Crappie Killers

I got a call two weeks ago from my buddy John, who lives just off of Lake Minnetonka. “The crappies are biting!” with Easter & my honey-do list, I wasn’t free until earlier this week. They were still on, in the shallow end of the bays, so I called my old roommate, Ron, & we joined him. . We caught our limit of 10 each, interspersed with an occasional bass & a greedy northern, and after a relaxing afternoon using a small jig & minnow, and of course, a bit of smart talk, we called it a day (Wednesday). John said they were still on today, so get out there!

Nice job Ed. Sounds like fun.

Thanks for the report, I’ve been meaning to get out, hopefully the same holds true for other lakes in the area.

i’ve never fished minnetonka. any size to the crappies out there?

I’ve never fished it for the open water, but my buddies have and they’ve pulled some BIG ones. Think they may be a little harder to find though…I’m not too sure…

The ones we caught were 9″ to 11″. We lost a couple 12″ (How many times have we heard that story!?!) John said the next day they did land some close to 15″ from the same bay.

I returned to the same bay on Minnetonka with John, Ron, & my bro-in-law, Bruce yesterday. We had to wait about an hour for the downpour to stop, then were amazed at how many worms & crawlers were out on the sidewalks. (anyone in the area notice the unusual grey colors in crawlers in that area?) the fish started slow, and much smaller, but we caught a lot of crappies on waxworks & minnows. After lunch, we caught more crappies & bigger crappies. We caught 100+ fish before we had a limit of 9″-11″ crappies. There were probably another 30 sunfish of variably small sizes to keep us busy. It turned into a great day. Small orange jigs produced best.

Sounds like a good day Ed. Fish on the table is always good. Chuck

Thanks, Chuck. Have you been out anywhere yet?

No haven’t been out yet. Every time I want to go out the weather turns crap. Soon I hope.

Thanks for the report. Do you just use 1/32 jigs and cast them towards shore and back or are you bobberring it?

Sorry for the slow response…….we actually found a shallow baY, sorry, I really don’t know the name, and while sitting in 3-4′ of water, we threw bobbers above 1/32-1/16″ jigs about 12-18″ down. We tipped them with crappie minnows(smaller the better) or waxworms. Most fish were lip hooked, so we had to be gentle. John said with the unsettled weather, they seemed to have moved out, but the sunfish stayed.