How are you finding the crappies??

[BarTender]

I fist U.R last year for the first time and cought 3 and about 15 walleyes.

What has been working as far as finding the crappies? more importantly, how long do you fish a spot befor you move, half hour?? more? Less?

Thanks for any advice, Carl

[Eric Wettschreck]

BarTender, first off I'm no expert. However, every time I've ever fished URL I drove out, looked around for a crowd of houses, and made sure I was at least 200 yards from the nearest house. I know, real scientific way of doing it but it worked for me.

I drilled a bunch of holes in a circle about 40 feet in diameter and more holes in a straight line through the circle. I'd fish a couple holes for about 30 minutes. If nothing bit I'd move to the other side of the circle. I kept moving in a pattern like you were tightening lug nuts.

I'm no pro, but after reading numerous posts in this fourm and talking to a couple of guys that's what I did and it worked well for me.

Good luck!!!!!

[Mug]

What I have done in the past is the same as you. Every half hour to 45 mins move if they are not biting, move. This year is weird though because they tend to be biting more during the day from what I have seen so far. I usually drill my holes and put the fish finder down to see if there any fish. If I graph any fish, I will stick around for while and change my depths to where there at. Move until you graph the fish. Hopefully they are crappies. Last weekend I was lucky and did not have to do move and the first spot was a crappie hole. There was 4 of us and we caught crappies from 10:30AM until 10:00PM throughout the day. They were there but turned on more towards 2-3 o'clock range. We totaled 39 crappies throughout the day. If you are getting walleyes, I would try your spot for a while longer and if you are getting no crappies, move! Get out of the walleye hole because the crappies will not stick around from my experience. I was out of Hillmans by the crowd though. I heard a lot of people going out of westwind have been getting a lot of walleyes. Usually I get away from the crowd but it seemed to work for us this time. Were out about 4.1 miles off main road to the right (going north)about 400 yards or so.

[Borch]

Whether it's URL or elsewhere I start my making swiss cheese out of the ice. I drill hole every 20-50 yards and cover a lot of ice. Then I check each hole with the depth finder until I make fish(often on the bottom, even better if they are suspended). I'll statrt fishing where I mark them. If they move so do I. If I have 20 minutes of dead time I'll jump into a new hole. If nothing is going on then I'll move to a new spot and repeat the process.