Multi-species Monday: wipers, largemouth bass, and crappie at the Lake Monroe Spillway

After all of my recent fun at the spillway, I headed back on the morning of May 11.  I figured that I'd have another wild wiper fest on my Goture swimbait, but on my second cast, I got snagged and broke my line.  I reached into my tackle bag to find another, but apparently, I left them in the garage.

Life is cruel.

I tried to jury rig something that would work - one of the big Extreme Shad that I tried before, the largest circle hook that I had, and a 1/4 oz egg sinker - and actually got some bites.  I couldn't get a good hook up though.  At least not with a fish.  I hooked a rock just fine and was stuck again.

I tried to walk my line around the bank of the river a bit to see if I could get a good angle to free it, but nothing worked.  Swimbait rig #2 was gone.  On my walk though, I found a lipless crankbait that had washed up on the rocks.  Hey, free lure, why not try to use it?  On my first cast, I hooked into this 6.5-lb beauty and reeled her in:

With visions of fish tacos dancing through my head, I put the wiper on my stringer and tried to catch another.  Instead, I must have been casting through a school of crappie because I reeled in two in a row that were hooked in their backs:

 

I don't understand the physics behind how that happened in the water...twice no less...but I decided to target some different water so that it didn't happen again.  Not long after, something hit my lure hard, and I thought I had another wiper on my hands.  It didn't feel as big as the first water donkey that I landed, but it was still putting up a decent fight on a medium-action rod.  When I landed it though, it turned out to be a chunky largemouth bass!  I need to get a fish scale because this might have been the biggest largemouth that I've ever caught.

After a quick pic and release, I went back on the hunt for wipers but eventually lost my found lure.  What can I say?  It was a great #MultiSpeciesDay, but it was also a day of snags.  Either way, it was better than being stuck indoors.  I can't wait to wet a hook next time.

Sometimes, fish shelter in place too

After another 3 days of hanging around the house since my last WDA, I needed to escape for a little while again.  It was the afternoon this time, and I didn't want to deal with the spillway, which tends to fill up as the day goes on.  Instead, I headed for a spot where the road crosses Lake Monroe, which separates an expansive cove from the lake proper by a big culvert.  I've seen people fish there before, so I figured it was a decent spot.

I started worm-and-bobber fishing on the lake side of the culvert but didn't catch anything.  It was quite windy, and my bobber would just end up back on the bank not long after I cast.  I tried to swap the bobber for some split shot to fish deeper in the water, but that was also a no go.  This went on for probably a half hour before I gave up and tried the cove side of the culvert.

I should have just started over there because on the first cast, BOOM, bass:

It wasn't a water donkey, but I'll take any fish over no fish.  He put up a running, jumping fight too, so on an ultralight rig, it was a fun fish to catch.  After that, I fished around the culvert pipe itself and landed a few panfish:

 

In the last picture, you can see part of a tree down in the water, and noticing that at the time, I decided to fish around the deadfall to see if anything was swimming around its nooks and crannies.  The first fish I caught was what I think is called a warmouth.  Regardless, he was a little fatty boombatty:

 

A variety of panfish followed, including a decent crappie (compared to the small fry).  Apparently, the fish were sheltering in place around this tree.

 

 

I'm not great at telling panfish apart.  Bluegill, green sunfish, pumpkinseeds, longear sunfish, etc. all look the same to me.  It doesn't help that they hybridize in nature too, but it also doesn't really matter.  I landed a bunch of fish (#MultiSpeciesDay) that were fun to catch and had a good time doing it.  None of them were keepers, but that just means I need to keep chasing the big one.  Until next time...

It begins...

I'm not a fisherman.  That title would suggest that I consistently catch fish.  Instead, I just like to think of myself as a guy who likes to fish.  It's great if I can hook into something, but half of the fun is just being outside, getting some fresh air, and resetting my rage-meter back to zero.

That's the way it used to be at least.  Over the past few years, I've moved from Pennsylvania to New Jersey to Indiana, got married, and had a bunch of kids (not necessarily in that order).  In all that time, I've probably only been fishing a few times a year at the most.  I want to change that though, and I'm going to chronicle my adventures here.

A few weeks ago (April 22, 2020), I got so stir crazy from being cooped up inside due to COVID-19 that I jumped in my car and drove to the Lake Monroe spillway just south of Bloomington, IN.  I took my Shakespeare ultra-light Ugly Stik and some night crawlers, hoping to do some worm and bobber fishing, only to find that the flood gates were wide open, and the river was super high.  When life gives you lemons though, find some slack water, and hope for the best.  I skipped the bobber, added a split shot about 12 inches above my hook, and tossed in a worm.

It took a while to figure out where the eddies and current would take my line, but eventually I figured out the spot I was in and started getting some bites.  My first hook up was with a yellow bass. He wasn't quite the water donkey (i.e., keeper) that I was looking for, but he was fun to catch!

The panfish were next.  I reeled in a tiny sunfish and a micro-crappie.  #MultiSpeciesDay

At this point, my hall pass away from home was expiring, and too many people were showing up at the spillway for my liking anyway.  I packed it up, headed for my car, and decided that I'd get back to the water soon.  Maybe I'll catch a water donkey next time.