Good Morning

May 17 2017

Billy Morton

Fingerling

Member Since :
2011
Number of Posts :
81

My son and I fished Crabgrass and Peach Creek the morning of 5/13. It was a bit of a maze finding these two lakes but after only two turnarounds, we found our first target, Crabgrass. We got on the water at about 6:30am with a nice cool (around 58 degrees) very calm (zero wind) morning. On my sons first cast, he caught a very nice crappie on a pop-r. We proceeded to catch a great deal of fish on pop-r's and a top water frog. Once the top water bite slowed, we found them on flukes. The fish in this lake were not very hard fighters at all, they seemed to just give up once hooked, it was very strange. At about 10am, we agreed to move over to Peach Creek.

On my first cast with a pop'r, i hooked a nice 3lb'r. We caught several on pop'rs and then moved over to the flukes and various other plastics. This lake was SUPER clear, I am guess 4' or more. The fish in this lake were some of the hardest fighting fish I have ever encountered. We would watch them shaking their heads and constantly trying the spit the hook all the way to the boat. It was weird to see such differences in lakes so close to each other. In Crabgrass, they like a blue flake fluke and did not like pumpkin seed. In Peach Creek, they wouldn't touch the blue flake, but we slayed them on the pumpkin. Neither lakes fish would even look at any color chatterbait. 

All in all we caught probably 40+ fish with a few 2.5's and a 3. We kept around 27. Another great outing.

Posted By: Billy Morton

May 18 2017

Steve Alexander

Admin

Member Since :
2002
Number of Posts :
1129

Interesting comment about how hard the fish fought at each lake. Peach Creek is the only lake that was stocked with pure Florida's. All the other lakes at Cody Ranch were stocked with F1's (cross between a native bass and a Florida Bass). My experience is that neither inherently fight different. The difference is two fold. First, Florida Bass simply get much bigger. Second, Florida Bass become conditioned to lures (harder to catch) than native bass. So, with native bass, you give up size, but they are easier to catch. The theory by combining a Florida female with a Native male, you get some of the best of both worlds. Virtually all club lakes are stocked with F1's and Fx's (fish that are many generations from the original F1 that are crosses between the Florida and Native. Over the years, one fish may have a bit more Florida Genes and one might have more Native genes)

But, I found your conclusion very interesting and might explain the difference?

May 18 2017

Billy Morton

Fingerling

Member Since :
2011
Number of Posts :
81

Hmmm, maybe…never really thought about that. After the first few fish for me at Crabgrass I thought, man these fish just let you reel them in. Not long after I had that thought my son says, these fish don't fight very hard lol. I told him I was experiencing the same thing. I don't recall there being much difference between either lake biting better than the other, for us, they were very close in comparison. We experienced slightly larger fish in Peach Creek but I tell you, I have never seen fish fight the way they did at this lake. It wasn't so much that they fought hard, but they were aggressive, meaning they would sit right in front of the boat shaking their heads (like a dog with a toy in its mouth would) and at the same time, I would see them popping open their mouth (trying to spit the hook) over and over until they finally wore themselves out. This could also be a case of such clear water and seeing them from afar as they fought their way to the boat.