Looking for crappie advice

[th64]

Went ice fishing in the Park Rapids area-went to a lake that I have done well on in the summer,

figured the lake would be a weedline lake-fished the weedline and got nothing: looked at the weeds with my camera and they looked terrible, so we out to the basin on this 200 acre lake to fish tullibies. In 55' of water my buddy catches a 13'' crappie-we fished crappies in that area with very limited success-we tried all kinds of lures and baits with mostly lookers and few takers-our best luck was with a plastic head jig a a whole minnow. So what bait would you use and does it help to drill lots of holes when they are not relating to structure(20-30ft down over 55')???

[bbfenatic]

With the long winter and limited melt I am still finding them in the basin or on the first ledge next to the basin. When deep like that I use waxies as they are mostly feeding on bugs coming out of the deep mud, if I look for them shallow in the weeds I use minnows. I don't find fish in the winter where I do in the summer, they totally change their locations IMO. As it melts I find them in-between the basin and their spawning area (if you know where that is), and on real late ice I move shallow off reed beds, try to find new growth weeds and find them there. BTW, I also fish some lakes in the PR area for crappies both winter and summer, love that area.

[monstermoose78]

I will cover the drilling holes. I would have made that lake look like swiss cheese over the basin. I would have also checked near the weed lines towards the main basin. I have fished a lake like that before and some times a move a 10 feet can put you over the actively feeding fish. One lake I fished a lot for crappies up north a hole 3 feet away would only mark a few fish but the hole I was in was lit up like a Christmas Tree. My friend had to keep moving and cutting holes until he got on top of another school and that was 20 feet from me.

For baits my go for crappies in deeper water is a fatboy style jig or some of the tungsten jigs. I like white the best for crappies, but I let the fish tell me what color they want. I tip with wax worms or plastics. Now there are days when down sizing may work, but for big crappies I like to up size to a jigging spoon with minnow heads or wax worms. I like the buckshot rattle spoons in 1/16th to 1/8. I have not used the minnow type jigging baits but these may work well to. I always say I will use them but forget to try them.

[th64]

When you look at a map a basin area looks small-this basin may have been 5acres (?)

An acre is roughly the size of a football field, so to say 10 or 20 ft. could be the difference-thats a lot of cutting I guess the plus is that out there they show up very well on the Vex, good size with a nice Tullie thrown in every now and then.

[monstermoose78]

I know it seems stupid that few feet can make a difference but it can. I have seen it first hand many times fishing even in the basin areas. It helps to have a buddy with another auger to help punch holes out on the water. You say a football field and think how many holes you could have if you punched one ever 10 feet. That is a lot of holes. If you know the fish are in the lake and in the basin you need to put some drilling time in to find the active schools out there and stay on them. If you up size some times this will help bring fish in from a little ways away. You got answers from 2 guys who spend a lot of time chasing gills and crappies.

bbfenatic has proven himself and great panfish angler and for myself I spend fair amount of time chasing panfish as well.

[th64]

Your right MM next time I won't be a lazy you know what-The upsizing thing I know about I get some of my best fish ('gills too) on plugs. Out there I didn't catch one on a plug but it sure brought them in well.

Thanks