My family rented a cabin in the area last week, so we hit a couple new to us lakes in the area and got on some great panfish action. Wind was the key in finding the biggest schools of active fish. We fished the same jig and grub combo either pitched or trolled on both lakes for both species. Sorry but I don’t think we got any pictures.
One was a shallow stained lake with no defined weed edge and the 7-9 ft sparsely weeded flats all seemed to hold nice bluegills with the occasional big 12+ inch crappie mixed in. One specific flat getting pounded by wind was non-stop action for the 2 hours we fished it. The majority of the bluegills were 8″ to 9″ with a couple just shy of 10″ but couldn’t break that mark. Great mid-day high sun action here.
The next lake was very clear water and relatively deep with great cabbage growing out to 12-15 ft. Tough day bite here as the crappies would either bury in the weeds or suspend over open water but the last couple hours before sunset the food chain would come alive on the weedline… lots of nice crappies 10″-12″ with fish up to 14″, some big bluegills again just shy of 10″, and a few pesky bass mixed in. During prime time going a minute without a fish seemed like forever as the bite was just that good.
Needless to say I’ll be visiting these lakes again.
