Crappie and Gill Report, Alexandria 3-6-11

With mild temps and giant snow flakes falling all afternoon, Sunday couldn’t have been a nicer day to be on the ice. I got to the lake around 11:30 am to find a few of my friends were already there. They had to leave shortly after my arrival, so this left me with the entire lake to myself. Don’t get me wrong I love fishing and socializing with friends, but there’s nothing like watching the snow fall with no one for miles. It was one of those days where you could almost hear the flakes fall.

I worked a large area in about 13-14fow for the next few hours. There were fish in almost every hole, but as I normally do I spend most of my time locating suspended fish. It’s not that you can’t get those single fish that are closer to the bottom to bite. It’s just that the roaming suspended fish are looking to feed, so it’s much easier to get them to cooperate.

The crappie action was pretty steady all day with quite a few of them in that 10”-12” range. Being the fish were a little timid, I had started out using a small #12 horizontal jig. But, after missing a few fish I quickly decided to switch over to a jig with a larger hook. The jig still had a very small head, but proportionally it had a much larger hook. Being these were such nice fish, up sizing my hook in this case greatly increased my hook up rate.

Even though I caught mostly crappie, the highlight for the afternoon was a half doz gills that went 9.5” – 10.5”. These fish were some of the cleanest, most beautiful sunfish I’ve ever caught through the ice. I found these fish just a little closer to shore. It didn’t get much shallower, but there were a few more weeds in the area. I was only able to fish this area for about half hour before it was time for me to go, so I can’t wait to get back out there. I plan to unleash the Solo and do some more exploring to see if I can’t put together more of a pattern for those tank gills.

Panfish are a very exciting fish to target and lucky for us late ice is prime time. The lakes will soon be free of their snow cover and the bite will be even better than it is right now. This is a great time to introduce a kid to ice fishing or take someone out that doesn’t normally get to fish. Pick a nice day, do a little research on the lake you plan to fish and there’s no doubt it will be a trip to remember. Good luck to everyone and I’ll see you out there!