Pool 8 & 9 Weekend Report

Like many fisherman this weekend we put alot of miles on looking for that hot bite. My wife had to leave me for the whole weekend so I had a big dilema on my hands, do I fish open water or ice. I figured why make the decision tough on a guy and just let the fish tell us what they want to do. We started on the Ice on Friday evening and found some good results. We targeted deep water with good flow and tried to hold to the very edge of the current break. We found crappies suspending anywhere from 5-10 ft. below the ice in 16 ft. of water. The fish were kind of acting slugish and the key to putting fish on the ice was to present different lures about every 5 minutes, I think the fish just get used to seeing your bait and when something changes they make a reaction strike. With a cold front moving in we decided to change gears on Saturday and sight fish some extremely shallow water. The move paid off and Tim stuck this 2 lb white crappie that taped over 15 inches.

Sight fishing these monstor crappies is an absolute blast. The same time Tim was landing hogzilla I was batteling another hog that simply wouldn’t fit through the 6 in hole. Being extremely quiet and very rythmic on your jig is a must when fishing skinny water. These big hogs don’t just come in and hit your lure, they need to be finessed and provoked into biting. My best producer today was a large glow ratso head tipped with a pink amoeba. Hooked on fishing has them in stock and they are one of my favorite crappie killers. I do like to take a fillet knife and bring the tail to a sharp point giving the plastic a little more whip. We had a very good day on the ice Saturday finishing with 22 crapies 12 to 15 inches. Remember when you are fishing amobeas you have to talk to them, if you say amoeba amoeba it acts like a crappie call and those slabs just can’t resist them (lol). Here are 2 that fell victim to the amoeba.

The local game warden greeted us during our lunch break, he mentioned that genoa was open and there is a rumor that a 16 lb walleye was caught this week. If anyone has a picture that would be cool to see. On Sunday we loaded up the boat and headed to pool 9. It was very cold on the water this morning and the fish were biting really slow. For the most part I would not call it a hot bite, but we did manage 10 nice eaters before noon. All of our keeper fish were in the 16-18 inch range. We pitched jigs, verticle jigged hair, dragged ring worms, and trolled stick baits to put fish in the boat. No one presentation really shined for us today. With a cold front moving in I think fishing was going to be a little tougher for the next couple of days, but with a nice pool 9 eye on the end of your rod you will forget all about that. It’s a wonderful time of year to be on the ice and open water, so make the best of it while we still can.

Tight lines,

Joey