Lake Wisconsin – Dumb Luck Crappies

I headed out late this afternoon with the intention of trying to scratch up a few eater sized walleye as my wife has been bugging me for a fish fry. I hit my normal spots that tend to produce this time of year and struck out after dragging various colors of BFishn Ringworms and Moxies. Moved to a new spot I hadn’t fished but had always thought it may be good this time of year. I started out pitching crawlers in about 10 FOW and hooked up on my second cast. Unfortunately, it was about a 2 foot snot rocket. Picked up a couple small crappie and one 12 inch perch, but I was marking a lot of fish in the 10 to 14 foot depths. I continued playing around with crawlers and ended up getting a lot of them stolen while catching a mix of small crappie, white bass, yellow bass, and smallies.

I knew there were better fish in the area based on what I had marked, but I had grown tired of donating crawlers so decided it was time to try something different. I went back to dragging but switched to a 1/8th oz BFT Draggin jig in Orange and threw on a Chartreuse Orange core Moxie. I made it 20 feet into my first drag and hooked up. I knew it wasn’t a walleye, but it was a decent fish. Got it to the boat and it turned out to be a 14.5 inch Crappie. I didn’t have a camera other than my phone so you will have to excuse the poor picture. I haven’t figured out how to do a self portrait of any quality with my phone yet so went with the fish on the floor pose. The fish had all but 1/4 inch of the moxie in its mouth. The fish was fat with spawn so I sent it back to go do her thing.

I figured it was a fluke, but I went another 20 yards and hooked up again and brought another nice crappie to the boat. What I initially thought was a fluke turned out to be a pretty solid pattern. Over the next hour and a half, I continue to boat crappie after crappie, all caught dragging a Chartreuse Orange core Moxie. The first fish of the night turned out to be my biggest, but I caught a couple dozen in the 11 to 14 inch range. I kept 6 for a meal and let the rest go so they could spawn. It was an awesome evening on the water with fantastic weather and good fishing.

I did manage to pull a few small walleye in the same area as the crappie came from, but they were all short fish. The water temp was 47 when I got out and 53 by the time it got dark. We seem to be a good week if not two behind schedule this spring but the fishing is starting to pick up. I’ll be back out Saturday most likely. Not sure what I’ll be fishing for, but something tells me it will be crappies.