Early ice crappie techniques

[shnelson]

I may have the opportunity to hit the ice this weekend, and I'd like to target my favorite species.

What do you guys find works best with these first six inches of ice, and on your average lake what type of structure or depth do you begin your ice-trolling at?

I plan to be moving around a bit, so I don't think I'm going to even bother with crappie minnows. Probably just grab a jar of gulp, my lightest jigs and see what shows up on the vexilar.

I know some of you are going to say start where you left off in the fall, unfortunately I wasn't able to fish much since july so I'm not sure where that would be .

[Coach1310]

If you hit a lake that gets fished often, spots should be easy to find just look for the people. If not, find a decent stand of green weeds or a basin area that gets hit during the winter. I'm no expert, but a lot depends on the lake in my experience. A couple of lakes I fish often are across the road from each other and early on one has a great crappie bite in 8 FOW in the weeds and the other has a great basin bite down 20 feet over 30 FOW. The bottom line is it is a lot more fun being on the lake looking for them than it is sitting at a computer typing about them..... Good luck!

[The_Diesel]

Quote:

The bottom line is it is a lot more fun being on the lake looking for them than it is sitting at a computer typing about them

Amen to that!

[Koepper08]

15 to 22 ft flats or 'basins'. Deepest holes in the lake are always a decent starting point as well. Good luck!

[OnAFly]

This very much depends on the type of lake you're hitting, but the above advice is a good starter. Weed edges can hold them as well as points off deep water and deep saddles.

[shnelson]

I have to agree, actually fishing is better than typing about techniques.. but when you're stuck at work the keyboard becomes the next best thing . If you catch me posting while I'm on the lake this weekend, you have every right to shun me for it!

Good tips so far, I plan on bringing the flipover out with me but that limits how far out I'll be willing to fish as it is no fun pulling 200lbs across the lake. On the map below, I plan on coming in from the top and working the left contours up to the reed bed. As you can see theres a nice little hole on the north end, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be better off working that opposed to the rest of the lake after the 5-7' saddle?

[OnAFly]

Hmmmmm, that looks like a lake I've seen before

When it comes to fishing basins, the ones close to open water can attract more fish as they can have better oxygen levels. The smaller holes in shallow bays tend to have less oxygen...but if there's little plant decay, it should be ok.

For sunnies, green weeds will hold the fish. If there are no green weeds, they will move to basin areas. For crappies, well, they could be in the weeds with the sunnies or they could be in the basins. From my experience, they tend to more heavily populate the basins. But, the ones that populate the weeds tend to be fished less (are bigger).

[redneckiceman18]

I'd try to stick right on that 20 foot mark to start; and drill a zig zag circle shape varying between 20 and 15 feet. Get a can of maggots and you'll be good to go! Good Luck.

[Chad Peterson]

On the map shown above, I would punch 20-40 holes in the 10-15FOW where I know there are weedlines. You should locate the school 5ft off the bottom during the day and off the bottom in the evening. Put your line down and ring the dinner bell! Good Luck.

Sniffer

[panfishpounder00]

x2 on that

[half-dutch]

make that 3X

I would look for deeper notches into the deep weed line, especially if it is generally pretty straight and you have reeds. Crappies and reeds go together like peanut butter and jelly. Don't overlook a little shallower early and late in lower light. If you know this lake, whether you fished it much this year or not, I would start about where the target species normally leave off late in the season.

I haven't used a minnow on crappies in three years now. The new plastics work very well both summer and winter; the ones with the tiny pin tails are best on hard water - you just can't make them sit still. I will take some spikes along on early ice though.