by Lane Palmer
At 5:00 pm my camouflaged chariot is swinging around the point on full plane, coming in hot to pick me up for a night of crappie fishing. On board are three die-hards, ready to do some serious meat hauling, or at least have themselves a real good time trying. I have just finished my full day trip, and judging by our seventy four crappie andnineteen white bass we brought home, I’ve got high hopes for tonight’s expedition.
Matt, Dustin and Justen are loaded for bear when the bow of my duck boat touches the shore. “We’ve been driving around the lake for three hours waiting on you.” Laughing at the downright lie I’ve just been told, I start chunking my stuff in the boat, filling up the last bit of dry space in the gun box. They’ve brought everything we need, and from the first ocular pat down, I can’t see anything that they’ve missed. We’ve been planning this trip for quite some time, waiting until the conditions were just right before we decided to strike. Every detail has been planned out to the best of our abilities, and now it’s go time.
On the floor of my boat are the following items:
-eight light action fishing poles rigged for shallow water minnow fishing
-one dozen cigar floats
-a bag of split shot
-a box of number two gold Aberdeen hooks
-ten dozen minnows
-two sets of pliers
-two trolling motor batteries
-two floating lights
-elastic head lamps
-everyone’s extra clothes
-one Coleman lantern
-one ice chest for fish
-one ice chest for snacks, water bottles, and a few oat sodas
At 5:10 we are making our way south, the frontal winds pushing us down the lake. With a cold front pushing through tonight, we have to time our exit strategy perfectly, or we are going to be for a long cold journey back up the lake. For now though, the water is calm and we glide across the lake anticipating what the night could possibly hold instore for us. I know I don’t have to guide these guys, they’re my best friends so there’s really no pressure to put them on a ton of fish. In my mind though, I’m not going to invite everyone to go night fishing and come back empty-handed. There’s too much pride involved, and everyone has invested a lot of time and money to be here. We’re going to catch fish.
At 5:45 the first bobber hit the water. I’m picking up where my full day trip left off, hoping to take advantage of what should be a really good shallow water evening bite. We have tethered the boat parallel to the target area where we are going to fish. I have a river style anchor in the back, and a forty pound chain shackle in the front. The boat is placed perfectly for this spot, with a very slight sway back and forth in the northeast wind.
My minnow is rigged through the lips, and two-feet under my bobber when I make my first cast. It doesn’t take long before I see my bobber trying to slowly sneak off in the opposite direction. I quickly reel down to the fish, feel tension, and set the hook. Heavy weight and a head shake let me know that I have a keeper, and a few seconds later I am doting a twelve-inch black crappie who looks like a jet black spear head. Not a bad start at all.
Approximately five minutes go by and nobody has had any bites since my first fish. Something isn’t right here, we should be catching fish. With a cold front moving in and the evening light growing softer, I voice my suggestion that we move to shallower water.
With the anchors up, we idle into where the fish have been at daybreak the last few mornings. Matt says that I don’t need to feel like I have to guide us. Dude, I want to catch fish. I’ve been wanting to see that bobber go under all spring. Repositioning the boat a good ways from where we started, we are now in three feet of water, once again parallel to our target. This time the back of the boat strikes immediately, when Matt pulls another jet black male in the boat. Nice! As fast as that one hit, he’s not the only one down there. Justen and I are on the bow, casting side armed, straight intothe wind. Dustin and Matt are on the back, casting out and letting their baits drift into their area. I strike again from the front of the boat, adding a quick second fish from our new spot. We might have just made the best decision of the day moving up here. We were right.
From this time until dark, we are either hooking fish or missing fish at almost every moment. Justen and I would be standing there, talking back and forth, when we would hear the sound of the drag, only to turn around and see either Matt or Dustin with a bent rod and a smile. Of course we would turn back around only to find our bobbers missing, prompting us to reel up as quickly as we could to inevitably miss most of the fish. On many occasions, this led to cussing and trash talk.
When we were actually paying attention though, we took the memory out of our lines and made everlasting ones in our hearts. Any and every way, a man likes to see a bobber go under. There was the ‘slow crawl’ where a crappie grabs the goods, and as he keeps his heading, he slowly pulls the bobber under. There was the ‘quick draw’, perhaps the most difficult to hook up on. That’s when the minnow is thumped so hard the bobber disappears instantly, making it hard for the angler to react quickly enough to catch up. Last but not least, the infamous ‘lead bobber’. This phenomenon occurs when the angler’s bobber immediately sinks upon hitting the water, resulting in a ssssssshhhhh as the line gets ripped off the water, setting the hook in a quickly rewarded slab.
Around 7:30pm, the cooler was getting full and the darkening skies were making it hard to see. We opted to pull up the anchor and head out to the deeper water to set up shop for some night fishing. I need to leave some fish for tomorrow morning’s guide trips anyways, so plucking out these brush perch is going to need to slow down. Besides, we’re here for quantity, and a little sand bass grand finale never hurt anything. We fasten the boat in such a way that the lights are on the edge of the creek channel, giving us what I feel is the best opportunity for heavy traffic. If it doesn’t work, we’ll still go home ecstatic.
Nothing much happens for the first twenty or so minutes, which is to be expected. It’s just now getting really dark, and the bait fish take time to stack up. Eventually though, the fish start to trickle in towards our lights. We never really wear them out one after the other, but we aren’t catching any small ones either. Every sand bass we get is around fifteen inches or longer. Great big magnum females that are a whole lot of fun to reel in on ultralight tackle.
Drags are screaming while hi-vis mono slices through the glowing, murky green water. There are flashes of orange from the cigar floats as they race past us, followed by our rod tips getting bent under the side of the boat. Good gracious this is fun. We even find us a nice sized yellow bass and a couple extra crappie to seal the deal, that’s a well received wild card right there.
The whole point of this trip was to night fish, but the ice chest that I’m setting on no longer closes properly. I don’t think anyone is all that upset that we might not have to stay out and freeze all night. Besides, the wind is starting to pick up and we still have a good haul until we’re back home. Operation Phantom Lantern went better than we had hoped for, and we are already swapping stories as we turn off the lights and head back north.
I never know what the Lord has in store for us on our day to day adventures that my friends and I get so excited about, but His plan always seem to be so much better than my own. I’ll take blessings over luck any day.
Note: Lane Palmer wrote this article several years ago for the enjoyment of others, and to document another adventure. His passion was fishing and he was well-known as one of the top fishing guides in Texas, the ultimate outdoorsman, and a gifted writer. More so, Lane was known as a man of God, a true friend, and a faithful husband and father. Lane went home to be with the Lord in October 2023 doing what he loved… fishing. I’d bet he still is. Thank you to his parents, George and Paula Palmer for sharing his work.
