What's workin' now?

[CrappieJohn]

Rick and I did the backwaters yesterday with so-so luck. Got a couple real nice sunfish and only one crappie would have measured up decently. All on plastics. Lots of baitfish in the water right now. I mean, huge shoals of them. We could watch as the feeding activity was taking place. The water temp had come up again and that too helped to hinder a better bite.

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

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[Oldtyme]

I noticed the same thing last time I was out. Schools & schools of baitfish swarming around the shallow areas. I even seen some fish breaking water going after them. I threw & threw into the schools hoping to get something, but not even a bite
I'm going out tommorow morning. As usual, I'll be trolling to my spots while it's still dark.
I'm bringin a smorgasboard tommorow. Two different style jigs (w/ live minnows & waxies) under bobbers. I will also be using ol' faithful spinner.
I bought some nice rod holders, so hopefully it will be easier to manage the rods. Keep the bobbers off to the side & at the same time using the spinner.
Anyone wanna drive to Indiana & join me? Better leave now. I wish I had friends that fished I could see 4 bobbers & two jerks throwing spinners. Whattta mess.
Good fishing to all.
Enjoy your forum.
OT

[Lost]

Hit Crooked Lake (Coon Rapids) this morning and was getting sunnies and bluegills up the wazooey, right off the end of the fishing pier. I had to take off for few hours but returned later and there was a crowd of people out there catching them. They were some half-decent sized also. I saw probably a good 50 keepers caught in 2 hrs. The sizes are definitely larger than they were beginning of open-water.

What was working? I was using small plastics. No twister tails. They wanted the straight and narrow, like they're on their way to heaven. Everybody else was using worms: waxies, crawlers, it didn't matter, as long as it was a worm.

[The Grebe]

Tried to fish in this wind this morning, cheez! This must be some kind of atmospheric aftermath from the Hurricanes?

We had little luck, 4 nice Crappies and 1 waldo about 15 inches, that was that. Not much to report, wind blowing so hard it was only luck, nothing else.

[CrappieJohn]

I hear ya on the wind issue. Down here in Roch we have some serious blow going. Beautiful day though with the sun and NO humidity (or so it feels). We got a pretty good dumping of rain last night, but we needed it badly. I'm begging for cooler air to show and stay a while now....help to get the temps out of the water.

On an unrelated note....I took a drive in the country this morning to look at deer and turkeys...saw neither. But I did see a fair-sized flock of Sandhill Cranes come into a picked wheat field. They are sort of odd balls for this area, even though they are starting to show up along the sand prairies along the Mississippi River basin. I'm not sure if they are beginning to migrate or just traveling for some vittles. In flight they sure do look pre-historic. Big birds they are.

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

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[Lost]

Tom, would have loved to see some picks of those birds!

I would definitely need to agree that this wind is an aftermath of the latest hurricane. The hurricane traveling west slowed the cold front traveling east. Now that the hurricane isn't around any more, the cold front rushed in.

Here in Fridley we received 2.5 inches of rain. At least in my yard we did. Glad it came! Much needed. I hope it helped fill up the lakes and rivers. Water level has been extremely low. Might hafta check out Coon Rapids Dam tomorrow to see how much higher the river is below the dam.

[Oldtyme]

Me & my friend went out fishing today.
We caught a about 25-30 5-8 inch crappie in shallow water around downed trees.
All on little beetle type spinners with tube bodies. Tipped with a crappie nibble.
We went much later in the day that I'm used to (11 am), he doesn't fish much so I fished where I knew I'd find some. We didn't keep any. We were just having fun catching them.

Fun thing about today. We were both done, ready to leave...I said, "yeah let's get outta here, that looks like a rain cloud", as soon as we get the boat on the trailer & got everything secured & ready, it started POURING rain. I bet that boat ramp was a mess with people trying to leave.

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Have a crappie day!!

[Corey Bechtold]

Sounds like everyone had some good fishing this weekend. Hope everyone stayed dry. I had a good time this weekend also. Walleyes, Perch, and some nice Bluegills were active between the t-storms and rain. Then the wind on Monday kept me from chasing the Crappies. Some stable weather should get the fish going strong again for us. Lets hope. One things for sure, all this rain should help the lakes and rivers that were getting low rise a bit, and maybe save a prop or two as well. Lets see if the fall bite gets going this week. Keep all of us posted!

Good luck,

Corey Bechtold

[The Yeti]

Was only able to fish off the dock this weekend. Wind was blowing crazy hard. Only managed a few northerns and some small sunnies. St Olaf lake near New Richland. I was able to squeeze in a trip to Cabelas between keeping the nephews occupied. Would have been a better weekend, without the wind.

[The Grebe]

But you and I will certainly have something positive to tell our mates come Friday, won't we now?

[The Grebe]

Here is the positive news...The wind was positively blowing yesterday!

We went up to Lake Aitkin yesterday, 1st time for me.

We fished a Little on Big Sandy but the wind really came up and made things difficult.

We buzzed through the channel to lake Aitkin and the wind was even whipping on that little lake!

We found fish with the locator, but positioning was hard, as was presentation, it was easy to cast a little light weight jig about 4 feet from the boat, throwing for all you were worth, into or crosswise to the wind, downwind a little 1/32 ounce jig would travel about 300 yards! We forever had a huge bow in the line.

The wind was swirling and comming at us from all different directions...the waves would be blowing one way and the boat would be going in circles on an attemped drift!

We found some sunnies in the rice, adjacent to deep water, about 3 feet down, over the top of the submerged weeds. They would'nt touch articicals, but a small leech, or half a crawler did the trick. Even got a few on little minnows.

We had a beautiful day to start, could'nt ask for a more picturesque day, good trip up, the Yeti had me laughing so hard I had to pull off the road. We got some fish and some dang nice ones to...Yeti outfished me 2 to one and he had a mounter right up to the boat and lost it. All in all it was agreat trip, except for that danged wind!

[Corey Bechtold]

Well, today I had a chance to spend the day on the lake with my 3 kids and my parents. For starters the weather was great and the fishing was pretty good too. My dad has been keeping track of the Sunfish despite an over addiction to golf! He put all of us on the fish rite away. The size of the sunfish was pretty good with some fish up in the 8-9 inch class. The fish weren't slamming the bait rather just sucking the bait in. They were tight to the bottom and were taking mostly wax worms or angle worms on flu-flu's. Here are a few pics from the day, enjoy.

The Captain/Guide

Me and Brooke's Sunfish

Mom and Brooke, Dueling Sunfish

Bailey's Big Gill

And yes the big ones are still swimming!

Have fun as always,

Corey Bechtold

[Matt Johnson]

Good report and pics Corey! Looks like you all had a great time! Thats what its all about Congrats on an awesome day!

Good Fishin,
Matt Johnson

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[The Grebe]

Awsome! You sure have your priorities straight, good post!

[CrappieJohn]

Way to go dude....And hey, your parents must have done something right with you as well! Good looking troupe there!

------------------
Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom

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[CALVINIST]

Me and my 4 year-old boy Lucas went out on our favorite lake for a 3-4 hours saturday evening and caught some nice gills, including a couple in the 9" range. I have been catching 'em on flu-flu's tipped with a bit of crawler under a float. Lucas has a really great time out there fishing!

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<><<><
Calvinist
><>><>

[delmuts]

we fished the faribault area fri- sun. most of teh sunnies ans crappies we caught were shallow too. 4-7 ft. we could mark lots of fishi deeper, but they wouldn't hit. one guy was getting some nice crappies over deeper water on minnows. we were using flu - flu jigs tipped with a wax worm.

[CrappieJohn]

With the rain today I have had a chance to do up some jigs. This time of year is one of my favorites for the flu-flu....1/32 ounce, orange head, fluorescent yellow feather- just a few strands. Black heads and pink feather is another good color. I use these in the Mississippi River backwaters. They can be fished solo or tipped with a small piece of anything. Goldenrod maggots are great for tipping and are free by just piking the stems with worm capsules visible and cutting it open to get the grub. They often grow right next to where you are fishing. These grubs are small, only the size of a BB, but are a superb bait.

Another excellent jig is one dressed with a Flick Tail plastic. The size three is a good panfish crappie bait. These work great under the ice too. They can be gotten in several colors, but the black head/pinkish body is the best combo I have used. Again, sometimes they are super as is, and then you may have to tip them for action. Bio Bait panfish nibbles are good for this chore and are small enough to not interfere with this plastic's subtle action.

This rain could really help get things going now. I'd rather see the "too much" senario played out rather than not enough. And this new water should help to drag down the temps too.

------------------
Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom

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[The Grebe]

My nephew and I fished our favorite Crappie hole again this evening, also thinking that the rain might do something to turn them on, we did'nt do so good.

We only got a little damp and we only got 4 Crappies and missed a few. We tried everything we knew how to try and even tried to invent something, but the Crappies were tight lipped if they were there in numbers.

Last week my other nephew got some nice ones, 4 of which went 1# 4 oz. like clones!

[Corey Bechtold]

Nice reports guys. What was the water temps you have found on the lakes and rivers? I am hoping to get back out and try some fishing but it may be a few days till the fish recoupe from the T-storms we had last night.

Corey Bechtold

[Lost]

With the sudden change in weather (all the rain, the temp drops, wind, etc) where should we be looking for the fish?

[Matt Johnson]

You shouldn't see a big chnage in fishing patterns, some slight changes yes, but nothing major. Fish might get more tight-lipped or move off the structure slightly. If you know where the fish were before the storm they shouldn't be too far away.

Good Fishin,
Matt Johnson

------------------
Matt Johnson Outdoors
[email protected]
Metro Area Ice Fishing and more...

Iceleaders
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MarCum
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JR's Tackle
Fish Fever

[CrappieJohn]

The biggest change was made in the barometer. There is still too much heat in the water to have a drop in the water's temp an issue. Basically we had a major front pretty much stall out right over us and we got very wet.

I'd be looking at sizing down what I fish with and look to slightly deeper water near where the fish had been being found and if the is some structural element there....wood/weeds/ sharp drop-off...I'd be keying on fishing quite tight to it. If you don't mind bait, go for the real stuff if the fish won't take artificials.

------------------
Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom

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[Lost]

Thanks guys. I haven't been out much so no clue where the fish have been hanging out. And since I'll be fishin' from shore, it's gonna make the hunting that much more fun.

Any clues where to look in the Elk River area?

[Lost]

Thanks Corey. Definitely gonna look at a map and figure things out.