Kathy wanted me to take her fishing on Mothers Day, so off to Wissota we went. She usually doesn’t believe me when I come home and say how many I catch, so she brought along paper and pencil to keep track. The first stump I ran over had a bunch of fish so we stopped the boat and started catching right away. The pattern was simple and similar to my previous ventures – any kind of wood in deep water. This time the fish were really restricted to 20 to 25 feet of water. We made a galliant effort to find them shallower than 20 feet but that was in vain. This entire area of the lake produced well in that narrow depth range. When Kathy insisted we move for a change of scenery, I hunted around and had a difficult time getting back on fish. I just HATE leaving an area when I’m catching fish! Eventually I found a small line of cribs in my target depth that had a bunch of fish in the neighborhood and we were back in the action. 
At the end of the day, my catch was 55 crappies and 6 walleye, with Kathy adding another 6 crappie to the tally. We did keep 6 between 11″ and 12″ (which Kathy gave away 
) for a meal.
I did catch some obvious females which would ooze just a bit with a slight squeeze. And some of the fish had a really dark color. So I think the spawn is near – as soon as the water temp stabilizes in the 60’s.
Water temp in the morning was 55, but warmed up to 64 by late afternoon.
John
