Crappie Days and Bluegill Fights

trigger22

Eight Pointer
I spent the last couple of days doing a little panfishing around New Bern, and what a beautiful couple of days it was. On Friday, I had the pleasure of having Stevef aboard and we had big plans for some big bream and big bream we found. Along with the bream we picked up a few crappie and yellow perch. Big fish of the day went to Steve for his 26.5 in chain pickerel. What fun that was on an ultra light rod! Here are a few pictures of Fridays fish
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I had so much fun on Friday, I decided to do it again on Saturday with Seth and Ted, only with a slightly different focus. Late in the day on Friday we had found a couple of yellow perch and that's what I wanted to target instead of the bream. The bite Saturday was overall a lot slower than it was Friday, but we still managed to catch some nice fish. We spent too much time fishing for the perch with only 1 to show for it and then moved spots. The move proved to be a good choice as we were back in the fish. In an hours time we caught well over 50 big bluegill and 11 crappie. The bluegill lived to see another day though as I had plenty to clean from Friday. Here is the take from Saturday
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All fish were caught in 4-6 foot of water fished with worms and jigs 3 feet under a float. The crappie were pretty tight to structure and the bluegill were out away from the structure just a little bit. The crappie also showed a preference to hard structure such as dock pilings and bulkheads as opposed to brush piles and most all of the fish came on the downwind side of the structure.
 

JoeyK

Twelve Pointer
hmmmm....nwhat part of the state were you fishing....if you dont mind me asking.....i
 

trigger22

Eight Pointer
Thanks guys, it certainly was a lot of fun.

Joey, I was fishing around New Bern so Eastern Part of the state
 

Soilman

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Congrats trigger! Nice haul of fish! I used to LOVE crappie fishing on Kerr and Gaston. I have not been able to figure out how to find and fish for them here around New Bern.
 

trigger22

Eight Pointer
I've had more bad days chasing crappie around here than good that's for sure. It's a much different fishery than any other lake or river I've fished for them.
 

trigger22

Eight Pointer
Got out for a couple of hours this afternoon with my number one fishing partner. 6 crappie and 5 bluegill. Exact same pattern as this weekend.
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thrillhill

Four Pointer
I hate to derail the thread, but this reminded me of a couple questions I had. I really don't have experience with perch. Seems like I have caught a few fishing in the Haw River north of Pittsboro, and a few fishing from the bank at Jordan. Are yellow perch the same fish that folks around here call "raccoon perch"?

Are they good to eat?
 

Justin

Old Mossy Horns
I hate to derail the thread, but this reminded me of a couple questions I had. I really don't have experience with perch. Seems like I have caught a few fishing in the Haw River north of Pittsboro, and a few fishing from the bank at Jordan. Are yellow perch the same fish that folks around here call "raccoon perch"?

Are they good to eat?

Yes and yes
 

ncboman

Guest
Yellow perch are difficult to scale unless you stretch em first. Really good eating though. :)
 

ncboman

Guest
I'm not familiar with that term. How do you stretch fish?

I put my foot on their tail, grab the upper and lower jaws and pull. On larger fish you can hear the scales separate as you pull. Makes scaling a LOT easier. :)
 
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