Headed out to Crappie Bay this morning (10:30am) with my buddy Andy. Set up away from the usual crowd, and proceeded to set the tip ups up. Got some holes drilled for the jigging rods, and got the hut up also. Weather was nice out today, so didn't really use the hut much, other than to warm up the hands every so often.
Decided to target panfish, fishing varying depths between 6 and 14-feet deep. I got into some action within the first 15 minutes, landing two decent crappie on a chartreuse and green Marmooska jig (HT Enterprises) tipped with a Berkley Power Maggot (natural). Fishing was sporadic throughout the rest of the day, with a '1 fish per hole' type of deal going on. Got into a few chunky gills while jigging, as well as a half-dozen perch.
The gills and crappie were all caught within 6-inches of the bottom, using a very subtle jigging motion. Most seemed to hit on the pause.
Around 4pm I got into the big crappie of the day, on the same jig, but this time approx. 3 feet up off of bottom. Quite an aggressive strike from this one, then another one fell prey to the same presentation a minute later. (Sadly my buddy Andy only got into perch for the day - it was his first time on the ice also.) We only got two fish on the tip ups - and both of those were perch. Watching the half dozen anglers that were out, action seemed pretty slow for most.
All in all a pretty decent day I guess. 6 crappie, 3 gills and about a dozen perch. Sure beats sitting in the office...
Good Fishing,
Justin
A Picture Perfect Ending to the Day!
