Spring Crappie Patterns

[th64]

Shallow, deep, in-between? What time of day is best? Right after ice out I like to fish the warmest part of the day, problem with that in the metro is you might find a couple of boats parked on your spot. In the summer If I go before dawn I get the lake to myself and the 1st light bite is great-is that time of day good this time of year? Had 2 great portage only lakes, one froze out and another is no longer legally accessible so I am also looking for a good portage lake-Any ideas?

[th64]

Anyone?

[monstermoose78]

Shallow around my area. I caught some in less than a foot of water last Friday.

[monstermoose78]

Just to clarify they are not spawning yet. They are feeding heavily on bugs and minnows in the shallows. My jig was about 5-7 inches below my float. They may have not been big but they were hungry.

[th64]

They spawn at about 64 degrees we are about 20 from that. Look for warm water in the afternoon I guess-just wondering if any other patterns are going on. With most fish most times of the year you have at least a couple of good patters happening at the same time.

[Slabasaurus]

This time of year I always look for north shore/NE shores and fish in the evening/afternoon. I'm a fly guy, my setup is a dry fly/small popper on the top for a strike indicator, and I'll have a small nymph about a foot or 3 under it, depending on depth.

I've only managed to do some trout fishin so far this year, haven't had an opp to go scout some of my early panfish spots so I have no idea how they're behavin now

[Deet]

Fished a small lake last night in northern MN from 4:30 to dark. The ice just came off on or around last Friday. It was carry-in only, so we didn't have the luxury of good electronics, precise trolling motor, etc. With just the vexilar in the row boat, we located only a couple (literally, like two) fish in the deep hole (35 to 40 ft) about 25' down, but it proved impossible to get them to bite. Scanned the dark, shallow northern shoreline areas, a beaver lodge, old weed beds, sand bottom areas, couldn't find anything except a couple small bass. We decided to camp on "the spot" that is usually good for crappies at late ice, which is off a shoreline point where the bottom transitions from a steep drop to a shallow flat.

Primetime came, and nothing was happening. Then we noticed a couple spots over in and outside of a shallow, flat-ish bay where the surface was sort of rippling from either tiny minnows or bugs. We commented how it was a good sign that bait was in the area, but that it's always disappointing when you try to chase down the bait and cast in/around them with no success. When one bait pod showed up somewhat close to us, we noticed there were some larger swirls mixed in. So I snuck over with the trolling motor and started casting into it. Bass. Bass. CRAPPIE! Soon after, the bait pods were showing up everywhere on the surface. For about a half hour (sunset to dark) we pounded crappies all along the entrance to that small bay. The boat was in as little as 6' at times, as deep as 15', but mostly right around 10'. Nothing in particular for bottom substrate or structure like wood or weeds. But that region was just loaded up with crappies.

For the first 3.5 hours of the evening, it was like fishing the dead sea. Then for a half hour, you'd swear you could walk across the lake stepping on crappie heads. Where were they before sunset?

Fan-casting bright, 1/64 oz. jig with white/glow twister was our successful presentation, but we didn't experiment much.

What's interesting is during late ice, you can't catch the crappies through the whole region that we got them last night. Just one particular spot. And we fish it in the summer occasionally too, but only at sunrise, and you don't catch those crappies. We've also tried to find them during the supposed spawning time with no success.

So there's the story from a couple blind squirrels that stumbled into a pile of nuts.

[mgwoutdoors]

As said above, the NE corners, bays, etc. are holding the warmest water temps right now, especially if they're mud. We found fish last night on a large area lake in 3-5 FOW in a similar area.

[th64]

Great post Deet thank you.

[th64]

Great post Deet thank you.

[Deet]

Anyone have any thoughts on where the fish (in my story) were before sunset? We thoroughly scanned/fished that bay and each adjacent shoreline. Were they just extremely negative (wouldn't bite anything) and avoided the boat so we couldn't even see/graph them?

[th64]

tough to graph them when they hug bottom-and yep negative mood. They sometimes appear like ghosts.

[Lunker]

Did very well on crappies a few days ago. Shallow, woody/rocky shoreline with access to deeper water. Lots of males had moved up, some females.