Zumbro Crappies....

[CrappieJohn]

I fished the Zumbro this morning and found the fishing to be quite good despite the garbage floating on the water. The "no wake" is gone and the water is down to about normal. The clarity from Fishermans to about the end of Postier's Point leaves a lot to be desired. From that point downstream things clear up nicely.

Today the fish came out of 19 feet of water at about 6 feet deep. Culprit paddletails and tubes were the plastic of choice and these were fished on 1/16 heads. All were relating to submerged wood. The jigs were fished freely, no float and a retrive mixed with twitches was the ticket. Most hit solidly. Some very nice sunnies were in the mix as well.

Rick, fished with me today and all told we caught and released about 50 crappies, but kept seven for tonight's dinner. The largest **** caught( and released) was a tad over 12 1/2 inches. For three and a half hours of fishing, I guess I could say that we did pretty good considering that we fished for over an hour at the start with spinnerbaits for northerns and bass to no avail. It was a beautiful morning on the water.

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Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom

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[CrappieJohn]

After making the first post yesterday, I went down to clean my dinner. I have seen this only once before....those fish were heavy with eggs. Ripe eggs. Of the seven kept, 5 had not yet spawned! The two males were normal color and did not spray when handled. I can only assume that when the water came up on the Zumbro, it not only put the prime spawning waters out of depth, but that the silt and water temp came into play as far as these fish holding the eggs. Now it will be a matter of seeing whether they will attempt to spawn or just absorb the eggs they are carrying. The sunfish too were carrying eggs yet, but the males were not spraying.

Personally I think they will hold the eggs. They are colored for spawning nor displaying any of the per-spawn activity. They were found in water a long way from where spawning would take place. The water temp of 65 is borderline warm enough for the fish to get rid of the eggs in an attempted spawn, but things were just not "right" as far as I could determine. And the way they were hitting was typical post-spawn as was the location of the fish.

I guess time will tell how they cope with this. Mother nature can play some tricks and this is just one of them.

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Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom

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[Rick]

All I can say is, for myself, once we found the crappies I had non-stop action on those crappies and gills as soon as we quit bass fishing and went after crappies.

A tube jig with 1/16 oz jig fished freely did the trick. The Gills were hitting this set-up as well.

Nice fish in both species. The big ones were let go to fight another day. Tom kept 7-8 for dinner.

Great Job Tom!!!!

[CrappieJohn]

I did the mighty pool again this morning and found that things were about the same, except for the trash on the water....it wasn't real bad today. The fishing was stellar! I brought home six fish...1/11 of my catch for an hour and 3/4. I am chomping them down as I type and are they the purest form of GOOD. The fish seemed to be chartreuse conscious today and would not touch a thing if it didn't have some chartreuse in it. Oddly though, all chartreuse didn't work well at all. A simple cast and twitching retrieve did it again, no float. The fish were hanging at about four feet this morning when I started, but soon had settled down to about seven feet. The lcr had blip after blip showing up and I tried dropping the line right down off the side of the boat to seven foot and bang. I found a few more males in the mix today compared to Weds. when Rick and I fished. The strikes were a bit more definite as well.... none of this all of a sudden sense a fish on the line stuff. All in all it was a great morning to be on the water even if it wasn't as long as I would have preferred.

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Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom

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[CrappieJohn]

What with the threat of rain this morning, I broke away from the norm and hit the Zumbro for crappies. Boat traffic was so-so, but the crappie action was better than that. My boat partner Gary and I put quite a few in the boat this morning, most of which were c/r. The tubes and paddletails were on again for baits and the fish were still over deep water, down about six, maybe seven, feet. In addition to the crappies we got sunfish, smallmouths, carp and silver bass. I got one sunnie that looked as though it had a baseball inside it. Smallies were 1- 1 1/2 pounds as was the silver. The carp were large...fun on light line. We came off the water about the time the rain began. Fishing was good but slower than the fishing on Weds and Friday. The water was cleaning up fairly well, but there was still some floating debris. The water temp wasn't even taken this morning, but was at 64 Friday and it hasn't been too terribly hot since then so the assumption would be that it is still in the 64-66 degree range. It is good to be back on familiar water.

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Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom

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[CrappieJohn]

The Zum was about par this morning.The crappies were a bit tougher to target in the area we chose to fish, largely due to northern activity. The sunfish were simply hot everywhere we went. Bass, not large, were an occasional hitter as was one of the toothies. Tubes/paddletails did the trick although I think anything plastic today would have taken fish. The water has begun to clear nicely now and temps were bouncing between 66-67 degrees, however the high skis will likely move that up today. One of the crappies caught was shallow and jet-black, but it was the only one taken in that sort or water and the only dark one we saw. I really doubt that any "second" attempt to spawn will occur in earnest. A hatch of some sort of white colored fly was getting some surface activity going and today would have been one of those days that a fly rod would have been fun. I'll let it rest for a cople days now and then hit it again..

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Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom

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[CrappieJohn]

Rick and I fished the Zum this morning and found plenty of fish to keep us busy. The highlight today was a concentration of crappies in some deep water that were more than willing to hit. Plastics that had any sort of chartreuse were the tools to use on light jigheads. We kept 9 nice 11 inch fish for a meal apiece and tossed maybe thirty others back. Rick got a smallmouth, but he can attest to the size himself. And then he hexed me by asking about sheephead. I have never, ever seen a sheeper in the Zum....until, of course, Rick mentions them and walla! And on a paddletail! Water temp came way up today...74 degrees from 70 at the start of our fishing this morning. Crappies, as mentioned, were very deep.

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Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom

muckbootsonline.com Pro Staff
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[Rick]

It was a most excellant day on the water. It was also a pleasure meeting up with the Rochester KTTC News crew at the access for a little interview that will play at 6 pm and 10 pm tonight.

Those KTTC folks are very good people!

40 years on the Zumbro and you'd never even seen a sheephead from the Zumbro until I ask you about them today.

Now that's differant. Much like Jim W 1st off telling me he won't catch a fish and then catching a beauty and then not 10 minutes later, guaranteeing a fish and he couldn't have electro-shocked a fish out of that stretch.

You guys sure make fishing a pleasure. God has blessed me with 2 fine friends like yous guys!!!

[WxGuy]

If you see this in time, be sure to watch KTTC tonight at 10PM! CrappieTom does a great job! New tv show in the works??

[Lew]

Nicely Done CrappieTom! I'd watch your fishing show anytime.

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Lew

[CrappieJohn]

I somehow had it in my head to fish this morning, but it didn't come about....too many thing on that "list". Anyone married knows which one I'm talking about. It was a bad wind anyway. Would have been tough for boat control. Friday....maybe Friday. Lew, if you read this and want to try the Zum from a boat, e-mail me if Friday will work for you ....an early morning shot. On the water by 7 and off by 11. All you need is a rod. Plastics/jigs...my compliment. Let me know by tomorrow evening. I'll be posting the results of Fridays fishing in the afternoon if I manage to keep on track with it.

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Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom

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Culprit Tackle Crappie Pro Staff
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[Lew]

Hey CrappieTom, You've got mail!

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Lew

[Lew]

CrappieTom - Thank you again for the invite. It was a pleasant surprize. It was good to be out on the water. I had a good time hunting for fish and I hope I even learned a couple of things while I was out there. It would have been sweet to see you bring in that toothie critter. We'll just have to plan another hunt for the future. When ever you need additional weight in the front of the boat, you know who you can call. :-)

Jim - Tom even had the opportunitity to speak highly of you. I hope our paths will cross in the future (maybe in a smallmouth stream).

Though I didn't strike fear in the fish population, I know I'll keep trying and one day I just might have a clue on how to catch fish in Lake Zumbro.

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Lew

[CrappieJohn]

I had the occasion to share the boat with Lew today on Lake Zumbro. I cannot say that we totally schmucked the fish, but we did have a good time. The fish appeared scatter for us....we found a pile of nice sunnies in one area anlong with a bass of about two inches,along with a couple well-fed sheepers. I had one massive toothie on for about six or eight minutes and followed the crazy this half way around the lake tryint to land it, but the line finally gave out. This was one dandy northern...the largest on this year for me. We finally clicked on crappies....found them over deeper water off a couple points and they came to cast jigs/paddletails and the same dragged along by the wind. The water temp is still at about 71 degrees. While the water clarity has gotten much better from a week ago, there is still an unbelievable amount of trash floating on it.
For anyone who would like to fish with someone who has a solid grip on fihing, I'd recommend Lew anytime. While the worlds ills and political inequities were not solved, we did some serious banter on fishing. Lew has a good grip on that handle. Thanks for the company today, Lew. We will definitely do it again.

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Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom

muckbootsonline.com Pro Staff
Culprit Tackle Crappie Pro Staff
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[Jim W]

LEw,
What did you give Tom to take ya out? I've been trying for quite some time to fish with the "old man"!lol

SOunds like ya had a good time...all that matters! Granted, catching does help!

Jim W

[CrappieJohn]

Rick and I did the lake this morning and found the bite so-so. We caught fish everywhere we went, just no real consistancy. Rick was the "multi- specie" specialist today....can we say baaaaaaa? The water was at 74 on the surface, dirty near the Fishermans Inn landing and fairly clean at Ryans Bay. For those who think the water ski club doesn't affect the quality of the water out there, think again. The fish cam mostly to the paddletails. As a matter of fact, they all came to paddletails. We tried several other plastics and some hard baits, but the paddletails was what was hit. The crappies were all nice fish and taken hanging around at about 6 feet over water that was at least 14 feet deep. The fish markeddeep you could not get to hit...period. About the time we decided to call it quits, we noticed a flush of newly hatched fish flies emerging....quiet a few in fact. So that helps to answer why the fishing was drab. We'll give it a rest for a couple days and see what comes of it then.

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Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom

muckbootsonline.com Pro Staff
Culprit Tackle Crappie Pro Staff
Catch-n Tackle
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