The Crappie Slide Early season crappie location eventually
gives way to what the middle of winter can bring, and often
varies greatly from whence they came. The sharp shoreline
breaks and deeper points and humps that held so many slabs
early in the season typically dry up by late January, and
the next hot spot may have no resemblance at all to early
season honey holes. Now’s the time to take a look beyond what
you can put a finger on, beyond structure of any kind, and
look deeper, out in the middle of nowhere. Main lake basins
and basin areas of larger bays are what we’re talking about,
and can be found by taking a look at a map and identifying
deeper areas where the bottom flattens out, near structure
that had been holding fish. The move from structure to the
basin is a typical mid winter move and could be called the
“crappie slide”. The problem with working a “slide” is knowing
where to start, and there are no easy short cuts to finding
crappie gold. Unfortunately the only way to get the job of
finding mid winter locations done is to get on your horse
and ride, that is if your horse is a Ski-Doo. Depending on
what’s available and the size of body of water you’re working
on, you may have to look at a few acres, a few hundred, or
a few thousand. Professional fisherman and Team Crestliner
member Dan Plautz from Muskego, Wisconsin targets mid winter
crappies and has found that they’ll show up suspended over
deep water in close proximity to old weedlines and underwater
points. “ Last year on one of the lakes I fish in northern
Wisconsin we found crappies holding at about fifteen feet
down over forty feet of water. Fifteen feet just so happens
to be the same depth as the deep edge of a flat where they
had be found earlier in the season. With an electronic depth
finder and a thermos of water I can shoot right through good
ice and will start looking outside of early season crappie
spots and head toward deeper water and then parallel to the
break and try to find fish holding up off the bottom. When
you find crappies you don’t typically find one or two but
rather a whole school, which readily show up on a depth finder.”
On Minnesota’s current premier crappie fishery Red Lake, fish
can be several miles or more off shore. According to Team
Crestliner member and Red Lake aficionado Tracy Pogue of Bemidji,
Minnesota: “The thing is they start and finish the season
out in the middle of nowhere and can be a little tough to
pin down. Even late in the season Red Lake crappies are found
roaming the mid lake basin and don’t move shallow in masse
until the lake thaws out and really starts to warm up. Red
Lake’s basin runs from maybe twelve to fourteen feet deep
and encompasses thousands of acres and the crappies can be
anywhere. Although you can shoot through the ice with a depth
finder, the fish are often holding tight to the bottom where
they don’t readily show up. You can’t just simply look with
your electronics and move on if you don’t see anything . The
only way to know for sure if you’re on fish is to drill some
holes and spend a little time angling, especially the bottom
foot of the water column. I think they don’t suspend in Red
like they do in other fisheries because of the lack of deeper
water and most of the action does take place tight to the
bottom.” Although you could overlook fish with electronics
when you’re trying to hunt them down, they will show up on
a good depth finder when you drop a bait over the top of them.
With a three color flasher like the Marcum LX-3 you can watch
your bait and see if and how fish are reacting to it. Bigger
fish like a slab crappie will show up as a wide red band on
the LX-3, and you can tell if anything worthwhile has come
up for a look. Also, the zoom feature will help with identifying
fish holding tight to the bottom and provides incredible detail.
Suspended fish are another story and can be readily seen on
an electronic depth finder like the LX-3, which means you
can do a thorough job of looking without ever drilling a hole.
Where you can run into trouble is when trying to shoot through
busted up and layered ice. To get a clear picture you have
to be able to get to the surface of the ice and it has to
be relatively smooth.
StrikeMaster
Lazer
Mag Ultra
|
Without it you’ll have to drill a lot more holes, and
demands the use of a gas powered auger like Strikemaster’s
new four blade Lazer 224. The new Lazer 224 design cuts
a smaller pilot hole which is then followed up by another
pair of blades that finish the larger hole and does it
all faster than any other auger. Regardless of whether
you’re working crappies holding belly to the bottom or
suspended over deep water, the techniques for putting
a few on ice remain the same. That means small jigs tipped
with small crappie minnows worked softly and slowly. Soft
and slow can be the best way to go, and usually beats
no action at all. A light jig like Northland Tackles #8
Forage Minnow Fry tipped with a small minnow slowly jigged
up and down with tiny strokes can get noticed, and is
what finicky slabs are often looking for. Sure you can
drop a another bait down a hole suspended below a bobber
and probably should, it’s just that being able to feel
the actual bite is half the fun. A light jig on light
line (like 2 pound test) with a small split shot lets
you do just that, and takes less time to get down the
hole than a bobber rig which can result in more fish caught
when the bite is really on. See you on the ice. |
|
Some of the Crestliner
Pro Staff got together to ice some giant crappies on
the slide
|
|