What's working now Open Water '07

[lotsofish]

I've got a top secret spot right in the metro where I have been catching a lot of 8" gills and the other night we got into some nice crappies, the largest going 12.5". I've been trying a lot of different kinds of plastics, but results are mixed. Live bait is the only thing that's been working consistently. They seems to just be bumping the plastics and not actually taking it lately.

I'm not giving out my secret spot, but what you should look for is weeds right next to a steep dropoff. The fish will be on the dropoff during the day and move up into the weeds during the evening.

[The Grebe]

We were out panfishing again this past week-end and we did get into some nice fish, but again, it was a chore to get them to take the artificals?

Up and down the scale we went in size, color and style and after the smoke cleared, it was the little feathered jig that again came out on top.

Maybe it is because we have confidence in them and over the years have unknowingly developed a different and winning style of fishing them, over the more newly acquired artificals that we have in our arsenal? I do know that I have a couple that aren't working so good now, but ought to be real killers come this winter!

All but a few of the crappies that we got were small and the others were just okay, nothing to write home about. We tried bobber fishing with minnows, drifting through the sporadic schools that would show up on the locator, we tried different types of artificals, vertical jigging, tipping, deep water, shallower water, weed edges, the larger craps didn't want what we were giving em...sure is fun trying though!

[Corey Bechtold]

Glad to hear you made it out fishing. I had a Wedding on Saturday and a "honey do list" that needed to get taken care of today. The funny thing is that every time I got a task done there were 2 more new things on he list.

With the windy conditions today maybe it was a good thing to score some "fishing points" with the wife so I can get out fishing this week.

Good fishing,

Corey Bechtold

[The Grebe]

That list never ends! I haven't seen the bottom of my list in something like 29 years!

[walleyeking19]

I've been catching 10+ inch crappies in 27-30ft of water using a fathead minnow. why are they so deep? is it the water temp?

[Corey Bechtold]

The lake you are fishing probably has a large population of baitfish. If you are out fishing and notice large schools of bait at or near the surface the Crappies will probably be there as well. Crappies are notorious for hanging out over deeper water and if you can get them to bite when they are suspended than you're doing something right.

This time of year the fish will start putting on the feed bags. Enjoy the cooler weather and good fishing!

Good luck,

Corey Bechtold

[Corey Bechtold]

Over the last weekend there was a ouple small windows to get out fishing. The Crappies and Sunfish were on a tear near the shorlines. With the cooler weather it seemes like more fish are starting to show up near the weedlines. We found our fish hanging out in 6' of water where the dropoff slides quickly down to 20. There were fish shallower but the numbers of active fish were closer to the breaklines.

Our presentations were Power Tubes, Trout Worms, Jigging Grubs, Power Minnows and Bobby Garland Baby Shad's. The best bait was the Tubes in White. The same color that Brooke had luck with where she was at for the weekend.

We mainly jigged the baits on 1/32 and 1/16oz jigheads.

Here are a couple pics from the day...

Dad with a decent Gill.

Cole with a good one.

With the forcast starting to call for cooler temperatures there should be more and better fishing to be had.

Good luck,

Corey Bechtold

[Corey Bechtold]

I went out fishing yesterday afternoon and tried my luck during a cold front. With temperatures in the 90's during the week and barely getting out of the 60's yesterday I wasn't expecting much. That being said the fishing wasn't all that bad. Battling the wind and a few passing rain showers there were still some Sunfish and Bass that were willing to bite. The trick was staying on the edges of the weeds and down-sizing our presentations. What worked for us were 1.5" Gulp Jigging Grubs in Chart or Glow White. We fished them on a collarless 1/32oz jighead. The way they were fished was by casting and retrieving or by control drifting the baits slowly along the breaks.

The water temps were supprisingly warm. 72.9 degrees on the surface. Clarity was getting better as well. I used the underwater camera a lot today and thought I'd see some Crappies hanging around with the Sunfish but that wasn't the case. The Sunfish were dominant as soon as we hit the edges of the weeds. 16-20' was the magic depth as well. Had I been able to stick out the evening till dark I think the Crappies may have showed up but dinner plans kept me from finding out.

This week I hope to get out and try some newer baits to see what I can find.

Did anyone else get out fishing Pannies this weekend?

Later,

Corey Bechtold

[The Grebe]

CB...We pretty much found the same situation on Sat. I threw 4 or 5 different kinds of plastics at the pannies and the one they seemed to prefer the most, was a little black and yellow tube on a 1/64 oz. jig.

The larger feather jigs which I use the most, produced alot of cut lines from slimmers. But they did manage to land two nice pike and 3 really nice walleyes.

The crappies were tough and they were out a little deeper then the gills...we started picking them up drifting and bouncing a little jig off the bottom in about 8 feet of water.

We got one huge gill, 10 plus and the rest were really nice. The biggest crappie was probably about 11 inches.

Since you seem to know an awful lot about panfish, I've got a question or two for you Corey, at what age do panfish start to reproduce? Is it in the 1st year, the 2nd, what? How many times a year do they spawn? I know once for sure, but sometimes twice maybe?

Approx. How old is a panfish that is say, 10 inches, crappie, or sunfish, either/or? I know this is determined by a number of envoirmental things, but using a general average.

The reason I ask is this....if a large panfish is genetically inclined to reproduce large panfish....it shouldn't matter when he/she started reproducing, the genetics would be there.

The fish would have the same genetic markers when they are small, as they have when they are bigger, so the marker for growing large would have already been passed along, regardless of size at the time of reproduction. Does this sound right?

So in essense, one good fish could procreate bizzillons of other fish with good genetics, because in lakes where the sunnies and crappies run large, people usually don't keep the littler ones...which quite probably have the genetics to become larger fish and they would have quite a few seasons to reproduce before they reached a size where someone might think about keeping them for the cooker.

All of a sudden I think I might be going crazy? In thinking about this, my head has started to hurt and I have developed a large lump above my one ear? Also, in thinking about this, I do believe it is time for me to take some Advil and eat a couple of fudgecicles and completely forget about fish with good genetics! What do ya think?

[Corey Bechtold]

Take two deep breath's and relax. This is a topic that I loose sleep thinking about at night. Funny thing is that I just e-mailed my friend at the DNR to see what he thinks about the future of Panfish fishing in the area. I had concerns with a lake I fish that used to have several fish that were 9" and bigger. Now it seems like it's hard to get fish over 8". What happened? Over the last 15 years did the good strain get removed or are the 8"ers getting harvested before they can reach their growth potential?

Too many questions to answer but one thing that has me intrigued is why lakes with special regulations seem to have better sized fish? Is it because people don't want to fish a lake if they can't keep certain sized fish or reduced limits?

After I get a few more answers I'll start a topic to see what kind of responses we get.

Good luck,

Corey Bechtold

[Corey Bechtold]

Monday evening I snuck out after work for a little relaxing fishing. I had just bought a bunch of different Bobby Garland baits from Crappie Town so I was itching to try them out. I picked up a bunch of colors of Baby Shads, a few 2" Split tails and some Slab Slayers. I looked all over the lake and was only finding Bluegills hanging around. I caught them and saw them on the camera as well. I had made several location changes and found moslty Bluegills everywhere I looked. Suddenly I came to a shallower flat with some floating rafts and docks close to some deeper water and voila, Crappies!

I saw them on the camera and while I was looking a Crappie came up and snapped the bait. It was a nice 11" Slab. I put the camera down and concentrated of the fish. After 2 more Crappies on the Patriot color I switched to the Electric Chicken and cought 2 more. Then I tried 3 more colors till I ran out of light and the Crappie bite tailed off. The water temperatures were still hanging around 70 degrees and the water seems to be clearing up as well. I look for more fish to start making migrations towards the shallows as the water temperatures start to drop. Keying in on the edges should pay off for the Crappies of Fall.

I really like the color choices that Bobby Garland offers because you can get dialed in on what the Crappies want or switch to a different color to try and excite the fish.

I look forward to trying them all out to see how they work. I'll be sure to keep you updated on how they work for me.

Later,

Corey Bechtold

[The Grebe]

Pitched afew plastics yesterday morning before heading out to work...not alot to report! About a dozen small smallies, thats no big feat, a small walleye and some small sunnies. That was it....the spot I'm fishing should be close to giving up some mongo crappies....gotta keep tryin!

If all goes well and the wind gives us a break, it's Mille Lacs perchin this comming week-end....I love it, it's my favorite.

If the perch aren't hot to trot yet, or the wind does us dirty, we'll do some sunnies and crappies at a different lake...sunnies and crappies, I love em, their my favorites!

[The Grebe]

Well, good mornin Grebe, how the hay you doin?

We did the Mille Lacs thing and the forecasted 5-15 mile per hour wind, turned into a steady 15 miles per hour pain in the kiester!

We could barely hide from it, it would come from all over the place. Most of the places we hid, didn't have any perch.

We did get on em though....we got a bunch, but alot of small stuff. It was running maybe 10 to 1, or something like that.

We were the first boat on the first spot, but the wind was just to tough and the anchors wouldn't hold on the rocks. so we opted for plan B.

By the time we finally decide to leave, there must have been 50 to 75 boats at our first stop....it looked like a marina!

Every perch we caught, we caught was on an artifical lure and I bet we were out fishing the live bait I seen some of the other boats using, by 4 to 1! It was great. We had the back up live bait, but we didn't have to use it. We had 12 Jumbos when we pulled the plug. Wind aside, it was alot of fun.

We dropped to a smaller lake to see if the pannies were biting, but not much luck. The wind had the lake churned to the color of peasoup and mud!

We got afew sunnies, some being really dark and others looking bleached? We also got a few crappies, but get this....there must have been some kind of bass tourney going on, people all over the lake throwing plugs, spinners and plastic....I didn't see anyone haul in anything? We got maybe 10 bass on the little artificals a couple of pretty nice ones...everything lived to swim another day.

[Corey Bechtold]

At least you were able to go fishing. I have been stuck doing all kid running, sporting events, Church and B-day parties so no fishing for Corey this weekend.

Hopefully I get a chance to fish this week. The weather is supposed to be pretty descent!

Good fishing,

Corey Bechtold

[Corey Bechtold]

Whoa, trying to balance the fishing schedule is hard work! Fall is a great time to hit the water. A lot of changes are going on right now and finding the fish can be a challenge. The other day I made it out for a multi-species fishing trip. I started fishing the Crappies and found them relating to moving water. There was a slow flowing river that stacked the fish into a small area and the feedbag was on! The size wasn't too impressive but every once in a while there was a bruiser Crappie. What I really thought was fun was most of the fish were able to be sight fished. Not that one could see the fish in the water but you could see them dart in and inhale the Power Minnow. I was having a blast with the Glow/Chart fished on a 1/32oz jighead.

The bite was strong until dark but then it was time to switch over to Walleyes .

Fall is a my favorite time of the year to hit the water and fish. It can be challenging but it can also be very rewarding.

Good fishing,

Corey Bechtold

[The Grebe]

The crappies are really lighting up in the river. We must have caught and released a hundred yesterday.

Nothing really huge, we had a couple in the 3/4 pound range, but most were a little bigger then hand size and it was fun! Feeling that "Tick" never gets old.

We even got a few aggressive bluegills, not bad sized as the river goes and about as beautifully marked as you are ever gonna see!

Plastics outfished live bait by about 4 to 1 and the bigger fish came on the plastics. Although the walleyes were cooperative the day before, they weren't yesterday...nary a one. A few smallies and a couple of slimers and that was it.

That wind was a little chilly and made casting the lightweight stuff a little tough if you weren't in the right position, but we figured it out and had a good fall day of fishing!

[Corey Bechtold]

Glad to hear you found some fish!

Hopefully I will be able to add a little information about a Fall bite soon!

Good fishing,

Corey Bechtold

[united jigsticker]

Good fish Bechtold!

I hope to have one last chance on the soft water before hard water hits.

Cross your fingers for me; I empathize with juggling work and fishing as I am working 2 jobs right now.

Good luck,

[Corey Bechtold]

I had the chance to fish with Cyberfish and juggs on Saturday for some Panfish. We were fortunate to have great weather along with better fishing. We caught a lot of good Bluegills, Crappies, Perch and LM Bass using only plastics.

Here is the list of baits that worked for us...

Bluegills were caught on Bobby Garland Baby Shads in an assortment of colors, Stub Grubs (black/chart), Berkley Gulp Fish fry (white), Berkley Power Minnows and a variety of others. We used mainly 1/32oz jigheads.

Crappies were on a tear and hit almost anything that was put in front of them. Again the Bobby Garland Baby Shads tore them up along with their Split Tails. Berkley Gulp! 2.5" Minnows, Power Minnows and Stub Grubs also did a bang up job on the Slabs. These baits were fished on 1/32 and 1/16oz jigheads. Right before the sun was setting the Crappies decided they had a preference for the Bobby Garland Baby Shad's in the Opening Night color which I happened to have on my line. Suddenly they totally switched preference and started banging the Emerald Shad colors that juggs had on. This might be the first time I have seen such a drastic change in color preference in Crappies. I know juggs doesn't believe in the "color" selection in fish but when it was his Emerald Shad bait tearing them up at the end of the day I think he has "seen the light".

All in all it was a successful day on the water. We had a lot of fun and take home some good memories as well. Take a look at the Photo Sharing Panfish thread for a few pics from the day.

Good fishing,

Corey Bechtold

[juggs]

You know I always have my "go to" colors handy--plaid and tie-dyed!!

[Corey Bechtold]

Sunday I decided to hit a lake to see where the Crappies were. What I found was the fish were scattered due to a recent turnover. There were bits of decayed leaves and goo floating around the surface. The debris was also visable on the locator and the fish were somewhere in-between.

I fished with Bailey, Cole and my good frieng Mickey. We decided not to fish until we found some fish on the locator. After a lot of searching we found some of those fish suspended near a mid lake hump. They were in no man's land (30-40' of water) and staying on top of them was a challenge. Once Mickey and me caught a few of them on the new 2-tone Power Tubes Bailey and Cole picked up a rod and started fishing. Keeping the baits vertical was a key to catching the fish. Some fish were bottom related while the most active fish were suspended. We used 1/16oz jigheads mainly but Mickey tried something different. While he was targeting the bottom fish with a drop shot rig he also raised the bait up when the fish showed up on the Vexilar. He caught a bunch of Crappies using the drop shot rig to keep his bait in the strike zone. Bailey and Cole each caught their fish while holding their baits steady allowing the suspended fish to come in and take their baits.

One of the key's to our success was utilizing the Lowrance in the back of the boat while using the Vexilar on the front with the trolling motor down. This way I was able to scan more of the water column and locate the suspended fish.

I really like the new look of the Power Tubes as they also have a ton of new colors to choose from. With Ice fishing coming right around the corner there's no doubt that I'll have some in my arsenal!

Good fishing,

Corey Bechtold