Journal of a Minnesota Angler

Species: Crappie
Size: 10″
Lure used: minnow with hot pink jighead set at 6 1/2 feet below slip bobber

Species: Largemouth bass
Size: 10″, 10″, 7″, 10″
Lure used: minnow with hot pink jighead set at 6 1/2 feet below slip bobber

Date: 4/18/2010
Time: 2:30 – 5:30pm
Body of water: Local metro lake
Location: Twin Cities, North suburbs
Weather Conditions: sunny

I was working in my garage on one of my projects leftover from last week, my back to the street, when I heard, “ready to go?” from someone behind me. It was Mark. He was headed out to a local lake and was stopping by to invite me along. I couldn’t leave right at that moment, but told him I would see what was going on that afternoon and maybe catch up to him later. Fortunately for me, there was nothing pressing and I was on the water with Mark less than an hour later.

This time of year in Minnesota, the DNR closes seasons for all sport fish except rough fish and panfish to allow them to finish their spawn. That being the case, Mark and I were after crappie. I didn’t have a panfish setup, but Mark had plenty of rods for me to use. Each setup had a slip bobber, drop shot sinkers, and jigheads ready for adding minnows.

The first few minutes brought me back to my childhood sitting in a boat watching a bobber for hours. I was reminded of how hard it was to keep the line taught for when the bobber went under. But this was not my parents’ still fishing experience.

Mark was not as patient as my parents. If there was no action within a minute of a cast, he was reeling in and casting again. And after about 10-15 minutes, if we didn’t get any bites, we headed to a new spot. The word of the day was “weeds.” Mark had me looking for weeds where the crappie are held. We probably covered 6 spots in about an hour and a half fishing the edge of weed beds.

We started near the Northern shore of the lake with everybody else, but later moved down the Western shore. With no luck, we returned back to a spot near the Northern shore that he and our neighbor Rob had caught their limit in crappie last weekend.

Without so much as a nibble all day, we finally got some action. I landed two 10″ bass in quick succession. Minutes later, I got a nice 10″ crappie that I dropped in the live well. We were excited that we thought we had found the hole. I got lots of bites, but none I could land. The fish were really touchy. The bobber would go slowly under, but I could never set the hook. Many times I couldn’t tell if it was a fish or weeds. I would try to set the hook anyway and would either miss the fish, or pull in some cabbage.

We were definitely in the right area as I counted 11 boats within a football field’s distance of us. But we didn’t see anyone else pulling any fish in.

We fished for another hour where Mark caught some small sunnies and I landed two more bass of 7″ and 10″. Mark switched to a small spinner a half hour before we packed it in and landed a nice 16″ Northern Pike.

Overall, it wasn’t the outing we were hoping for, but landing 5 fish for the day wasn’t half bad. It was nice finally being out on the water again and being able to wet a line. The best part is that I was able to bring home a fish for dinner.