For my last couple of fishing outings, I have been trying to target crappie, and crappie specifically. I’ve upped my jig size in some circumstances, added a flair of plastic to some of my jigs, and have varied my meat selection from spikes to waxies to small fatheads. I want crappies. The primary depths I’ve chosen to work have been on the deeper side of things, with a variation from a ledge or two. Most importantly, I’ve been moving around…a lot. Punching lots of holes flashing beams of sonar with my MarCum just looking for those suspended or bottom hugging tasty morsels.

Earlier in the week, I made a short scout to a small lake not too far from my office. A little night time action you may dare to say. The fish were there, but their cooperation was minimal. I was able to pluck off around a dozen crappie, and 6 were saved for the freezer. All of these fish took small fatheads.

Yesterday I was joined by Keith and we hole hopped a decent sized bay from a lake in SE Wisconsin. Not too far from some of my favorite trout grounds. Through some hearsay, I learned about this lake, which will be referred to as Lake Y in this post. Lake Y seemed to have some decent potential. It didn’t take long before I marked fish. However, most of my marks yielded bluegill. Not our target. Keith and I probably caught close to 30 to 40 gills.

I decided to move from 9′ of water to a basin in 14′. I was finding some fish near the bottom, and I fluttered some plastic down their way. Soon enough, the prize was captured.

Mixed in with the crappies were some yellow bass and even some perch. Most of the perch were dinks, but I did manage one semi-decent one that was tossed back in the hole.

It seemed that once I found some fish, the bite tapered down and the fish were off on their own ways. I was about to pack it up when all of a sudden, a good amount of people showed up on the lake. I had been there pretty much most of the day with Keith and without anyone else around, and for some reason, everyone showed up just as things were getting dark. Hmm… The curiosity got the best of me and I decided to stick it out past sunset to see what this hype was about.

Unfortunately, spending a little added time on the water didn’t produce. I heard one guy cursing because he claimed to have lost a big walleye at the hole. Maybe these guys were targeting eyes… who knows.

We packed up and ended the day with probably close to 60 fish, and decided to harvest 9 crappies and 2 yellers for a good meal. The best pattern for the day was a chatreuse colored plastic tipped with a spike.

Its always fun learning new waters. One cool thing about fishing is there is ALWAYS water to learn, and new fish to be had. After drilling a crap ton of holes and bouncing all over, Keith and I probably covered less than 1% of this new found lake and barely established a pattern. I see Lake Y as having some potential, and it will take a matter of time and a good amount of effort to drill it down.

Note – this entry was taken from a bit I wrote for Chicagolandfishing.com, and some of the names might not sound familiar. I’m being a lazy blogger today and don’t feel like writing separate write ups

12/19 -

Got to Oak off of Pistakee at 5:30 am. Began working the south bay with some peeps. One group decided to work 12-20′ of water off of Oak; Rootpro and I decided to venture off towards the south side of the bay.

We came upon a shanty town, and a mass of people passing the cognac at 6am. It was none other than the Panfish Mafia who were catching some gills exclaiming, “ya ya ya” and “100 100 100″ after each and every catch. I greeted the godfather and made an offering of Killians Irish red, but he politely declined but offered some real estate near his pack. Fishing was slow on that end, so I decided to pack it up and head to deeper water.

Keith and I probably drilled close to 40 holes looking for activity, but couldn’t quite find the white bass.

We headed back towards Oak and eventually joined ice fishing forces with a group who called themselves the White Mafia. The white mafia was made up by some anglers from another fishing site, FHQ.

After some hole hoping, we started to hit some fish. Special Ed was out there with his electronics. We chased and eventually rounded up a school of whites, and it was game on.

Superfluke joined for the action. Some of the white fish mafia wanted to keep fish for their freezers and the 12 days of White Bass christmas, so Flukey, Keith, and myself made a fish offering to this mafia. These fish make great stocking stuffers.

Special Ed packed it around 2, and I think he took him around 30 fish with his partner.

However, this is when the action became insane.

There were moments were my swedish pimple would get ravished by a fish before it would even touch the bottom.

All fish were on the bottom, or right off of it. Some of the fish took some jigging effort to entice a bite. Fluke demonstrated his ability to lift his 20 year old jigs with a quick twitch of the wrist and the whites simply couldn’t resist.

We packed up later that afternoon with a nice pile of fish that found good new homes in many freezers.

A few bonus hop klops were had and a sheep was added to the pile. Andrew R of the white mafia was brave enough to try a sheep. Some kitties were caught during the day. A lot of fun with friends and some new friends.

12-20 -

Slept in, but decided to take out a new mule to Pistakee and put him on some fish. This time around, it wasn’t as difficult finding the fish. We ran into Larry (of the Panfish Mafia) in the parking lot. He pointed us to the group of people in 20′ of water and said they were slamming em.

Got out to the group, and we picked up right where we left off yesterday. Got to meet Marabou and Marabou Jr. Superfluke and Superfluke Jr made it out there as well. Marabou got a crappie that was probably around 14″ or so. Very impressive. 2 We were also graced by the presence of none other than Courtney!

The action tapered down towards the end of the afternoon, but we had a great time catching fish. Dallas and his mafia made it out. He said Andy and Pezdek weren’t coming which was a downer Oh well, maybe next time I’ll get a chance to meet those CLF celebrities.

Here are some pictures from the weekend. I finally gave in and bought a Marcum last week. Glad I did. Ice fishing is really addicting and I will be spending more time on inland lakes this season. Can’t wait for next weekend 2