Sunday, Jan. 6, ,2013
Weather: high 80 deg but started falling about 1 1/2 hours before dark and became overcast
Partly cloudy to overcast later
Winds: light
water temp.: ?

Target Species: Crappie (Specks)
Method: Drifting with jigs
Location: local canal, Palm Coast, Fl.
Catch: (38) Specks (kept),      (1) Bream,      around 50 total fish

The weather forecast for this weekend had called for some pretty poor conditions for being on the water. I had put off fishing Saturday for this reason though the weather was just fine until later in the afternoon. Sunday morning was beautiful also, plenty of sun, no wind and mild temp’s. I decided I couldn’t take it any longer so I called a buddy and we made a plan to fish some local waterways here in Palm Coast for some Specks.  

We launched right about 2:00 pm and started fishing right at the launch. The plan was to drift fish down the waterway with some jigs suspended under a float. I was using two fiberglass poles and also casting a jig with a ultra light spinning reel. My fishing partner Rick was slow trolling a couple jigs suspended about 3 feet below a clip on bobber with spinning reels. He fished his baits well back behind the boat, probably 30 feet or so.

I caught a good portion of my fish with the spinning reel with a 1/8 oz pink jig head with a white curly tail grub. The rest were caught on a white headed jig with a dbl. curly tail body in white. For some reason, my other pole hardly caught a fish all afternoon though it had a yellow/white jig on it. That pole was shorter in length which put the bait closer to the boat than the other pole and I felt that was probably the reason for its poor performance more than the jig color. 

Rick was fishing green tube bodies on a red headed jig. He caught quite a few more fish than I did but again, he was fishing way back behind the boat. 

The water was really clear. You wouldn’t know it until you drug that white jig up to the boat and you could see it 30″ down. The bottom is black so it appears stained but it’s actually really clear.

We fished about 3 1/2 hours and caught about 50 fish total. We ended up with a pretty nice string of fish though they were not overly large. I expect the waterway is a little over populated as they all seemed to be about the same size.

A guy could probably have some real fun with a beatle spin on an ultra light and just prowl along casting to the bank and working it back to the boat.

I have another idea of  a place where I can get the kayak in where we have caught some larger specks some years back. If the canal don’t have to much floating debris we might be able to load the boat! We’ll see how it goes.

See ya on the water,

Larry Stephens