Bald Eagle Lake

[Matt Johnson]

I spent four hours out there today and walked around for a bit punching holes before I found the area I wanted to hit. I marked fish in a lot of holes, but those fish were small. I found a spot where the breakline held at a constant depth creating a small flat that eventually ran into a hump. And there were the fish, piled up on the deep side of the hump once the sun began to drop. Both walleyes and crappies. I pulled up 9 walleyes and 11 crappies from that area. The walleyes were all small but still fun to catch, the biggest was maybe 17 or so inches and most of them were like 13 inches or smaller. The crappies were pretty nice though, 9-11 inchers and one that went 15 inches and was suspended a lot higher then the rest. I brought along the digital camera and took a pic of the crappie...

All of the fish were caught on a 1/8 oz Glow Devils packed with maggots. I would fish for walleyes on the bottom and once a mark would show up higher I would raise my spoon and just about everytime that fish would hit and would be a crappie.

All the fish went back in the lake.

Good Fishin,
Matt Johnson

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[jwilli7122]

matt i was out there tonight too- was with 2 other guys and a dog east of cigar. didnt see you, but i think i could guess about where you might have been. nice crappie!

[DRH1175]

Matt,

What side of the lake did you hit and how deep?

[goin fishin]

I am truly looking forward to learning from the Zen Master this Saturday. Nice Crappie and outing Matt.
Dan

[eyeballs]

That's about as nice of a crappie as your going to see out of that lake. Good job on locating that spot Matt! I was also out there for about an hour tonight after work and managed 1 walleye about 13", and a couple of the normal Bald Eagle sized crappies. Once agian, fine catch Matt, you most likely out fished the other 50 people out there tonight.

[unclejake]

MJ5 for President!!!
He's gonna be the next Genz!
Good work dude...keep the pictures coming...gets the blood flowing.

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someone was smoking newport cigerettes on my spot.

[Matt Johnson]

Yeah, there were quite a few people out there last night. If I can give one big pointer, that would be to get away from the crwod of people. The spot I fished last night was not within 200 yards of anyone. Once Metro lakes get heavy pressure the fish begin to make moves, and often too. If I hit the same lake two days in a row most likely I'll be fishing two different spots as well. Once an area is hit you won't have the quality day after day. Sure during early ice it seems that way and sometimes you get into a feeding frenzy that lasts a couple days, but if you want to consistently catch more and bigger fish you have to move and find your own spots. Crowds appear over a certain spot for a reason, there is structure down there or it is a likely holding spot for fish, so use crowds as a rule of thumb. Figure out why those houses started popping up and the reason why. Whats the structure like? Depths? Forage...vegatation? Etc. Use that to locate new spots. Or else fish off the crowd 50 yards or so. Just because you see a shanty town doesn't mean that they are all catching fish. On a lot of these high pressure Metro lakes you can make small moves of 50 or 100 yards off the crowds and locate fish. But it's so much more rewarding when you find your own spot and start catching bigger fish. I will give up quantity for quality any day. You may catch more fish near the crowds on some days but you will often times catch bigger fish when you locate new structure holding areas.

I punched close to 35 holes before I located these fish yesterday, and I covered about a 50 yard area zigzagging back and forth. Grab a lake map and look for an area you want to hit, then fine tune. Somedays you might not catch anything, but you get a feel for the lake and start to figure out when fish use what areas, and it makes things easier in the future. And if you locate fish, figure out why they are there, most likely you will find more fish on similiar spots around the lake. Good Luck!

Good Fishin,
Matt Johnson

------------------
First Choice Guide Service

[email protected]
Catch-N Tackle and Bio Bait
MarCum