From one of the blog’s on my blogroll – Alpha Trilogy, this article is one of the more unique freshwater fishing blog posts I have ever read.  I had no idea that spearfishing was legal in freshwater anywhere in the United States.  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.  I mean bowfishing is legal, so why not spearfishing.  I guess that I was surprised you are allowed to harvest game fish.

Looks like I’ll be bumming it with the wife and another couple on Kerr Lake for this year’s holiday.  We’ll be on the way early in the morning towards the lake and spend the day fishing, eating, swimming, and who knows what else.  Should have a good fishing report for the crappie and catfish bite on Saturday.  I spent an hour last night tearing apart fishing reels and re-greasing them from the recent beach trips and rigging them with swivels, egg sinkers, and circle hooks.  Going to try and catch some cut bait tonight out of a local pond and then test the waters first thing in the morning.  I think my buddy got a hold of about a dozen noodle-jugs for catfishing too.  Probably keep a few 3-5 pounders for the dinner table and turn back the rest for next time.  Anyways, hope everyone has a great 4th of July and best of luck fishing if that is also in your plans!

Thursdays seem to be becoming my afternoon for outdoor play.  Yesterday, I headed up to the lake and did some wading around shooting carp and a few bowfin.  Very good day…check back tomorrow for that post.

After I was finished slinging the fiberglass arrow, I headed up to a country grocery/gas store and bought 2 dozen minnows, headed back to the exact spot I was parked and dropped some  minnows off the bridge from about 6:30 til 8:45 p.m.  Didn’t tear the crappie up, but did catch enough to fill my frying pan tonight for supper.  I caught the fish only about a foot off the bottom (5 feet deep) with live minnows.  Only 1 small crappie and kept 4 in the bucket and filleted them when I got home.  All 4 fish were within the 11-13″ size category.  Nice, give or take a couple ounces “pounders”.  Unfortunately, my camera battery got used up shooting pictures of my bowfishing outing, so no pictures of the crappie.

Tip: If a bridge is constructed out of a series of solid walled culverts, crappie tend to relate tightly to structure.  Drop a bait within about a foot of each corner of the concrete walls coming out from below the bridge to intercept crappie passing back and forth under the bridge. 

As often happens when a new category for state records opens or a previous record holder is disqualified, there is a flurry of state anglers that try and achieve local legend status by boating the new state record. Last year, North Carolina separated the combined black and white crappie state record into individual black and white crappie state records. Because the previous record holder was a 4-15 black crappie, the white crappie state record was up for grabs. On March 5, James Brown overtook the first couple of smaller entries with a 3-4 white crappie. It measured 18 1/2″ length with a 15 1/2″ girth. James caught the fish in a private pond near Charlotte, North Carolina.