Well the fishing on Otter Pit picked up this last week. We have a few days where it got up to the upper 50's and the winds were not blowing too hard and the skies were not crying. No rain is good.
I found a new drop off that held much better crappie. The crappie were full of shad too and active. Again there was a flat area with plenty of submerged weeds growing on the flats. And the flat is pretty extensive. There is a drop off all around the flats. It's more of a long underwater point as well as a flat. There is lots of underwater brush along the drop off and that was where I caught the fish. The fish were also up on the flat. I fished Bill today. He joined me at the launch ramp at the last minute. I always purchase my minnows from Bill at the Evansville Worm Ranch out on Old Boonville Road. He has all types of bait there for sale and does a great job in keeping me in minnows all winter long. This was the first time we have fished together and we did good. We got to the spot that I had found earlier and had already marked in my Garmin eTrex Vista hand held GPS unit. I showed bill how the Depth finder worked and how to find the fishing spot using the GPS map. We got to the spot and there was another boat there fishing the same area. They were fishing the flat and went North while we fished the drops and went to the SE. Both boats caught nice fish and good numbers this day. I think they said they had about 15 fish when we were back at the launch ramp that night. We only fished for about 2 hours before it got dark. Bill was hanging in there even though he got cold. We caught the fish down about 8ft deep below the surface. I went up over the flats and then let the wind blow me back out over the drops. I was fishing with my drop shot rig and bill was fishing with his slip bobber setup. We ended up with a good mess of fish. I put them on ice and went back the next time to catch a few more. I then had to clean them all the next day. I should have cleaned them inside as it was cold the next day. It took me forever to get them all cleaned. The American Angler 12 V DC fillet knife was having trouble cleaning the larger crappie. I think my battery pack was too cold to give me enough juice to run the fillet knife fast. The slower blade speed made cleaning the fish harder. The knife kept getting hung up when I was taking the skin off the fillet. That's only happened to me one time before and that was due to the new blades that I was using. When I went back to the old blades the knife worked much better. These fillet knives use serrated edges on the blades which really helps in cleaning the fish. I should have use the 120AC American Angler Fillet knife but instead I just stuck my battery pack inside the back door and ran the long cord out to the deck where I was cleaning the fish. After the battery warmed up inside the house the cleaning went much faster. I cooked up the fillets last night and put some away in the freezer. I noticed that I had butchered a lot of the fillets. I guess the cold made me not care. I do know that I hate cleaning fish when it's cold outside. Getting the hands wet when it's cold outside just makes the job harder. I stopped several times to go back inside and wash my hands in warm water to get the blood flowing again. LOL.
I didn't weight this last catch but I did measure a few of the larger crappie. They were all about 11.5" Long. There were only four big fish. The rest were a bit smaller. Most were 9.5 to 10" long. We threw a few small crappie back into the lake. Normally I fish them out and keep them to help those that are left grow bigger. The fisheries biologist wants to lower the population in the lake so that the rest of the fish can get bigger. There are just too many crappie in this pit. They multiply too fast and can over populate the lake and get stunted. That's only produced a lot of small fish. By removing the smaller fish you allow the rest of the fish to have adequate food in order to grow bigger. And as I have been removing limits of small crappie from this 90 acre pit for the last two years it appears that the Biologist is right. The fish this year are much larger than they were last year. Not only are they getting bigger but there are more big fish being caught now.
I noticed that the game warden has been fishing otter pit also. He said he was catching some nice crappie as well. He fishes the submerged weeds and some underwater humps that he found.
Regards,
Moose1am
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