What's Working Now...

[Matt Johnson]

Any cool fish stories or pictures to share from the ice fishing season so far?

[juice6916]

I was out on Sunday late afternoon into the early evening. Not much action. 1 13" crappie 10 minutes in. Jig and a crappie minnow. Nothing afterwards. Fishing a 8-10 ft flat area. The bite was soft, I think it was more luck than any particular presentation method.

[go4carl]

Medicine lake walleye, first good one of the year.. I've never posted a picture before so will see..

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/go4carl/detail?.dir=d714&.dnm=29dcre2.jpg&.src=ph

[fishduckdog]

I've been having great luck on both crappies and sunfish on Minnetonka. Lots of Crappies suspended over many of the 25'& 40' bays & seem to be taking wax worms over minnows the last few days. The sunfish are in shallow 5'-15' now taking an assortment of colored plastics & live larva baits. Jigging and keeping the bait moving with 2-4 second pauses has upped our catch. Now is a good time to take the kids or a retired person out there for an afternoon of fresh air, sun, & fun, but stay on the plowed roads & bring a shovel too.

[rcook72]

Fishduck, what bay has been producing the best for you, CPR fisherman wants to feel the tug. thanks

[fishduckdog]

I've had good luck on the 5 that I've been fishing the past 2 weeks... Grays, St.Alban's, Crystal, Seaton & Black. Lots of fish on the Vex.. from the bottom up.. I try to stay in 25 to 23 ft of water. Lots of small fish, but we have put out some nice slabs too. I'm going tonight after work.

[Lost]

So now that it's almost opener, what's workin' now?

[GAF]

was out this weekend on a NE metro lake. Slabs were in about 7-11FOW. Did pretty good on crappie minnows and a small spinner. We didnt get out on the water until just after 10a which was also the most productive.

lot a boats out there already.

[Matt Johnson]

Found a lot of nice fish in the shallow areas of the mainlake yesterday. Most were holding around docks with weeds. A lot of crappies moving in and starting to bed. Gills are still a little ways off in the Metro area, but it's getting close. Power Tubes worked very well, as did Micro Shads. Slow fall seemed to work the best. We also pitched floats up along docks poles and boat lifts. Nice to see the water temps hitting the mid to upper 60s on the main lake. Shallow bays are hitting the 70s, very cool

Also chased some pike the last couple days and found them relating to the weeds for the most part. Deep edges were very productive. We used the wind to our advantage and also drifted over a wind-blown bay and tossed spinnerbaits. Seemed to produce a lot of pike.

Should be a nice weekend coming out to get out in the boat. Hope everyone is enjoying the open water season!

[Matt Johnson]

The inside weedlines have been very good lately for me for pannies. Sight fishing for pannies is tough to beat! Open pockets in the weeds have been holding both crappies and gills. Docks are starting to really turn on too. However, focus on docks that have adequate weed growth, and if possible, multiple kinds of weeds or content. Rocky/weedy areas are holding a lot of fish too.

A lot of the shallower back bays are kicking out fish, but in the Metro they are really starting to warm up and I'm finding my better fish on the mainlake along shallower areas. Depending on the lake, I would also look to find a few fish off mainlake structure and weed patches. Yesterday we found a stack of nice gills holding in 7-9 feet of water off a mainlake hump. Dropped down a white Power Tube and they were more than willing to intercept. A few crappies mixed into too, but mostly gills.

Our more consistent crappie activity came from the thicker weeds. They are definitely in spawn mode, and most of the males were very dark. A few still-fat females, but the males were the aggressive ones.

If you're looking for pannies, try running the trolling motor on low and cruise the inside weedline. You'll see a fair share of fish, it's just a matter of locating the larger ones. Sight fishing can really help with that

Also, don't neglect the docks and boat-lifts. Pitch a small float with a plastic along side them, and slowly work it parallel to the dock, something will come out and play

A little bit of a cold front moved in today, but you should still be able to find fish in the weeds...

As far as pike fishing goes, the outside weedline has been tough to beat. Spinnerbaits and Rattlin Raps have taken a lot of fish. A few fish have also come from shallow bays that have a lot of weed growth. Weeds seem to be key right now...

Good luck out there!

[Mr. Pike1]

I thought I would add a quick report. I went back to a lake that three years ago was just choke full of 7-8" crappie. My hope was that in this time that year class would have matured into slabs. I was not dis-appointed. We found them still in shallow warm bay on Saturday. The water temps were the mid 60's. The bite started with a few nice 10-11" crappie. We stayed in that same area and the bite was on until early afternoon. The 10-11" fish turned out to be just the teasers. Most of them were 12-14ers white slab crappies. This was one of the best crappie days I have had in recent years. I was with my father and had to again stress the catch and release principle. Live minnows or waxies on a flu flu or light jig certainly worked. I also found great success on the berkely 2" power minnow, micro shads, twister tails, mimic minnow, small mepps spinners, gulp maggets, stub grubs and others.

Beatle spins and small small raps were on my list to toss but with the bite going strong I did not want to be out of the water.

I strongly recommend if you have not fished the exude micro shads, berkley 2" power minnow, or the mimic minnow that you add these to your tackle assortment. The mimic minnow has really performing much better then I thought it would. I had success on walleyes, pike, and bass.

Once the crappie bite shut off and it did shut off at about 12:00 the sunfish feeding bell got rung. I did not get any monster bulls (by moster bulls I mean 10" or larger) but for the most part they were in that nice 8" with a few 9" and very very few of the little tykes. For the sunfish I had great success on the micro shad and the flu flu. In most cases the flu flu did not need to be tipped with waxy just a plan flu flu and fish on. With the strong population of 8-9" sunfish the lake has potential for some bigger fish to come. The crappies, All I can say is wow. If these 13-14ers grow like the 7-8ers did over the last 3 years there will be a shot at some 15-17" which would be simply amazing.

Matt- I know you are kind of a panfish junky like me so you can appreciate the banner day on the slabs. I am sure you have some of your own go to lakes but I may have to get you to this little gem sometime. I would consider the lake to still be considered a metro lake but right on the edge.

I am actually taking off work on Wednesday and going to head there for a 6:00-12:00 run hoping for another slab fest. Today was a bit of a cold front and I hope the next couple days we warm up again. I a have a few picks on my cell and I may add later. I also have the little video feature on my phone just need to figure out how to download ckuos here and maybe put up a few.

I will try to report more through the year. My focus is quickly turning to my favorite species to target, the small mouth bass. I am for the most part rigged and ready to hit the river and hope to get that 22-23" football this year. I have got into some 20's and 21's so this year I am hoping turn in up a notch.

[G_man]

Good Report! Although I think you may have finally reached the point where you have too many tackle options! Only so many poles can fit in the boat and you wouldn't want to have to retie!

[Mr. Pike1]

G-man good point. I have 9 pre-rigged pannie poles and made an effort to fish each one and did a bit of retying. But yes I am at that tipping point of to many poles.

I did get out again on said body of water and the action was even hotter. I fished totally plastics and there were times were I would guess I was pulling in 40 crappie per hour. All fish were a minimum of 10" and I would guess 10% of the fish caught were 13-14" with the largest going 14.25. Mix in the fact that some bass in the 17-20" class would occassionly nail me on my ultra light along with some monster pike it and it ranks in the top 5 of my fishing days ever. Many of the crappie were the males that were deep deep black from spawning and obviously agressive. It did not seem to matter what I tossed out they would hit it.

Aside from the plastics mentioned in the orginal post there was one piece of plastic that I felt outshined the others this time and it was the Berkly 1" micro nymps.

Anyway I hope to get there again early next week to see if they are still in the shallow warm bay. Soon they will migrate out to the deep but I am hoping for one more banner day on slabs !!!!!

There were also some nice sunfish in the 8-8.5" class that gave me a workout

[Matt Johnson]

I made it out yesterday with a buddy for a good portion of the day. We started off fishing an inside weedline at sunrise and popped a few largies in the 2-3 pound range. Worked buzzbaits and RT Slugs. Tried working over a few fish in the reeds but no-go. Also stuck a couple along a neck-down area where the weed types mixed with a short stack of rocks.

As the day progressed we moved deeper and worked over a pod of a fish in 8-12 feet of water with a Title-shot jig and Sweet Beaver. Also picked up several fish on a stupid-rigger Comida and Ogur Slug. The deeper water fish were definitely more concentrated and eager to bite. Wasn't uncommon to hook 5-6 off one single patch of a weeds.

The sun was high and I just had to try docks for a little while. Turns out the dock bite was the hot ticket for the day. Ended up catching darn near half our fish for the day off docks, including our two largest which might have ticked 4 pounds at the high end. Wacked-rigged Comidas took pretty much all the fish off the docks.

We left the lake around 2pm and beat the weather.

Looks like some stable weather for the next several days. It's about time

[MedicineMan]

I decided to head out to my favorite lake saturday morning. The lake was packed with boats because of a club Bass tourny going on. Fishing was pretty decent, not a ton of fish but the fish were good sized. Here are some pics:

[TNFL]

Wow, its been over 2 months since this tread has been posted on. I guess nobody is sharing in the metro area.

I'll go though. Went out to Minnetonka last night ( yes unbelievable I actually mentioned the lake name _) We went out from Maxwell bay ( ). Started out fishing a few docks for bass and caught one small one. Then we moved over to some pads and caught 4 more between 12" and 15". Then we tried a few other areas with no luck. Then we moved out to a point and caught 6 bass between 14" and 17". Then, at 7:30 we tried to catch a few pike on the weedline until 8:10, with No luck.

[steffanf]

Thanks for the info... how is the water clarity out on that part of Minnetonka?

-G.B.

[TNFL]

2 to 3 feet

I never actually checked, but in 8 feet of water the weeds where growing up to 4 ft and I could not see them. So its definately less than 4 feet of clarity.

[MNbrewer44]

ON tonka this evening we were having great panfish action in 7' of water on 1/16 white bucktail jigs tipped with worms pieces. we then moved to a rocky area. My buddy caught 20" bass jiggin for walleye in 18' of water. he was using 1/4oz green jig with plastic grub. I was using orange jig with leech and caught only one eye 13" in length. We were graphing a ton of fish in 16'-20' of water over rock piles...

Also last week buzzbaits seemed to be the key for bass on a different metro lake. When we headed back to the launch my buddy suggested a fast troll with the buzzbaits 100' or so behind us. caught a 24"northern.

well hope that helps someone out there

Good Fishing to everyone

[carverfshrmn]

Been Getting lots of Eyes up to 22 in, Good Crappies up to 12 in, and some small Northe rns.

[lucy1205]

lets face it folks, there aint no decent crappies left in the metro anymore. Thats a fact.

[CALVINIST]

Quote:

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lets face it folks, there aint no decent crappies left in the metro anymore. Thats a fact.

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I disagree. I pulled a 12" crappie fishing for walleyes last week on Tonka. There are slabs in all the bigger metro fisheries like Tonka, Waconia, WBL, etc....you just have to find 'em. It can be tough finding schools of bigger fish, but they are there. And every once in a while, you'll get one in the 1.5-2+ lb class.

[lucy1205]

They are few and far between. Waconia and parley have sub par models in them but lets face it there not like the ones in abundance up north and they are way to over pressured. Tonka has a few, hell all lakes do but they are rare. look at the hords that line up at the marina on Waconia, its almost sickining. Thin avearage length craps at best.

[blueroof]

The croix has lots and lots of 12", good numbers of 13, 14 and 15+ inch.. Certainly not an exclusive up north thing. I know a few east side metro lakes that can stack up decent ones too. I agree they can be thin in lots of places, the big ones are mostly down south anyhow.

LB

[UncleKes]

Try the Croix. Lots of decent crappies still around. However you mgiht also look at White Bass when you are there. They fight every bit as hard as Calicos and taste every bit as good. They get bigger than crappies too and they have NOT been fished out like Crappies have. Best part is that you can use the same equipment for White Bass as you do for Crappies. 4 to 6 lb. test and a light action rod or ultra light plus a spinning rod and you are in business. And the St. Croix is close by and accessible.

Try the St Croix!

[lucy1205]

yeah Ive caught hundreds of white bass from the Mn while fishing for walts. They are edible and reasonably tasty but i dont know if there as good as crappies.

[The Grebe]

Maybe, maybe not, but there sure are alot of nice walleyes around...3 of em 16-16-17 inch males made the trip home with me tonight. Guess whats for dinner tomorrow night?

[juggs]

Right you are, Casey. My buddies know where I get my metro slabs but I'm not tellin'. There's no question the metro bodies of water get hit harder but there are definitely slabs to be had.

[iFishMN.YT]

There isnt the same numbers of slabs around here as there are up north, I will agree, but this year was the best I have ever done with crappies, all in the metro, without targeting them really, catching them on small pike and bass baits. Quite a few over 12", biggest 14.5".

[lucy1205]

Yeah but its rare. Im talkin limits. Plus im talkin shako area to minneapolis and east and west. not monticello to wisconsin to st cloud to south new prague. The metro is pretty much shot ta hell. it just isint what it once was unless you work for the ODN or some other Republican money marketing Machine.