Dave Koonce is hard at work finding fish for gtg on pool 10 set for 1/29. But crappie action on DeSoto Bay on pool 9 has been so good lately, he and Mr. Holst had to take a break–and were given a crappie clinic by Ferryville’s Joe Deuster, a.k.a. "The Crappie King"
Lil Cecils are usually the hot bait. But Thursday and Friday morning the slabbers wanted a gold Genz Fat Boy with a Lindy teeny tail munchie plastic nail tail in red or purple.
Fish were suspended down 5 ft. over 10-11 relating to stumpy structure on the bottom (which Joe and I didn’t have the heart to tell Mssrs. Koonce & Holst)
Moving just five feet, effectively puts you out of the fish zone. Crappies wanted the lure essentially hovered in place over stumps both days, morning bite much better.
James–always the team player–opted for a consultant role by mid-morning. He is now shopping for pop rivits to build a door prize aluminum boat for the GTG out of the aluminum he recycled. Should be a beauty…enough aluminum was collected for a 16 footer. Deep vee, of course.
EXACT location,finesse approach, bait profile and color were all part of icing a nice sack of fish. Vexilar also a major key—to hook up bait had to be HOVERED in place. Vertical movement caused fish to move away.
Best part of this time on the ice was cameraderie of James, Dave, Mary (the fishing machine), Hanna Banana the Lab and Joe Deuster the Crappie King…especially Mr. Koonce speaking in tongues until he figured out the stump connection!
Thought: during the midwinter period the feeding window for panfish is so short that finesse plastics and baits like the Lil Cecil which provoke STRIKING behavior often work better than live bait. RED is a good color because it is mid-spectrum to fish vision and looks like bloodworm forage base in the new Lindy Munchie tiny tail.
I had a good time there listening to all the BS flying around. That is till my heater went on the bink. Took it back and they replaced it without a ? Great place to shop. Thanks guys for giving this old gal another good day on the ice.
See ya all at the GTG.
Ted you sure know how to make a angler laugh. It’s great reading your fishing articles. Can’t wait to GTG with you and Hanna again.
PS. Mary hope you make it to the pool 10 GTG on the 29th it will be great to meet you.
Great report Ted.. Man thats funny
how big were these fish that you showed these guys??
I was running the camera this day…I’ll get some pix up soon…Most of these crappies were in the 12″ range and a good portion of them topped out at 14″…lots of fun with the vexilar
I just purchased a FL-18 and with out this unit I may never have caught these fish…
Dave forgot to mention he has the new Vexilar FL-18/2M—the “2M” designation is for the twin rear view mirrors which enable the angler to sit with his back to those actually catching fish and rubberneck without appearing to obvious!
Seriously, Ol’ Pahoo holds his own on the River either on the ice or open water…Like Fishing Machine says there was a lot of BS flying along with the crappies flopping on the ice. Couldn’t catch all the details. But the one James told about cleaning it and having it go off is something he should put on the hunting forum!
Hope to make it to GTG..but my plane doesn’t get back from Fla. until Friday afternoon. The tarpon are calling my name!
I’ll be there Jeff without a doubt. We have so much fun. you’ll want to keep coming back year after year.
They were left for another day. 
Thanks again guys. And a big thanks to ted for drilling my holes. 
Ted and Dave forgot to mention about a lot of the larger crappie that got away. Saw Ted take several head first dives into the water with his bare hands that day. Some he got and some well.
Yeah I’ve seen Ted do some dives
And it doesn’t even hurt him doing those head first dives into the ice holes
Well better late then never…here we go…
here is a pic of a nice crappie caught by Joe Deuster…It was good to meet ya Joe !!
if it wasn’t for the Vexilar we would have not caught near as many fish…I will be using my new Vexilar FL-18 more and more in the future
Once i figured out the crappies wanted their bait held ever so still I was pulling some nice crappies on my blood red shrimpo
And i’m not sure what Ted is doing here…I think he was trying to make his little crappie look as big as mine !!
or maybe he was just trying to show what bait he was using…you make the call
Nice fish Dave. Couple of questions. What is the reason for the long rods again and in that shallow water how did the flasher come into play?
We were fishing in 12 feet of water…the long rods work real well for a couple of reasons…1)with the exact amount of line out you can get your bait down to the exact depth that the fish have been at with out even looking at your Vex..and 2) I have found that my spinning reels get line twist a lot more than the long rods do…
And I guess one more may be… it allows you to stand up straight with the tip on your rod down towards the hole not letting any wind affect your line to the bait…and in this case the crappies wanted the bait ever so still…
The Vexilar was awsome…the fish were coming in around 5-6 feet deep…The vex allowed me to put the bait right in front of their noses…If we didn’t have the flasher there is no way to tell at what depth they are coming thru at..
Thanks for the pic’s Dave, If I know Ted he was trying to show the bait.
Dave will I need a vexlar this weekend or are we fishing shallow?
you can bring it if you want…I really do not have a lot of experiance with one in this shalow of water but I do know some who really like it no matter what the depth..
I use mine even if it is only 3feet deep. You don’t have to sit right over top of the hole to see if the fish are under you.
I am also new to the Vexilar this year as I used Eagle and Humminbirds before but sure do love the Vexilar.
Thanks, Bill
Dave–Could you give some purchasing info on those baits you were using. I’ve never heard of them. Are they pretty accessible at bait shops or do you have to order them?
Yes that would be great. I did some searching yesterday and I couldn’t find much. Any info would be great.
In this area the Lil’ Mics can be found at Schaefers Bait shop in a whole array of colors. I am not sure if D&J’s has them or not.