I was out today with my good friend Herb Bailey on pool 9. We met up at Desoto Bay looking for crappies…After firing up the 6″ Lazer Power Auger and popping 8-10 holes we started searching the 12′ of water looking for hungry crappies. With in a short time I pulled my first crappie out from about half way down…This first fish came on a purple moon glitter tipped with a couple of spikes…
With no more fish in the next 1/2 hour I set up my Otter Medium Cabin and pulled out the spinning ice rods and started probing the depths with two offerings…Purple Moon Glitter and a Lil Mic… With in minutes I pulled my first keeper crappie on the purple Lil Mic a couple of feet off the bottom…
The picture of the Lil Mics is the two colors I lost today on something bigger than my 2 pound test could handle…
Herb had one of the Vexilar FL series flashers that showed the fish suspended off the bottom…I asked him if I could put this unit in my ice house and try it out…this was SWEET I could see right where the fish were, so all I had to do was stick it in their faces…
With some bigger fish snapping my line and stealing my jigs I was really thinking about getting another stick set up with heavier line and no spring bobber….but that will be another story….
After a while I had put several more fish in the Otter and we moved on to other waters to try out..
We went over to Green Lake in Blackhawk Park and had limited success but the gills we did catch (Herb caught) were pretty nice….
After that we went into Ferryville (Swing Inn) and had a great lunch before stopping off at Cold Springs to find some gills….We fished there till around 4pm and caught some 8 inch gills but most were small…
Well that was another good day of fishing with great company 
Till Next time
Be safe and good fishn 
Nice Report Dave…We’ve been using those same jigs as you have pictured….and having great success on them
I got turned on to the Lil’ Mics last year and was very impressed. I have 4 of them in various colors and the are an excellent choice on crappie and bull gills. I might have to talk Slop into a little road trip sometime this winter
. Trying new areas is a lot of fun. Looks like you and Herb had a great day exploring and catching some dandy fish. 
Sounds like you guys had a fun day on the water.
Those Vexilars are nice. 
Thanks for the report.
Thanks, Bill
Can you tell me who the manufacturer is for the Lil Mic’s? They look big and bulky for panfish so the picture must be deceiving.
The pic is deceiving. They aren’t all that big and the panfish love them.
I’m not sure who makes them.
Yea i see what you mean..
I’ll get a pic out with a coin next to one tonight…
I buy mine at Hamann’s here in PdC…and i think they are made locally…but i’ll dig into it..
I bought some of those at Ghelfs (spelling?) Bait Shop a couple years ago and believe she told me they were made locally. I was catching gills today and switched to one of those and caught one crappie but went back to my old reliable and camwe home with twenty keeper gills. Fishing has been so good up here in the Lacrosse area I can’t see driving down to Green Lake when I can fish 2 minutes from my house. Lots of folks catching lots of fish today.
Here you go on that picture !!
So I gotta ask, do most gills get the hooks in the side of the face, or do they actually fit the treble in their mouth?
Some take it all in….
some don’t
never in the side of the face
The ones we were catching on them were taking in the entire treble hook…
So you are saying they swallow…
I’ve caught plenty of gills on swedish pimples which are bigger than those and have never snagged one allways have either one or all points of the trebble in there mouth.
I wasn’t trying to imply that they were being snagged, or anything disturbing as others have run with. I was more or less wondering if they hit the flashy jig or the bait. It seems that a gill has a small enough mouth that if they went for the spoon/flasher, they would end up with the treble in the side of their face.
I used to flyfish for gills a lot. When they’re aggressive, they seem to attack “sideways” – that is to say that their bodies are parallel to the surface. We’ve all seen gills come up from under a bait and inhale it while vertical, but when they respond to twitching and jigging aggressively, it always looked to me like they turned and swiped at it.
After reading this, I realize it probably makes no sense. I finally got the auger running and I’ve been sucking fumes all night.