12 mile lake

A friend has tried to get me to go to 12 mile lake for the past 5 Springs. I intend to shock him and go this year.

I have fished Rathbun in mid to late May a few times only to find out the best time is the first week in June.

My question is what is the highest percentage time to catch the 12 mile Crappie spawn?

THANKS
JIM

Jim, so much of the spawn period time line depends on water temps. I’ve seen males moving shallow as early as late april and as late as a week before the 4th of July. But I wouldn’t be afraid to say the late may early june period would get you real close on most iowa lakes. Males will start moving in and out when water temps reach 54 to 58 degrees. They’ll make beds when the water temps maintain a steady 56 to 58 degrees. The females will cruise in and out starting at the 60 degree range and get serious enough to stay and lay eggs at about 62 to 70 degree range. If a cold front comes in or we get a snow fall during any of that time frame, the fish will drop back to deeper water and wait until conditions are again favorable.

Herb

Thanks…That is some very good info.

JIM

Jim, I’ve never been to 12 mile, but I been hearing for over a year now that the yellow bass have over populated and are putting the hurts on the panfish.

I read an article in Iowa Game and Fish about the yellow bass population. I believe they are going to lower the lake some time soon to deal with the problem. I havent personally been there for about 4 years now.

What are Yellow Bass? Are they called by another name? I never heard the name until I read about the over population of them.

JIM

I found the answer to my question on the MN DNR site.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/fish/bass/white/index.html

I just started reading about Yellow Bass last year.

Yellow bass are good fighters and great eating. The major problem with them in a small system such as 12 mile is they overpopulate and become stunted and rarely reach keeper size once this happens.

There is a week or two period in may (will have to do a little checking back on some things to find the exact week) that the crappies go NUTS at 12mile. Dont fish for them specifically, but cant keep them off while walleye fishing and the schools of fish are nuts down there. Last week of may sounds right if memory serves me right……….

goody

goody

That is around the time I was thinking of going. I wouldn’t mind a few Walleye too . How do you go about catching them there?

THANKS
JIM

Jim, The yellow bass aren’t that bad of a fish in the right lake. The only one I know of is Clear lake though. The first two weaks of june are exelent yellow bass fishing on Clear lake. They are very good eating and are hard fighters. You can litteraly catch hundreds in a day and the DNR doesn’t realy want you to throw any back. So if you want to have a big fish fry this is the place to go to get the fish for it. As far as I know all other lakes the smart people that think they know more than a fisheries biologist put yellow bass in have been ruined.

I troll spinners primarily for eyes and schools of crappies hang in some of the zones I target for eyes. If I am running a line or two up, smaller cranks or spinners, I contact quite a few crappies in late May. I have seen them stacked up on the electronics in big schools at times. Now that the yellows are there so thick things have changed some and the crappies dont use the open water quite like they used to at times, but they are still there and fiesty if you time it right.

goody