Doug Wynn

Hey Y’all! The Memorial Day weekend is upon us and with it comes the official start of the summer boating season. Of course we fishermen aren’t impressed since we’ve been on the lakes for months.

The bluegill and Redear fishermen have been keeping social media hot with great catches with some true trophies thrown in. We are headed into the darker moon phases so this bite will slow until the next full moon on June 10th. The best times to find these hard fighters is 3-4 days on either side of the full moon. Crickets, worms, and tiny jigs like Popeye jigs will all attract arm-twisting strikes.

Our crankbait bite has continued to be very good if we could get some stable weather conditions. The crappie are working their way out of the shallow to medium depth spawning areas toward deep structure where the baitballs are starting to show up. Along with crappie, some nice white bass are eating our offerings, as are the channel and blue catfish.

Speaking of catfish, I had the pleasure of taking Charles and his son Dale this past weekend. They were celebrating Charles’ upcoming 89th birthday. They had used planer boards for stripers but not crappie. After a quick tutorial on the Off Shore Tackle OR-12 boards, we set off after crappie. The bite had slowed from Saturday thanks to the influx of muddy water from the Friday night storms. We were catching some keepers and several short crappie on Pico INTs and Walleye Nation Creations Boogie Shad 5 cranks. All of a sudden Charles latched into something we first thought might be a stump. A few head shakes changed our minds to the fact we were dealing with something big.

Charles has fished most of his days and was an expert on using the reel and drag to play the fish while the boat continued ahead at 1.7 mph. It took what seemed to be a couple of minutes for us to finally see the color and outline of a nice blue catfish. Once we determined how big it was, I started figuring how I was going to get it into my Outlaw crappie net.

Everything came together and Charles handled the rod and reel like a true expert. I managed to get the fish’s head and front torso into the net where it could be lifted into the boat. The DWynn pattern Pico INT was concealed deeply into the mouth of the catfish. I was able to get my gripper into the mouth and get the crank hooks loose.

Charles was exhausted but excited to catch such a powerful fish on a lure he had never used for crappie.

Saturday a friend of mine from Grenada, MS and her grandsons shared the boat with me. Sarah owns Grenada Crappie Den lodging rentals in the Grenada and Enid lakes areas. We have stayed at her places several times and have always been very pleased. She takes her grandkids for a weekend trip each year and they chose the Ky Lake/LBL this time. Other than the Friday night storms in a Glamping tent at Lynnhurst Family Resort, their visit was very well received and they are already planning on bringing more of the family back soon. They caught onto to planer board routine very quickly and put a box full of crappie in the boat.

You won’t be seeing me on the lake during the holiday weekend. I mark all holidays off my schedule before I ever release it to the public. I just don’t enjoy the crowds on the water or at the ramps. For all who do, have fun!

Be careful out there! Drunk and stupid are not a good combination anywhere but especially on the lakes. Keep an eye on what you are doing AND what those around you are doing.

Enjoy the holiday and be mindful of the reasons for it. Welcome to our slice of Heaven.