First open water

[CTom]

I've been out twice now fishing from a dock in open water on a local lake. There is still ice that chokes access to the main lake area but this dock is smack in the middle of an early open water area that consistently produces crappies, but this year its open early and the primary flush of fish has yet to happen. I have caught a few short fish and had a couple come off that had a little size to them but we need another week or so before this fishing will get good. This morning the water temp at 6 feet was 42 degrees we still need some longer daylight.

[no1son]

Been sorta a stranger around here - some health problems this winter.

Lots of open water around here now in the Twin Cities with a good crappie and carp bite where you can find warmer water. I got out for a while for the first time last evening, picked up a handful of average crappies and one carp of close to 10 pounds. Also found a few little sunfish. Also some reliable reports of crappies well over 10" in some waters.

[CTom]

Well darn....I thought you flew the coop for warmer country. lol

Been doing some shore spots until we see some real warmth in the water. Yesterday it was still at 44 degrees on the lake north of town. Crappies are there and have been hitting to a certain extent, but good bites are still few and far between. Or have been. This weeks weather should liven things up some. Next week it will be boat time.

Hope things are getting better for you...heck of a time to not be fishing. Good to hear from you Dutch. Stay in touch!

[no1son]

hiya CT, This past winter I wasn't up for much more than to and from work, never did get out on the ice, neither of the past two winters in fact.

It is a good thing that I finally managed to quit smoking about a year ago now or that "little incident" I am now recovering from about three weeks ago might well have been permanent. They got me on a pile of medications all on a schedule, which is really new for me, not having even had a prescription now for something like 30 years.

I had a blast on the one carp from the other day. Actually foul hooked em in the top of the tail, and at about 10 pounds that was about all my ultralight 4# set up wanted to handle. I was definitely up for that contest! Beached em finally, too, and then released em. He sat there the longest time getting his wind back before he swam off.

What we are now fishing are the warmer, shallower waters. The open lakes are just not warmed up yet, no more ours than yours, and of course the game fish season is still closed anyway. I have seen some small boats out working the shallow bays, obviously for crappies, and some friends report some real nice slabs from a couple of special spots, plus bonus carp and sheephead. We have several of those spots around with different orientations; so we can usually find some shoreline or wall at least to fish out of the wind.

I think I will go out and toss some plastic for a while.

Catch you later...

[CTom]

Ya, Dutch, those smokes kill.

I went out to the pond for a while this morning and found a crazy good bite that had fish every cast it seemed until the sun got up on the water more than 20 degrees. I brought home 9 for dinner tonight and a fish sandwich for lunch tomorrow. 11/12" to 13 1/2", all blacks are what I kept. The total caught this morning was 33 and the smallest came in right at 9 1/2". The water is finally at or above 50 degrees and that is what turned the corner on the fishing. Very aggressive hits today. Fun time, just too short.

[no1son]

Not much doing for me last evening, but this afternoon I will be heading down to the river. Got a spot with very light current and a warm water inlet. Haven't decided yet whether to jig for crappies with the possibility of bonus fish or lay out oatmeal for carp.

The last couple of summers, my fishing buddy up here and I have had a blast with the river carp, generally running from 5 to about 15 pounds. 4 or 5 of them in an evening on light tackle and your arms know you have done something. From here it looks like an almost unlimited resource, and now that we can release them, a sport with little to no mess. There is the possibility of 14" crappies and 10" bluegills there too so I haven't decided yet which quarry to target.

Interesting about the crappie species. You mention all blacks, that is about all we see up here in the Cities, except for one lake in the park system that has both blacks and whites. Mostly blacks there, too, but an occasional true white gets mixed in when the larger sizes are around, and that is mostly in just one part of the lake.

[CTom]

I can see both in the lake I fished this morning. The big river in this area has a fair amount of a white population too. The white are generally about as thick as paper so if I am wanting eating crappies I want black crappies. As a rule I have to fish different to get into the white in both the lake and the river.

[no1son]

When we pick up a white up here it generally is a minority in a black bite which may be a bit odd, finding them together like that. Normally our waters, including the big river about all we get are blacks, some of them can be huge (I have seen 15" crappies from our city waters, but not commonly).

Recently we have been seeing thicker blacks, too. Used to be so many of them were paper thin. Now it seems like even the smaller ones are thicker across the body. There is also a difference in avrage size of about an inch or two between the smaller average size in lakes with no consumption advisories and those with them. The lakes with the advisories are also the ones that occasionally produce the true slabs, but normally those only come in ones and twos not really ever in larger schools.

Gotta run, see you later

[CTom]

A friend and I splashed the boat in the water yesterday when we went back to the lake. We found pretty much the same scenario as the last two trips I made until about 10AM when the first indications of strong wind showed up. At ten bells with the wind the bite shut right off. We got off the water at about 11:30, not having a hit after 10.

The water temp at fishing depth was right on at 52 degrees. At the surface and not where the fish were getting caught it was about 56 degrees. Tuesday's afternoon surface temp was about 60 degrees but the lake loses a lot of heat at night fast when the air temp gets down in the 30's.

It'll be next week now before I can sneak out again.

[no1son]

A friend and I found crappies and sunnies shallow taking the sun last evening. There is a shallow bay off a couple of lakes up here where crappies come out when it warms up in the spring. The depth is little over 4 or 5 feet anywhere. They were there yesterday afternoon and so were the bluegills on little plastics. They seemed to be coming through in waves. Lots of folks were limiting out. Only a very few were much over 8 inches though. Our biggest crappie was probably about 11". We put all of ours back. We may have landed close to 200 fish in the three or four hours the two of us were out, but we lost count real early.

We found out to tighten the line up before the cast landed on the water, since so many takes were right at the surface when the lure splashed down, both crappies and bluegills. It was almost as if we were tossing the lure right into open mouths! They must have been watching for insects falling out of the sky and the surrounding trees, that is all we could figure. There were a couple of green sunfish mixed in and a couple of smallish largemouths as additional bonuses.

White and pearl tails of several styles on black 1/32oz jig heads using 4# line to get casting distance took most of the fish. Inch and a half paddle tail shads in black and white did well too. My buddy had one in what was probably electric chicken (? purple top and bright rose red belly) that took quite a few fish too. Both straight cast/retrieve and below little bobbers as shallow as about 1 foot fished slowly with lots of pauses took the fish. They weren't real fussy about the tail type but seemed to prefer white or pearl color. although not exclusively.

Lots of folks were fishing plastics under bobbers and taking fish all over along the shorelines of this bay. There are a couple of warm bays like this around the Twin Cities. The numbers of crappies harvested off them this time of the year is almost beyond belief. More and more people are fishing plastics instead of live minnows around here. The two of us haven't bought a crappie minnow in years now.

The Park Board is starting to put the fishing and sailing docks in now on the Park Lakes in preparation for game fish opener here in couple of weeks.

BTW forsythia and magnolias are in full bloom all over the south side now. Yes, we do have magnolias in Minneapolis, and they have become dependable bloomers except only after the most severe of winters. And forsythia has also become dependable even above the snow line in the past couple of decades. They are putting on quite a show this spring.