Interesting variations...

[yankee doodler]

in the water temps throughout the state based on the recent postings. I went down to Eagle lake Sunday morning for a few hours and found a lot of vacant beds in the shallows and no crappie. The water temp at my trolling motor was 68. There were however occupied beds with big gills in them. I caught and released a dozen big bulls that were as round as a pie plate. They all were in the 10" range. They wanted a black ant on my 6 wt flyrod. What a hoot they are to wrestle in. I had to get my net out after loosing a couple right at the boat.

I decided I will have to upgrade my phone to a smart phone with a good camera, because I take my camera and invariably leave it in the truck..

[wicklundrh]

Don,

I was going to post a very similar report. I went to Mill lake on Saturday (in the Waterloo Game area). It is a "electric" motor only lake so the big motor stayed on tilt. Depest part of this lake is 23 feet but it has a mix of shallows and reeds. Water temp was 74+ in the entire lake.

I saw zero beds.. no crappies, no gills. We were able to catch some gills close to shore or in the 3 foot shallows but that was it. They were nice ones (for that lake) but nothing big enough to take home. I don't fish this lake for gills because the "nice" size ones are small for most lakes I fish. I went all over this lake and found a 12 foot hole in between two reed beds. Down scan and regular fish finder were full of crappies however I could not get one to take the bait. Minnows, worms, soft plastic, tubes.. nothing. The good news is that I finally found this hole to fish through the ice, the bad news was, no crappies. I still had fun and it was a relief from riding the tractor the last 30 some hours.

[yankee doodler]

Yup! My thinking on what I found was crappie were done and gone and the early gills were just starting to populate the shallows for their spawn. A few of the beds that had gills in them, had couples and some had singles. My guess is the singles were males. I should have been more of a passive observer for a while to see what they were up to.

From what my neighbor said, who went north of Muskegon for bass, the amount of rain they have had up there has kept the water temps down in the low 60's. I wonder how that will play out for our camp in a couple o weeks.

[ready2fish]

I was out this past weekend and i was surprised how warm the water was, wonder how spaw is going to be at Hardy during the outing

The crappie i caught on Gun Saturday may have been done spawning, ended up tossing them back and didn't pay much attention to it, all i know is they were hungry

[coyote419]

I suspected the same thing monday morning. Was catching gills along the reeds and saw carp tails splashing around in the shallows. Not a crappie spawning expert here but saw lots of cereal bowl shaped depressions on the bottom out in front of where I was catching the gills..

[g6463]

the crappie i caught over the weekend here in genesee county, still had egg sacks in them and still tight. water has been going up and down 10 degrees averaging about 67. hopping the the bite stays good till the weekend

[select 55]

Fished a lake in cass co 209 crappie 9 -111/2in three days

[wicklundrh]

I need to hit some deeper lakes that hold a colder tempurature. Last two lakes I fished were shallow bodies of water and the temps were in the lower 70's.

I spoke with my dad yesterday (up at Little Bay de Noc). They have been out twice and caught two big female walleyes both full of eggs. To the shagrin of others, he threw them back. It is funny because he fished Detroit with me and to him, it was just another 10 plus pounder that can reproduce.

They are about 1 1/2 months behind us down here. Fish are heading up river to spawn. I told him to chase up river and forget the lake. The little males won't be back out for another 30 days. Of course, he then mentioned perch and I said, screw the walleyes, our freezers are full of those... I'd go perch fishing.... He was on board with that as well. Plus, he has a new jigging rod that I tied for him that he still needs to break in!

[slabsrus]

On my home lake the crappies are done in some areas and are just starting in others. The shallow backwater bays that I was catching them in three weeks ago are basically void of crappies all together but are starting to fill with gills and bass. Moving toward the main lake, the first bays off the main lake are still holding spawning crappies, some of which are in very shallow water, others are spawning in 3 - 5 feet of water. Then onto the main lake and main river channel the specks just really started to move in last weekend. Rip rap along deep water was holding some serious numbers of spawning crappies. Will know for sure Sunday if they are still actively spawning as Coyote419 and I are going to be hitting it hard in our kayaks. Starting the day with a smallmouth bass float then onto the lake for some panfishing. Hope to have a bunch of pictures and a video to share. Good luck everyone and happy fishing. When it comes to fishing, every day is a crappie day!