2018 Bob Hirsch Classic

[OneBlade]

2nd set of pictures

[OneBlade]

Another Bob Hirsch Crappie Classic in the books!  Thanks to all who attended and contributed to make this event another success.

Most folks arrived Thursday evening and got on the water for an afternoon fish.

Friday morning we all got on the water and hush was the word, no one said anything as each of the fishing derby teams scoped out their areas and techniques for the following day's event.  I brought my youngest boy and his friend - they enjoy being on the boat and really do a great job switching between fishing and swimming.  They landed fish with the 16 foot rods too this trip.

Saturday 6am four teams headed out to fish the derby, but weather brought them all back to camp.  The storm started with wind, then rain from about 6:30am to 10:30am.  Everyone headed out to the lake again at 10:30 with great weather the rest of the weekend.  You can see in the pictures never put your tent in the lowest land area or you risk getting flooded.  Tommy Fishman was out there in the rain storm with a shovel and dug a trench to diverge the water away (Thanks Tommy!).  Saturday we did the weighin at 3pm (see above for results), cleaned fish, held the club meeting (stay tuned to the site for minutes), gave away some great prizes in the raffle, and then had the fish fry potluck.  Dave and Larry fried fish (cajun batter yum), while Tommy fried hushpuppies, and Bill fried potatoes.  Everyone brought sides and desserts and we all overate. The evening continued with a little campfire and poker.

Thanks again everyone for attending and looking forward to seeing everyone again at the Nov and Dec meetings - stay tuned to the website for location/time of those events.

[Art Chamberlin]

Congrats to Team Fish Hawk and all that survived! Hawk, you must like that Chamberlin Cup? How about a few details on depth, presentations, etc. from everybody? .........Art

[Fishless]

Looks like a great time, hopefully no one was in the tent when the water rolled in? you guys did better than us we had rain all friggen day, looked like there was lightning in the area of Alamo early in the morning but a long ways off so glad that was not an issue. Had to be some nice weather once the storm cleared out. No runoff into the lake and it came up (0) from the local rain.

Did Jiggy Jiggy do any casting? any luck if he did?

[FishMan]

I was very proud that all teams took safety over glory and came in during the lightning/winds and then coordinated getting back on once the storm passed. It was just like a rain delay in baseball....well done Captains.

[Fish Hawk]

Congrats to Team Fish Hawk and all that survived! Hawk, you must like that Chamberlin Cup? How about a few details on depth, presentations, etc. from everybody? .........Art

Thanks Art. We Tight-lined minnows and grubs down 15'-25' deep in 30' of water all weekend. We fished Thursday late afternoon boating seven or so fish. I had a double on Thursday, its been awhile since I've had a double. On the water Friday morning around 7:30. We burned thru all our minnows by 11:30 (it was a light bite) and I just replaced minnows with grubs and kept catching fish. We kept 25 crappie and threw back another 7 or so that where small. I ended the day with two separate doubles. On Saturday fishing conditions was tough. We had white water coming over the bow of the boat and went in till the storm blew over. Back on the water around 10 and ended the day with 10 fish that was good enough for 1st place to put the Chamberlin Cup on display again.   

[on the rocks]

Two questions (1) with all the 1 lb. crappie caught does that mean there was a decent spawn last spring even with the water draw down (2) who won my fancy camping chair?

[Fishless]

1lb is to big for a less than one year old fish (probably 2yrs old at least) they do have lots of food there

[FishMan]

O from WI won the fancy camping chair and it was the most perfectly fitting prize as he had what I would call a "seating device malfunction" the night prior. Regusrding fish caught sizes.....most were in that 0.7 pound range....but our boat had a few 1.7 pounds and a few in the 8 inch class, in fact I had one double hook up of two 8 inchers, happily returned.

[Fishless]

good to hear they spawned with those small fish, we caught quite a few crappie shallow last spring after the draw down,thankfully nature does not have crappie and other species all spawn at once because of things like lake drop or sudden water temp drop etc.