12/15, Rocky Fork Lake

During the last two weekends we have seen 5+" of snow, 1" of ice, and nearly 2" of rain locally, needless to say the fishing conditions have been less than ideal lately. This morning I rolled out of bed around 8am to hear Amanda say she was going to go shopping with her mom. On Amandas way out the door she said something to the effect of, "Its cold, and its snowing so I guess you won't be fishing." I rolled over and got on my phone to check the weather forecast. We were predicted to have a high of 28 degrees and a windchill in the single digits, which made the temperature outside feel like 10 degrees. Match the freezing cold with 16 to 22mph winds and we had ourselves one heck of a day to go fishing.

I pretty quickly ruled out the idea of taking the kayak out though. Twenty mile per hour winds, slick boat ramps, strong possibility of having to break ice, going by myself, etc. were all reason enough for me to leave the kayak in the garage. I grabbed two ultralight spinning combos spooled with 6lb. test, a few tackle boxes with panfish baits, and a bottle of Berkley's Crappie Nibbles. In all honesty, I expected the lake to have a thin layer of skim ice at the very minimum so I knew that there was a possibility that I wouldn't get to fish after all.

Upon arriving at the east shore marina at Rocky Fork Lake I noticed that 90 percent of the lake was still ice free. The only ice around was in sheltered coves and small feeder creeks. I drove around the marina just to check out other vehicles and to see if the herons were around. The herons keep no secrets, they know where fish are being caught and they will stay relatively close to those spots in hopes of grabbing an easy meal hand delivered by a friendly angler. More often than not, if you find a heron you'll find fish.  In the process of driving around I found that I had the lake to myself, not only were there no herons but there weren't any fisherman either. I have spent the last few winters fishing the marina so I more or less knew where I could expect to find the fish without the help of the herons. One spot in particular is where a series of docks extend over a shallow flat, over a steep ledge, and into 30 feet of water. The series of docks I chose was anchored to the bottom in 3 separate spots along the length of the docks. The first two anchors were in 4 feet of water and the last anchor was in 8 feet of water. Shortly after the last anchor there are two more docks that extended out past the anchor. Between the last anchor and the last dock the water depth plunges from 8 feet to 28 feet in less than 5 feet of dock. The anchor itself has always seemed to hold fish as well as the ledge, so I figured that this would be a good place to start.

I put the car in park and began to dress in my winter clothes. Luckily I had grabbed an old back pack to carry my tackle boxes with, and in that back pack was a pair of Amanda's wool gloves. I normally don't wear gloves, but with the wind chill I figured I'd give them a shot this time around. I quickly tied on an ice jig, a Stopper Lures Moon Jig,  on each of my rods. My plan was to tip each of the jigs with a crappie nibble and then drop one jig down a foot off of bottom and set the rod on the dock. The other rod I planned on vertical jigging and working the entire water column until I found fish. For the most part that is exactly what I did, I set the first rod 1' off of bottom and set the rod on the dock I then proceed to jig the anchor that held the dock into place. Every 10 of 15 seconds I would look over to my other rod laying on the dock and see if I could see any movement on the line. After 20 minutes I landed my first fish off of the anchor in 8 feet of water, a 9.25" crappie on the vertical jig.

I went on to catch nearly a half dozen crappie off of the dock anchors on the vertical jigged rod, while nothing seemed to have touched the other rod. I went over, picked it up, and reeled it in to see if my crappie nibble had been stolen....Nope, I still had a crappie nibble. I proceeded to move that rod around, setting it a foot off of bottom at random points along the dock. I put it on the ledge, in 28' of water, and even suspended it halfway off of the bottom but nothing seemed to be interested in the jig unless it was moving. After my first half dozen crappie, the bite seemed to shut down. After 20 minutes without a bite I decided to grab my gear and move to another series of docks. I got everything over to the next dock and started working the ice jig again. I chose to fish the 1rst anchor on this series of docks because it was set in much deeper water. The first anchor was in 8 foot, the second in 20 foot, and the last anchor in 33 foot of water. It didn't take long to pick up a couple crappie, but it seemed that after the first two fish the bite shut down again.

I worked deeper water and then shallower water, but I only seemed to pick up one fish every 20 minutes. I wasn't satisfied with 1 fish every 20 minutes because I knew I could catch that much at the first series of docks near the ledge. Once I hit 10 crappie for the day I decided to head back to the car, which happened to be parked in front of the first series of docks. I put everything up except one rod, my camera, a couple round head jigs paired with baby shad swimbaits, and my measuring board. I went back out to the end of the docks and started working the anchor in 8 foot again. Sure enough the fish were still there. I even managed to catch a bonus perch on the moon jig. A few casts later I found a snag near the bottom of the ledge, which happened to break off 2 of my jigs. Down to my last jig, I decided that I would just fish until I lost it and then I could go home and get a bite to eat. At this point I was up to 12 crappie and 1 perch on the day.

My last jig was a 1/32oz round head jig with a white Bass Assassin tiny shad. I went back to the anchor and started working the tiny shad near the bottom. Over the next hour I landed an additional 14 crappie. At one point I had started keeping track of how many crappie over 9" I had caught and how many under 9" I had caught. Surprisingly I had 9 over 9" and 9 under 9" at one point, but by the end of the trip I had landed 14 crappie over 9" and 12 under 9". Keeping track of this was pretty entertaining. I'd catch one over 9" that would put the crappie over 9" up 1 fish over the crappie under 9". It was almost like a sporting event if you will, a basketball or football game where the score was derived from fish lengths. "The two teams went back and forth until late in the fourth quarter when the crappie over 9" pulled off the victory by a comfortable margin." (Just a little look into what was going on in my head at the time, sad but entertaining.) The biggest crappie of the day went just over 10", one of those fish that came late in the fourth quarter........  It wasn't a monster but I snapped a picture anyway. I had a spell where the fish quit biting once again, after 10 minutes without a bite I decided to head back to the car.