Jigging Up Lake Zumbro Bullgills & Crappies

You have to just LOVE fall fishing because its when the bigger fish start showing up and put the feed bag on. And when you add cooler air and water temps, and most of the skiers are off the lake, so its just you and other fishermen AND the FISH.

I chose this pic for the first one as its Mike with a couple nice crappies. Most of the fish we caught today were bluegills as someone forgot to invite the crappies along. lol. Seriously, ALL summer long it was crappies everywhere it seemed and today it was back to what use to be the ”normal” bite on Zumbro of not very many crappies but a ton of gills like the past few years. I love catching crappies, its fun and brings out the ”little kid” in us all. But catching nice thick bullgills on a light action St Croix Avid rod makes everyone feel like you have a nice big fat smallie on the end of your line cause you can feel every bit of the fish fighting trying to show you whose boss. Its fun. Thats what I love about fall fishing on Lake Zumbro. When those big ones make their presence known its very fun fishing for sure.

Mike has lost ALOT of weight so I jokingly say hes half the man he use to be. For some strange reason when he and I stand on opposite sides of the boat now it just doesn’t balance out like it use to. lol. I was told that I was the camera man today so all the pics will feature fish and the ”new” HOF. The third pic is Mike with a bass that decided to hit his Mini-mite. I have caught more fish, and lots of different spieces too, on these jigs. That tail is just too temping to all fish it seems. Even the northern that bite Mike off today likes them. lol.

You already know the lure we were using so I’ll talk alittle about the technique used to catch our fish today. We were pretty much jigging and I had a splitshot about a foot and a half about my jig. This technique worked in both shallow and deeper water. The splishot added more weight so my jig was able to get back down quicker to the depth at where we were catching fish at yet was far enought up the line to not hinder the action of the jig. These Mini-mite jigs have a tail that can really bounce which makes it ”look alive” to the fish. It doesn’t take much for these jigs to send off a ”catch me if you can” and an ”alive look” to the fish. Adding a waxie to the jig provided a ”smell/tasty” sense also. As the fish get to be more and more concentrated in areas the more the jigging prsentation will work. In the fall I like to mix up trolling and jigging letting the fish tell me what they want. Trolling to locate fish and then stopping and jigging them will put alot of fish in the boat. The bite seemed better in the morning for us, then slowed down some [think some northerns moved in] and then the bite picked back up for us in the early afternoon. Great weather, calm water, cooler temps for both air and water, and catching alot of fish sure makes for a great way to spend part of the day. It just doesn’t get any better than that. See you on water.
Thanks, Bill