Late Fall Crappies

Every fall, I look forward to doing some crappie fishing in November, even early December, as most of the biggest crappies I have ever caught were taken during that time frame. So, when my good friend George invited me out for a day of panfishing, I thought it wise to join on the fun and see what happens. He had been making some good catches of black and white crappies, with top-end fish going 12 to 14 1/4 inches...good fish just about anywhere.
Right off the bat, George went about a dozen fish up on me...we were casting small jigs in and around weedbeds in 4 to 8 feet of water. I was trying my aray of hairjigs while he tossed tubetails on a 1/16 ounce jig. Out of apparent pity, he said " you want a white and yellow tube?" "yup" was my immediate response.

Nothing complex about this fishing...work the edge of the weeds with jigs with a slow retrieve and hops and sense the bite on 2 pound test line. Water temps were around 50 F and clouds with occasional rain was the weather. As the day wore on, we caught a variety of panfish to include bluegills, white perch, yellow perch and a single largemouth bass. We tried numerous areas with weed concentrations. But most of the catch were black crappies that ran just shy of the 10 inch mark. Along the way, we picked up a few 11 inchers and we had several fish that approached the 13 inch class...not huge, but real nice crappie, especially for southern PA waters. Here are a few pics...

George is all smiles with a nice slab he caught earlier in the day.

Another nice fish that fell to the yellow and white tube...

Nice!

My best fish of the day was this nice looking white crappie that took the tube. Altogether we probably caught 65 fish...50 or so were crappies, along with the other panfish. I'd call it a good day! All fish were released, which might puzzle some panfishermen as to why we released even bigger crappies. In truth releasing big or trophy panfish is somewhat the 'final frontier' of catch and release fishing...almost unheard of in most parts of the country. But why kill something if you're not going to eat it? I have plenty of fillets in the freezer from previous trips, and my wife and I can only eat about a dozen crappie fillets at a sitting...depending on the size. I'm already overweight!
It kind of reminds me of what Agur said in Proverbs 30 when one of the two things he asked for was 'daily bread'. The other was to know God's truth. Wow, now isn't that a request for this day and age!?!