Too hot to fish? Not in Missouri

Submitted photo/ Some of the crappie Jim Madison caught last week. He said, "Here is proof that you can catch crappie in hot weather and high water."

Nevada Daily Mail

It was about this time of the year when I got a call from a fishing friend suggesting we go crappie fishing. I thought the sun and the heat of July had gotten to him. He said "Really, the crappies and bass are hitting in the lake near my house. Meet me at the dock and I'll show you."

With the temperature nearing 100 degrees, I picked up some crappie gear and headed for the lake. It was no surprise that he was waiting and was the only person in sight on the lake ---- but what was a surprise was that he had several big crappie in his livewell and hooked another as I arrived.

"I was messing around the dock several days ago and decided to make a few casts with a swimming minnow," he said. "I was pleasantly surprised when I hooked a nice crappie. Then I got serious and finished getting 20 crappie and three good bass. I came back yesterday and they were still hitting at a time when you wouldn't think about fishing. My wife told me she thought I was losing it, but the results proved otherwise."

We worked the shoreline and caught bass and crappie in 25 feet of water all around the small lake. The fish were scattered, but you could get a hit on nearly every cast. It was more like spring fishing instead of the middle of summer. He hooked several keeper bass, even an 11 inch bluegill, which will go on his wall.

Thinking we were the only anglers catching fish, a neighbor, who likes his crappie fishing, wasn't at all surprised when I told him about us catching the crappie. He said, "I was at Truman last week and in spite of the high water, I caught lots of crappie." Then he added, "Only four of them were keepers."

Jim Madison, Clinton, has been catching crappie all summer from Truman. He said, "Even during the day I have been tasking a limit of crappie. Usually, at this time of the year I take my Coleman light and fish after dark, but this year has been different. Normally, I use minnows to catch crappie during July, but I have been doing as good with a white jig."

Madison has caught some big catfish as well as crappie. He said, "I ran some lines last week and caught some big cats up to 20 pounds. When you can catch crappie during the day and catfish at night, you don't mind the high temperatures."

With all the high water in area lakes, some anglers still go fishing. Fred Moore of Joplin, drove over to Stockton in search of crappie and walleye. He said, "I like to fish where I have caught fish before so I headed for Stockton and was glad I did. My wife, son and I all caught fish. The fishing was as hot as the weather. The high water didn't hurt the fishing."

Tom Bishop, also from Joplin, didn't let the high water keep him from going after walleye. He said, "I knew the water was high, but I had been catching some walleye by trolling so I thought I would give it a try. We started out early and by 10 a.m., we had four walleyes in the livewell, one of them was 20 inches long and we had two others we released because they (were) just short of the 15-inch length limit. Catching those great eating walleyes made the trip well worth it."

After hearing about all the good fishing going on, I decided to try my favorite farm pond, which is several feet high from all the rain, but holds some big crappie and bluegills.

It was uncomfortable fishing because of the bugs and high weeds around the pond. But once I started catching fish I didn't notice the inconvenience so much. A small white jig produced several big bluegill as well as some big crappie. It proved to me that it is never too hot to go fishing and still catch fish.