I made the trip north earlier in the week to get after the big crappies Chris has been reporting on over the last couple weeks and my hope was to get into some decent numbers and, with a little luck, stick a slab or two.
My eyes have been opened! Rainy has got to be one of the best crappie destination in the Midwest right now. It took some auger gas and the willingness to punch holes to locate the fish but once we had them found the size of these fish stunned me. My first crappie went 14.5″ and for the next few hours Chris and I were into the biggest batch of slab crappies I’ve ever witnessed. The average fish was in the 13″ – 14″ range with many 14.5″ – 15″ fish. We were fortunate enough to land 3 crappies between 15″ and 16″ with the largest fish going 16″ on the button. How often do you catch a crappie that will drape over the sides of a full sized cooler? I know this trip produced my largest crappies to date without question. And this was my first crack at these Rainy crappies. When Chris talks about a shot at icing a 17″ crappie, or even larger, he’s not joking. We had a 16″ crappie on the ice in the first hour on Rainy so you know there’s even bigger fish available.
Our hot baits were diamond jigs in glow red, ratsos in Glow Brite Pink and small jigging spoons in, you guessed it… glow red. 
I had a blast catching fish on the largest size Ratso. (photo attached) No need for bait on these fish at all and every fish ended up hooked solidly right in the upper lip. If you opt to go with a diamond jig and waxies or plastics you’ll want to go with the largest diamond jigs available as these fish are NOT looking for micro-sized baits. I thought Chris was a little “off” when I saw him put 5 – 7 spikes on a diamond jig at one time but once you see how big the average sized crappie is from Rainy you start to get a whole new outlook on how to fish them. The second day we decided to fish with jigging spoons… plain, no bait. 1/8 and 1/4 ounce Lightning spoons in firetiger and glow pink worked very well while the fish were aggressive first thing in the morning.
For anyone interested in a trophy crappie trip… Rainy has got to be on your list. No anglers. Huge slabs that act like they’ve never seen a bait and the scenery is incredible.
If you go… stock up on glow pink Diamond Jigs and ratsos. I’m not sure what it is about that color but there’s no doubt that the fish had a preference for that color.
Thanks for having me up, Chris. I’ll be looking forward to those ice out pre-spawn crappie reports with a little extra interest now that I’ve experienced some of what your area has to offer.
I’d love have a day of crappie fishing like that. Not within my budget at the moment 
Those are some NICE fish. 
LOL!!!
