Tough fishing up here for shoreliners

Our lakes and streams are down farther right now than most real oldtimers have ever seen before. In the past month I have only been able to find two schools of crappies, while fishing on foot, and one of them was so totally dink that none of the fish beat 5". All went back, of course - they were aquarium size in the first place! I came away from that dink chronicle experience with this lesson: even the dinks are point on point right now. Every cast exactly on spot got response, no cast even off a little got any.

It looks to me like our drought has eliminated regular structures from school movements and they are now either orienting to different ones on different breaks or are by necessity roving what were formerly deeper waters. I think the crappies are schooled up pretty tightly as a result too, since almost nobody on the shoreline is taking stragglers either, only really scoring when stumbling on active schools. I think this has been going on more and more as the drought took hold this summer. Even the muskies that normally follow the crappie schools are not showing up as regularly and those who are drowning the big suckers for them are having a very poor year, too, and have been all summer. Lots of hot weather also contributed, most likely accelerating the process.

There has been quite a change in fish movements in our waters this year over former ones both in what structures are being used and what species are using them.

Thank you for the update no1son.

Z and I bolted out for a quick fish Tuesday evening, between two events we had going on.

Once we paddled out to where we wanted to fish, we had from about 6:20-6:40 pm to actually fish (not counting the buzz bait I was pulling behind the canoe along the way - next time it will be a shallow running crank bait). The first bit at 6:25pm. All three of the crappies caught were around 9 1/2" and well fed. They were hitting our jigs at about 5' over about 20' of water, adjacent to the still present deeper weed edge.

The tree colors are muddying up, but the day was absolutely gorgeous.

We are going to venture out tomorrow night for a little longer stint.

Attachment 104355

I fished a bit last evening, too. Also got three if a little smaller... Mine came from about the same depth down in the same depth of water, but were under a dock edge. They have been few and far between for me, but those few I have taken came in with full bellies. For me the bite was real tentative, and I had a couple throw the hook.

It was too chilly and I couldn't get the repeats I was looking for - no concentrations like I was hoping. So I packed it in pretty quickly myself.

Good to hear from you again, say hi to Z for me.

That's one thing I left out of my "report," but made sure that Z made a distinction about last night: although the bluegill were still "popping" the jigs, the crappies felt as if you dragged through some muck -a slow drag on the line, rather than a bump or pop.

I'll give Z your best.

Last night and tonight we found them (or they us), holding around 12' over 20-30' of water. Kept a handful from 10-12" for breakfast tomorrow.

For those wondering about weight, here are the lengths and the corresponding digital weight for these fish, on this lake in the early fall.


10" 8oz
10 1/4" 9oz
10 1/2" 9oz
10 3/4" 10oz
12" 14oz



Best,

Attachment 104629

Most of the area lakes I fish are down 18 to 24 inches.
On my last trip the 22th of OCT I found the crappies and gills in 28 to 32 FOW.
I did boat some nice fish that were released.Attachment 104986Attachment 104987Attachment 104988

Nice fish Bob/MN. Love the ruler in a gutter idea.

Very nice fish from both of you.

Were the bluegills schooled with or close to the crappies out over the deeps?

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Originally Posted by no1son

Very nice fish from both of you.

Were the bluegills schooled with or close to the crappies out over the deeps?

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The Gills,Crappies and Rock Bass were all schooled togather. My edge 3 indicated a bio mass that the fish were feeding on. The lake turn over pushed the fish deep.