I went out and fished Macbride for a couple hours this evening–because of the weather, I wasn’t expecting much action. I had a pretty good night, and kept my limit of ten crappies, all but one of which were in the 8″-10.5″ range. I kept one smaller fish that was deep-hooked. I released a few more crappie, plus a 7″ bluegill. I also finally saw a Macbride Northern–one of about 24″ followed a hooked crappie to boatside. 
When I was out there last Monday, the surface temps in deep water were up to sixty-four degrees, up seven degrees from where they were five days before. Tonight, the surface temps were back down to fifty-nine degrees. Along with the high pressure and wind, this is why I wasn’t expecting to catch much. I wasn’t sure what this would do to the crappie spawn, if it had started, so I decided to fish spawning habitat tonight, rather than the deep-water staging areas that work earlier.
I found no fish in the very shallow water around the timber, but I found a lot of fish holding just beyond it on the drop-offs. Of the ten crappie I kept (all black crappie), nine still had eggs in them, including the small fish I would have guessed was a male. One 9″ fish, though, was very dark-colored on the back, and had no eggs in it. The dark coloring makes me think this was a female who had already spawned, rather than a large male. I’m no crappie expert, but I am guessing that they may have started spawning earlier in the week, only to be interrupted by the crappy weather.
