Spring crappies

What have you guys been finding on the spring crappies so far. I havent been out yet but that might change soon. This is one of the few time a year I will venture off the river and check out the fishing on the lakes.

Ive heard a few active reports coming from Rush lake. This suprised me. Most of my crappies chaseing waites until the water hits the mid to upper 50s. Cant believe the lakes are that warm yet. What are some of the temps that you guys look for? Maybe with all this sun some of those shallow bays are warming up that much. If I do get out early on a lake before temps warm up I will start looking in deeper water out side of these shallow bays. Some time even drifting or trolling threw some of the mid winter holding areas. Seems to me alot of years it can be easyly a month between ice out and the crappies hitting the shallows.

I fished Lake Zumbro, which is a wider deeper part of the Zumbro River, last Saturday and the water temps where between 55-58.4 degrees. I was surprised how fast they warmed up. The spawn usually takes place in late May on this body of water lately but could very well be early this year if the weather stays nice. I would strongly reccomend getting out and enjoying some crappie fishing because the best crappie fishing times could be missed if you don’t. In other words it could be gone before a person gets out there if they wait too long.

Thanks for sharing. If we all get out there crappie fishing and share what we learned we all will be that much more of a smarter fisherman for it. Thats how we all learn. Please let the big ones go so we don’t hurt the fishery by removing the best spawners.

Thanks, Bill