1-16-13 Wed

1-16-2013 Wed 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Weather: NW 11, 32 ˚, cloudy
Water: 4.88 steady, 15.2 kcfs, clear
Location: Pool 8, upper central part of pool
Caught: Approx. 10 -12 crappies, 9 -10 “
Partners: John R.

Comments

I had not fished crappies at night for a couple of years, but John Riek had clued me in on a crappie bite that they had experienced, so I wanted to take advantage of it. I invited John along and plans were made to meet on the ice after work, and see how much damage we could inflict on the paper mouths over a couple of hours’ time.
I got to the landing around 5 pm and John had already been fishing most of the day, and the report he gave me was not what I wanted to hear. John had found very few fish and the crappie were even more elusive than the bluegills. He said the crappie bite was not happening today, but his son had caught just a couple and they had come off the bottom in about eighteen feet of water.
We set up in about eighteen feet of water and set our dead stick minnow rigs just above the bottom to about four feet off. I caught my first crappie about four feet off the bottom and all the rest were caught very near the bottom. The action was not great, but it was steady. The size was also smallish at around nine inches.

Observations:

The ice is bare and very slippery, any snow cover that was there disappeared over the warm spell we have had the last couple of days. I would estimate the ice thickness to be around the ten inch mark.