What's Working Now - 2008

[BassThumb]

Success today using your typical crappie tube, Red with White tail. They were up in the shallows, 2-3ft of water.

[goblueM]

5" comidas were hammering the bull sunfish today on a metro lake couldn't keep the dang things off of them going for bass. Might have to take the fly rod back there tomorrow...

[Coach1310]

Cass Lake area this weekend, crappies were hitting on hair jigs in the thickest remnant bull rushes we could find.

[icefishing21]

i was up on cass last weekend and we caught about 150 crappies in allens bay at sunset cove resort along all the trailer houses docks. we kept about 50 of them and we caught some nice 13 inchers using slip bobbers with crappie minows.

[Juan Grande]

Had some good luck with sunnies this weekend in about 5 feet of water using flu-flus and crappie minnows. It was the first time I've had a good sunnie bite on minnows.

We worked a stretch of shoreline and each time we'd move into a new spot the bobbers would go down as soon as they hit the water. Using minnows kept the smaller fish away and we caught quite a few decent fish in the 8" range.

[Jim Hudson]

Been tearing em up on the new Berkley Atomic Teasers. The little trailing single tail off the tube drives the crappies bonkers!! Could rig your own as well, with a regular tube and just add a nuggie or wedge to the back. My best luck has been on the white tube with pink trailer.

[Matt Johnson]

I spent all day on the water guiding for bull gills. We hoped to find them on their beds so at least we could touch a few darker fish just to get a glimpse at one, but found most of our fish out slightly deeper. Water temps were 61-63 and we worked depths from 3-10 feet of water. A lot of these fish were staging for the spawn. A lot of fat females still full of eggs.

We pitched Mister Twister Micro Shads and Mister Minos, and Berkley Power Tubes and Minnows. The Micro Shad took the cake on these fish. The larger presentations didn't quite fit the bill on the all the spots.

We caught fish up to 15oz. A lot of smaller crappies mixed in too and we lost a complete giant boatside

Here's a few pictures of some of the fish...

The weather tossed a few twists but we managed. A little sun might have sparked the shallow movement. Temps are getting warmer

[The Grebe]

Finally made it out for some pannies yesterday! The wind made it a little difficult fishing some of our favorite spots on the lake...heck, some we couldn't fish at all, but we managed to find a couple of spots on the leeward side of things and we did alright.

Man, those bulls can really fight on that light tackle! Some of them bruisers had my ultralight bent all the way to the handle! We let a bunch of fish go and kept some to, mostly the smaller fish, let all the fat females go...got a ton of 9 inch fish, a half dozen 10's and one over 10, it was a blast.

You know, I tried a half dozen different kinds of artificals, different colors, different sizes, old stand bys, old reliables, plastic and hair...even tried some of them dehydrated, multicolored waxies from last winter and the fish on this particular lake would not bite on anything except real meat?

Sometimes,one of the whoppers would grab a live minnow, but try a minnow head, a minnow tail, a live lip hooked minnow, or an articical and I couldn't get a thing....put an angleworm, or a chunk of crawler on and boom, 'Feesh on!'

Crappies weren't very cooperative either, half a dozen small ones, the largest only as big as my hand and black as the ace of spades. Pretty fish...a big one like that would be cool to have mounted.

Usually we pick up some snakes, a bass here and there and sometimes a few walleye, but we got none of those. We ran out of bait, so we decided to pull the plug, with a satisifing day behind us. We beat the late evening rush back to the ramp and got out of there before the chaos and we beat out the storm...even had time to do a little welding...pretty good day!

[CrappiesNCats]

i smoked the crappies around detroit lakes last week. white sliders and ice blue shad culprit teaser tails were the two best jigs. fished sat aft-fri morning and my personal count was 14 short of 400. not counting what my mom/dad/wife/sister caught.

thunderstorms couldnt even stop them, they became even more ferocious afterwards.

during the afternoons they were in 6-8 foot of water and during the evening they were being caught in 10-15. those dang northerns were out like mad too, lost 20 jigs.

[Grant Pearson]

I've been having luck with the Sunnies and a few crappies have been hitting 1/32 ounce flu flus in white/black or white/chartruese in 1-6 feet of water. I've just been throwing it out with a piece of gulp! or a piece of worm and just jiggling it on the bottom next to their beds. They just inhale it. I've found that using a bobber will spook them into not biting. Too much of a splash for them, I think.

[fishingman13]

my luck with the crappies has been coming with little beetle spins, and as well with a white and pink jig, tipped with a crappie minnow.

[Carp-fisher]

I got into a decent school of crappies today in 5 to 8' feet of water just out from the weed line. It seems like the crappies are definitely relating more to the first break as compared to the very shallow. They were in big schools and biting on small jigs. Good luck.

[chippy]

Hey all.. New here.

Went out yesterday and totally hammered alot of slabs. There must have been like 10-15 schools that were in the area I fished. They were hitting on the Black and Chartuese Tube like crazy. Next time i'll bring the camera!

[Float tube guy]

[ozzie]

fan casted 1/16th oz jigs rigged with 2.5inch Gulp Alive minnows and caught a few last night on a break outside the weed edge.

[buddha]

The last few weekends we have found some nice sunnies in the weeds around the 8 to 10 ft mark, most of them hitting plain hooks and worms. There have even been a few bonus rock bass too!

[Tom7227]

waxies have worked best for me in Bald Eagle.

[jhanks50]

crappies love #4 Salmo's!!!

[Wookiee]

So does every fish that swims.

[jhanks50]

I agree they are great lures!!!

[Matt Johnson]

Deep weed edges... deep weed edges... and deep weed edges Spent the day chasing pannies and found our most consistent action out deep. Some depths down to 22' if the stubble was present. Both crappies and gills. Some fish still in the shallows but had to sort through smaller fish. The larger fish we caught were relating to the deeper water...

[ozzie]

I have been right in the weeds for big gills (8-9.5) and nice crappies (9.5-11) and they are going like crazy....Saturday morning a buddy and I caught close to if not more than 200 in 4 hrs........1/16 oz jig and bigger plastic minnow.....in weed clumps weeds that looked like Sideshow Bob's hair (Simpsons)....all fish were released.

[shizzy]

7-10' next to weed edges was working for me all weekend as well.

[Wookiee]

The crappies were nailing the size 4 salmo hornets on lakes in the Milaca/Mora area Friday and Saturday.

[snoozebutton]

We were getting some nice bluegills and crappies on a deep weed line last week but yesterday we had trouble finding them consistently. They seemed to have spread out quite a bit, picking up a few here and there at all depths. Ratsos, sprimpos, and smaal ice jigs, didn't seem to matter as long as it had a piece of meat on it.