Any of you Bass guys bumping into Walleye or Crappie?

Funny I say ‘you’ bass guys I’m basically a bass guy. I fish the twin city metro area, I have a broad view of the metro, I go up as far north as Pine county, down to rice, meeker. Anyway I am having a small family fish fry and could use a couple of Walters-not a limit just maybe a couple. So would like to just catch one or two on a couple of bass trips. I do pretty well fishing jig worms for bass-guess I lack the patience and/or skill to get the wiley walleye here in the metro. As for crappies, we have enough for the fry, just always looking for a new crappie lake. Oh might try a river but would rather do a lake.
Thanks!

I bump into an occasional walleye just about every trip for bass and 75% of the bass fishing I do is within an hour of my house in the west metro. They usually range anywhere from 12 – 20 inches in length and I release them just like I would a bass. About 10 days ago I found a school of them stacked in one area and they were all 25-27 inches long. They were extremely skinny though and did not look healthy at all.

How about harvesting some small pike Tim? I don’t know how well versed you are at cleaning them but the daily bag limit is 10 and there’s definitely no shortage of them. Prepared properly, they aren’t bad in my opinion. They’re just a mess when cleaning them because of all that slime.

X2 on the pike. They are excellent eating. As far as cleaning goes, on the smaller fish I simply take the backstrap and fillet each tail and call it good. On bigger ones ( over 26 or so “ ) there is a few extra cuts you can make but not worth it on smaller pike. I almost Never keep pike over 26”. The backstraps are yummy when cut into bite sized cube’s and boiled in 7up or water with sugar. Dip in butter if you like. Poor mans lobster.

I love eating pike, they have a very unique flavor-heck I like bullhead-my personal favorite might just be smelt-although I had a fresh caught rainbow cooked over a campfire, wow.
Anyway pike are in the mix. My wife is the only fish snob she LOVES it when I sneak her a walleye fillet when everyone else is eating pannies, she gets that little smirk.

I bump into them more on dropshot, however we have guys catch them left and right on crawtubes.

Duplicate

Thanks Charles and Gimruis. Good to hear info from people who are not slowly draggin’ meat around. Usually when I fish I like to cast-more fun-probably why I fish for bass this time of year.

If I run into something it’s usually a pike. However now that the off shore bite is heating up I will probably snag a few of those trash fish with big eyes…..As others have said pike are easy. Tie on a spinnerbait or chatterbait and run it over the tops of weeds and you will have plenty for your fry.

I might get grief for this, and I know it’s frown upon in much of the bass community (I consider myself a bass guy), but have you ever tried eating bass? I don’t think keeping a few 12-14 inchers will hurt the bass (largemouth) populations anywhere. I think they taste just fine, as do others who I’ve eaten bass with. I know people will say they taste bad when the water warms, but I’ve never tested that theory.

Pike are easy, hard not to catch a pike. As for keeping a few 12-14″ bass from the right lake that’s fine,I think the secret is to get them out of that warm water and surround them with ice. Me and the bros will eat some bass too-wifey wants walleye. Period. Talk to her? Have her try bass? Married Blank? I know her father pretty well, he loves the walleye too..
’nuff said

Haha, nope not married. Good luck, sir.

My buddy down in the cities usually get some eye’s tword the north end of Bald Eagle in the weeds on small baits, beetle spins with with some of the small scented plastics that are mainly used ice fishing. Leeches under bobbers has produced as well.
Never any big ones, 14-16″. Perfect eating size.

Not sure where your located though.

My son has caught a few big crappies on wacky worms.

Thanks belletain, solid tip Bald Eagle is close to my house too

mahtofire14 wrote:

Tie on a spinnerbait or chatterbait and run it over the tops of weeds and you will have plenty for your fry.

Or you might get snipped off!

If your in the metro, you can try Independence and Medicine. On Independence pull a crank along the point that sticks out on the NW side of the main body or the point that sticks out on the SW corner. On Medicine pull cranks on any of the points that stick out on the main body. Good chance the pike will be there also.

pm sent Tim

Thanks Gone and Bell-love this site.

It’s a good thing in most lakes to eat all the 21-23 inch pike you can. The pike, and other species, all tend to get bigger over time. They should be harvested in many cases. I have yet to serve de-boned pike and have anyone ever think it’s anything but a walleye.

Here’s one of the easier methods to de-bone pike. I took a guide trip with Billy and he does each pike fillet in less than a minute:

Northern Pike Y-Bone Removal — Made Easy!

This was three weeks ago in the metro.
Another appearance by John G.!

They’re delicious when done right.

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FryDog62 wrote:

It’s a good thing in most lakes to eat all the 21-23 inch pike you can.

Most of the state has a 22-26 inch restricted slot so a 21 inch would be fine but a 23 is mandatory release. Maybe you intended to type 21-22 instead of 21-23.

Tried a new place for bass-the Rum-very peaceful, Walter is till a no show. One lake in the North Metro was brought up by a couple of you bass guys so that will be the next on the hit list for maybe tuesday, will probably try somewhere else on Sunday the one mentioned will be a zoo. Blessed that I can get out so much, wifey is very understanding.