Spring Crappies on Lake Wisconsin

Spent the weekend opener for Wisconsin inland lakes chasing crappies on Lake Wisconsin. This bite is definitely a little behind this year but appears to be getting ready to take off in a big way.
Checked several shallow bays first thing Saturday morning only to find the water temps a little to cold for the comfort of spawning crappies. Wasn’t really very surprised considering all the cold weather we’ve had this spring. Just two short weeks ago we were fishing the river in early morning temps that started in the low 20’s and didn’t rise above freezing until 10:00am or so.

Main lake surface temps were running in the mid-50 degree range across most of the lower end of Lake Wisconsin. Bays were only 2 degree’s higher for the most part although they may have been close to 60 degrees by the end of the day.
Typically when the shallows are below 60 degrees, I simply back track from the spawning grounds to the nearest location that has water depths of 12-16′ deep. And if we don’t find them there, we move deeper yet which is exactly what I had to do on Saturday. Turns out, they were staging in about 19′ of water when I finally found them.

Sunday morning I picked up my clients at the bright & early hour of 8:00am.
Gotta love spring crappie fishing as there really doesn’t seem to be any advantage in getting up super early when night time temperature’s drop down into the low 40’s.
It was a little chilly at first but as the sun began to warm things up, the crappies also got more & more active. Even though water temps had only warmed up a degree or two from the day before, we were finding most of our fish in that 13-16′ range where as the day before, I had to stay deeper in order to get bit.

Our best rig really could not be much simpler. A #4 gold hook tipped with a minnow and a 1/8oz split shot pinched on the line 12-16′ above the hook. Drop it down to the bottom and real it up a couple turns, then hold steady until a crappie finds your minnow. No need for slip bobbers and lord knows if I don’t need one, I ain’t gonna use one!
This really is the beauty of spring crappie fishing as you can get as fancy as you want with plastics or you can stay as simple as you like using live bait and still get bit.
By 12:30pm, we decided to call it quits with 29 nice crappies ranging from 10 to 14″ in the box. Most were in that 11 to 12″ range.
Plenty for the fish fry planned for the entire family later Sunday afternoon.