Thread: Twin Cities area crappie

Wayzata and Minnetonka should be spitting out crappies and panfish right now. White Bear may have a crappie bite going as well.

Minneapolis side: Medicine has crappies, small lakes like Shady Oaks, Bush Lake, in fact most small lakes in the west metro have crappies. I fish primarily the Minneapolis Parks Chain of Lakes. Most of the crappies run 7 to 9 inches in the lakes with consumption advisories with occasional schools to scattered 12 inches and maybe a bit more. Most fishers do not see the bigger crappies. Lakes with consumption advisories are smaller, since they are harvested much harder. Nokomis seems to run 5 to 7 inches. Real dinks but lots and lots of em. There are definitely bigger crappies in Minnetonka, but you sorta have to know your way around. Calhoun and Harriet have good crappies but the bite can be real sporatic.

Lots of public fishing piers often offer real comfortable fishing and occasional good catches. BUT many of those piers are dismantled before the end of October. Shore fishing is the case in most of the metro, especially in the smaller lakes. Nokomis and Harriet have decent launches, and of course so does Minnetonka and I think Medicine does too, but many of the smaller lakes are pretty much walk up only. The Park Board forbids motors on the Minneapolis Park Board lakes and offers very little in the way of trailer parking on most waters.

Then there is always the river which has some real nice fish. The top lock at St Anthony falls is no longer opened though so some caution is needed around the locks and the falls.

The Twin Cities Metro may very well have the best urban fishery in the country if not the world, and the above is only the west side north of the Minnesota River.

I sure do appreciate it guys, thanks!

The crappies on Nokomis are fun during the warmer months.... right near the dock. Now that it's colder, I can't seem to find them by either of the docks. Tried nightcrawlers, plastics, fast, slow..... Do you think they are there near the dock, just not biting? This is my first year fishing here so I haven't figured out the patterns yet......

Thanks for any suggestions.......

-m

I fish plastics exclusively on ul tackle (4# Gamma and 1/32 jig). Most tails are 1 1/2 to 2+ inches long, but I also fish even lighter when jigging docks, 2#, 1/64 oz with size 8 or 10 hooks, 1" tails (usually white). All my jig heads are black powder painted and then cooked hard.

Right now the big eaters have moved up as the milfoil sinks away. This morning on the way home from work legitimately sick, I stopped and cast for a bit on Calhoun. No crappies and no sunnies which usually means that some big eater is in the house. Bait: black jig head with size 6 hook, 2" Scent wiggler in pearl with sparkle, 5 ft UL rod with 4# Gamma copolymer. Only one bite, a 33" pike (about 10 -11#). Landed her too. I got real lucky to have a front of the top lip hook up. The hen kept dodging and twisting but never was able to get tooth on the line. I had a little Shakespeare with a smooth drag and she put it to the test alright. No net, so I hand landed her at a bit of sand beach. Definitely a big eater showing that the hen pike have come up from the depths, where they spend the summers, to feed in the shallows, which they do every year about this time on the exposed panfish as the weed beds settle to the bottom. Made me feel somewhat better, but not enough to go back to work just yet.

In areas known to hold crappies, I always look for visible sunfish, generally an indication that no major predator is hanging around. If they suddenly disappear or are not there at all, the crappies will also vacate. IMO they key on the sunnies, too.

If you are from far enough south you would not have had muskies or pike as crappie predators. Muskies commonly get to 40 inches in the Metro with quite a number of local lakes that produce 50" fish quite regularly. No crappie no matter how big is safe from musky sized predation and only the biggest from pike that can get into the high 30's in our Metro.

One has to do some hunting for the crappies at this time of the year. Shoreline fisheries can get chancy, and the local park boards very often dismantle the fishing docks right about now. If you can break away from supper or have some time early, early and late just as it starts to get light or just before full dark are about as close to witching hours as you will get, and that holds through winter on the ice, too. You are not allowed to jacklight fish in Minnesota, or night fishing would become real productive.

Live bait? I have not bought or used live bait for crappies for close to a decade now. Lots of times, side by side with someone drowning minnows, my plastics have outfished the minnows, once I found the right the color combo. If you fish often previous success will clue you in to pretty close color matches, too. It pays to change out colors if there is no bite, but very often you will find that each season tends to have a color pattern that generally seems to hold well into autumn. That is always a good place to start (there and/or where you were last successful...).

One last thing I doubt you can fish plastics too slow.

Thanks for the report Dutch. I plan to hit the river on Thursday...rain is forecast but what the heck. Docks are in order for that little jaunty. I'll let you know how we do.

The Park Board is pulling our park fishing docks here, but we have been taking some scattered nice crappies on specific park lakes, some up to a good 12" or 13", although not many. They seem to have been scattered in the weedline rather than schooled up. We have a lot of big eaters for how small our lakes are, so when something big and toothy comes floating in all the panfish sky out, and of course the bite goes to hell.

This year the muskies seem to be fewer and farther between and we have been seeing a lot more pike, and so have the bass fishermen all summer. Mostly the pike have been the smaller males, but now the big hens are back, too. Musky hunters have not done so well this year; so many of them have already hung it up for the season. Thankfully enough.

The muskies here are stocked but the pike are reproducing naturally on most of the city waters. I like pike, muskies not so much. Pound for pound I would have to say pike fight harder by quite a bit, but are smaller enough so that if the crappies live long enough (and they do up here), we get some crappies that can pretty much outgrow pike targeting. Originally these were all waters where the pike were the top predators and the panfish had evolved in answer to that. IMO muskies don't fit the ecosystem. I lost that decision though.

The other big eaters that come out this time of the year are largemouth bass. I know of several lakes that have produced 23" hawgs in the past couple of years for more than one fisherman of my acquaintance from the shoreline, and I have personally put the tape on a couple of those for two of those guys. Crappies up here don't seem to be as skittish around the largemouths or the smaller pike as they and the bluegills are around the muskies and the big hen pike.

It is getting to be about time for you to hit the docks at the Marina, I sorta doubt I will be able to break away and join you like I planned to do over the past couple of years, but maybe...

I hope to be back out tomorrow afternoon until dark.

Not to worry Dutch, we'll make it out some time down the road. I'll be busy with the deer season now for a couple weeks.