Crappie Pose

We all know the "Crappie Pose". Holding up four fish (two in each hand) for the camera.

Left the house at 5am yesterday and made the 2hr drive over to Sunset bay resort on the south east side of Saginaw bay. I fish out of that area simply because I don't have to deal with all the people associated with the other "well known" launches. Plus, not many people fish this area.

Launched the boat around 8:20 AM and Brian and I made the 4 mile run out to an area I regularly fish. Not a boat within 3 miles! I saw something shinny floating in the water. It turned out to be a helium foil heart balloon. Must be a good omen so we set down and started fishing.

Because this was my first trolling trip of the year, I wanted to get a feel for what baits the fish would be interested in. Our six rod spread included baits of several sizes. This would allow us to dial in on what the fish were looking for. I noticed all of my marks on my Lowrance were very high in the water column. This told me of suspended fish. Reports indicated that guys were simply fishing too deep. We ran one side of the boat on an even split (40, 50, and 60 back) and the other side on the odd five split (45, 55, 65 feet back). This allowed us to cover the water column from 9 to 12 feet. We were fishing over 17 to 18 feet of water.

Took a double header on a Rapala DHJ size 10 pink glass and a DHJ size 12 with pink on it. Switched some baits. Took another fish on a Berkley size 9 flicker minnow in Pink Lemonade. As the morning wore on, the wind was non existent but the water was turning stained. We had a lull in the action and dropped all of our baits out of the strike zone. It took a little while to dial back up the right depth and make a few bait changes. Eventually, the traditional rapala black with Prism gold belly was the ticket. We landed 9 fish in short order on this color combination in both size 10 DHJ's and size 9 flicker minnows. The fish wanted smaller baits.

Radio chatter indicated that too many people were playing "Monkey see, Monkey Do". Baits were too big for the fish and they were all fishing way too deep. Gotta know how to read the electronics and know what you are looking at. We ended the trip with our limit of 16 fish (Saginaw bay limit is 8 per person). Six of the fish were spawned out females with their sizes ranging from 23 to 26 inches. The remaining 9 were milked out males in varying sizes.

I even got a plug in for Nick and Bruce over at "Offshore Tackle"!

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Nice job

Excellent job Rich and Brian!


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Happy late birthday Steve. Hope the maiden voyage went well.

Great story but what about the CRAPPIE ?

Ha ha. Walleye. Crappie with teeth!

Crappie... what are those!
Hi, I'm Rich, and I have a crappie addiction "hi Rich, welcome" (could be heard from the background), it has been several weeks since my last crappie trip

Nice fish. One of these days I'm gonna catch one of those.

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Originally Posted by "D"

Nice fish. One of these days I'm gonna catch one of those.

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Danny, I hope you can make it up here someday so we can make that happen. Walleye are my favorite freshwater fish to catch, second favorite to eat......perch being number 1. One of us, I'm sure, will have a seat in the boat to take you out.

Nice fish Rich! As always, a great report. Congrats to you and skipper Brian.

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Well done Rich!!! storys and photos will have to do for a while....thanks

Danny,
I always have an open seat for people that want to try it out.

good job rich!!
I have never fished walleye this early.....until this year.
I have been down to erie 3 times this spring, sure is different than fishing spinners and crawlers!
I think I could spend a fortune on deep husky jerks and deep bandits, and at $11 bucks a pop for custom colors it is going to take me some time to build up a selection.
do you have a place that you buy your baits, or just whenever you stop in a store?
kind of excited to get back on the bay now that they went to the 8 fish limit, makes a trip over there easier to justify , other than just having a good time fishing.
those 30 inch plus fish in erie are not near as good eating, but sure are fun to catch!

Thats a nice mess of wallys. You know, half the fun of fishing is figuring them out. Looks like you have that part mastered.

John,

I source my baits from a ton of different places. Most of the custom painters are so far behind that stores don't have what you are looking for. Through my business, I tried to buy the glass minnow and paint them myself. Unfortunately, Rapala orders are about 6 to 8 weeks behind on that particular bait (which is the one that most custom painters paint on). That being said, I purchase a fair amount of baits from Jann's netcraft. They have the class as well as the custom chrome. The best prices I have found is in Frank's in Linwood or Northwoods up in Pinconning. Cabelas does carry them (in custom colors) but rarely do they have them in stock (backordered).

That being said, I will say that my best bait, hands down, is NOT the rapala DHJ 10's or 12's. For me, the best bait in my box is the Berkley Flicker Minnow in size 9. Recently they came out with a size 11 but I have yet to put any in the box. Nice part about the flicker minnow is they are cheaper in price (by a ton). Less than 6 bucks. Another good thing... they dive deeper with less line out than a DHJ 12. A size 9 flicker minnow back 65 feet will dive to 15ft. A DHJ 12 back 65 will only dive to 13 feet. Not sure on the dive curve of the 11's but I know they are even less line out than the 9's.

I love running cranks, less mess in the boat, quick bait changes, and good hook ups! Let me know when you want to head over there and I'll give you some of my GPS numbers to fish.

There are a few companies that do custom colors on the flicker minnows (Frank's is one of them). My BEST producer in the standard color is "Pink Lemonade". The next best is "Prime Time" followed by Purple Flash. We do really well with "Slick blue Alewife", Slick Purple Bengal, and Slick Sunset. Jann's has them for 4.95 each. I also purchase a lot from Fish USA. Their shipping is better (and quicker) and they are a sponsor of Crappie.com.

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Originally Posted by wicklundrh

John,

I source my baits from a ton of different places. Most of the custom painters are so far behind that stores don't have what you are looking for. Through my business, I tried to buy the glass minnow and paint them myself. Unfortunately, Rapala orders are about 6 to 8 weeks behind on that particular bait (which is the one that most custom painters paint on). That being said, I purchase a fair amount of baits from Jann's netcraft. They have the class as well as the custom chrome. The best prices I have found is in Frank's in Linwood or Northwoods up in Pinconning. Cabelas does carry them (in custom colors) but rarely do they have them in stock (backordered).

That being said, I will say that my best bait, hands down, is NOT the rapala DHJ 10's or 12's. For me, the best bait in my box is the Berkley Flicker Minnow in size 9. Recently they came out with a size 11 but I have yet to put any in the box. Nice part about the flicker minnow is they are cheaper in price (by a ton). Less than 6 bucks. Another good thing... they dive deeper with less line out than a DHJ 12. A size 9 flicker minnow back 65 feet will dive to 15ft. A DHJ 12 back 65 will only dive to 13 feet. Not sure on the dive curve of the 11's but I know they are even less line out than the 9's.

I love running cranks, less mess in the boat, quick bait changes, and good hook ups! Let me know when you want to head over there and I'll give you some of my GPS numbers to fish.

There are a few companies that do custom colors on the flicker minnows (Frank's is one of them). My BEST producer in the standard color is "Pink Lemonade". The next best is "Prime Time" followed by Purple Flash. We do really well with "Slick blue Alewife", Slick Purple Bengal, and Slick Sunset. Jann's has them for 4.95 each. I also purchase a lot from Fish USA. Their shipping is better (and quicker) and they are a sponsor of Crappie.com.

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thanks for the info rich.
am going to try out those flicker shads
and I may just take you up on the coordinate #s maybe just one or so to get me started, but I think I will try out sunset marina , really tired of fighting the crazies at the others :(

I've been a Berkley fan for years, when Parsons and Kavajecz first came out with the Berkley flicker shads I loaded up on them...in triplicate! I remember my wife was going to Fleet Farm in Green Bay Wisc. and I told her they stocked them.....she brought home a ton of them.
Then came the "minnow"......I've been buying some everytime I got to Gander Mtn. ( it's close) like Rich says, the price is a whole lot better than Rapala.
Thanks Rich for the informative post.

Thanks guys. You guys are truly C.c's best. I fully plan on making it up there. Don't think it will be this time though. My buddy who was coming with me has finished chemo, but starts radiation in a couple weeks. He has a positive attitude and wants to make the trek. But I can't see him able to make it yet. Again thanks for the kind invites. You guys just do good with the raffle. We did good, $590 this year.

Will continue praying for your friend Danny. Sorry you can't make it, but there will be other camps.

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Sunset is a little further to drive but in my opinion it is well worth it. Linwood runs a good show and gets people in and out. The problem is you are always in a rush. Once you get in line, there really is no place to get ready. I'm never in that big of a hurry anymore. I don't like when people are pushing me to hurry up (Marina operators or others). Sunset is way more laid back. Pull in, find a spot (under the shade) to get things set up. If someone is behind you and ready to go, they go. If you are ready to go, ask the guy ahead of you if you can go. Really that simple. When it is really busy, they park you and drive you to the boat (although it is a short walk). Your on the bay in about 2 minutes as it is the shortest channel on the bay and can be fishing in no time. If you want to run out to visit the masses of boats, it is pretty easy however I've fished the same numbers from April through August and never had to move.

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Originally Posted by wicklundrh

Sunset is a little further to drive but in my opinion it is well worth it. Linwood runs a good show and gets people in and out. The problem is you are always in a rush. Once you get in line, there really is no place to get ready. I'm never in that big of a hurry anymore. I don't like when people are pushing me to hurry up (Marina operators or others). Sunset is way more laid back. Pull in, find a spot (under the shade) to get things set up. If someone is behind you and ready to go, they go. If you are ready to go, ask the guy ahead of you if you can go. Really that simple. When it is really busy, they park you and drive you to the boat (although it is a short walk). Your on the bay in about 2 minutes as it is the shortest channel on the bay and can be fishing in no time. If you want to run out to visit the masses of boats, it is pretty easy however I've fished the same numbers from April through August and never had to move.

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I want to try sunset soon, sounds laid back, just like eagle bay near Standish.
any problems with shallow water?and are there any reefs or danger spots I should be aware of?
thanks for the help rich.
you and kevin will be prepping soon for a tourney there right?

No issues with shallow water John. They have their own dredge and the channel is marked really good. Inside their harbor is easy enough, outside of it, they dredge out about 150 yards. Usually over 6ft deep. After that, there really isn't anything under 10 feet for as far as you want to run out in the water. Thomas reef is one that I fish most of the time. If you run Lowrance, I'll make you a copy of my waypoints and safe passage routes and trails. If you have an HB, I'll get you a few numbers you can plug in to get a good idea of the area.

We pretty much already started prepping for that one. It is still a couple of weeks away yet.

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Originally Posted by wicklundrh

No issues with shallow water John. They have their own dredge and the channel is marked really good. Inside their harbor is easy enough, outside of it, they dredge out about 150 yards. Usually over 6ft deep. After that, there really isn't anything under 10 feet for as far as you want to run out in the water. Thomas reef is one that I fish most of the time. If you run Lowrance, I'll make you a copy of my waypoints and safe passage routes and trails. If you have an HB, I'll get you a few numbers you can plug in to get a good idea of the area.

We pretty much already started prepping for that one. It is still a couple of weeks away yet.

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I have heard of Thomas reef, never fished it though, usually fish the pinny and saganing bar area
I have a hummingbird rich.
thanks for all your help.