Convinced the lovely bride to take the day off tomorrow, put the kids on the bus and go spend a day in the boat together. Any thoughts about a lake to hit for crappies?

if you dont minde size duck has a lot but there are small.
But there is a lot of them and they will allways bite

The word is out about Waconia but there still may be opportunities.

Crappies are biting well on Madison.

I'd put money down that starting today/tomorrow and on through the weekend, we'll be seeing good numbers of panfish move in shallow.

Think we're going to Washington to give it a shot. Wife wants to sit on the deck at Westwood of a while.

We picked up a whole bunch tonight, all were getting very dark and in shallower water, 4-8', over a hard, gravel bottom.

Plain hooks under a bobber, 3 ft down were the odds on favorite, but once the sun went down, bright colored jigs took over. Minnows were the best bet, but a chunk of crawler worked when we ran out of minnows.

Also caught a few larger fish casting a 1/16oz jig and twister tail. As well as a few on cranks while fishing for eyes.

eyepatrol,
You 'd get to keep your money!!!
I caught a few last night, some of the biggest crappies i've seen in a long time .
I caught five & realesed all of them, must have seen about 30
they where alful spooky so the must have just pulled in give it a couple days.. It should be real good may try again tommorrow!!

I really want to get back out today and find some more crappies, to bad I told someone I'd go golfing......maybe this evening, but the lakes are sure to be full of people. C'mon wind and rain.....keep the pleasure boaters off the lake for another few weeks.

Hit a reliable spot from past years for real nice crappies and dropped line got an 18 & 1/2 inch eye off 1st drop. Again, again, & again more eyes. Exactly the same time frame, in every respect, for crappies the last few years. Water levels are similar too. Nothing but eyes. Last night we did pull one 11" crappie out of there. Looks like the eyes have taken over my secret crappie spot. Still a li'l stunned & excited that's why I thought I'd share this story.

The weather patterns this year are much colder. Those crappies might start showing up there in a couple of weeks. You will have found that the walleyes are using that area first if the crappies show up later. Walleyes in your crappie spot can't argue with that.

Yeah, you're right in all regards. I don't expect it to last much longer. At the same time I guess I can wait it out!!!

An experience like that is not out of the question in spring time. Give it a bit and those crappies will "muscle" those 'eyes right out of there.

Local lake report. All females caught today were spawned out. All the males were solid black. All my fish were in less then 3' of water, Carp are getting on the move! Makes it whole different prospective from a boat. Very spooky. Great morning on the water!

So I decided to leave the walleye/crappie hole alone last night and decided to go east to do some trout'n. Take a look at what my 1st catch was...


Never heard of any of these gett'n caught outta the creek I was on???