Fishing Forum

Finally decided to make my second night ice fishing trip to Pineview. Temps were 15 to 20 throughout the night with very little wind. There's a great trail down to the narrows and no slush to worry about, at least at night anyway.

Punched a hole in 50 feet of water and got a small Crappie right away. I thought it was going to be on fire, but not much else wanted to cooperate. Landed three more Crappie throughout the night and my buddy missed three bites. Two of the crappie were close to 12 inches. Last year in the same area, I slayed em all night long. I wonder if the fish are more spread out or have moved out of the narrows. One thing to note was my Vexilar looked like a Christmas tree, showing possible fish from 15 feet to the bottom. I wonder if they were perch or some type of bait fish? I fished from 10 p.m. until 3 a.m.

Justin
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Thanks for posting your report Justin. Too bad the catching wasn't better but at lest you caught a couple of nice ones. The last time I was up there I saw the same marks on my finder and I figured they were perch but who knows, maybe the thermocline[:/].
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From my intel the Narrows hasn't been producing as in years past. We've had fair success working other PV areas for Crappie but the bite has really slowed down.

Yep them are the gazillion of Perch dink pods coming through. We've seen the exact same thing on our flashers. This time of year to my knowledge there is no thermocline in any water. Thermoclines starts during the warm weather/water and thats where the oxygen is the best for the fish.

You'll see thermoclines as a line anywhere from 2'-15 feet going across the finder from our experience fish'n PV like we do. Thermocline runs for inland waters mostly horizontal not vertical. Its a distinct stratified layer between warm and colder water. For ocean waters that may differ.

What you saw on your flasher was gazillions of dink Perch I believe or maybe it was zooplankton or photoplankton...forgot what is which that will rise off the bottom at night and its these critters the other fish feed on. []
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