Not a crappie! Not a crappie!

This evening we stunk it up. I got blanked period! My partner took half a dozen or so dink bass. Not a crappie, not a sunfish! We hit four spots on two different lakes and still came up empty.

Last evening was a different story. We moved to a different pool where we often find crappies on and off all summer long. It was cold with a stiff cold breeze. We didn't do very well; some initial sunfish nibble and then what seemed like a tentative version of the classic crappie one tunker beneath them, but no fish. My partner ended up with 7 crappies and a small handful of sunfish and he worked for them. I couldn't turn more than a couple of sunnies despite changing tails, changing presentations whatever I could think of. We even bobbered up to no avail. Finally I put on a black 1.5" twister.

The second cast along the wall we were standing on, I hung up and then the hang up began to move. For 15 minutes I put as much strain on the 4# line and my UL rod as I dared. The drag worked perfectly, and the hen below ran all over that pool, before she ended up in the net.

32" and fat as a pig, wide across the back and carrying quite a belly.

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Needless to say that pool was really stirred up; so I ran back to the car and got a noodle ice rod rigged with a yellow #10 Fat Boy tipped with an inch and a quarter luv nub, hoping that downsizing would turn a fish or two. A news crew from WCCO TV showed up to do a bit on the effects of the very early spring. Something grabbed the Fat Boy about then. I found myself hooked up to a 20.5" largemouth on the ice rod. No pictures for here, but they caught a bunch of the fight on tape and the fish after she came to the net, too. And then they announced it to the whole community where I caught her in the 10:00 news. All of our fish came from right tight against the wall we were standing on which drops down to about 4' of water at the most. Both of the bonus fish came from just about exactly the same spot along that wall.

We were out about 2 1/2 hours, but the half hour part that spanned those two bonus fish was pretty much the highlight. I pretty much struck out on the crappies but there was some compensation...

The TV crew tried to do an interview, but I found myself at a loss for words and thankfully they cut that out of the broadcast. By the way both fish were definitely returned to the water, which I would have done anyway, and seemed to recover pretty well and swam away on their own. The season for pike doesn't open here until early May, and for bass until mid-May; so I couldn't have kept either one anyway even if I had wanted to.

You just never know what's going to take those darn little plastics next.

Nice. Bummer about the crappies though. I'd think with the funky weather moving in they would have been a little active. I'm taking my 8-year old out tomorrow for the start of his spring break. From your other posts, I am hopeful to find some shore fishing opportunities for him in the cities.

I thought I might be able to catch the video on WCCO's web site, but no luck finding it. My fishing buddy and my son made it on during the opener last year. They had his name and "Angler" tagged below his interview. I'm still giving him a hard time about that.

You and the boy should do well. With this weekend's warm up there should be literally hundreds of spots around the Metro that produce crappies coming into the warming bays for the temperature and the bug hatches which should be massive. We quite literally have crappies all over the Twin Cities in nearly any water of any size that does not winterkill.

Nice pike Dutch. Did you practice your lipping techniques to land this one? lol

Hey no1, nice fish. Bet that was fun....

On the little sticks they are all fun. I keep getting amazed at the number of bonus fish we get on the little crappie plastics, though.

At first we though this was a musky. They are amazingly similar from the top. That ticked me off, but it got a lot more fun when she turned and showed us the pike pattern. I am not a fan of stocked muskies. Pike I like, they belong. Pound for pound they are also a much better game fish than muskies, more fight for sure. They are also far cheaper to manage for the same sporting return. We have been seeing more and bigger pike in the last few years on several of the waters we fish, including some waters with no muskies. Our DNR has been doing a much better job of managing that species than used to be the case. IMO the 24-36 inch release slot has been a success on most of the lakes where it has been applied. The consumption advisories have also played a part.

I aint about to lip no pike. Over the past almost 60 years of catching them I have already had more than enough misadventures with pike teeth. Too many stiches already. ;)

"On the little sticks they are all fun. I keep getting amazed at the number of bonus fish we get on the little crappie plastics, though."

Bonus fish today were a couple 1lb bass, and one big one the weighted in at 5.0lbs before going back in, and so did the single northern of about 3-3.5lbs.

My buddy Paul wanted to go out on the lake after passing on the potential thunderstorm last night, and at the end of the day he said "This was the best crappie fishing day, ever." Lots of fish, but converted my 8 year old over from a jig and minnow to a micro translucent white jig, and it was a crappie every cast after that. I'll post the name of those things when I get the name from Paul. The biggest was a little under a pound.

Of course, my eight year old was ogling over the big carp randomly clearing the surface. "Our goal should be to catch one of those!" he said. Oh boy...

Pearl or translucent white is one of our mainstay colors, whether tubes, stingers or shads.
BTW carp very often show up taking the little plastics, especially at this time of the year; so the boy may very well get his wish.

Sounds like your team had a very good trip. Good on all of you.

No1,
The level of detail and your varied approaches to local waters is very impressive. A little tenacity never hurts either.
Nice fish!

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Originally Posted by no1son

I aint about to lip no pike. Over the past almost 60 years of catching them I have already had more than enough misadventures with pike teeth. Too many stiches already.

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I hear ya there. When I was a tenneager I caught a big pike and in the process of handling it somehow got a thumb in its mouth while the thing commenced to start chewing. I had one of those very long teeth go straight thru the thumb nail and then break off. I guess I don't have to elaborate on pain aspect but after a couple days of playing the man with iron nuts I went to the doc and things went from bad to worse. They had to shoot my thumb with a local and cut about 2/3 of the nail away to get the tooth removed, but infection from that beast's healthy eating habits had set in and by the time they finish excavating the infected area I wasn't a happy camper.

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Originally Posted by no1son

Sounds like your team had a very good trip. Good on all of you.

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My son and his fishing buddy Paul during yesterday's "Crappiefest." The rest of the weekend is looking good weather-wise and schedule-wise

i will be trying to catch some today

Woody, a whole lot of this is the result of having a fishing partner who bounces as many ideas of me and more as I bounce of him. We have been working together now for some years. It also helps us that there are two of us running varieties of offerings to zero in on the special of the day.

CT,

My pike only slashed and those bled out real well! Did they bleed!

My worse experience was getting my hand in a spawn of madtoms. None of the little buggers was even half an inch long and they were all finned into the minnow seine so tight we couldn't even shake em out. I all but lost the use of that hand for close to a week. Didn't get all that much sleep either IIRC. Of course that was easily 45 years ago, when I was young and dumb etc. I have always been one who had to learn his lessons the hard way unfortunately.

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Originally Posted by IMFSHN

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My son and his fishing buddy Paul during yesterday's "Crappiefest." The rest of the weekend is looking good weather-wise and schedule-wise

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What a great picture, I bet that little guy will never forget it...Good Job...

Quite a bit slower today -where was that elusive 70 degree day? Largest was 3/4lb. Berkley Atomic Mites were still the best producers of the day.

One of today's randoms...
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"A man must believe something-I believe I'll go fishing."

Here's my "not a crappie" catch:

Spring Tiger Musky - YouTube

I was fishing a south metro lake from my kayak last weekend (3/24), anchored facing leeward of a submerged hump with a little grass. I was sitting sideways on my kayak at the time (water temp was 61*F, I wear hip waders this time of year). Fish was caught on a 1/8oz Northland bucktail jig with a little crappie scent applied, 5' ultralight with 10lb braid, 10lb fluorocarbon leader. I filmed this with my iPhone in a waterproof case (which is why its a little blurry). I was completely unprepared for this fish but did not get toothed. After this experience, I finally bought a Berkeley Lip Gripper, and a Go Pro Hero2HD! I didn't weigh or measure it - after taking a couple of pictures I wanted to get it back into the water asap.

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Originally Posted by Nanosio2

After this experience, I finally bought a Berkeley Lip Gripper, and a Go Pro Hero2HD! I didn't weigh or measure it - after taking a couple of pictures I wanted to get it back into the water asap.

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A buddy of mine picked one of these up. I wanted to get a hold of it and strap it to the helmet of a goalie and a forward during our broomball season, but alas, he still lives in North Dakota. My son was just talking about fishing from a kayak. I told him he'd best have things strapped down, and maybe he'd like to look at a float tube when he gets older.

Thank you for the photos and stories. crappies were better than yesterday for us, but still a little slow in the middle of the day. A lot of boats on Seaton Bay fishing around 8' of water, I don't think I saw one of them pull in anything that would end up on my fillet board.

"Let your hook be always cast. In the pool where you least expect it, will be fish." -Nov. 2005 fortune cookie

I got a Team Catfish plastic floating gripper from Bob Moore back when he still had his bait shop open. I'm real happy with that thing. It works for carp too. They are often too slippery to get a good grip on especially since they stay solid across the gills, and with the thick lips, any hookup is a solid one that often takes a pliers to twist out.

Crappies are still my darling, but it pays to be prepared for whatever bonus fish show up. Around here muskies have been so heavily stocked all over the Metro that they are as likely to be bonus hookups as any other gamefish. That mostly will mean cutoffs, but enough are not that a good jaw gripper is a very good tool to have handy, even if one never uses it on what we like to catch most.

Just joined. .... Bought a belly boat, and looking for some spots to try for crappies in the Twin City area. Prefer Mpls and West.... Any ideas?

There aren't many waters between the Mississippi in downtown west to Waconia that don't have crappies that are caught regularly. Richfield does not allow boats on the waters inside their city limits, but there are a whole lot of other "carry on" waters for a belly boat besides the real well-known bigger crappie waters like Waconia, Minnetonka and Medicine. You probably don't want to try the belly boat in the Mississippi or the mouths of some of the streams that run into it like Minnehaha below the Falls, but there are good crappies all along the river as well as the uncountable Metro lakes and ponds.

For a belly boat check out the smaller city park lakes and ponds. Many of them are sleepers and can be real jewels. My best advice is to pick one that is convenient for you and that looks like it might be suitable for your belly boat and then look it up on the MN DNR Lakefinder website both for lake maps and fish surveys.

There really are very few west Metro waters that do not winterkill that do not have crappies to catch. I assume the same is probably true on the St Paul side, too.

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Originally Posted by OLDFISHERMAN

Just joined. .... Bought a belly boat, and looking for some spots to try for crappies in the Twin City area. Prefer Mpls and West.... Any ideas?

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My float tube has been looking at me funny during the garage cleanup. And if I listen really closely...I think it's whispering "Let's go!" :)

Good luck. Even though there were some jet skiers on the lakes Sunday, I'd be looking for my neoprene's before pumpin' up the tube.

That's good to know about Richfield.

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THANKS MUCH. Actually, going to try Seton from shore tomorrow, then begin my tubing adventure on Shady Oak or Bryant.

Never been on Seton, I don't normally get that far west, but I have been on Shady Oak and did pretty well on crappies through the ice. Shady Oak also has a pretty good population of pike, producing a lot of them for its size. Crappies on Shady Oak tend to be smallish. I have never been on Bryant either, but have had some luck a little SE of there on Bush.

Bonus fish on Bush might include respectable largemouths, pike and possibly a muskie. There is parking, a ramp and signifiant walking shoreline on the SW of Bush, including two fishing docks - at least they are there during the summer. Access to the north side and the swimming beach area is controlled by the city park system and somewhat restricted. There is no restriction at the SW launch site that I remember. FWIW the MN DNR sampling finds all crappie year classes present on Bush indicating very consistent recruitment. For its size it has a pretty impressive fishery. It is definitely small enough to tube on, and there is both a motor size restriction and speed limits in place; so you don't have to worry as much about big boats and heavy wakes there as on some other waters. I tend to forget about Bush and should be spending more time there.

Play around with the Recreation Compass linked to lake information at the DNR Lakefinder. It shows a whole of of water in the west Metro and you can zoom in on what topo markings there are for a whole lot of them.

With the tube you can get right over the fish and jig to them. This spring we have been experimenting with both the little casting and jigging plugs. Both the Swedish Pimple and the jigging Raps have turned some nice fish this spring in open water when you can get over the fish properly. Chubby Darters would be another possibility for that kind of fishing.

We are just starting to play with that kind of hardware, but it has produced for us pretty well in some situations. Presenting that kind of hardware has gotten us both stronger strikes and larger crappies than other presentations so far this year, but a lot fewer fish in total. The bite on plastics though tending to get better numbers this spring has been very soft. We have had to pay close attention or we miss a lot of takes.

On these Metro lakes watch the consumption advisories, if you plan to eat any fish out of them; some of them carry pretty heavy mercury levels.

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Originally Posted by no1son

Crappies on Shady Oak tend to be smallish. I have never been on Bryant either, but have had some luck a little SE of there on Bush.

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Thank you for the heads up on Shady, Bryant, and Bush. I may see what kind of trouble the 8 year old and myself can get into over at Bush. I brought him over to Bryant last fall and the area that the fishing pier gave access to seemed pretty weak.

Good tip about using the recreation compass and the DNR netting results can give a pretty good snap shot of what's there.

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"A man must believe something-I believe I'll go fishing."

Well written thanks for sharing. Always like reading your posts

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Originally Posted by no1son

I tend to forget about Bush and should be spending more time there.

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Although it was a gorgeous night...there is a #2 thill float somewhere in the middle of the lake at this time, and a handful of snickering crappies, as we didn't see one personally, or caught by any of the other patrons there tonight.

By time we had worked the SW shore line and ended up at the point, the moon was high and bright, the sunset was whispering its last goodbyes, and my son had created his own minnow holding tank at the very tip of that sandy landmark.

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I'm taking him out each night this week when I get home from work since he's on spring break. Tomorrow and Wednesday's destinations are up in the air, but we will hit Tonka on Friday.

"A man must believe something-I believe I'll go fishing."

Fished Seton and Bryant from shore yesterday... Too windy and cold for newby to try a float tube.... Not a bit....Spoke to several folks at Cofee (Seton), and they said no fish yet... Going to try Bush today.... I live right by Shady Oak, and have caught smallish eating-size crappies, and large bass and nice northerns.
Stay tuned.

Last evening we started at the last known location, but with the shelter from the wind there and the strong sunlight, the crappies had moved farther up their pre-spawn routes. By the time we worked up to that the bank was lined with extended families fishing for meat and probably legally too, considering the number of children and the limits each is legally able to take. I don't especially like that degree of harvest, but I am also reasonably certain that all those fish get eaten and help with the family food budgets. They were thick enough that we would have had to shoulder in to get fishing space, which we don't like when it happens to us; so we passed, looking into whatever buckets that were along the way. Lots of crappies in those buckets!

Anyway we only managed a handful of medium small crappies, ourselves. We could have had all the dink sunnies we wanted, however.

Along the way there was another bonus fish. This mama, already heavily in the family way, took a 2" Bobby Garland Baby shad in about 3' of water. Same rod, reel and line as the pike I posted previously. If a 30" walleye runs about 10 pounds, this lady beat that weight by somewhat!

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I love my GAMMA line, there were several places where I felt it come free from obstructions in this fight. Really abrasion resistant! The Team Catfish lip gripper is pretty nice, too. We have taken more bonus fish in this year's spring crappie fishing than we can ever remember and there have been some real nice ones, too, at least 5 species over line test already. You never know just what is going to take those little plastics next!

That must have been worth some smiles. Note; Those folks are breaking the law, UNLESS children have own license, can only have one limit per license. That from someone, who many years ago was shamed, and give only a warning by a nice DNR game warden. Checked today, and law is still in effect.
Going to try in about two hours, and will be glad to take home some eating crappies.... Hmmmm, that big yellow monster would make a good base for a little league baseball team.

A family license always used to include all children under 16 for nonresidents, but residents under 16 have long been able to fish and keep their own limits without a license. Anyway last year the legislature allowed even nonresident children under 16 to take a limit without a license; so even that point is moot for either resident or non-resident. Individual licenses allow 10 crappies each, but there were a whole pile of kids involved, parents and even grandparents, and I would be willing to bet that every couple gets a family license rather than two individual ones. Toss in the occasional sunny with 20 of those allowed for each legal fisherman. If they had the necessary resident licenses between family and individual types, there were enough of them to accumulate some pails full of legal fish and in pretty short order when the prespawn runs are right. These folks are not wealthy and though I don't like it, they are probably quite legal. Anyway I am not going to go up and down the line asking to see licenses. They would have been tickled pink to have been given the carp, too, but I don't give away fish except to some very few aging relatives and then rarely. I know these folks a little bit and I expect that they are very careful to be properly licensed, even if that is a bit of a budget bite for them. The number of these folks in a party or a related group of parties almost has to be seen to be believed.

They have also become quite good at fishing plastics; so their bait expense is also very low. They are well known to do this very thing and are watched by the wardens, too, as well as a lot of the rest of us. I will leave the enforcement to the wardens, although I wish the legalities were changed a bit more in favor of the crappies.

Interestingly when their young people fish by themselves many of them release most or all of their fish, more of them all the time, in fact. When the family is out though I suspect that parents and grandparents demand keeping everything. Actually the grandmothers seem to be managing these group harvests and in that group nobody argues with grandma, not when it comes to food. The amount of crappie harvest for them repays their license fees several times over just in the pre-spawn. Like I also said I am sure that every fish kept gets eaten. They are not folks to waste food.

Personally I don't like it, but a while back I sat down and pictured how much of several 5 gallon pails their legal limits of crappies and bluegills would amount to, and it is quite a lot. I saw a lot of crappies last evening in the buckets, but I would have to guess that the limits were probably not half filled at that.

Just about everyone takes more fish than they need. Then here in Mi. I have seen guys take a limit twice a day. I had a spot on the river where I could catch 8-9" Gills. I would get 6-8 of them, enough for 2 people, then quit. Pretty soon, people started coming from all over, you know, the word got out. There was a group of guy (7-8) that didn't work during the winter. They came at daylight in the morning and stayed till dark every night. Needless to say the fishing went to heck in a couple years. This year, no one got many fish in this spot. When will people realize that fish are not an UN-limited source? Leave a few for the next day. No one needs 25 Crappie or Bluegill a day. Even when I had kids at home, I never took a limit, 10-15 was enough to feed us. It is fun to catch when they are really biting, but just remember, it takes a while for those fish to get to 8-10". Save some. Thanks...