Mid March Crappie Report

The biggest challenge when trying to catch slab crappies through the ice is locating them first! During mid March, crappies will begin congregating towards their traditional staging areas. These spots vary from lake to lake, but one thing is certain – crappies under the ice usually will be in the warmest water that they can find. Typically that means one should try and find the deeper areas of the lake (or the largest mass of water in the lake) where the open water was the last to freeze over. The warmer water may be many feet below the ice, but sometimes there will be temperature differences.

Crappies gather in these in-between winter and spring staging areas and are caused by certain stimuli in the fish that trigger their pre-spawning instincts. Crappies also tend to school and suspend in mid depths during daylight hours. Finding these areas is one of the important elements for having an OK day on the ice or a great day on the ice. Once you find these staging areas, now you must find out how deep the suspended fish are located. Many factors play a role in this but the most important ones are weather and time of the day.

Through lots of scouting, fellow IDO member and friend of mine Craig Daugherty had found one of these staging areas on a lake in Aitkin County. It was basically a small deep hole which dropped down to 28 feet of water in the middle of the lake. We arrived at the lake mid morning and to our surprise, there were already numerous people fishing two favorite local hot spots. Amongst the two areas must have been 20-30 portables each. We drove right on by and eventually went to the deeper part of the lake. When we finally arrived, there were a handful of other anglers fishing in this location as well, so we politely set up about 75 yards away from them while trying not to disturb the area.

We caught a few small ones and one keeper, but not exactly the slabs we were hoping for. We were on the ice now for about an hour and we had not yet located the big slabs. We simply were not on the spot on the spot. We were starting to ponder our next move when all of a sudden I marked a big red bar on my flasher very high up in the water column and only 10 feet under the ice. I quickly reeled up about a foot above the fish and BANG – my jig just got crushed! I set the hook but it did not find its mark and I ended up rolling a good fish. I quickly checked my jig and saw that I got picked. I quickly put on another waxie keeping an eye on the red mark which was still on my flasher. I quickly sent my jig back down and I closed my bail about a foot above the fish. The red bar immediately moved up to my jig and BANG – I watched my St. Croix spring drop straight down and this time the hook set found its mark!

Seeing I had a good fish on, Craig hustled over and said most likely I have a big tullibe on! Eventually I worked the fish up the hole and Craig was right except for one thing. It was a tullibe but not just any tullibe – it was the mother of all tullibes! This was the biggest tullibe either one of us had ever seen! It measured 17 inches long and was pushing 3 lbs. Even the DNR officer who checked us said he’s never seen a bigger one either! That was a fun fish but that wasn’t the reason why we were there.

The other anglers by us were sitting on “the spot on the spot”. So we patiently waited and soon after lunch, one by one they started to leave. A couple of them left complaining that they were marking some fish but very few were willing to bite.

Craig ventured over and started fishing out of a couple of holes where the other guys just were. Shortly after, he had a slab flopping on the ice. He motioned me over and we finally moved into the spot.

Catching these suspended fish was basically a jigging game. The colder the water, the slower you must present your offering. These suspended crappies were in a negative or neutral mood and that’s where horizontal jigs are effective. Fatboys and gill pills were our top producers. The water clarity was pretty good so we presented brighter colored transparent jigs such as chartreuse, orange and yellows.

We would raise and lower our jigs about a half foot to get their attention. When a fish finally showed up on the flasher, it was time to slow down and jig ever so slightly above them. Then it’s a game of cat and mouse and this is where the flasher played an important role. Each fish reacts differently to your jigging motion and it’s up to you to figure out what type of mood that fish is in.

As the fish rises up for the bait, we would slowly jig it away from them in an upwards motion. Your attention would go from your flasher and eventually to your spring and line when the red mark was on top of your jigging mark. Then when nothing would happen, you glance back over to your flasher to find out what that fish is doing. Back and forth you would repeat the sequence. It takes concentration and sometimes we would work the same fish many minutes before it would eventually commit. This is nothing new to most ice crappie anglers. However, the level of concentration and persistency needed is sometimes mind boggling. Some fish required over 10 minutes of finesse jigging before they would strike. While others after all that time, would eventually lose interest and swim away. We would constantly second guess ourselves. Should we jig faster? Should we slow it down? Should we raise it higher? Should we hook the waxie a different way? Should we slowly drop it down? One careless move and it could be over! To me that’s the fun part of it all. It’s all about getting that fish to commit and when it does it makes all the concentration worth while. It definitely not a numbers game. It’s about getting those finicky slabs to commit!

We baited these light horizontal jigs by simply hooking the tip of a wax worm on one end. This presentation would allow us to have that wax worm flutter back and forth in the water with our slight jigging movements. Craig also discovered if you stripped out the insides of the wax worm and then rehook it on one end, it would present itself differently in the water. Many times this little trick would make a difference on those finicky biters.

Spring bobbers at the end of our rod tips helped us detect bites from the aggressive fish, but for the light biters it was even better to watch our line for subtle changes (a lift). Because of the warmer temperatures, we fished outside the entire day and that allowed us to stay mobile jumping from hole to hole. This was another key factor to our success. Sometimes we fished with two rods close together. We would leave one rod idle while we jigged with the other one. We then would pull out our transducer and check the idle line. To our delight, many times we would mark a fish looking at the still offering. Ever so slowly, we would start the jigging process and sometimes get that suspended fish to bite!

We worked hard for our fish today and it paid off. I’ve had other good days where we limited out in a couple of hours, but they were certainly not as satisfying or enjoyable as this day.

Pay attention to detail and concentrate! All the little things make a difference!