collective poll on how the crappie bite is

[south_metro_fish]

Just wanted to see how every one is doing with it getting warmer and closer to open water. In my area the bit seems to be slowing but bigger fish moving in. Just wondering how the bite has been for others no need for location just collective on how the bite is and if they are maybe getting ready for spring and moving out of mid winter grounds.

[metro fisherman]

The sunnies and perch seemed to be relating to their spawning beds more last weekend. Not right on them but mostly in the main basins and near drop offs that are closer to their beds. Crappie hasnt changed much for me, first ice was really good for em though.

[BP21]

the bite has been fantastic for 5-6inch shwankers. Starting to see some bigger fish move in. like southmetrofish said they are slow for bigger ones but you can catch dinner if you have the patience.

[mrfish1991]

caught a bunch last night on crystal...little dinkers...but i have gotten eaters out of there

[tracker x-2]

Its been good hit or miss mostly lookers though theres a fine time limit for me when they are hungry or not.

[south_metro_fish]

I have been out the last couple of nights and it sure has been a tuff bite. I don't know if it is the weather or what they might be moving to there next grounds. It took us all night to get some fish Friday and tonight was even tuffer. I watched them on the camera and they would come with in inches of the bait and then just slowly move away. If you jigged it at all well they were any where near your bait they would take off like crazy. So I just don't know whats happening.

[sanka]

I was out on Lake of the Isles last night and it was a slow bite, but that's not the interesting part. I was out around sundown, drilled a hole and got two on a 2.5" blue/silver Rapala jig. I thought it was way too big for Crappie, I was Walleye/Pike fishing.

Drilled 2 more holes, got two more in each. Not really keeper sized, but close, but they wouldn't bite on anything else I put down, only that big minnow jig.

[south_metro_fish]

I caught the smallest crappie yet the other night on a med/small spoon I couldn't believe such a small fish would attack a spoon that big. I was talking to another guy out there on Sat night before I went home and he said that on Fri his friend was using dropper rigs and was having a lot more success. They seem to be picky and not wanting to hit the same things as they have been. Hopefully with this front moving through it will kick start them out of this bad mood. I do worry about the ice with all this rain and warm temps they are talking about. How much longer are we going to have good safe ice.

[OnAFly]

Saturday night 5-7 was pretty slow. I fished 12FOW in weeds and basically had to very slowly drop a dead minnow down into the weeds. If one came up to hit it you had to deadstick it and wait for slight pressure on the rod. Spring bobbers were almost a must. Ended up with 10 total, 4 7-8in and 1 11in.

[Maximum12]

We were out on Bald Eagle this past week from 12-7 & had pretty good luck for crappies in 21' of water. First spot yielded nothing, no marks, but once we moved they were coming through fairly regularly. We caught 25 or so, with a serious lull coming between 2-4 or so. Only a few truly aggressive fish, most had to be taunted into biting. Lots of 7-8" fish, topping out at 9".

[deadeye]

I was out this weekend on saturday to a little lake in the north metro and slammed them. They were nailing a hali and a demon. For whatever reason in 25fow they were anywhere from 5 feet under the ice down to 15 feet. Lots of action and a few keepers.

[AugieAngler1010]

It was a really light bite until the rain hit this afternoon hard around 2:30. Then they bit like crazy. The past few days have been pretty light though.

[BeaverHunter]

Started fishing at 3:00 today and caught many crappies on Spring Lake. Minnows on small jig head

[deadeye]

I was going to go out tommorow and hit up a couple other little ponds but I just cant bring myself to go icefishing in the rain. Dont mind the warmer weather but something just seems weird about sitting on the ice while its raining out there. Hopefully I will have another report later this week when it gets a little more solid out there. Who knows, it may make the ice nice enough to chase flags on ice skates.

[south_metro_fish]

Last night was what we were waiting for. With the pressure dropping and the full moon and a little precipitation the crappies were like piranhas last night during peek bite. I got out around 5 when lunar bite peak was and it didn't take long to start getting fish. They were mostly on top 6 to 10 feet down. There were a few way down low but not as much action and most were small. I started with one pole with a jig and one with a dropper rig and the dropper rig took all the action. As it got closer to 7:30 they pretty much stopped hitting the dropper rig and hit the small jig with the minnow. Then about 8 the bite had dropped to almost nothing. I thought it was very interesting to see how they were totally following the lunar peaks and dips with the bite. It was real interesting on the lake last night too with all the water on the ice. About 1/3 of the people took their houses off last night and there was no one fishing.

[JimmyRig565]

Every night is diffrent for me. one night i will get my limit but the next time i go out i wont even get a bite. then come two days later i will catch my limit again. It just messes with a guys head how they are acting up!

[south_metro_fish]

Yesterday afternoon was very fun. We went out around 3:30 and started setting up the shack. I noticed a bunch of open holes that would make it easy to run around with the fish finder and check the depths around are spot. So I walked around checking all the holes I could come across. I found that on the one side of our spot closer to shore was a sort of bar that came up in the 20 foot range and that there were fish down there. So we finished the shack and dropped a waxie down and got a bluegill. So we sat there for about an hour and caught a bunch of bluegills. We went back to the shack and got a couple more bluegills before the crappies started. The crappies were definitely not biting like the night before but there was still some action. This time we caught most of them on the bottom with only few on the top. The dropper rig definitely out performed just a jig again. There were a few big slabs but definitely smaller then we had been getting. The bite started off real slow, so I checked some holes around the area after it got dark and found the most fish over a 11 foot bar. We already had the shack up and it was way to windy to sit in the dark to see what they were. So I don't know if they were crappies or what. My friend showed me a first last night because he caught a bluegill after dark on a minnow. After reading over and over again how you should drill lots of holes and search till you find fish, I put it in effect and got results. The only thing that sucked was that I dropped my lantern in the hole and before I could grab it, it sunk to the bottom. I guess if I had to pick that's better than a lot of other things that could have gone down the hole like my phone or car keys.

[deadeye]

Sounds like another good night out. Im thinnking about heading out tonight to see whats going on.

For some reason this year was the first time I have ever gotten a sunny after dark. I was really surprised to see it and it was actually a keeper too so kinda nice. Since then I have gotten a handfull of them at the same spot. I always thought they shut off after dark but I guess that isnt the case.

[pikeguy2003]

It has been years since I intentionally fished for sunfish at night, but growing up as a kid, we didn't have a fishing boat, and didn't really need one growing up on Halstead's Bay, but we would always stay up late on the fishing opener and fish with lighted bobbers off the dock with leaches for walleyes, and we usually caught a few sunfish for every walleye we caught. After a while, it turned into the night sunfish extravaganza. We went with the smallest lighted bobbers we could find and started fishing with panfish leaches. We had many nights where we caught our limit of sunfish right off the dock. The part that sucked about it, was the amount of bullheads we also caught in the process. Never have those ugly slimy good for nothing %#@%&@&%$@.

Never have tried it anyplace else. Wondering if anyone else has experienced something like that?

Let me know, Pikeguy

[south_metro_fish]

The real first was that he caught it on a minnow. I had caught some real monsters after dark earlier in the season but not too many of them. I have also caught them into the dark on the river in the summer time. That's one of my favorite things to do in the summer time is after dinner to go down to the dock with some worms and a small jig and just bounce it off the bottom and catch tons of big bull bluegills. I would usually keep fishing till I couldn't hardly see what I was doing or till the mosquitoes would chase me off. I have tried in the middle of the night but would usually only get a few small ones. I can never seem to get the cats to bite at night on the river though.

[Blainebob]

The crappie bite hasnt slowed down for me really,just havent caught as any big ones as I did a few weeks ago. I have been getting set up about 2 or 3 pm,catching bluegills,then at dusk pulling crappies out of the same holes,with quite a few gills in there also. I also have dropped the minnows all together-eurolarvae have been working awesome this year!I keep one rod rigged with a vertical jig,like a Genz worm, and another with a small horizontal like a small spoon or Forage Minnow.The treble tipped with 3 or 4 colored larvae just hammer 'em! Yuo gotta hook them right so they dangle and continue to wiggle. Ive been fishing between 12-17fow, but am going to try a 25ft area next which is near their spawning area.Hopefully this gets me back on some bigger fish. Just to add one more thing,like some of you other fellows- I remember going fishing up in Nissswa as a teen and catching true 1 lb bluegills and pumpkinseeds on medium leeches. maybe time to head back!

[Reaper8]

I was out on Sunday from 5 to 9 PM and caught my limit of crappies on a jig and minnow. They were in about 26 FOW. Had to convince them to bite, but you give the jig some action and could watch them slowly move towards it on the Vex. Mainly 7-8 inchers and 2 10 inchers.

[south_metro_fish]

I was out once again and the fish seem to be scattered I couldn't mark hardly anything on the fish finder till after it got dark and we had our lines down. I found one early before it got dark after checking a bunch of holes and he nailed my waxie on the way down when I was thought I was marking some bluegills. Dropper rigs seem to be the thing to get them interested though. We tried many different jigs and the one line with the dropper rig took most the action. We managed to get a few.