We made our trip to crappie central over the weekend. It was a blast to say the least! The crappie were scattered, and the weather was less than ideal! Walleye and sheepshead with voracious appetites had to be contended with as well. But if you think about it, it made it even more fun! You can only keep 10 crappies anyway! The walleye opener next year will be impressive to say the least. Anyone who has been up there recently can attest to this: You will catch 20 walleye to every crappie. Throw in the sheepies here and there, and the need for MANY minnows is another thing to contend with!
We fished out of Roger’s Campground on the South side of the lake. The folks up there at Roger’s are spectacular! They go out of their way to make darn sure there customers are taken care of! Always there for advice, or even just to tell you to keep your chin up if the crappie don’t cooperate! There is always a spot they are biting, and they are very forthcoming with info to point you the right direction. The facilities were very clean, and wonderfully appointed. We took a fifth wheel up, and pulled my boat behind. We were able to launch the boat, and drive it right over to the campsite via Shotley Creek. Each site had a post for tying up, and power hook-ups for plugging in the boat if needed.
We had water like glass for two days. There were a large number of boats grouped in about three different areas around Rogers. One to the east about a mile, and two to the west about 1 mile, and another about 2 miles. Fish were in areas about 6 to 8 feet deep, and scattered, so exact spots are not necessary. We opted to pull the anchor and slowly drift with slip bobbers and minnows. I chose to use my 11 foot St. Croix Wild River rod with 6 pound test, and a 4 pound tippet of Berkley Vanish, and a #6 Gamakatsu with a single split shot. These "Pound and a quarter fish" can double up the rod when they hit, which is really fun! I chose this rod because of the size of the mouths on these huge crappies. The long noodle rod maximizes hook-ups, and really makes it fun fighting fish. We got our biggest fish by slow trolling Mimic Minnows at 1 MPH outside of the anchored boats. Oh yeah, did I mention the walleyes?
We caught about 100 walleye per day. No, that is not an exageration. At least 100 per day. Sizes were all over the map. This fish was a shade over 26", and went about 2 pound less than a Mille Lacs walleye of the same length. The walleye are numerous, but very skinny. The crappie we cleaned were all with eggs, but were very light and mushy. I don’t know if they were viable. These fish are getting very old, and there are no young ones coming up that we could see. We also noted how few male crappies that we saw in what we cleaned. We pitched Mimmic Minnows from shore at our campsite after our fish fries, and proceded to catch walleye every other cast! Shotley Creek is loaded with walleye from 16 to 24". Northern Pike and Sheepies are also in there, along with the scattered crappie which what was what we were targeting. The walleye cannot be avoided, but are fun none the less on very light gear.
If anyone has any questions about the fishing, or recommendations, drop me a line!
Happy Hooking!
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Tuck
http://www.rogerscg.net/
Here is the link to Roger’s Resort.
Hey Tuck!
Nice report! Sounds to me like you may be predicting that the walleye boom will mean a crappie bust in the near future. Would be nice if you could have both.
dd
I agree. I interviewed a Federal Game and Fish Biologist up there a few years back for an IDA article, and he said that these fish are all out of one or two year classes. They are canibalizing their young just to maintain. The walleye are now back in the food chain, as are the sheepshead which also boomed in the absence of the walleye. We caught numerous walleye with hooks either broke off because of hooking too deep, and lips that were bright red from being hooked previously. He said there will always be a population of crappies in Red, but it may be more like fish in Mille Lacs. They will be there, but scattered and few. We will have to wait and see. I have not heard of anyone catching anything smaller than a pound. Not good.
Tuck
Chris,
Sounds like you had a super time, and I have to admit I’m jealous. Sounds like my kinda trip, staying in RV able to boat to campsite and tieup, fishfry and shorefishing to pass time. Not to mention catching all those fish. 
Great report
Keep em coming
dave
chris,
I was up there on wednesday evening with three other guys we caught 8 crappies, lots and lots of walleye ran out of bait after 2.5 hours there was nice 3 foot waves had a blast can’t wait till next year. we fished lake of the woods the next three days the bite wasn’t close, but we caught fish. so i can’t complain. I hope they go with the two fish limit on red so it should be good for years to come.
grain grinder
We caught 40 on Saturday. It was slow going for the most part. It took all day for 4 limits/4 guys and 10-20 walleye per hour each!
Great job Tuck! I’ll be up there on Saturday or Sunday, whichever day look the least windy. Did you here anything about the northerns at all? We are primarily heading up to hunt down some big pike. I’ll give you a buzz this week.
We put a few in the box for pickeling. Had one on for a while, and when he was done playing with us, he took my bobber, and whole set up and went somewhere else to play. If you see a Thill bobber floating around…and it is attached to a 40″ pike, that’s mine. You can have the fish, I just want my lucky bobber back.