Two Days of Cold Search Crappies

Two Days of Cold Search Crappies

Chunsum Choi (JCcrappies From DupageAngler.com) and I met before sunrise. We were at the lake to begin prepping our kayaks for the cold water and hopefully some crappie.

I got the bright idea to ride my yak down the small embankment into the lake. I am not always the sharpest hook in the box. The kayak slid in, the nose dipped, and I started to roll. Thank God it was only two feet deep and I was able to stop with my arm. It is reasons like this I carry 3 pairs of gloves and a pile of hand-warmers.

The water was 36 degrees and the air temp was 32. A steady wind across the lake started to slowly freeze us to the bone. Four top layers, neoprene facemask and 3 warmers stuffed in my gloves and sleeves bought me some time. I turned Pandora radio on my phone to try to ignore the fact that I was freezing and the suspended fish swimming by at 4 feet were not biting anything.

Finally, as I lost feeling in my feet, my float slowly disappeared as I caught a beautiful 10-inch black crappie!! Unfortunately this would be the only one. I managed to scrape up one gill and lost one before the cold got to me and I called it a day.

The bright side was that this was the first time I used my Lowrance Elite 4X color fish locator! Let me tell you I was impressed. The resolution rocks! The setting selection is robust! I played with the fish id option and went through all of the settings again ignoring the fact that I was sitting in plastic in the middle of water with sticks and strings (this is how it feels yak fishing with no fish J) I was surprised to find an ice fishing flasher mode. Most locators keep this mode under pages or views. I know this because I went through every model at BPS looking for flasher modes. The flasher mode for the Lowrance is under sonar settings and it is really good. If I had known this, I might not of bought another company’s model for ice fishing! Live and learn.

The next morning I headed 40 minutes North to yak a private pond. You would not believe the difference in the ponds from the North of the county to the South. Every pond up North had ice! Bummer! I drove back home and tried one pond with Chunsum and we struck out. After warming up I went back out to a small pond and managed to catch 3 small crappies and missed a couple as well. I was just happy to catch something! Spring cannot get here soon enough…..