Lake Wisconsin Spring Crappie Fishing Report

We finally had a half way decent weekend of weather to fish in. On Sunday, Dick Majcher, Rob Linde and Jeff Stein climbed aboard to try their luck. The skies were clear this morning and air temperatures started out in the mid 30’s. A bit chilly for this time of year.

We had decided to try for walleyes first and spent the first couple of hours of the morning trolling many of the better spots where I have done well in early May during previous years. Today though, that plan fell flat and by 9:30am we gave up on walleyes and went back after crappies.

The bite was slower today, but by constantly moving the boat around with the bow mount electric, we were able to find small pods of active fish through out the bays. Our best rig today was a 1/32oz jig tipped with a fathead minnow.

The weather improved dramatically as the day wore on and by mid day, we had begun peeling off most of our outer layers. Bright sun and clear skies turned this day into what may have been the most pleasant weather I’ve fished in so far this spring. And because we were in the bays, the stiff north west wind didn’t really bother us that much.

There never really was a hot bite for us today but as long as we kept moving around, we were able to pick up a fish here and there. By late afternoon Dick, Rob and Jeff had managed to put 34 eaten size crappies in the livewell.

Nice weather, more than enough crappies to keep it interesting and good people sure made for a great day.

Thanks guys. Hope you all enjoyed the day as much as I did!

Saturday morning was a bit wet, but after that early morning rain storm blew over, the rest of the day wasn’t to bad!

At a little after 6:00am on Saturday morning I met up with Doug Kuiper at the boat landing. Shortly after we were headed across the lake to see if the crappies were willing to bite this morning. The last few days had been fairly chilly and surface temperatures in the main lake had dropped down to 53-54 degrees. Back in the bays, surface temperatures were several degrees higher running between 56-58 degrees.

Doug and I dropped our lines right over the side of the boat and then cranked them up a couple turns to get them off the bottom. It didn’t take long and we were putting crappies in the boat. Our rigs were simple enough. We used either a 1/32oz jig or a plain gold hook and both were tipped with fathead minnows. The bow mount electric was then used to move the boat and our lines around the bay to areas where I thought crappies might be stacked up.

It didn’t take long for Doug to put 15 in the live well and by 9:00am he decided that his other business couldn’t be kept waiting any longer. If we had stayed out, I’m pretty sure we could have put a lot of fish in the boat, but Doug was just fine with the 15 he already had.

After dropping Doug off at the boat landing, I called my wife Nancy and she brought our dog Kayla over to the lake for a few hours of crappie fishing. Crappie fishing is Nancy’s favorite and Kayla loves to play around in the live well. She likes to "bob" for crappies and it’s hilarious to watch. For a while there we were missing a lot of bites because we were laughing at Kayla instead of paying attention to our fishing lines. But by 2:30pm we had put 25 crappies in the live well and that was more than enough for us.

The one mistake I definitely made today was not taking a picture of Kayla bobbing for crappies. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get her and Nancy out one more time. If so, we’ll be taking pictures for sure!