Pine city, Mn 12-28-08

Was able to make another quick trip up to Pokegama this afternoon to go looking for some panfish. On the way up there I got the news from Nick there where roads plowed out on the lake but there was also some slush spots on the roads. Stopped at the bait shop on the north end of the lake and was informed the Crappie Flop road was going to be the best bet for getting out. Later in the day I decided to explore the road out of the landing and found it flooded with a good couple of inches of frozen ice on top. What a mess. there where a couple of poor guys fighting with a stuck trailer in the middle of it up to there knees in water. Not good. Im sure with some cold weather it wont take long to get better.

We started out checking out a spot that has had crappies on it for the last few weeks. there where fish here again but must where just slowly coming up off the bottom and sniffing at the baits. Been here, done this it was time to move.

Checked out a few other spots with not much to show for it. Finally found a nice group of active panfish in 16 to 17′ of water south of the island a ways. Hole hopping in this area worked the best to coax a few fish out of each hole.

My last few trips up here shrimpos and ratso have been the bait of choice. Today they took 2nd to the diamond jig with a euro larve or 2 on it. The jigging motion had change a little also as a fair amount of the fish you had to jig them in and then as they rose to the bait you had to let it sit motionless. Every once and a while very active group of fish would come threw and the a jig and make them chance the bait worked well.

Must of caught around 15 sunnies and 15 crappies this afternoon. The biggest sunnies may of been 8″s. the biggest crappies around 10″s.

If you get up to Pokegama make sure and drop off a road plowing donation at the bait shop or swing into the crappie flop. It sure is nice to have a plowed road on the lake to use. I left my money at the bait shop today even tho there road was in poor shape. Figured he was going to need some gas money to get it straighten out.

Here are a few photos from today.

That last photo is of one of the smaller slush spots on the road. These areas where pretty easy to get threw with a truck. There where even a few cars that had got threw them. The snow off the roads was pretty easy to travel threw also. A person just needed to watch out for the deeper drifts.

Nice report! Sounds like a good time. At least if you were not the guys with a stuck trailer and up to the knees in ice water.

What some of us won’t do for a couple of fish….

Thanks for the report Mike. Looks like the snow didn’t melt down much up that way, unless there was just a lot more of it up that way. Today’s snow probably won’t help conditions up there either.