Sunrise at Hickory Grove

January 29th found, David Bowles, Chad Pietig and I heading to Hickory Grove to chase some bluegills and try to find the elusive crappie in that lake.  We hit the lake right at sunrise...which is absolutely awesome in its own right.  With the help of Mr. GPS, we were on our first brushpile right away.  To our amazement we found about 8 inches of nice ice on the lake.  The bite was slow to say the least, until the sun popped over the horizon and lit things up, by that I mean lit the VEXILARS UP!  We all were catching nice gills and the occasional green sunfish.  The green sunfish were hanging deep down in the brush, as usual.  We wore that spot out, and kept several nicer gills for David's family to eat up.  We moved to brushpile number two for the day.  Again, by using the GPS this was done in no time and we had a dozen holes drilled and started fishing again.  More bluegills were caught but not as many.  Chad even found a few gills between the brushpiles as they were cruising around.  Off to brushpile number three for the day.  BOOM, once again the Vexilars were flickering and showing fish immediately.  This brush was in the deepest water of the day, right around 25 feet.  You guessed it, more bluegills.  Finally, we made our way to spot number four for the morning, this being a deep main lake drop-off.  Again, the gills were there and most of them were suspended in the near thirty feet of water.  Not typical of bluegills, but with our Vexilars they were quite easy to catch around the 12-14 feet area.

All colors of jigs seemed to work well today, which is not normally the case at Hickory Grove.  The fish that we found were fish that were working over brushpiles or on the steep drop-off looking for food.  We fished a total of about 4.5 hours, so we moved when the bite slowed down, which is key at this time of year.  You can catch so many more fish by being mobile than waiting in one area, especially when February is right around the corner.

A great day was had by all, even though the crappies avoided us.  In total we estimated at least 80 bluegills found their way up to the brisk air and sunlight that day.  A good morning no matter where you are fishing.