

[CrappieJohn]

Winona walleye... For about the last three years I have been cutting and heat welding, trimming and doing it all over again trying to come up with a plastic that has a slow drop and yet have a reasonable profile. For the last year and a half I have been quietly doing war with the crappies and sunnies using these along side of the usual Culprit paddletail and some of the scented products out there. I was lucky and found a company to share this with and they are doing the making.

They can be gotten from JRs tackle by on-line ordering, but they are still new enough that they have not got them in their on-line catalog to view. If you want to see the colors available and the two body styles, click up the crappie forum and go to the thread at the top of the page listed as crappie plastics. Scroll down thru the various posts and you will find one from Matt Johnson that shows the colors very well.

In addition to the panfish liking them, others have taken carp, suckers, catfish, northern, lm and sm bass, white bass and even a muskie or two.

The paddletail version is 1 3/8" in length while the rat tail is a full 1 1/2" . The Crappie Stub Grub is the paddy and the Crappie Rat is the other. In either style they offer a very easy drop rate that smokes the fish. They work very well during the cold fronts when slowwwww is the key.