Page 4 - Fishing Report | 6-21-17

played no part in the catch; the magic lure was a 2.5 inch curly tail grub with bright-colored tail.
With the exception of the first 9 inch crappie they caught, the balance of their 18 take-home
fish were from 11 to over 14 inches – releasing as many as they kept.
darlblack@windstream.net

Hooker; filed 6-16: Hey Darl, Hooker is back! As usual Pymatuning Lake lives by its own set of
rules. After talking to several people who all were saying the same thing “crappies aren’t biting”
– I thought I might have my first unhappy clients on the fishing taxi. Mike and Melisa Hol-

labaugh drove up from south of Pittsburgh to meet me at the lake. We launched about 9 AM
and headed for where the fish should be this time of year. Fishing a slip bobber/small jig with a
minnow in 10 feet of water we caught two keepers right away, and as if a switch had been
thrown and the bite stopped. My electronics were showing fish suspended 5 feet down but
they would not bite. Since the water was pretty dirty, I said to Mike
“With the dirty water those fish may not have left the shallows yet.”

We left the hump and headed to some wood cover on a point. We
caught several good keeper fish from several trees. We repeated this
pattern tossing small jigs and bobbers to wood cover on other
points, putting together a nice catch of White and Black Crappies. I
have jokingly said many times that fish don’t wear sunglasses…
though water temp was in the low 70s, the dirty water allowed
them to stay shallow – not where the book says they should be at Hooker photo
this time of year. (See photo)

Marilyn Black (Cochranton); filed 6-18: On Sunday morning, we made a run to Pymatuning to
beat the approaching storm front. Precise offshore presentation was diffi-
cult given the stiff breeze, but we managed a few white crappies from deep
structure along with my first walleye of the year. Then we hit some shallow
sites for bluegill and in the process Darl caught his biggest black crappie of
the season so far. At the first clap of thunder around 2 pm, we loaded the

boat and headed to Bob’s Place for burgers. It rained so hard during lunch
that it took a full ten minutes to drain our boat when we pulled the plug
after coming out of the restaurant. (See photo)

Keith Beamer; filed 6-16: We harvested 24 panfish two nights ago. We
caught a mixed bag of gills, crappie, perch, white bass and a 17-inch walleye.
We also caught and released a 3-pound largemouth and over 20 small-
mouths – but no size to the smallies. All caught on minnows. Yesterday the

bite was slower but managed several nice crappies. (See photos)

Christopher Tuers; filed 6-7: Kayak bass report – Clark Island’s big bay pro- Keith’s mixed bag
duced numbers of 2 to 3 pound largemouths on buzzbaits over weeds in ear-