Got out for a few hours today on Rush. Looks like word got out on the hot fishing action and a ton of people were out there for a “family day”. Besides for the snowmobile running around with the kids on a sled, and the truck that passed ever so closely between my and my buddie’s houses… It was a decent day for fishing.
We first set up in about 25-28 FOW near a sharp break. Had action right away with quite a few marks on bottom. The gills were playing hard to get, but I landed one on the first drop. Was decent enough to throw on the ice. After about an hour with a TON of lookers but only a couple takers, my buddy moved towards the break to a hole over 32 FOW. it was only about 20-30 feet from where we were at, but it looked to be the honey hole as from 4 feet off bottom to 10 feet off bottom… the Marcum had a mess of lights! I soon pulled up and moved to that hole. From that point on it was “FISH ON”.
The crappies did not have the feed bag on and it took some extremely suttle finesse jigging to lure these fish in. If it were not for the spring bobber system on my St Croix Legend, I doubt I would have pulled more than a couple fish in. I started off the day using a Lindy Frostee jigging spoon… usually my go-to for crappies. But the larger presentation seemed to keep them from biting. After I moved, I switched over to a Lindy Genz Worm with a waxie. That did the trick. Getting these fish to bite was no easy task. And noticing the bite was more difficult still. Dropping my lure to the point it was in the mass of marks on the LX5, I slowly jigged slightly, then would sit still. My eyes had to stay trained on the spring as when these fish hit, you could BARELY see the spring move. A little “tick” of the spring, and you had to set the hook immediately or it was gone. I also had a deadstick set up with a green hook and a crappie minnow. I pulled about 3 fish in with the deadstick… but about 2 dozen with the jigging rod. The crappies ranged from about 5 inches to 11 inches. All in all, I kept 3 crappies and 1 gill. I could have kept quite a few in the beginning, but I was not sure what the day was going to hold so I threw quite a few “keepers” back. Plenty of fish for a single dinner tonight though. Was a good day for fishing!