Fishing Report - 2/1

[Matt Johnson]

I hit the ice with harvey lee, danj, and the head baseball coach at Bethany College yesterday morning. We worked a shallow, soft-bottom flat area adjacent to a breakline. We fished from about 7:30-11:30am. The wind hindered our productivity a bit, but we still managed to hole hop and pick up some crappies and sunfish. Fished anywhere from 7-11 feet of water, with most of the emphasis on that 9-10 foot range. All the crappies were caught came through suspended about 4-5 feet below the ice. A good majority of the fish were tight-lipped, but got about 20-25 crappies to bite in the hour or two after sunrise, as well as a couple straglers towards midday. The sunfish were all relating to the bottom and they were also very tight-lipped and in a negative state. We watched several sunfish swim up to he jig (using an underwater camera) and they wanted nothing to do with it. And when they decided to bite, a spring bobber was crucial.

The cold and wind seemed to shut them down a little. We marked a lot of fish so the fish are still holding shallow, but the activity level definitely took a hit. Today should be a better day with the increase temps. Tomorrow we're going to see another cold front move in, which will probably put those fish in a similar mood as yesterday.

I caught all of my crappies on a size 8 pink/white Ratso without any bait. I believe danj and harvey lee used a combination of minnows and maggots to entice their crappies to bite.

One thing I did notice was that the sunfish that we did catch were larger in size on average. At least in relation to recent weeks.

Here's a pic of danj with a crappie...

Hopefully the forecast will prove to be true, and we'll get a week of colder weather. Ice conditions were still OK, ranging anywhere from 10-12 inches (not all clear ice though), but we could use more ice

Enjoy the weekend!

[eyepatrol]

Nice report Matt! Good to see the shallow pattern is still holding. I'm headed out in 45 minutes to give it a go in shallow water. Gotta make up for my last outing! I'll report back later tonight on what did or didn't happen.

[Team Otter]

Boy, that guy looks awfully familiar.

Nice report Matt.

[danj]

Just wanted to say it was very fun to watch Matt and Harvey Lee coax those panfish to bite. The NW wind was gusting to 20 mph that day. I didn't expect much.

As always, the fish I was holding was actually bigger than it looked on the digital....I think Matt shrunk it somehow.

[harvey lee]

Dan: Matt probably shrunk you crappie,but the times I catch those buggers he is always away from the camera so he cant take a picture.The way I have it figured is he shrinks yours,doesnt take mine and that way his look like the biggest.

[Guest]

Matt,

Got a little chuckle out of you talking about the spring bobber. My wife was dogging me today for using the spring bobber but I was kicking her butt. Sometimes with the light hit you just have to have the spring on.