Frank, I think I can make that happen in my boat. Once you learn the tricks, they can pretty much be transferred over to any lake (Houghton included).

What I was going to put in my post (which I started to write) was that I wished I had worked harder on the spawning ground. My assumption was that the fish were done. That weed bed we fished is usually a pretty good transition area from the spawning grounds out to deeper water. Both Brian and I figured the fish were there waiting to head back to the main lake and were ambushing pray as it went by. It was evident when they would swing and miss at the offering. You could watch them come back two and three times for it. We lost a ton of fish because they were so aggressive that we didn't get a very good hook set.

While filleting these fish, we noticed that they were NOT done spawning. What we thought were post spawn fish putting on the feed bags before spawning turned out to be Pre spawn fish waiting to hit the beds. Now I wish I would have fished the spawning ground harder. This would have told me if these fish were just late bloomers and the others were on their beds or, if nothing was on their beds and the fish really had not spawned yet. Spawning can happen in pretty short order when the weather is right. Due to the massive temperature rise we have had in the last week to ten days, my assumption was the fish were not ready, the water warmed up too quickly and the fish backed off their beds.

I suspect that these fish will now ready themselves in deeper cooler water and spawn in deeper water. Instead of that 1 to 3 foot mark, I would bet that in this particular situation, the fish might spawn in 5 to 6 feet of water or deeper. They may also seek cover in the form of weed edges to provide shade that is usually provided in the shallow waters.

Just a theory but that is part of the fun of fishing. If we knew what they were going to do all the time it would be no fun. One more piece of knowledge to add to my bag of tricks for future reference.

FYI, that fish was 13 3/4 inches. 1/4 inch shy of my first master angler crappie of the year.