Jump to content
  • GUESTS

    If you want access to members only forums on HSO, you will gain access only when you Sign-in or Sign-Up .

    This box will disappear once you are signed in as a member. ?

5-6 " Dinks, Larger Fish There too?


Swimmer

Recommended Posts

So you are on a local lake and the Crappie bite is on! Unfortunately, ALL are 5-6 inches long, and thin. I know the possibility exists that there could have been a Winter Kill or other phenomena (including over-abundance, lack of predators, or stocking). But if these factors, with the exception of over-abundance, are not likely, where should you look for larger individuals in this lake system??????

Deeper, shallower, different structure? I know that each lake is its own ecosystem and the answer may be elusive, but ANY suggestions on how to locate larger Crappies would be helpful. In case you have not guessed, I mostly fish metro area lakes, and find the dink size consistently.

You may say, look at the DNR reports to find a lake that has size potential. Well, sure, I can fish URL. I guess the point is I don't have absolute confidence that the DNR reports are sampling the large individuals in a given lake...I have read in this forum that the larger Crappies act differently and may not be sampled in a representative manner. Does a year class dominate so much that other year classes are wiped out?

So, when you find the dinks, is there ANY hope that larger brothers or sisters are out there?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll bump this back to the top for you.. Crappie Tom or Matt Johnson may be the ones to break this one open for you. Truth is, big panfish are hard to find. Of all the trophys we have in the state, the troph crappie or bluegill may be the most difficult to catch. IT is possible that your lake does not hold much larger fish. They could be stunted, not enough food, or as yousaid, possible winter kill a few years back and the lake is just rebounding now. Fish do often school by size, so if you seem to be catching a lot of small fish in one area, you might try moving locations to find larger fish. However, you might want to try a similar area to what you were fishing, obviously that type area is holding fish, so another area like it may hold fish as well, just maybe larger fish.

Early ice like we face now, I think its most important to fish green weeds. That is the area that larger fish will be working, Either weed edges or in weed pockets. Good luck!

Deitz

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First off, I will assume that you know there are larger crappies available.

There are a number of considerations here. One is that crappies are notorious for schooling according to age/size class. If you are catching only so-so fish, you have to look at other avenues to locate the larger ones. This might be as simple as fishing either higher or lower in the water column.

It may mean that you have to been further into a weedbed/wood or closer to the edge. If you are catching smaller fish in the pockets of either structure, try moving to the deeper side of it , but at the same depth on the line.

If you are fishing shallow, you may have to find deeper water, or vice-versa. Larger crappies are efficient big water predators and will spend a lot of time at this time of year there chasing the remnants of minnow schools which haven't gone into the recluse stage yet. It would not be unusual to find big crappies suspended at ten feet over sixty feet of water.

It might even mean you have to down size radically if you are already using an aggressive bait and getting the tiny ones. If you are small to start with you may need to up-size dramatically. When crappies are focused on a particular size of food, they can tend to ignore larger offerings or smaller ones for that matter. They can be very size-specific with food.

The best crappies will have the edge on feeding sites and what they are feeding on. If the food is smalll and near the bottom, the biggest fish will be feeding there and will spend as much time forcing the smaller fish out of the area as they do feeding. In this instance the smaller fish will be above the larger foraging fish and will eagerly hit anything that comes into veiw....the little guys are as hungry as the chunks. Many times people think that the big fish are nowhere to be seen when in fact the small ones , forced to the top of the school, are intercepting everything dropped down before the big fish even see it.

Crappies get real vertical in nature under the ice....their movements are more up and down than they are from side to side. Yes, they move horizontally in the water coulmn, but if they are actively in that process they are more likely to not be biting real well. When the seem to slow down or stop, now that is when you need to get serious. It is this horizontal movement that puzzles a lot of anglers....they think because they were here yesterday that they'll be there again today. When I suggest that crappies are more vertcal creatures under the ice than horizontal, I am referring to their feeding tendencies. They are way more apt to move up and down while actively feeding now than they are to feed from side to side. They will "search" for food on the horizontal plane. It is when they find the food that they go vertical. And yes, they will pick up an easy meal if it happens along their sideways shuffle.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of the great crappie chase is that they are intimately aware of their surroundings. Couple this fact with our meager understandings of the fish themselves and you can begin to get the picture. Until we, as humans, find a way to directly communicate with these creatures, what we say and write about is simply general in nature. Now as Dietz has alluded to, the really large fish are hard to find. Not only are numbers on the decline in some fisheries from over fishing and over harvest, but because the waters that hold them are being under a constant barrage of pollutants and garbage.

And as a further note from Deitz, you are looking at the darnedest fish to fool into hitting when you begin to talk of BIG crappies or sunfish. They (larger ones) are there in most waters where either enjoys any kind of population. But they get big by being the brightest candle on the mantle. Your job, if you want any of them, is to shine a bit brighter. It can be done! Hope this helps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.