My brother and his family drove over from the west side Friday so I could take him fishing for his birthday. He's in the USAFR and had arrived home from training in Wisconsin about 4:30 Friday afternoon. Quick trip home, then he, his wife, and daughter hopped in the car for the 300 mile trip to our place. They rolled in the driveway right at 11pm and, after a short welcome, we all hit the sack so we Jim and I could roll out the driveway by 6am.

We launched about 7am and headed to a spot that has been productive for me in the past. Initially we were catching dink perch and couldn't seem to find anything bigger, so I moved us a short way past that area hoping for better action. Still more dink perch, but a few crappie were now showing up as well. There was just a slight breeze, so I decided to take advantage of it and set up for a drift that would cover a broader area. I was picking up a small crappie or perch here and there, and my brother was too.

Then the bite was on! My brother hooked a nice crappie and in the cooler it went. As soon as that one hit the ice, he had another one on, bigger still, and into the cooler it went. As soon as he dropped his line he had another one, and when he removed it from the jig, he dropped his line back in the water and hooked up again! It was quite a sight to see him standing there lipping a crappie with one hand and another one hanging off his jig while swinging it in the boat. He was having a blast!

This went on for about 20 mins or so and we had drifted away from the spot so I tried to move us back into it again. We picked up a few more, but the bite seemed to go away. In that brief flurry of activity, we put about 10 slab crappie into the cooler. After that, the bite seemed to just go away. We fished it a while longer, then I decided it was time to move. We tried a few other spots where I've had success in the past, and we caught a couple more, but the bite was slow and sporadic.

We were fishing an area when some guys trolled by and asked how the fishing was. Said they had a couple crappie and were surprised when we told them we had about a dozen in the cooler. They motored on and we continued to fish, and a short while later, Jim hooked a tiger muskie on his crappie jig. It was quite small, but he got to see one up close and personal. We couldn't seem to entice anymore crappie to bite, so we decided to call it a day about 11:30, besides we had dinner reservations.

Final tally for us was 13 crappie, with my brother putting 11 of them in the cooler. It was a mixed bag on the water, with perch, bluegill, redear sunfish, crappie and a tiger muskie. All in all, a great day on the water with my brother. We ended the day with dinner out to celebrate his, and my wife's, birthday. Life is good! :-)

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