Chasing down crappies on shallow basin lakes

Enjoyed the perfect day of hunting crappies on a local shallow basin lake! With the trout action being the best winter we’ve had on Lake MI. in a few years, it was tough to set aside the drag screaming, open water, in the boat fishing for the labor intensive task of dragging my gear across a frozen tundra….But, every once in a while we need the reality check of working for our fish.
Everything had lined up perfectly for a mental health day. A front had passed through giving us a warming trend with partially overcast skies, no clients for the day, and no other scheduled work! So with a day to myself, I headed up to Fox Lake for my definition of a half day. I got on the ice around 6:00am and was ready to execute my plan of attack. Keep moving, zig/zag along contour lines, and catch as many fish as I could until 6:00pm.

Fox Lake has an abundance of a young year class crappies ranging 6 to 8 inches. This provides some fast and furious action. I’ve enjoyed having kids out here this year as this makes for the perfect platform for teaching. Especially when it comes to integrating electronics into how we fish.
When searching shallow basin lakes, I like to seek out a starting contour line of that is about ¾ or greater of the maximum depth. In this case of Fox, the starting contour line I like is about 13 fow. From there, I like to move from 12 to 15 fow until I find a distinct pattern. Then it’s a matter of chasing a school (as I prefer) or waiting on schools to move through. A very common situation for shallow basin lakes is to have schools passing through quickly, so staying mobile is critical for constant action.
Venturing out in my own direction away from the crowd didn’t take long to get into an active school of small crappies. Armed with a custom 42” soft action jig rod, 4# Cajun mono, and a Custom Jigs & Spins #102 silver/hot green 1/8oz slender spoon, it was game on! Within the first half dozen holes I checked with the locator in 13 fow, I had the screen lit up like a Christmas tree. The general pattern remained consistent for nearly the entire day. I marked a few sluggish fish on the bottom, very aggressive fish were 2-3 feet up, and moderately aggressive fish were higher. The first drop of my CJS slender spoon was a very clear indication of what they wanted. Immediately, on the first drop I had slack line and fish on.
With a dozen small crappies caught in the first hole, I wanted to find a school that was more suited for table fare. Always hard to leave active fish, but I was on a mission. I continued to pave my own road zig/zagging across the 13 to 15 fow contours finding multiple schools of fish along the way. Even though I iced way over a hundred small crappies, I kept wishing I had a couple of kids out with me. It was non stop dropping a spoon to the bottom, quickly lifting it up 3 or 4 feet, and let it flutter down about 6”. Immediately, a red line would shoot up from the school and merge with the mark of the spoon. A glance of your line often resulted in seeing an inch or two of slack line and then the THUMP!

I like to show the actual items used in my reports, but it was a very upsetting moment when I snapped a walleye off in the hole…only to realize that was my last slender spoon. From a guy that keeps a half-dozen back stock of everything, I felt like such an idiot. As a bonus to my day, I iced 6 walleyes that were 13 to 17-1/2”. Fox has a 18” size limit, so they all went right back down the hole. The eye that I snapped off I guessed to be in the 22-24” range. Hard to tell when you only have an open mouth slashing around in the hole and the body is still below the ice line.
After covering about a mile and half of water, I finally came upon a school of crappies running 11” to 13”. I noticed the larger crappies were not as aggressive as the others, and were easily spooked by hooking other fish. I changed over to a two rod method as I moved to each hole. When I hooked the first few fish with a spoon, I noticed the school would drop down tighter to the bottom and not chase the spoon an more. So with the second rod, I dropped a CJS diamond jig in firetiger with a couple wax worms. Just a subtle quiver above the fish would trigger another bite or two before the school would move.

I took a dozen nice crappies for a meal. But reflecting back on the day was pure enjoyment. Naturally, we all want to hit that magical hole that produces monster fish. But some days, it’s equally fun to just hone your skills on smaller active fish. If anyone has kids (or yourself) that wants to really enhance your skills on using electronics and understanding a fish’s mood Vs. your presentation, Fox Lake offers the perfect setting.
A final bonus on the day that I got to witness left me very ticked off at myself. I dropped my Marcum 625 camera down to watch a few fish. I accidently hit the soft bottom and a cloud of silt lifted up. Didn’t take long and a huge pike came in to investigate. After a minute or so, a couple small crappies were back in front of the camera head……only to be devoured by the pike. One moment that I wish I had the record button pushed! No idea of an actual size, but it was large enough to inhale a 7ish inch crappie.