The Severed Cortex

For several years I've gone fishing with a bunch of guys who live over here in the Edwardsville/Glen Carbon/Maryville area. They're all mostly college friends of Jay's wife Christy and obviously I was introduced to them through Jay. It just so happened that years later I wound up moving to Edwardsville, and despite the close proximity to all these guys and the fact that they are all good dudes, I hardly ever see them except for this fishing trip and the occasional poker game.
When I was first invited on this venture we would go to Bennett Springs to fish for trout, but two years ago we stopped going there because the fishing was so terrible. Starting last year everyone decided to fish in Illinois, although last year I had to bail at the last minute because my home town of Caruthersville was decimated by a tornado. I chose to head down there with chainsaws to help out. Apparently last year was enough of a success to warrant going back to the same place again. We stayed in cabins at Stone Creek golf course, which gave us easy access to Cedar Lake and Crab Orchard Lake.

On Friday, Jay had to fly in from a conference in Chicago and while I would have preferred to leave for the lake early in the morning, I waited for him to get back in town and picked him up at his house around 12:30. We headed down scenic Highway 3 and in a shade over two hours (Jay needed an Illinois license) we were ready to drop the boat in Crab Orchard. This was the first time I had gotten the boat out this year and I was skeptical that it would start, but it cranked up pretty quickly. That Stabil stuff really works. I ran the boat wide open out into the main part of the lake to get the dust blown out of it before we located Mike Beatty and his pontoon boat. They had been fishing all day and had caught a few. Jay and I headed over to Long Neck on the north side of Highway 13. I started fishing with minnows and caught a few small crappie in the grass in 2 to 3 feet of water. Jay was fishing with worms and catching bluegill, but they were terribly small. I switched to a red and chartruese jig tipped with a minnow and was catching crappie on a somewhat regular basis, although most were very small. Jay soon switched to throwing minnows and was catching them too. Just as it was turning dark we started catching some nice ones in about 18 inches of water along the grass lines and near laydowns. At one point we pulled a double, both of us catching our big fish of the day which probably ran about 12-14 ounces. We headed back in the dark and I was disappointed to find out my front navigation lights didn't work. I have to get that fixed.

We talked about fishing in Cedar Lake on Saturday, but my motor is restricted on that lake. I could run my trolling motor around which would have been fine, but since we caught fish at Crab Orchard, we decided to go back there. The fishing on Saturday was not as good as Friday night. We struggled to catch fish and at one point a couple of locals (using the exact same set up as us), came over next to us and absolutely schooled us. They pulled crappie out one after another while we could barely get a nibble. Embarrassing. We moved around the lake, but due to the wind we tried to stay in the coves as much as possible. I caught one bass that probably went 2 pounds, but it was just short of the 15" legal limit. We still managed to go home with a dozen or so fish although a couple of them were barely worth cleaning. My crappie cleaning skills have improved greatly, mostly due to the outstanding instruction of my brother in law Shannon.

Crappie season is starting to wind down and the bass are beginning to spawn. Personally I'd rather catch delicious crappie so I'll have to be taking a couple of days off in the next coming weeks to get some more fishing in.