Prespawn gills and craps

[decoy]

I fish a lake that has a small flooded timber lot adjacent to the main lake. This timber lot is absolutely thick with big crappies and sunfish in late april-early may once the water warms up and the bite everything you through at them. I'm talking about 12-14" average crappies and 9-12 inch sunnies. 10 inch sunnies are average. ( It's awesome!) I want to understand better how to fish this area during the late ice season. I have not had a chance to ice fish this lake at all as it is a new discovery for me.

One of the problems with this timber area is that it is about 3-6 feet deep and the access to it (from the fish point of view,) is a small shallow channel with a max depth of 12 inches. (it's basically a small ridge or hump of mud/sand.

My question is this: do you think the fish will stage weeks prior to warm up right outside of this area and wait for the ice to thaw? Or will they simply just move from the main lake once the ice goes into this woodlot.

Another point to mention is that the bay going into this wood lot is surrounded by reeds and is about 9 feet deep.

Any ensight here may encourage me to explore this area as opposed to areas I already fish with good results.

Thanks,
decoy

[Bobb-o]

bring me out i will show you how to fish them ;-)

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a Leap year huh? sweet, an extra day of fishing!

[CrappieJohn]

Decoy...I'd not get too eager to find the fish inside the confines as you described unless they were in there last fall. Generally speaking you would want to target deeper areas outside of this funnel area thru the ice and early open water. If there are weed (reeds) available you can expect some of these fish to begin using them as soon as they emerge...the weeds will attract minnows as well as crappies. And look for sunnies at the deeper edges of the as well. When you can find fairly consistant 50 degree water start looking inside this area at mid-day until early evening.

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Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom
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[decoy]

Thanks,

I went last night and found sunnies stacked up in 8-10 ft of water. The weren't biting too ferociously though. I managed a 10" sunnie and a 7".

I'll try again this weekend. Thanks for the tips.