Where to find ice panfish on Pokegama (Itasca)?

[wleeds]

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Hi all. Can anyone help an (old) newbie to ice fishing in the Grand Rapids area? Specifically, i'd like to find some crappie spots on Pokegama's north east arms (Poole and Tioga). Any other suggestions would be welcome as well!

Thanks,
Wayne

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[CTom]

Welcome to the site.

I wish I had some help for you, but I am wat down in the SE corner of the state and I don't get up that way to fish. I'm going to pull up a dnr map of the lake in a day or so and study it and then re-post. I may be able to give you some starting points that way. Another way is to search for bait shops on or near the and ask for advice there. They make a living off good information and generally want people to be happy with fishing results especially if the info comes from them.

[CTom]

Ok...lets try this. Copy and paste this link [ http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefin.../b0441010.pdf] so you can see where I am talking about. I will be referring to the larger bay of the NE'rn most corner of the lake. I rotated the map so that north faces up and this bay was at the very top.

In that bay you have what appears to be a slough area with a possible creek at the top, maybe just a bit left. Directly below that slough area there are three highlighted [darker] areas or spots on deeper water. These may or may not be emergent but they will serve as a reference.
You will see where the depth gradations are tight along the shore to the left a short ways and also to the right across the bay. When the weather is changing from nice to COLD with clear skies, I'd be all over those steep shorelines, perhaps starting where the drop stops at the bottom away from shore. I would look for fish to be near the bottom but not necessarily on the bottom. If those dark marks are humps, the deepest part of the bases may hold fish during radical high pressure. If these humps do not come out of the water, the tops could be great areas when the weather is stable, during low-light periods or if the clouds are out and about.

Just to the right of the slough area you'll see a bay-like area where the contours leave the shoreline some and are really tight together. On the shallow side of that tight drop I would look for fish during consistent weather. By consistent weather I mean like four or five nice warm days back to back or even a week of clear cold with a change predicted.

Here in the north you will find the crappies relating to deep water almost universally in some way. Having deep water is a key to finding them, but they are not necessarily going to be deep. When we get weather changes up here, it usually means we have warmed up to snow. Ahead of that snow by a few days look for crappies to relate to the deeper water but higher in the water column. At this time of year thier movement is less horzontal than it is vertical. If you find one crappie, you will not have to search far from that point to find others. Often only a few feet makes a huge difference, hence the term spot-on-spot. At the winter's coldest crappies might move 20 or thirty feet vertically following plankton and small invertabrates, but the same fish might not move fifty feet in a week to either side or horizontally.

On that lake around mid-March, I'd be looking to focus on what appears to be a narrows on the southern shore of that arm if there is indeed some current thru there. You have steep water on both sides of the narrows and any current will set up some really nice eddy areas under the ice that can pull crappies to them during daylight hours. Again at the same time, if those humps don't break surface and have some weed growth on them, the perimeter of the weeds can be hot. The large shallower flat to the right of the slough could also be a draw if there are green weeds by then The key point to keep in mind is that crappies will begin to assume a more horizontal relationship in the water about this time of year. We can see some melting on land and that water can leak into the lakes where these fish can sense the minute temperature fluctuations and that makes them go on the prowl. 1 single degree in water temp rise can make these guys do wierd things. By March crappies will travel some distance and use shallower water, but keep in mind that they will never be far from the real deep water....if a quick cold front rams thru the area these fish will sink right back into the deep water again. Deep water is the key to winter crappies and that cannot be said enough.

Regardless of the chronological time season, be mindful of the moon phase as it signals when bloodworms come out. Bloodworm activity is a night thing that can start rather abruptly as the sun sets, but when it takes off, crappies go on the hunt big time. A local baitshop can tell you when to look for peaks in that hatch for your area.

I'll assume that you will have a flasher along. When you set up or start your search, I'd recommend finding an area where you can see fish milling around on the bottom. They'll probably be sunfish or perch and smaller ones at that. What I do is sit a while and watch for random marks at mid-column that stay on the screen for maybe 10 seconds then fade off. Those are likely crappies and they are probably hunting if they disappear on you. I quickly raise up or drop the bait/jig to a level about a foot higher than where the mark was seen. Don't worry about not having a signal showing. Feeding crappies move on a fairly flat plane but will rise to hit a bait. Most often they'll only appear after they have seen the bait from a distance and come in to hit.

If this is the arm you are referring to, you have a ton of opportunity there. Myself I love the radically steep shorelines during the bulk of winter but will shift to flatter, shallower water as March starts soften things up more.