central Illinois Crappie

Just Bought a lot on a central Illinois lake 600 acres lots of deep coves and such. So I got out the day of closing 11-3 and got after it, had heard good things especially about the panfish bite. Headed back in the coves to the obvios wood not noing the lake but it was slow 1 here and there. Kept on eye out but not to many boats and noone seemed to be staying long and the boys in sight seemed slow as well. I had had a guy show me that in these fingered resovour type lakes that a good spot pre spawn is the mouths of the coves and on in a ways and to fish real shallow in the warming water. So I made a few slow drifts and found that in about 100 yards from the main lake the crops were quite active. I was picken em up on the basic white and yellow jigs along with a fathead as well as some on a shollow bobber. no more than a foot deep. It got even bettor when I used the finsminnow and I actually did good with the speck silver black and the white that I had left in a bag with some yellow ringies that had just a light tickle of yellow. don’t know if that was the key or the late bite just kicked in anyhow picked up 50 on the first day most 9-10 but 10-15 between 10.5- and 12 so im off and runnin

Guthook,
enjoy your lake, any bass swimming in there????
make sure you release most of the bigger Crappies so you can keep the bigger spawners in there. Enjoy.
Jack..

Sounds like lake Sara.

Way north of there I bet. Also if your a newbie there don’t be hauling in buckets to fillet, the old timers do more than just frown on it.

Sounds like Oak Run to me

actually I did release the four or five biggest ones, none were that big. However the lake is in good condition and the word from the “Old Timers” is if anything there are too many crops. As you know with any panfish the population problem can swing both ways. However I always understand the cr comments were all in it together.No bass to speak of but 3 walleye one legal and swimmin today. Anyhow I guess the real crux of the report is next week should be good no surprise there. After this could front passes through.

And the name of your lake is????

curios to see who gets out this week and who does well. In past have only done well in shollow water either out in lake or in shallow brush. I know the deep brush piles are good early but once they move towards the shallow spawning areas I have always had trouble relocating them without the help of a nice warmup. Although its no surprise that a nice warmup is needed here. It seemed like the dream spring but now we got the yoyo. Oh well gives me a chance to find a bigger bucket.

Hoping someone would post on central il this week. Weather has been kind of funny not sure if we took leap forward or back. Anyhow by the looks of my calander they should be in close as I hope to get out next week.

I will try to get out monday on Vermilion..

Went out friday and it was not as good as I had hoped. Caught about 15 craps in an afternoon, most about 10 but was hoping to really slame em. All were pretty shallow around cover and most were spawned out. Water was still kinda cold wonder if the weather just mucked up the whole spawn. Oh well was a real nice day at least