Those three lakes probably produce more crappies year around per acre of surface area than any other west Metro lakes. But they are hard to learn to be consistent at it. Average size is also rather small especially in Nokomis where they do not have a consumption advisory. Nokomis has both species of crappies but I have yet to take a white off either of the other two out of some thousands I have released on them over the past few years. All three lakes can also schedule out to productive and dead times of the day with bite that can turn on and off like a light switch. Low light periods are generally but not always the best, which goes right along with the intense fishing pressure they receive.

I have not been on any of them yet this winter, though. In fact we have even found some open water spots in other places that have been really productive from shore recently. We are currently working out a new lake that we have only fished a couple of times before, which is where the perch came from on those two trips. Our first structure target found perch but not the crappie we were after, but was fun anyway. This afternoon we will move to another structure on that lake looking for the crappies we know are there at least to some degree.

BTW we are bucket fishermen we carry on and fish in the open generally without having to tow any kind of heavy equipment and we fish short outings. Normally I only carry a bucket with my flasher and rods in one hand and the drill in the other. So we target structures pretty carefully and unless the snow is deep we seldom have to wade through much, since we also fish normally within walking distance from both shore and parking. You don't have to go remote or carry huge amounts of tackle or equipment the way we do it; we don't need a vehicle of any kind to tow for us. We do a lot of after work outings and normally quit about dark. We pared down our kits to make that as easy as possible. Don't mess with a minnow bucket! Waxies, spikes and plastic tails weight so much less, are so much less trouble and between them something will always work better than minnows. We fish a lot but it is always spare time. We shoot to being as quick to getting a line in the water as possible in as convenient a spot as we can identify.

In the metro you have to be right on the holding spots to get much action on a regular basis, since the fishing pressure can be huge, and you find those by working the waters AND by working out the ultimate presentations which is too much work for most casual fishermen. So they have a reputation that they are hard to fish, a deserved reputation except for pre-spawn and spawn periods when their crappies get worked over real hard. Once in a while the late bite and the ice bite is also fabulous in particular spots, and when the word goes out about that it can spread like wildfire to the point that they often become all but unfishable for the crowds.

Nokomis is generally the first of those three to produce safe enough ice over the shelves and Harriet is normally the last, but have all been safe enough for careful foot fishermen over the past several years, which is all that is allowed there anyway. I would not be afraid of any of them at this point this year any more, just be real careful, which you need to be anyway. They all have runoff and channel areas that never get really safe. The accidents beyond those who push the season on both ends that I have heard of all relate to those areas. I don't fish the deep holes either, since releasing fish from those depths is not generally dependable and release is all I do with fish I catch in the Metro.

Honestly, we fish all over the inner west Metro with some success all year around. Nothing remote or hard to get to either, normally we just park on the street or in available lots and walk to shoreline fishing. There are lots of crappies available in lots of waters including some rare real slabs. There are a pair of us who work together over literally dozens of west inner Metro spots for our fish and we haven't yet touched a tithe of productive structures either.

One thing about the Metro winter crappies that we have found out is that a large number of them do not head for deep water suspended schools in the lake basin, although many if not most definitely will, but remain available in water less than 10 or 15' deep all winter long, and that is normally where your safest ice will also be. That is all we fish through the ice.

If nothing else you start out following the crowds and the hole scars they leave over promising structures you identify from topo maps and work out from there. Something has drawn the crowds which on the three lakes you mention are generally either crappies or walleyes, also true on lots of other deep Metro waters. Since we fish shallow, we also relate that to where we found crappies from shore during open water especially early and late in the open water season. Ice gives us the ability to work farther out in the winter, and that has been very productive in some of those places, although not all of them.

We have worked too hard at it to point out those spots specifically, but even then the techniques we have worked out are also specific enough that they also have to be worked out, but drawing crowds to them makes those techniques far less effective. You won't see fish on the ice around us either, since we release everything, but you may hear us hooping and hollering, if we get on a smack down. Generally there aren't many people around when that happens; so drop over and say hi, if you see it... On the ice or on the water we will talk a whole lot easier.

There is no substitute for time on the water, and I have already given out the most important first point which is that the fish are there in a whole lot of spots for those who can find them. Most can't do that regularly which is all right by me or those spots wouldn't continue to be there.

Actually our biggest competition on the ice are the muskies who steal from us, and even take our crappie presentations directly. All three lakes you mention are heavily stocked with them and they have learned to target panfishermen far too effectively for my tastes. That we have to live with and with the muskie fishermen who frequently churn panfish spots to a froth during open water after them, but being crowded off hard learned panfish structures by hordes of wannabes is not something we have to live with; so we keep some of that information close to the chest. We draw a crowd we leave even if individual conversations are enjoyable.

I say to you with absolute certainty that there are lots of catchable crappies and perch all over the inner west Metro for those who will put in the time to find them and work out the presentations necessary. There really aren't many shortcuts that work either. I haven't been out on the east side of the river at all but I have no doubt it is the same there. All you really need is water of some 50 to 60 acres on up that doesn't regularly winterkill. Work over what topo maps are available and then you hunt the potential structures for the holding points.

Ice fishermen have published a variety of effective techniques all over the internet, all you have to is fine tune them while you hunt out the spots where they work. That's it in a nutshell. Here in the Metro that works all over the place. Do your home work and put in your time; the fish are there. There is probably no more productive Metro in the country for fishermen than ours, including the potential for real trophies in most commonly sought species in quite a number of waters.