Thread: Spring is riss...

Magnolias and forsythia are blooming in Minneapolis, it is only March 22nd. Way early!

But the crappie bite is on. Below is one of some dozens of crappies two of us took this evening in about 2 and a half hours. None of the rest was this size though, mostly 8/9 inches. All were put back to bite another day.

13 and 1/4" The long



And the short of it

This little cutie actually bit on the inch and a half tube you see in its mouth. One for the Dink Chronicles. This was the long and the short of it for me anyway. My partner has a much more impressive tale, but that is for another thread.

The crappies were in the back of a shallow cove. Air temp was in the mid 60's and there was a light drizzle. Pods kept coming and going. The bite was on the tubes, on black Twisters, on rattail baby shad baits, on tiny rapalas and my big crappie came on the tiny Salmo you see in the mouth of the crappie above. The bite would die down every once in a while as a muskie would cruise through. Shoreline fishermen using minnows were doing a whole lot worse. Mostly they sat. Both of us were rigged with 5' UL rods and 4# clear GAMMA copolymer line.

Thanks, CT. There are some few, very nice fish deep in the Metro, definitely.

That wasn't the big story of that evening though. Since my partner is a bit camera shy at least about posting I am going to go ahead and brag for him. He picked up some Lake Fork Live Baby Shad plastics from Bass Pro last week. With the two vertical compressions in the tail and the tiny ball at the end of it, they are very active baits. They proved to be hot on crappies even though at 2 1/4" they are a bit longer than we normally use. We rigged them on 1/32 uncollared ball head jigs. The bonus of the evening was that one of those produced a 20 1/4 inch very fat old hen largemouth for my fishing partner. This is the second year in a row that he has taken a 20"+ largemouth form inner city waters during early spring crappie fishing with his ultralight on the little plastics.

Curiously we also saw the same muskie he tangled with in the picture I posted in Fish Stories that evening. Muskies cruise through when we are crappie fishing quite a lot, and we get to be able recognize some of the individual fish. This one has some distinctive scarring on the head; so that was easy.

It is absolutely amazing to us that we tangle with so many different bonus fish on the small crappie plastics we use. So far this spring that includes both large and smallmouth bass, carp, muskies, sheephead and channel catfish already besides our targeted crappies and the occasional sunnie. You never know just what will snack on the little plastics next.

We have been having on and off good crappie fishing all along this winter and spring, although not in the same spots. We move all over. Sometimes we hit it and sometimes just the wrong place at the wrong time. Usually if the crappies are on the bonus fish aren't, and vice versa so we seldom post a real skunk. We don't very often kick that cat. I really don't expect the bite to slack off all that much, unless winter returns in earnest, and I sorta doubt it will this year. Since the ice is really gone for good, I expect the crappies and sunnies, too, will respond to any sun to move up into the shallows one place or another. There would be a real long slaughter season this year, if most crappie fishermen were all that competent. As it is there will be more than enough for my tastes anyway. We are already seeing the party groups that can legally take off a bucket full of fish, mostly they are just sitting around now though just drowning their minners.

Say hi to Pothen for me, if you see him. I sorta doubt I will go back there either to shop or to post myself. Sorta left a bad taste in my mouth, but that never included everyone.