Ice out finally!

Finally we got some gardening weather this past week. I got pretty much caught up with that now, only about a month behind this year. Calhoun and Harriet here deep in the Twin Cities finally flushed the last ice out over night last night and water levels have recovered very well with the April snows.

Crappies and sunnies are biting in the channels and in their sunning areas. A quick test outing on the way home from work last evening took three crappies, all over 10" with the biggest easily over 13 in about 10 minutes. A friend hit the same spot a little later last evening with similar response. Finally we have spring, up in the North Country Fair, and the bite is on.

I haven't had time for much fishing so far this year, but I will be out this evening!

More snow, cold, rain and sleet W through yesterday, but we did get out several times during the nice weather S M and T. On two spots we found crappies willing to bite.

One was full of sunfish of all sizes, that produced 4 true slabs (but we only landed one - I lost my three, 2 to break offs on the 2# test I was using and one spit as I tried to lead it to where I could beach it.) My fishing partner got his to the tape at over 13". There were also a couple of dozen 4" and 5" fish foraging with the sunnies, but very few medium sized fish.

We also stopped at a pond that in the past has always had small fish, but a lot of them willing to bite. There we took quite a few with a number of them beating 9". I was surprised thinking that between the low water of the drought and how shallow it was once iced that it would have been winter killed for sure and probably had late summer die off ahead of that. Instead we found lots of fish and in bigger sizes than we have seen out of that water in years.

On the first water the slabs came from right against a wall along a shallow pool. There seems to be a deep slot along the wall. For me the most and all of the biggest fish came on ice jig sized heads and tails, using a 2' ice rod allowed me to get in real tight to the wall. White the best color. For my partner on both waters the small Mister Twister in white was the ticket for all sizes. The four big crappies all bit real soft, just there when the line tightened, most of the rest bit in normal crappie fashion, signaled by one timers, up bite and lateral line movement.

The big eaters are also out and moving. We saw some real big teeth and quite a number of moving carp during last weeks outing. Bass are missing this year yet. There are definitely some muskies and pike working the shallows, though. Ducks and coots are still around for interest, since ice is not out farther north. The lake still holds grebes, loons, scaup, buffleheads and a whole lot of coots that will all move on when ice is finally out farther north.

Everything we caught got returned to the water except a couple of medium crappies given to an elderly friend who was fishing with us. We don't normally do that, but once in a while there will be an exception.

Last evening I pretty much struck out, one real slab did the spit out thing (that makes 5 fails on true slab hookups in the past couple of weeks! I have gotten real rusty!)), and one ~20" largemouth broke off. A couple of almosts for three hours - nothing to brag about.

I was fishing with another guy who did a whole lot better. over the course of the evening he caught and released half a dozen crappies between 12 and 14" - they were taped. So I at least had the location right.

We had big eaters hanging around, largemouths and muskies, in close so not even the sunnies were out and about. What the other guy did was put his jig and tube under a bobber, tip it with a waxie and cast out to the far outside edge of the pool, which I couldn't reach. Later in the evening the scattered slabs came in closer, but there was never more than one at a time. He also fishes catch and release; so they all went back into the breeding stock.

The crappies in that lake have grown up in the past decade or so since it got a consumption advisory posted on it. (Up here it takes 3/4 to a full year to add an inch to a crappie; so a 14" fish is at least 10 to 12 years old)

Enough of the bucket fishermen quit using it to feed their families to give the crappies a chance to grow up since then and we are seeing increasing numbers of plus 10" fish in the past couple of years, up to 15 1/2 which I saw caught last spring. There are also quite a number of fish in smaller year classes.

Around here there is no question that reducing the human harvest can very easily increase crappie sizes without damaging the size structure and this lake is in the heart of the Twin Cities metro.

My bass breakoff came on an ice rod with 2# line and a #10 diamond with a 1" luv nub tail slow jigged in tight to a wall along about 5' of water; so I was certainly outgunned there. Two of my slab "almosts" were also on that same rig and were also breakoffs. Like I said I am getting rusty. They were good fish, but getting broke off by a crappie is pretty sloppy.

I have had my chances so far since ice out finally finished in the past couple of weeks, but I am going to have to work on technique or something! We have not had the prespawn crappie runs really kick in yet this year, but there are fish to be had for those who can land them...