Quick Report on Crappies

Most of my fishing lately has been bass, pike, musky so haven't checked out the panfish situation too much. Yesterday I did a morning trip for a father and son and here's what I found. Water temps were hovering right around 69 degrees. Crappies were pretty active early in the morning from about 6:30 till 10:00 then slowed down. They were hanging in cabbage weeds at about the 5 foot level. Slip bobber rig a couple feet down with a crappie minnow worked best. Had some on leeches later in the morning. Lots of little ones active but we had to sort through a ton of them to get enough frying sized fish. As it got later in the morning the little bluegills came on in force and it was tough to get baits down to the bigger fish before they were attacked by the potato chip sized gills. Of interest, we had a small bass on when a mid 40 sized musky charged out of a breakline to take a swipe at the bass. Pretty fun for my clients to see that.