01-04-2019, 10:05 PM
Last year, some very nice perch rather suddenly (to me) appeared during early ice, and I caught a lot of them in my first 3-4 trips. Reports on crappie were very few and rather quiet. On this site, I never saw anyone cop to having caught any. I heard none of the more 'casual" guys report any crappie success. All reports I heard were after the fact, over the rest of the past year. Some have admitted to catching a few, which tended to be large, but sparse and finicky. A few accusations of a "know-nothing" crappie cartel of suppressing reports, but nothing was proven.
This year, so far all I have heard about were small perch, but there were enough of the nice 9 and 1/2-11" girls that just showed up, that I'd be shocked if we had somehow fished em out. However, I suspect that they were the vanguard of a rising population, and that there should be tons of the next year class down, and the one below that, and the class smaller than that. All I hear so far is small perch reports.
I plan on trying a night trip for crappie, but I'm waiting for a new sonar to arrive, and judging by my one attempt last year, and a few trips the year before that (where I caught crappie, but not like I had the year before THAT) I basically don't know what I'm doing.
Good luck.
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This year, so far all I have heard about were small perch, but there were enough of the nice 9 and 1/2-11" girls that just showed up, that I'd be shocked if we had somehow fished em out. However, I suspect that they were the vanguard of a rising population, and that there should be tons of the next year class down, and the one below that, and the class smaller than that. All I hear so far is small perch reports.
I plan on trying a night trip for crappie, but I'm waiting for a new sonar to arrive, and judging by my one attempt last year, and a few trips the year before that (where I caught crappie, but not like I had the year before THAT) I basically don't know what I'm doing.
Good luck.
[signature]