20160322. 42 Deg Water Temps and The Fishing Was on Fire!! (0) Live Bait

ALL CPR'ED 20160322… with the upcoming bad weather fore casted for Wednesday…. With 8-12” of snow … uhg! We had just today to squeeze in a short trip if just to stretch some underutilized casting muscles from winter. The forecast for the day was light variable winds mid to upper 40’s with on and off showers through the afternoon. We geared up… Earl made sure 3 yr old Conner was dressed warm and off we headed to the lake with the boats first open water trip of the year.

Lake conditions…

Once at the launch we were greeted with some very favorable conditions. Calm lake with a slight spring turnover tint to the water color. Once out on the lake we registered 42 deg surface temps with ice still noticed on the southern shore. Ice- out was just a few days old.Sonar readings showed some fish suspended and also hugging the bottom in all areas of the lake. The lake has a great panfish population as well as a strong population of preds including LMB and N.Pike despite its small size. The locals fish this lake like its their jobs and trophy bluegill sizes are absent or needle in a haystack numbers. I have caught a few certificate P’Seeds however.

Fishing Strategies:

Historically we use this lake to hone our skill and presentations. I loaded up 4 UL spinning rigs including (2) UL jig rods (one loaded with some new GLISS fishing line that is rated 8# test extremely thin dia) (1) drop shot rig and a slip bobber set-up. In our minds we thought tiny an slow presentations just like we left the B’Gills during our most recent late-ice trip. B’Gills were in 7-0 to 10-0 FOW feeding in the short weed beds.

We found the fish but got no response… even tight small vertically jigged in their face presentation were rejected. Started scanning shallow for active feeders and came up empty. Suspended fish out over the deep basins proved neutral. 1.5 hrs into the trip without a single bite and we were looking at a skunking.

Finally a break thru:

We were just about to write-off the trip thinking “Hey that’s the reason ya don’t see any other boats out here… the fishing is tough!” then it happened…. Earl noticed a guy fishing off his dock and catching a few fish in a short time which Earl said appeared to be crappies. We motored a safe distance away from him and struck up the conversation which finally led to the fact he caught 19 B.Crappies on a casting bubble and fly in 2-3 FOW casting parallel to shore.

After a short strategic discussion Earl and I decided to fish the shallow flats on the opposite end of the lake on the northern shore since they warm up the quickest. We started casting tiny jigs and Jelly jigs that had this tantalizing action and slow decent and started connecting straight away. Many B.Crappies between 10-12 “ and a LMB now and then. The Jelly Jigs were producing and were a perfect presentation for this shallow water bite. It seemed the B.Crappies were running in small schools parallel to the shorelines.

I believe the jig under the bobber would of caught some fish also as a presentation but we were covering water more quickly with the free-swimming approach.

Earl tagged a string of (8) LMB in quick succession with a power minnow type swim jig about 2” long along with his PB LMB of 19+ inches… the tiny bait bite continues!! He smoked the LMB numbers his against mine 8 to my 1. However I smoked him on the B.Crappie count.

We lost the last (4) remaining Jelly Jigs to N.Pike bite-offs and need to order some more. Earl turned into a Jelly Jig fan.

Todays Findings and Conclusions:

Tiny light jig presentations on tiny thin diameter super lines… the fish were active but the bite was lite. Heavier rigs throwing slip bobbers would’ve worked but we would of likely ended up with less fish.