Thread: Early season crappie in the brush

Made a trip to the Yankee Springs area today with vbottom. We picked up minnows at Bobs in Hastings (for anyone wanting bait from there, they don't open until 9) then headed over to Gun Lake. We started in the shallow bay on the north east end and used the GPS to locate several weed clumps where we've caught a ton of fish in the past. Today was a no go. Jeff caught two tiny blue gills and we each had a couple of bites, but that was it.

After a couple of hours of no fish we decided to put the boat on the trailer and head south to Crooked Lake in Delton. Jeff had been on Crooked a couple of years ago and I've never been on it. We started by easing along the shoreline and tossing red worms and minnows under bobbers into shallow water as we made our way towards an area rumored to have a nice weed bed that holds crappie

Mother Nature had other plans for us as she turned up the wind machine making boat control next to impossible. We stowed the trolling motor and relocated on the calm side of the lake. We pulled into a narrow bay that was ringed with flooded brush and Jeff connected on a decent perch. A few minutes later he connected again, this time on a nice crappie. The fish were holding tight to the brush and putting a minnow in front of them was no easy task. We spent as much time getting our lines out of the brush as we did fishing. We worked the brush hard until bites became scarce then went looking for similar spots. We never did find what we were looking for and circled back to fish this spot again, with no luck.

Our catch for the day was 5 crappie, the biggest right at 14" and three more 12"+. The smallest was 9 1/2. The wind made fishing tight to the brush next to impossible and we both felt good that we had been able to put a few quality fish in the boat.

Nice ones...