Fall Crappies and Blue Gill(pictures)

[big-o]

It's that time of year where my fishing Partner RJ and I start to hit our Ice Fishing lakes, to do a little Scouting for the up coming hard water season. This trip was for Blue Gills and Crappie. Normally we are on the water at sunrise, but at this time of year there is no need, the we find the fish are lethargic in the morning and don't become active until the water starts to warm up.

We were working deep weed lines with ultra light gear. My self I was using my tried and true 1/8 once Jig tipped with a 2 1/4 inch Gulp emerald Shiner,RJ was using a Fin Tech Knuckleball jig with a Berkley finesse Minnow. Again on this trip the Blue were really aggressive they would hit the bait before it got to the bottom where the big ones were sitting. We caught probably 60 to 80 Blue gill ranging in size from 5 inches to 10 inches, most being in the 9 inch category. Every once and awhile we would see a siver green flash, ...Crappie, so we moved to deeper water and casted towards the weed edge and swam the jigs back to the boat, and that was the ticket

One of Many Blue Gills(click on pictures to see full size)

My self with a slap Crappie

RJ with a monster Slab

Close up of RJ's Crappie

The time was getting short as we had to leave the water by 6"00 pm, which was to bad because the fish Crappie were truning on On the way bact to the launch RJ spotted a small weed patch he slowed down set down the trolling motor and pitch a Wackie riged Senko and after his second cast ....he came up with this 4.8 pound Largie..... a great way to cap off a perfect day on the water

All the fish were released to fight another day... and hopfuly get to be a few inches bigger the next time we meet

Thanks for looking

Phil

[seasquirrel]

Way to go. Nice fish. I love to get into the crappies