Ice-Out Crappie on Northern Lakes by Matt Carufel

Some of the year’s best crappie fishing cranks up soon after the ice goes away.

Excellent crappie fishing opportunities are already in place by the time the ice disappears from many northern lakes, according to Minnesota guide Bob Bohland. “Before ice out, the crappies begin moving to shallow green weeds for a couple of reasons,” he explained.
First, they are staging to spawn. Also related to the spawn, the crappie feed heartily during early spring, hoarding calories prior going through spawning rigors. Green weed flats in the shallow water and in middle depths come alive with nymph-stage aquatic insects early in the spring, and the nymphs attract minnows and young-of-the-year bluegills and perch, which provide a feast for the crappie.
Bohland guides primarily on waters around the Twin Cities and in the St. Cloud area; however, he’ll travel far and wide when he hears about a hot crappie bite. Early spring produces excellent action and some seriously big fish, so he spends as many days as possible out on the water. His absolute favorite days are sunny and calm. The sun adds a little bit of warmth to the weed flats and makes the fish more active.
FIND ‘EM FIRST
Focusing mostly on green, weedy flats in 4 to 15 feet of water, Bohland begins with a search strategy. His starting depth is largely dependent on water clarity, as the fish generally hold shallower in more stained water. He typically ties a 1/8 or 1/16-ounce Lindy Jig onto 6-pound test, adds a plastic minnow body or live fathead minnow, makes long casts across the flats and keeps moving until he finds fish.
“They’re fairly nomadic during the spring,” Bohland said about the spring crappie, “so you often have to do some searching to find them.”
The crappie’s preferences also vary from day to day, so Bohland continually switches up his presentations until he figures out how the fish want baits presented. Sometimes the crappie want it swam fairly quickly. Other day he has to hop a jig along at a snail’s pace, barely keeping it over the weeds, to trigger a strike.
If fish are following but not taking or are hitting but not quite getting, he’ll experiment with the size or color of his offering. He has found that crappie can be extremely picky, and that the best color can vary from day to day or even from hour to hour.
Generally speaking, Bohland likes to use bright color schemes that feature chartreuse, pink or orange in stained water. For clear water, he sticks with darker colors, such as red or green, especially if the skies are bright.
WHERE THERE’S ONE…
When Bohland does catch a crappie, he’ll take note of where the fish hit and how deep his jig was. He’ll also duplicate the cast that produced and will then work the area thoroughly. Where there is one crappie, there usually are more, so catching the first fish often is a big step toward getting into fine spring crappie action.
To fish a spot thoroughly, Bohland usually will add a Thill Crappie Cork to his line. The float suspends the bait above the weeds and allows him to fish a specific spot very thoroughly. Again, he varies his retrieve, but the basic presentation involves some combination of twitches and pauses. A ‘typical’ presentation would involve 20- to 30-second pauses between series of two or three short pops.
Popping the float on the top gets fish’s attention and makes a sound that’s similar to another fish feeding. That triggers competitiveness, so they come to investigate and then find Bohland’s bait.
Bohland likes to set the depth so his jig suspends about halfway down in the water column. “Crappie prefer to feed up,” he noted. “They get under a baitfish and ambush it.”
An alternative approach that is extremely effective some days is to string a Thill Center Slider Float on the line with a split shot at each end and to work the same Lindy Jig with a very slow and steady retrieve while continually jiggling the rod tip.
“That jig just quivers, and that really gets the big girls going some days,” Bohland said.
When the bite wanes after Bohland has fished a school for a while and has caught several fish, he’ll generally switch colors or his head size or otherwise alter his approach a bit before he goes looking for more fish. Often, they haven’t gone anywhere, and a slight adjustment will start the action all over again.
THINK BIG
While some anglers downsize during the early part of the spring, Bohland employs the opposite approach, having found that he catches larger fish and more fish with a 1/8- or 1/16-ounce jig than with a smaller head. When he’s adding a live minnow to his jig, he opts for the biggest fathead he can find.
“The fish are trying to get as many calories as possible out of every meal, so they will take a big bait,” Bohland noted. “Using big baits also helps you catch the biggest fish.”
The 6-pound-test line that Bohland uses just after ice-out is also heavier than many anglers favor. He chooses heavier line both because he’s fishing with fairly big jigs and because he encounters a lot of “bonus” bass and pike while he’s crappie fishing this time of year.
SPRING NIGHTS?
Bohland had learned that big female crappie sometimes can be shy about biting during the day, especially in clear-water lakes. However, those same fish will feed readily after the sun goes down, and some of the best early-spring action occurs in the middle of the night.
Bohland’s nighttime approach is similar to what he does during the day. The primary difference is that uses a Lindy Splash Brite as a float. He’ll pop and pause the rig over weed flats, so his jigs hangs right over the fish, and the lit-up float makes it obvious any time he gets a bite.
Another difference between day and night is that he crappie will stray shallower after dark. “They’ll be shallower than you’d imagine,” Bohland said. Sometime I’ll catch them in 2 or 3 feet of water.”
WHAT ARE THEY BITING NOW
Bob Bohland is a regular contributor to Lindy’s Live Audio Reports. So if you want to know where he’s been fishing and exactly what the crappie have been biting, stop by and let him give you the most recent report. The reports also link to Bohland’s website.