Get off your soap boxes. Warm water fish are fun stuff. Crappie are my favorite. I have caught "multiple" steelhead over 20 lbs.. more than several, but I would trade one for a 17 inch crappie.. I have gotten close. 15 1/2 and 16, but never hit that "holy grail" of 17 inches. The weather is usually good, and its a great family outing. Kids love it because at times, you can catch one every cast. Along the way, we catch Small mouth bass. Those suckers are big fun on an ultra lite set up. Some of the lakes real close are world class ( Brownlee, Oxbow, Hells Canyon, CJ Strike) for smallies and Crappie.

A good freind of mine is a professional Bass fisherman ( Fishes the FLW tour ) and does pretty well. True enough, he looks like Ricky Bobby out there, but trust me, his life does not suck ( when was the last time a sponcer gave you 20,000 dollars worth of whatever you thought you needed and a 50,000 dollar boat to go out and use it.. every year..) His wife used to be pretty skeptical of the whole thing " why don't you just get a job" but these days, when he brings home the bacon its 5 digits on the check.

I'll go out with him a couple times a year when he is home. I love a drift boat, however, If you have ever been in Triton that can top 70 MPH you know how freaking scary it is. Those things flat fly. He will have 6 different rods rigged and fishes like he is mad at those fish. No wasted movement. You think you can cast a level wind ?? Guy can take you to school. He can hop a bait under any tree limb. Its pretty impressive. He does crack me up. He will be fishing bass and I'll be fishing crappie. Many, many times the big bass of the day falls to my crappie jig. He gets every kind of pissed. " I need you to help me pattern these fish" " Uhhh, dude, I think I just did. You want a chartruse crappie jig " " STFU, and start throwing this Motor oil brown sparkle wiggling hoggie wog, or I'm gonna throw your ass off this boat "..

It ain't steelhead, but it does pass the time and its pretty fun.