While camping in Denton Co TX, crappie fishing and hoping for some sandies, this beast took my jig and gave me an epic battle. Not wanting to be landed, it sctually went upstream in the lake spillway that was wide open! Amazing the strength of this beast. It also swam behind the concrete chute on the far side of the current. Then it made a run downstream just ripping drag. I was able to keep its head up and guide it to the eddy pool on my side where another fisher landed it.
I properly thanked him and the fella that coached me thru the entire battle including where to cast for the big crappie by offering the fish to them. They both declined. There was no scale available but the concensus of all fishers there is that its bigger than the 35 pounders that have come outta the same spot.

I've been reading a lot of forum questions lately that refer to the middle of the day being lousy for fishing. That prompted me to try something this afternoon just for the fun of it. I traveled to a small local lake that I have never bothered to fish, and kayaked around the circumference between high noon and 3 pm today. The lake is about 1/2 mile long and 1/4 mile wide, with a good number of coves. Some folks might call it a large pond. The deepest area I trolled over was pushing 40 feet, and I suspect that there could be places that reach 60 out near the center. Not much in the way of bottom structure, but plenty of lily pads! Weather forecast was calling for more storms all day, but the radar looked clear enough to go for it during this window of opportunity. The public launch is only a half hours pedal or paddle from anywhere on the lake so although I felt pretty safe....I kept a constant eye on the sky nevertheless.

We had a severe storm pass over last night, so I suspected that things might be pretty lackluster today.

Much to my surprise, the crappie and largemouth bass ended up being fairly cooperative once I tried enough lure colors and styles. Best producer for the crappie was a small pink jig with white marabou and chenille body wraps in 15' of water near the end of an old fallen tree. Other "good" colors were ignored. Thank goodness for a fish locator on the kayak, as I may not have come upon this small school of crappie that produced several nice customers. They were best taken while jigging with a short ultra-lite rod set up.

The bass were excited over a couple of Rapala shallow diving crank baits in natural crayfish and "creamy clown" (chartreuse top, red head and ivory bottom) colors. A Mepps spinner in the "white" Black Fury pattern with a Mr. Twister white grub tail also produced on the bass (size #3). Almost every bass was taken while casting or jigging. Nothing at all while trolling, which came as no surprise today on the path I chose to run closer to shore. I brought along a second, larger rod for targeting the bass.

This was a nice body of water and I plan to return once more this Summer to only target a meal of the crappie. Today was catch and release as an experiment in afternoon fish temperament.