When The Stars are Aligned

Every angler has his day. Some of us fish so much we have a lot more than one. I put in 270 or more days on the water most years, so I generally expect to have about a dozen or so days that are just stupid good, unforgettable, spectacular events. They are usually a combination of good luck, lots of time on the water, and lots of time observing and recording patterns. Last night between sunset and 8:45 was a bite window so bat s*** crazy that I will never forget it. It was just ridiculous. In that short window, in which I had predicted there would be a good bite at a specific spot, I caught more crappie by weight then I've probably ever caught in a single outing with a relatively small total number of fish, a couple jumbo yellow perch, and three walleyes, two of which I'd consider big. It was insane, and a perfect show of what happens when you actually put in the work to narrow down a pattern and have the bite window so dialed in that you can be sure you don't miss even a second of it.

Once again, just like last time (Finally, Something to Chew On), I saw the conditions lining up well in advance. I kind of wanted to fish during the day, but I had work to do that took longer than I expected. I finished up, went and did the first real river herring check of the year, then got geared up in time to get to the spot before the bite would start. Walleye were what I was there for, but I expected big crappie too given the previous trip. But I couldn't possibly have predicted what was about to happen.

I sat on the spot for a little while, enjoying the view and watching big carp jumping. It was a beautiful foggy evening.

Then, as the sun set, I started to get takes. First came a small yellow perch. Then a few misses. I quickly downsized from a chartreuse zonker to a white woolly bugger, because I was seeing the fish flash but not coming tight. This and every other fly change I did was made faster and easier by the Tactical Anglers micro power clips Alberto had given me at the Hartford expo. I was always kind of skeptical about clips, but they have really grown on me. I don't promote products often. Hardly ever, actually. But these work and work well. Especially for a warm water nighttime fly angler, TA clips are a good investment.

The next fish to come up absolutely blew blew me away. It was a crappie, and a big one. Even for this lake. And I'm used to catching 14 inchers here. What I've told people before has always been "I don't catch many crappies there, they're hardly even targetable, but when I do catch one it's almost always a giant". Well, this one was a giant, the biggest crappie I have ever seen in person. Just a monstrosity in all dimensions. The photos just did't do the fish justice, at all. It was huge. A measured 16 1/2 inch black crappie. It didn't look real.

I got another big yellow perch, then it was just slab crappie city for another 20 minutes. Most of them were over a pound. It was just silly. I'd never caught more than 3 crappies in a trip to this lake and now I was in the middle of the most wide open big crappie bite I'd ever seen.

This was the dink of the night.

Then, when it had finally gotten fully dark, I felt the tell tail faint bump that told me a walleye had just inhaled my little fly. Sure enough, after a good brawl, I was soon holding a pretty good walleye, the first of a string of three with two more crappies between the first and second.

The second and third walleyes came when I switched casting positions. Like I said in the previous post about this location and bite window, sometimes just changing which direction you're pulling your fly over structure can be the deciding factor. The walleyes were on a really shallow sand bar adjacent to the hole the crappie were in, and while fighting them I could see their buddies spook off. There were probably a dozen or more there, cruising in from the deep water, feeding, then going back out.

After the third 'eye, I got a few more mega crappies, including one that had a pretty big meal in its stomach. Then I felt the bite window slam shut. I had gotten everything out of it that I could have, though. I was laughing loudly and cursing quietly through the whole event. This was really, really special. But also probably repeatable. The longer I've fished the more I've come to appreciate when a good bite window and trophy fish are reached not through luck or being given a hot tip, but through hard work and dedication. Thank you to everyone who has ever helped me along the way. I am utterly grateful to call some really exceptional anglers and upstanding people my friends. My successes are as much yours as they are mine.

When the stars align catching trophy fish looks easy. But when you begin to align the stars yourself, you actually start to understand what makes catching big fish special. You begin to respect them even more.

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