Crappie report - 2/6/10

[MagicStik]

Zwizzlestix and I met up with Strat, Marv, and Wayne on Island Lake near Moose Lake on Saturday. We hit the ice around 11:00. Strat and the crew were already set up at the crappie hole and marked a few fish. We punched about a dozen more holes from 30'-40' of water. We marked a few fish in 30' but very few fish would even come up to look at the bait. After an hour Zwizzlestix and I headed over to another spot and punched about 20 holes. We marked some fish here and there but once again they were very tight lipped. I eventually downsized to a JR's diamond jig tipped with a waxie and pulled in one tiny crappie, one tiny perch, and one decent crappie. Too slow for us....time to move again.

Strat and crew had headed to another lake to give it a try. They had caught 7 crappies so we headed over. Again we punched about a dozen holes and marked a few fish on the bottom. Most of the bottom fish were tiny gills, perch, and crappies. Marv said there were fish suspended right when they got there but they were no where to be found. I think it was around 2:30 when they pulled the pin. I gave Marv my one crappie and went to check some more holes. Zwizzlestix started marking suspended fish and caught 2 quick ones. For the next two hours we marked a good number of suspended fish. Usually 2-3 fish would fly up to hit the bait. Once you pulled a couple fish from the school the bite would die off and eventually the school would move. We kept on the move also and usually if you checked 10-15 holes you would find a school of them again. We pulled the pin around 4:30 and we had 16 crappies and 1 perch between the two of us. A few of them were nice sized crappies but the rest were around 8".

Not sure what Zwizzlestix was using but 99% of my fish were caught on the red diamond jig and a waxie. The compact size of that jig was nice as you had to get the bait back down to 30'-40' before the school moved on.

It was a fun trip out! I wish we could have stayed another hour as there were still fish on the Marcums when we left.

MagicStik

[Michael Thompson]

sounds like a tough bite, way to stick it out and get some on the ice!

[pipes]

Sounds like alot of effort....but that is ice fishing, right! I have came across the same problem this year....really tight lipped fish. Nothing seems to be consistant, always changing.

[Tubes]

Way to battle through!