Pacemaker Fishing Forum

After fixing up my fishfinder last week, I wanted to get some more use out of it and figured looking for crappie again would be fun. I didn't feel like going to the local reservoirs where it's electric only, so I texted Capt. Mike on some tips about Mattawoman crappie fishing. I picked up my dad at 11AM and planned to fish the outgoing tide. It's been a couple months since I've been here, and I've never fished here in November, heck even fished out of the boat this late in the season. The Old Fishing Machine started up just fine on the first crank and we were in the water at 12:15PM.



First stop was going to be at the Barge, but of course, the only other vessel in the water was a kayaker and he was there already, so I left him be. I was just cruising along, looking at the FF and saw some drop offs with some marks. I wanted to get to the bike Wall and hit a stretch where there might be some crappie first. We get to the trees before the wall and I'm using a double rig with a 1" Berkley minnow, and a 1.5" shad pole in nuclear chicken under a bobber. I fish the wall drop off at about 6'. I didn't see many marks though. My dad is alternating between a blade bait and worms under a bobber. We fish the wall and head to a spot where there is a creek outflow and point. It looks great, pea gravel, a 6' drop off...except no fish! So I head farther down to the big stump on the right where there is a little hole and see some marks, but they weren't biting my presentation.

It's about 3PM now so we start heading back and I want to try the barge before dark. On the way in, I see a ton of marks across from Nelson Point where there's a drop off from the dying hydrilla to about 15'. I do my best to keep the spot locked manually with the TM, and we start fishing. I try the bobber set up and my dad is jigging the blade bait. We keep at this for about 20 minutes and as I'm about to pull the TM, I hear his drag go ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! I see his line shoot from the back of the boat to the front so I swing the boat around and he's fighting the fish, knowing it's probably a catfish. My dad wants to tighten the drag but he's using braid with size 8 trebles so turn down the drag and let it take line out, but I'm catching up using the TM. Luckily I had the net with me and I help my dad get it in the boat, a 10lb 6oz bluecat.



That's right, he's wearing his standard issue flannel shirt that is good from 32 degrees to 96 degrees F for him.