north metro crappies

[HandGunner]

Im in the north metro... not alot of places for shore fishing, i dont own a boat. I have fished coon lake alot and ham lake a bit never really caught or seen crappies, only sunnys. a few years ago coon lake was full of them but now i think there gone. were else in the north metro with good shore fishing can i get some good eating crappies?

[reinhard1]

crooked lake has a public fishing dock or wade out from the shallow beach area early in the year. crappies are on the small side for the most part but you can get enough for a meal sorting them out. south lindstrom, also from the beach area and play ground. i cought a surprising amount of sunnies that were decent size last year from shore with my grand kids. crappies you have to sort out. i did get a couple that went 10 in. . good luck.

[HandGunner]

i guess i will have to go out further for crappies. o well! be fun for a little road trip. main place i use to go was rush lake, had tons of nice size crappies place would be flooded with ppl but you still catch em! havnt been there for a while now probobly 3-5 years how are things diferent there now?

[gurkster]

Rush is getting like any other lake in the area up here. Sorting through lots of smaller fish.

[Swimmer]

Rush is getting like any other lake in the area up here. Sorting through lots of smaller fish.

There are really no lakes left in the metro area where you can consistently catch 11"+ crappies (OK, I know of one, but that's my business). If the word gets out, that lake is done in one season.

[HandGunner]

wow did things really change that much? the size crappies i use to catch all the time ppl consider them big now but i use to fish crappies for fun and threw them back in. Wow if its that hard to catch them now things have changed so much, wow i must of taken too long of a break off of pan fishing. If its really this bad shouldnt something be done?

[dewey1]

TRY THE LAGOON AT LAKE GEORGE. CRAPPIES MOVE IN IN THE SPRING. LOTSA FUN! YOU MIGHT HAVE TO BUY AN ANOKA CNTY PARK PASS THOUGH.

[popriveter]

I haven't seen an 11 inch crappie in a metro lake in several years. I have made plenty meals out of 8 and 9 inchers.

[e1teen93]

have any of you been out on crooked lake or lake george this open water season? Any luck?

[shaneD]

I was out on Crooked Lake on Tuesday night. mainly to run the boat a little but tossed a jig a bit and got a couple bluegills.

[e1teen93]

I'm guessing they were about 4 inches long? It seems like that's all that is in crooked lake... at least that's all i can ever find.

[KidMoe]

I know white bear and bald eagle have good crappie populations that can be accessed from shore pretty easily. Different areas on the Rum and Mississippi can hold a few too but you'll have to hunt around for them and they won't be in the same place long.

[e1teen93]

Ya i live in the Coon Rapids area, so I'll probably just head down to the CR dam and test my luck there. Thanks for the info though! maybe I'll try bald eagle sometime

[hiwayman33]

Hello fellas, any updates on north metro pannies? Want to take 3 1\2 yr old daughter. Took her over week ago to try out her pink zebco 202 with no luck. Live in andover and looking to keep the boat at home to go after work from shore.

[reinhard1]

i just came back from linwood lake, fishing off shore at the martin lake access and linwood. i cought some sunnies [small but fun] and three crappies in about 1 and a half hour of fishing time. i was just out looking around and used my 8 foot rod with 4lb test with a flu flu [white] and a pink gulp panfish grub. casted out on the right side of the landing having a foot and a half beween my bobber and the flu flu. nothing at martin [didn't realy give it a fair chance]. good luck.

[HandGunner]

hooked up with some crappies yesterday on our last nice day b4 muggy weather, had an issue tho i could not tell if i had a strike and also how deep i should set the bobber, theres was a 15min window were they hit constantly i just basickly set the hook at every little movement the bobber made or i got lucky and guessed the right time to set the hook. lost 2 bobbers they are the slim long bobbers not the ball shape bobbers, every time the bobber went down i set and no cigar, setting is one of my main issues havnt fished a bobber for pannies for so long, need some advice on how deep i should fish for them crappies also when to set the hook and how to do it, it seems like the fish are not strong enough to submerge the bobber because i mainly see a twitch in the bobber or it goes down for a split second and does not stay down and wen it does go down and stays down i set and nothing, plus anyone have homemade ways to keep a slip bobber on the line? my bobber stops keep slipping on cast and it messes everything up.

i was using a creme silverside jig and had no hits caught a few on a hair jig that i guess looks like a mosquito and caught most of them on these softplastic jigs we use to use all the time back then, i tossed out a small inline spinner and felt constant hits but i think they were not fast enough to take it, any tips on how to get bigger ones to bite? i caught a few kepper size and one 10 incher

[reinhard1]

i try to use a bobber [slip bobber] when i'm after panfish big enough to carry my bait to the target area and i put on split shot directly under my bobber with the string and bead on top of the bobber. this way my tube or flu flu is swimming freely and more naturaly. if i'm fishing in three feet of water for example i set my bobber a foot and a half from the bottom. if it's five feet i set it two and a half feet from the bottom [depending on the weeds growth at the time]. i dont like the slim [skinny] bobbers. they screw up the line too much. maby ok fishing with minnows and a bobber but not casting and retrieving. good luck.

[abcnerdd]

Hi,

anyone knows any lake with consistent 8-10" crappies in the metro? 8-11" crappies can only be caught in southern minnesota lakes. I was at Spoon Lake yesterday with my 2 little brothers catching and releasing a lof of tiny tiny sunnies and crappies, ranging from 2-6".

[HandGunner]

i try to use a bobber [slip bobber] when i'm after panfish big enough to carry my bait to the target area and i put on split shot directly under my bobber with the string and bead on top of the bobber. this way my tube or flu flu is swimming freely and more naturaly. if i'm fishing in three feet of water for example i set my bobber a foot and a half from the bottom. if it's five feet i set it two and a half feet from the bottom [depending on the weeds growth at the time]. i dont like the slim [skinny] bobbers. they screw up the line too much. maby ok fishing with minnows and a bobber but not casting and retrieving. good luck.

the slim bobbers submerge better than the ball shape ones i think because when i switched over to the ball shaped bobber it seems to not work as well it became harder to tell if i had a strike or not i lost my 2 bobbers due to getting stuck on a dock hahaha and also when i went for a cast the line snapped on a branch and my bobber went flying, luckily i found that ball shaped bobber even though it did not perform as well.

i like the torpedo shaped bobbers or the kinda teardrop lookin ones never tried the big and tall fancy bobbers b4