Yesterday I spent the day fishing for pan fish on Lake Minnetonka. Though I live in the eastern suburbs every spring I try to take at least one day to revisit Minnetonka. The variety of structures, different patterns and locations provide great opportunity to try new patterns and techniques. I have fished thill bobbers for years but after reading Chris’s report I added his suggestion paying careful attention to matching float size with jig weight. His suggestion adding a swivel underneath the float made all the difference. I found adding the swivel gave enough added weight to more effectively cast as well as control drop speed with bobber size. What I especially liked is that a swivel tends to provide a slower drop then split shot. Matching these up provided consistent crappie action, several other anglers commented that fishing was slow… So thanks to a few adjustments and good Chris advice paying attention to the little things can make all the difference.
After catching my share on a float and jig I decided to fish for shallow water crappies the way I really like to which is without a cork, fishing straight jig and plastics casting to likely spots. This technique let me fish fast and put just as many fish in the boat as fishing with a float and meat.
As I needed to cast I bulked up my grub size in order to put some distance between the boat and the fish; shallow crappies are easily spooked. This was the first time I had used Puddle Jumpers (http://www.ozarkfishing.com) and was really impressed with their design as they fall slowly and are very easy to control. I found the the Puddle Jumper fished much more effectively casting without a bobber than your standard Flo Flo jig. I also fished them under a cork with equal success.
Taking and applying Chris advice I fished the Puddle Jumper much faster then I normally would with a standard jig and meat and would really Pop it then let fall vertically keeping a small amount of tension on the line. The fish seemed to want to hit the bait on a straight drop right on the bottom, I’d pop it, let it fall slowly then repeat the process. This way I able to fish more shoreline holding scattered fish effectively without spooking them from their shallow water haunts.
April 25, 2009 at 5:02 pm
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