Crappies were popping this morning

  • Jimmy Jones
    Posts: 3283
    #2325448

    Mississippi backwaters, open water. From a shore spot. Got about 40 fish before they shut down about 9 and we kept 18 to split between my buddy and I. 11-14″

    Everything came on plastic. Junebug with a chartreuse tail. Purple 1/16 jig.

    The perchers were struggling this morning.

    Story book morning. About 42 degrees to start. No wind to speak of. The sun was under some thin clouds. Its not often we see the water looking like glass, but I’ll take a morning like this any day.

    Bearcat89
    North branch, mn
    Posts: 22262
    #2325457

    This damn work thing has really been killing my fishing. Reading these reports make me jealous

    fins
    Posts: 354
    #2325478

    And here I sit on 40 inches of ice. Ugh!

    Eelpoutguy
    Farmington, Outing
    Posts: 11114
    #2325517

    Was out west by Howard lake Waverly area this afternoon, saw a couple kids in their boat fishing.
    Funny, some lakes wide open and some still almost all locked up and they were right across the road from each other.

    gim
    Plymouth, MN
    Posts: 18947
    #2325518

    14 inch crappie is bigger than any crappie I’ve ever caught.

    And he acts like it’s no big deal. shock

    Bearcat89
    North branch, mn
    Posts: 22262
    #2325528

    14 inch crappie is bigger than any <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>crappie I’ve ever caught.

    And he acts like it’s no big deal. <m

    Tom’s the crappie master for a reason.

    Hunting24seven
    Posts: 152
    #2325529

    Everything came on plastic. Junebug with a chartreuse tail. Purple 1/16 jig.

    Under one of your floats or just cast and retrieve?

    Jimmy Jones
    Posts: 3283
    #2325538

    Under one of your floats or just cast and retrieve?

    The water temp was hardly 42 degrees so the fish will be very depth specific and I used on of my floats to stay in about 5 1/2 feet. Water depth was about 17 feet. There’s some buried structure on this spot and the fish were holding just off it at the depth mentioned. Deeper or shallower and nothing.

    And Gim, the Mississippi is full of crappies of that size. Both of them today had several shad about 4″ in their stomachs. Last fall the same sized fish had 3″ shad in them lol. Things grow over the winter I guess. If I want to see crappies in the 14-15 inch range during the summer months, I head right to pool 5. Maybe lower pool 4. I believe the crappies we took today are transitioning from the winter haunts to the early pre-spawn locations and that accounts for the two chunk in with lesser fish. As a rule, those big crappies are almost solitary and will avoid mixing with lesser fish. If you know there are large crappies in the water and you’re catching smaller fish, move and change tactics because those chunks are a world apart from the smaller ones.

    One of those 14″ers laid in the 5 gallon pail with water up about halfway and its nose was on one side the tail touching the other.

    The other fish that were dressed out had the usual bug crap in the guts. I’m assuming that seeing the minnow bait was more than they’ve had their chops around for several months, hence the strong bite today.

    I toyed with the idea of going back tomorrow but the weather and wind reports aren’t favorable.

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.