Fish-Hawk.Net

Beauties bud! Whack 'em and stack 'em!!!

Thanks folks, it's a rite of passage from winter into summer. Hope a bunch of ya can tie into them this weekend.
Once the lil buggers are located, catching is fast and furious!!

Oneeleven wrote:You've inspired me and Lvace to go on a bit of a Crappie hunt ourselves now!

Show him up, we often put $10 on the biggest to add to the fun.

Hot diggity dog......some fine looking eats right there !

Out4trout wrote:Thanks folks, it's a rite of passage from winter into summer. Hope a bunch of ya can tie into them this weekend.
Once the lil buggers are located, catching is fast and furious!!

Oneeleven wrote:You've inspired me and Lvace to go on a bit of a Crappie hunt ourselves now!

Show him up, we often put $10 on the biggest to add to the fun.

Do I smell a challenge.



Let the crappie wars begins

I went to inspect my typical summer haunt for crappie today.

Water was wide open, which shocked me and low compared to the last 2 springs.

Well I could not locate any crappie which truly had me puzzled, but as I typically find these guys a nuisance fish, I never really paid attention to their seasonal habits before.

I did witness about a 24-25" pike in the water and always find that fun watching them.

I continued on and was startled by a funny noise in the water at the shore amongst the previous seasons reeds. Assuming it was a muskrat, I stopped for a bit to see if I could watch it surface. But it would not surface, yet kept literally bouncing off of the reeds under water. I could not really understand what kind of a critter could last so long under water.

After watching for a long while, I finally gave up and headed back to where I started still scouring the water for crappie.

I reached the other shore and again rustling in the reeds and splashing in the water. This time I would not be deterred, I was bound to see what it was.
Well my perseverence paid off what I saw was quite incredible.
Literally in 6 -8"'s of water I witnessed a 28" female pike and a hammer handle male pike nesting and when they emerged into open water it took me a minute to truly realize they were fish and not a muskrat, as they were literally moving as one unit. The male was completely moving I sync when th the female. I was amazed.
The female had a nasty mark on her tail and was so much bigger than the male.
Well with this new bit of info, I went back to the original spot I noticed rustling in the reeds to see if I could witness another Beaty pike. But it was not to be.
On my way to finally leave I did see another pair come into the area and could feel they were a new pair as the female was in perfect condition.
So in a span of I suspect a good couple hours I witnessed first hand 2 couples a single and I assume another mating couple in the reeds yet did not get an eyeball on that set.
So a very good reason I did not locate crappie.

Cheers and tight lines!

Knowing literally jack squat about Crappie, would anyone be willing to share some info on where to look for these fish? I'm NOT looking for secret spots or anything like that, just more general info. Can you fish them from shore this time of year? Are they in the main flow of the Ottawa for example? Do they stick to the shallows?

I tried to catch some last year but all I could manage was a gazillion Bluegills, LOL!

Lvace - I'd up the ante to $100 if I were you, I think you might have an edge going into this.

Kerrazy - that's really cool to have seen the pike spawn!

NMG
Shallow (2-6') mud flats - creeks and inflows, lined with cattails, think warmest water. They will sometimes travel quite a way up a creek to get to the warm water. Absolutely can shore fish them. Where I hit them in the spring is a clear and open creek channel, lined both sides with cattails, with bedrock jutting from the cattails providing footing. This same creek channel is totally lilypad choked by June. From the boat, I fish the wider part, flat bottom bay leading into the same inflows.

This time of year they are hungry, and predictable, the only time of the year that they are this easy to catch. Prefer cooler water than bass, so out of season catches are not as common as one might think. The occasional bass does sneak in, especially as the water gets above 50F, but once the bass inhabit the shallows the crappie bite is ending. If a pike cruises in, the crappie bite ends real fast. As Kerrazy said!

The crappie are rather skittish in the shallow water, so a quiet approach is good. Thill pencil floats make less of a splash than globes. Float usually goes sideways not down. Business end is usually a micro jig with either a panfish plastic or tiny minnow. I generally only use Artificials, and the more it looks like a larva than a fish, the better. Crappie eat mostly invertebrates.

Hope this helps!!

That's awesome info shared Len.

I'll be talking Crappie tomorrow morning on the Renegade Bass Radio show. A little about FH too...

RJ

Awesome, thanks Out4trout, that helps me allot!

I was going to try and target them with my fly rod, floating line and some smaller patterns. I don't have the boat ready yet, so I was hoping to find some spots on shore that I could take my son to for a few hours. He'll be using his Spidey rod, LOL.

Out4trout wrote:Lvace - I'd up the ante to $100 if I were you, I think you might have an edge going into this.

Kerrazy - that's really cool to have seen the pike spawn!

NMG
Shallow (2-6') mud flats - creeks and inflows, lined with cattails, think warmest water. They will sometimes travel quite a way up a creek to get to the warm water. Absolutely can shore fish them. Where I hit them in the spring is a clear and open creek channel, lined both sides with cattails, with bedrock jutting from the cattails providing footing. This same creek channel is totally lilypad choked by June. From the boat, I fish the wider part, flat bottom bay leading into the same inflows.

This time of year they are hungry, and predictable, the only time of the year that they are this easy to catch. Prefer cooler water than bass, so out of season catches are not as common as one might think. The occasional bass does sneak in, especially as the water gets above 50F, but once the bass inhabit the shallows the crappie bite is ending. If a pike cruises in, the crappie bite ends real fast. As Kerrazy said!

The crappie are rather skittish in the shallow water, so a quiet approach is good. Thill pencil floats make less of a splash than globes. Float usually goes sideways not down. Business end is usually a micro jig with either a panfish plastic or tiny minnow. I generally only use Artificials, and the more it looks like a larva than a fish, the better. Crappie eat mostly invertebrates.

Hope this helps!!

That's some solid advice Len, the creeks i fish have lots of sunnies during the day but once evening time hits the crappie start moving in hard. I'll be out on my 12 foot jon boat today fighting the 50 km/h gusts, should be fun!

Tasty looking spring crappie!

I'm waiting by the phone, bud..............Perth Gun Show is done, and this week I'd like to put the steel to some SLABS!

Doug

Doug wrote:I'm waiting by the phone, bud..............Perth Gun Show is done, and this week I'd like to put the steel to some SLABS!
Doug

We will get out this week Doug!!