Minnetonka panfish report

[Cyberfish]

Fished Minnetonka for the UPL panfish tournament Saturday.

We went out to a point with some good grass on it that was loaded with fish, that we found two weeks before.

It looked like it was recieving little or no fishing pressure, so we were pretty confident we would do well.

When we got there in the morning, some of the top teams were already cutting holes on it, haha.

One spot was still open where I caught a nice slab before, so we cut our holes and got to fishing.

We found loads of crappies just waiting for us, the hot lure in the morning was a two inch plastic tube with a 1/32 oz jig inside. They would come in as you were lowering it down, then I would shake it a bit and they would hit pretty hard.

We had our 8 specks in the bucket in 15 minnutes, then worked on upgrading size.

The bite started to slow and I downsized to a gold 4mm tungsen with a glow nuggie, and put a couple of decent crappies on the ice.

I decided to let Jack continue to chase the slabs, and start working on bluegills and they were stacked in the grass and ready to bite. a 3mm heavy metal tipped with a red J&S ice mite gave me constant action, as long as I moved every 15 minutes or so.

After a couple hours, the plastics bite waned, I switched to larva and started rearing on more gills and a couple of bass. We ended up with 7 # foe 15 panfish, not a bad pail of fish for tonka!

UPL tournament results:

http://ultimatepanfish.com/Pictures_Results.html

A few pictures from the tournament:

[MN BassFisher]

Wow, 1.8 pounds for Big Crappie! Looks like a White Crappie and man is that thing a giant!!! Any guess as to how many inches it was Michael? Congrats on the 2nd place finish! I have a few friends in the UPL this year.

[Cyberfish]

Thanks!

it was 16 inches

[MN BassFisher]

What an awesome fish! 16 inch 1.8 pound Crappie. Some people would mount that. Can't imagine catching that fish in a competition!

[Cyberfish]

I think it went to the taxidermist. I am holding out for an 18 incher

[Greg Clusiau]

Congrats Mike. Nice report and pics. Great crappie in the basket. Wow, what a fish to catch in a tournament.

[MN BassFisher]

Man, I would kill for a 16 incher let alone an 18 incher (I'm assuming you've caught some bigger panfish than I have). At my cabin my uncle caught a 16 incher and had it mounted, it looked good. And large compared to the crappies I was used to seeing, I haven't topped 13 1/2" yet, haha.

[EBass]

Gotta love Tonka. It can be humbling, but it also pays off once in a while.

Nice job and thanks for sharing

[Chad Peterson]

Nice going Mike and Congrats! The force was with you!LOL

Sniffer

[Cyberfish]

Nice going Mike and Congrats! The force was with you!LOL

Sniffer

Yes!!!!!

[scott b]

The bigger crappies like that in Tonka are hybrids. Not many but they are there. Nice fish!