Searching For Spring Crappies

How's it going everyone? I'm back again. We're going to give it another try today. I've taken a couple weeks off from fishing, took a little reset. Got some warm weather out here again. Got my buddy Jacob here with me today. We're going to try for some crappie. It's always nice having a friend with, that way if we don't catch anything, I know it's not just me. Yeah, so we got our kayaks all loaded up. Let's head out there and see what we can find. Oh, I'm going to try to do this without getting my feet soaked. I'm going to use my Jedi forces to summon my kayak. All right, let's go catch some fish. We're just kind of working our way along the shoreline here. There is a little bay over here we're going to go check out, see if we see any crappie rolling around. It's been cold up here the last week or so. We actually got some snow. Water temp is at 44 degrees right now. It is a nice sunny day today though. It's supposed to warm up to about 55. We got a little bit of a breeze, not too bad. It's a great day for some kayaking. Before I forget, I just want to say thanks to all you guys for all your support, all your kind words recently. You guys really know how to bring a guy up when he's down. It's been a tough couple of months for me, not only has the fishing been slow, but I've been going through some life changes as well. I moved in with my girlfriend a couple months back. We got a baby girl due around mid-June. She's got a couple kids of her own, a 12-year-old boy and a little girl that'll be 10 this summer. Being used to the single life, I don't get much peace and quiet around there, so I've been taking a little bit of getting used to. I'm kind of getting there though. I've had a lot on my mind these last few months. It's been kind of stressing me out. I'm trying to not stress out so much. You know what, I've been blessed with the opportunity to do what I love for a living. I'm not gonna let that opportunity go to waste. I think if I really give it my all, this could be the best year I've had yet. Hopefully you guys will come along with me. Let's see if we can find some crappie out here today. Right now I'm just tossing around a little ultralight Rapala crankbait. We got that on one rod. I've got another rod set up with my usual bobber rig that I use for panfish. So far we're just kind of getting a feel for the lake today. The water's still cold, so I'm not sure if we'll find them up shallow or not yet, but you never know as things warm up this afternoon. Those fish might start moving in. I haven't seen any fish yet. This is pretty cool back here though. This is what leads back to the bay, this little path here. And I think I saw a school of small crappie, but in the middle there's uh and everywhere I went this stuff was stirred up. You're only like eight inches of water a foot. You can't really run a crank. Yeah I might throw my bobber up in there. How deep is it out there in the middle? That's it what you're looking at. Oh okay. So like stuff gets stirred up. Yeah yeah I'd imagine they might move into here as the day progresses and that water warms up too. So that channel kind of leading into here, that might be a good spot to sit and pick them off as they move in if they do. Looks like a perfect spot to find crappies in here. Yeah I think it's just a little bit cold still. Come on I gotta get rid of that skunk. Oh man not even the turtles are gonna bite. Well Jacob said he saw some crappies swimming around back here. We gave it about a half an hour and not even a bite. Might just be a little bit cold still. Love the sound of the frogs back here. Yeah I think we're gonna keep moving along. Well we found nothing back there in the bay. We're gonna try a couple more spots on this lake and nothing else. I don't know we might pack it up here and try another spot. Won't give it a little while longer out here though. Jacob found them I think. That looks like a nice one. Heck yeah man. There's a whole bunch of them up there huh? I'm tempted to creep up along those rushes and get the wind to my back so I can cast a little bit farther. Heck yeah on the board. It might be a little small I don't know. Yeah let him go it's good luck. I'm gonna check right along the edge of these weeds and see if anything's lurking around up there. Hey here we go I got one. Doesn't look like a crappie but I will take it. Get me on the board. Get in the kayak. Decent little largemouth. Choke that little micro crankbait. All right no getting skunked today. Nice. Well we're working our way back to Jacob's truck. Figured we'd stop by this mid-lake hump. We didn't see anything in here though so I think we're gonna pack it up here maybe go try another spot and see if we have a little bit more luck there. Hey neither of us got skunked here. Jacob caught a little bass, a crappie. I got that little bass. We got something at least. I do think it just needs to warm up a little bit and the fish will start getting a little bit more active. A couple more weeks. We'll see you guys at the next lake. All right we made it here to spot number two. We're launching in this bay. This is actually part of a pretty good sized lake. I fish that lake in the winter time. I know there's a lot of crappie in this lake. I've never tried these bays in the spring so I'm excited to get out there and see what we find. You have your fishing poles? I'll run and grab them for you. Not going to catch much without your fishing poles. Yeah they've been really embarrassing. I always forget something. There you go. Get this here just like that. Get my sonar going. There we go I'm free. I was hung up on that log there. The water's pretty murky back here so I'm going with that little ultralight crankbait. I'll put off some good rattle. I'll get the attention of some fish back here. Might be a little bit too shallow though. I don't know. Here we go. There's a fish. What do we got here? It's a crappie. I snagged them though. Snagged them right on the dorsal fin. I don't know if we can count that one or not but it's good to see that they're in here. He's pretty crappie. Yeah we'll let that one go. They got to be 11 inches to keep out of this lake anyway. I think that one would have been pushing it a little bit close. I snagged the one so we know they're in here. I figured I'd drop anchor here toss my bobber out and eat some trail mix because my stomach was starting to rumble. There we go. Just sitting here eating some trail mix so I figured I'd throw up my bobber rig and something came and grabbed it. This is a crappie. It's a good size crappie. It is a crappie. There we go. Heck yeah. Legit catch too. He's hooked right there in the mouth. Kind of hard to snag him with a bobber rig I think. Yeah it's a nice crappie. I'm gonna measure that one. I think that one's probably gonna be a keeper. He's about a 12 inch or 12 and a half. I'm gonna throw that one on the stringer because I think we're gonna bring some home tonight. Let's see if we can catch a few more to go along with that one. Here we go again. There's another one. I think it's time to put the trail mix away and concentrate on the fishing. This feels like another good one. There's another keeper. Another nice crappie. Get a quick length. It is about 12 inches. Just got to make sure they're 11 or better and DNR likes to come check out here and that's the regulation on this lake. I got to be at least 11 inches to keep. There's number two. The second one only took a couple minutes after that first one so hoping we're on him now. Oh yeah we're on him. Come here you. Nice little crappie. Look at that. Came unhooked right in the net. That one might be a little bit too small. I think he's gonna be. Should have brought my bump board with today so I don't have to try to do this on my paddle. He's about 10 and a half inches. I'll put that one back. Bobber down. Oh this feels like something nice. Yep got something on here. Another crappie. Oh yeah that's a good one. Yeah might be cutting it close too. That one's right at 11. Off you go. Crappie crappie crappie. Yeah there we go. There's a nice one. That one's probably gonna be a keeper. I've got two on my stringer right now. I almost kept a third earlier but he was right at 11 inches and I didn't want to risk it. This one's about 11 and three quarters. We'll bring that one home for dinner. Oh there we go. I just went to pull my bobber a few feet and I had a fish on. You got one too? Nice. Hey there's a keeper. Yeah that's what I'm getting them on today. A little ice fishing jig with a Nikko waxworm. A little slip bobber set up. I've got maybe two feet of line out underneath that bobber. We're fishing five or six feet of water here. Check that one. He's about 11 and a half inches. Yeah we'll keep that one. All right we got a fish on here. Feels like a good one. I'm gonna get my net to this guy. Oh yeah that is a big crappie right there. Jeez that's the biggest one of the day. Maybe. It's pretty close. That is a slab though. We're just getting ready to call it a day. That's probably a good one to end the day on. I had to grab a couple pictures with that one real quick before we let him go. We'll send that one off. If they get up over 13 inches I like to let them grow to be a trophy size fish. Well that is an awesome fish to end the day on. What a great day it's been. We kind of got off to a slow start today at that first lake but you know what we made the right call to pack up our gear and head over here to the second spot. It didn't take too long to find that first one here and that told me that they were in this bay. I dropped anchor and that little tungsten ice fishing jig with a Nikko waxworm has been getting the job done out here today. I've caught probably 20 crappie. A lot of them were just under that 11 inch range where I had to let them go but I got five real nice ones on my stringer. We'll bring those home for dinner tonight. Yeah it's been an awesome day. Well I think we're gonna paddle back to where we launched from. Hope you guys enjoyed it. I sure did. Thanks for coming along with us. I'll see you next time.