Yesterday was one of those days where I just knew we were going to get a easy 2 man limit of Crappie. The weather was perfect, winds were perfect, water was perfect, water temp was perfect.......everything was lined up perfectly for a epic day. The fish had other plans though.

We started the morning looking for spawning shad and found them (you find the shad you find the Sandbass and that was the plan). It worked out pretty well and we probably caught 35-40 Sandbass but only 15-20 were keepers. Once that bite petered out we switched over to Crappie and after about 30 minutes it was clear that bite was NOT going to happen for us. We fished probably half a dozen spots and managed to get probably 12 Crappie but only 5 were legal keepers. Dad did get two monster White Crappie that had to be 2 pounds each. We dont catch many Whites where we fish but when you do get one its usually a toad.

Thankfully I threw the punch bait in the boat before we left and we switched over to Catfish since the other fish didnt want to play. I had been catching quite a few from the bank so I figured this bite had to happen for us and it did. We flat wore the Channel Cats out for about 3 hours. You could not keep a hook baited for more than about 20 seconds before your cork was gone. The problem was about 90% of them were about 10" long.

We ended up bringing home 15 Sandbass, 5 Crappie, and 9 Channel Cats. So 29 fish total. Not a horrible day but nothing near what I was expecting. This day will leave me scratching my head for awhile trying to figure out what went wrong.

Fried up a little bit of everything to end the day.

Man that looks good.

Man you are having a great spring

Looks like you and dad had a great day on the water

Nice work

Sounds like a great day anyway. Question: How do you look for spawning shad?

It worked out fine, can't catch em on the couch.

Shad spawn only in low light conditions with most activity happening from daybreak till about 45 minutes after daybreak. I pretty much know where the shad spawn on the lakes I fish but if you dont know its easy to find them. All you have to do is just look for flickering shad around boat docks, shore lines, grass lines, rip rap, and bridge pillars. You will know when you find them because you will see thousands and thousands of them flickering in the early morning light. We caught most of those Sandbass in about 1' of water feeding on the shad. You would have never known they were there though because there was no surface activity at all other than the flickering shad. The shad spawn is pretty much a early May event around DFW. I have seen them spawning by the thousands right on the boat ramps in the morning.

Looks like a pretty good day of fishing with your dad The fried fish looks delicious

Thanks. That's some good info. I'll have to try to pay closer attention to that.

I’d call that a fabulous day!

At times they will be in open water, often times there is some time of structure, if not then check sand banks.

Fantastic day.

Awesome day!

Pure greatness.