Just The Two Of Us 

      March Madness is nearly upon us.  The office copy machine is on over time making NCAA office pool bracket sheets.  You know.  The one Mrs. Sally Smith fills out over the course of a 10 minute break all the while asking what the little numbers in parentheses mean next to the team names.  Poor Mr. Joe “Basketball” Smith who’s been glued to the TV set since November still owing 1 more of 3 easy installments of $39.99 for NCAA Back Court Pass and can rattle off the 5 starters and 6^th man for 59 out of the 64 teams doesn’t stand a chance against Mrs. Sally Smith.  She’s writing down college names on her bracket sheet because her 2^nd best friend lives in that city/state and these other names sound interesting.  Let alone the pronunciation of a select few colleges that made the Big Dance are severely compromised when she try’s sounding them out.   

      I’m surfing around the internet and come across www.crappie.com.  I love fishing for crappie and spend any free time I have doing just that.  I consider myself Mr. Joe “Basketball” Smith of the papermouth world and fittingly enough as you are about to find out, my wife is Mrs. Sally Smith.

Where to Begin

      It was a rather warm autumn afternoon in the Coulee region last year.  I convinced my wife of 8 years it was that time of the year to make use of her half of the husband/wife fishing license.  It’s not that my wife absolutely hates fishing but she only joins me on a couple of outings each year.  I had been on a pretty solid bite all week and knew the crest of the crappie bite was hinging on the balance of the weather.  With old man winter lurking around the corner I knew the days to get my wife out were dwindling fast.

      We dumped the flat bottom in the back waters of Pool 9 on the mighty Mississippi about 5 miles north of De Soto, WI by 1:00pm.  With a pale full of minnows and high expectations to meet up with a hungry school of crappie, I had the 20 horse full throttle.  We were tossing enough wake to drown an army of drone ants before the beautiful tips of the snag I had in mind started to come in focus around the next river bend.  

Anchor Placement

      I circled above the promising looking snag killing the Johnson some 20 yards up river.  I never fished this particular snag all autumn, waiting for an opportunistic time.  Killing the Johnson upstream and allowing the current to do the work is a truly effect way to go “stealth”.  Allowing the slow moving river current to carry us to the target zone is one of many tricks my late father taught me as youngster.  This beautiful tree top cover dangled some 25 yards out into the slough in over 6 feet of water. 

      When the boat had drifted to within a flip shot of the snag, I slipped a navy anchor over board with a splash comparable to a Chinese diver slicing the water from a 50 meter platform.  Not my wife, bless her soul.  Before I could say a word the 8lb mushroom anchor ALMOST hit the sun as she hurled it over board!  Folks, beavers don’t slap the water as hard as that anchor hit and when your target is shallow water crappie, you just don’t want to be announcing to the underwater world you have arrived!  I couldn’t help but just laugh though as she brushed water droplets off her jacket from the resulting splash mumbling a few choice words at the river.  So much for that stealth surprise attack!     

        Precision Casting

      Armed with an ultra light, 1/32 jig head tipped with a minnow & a simple cigar float, it wasn’t 15 minutes before she decided to test her casting skills against my better wishes.  The debate went on for a couple of minutes as to why she should not cast into that snag too far.  But what do I know.  An overhand toss with an early release on the bail sent the jig head and float into a helicopter spin with the jig head landing 2 inches on the OTHER side of a log wrapping like a tether ball around the pole.  The last thing I wanted to do was pull anchor and nose dive into the snag to retrieve 25 cents worth of terminal tackle spooking any and all fish that still lurked after the anchor placement episode.  One whip lash of the pole and the 4 lb. line snapped sending the cigar float high up into the air.  It landed some 15’ from the boat in the open water.  Terminal tackle remained a permanent fixture on the stick bass.  I couldn’t help but just laugh.  So much for those casting skills there Mrs. Smith!    

[Sorry, didn’t take a picture of the stick bass.  All though I wish I would have!] 
   

      Cigar floats are often written off as the “kid bobber”.  Truth is these are one of the more sensitive bobbers on the market.  With smaller jig heads (1/16^th or 1/32^nd) & live bait presentations (crappie minnow), they lay horizontal on the water and ride the small wind driven ripple to the 3 foot waves of a passing charter effortlessly.  A hard downward hit and they stand vertical before descending under water.  Light upward strikes and they merely change directions instantly while remaining horizontal on the water surface.  There is a time and place for the more sophisticated slip bobber rig but don’t overlook the opportunity to keep it simple when your target is shallow water autumn crappie.  KISS = Keep It Simple Sally.

The Spot

      Fishing in tight on the tree top was producing some below average crappie.  Five to seven inchers on a minnow as well as a variety of colored jigs such as Lil Nipper’s and Flu-Flu’s on my 12’ jig pole.  I’ve done a just a little crappie fishing on pool 9 over the years and I’ve never landed the quantity of smaller crappie in one spot.  Position the bait tight in on the snag with the minnow presentation and the float was headed for the depths.  Lower a jig with the 12 footer and I swore the devil himself was tugging it down within minutes.  Like I said, a definite positive sign for years to come, but I just could not come to grips with the fact there were not any 9 inch plus crappie in that cover and was bound and determined to pull one out.  While I was flirting with those smaller starving crappie, my wife was busy replacing the terminal tackle on her ultra light.  She did a pretty convincing job on the tie and was back in action before long.  She was several fish down on the quantity counter when the cigar float gave her a salute and headed for the abyss.  She pulled so hard the business end came screaming out of the water like a ballistic missile – fishless needless to say!  After regrouping a 2^nd time, the ole cigar float gave her another wave bye-bye.  This time, a successful hook set with four reels on the crank and she flipped a really nice crappie into the boat pulling ahead on the quality counter.   

      After she caught a second slab within minutes from the first I knew why I wasn’t catching bigger crappie out of that cover!  One fish doesn’t constitute a pattern, but two in a row isn’t an accident either.  Learning her lesson on the precision casting she was merely flipping her jig over the bow of the boat instead of the starboard side (snag area).  She was flipping out in the middle of “no-mans-land” as so to speak.  While watching her at work, I also took note of the drifting cigar float she had lost when she tangled with that stick bass.  It would travel downstream some 15 to 20 yards in the ever so slow current where it would get caught in a little back eddy at a bottleneck area of the running slough and start heading back up river towards us anchored next to the snag.  I was so excited about the mere site of the snag when we first pulled up I had not even noticed the slight current break just off the snag!  We repositioned the boat slightly and started flipping minnows over that break.  The current would slowly guide the floats over the honey hole.  The float would start bouncing slightly as the minnows started performing the “please don’t eat me dance ritual” tugging at the hook/float as if to say “let me go”!  Within in seconds the float would stop the nervous flutter bouncing, stand erect, and slowly head for the abyss.  Hook set, retrieve, and flip another Mississippi crappie into the boat!   
 

      We caught some very respectable crappie including one of Keiko’s distant relations stretching the tape over the 14” mark!  Normally I don’t keep crappie that big, but the best surgeon in the continental U.S. wasn’t going to de-hook that fish successfully for it to see another day.  All these fish stacked in area no larger than 4’ in diameter on that current break.  Had it not been for my wife I would have sat nearly right on top of the big boys catching the little guys wondering how and the world a #16 seed knocked off a #1 in the first round!   

Just a wonderful & memorable autumn day out on the river chasing my beloved Crappie with my beloved wife!

The Picture

      The best part was yet to come.  Once we got home I set up outside to fillet supper as it was such a beautiful early evening.  I was soon joined by my wife who brought the camera out to take a few snaps shots to go along with our excursion on the water.  Of course it didn’t take me but a few seconds to grab that big ole boy and request she hold him up for a snap shot.  She refused claiming she was washed up and even sacrificed her bragging rights of catching the biggest of the day.  I returned the sentiment and refused to have my face in the picture with the fish SHE CAUGHT but he was picture worthy.  So I held him out away from my manly physique and my wife snapped a picture of him along with some group mug shots before disappearing into the house.  

      When the filleting was done I washed up and headed for the kitchen with a bowl full of meat fit to feed a mess hall.  She had tears in her eyes sitting at the computer and was just sobbing trying to gasp for air between sobs.  It took me all of 2 seconds to realize she was laughing uncontrollably and had been for heavens know how long.  I took a look at the picture she had up while starting to question her when she interrupted……She says, “Honey, Honey, I caught a fish bigger than your Johnson”.  I was just speechless.  She didn’t catch that fish……I DID!  I just wanted her to believe she caught the biggest so she’d go with me more often!  To this day she still thinks she caught that fish!  She was correct about one thing.  It was bigger than my Johnson!

 Conclusion