I went fishing yesterday at Bluegrass. Man you can tell the high gas prices are keeping everyone closer to home. I would guess that there were 20 somthing boat trailers in Otter Pit alone. I heard that Bluegrass Pit's South Parking lot was full and it was hard to find a parking spot.

I managed to catch a few crappie but nothing to brag about. They were all pretty small. I didn't catch one big crappie at all. My best spot from last fall didn't produce a single fish. And noone else was fishing it.

All the fish I caught were in the upper 7 ft of water.

Fish seem to be scattered. One guy told me that he caught a nice 13" long Crappie that was pretty fat. I didn't see it but I believed him. He was fishing for bass. Not sure what he caught the crappie on.

I see one guy that back trolls slowly though the shallower waters. He has a lund boat which you don't see down here much. Those boats are more popular up North. But they have a high transom that allows one to go backwards without getting too much water spashing into the boat over the transom. I have seen guys add extra spash guards to the back of their boat's too. He has a very quiet engine (four stroke) that allows him to idle slowly. Going backwards slows the boat down. My boat won't go less than about 2.0 mph at idle speed on a calm day. But if I go in reverse I can go mush slower. I am not setup to go in reverse. But I could pull or drag a plastic bucket behind my boat to help slow me down. I'd rather get a trolling plate to attack to the lower unit to allow me to engage or disengage to slow down or go fast. I can only go slow when I go into a strong wind. But I think that going with the wind works better while trolling. Although I did catch three crappie at Pataoka Lake last year while trolling into a 15 mph wind out of the West. So I was trolling into the wind when I caught those three crappie. I was trolling a 300 bandit crankbait behind my boat. I may try doing that again someday.