[Hoop79d]

A hearty hello to everyone. I stumbled across this board just a few days ago, and after reading through the latest reports I found myself reading last years reports too! I just had to join! So, here is a little about me.

I've been fishing most of my life. I started with saltwater ( which I still love ) And over the years slowly got exposed and then caught up in freshwater fishing. The last few years have been kinda busy for me, so not too much fishing, and no freshwater fishing at all! Well, I picked up my license about a week ago, and only one day has passed that saw no casting. I'm already having a blast this year, I'll try to post some images below, with plenty of action for my first weeks efforts.

The action went kinda like this; Grabbed the license, re-spooled the reel and headed down to my closest state managed lake and began probing the shoreline. My buddy hooked up with a small pickerel almost right away, then nothing for the rest of the day for either of us. But man did it feel good to get out and do some fishing. So I of course did the only respectable thing I could, which was to go fishing nearly every day to try to find what was workin'. My efforts were quickly rewarded with lots of fish! Black crappie a plenty, my first one measured 14.5 inches and was quite a surprise. I learned quickly to have a camera with me. The fish were caught on shallow diving floating minnows. Natural colors and a S L O W retrieve were what worked for me. I had the most wonderful time managing the trees and bushes nearby as my spacial awareness had lapsed since I last fished a forested shoreline!

As the pictures will hopefully show I returned a few more times with more fish too! Including my first Largemouth of the season, followed by my PB largemouth. Thanks be to those thunderstorms that came through the other evening, that seemed to get em moving. Then came all the rain on friday and I haven't had any success since.

Now I'll see if I can get some images here for you to enjoy. Hopefully I can manage it! And for now....great to be here and tight lines!

OK...pics too large photobucket being a pain. Perhaps a little guidance? Thanks much