Hudec's Equals Crappie!!
By Tom Herman

The air was crisp on the Sunday afternoon in late May on Upper Red. Rick Paquin and I had just finished pre-fishing the PWT with Chuck Emory on Leech Lake when we rolled into Waskish. Getting beaten to death by the waves on Leech all weekend, we looked forward to a nice relaxing day chasing Red Lake's famous slabs.

Checking in with Donnie Hudec before we went out, he was more than happy to point us in the right direction. With this knowledge, we set out in search of the dinner plate sized crappie that Upper Red is known for.

Early on, we tried drifting the 8-6 foot depths just northwest from the resort using pink and white Tackle City jigs under Wavebuster bobbers. We managed to pick up a crappie on almost every drift, but this was not the rate in which we sought to catch them. We then decided to go search the nearby break lines where we were told that they had been on the bite the night before.

We proceeded to the mouth of the Tamarack River in search of small variations in the contour of the lake's bottom. These variations, however slight, we knew would hold fish, in fact, the variation we ended up fishing was only 6 inches from the top to the surrounding bottom.

Within minutes of anchoring, we picked up our first fish. As the afternoon wore on, the fish became more aggressive. Where we would only pick up a fish every 15 minutes, became one fish every 5, then every cast.

Just as we thought we had these fish figured out, they shut off completely. Knowing that the crappies would be moving shallower, we pulled anchor and started to drift to shore. As soon as we hit the 6 foot depth, I latched on to a Red Lake slab. It turned out that this fish was caught right on the break line between 6 and 4 feet. We pulled a little deeper and dropped anchor again. This time we really hit pay dirt.

The action was so fast that one had just enough time to bait one's hook, cast it out and then immediately reach for the net to land the others fish, This non-stop action persisted for almost an hour, but somehow the fishing gods knew we had it too good, the bite shut off faster than it had started. All in all, this was one of the best crappie bites either of us had ever been part of. But the best is yet to come.

According to Donnie Hudec of Hudec's Resort, the Big females had yet to make their way into the shallows. Of all the large crappie we cleaned that night, 95% were males. 14-15 inch males, meaning the females of that year class were legitimate sows. The time is now for some of the best crappie action you may ever experience in your lifetime. Great accommodations, fantastic people and of course the crappie.

On a side note, only on Red Lake can you hear of people complaining about catching walleye. When the walleye ban is finally lifted on this fish factory, Upper Red will be THE spot for walleye action in this state, if not the upper Midwest. Hudec's Resort and the community of Waskish will be the hub of many a story and much jubilation.

[Editors Note]: Check out Tackle City Panfish Jigs a great variety of slab catching jigs here..
Click here to see them.

Click here to see leading edge fishing gear.