Well this was a great weekend to get out and on the water, beautiful weather and inland metro lakes ice free! It was a mix of one bad day and one good day on the water. Saturday I went to some smaller metro area lakes to see what the pan fish were doing. Between two very small tea colored lakes I wasn’t able to put a pattern together at all. Water temps were around that 40 degree range but no big schools of crappies that I could locate shallow or deep. However, was great to be outside and even did some tailgate grilling in between.
Now let’s move to Sunday, went to a larger west metro lake in search of the same crappies and sunnies. Well Sunday lets just say it worked!! Before we could even get both lines in the water we were hooked up! And from there it was just massive flurries of crappies all day from 9am-4pm. Only reason we ended up calling it quits is because we ran out of minnows which is a good problem to have! This is what seemed to work for me, using a slip bobber and a light jig head. I sized the jig ups for the lightest I could go but still remain somewhat vertical with the wind. Finding the schools were very easy they were staked up in 13’-11. Once they were located it was simple cast out and they bit!
Crappie minnows worked best however I didn’t even get to trying plastics being the minnows were working so well. Now There were several other people catching them with different techniques I feel using the slip bobbers I could pin-point the bait on secluded weed beds separate from the main weed line which seemed to be holding the crappies all day. We ended the day with 162 on the counter and probably lost at least 50 more thought the day. Size did vary a lot from most being in that 10”-13” range however no mega giants. All fish were caught and released after an end of the day photo shoot. Overall it was nice to just be out there with some great weather.
There were a lot of people on Sunday however I give everyone props for being very respectful from on the water to the launch. I can’t stress enough in these “different” times we’re experiencing to get out there regardless if it’s from shore or a boat just to free the mind from it all. Hope everyone is doing well and I can’t thank you all enough for your support and reading my reports, I can’t wait for all this to pass and be able to get out guiding everyone again!
