North-country slabs!

[joejv4]

Spent a week in the Northern Adirondacks at a small lake that has light fishing pressure (I want to keep it that way, so I'm not going to mention it's name)

Anyhow, I kept 15 crappie each day (self-imposed limit), and threw back anything under 11" (only caught 4 fish that small all week!). Most fish were 11" to 13", but managed to catch my own personal best 14" black crappie:



... and how do these crappie get so big? Well, they eat lots of perch-fry. I had a little hit from the perch while reeling in a crappie on the other rod, and then got a bigger hit on the rod with the perch and here's what I reeled in:



Now for the nuts & bolts of the fishing report. This lake has suffered from the screwball weather just as bad as the small lakes closer to home. Not sure there was even a spawn this year, as water temps went from too cold to too warm in a hurry. That and the non-stop parade of warm fonts followed by cold fronts, the pattern has been messed up since ice-out.

No schooling fish - totally scattered around the lake. All of the usual haunts where we normally would get into them real good, produced 1-2 fish and that's it. So, just like at home, I went to trolling and used my graph to guide me. Turns out, there are lots of fish, but they are scattered. In this shallow lake (10' max depth), the crappie were holding in 7.5 to 8.5 FOW, suspended between 3 and 5 feet down.

Water is stained - high tannin content (think Black River), and chartreuse tubes were the go to bait all week. Slow trolling along the 7.5' to 8.5' depth line was productive all week long. Adjacent to steeper drop-offs was more productive than gradual drops-offs.

This is the "small-water" tactic I normally use in August, when the "dog-days" of summer are upon us, not the normal pattern for July, and especially not when we still haven't had any real summer weather yet, but this is the pattern I've been finding them in.

Anyhow, this is what is working for me right now on small, shallow lakes. If this helps anybody out, then I've done something right.

[EddieRod]

Nicely done Joe! The slabs we been catching have not spawned yet either or are late do to the weather. Either way my son and his buddys are busy catching and I'm busy taking them off and not able to even get a line wet. All good fun!

[joejv4]

Nicely done Joe! The slabs we been catching have not spawned yet either or are late do to the weather. Either way my son and his buddys are busy catching and I'm busy taking them off and not able to even get a line wet. All good fun!

Having the kids doing all the catching is a good problem to have. Keep them hooked on fishing and they'll be a lot less likely to get into trouble when they get a bit older.

I had my 2 year-old grandson with me at Bass Pro a couple weeks ago. After he got done checking out all the boats, we headed for the aquarium, where he loves to watch the "fissies wimmin" (fishies swimming), and had an old-timer come up, smile and tell me - "get a kid into fishing and when they're older they won't be mugging little old ladies". When I told him that the little guy is ALL ABOUT fishing, he gave my grandson a high-five.

Here we are "porch fishing" so he could practice reeling in his line (he's not ready to learn casting yet!)



Lots of fun!

[Fatman]

Joe,

Nice fish!!!!!!

Fatman

[WhitePerchJerker]

I see you have a great fishing partner.

[joejv4]

I see you have a great fishing partner.

He's still got a long ways to go, but is off to a great start. Knows how to watch a bobber and how to reel in panfish. Maybe next year, when he's 3 years old, we'll start working on casting.

Right now, for safety, I use pliers to mash down the barbs on his hooks - just in case!

When we take him fishing, I generally don't even try to put a line in the water. It's just as much fun to work with him and even more fun when he catches one!