The warmer the weather and water…..

….The more prone to deeper water the crappies in a local lake here in the SE part of the state will be. With the spawn approaching completion the crappies will scatter to open water where they’ll roam or find sunken structure to relate to. As a rule, by the time the water gets to 70 degrees the crappies here will be near deeper water which can help narrow down the search. Lots of people simply fall back into drifting/trolling, but working the specific structure is by bag.

Colors seem to take a change at this time too. Shown here are a couple of my deep water plastic color that tune up as the water temps climb and fish begin to seek a thermocline. The black band helps separate the tail color from the bottom color. Not absolutely necessary, but I like the defined split in colors. The orange/pink gets hit way more often than the Orange chartreuse but the chartreuse tailed critter see plenty of attention. Both of these get fished on a very bright orange head, no float.

When things warm up in your area and crappies get Hard to find, try looking at deeper water especially if you can locate some sunken wood and slowly pick it apart. Try changing colors schemes from what the shallow water showed as a preferred color. Even clear water will play games with plastic color as a bait gets fished deeper, so shifting to different colors altogether may put you right back into fish.

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Anything going on right now on Lake Z?

It’s been pretty decent fishing there for a change. All of the spring elements have been playing nice this year and water levels thus far have been stable while the water temps have been doing the yo-yo thing but water temps are better in this mode than going from 51 degrees to 72 in three days.

Last Thursday the fish were relating to deeper water right at e transition to shallow. The water temps would heat during the day but the wind and colder temps at night would pull the surface temp back down. We found fish that had spawned and many that had not. This is maybe the best scenario the lake could see as far as a productive spawn for the crappies.

For people willing to snoop a little the larger sunfish have been making their presence known too. Plenty of dinks in that category too thou.

Last week we had a musky fry of about 11″ focus on a float and would follow it and peck at it. The body markings were as plain as day identifying it as a musky. Maybe the Muskis Unlimited (?) chapter planted more this spring? We’ve seen some big pike too, mostly hanging on a crappie as it gets reeled in. The bass have been showing up on shorelines too as incidental fish. I’ve boated some very impressive smallest on the lake this spring along with one jumbo bucket.

Basically the lake is fishing pretty darned good. Having only the one landing makes things congested at times and some real winners have been seen there providing plenty of hilarity. I don’t have any problem saying the fishing on the Zumbro is good.