Post by djkimmel on Apr 19, 2004 11:49:45 GMT -5
Sunday, my friend Larry Dekker and I went to our favorite crappie lake and found the water too low to launch. We thought about falling back on Gull, but with the wind and our preparedness for shallow spring fishing, we opted for another small lake with shallow weedy bays.
The lake is small so rather than send everyone there, I'll explain what we were looking for. We both like to fish shallow, so we look for lakes with extensive shallow bays. The more protected bays are best. These kinds of lakes usually get really weedy, so you can count on mucky dark bottoms that warm fast.
The protected bays were already in the low to mid-60s when we got there Sunday and up to 68 F in the afternoon. We started looking for crappie and perch (we only brought tiny tubes, no live bait) and never did find any - just lots of bluegills - mostly tiny gills.
We moved a lot around the edge of depressions and troughs in the bays that larger fish could move from into the warming shallows. This is relative in that one bay is about 5 feet deep at the deepest and the other is about 3 feet.
We threw small senko-like baits and small shallow crankbaits (red and shad were hot). Early we caught several quality largemouths from the weed clumps towards the center of the bay. Small bass were in shallower along with small panfish.
Later, bass scattered shallow and we started having lots of bluegill followers, but without live bait, we couldn't really catch them well. Neither of us brought tiny cranks because crappie have large mouths and we catch them fine usually small bass baits when we are trying to locate them in the weeds (if we don't find them in brush/weeds they normally go to each year).
I caught one really nice gill finally that was just big enough to hook himself on the new red hooks I'm trying out on a red craw Bomber Shallow A.
Carp were everywhere. We spooked them all day. We each caught a decent sized pike - both inhaled our baits and needed minor surgery practically to be removed.
We ended up catching over 40 bass too without resorting to larger baits. They were just everywhere mixed in with all the other shallow fish and especially aggressive in one large very shallow bay with weed clumps.
We did not fish the shallow pads like some guys were doing. We went right through the middle of the bay in the slightly deeper water. On some lakes were the crappie don't have shallow wood to spawn on, I've seen them spawn around these weed clumps. There's a backwater on the Grand in Lansing were they do this for example.
Neither Larry or I are much good at crappie out in the open lake. We don't normally fish for them during those seasons. We were hoping we would find them moving to the inside weed edges in preparation for spawn, but we never did find any. Usually what few perch are in this lake move into the shallow mucky backs of these same bays too, but we only saw a few tiny ones. Either a little early or the droppng water has changed their habits.
This lake has a little brush, but most is too shallow now. The other lake we wanted to hit has a ton of brush and laydowns that fills with crappie about this time, but a lot of that would be too shallow now also. It looks like Larry and I either start figuring out how to catch deeper crappie or give up on our annual spring crappie cookout this year. It's one of the few times I eat fish. Usually only eat fresh caught fish 2 to 4 times a year and it's either crappie, perch, bluegill or walleye.
Was definitely fun catching all the bass. I even tried for a couple dogfish, but they were spooky for a change. They're normally great flipping practice, but their numbers are way down in some lakes now due to some really good bowfishing events they've held on these lakes.
The lake is small so rather than send everyone there, I'll explain what we were looking for. We both like to fish shallow, so we look for lakes with extensive shallow bays. The more protected bays are best. These kinds of lakes usually get really weedy, so you can count on mucky dark bottoms that warm fast.
The protected bays were already in the low to mid-60s when we got there Sunday and up to 68 F in the afternoon. We started looking for crappie and perch (we only brought tiny tubes, no live bait) and never did find any - just lots of bluegills - mostly tiny gills.
We moved a lot around the edge of depressions and troughs in the bays that larger fish could move from into the warming shallows. This is relative in that one bay is about 5 feet deep at the deepest and the other is about 3 feet.
We threw small senko-like baits and small shallow crankbaits (red and shad were hot). Early we caught several quality largemouths from the weed clumps towards the center of the bay. Small bass were in shallower along with small panfish.
Later, bass scattered shallow and we started having lots of bluegill followers, but without live bait, we couldn't really catch them well. Neither of us brought tiny cranks because crappie have large mouths and we catch them fine usually small bass baits when we are trying to locate them in the weeds (if we don't find them in brush/weeds they normally go to each year).
I caught one really nice gill finally that was just big enough to hook himself on the new red hooks I'm trying out on a red craw Bomber Shallow A.
Carp were everywhere. We spooked them all day. We each caught a decent sized pike - both inhaled our baits and needed minor surgery practically to be removed.
We ended up catching over 40 bass too without resorting to larger baits. They were just everywhere mixed in with all the other shallow fish and especially aggressive in one large very shallow bay with weed clumps.
We did not fish the shallow pads like some guys were doing. We went right through the middle of the bay in the slightly deeper water. On some lakes were the crappie don't have shallow wood to spawn on, I've seen them spawn around these weed clumps. There's a backwater on the Grand in Lansing were they do this for example.
Neither Larry or I are much good at crappie out in the open lake. We don't normally fish for them during those seasons. We were hoping we would find them moving to the inside weed edges in preparation for spawn, but we never did find any. Usually what few perch are in this lake move into the shallow mucky backs of these same bays too, but we only saw a few tiny ones. Either a little early or the droppng water has changed their habits.
This lake has a little brush, but most is too shallow now. The other lake we wanted to hit has a ton of brush and laydowns that fills with crappie about this time, but a lot of that would be too shallow now also. It looks like Larry and I either start figuring out how to catch deeper crappie or give up on our annual spring crappie cookout this year. It's one of the few times I eat fish. Usually only eat fresh caught fish 2 to 4 times a year and it's either crappie, perch, bluegill or walleye.
Was definitely fun catching all the bass. I even tried for a couple dogfish, but they were spooky for a change. They're normally great flipping practice, but their numbers are way down in some lakes now due to some really good bowfishing events they've held on these lakes.