Ice is nice but not necessary

Trying an attachment for the first time.

In this spot there is a warm water sewer drain that runs out from under down town Minneapolis where we find crappies and carp together both willing to take crappie plastics. It's good both in spring and fall when they search out warmer water. You can see that there is ice forming around this spot, but the fish move up into the warmer water and bite. My buddy caught this carp and about half a dozen crappies there last Friday in about an hour or so. The depth is only 4 or 5 ft but there is persistant water back up quite a ways inside the drain.

Ice wasn't necessary again this evening.

I met Mike for about an hour after work on a warm water outflow into the Mississippi. The crappie bite on little plastics was fast and furious; we lost count early but figure some thing between 4 and 5 dozen crappies were released in a little over two man-hours of fishing. There were some bonus bluegills with one up to between 8 and 9 inches and a couple of mid-teen bass for a bit of extra spice. With the warm weather and the warm flow, the ice was completely clear in this particular spot.

Little jigs and tiny plastics took all the fish. About a third came from flipping the jig back up into the culvert and letting it settle out. About another third came from floating the little jig just at the point of visibility and watching the crappies flash up for the take, and the rest came from short flips around the mouth of the culvert and letting the bait settle on a very slow retrieve. That took the bass and the sunnies. The two of us don't harvest Metro fish, but we could have sorted a couple of easy limits of 10" fish out of the group. Those fish that came from inside the culvert and closest to the bottom bit very softly, but the flashers left no doubt whatsoever. All bite came from very close in; no long casts were necessary, and with some of the bite so soft the noodle rod tips showed a whole lot of bite that would never have been felt. River fish have such nice broad shoulders, too!

It really pays to watch your culverts and street drains this time of the year. When they are running they will be the warmest water around and can really be fish magnets. That was certainly the case where we were this evening.