Little Atom Open Water Finicky December Crappie

Open Water Finicky December Crappie

It was the day after Christmas and there was no ice to be found in the Chicago area. It was a balmy 50 degrees! Not fishing on such a warm day would just be wrong.

I managed to catch about 14 fish from 3 out of 4 ponds. A couple fish were caught on Lake Fork Shads the rest on Little Atom plastics. In fact Little Atom saved the day. Using these micro plastics on ice jigs got the finicky fish to bite and were perfect for the small fish. The baits I used today were the micro Nuggie and the Wedgee. I used weighted Thill floats to get the long casts I needed to reach the deeper water I would normally be ice fishing. The fish were small But I was not complaining to be catching when other were still in bed.

It was great to catch some fish with no ice, especially with the crappie being shut off in a lot of the area. Next time you head out in cold weather or slow conditions bring Little Atom along to save the day! 

Frozen Kayak Fishing

Bring on the THUNDER

Bass fishing had been pretty slow in our area. Ted (Soonerbass), Chunsum (JC Crappies), and I decided that kayaking for crappie might be a better idea. A cold front passed just an hour before we started and I actually did not think we were going to do much of anything.

We put in and it was still dark with mist on the water, God I love that. Ted and a few others have been throwing crappie thunders for sometime. I have never liked the way they look or their action. These guys crush fish on them so I have joined the Thunder wagon.

Wal-Mart sells them pretty cheap in about three color combos. JC made a smart move and bought similar bodies from Strike king.This way he does not have to keep buying whole baits and can reuse the heads after the bodies get shredded.

The bite was slow but not terrible. Considering I was expecting the skunk, I was pretty happy to hook up. All three of us were hooking bass. I would like to say that bass was our target and in our genius we decided to use smaller crappie baits, but the truth is we only caught a few crappies.

I had brought minnows because of the cold front and my low expectations for the day but they only caught a couple fish. However, one of them was a beautiful 19 bass!

The crappie thunder out produced live bait even in tough conditions I was a bit taken back by that. I really thought I would be double minnowing it and only catching crappie.

I am now a thunder addict and it will be a go to on most of my crappie trips in the future.

Crappie, Kayaks, and Calm

My good friend Chunsum signed us up for Kayak Wars. Kayak wars takes teams of five who catch, measure, and photo their catches for points. At the end team with the most points wins. Now, none of us live in our yaks so we have a snowballs chance in hell of winning, but we at least want to have some points. Chunsum, Sooner Bass, and I decided to meet at a small lake and we were praying for just a few points each.

It was the perfect fishing morning. This day was warmer then it had been, the water was calm, and the lake invited me to enjoy the magic it holds. I had a very stressful week at work. As I have gotten older anxiety has become a resident in my head and is getting harder and harder to deal with. Only fishing can make it shut off like a magic door to a problem-less utopia.  Once in my yak and set-up I took a deep breath and my worries drifted away and were replaced with content and calm.

It did not take long for the first of 15 fish for the day to bite! I used a few different rigs. I just rotated them, trying to find what would work best. The first rod was set up with a crappie slip float and a straight minnow. The second rod had an ice jig and a Little Atom Jumbo Wedgee. The third stick had a thill float with a double rig of a tube jig and lake fork shad. The last set-up was just a float and crawler combo.

I landed several nice fish. I landed only one crappie nice enough to score points on Kayak Wars. They don’t make it easy. One cast my Thill slowly disappeared, I set the hook and what I thought was a small fish decided to quadruple in size right at the side of my yak!!! My big fish opportunity vanished as it was covered with my expletives and tears. I didn’t have a chance.

JcCrappies (Chunsum) caught plenty of fish as well and managed 2 fish for points! Ted (Sooner) met us late but ended up with about 15 fish when he finished. It was the perfect day for fishing, laughing, and relaxation. 

Quick Post Flood Crappie

We had a HUGE rain and much of the area was completed flooded. Rivers were out of the question and I thought the ponds would be too. I had planned to kayak a couple bigger lakes for crappie and leftover trout. My thinking was that they would not be so dramatically effected by 4-7 inches of rain. However 2 days after the rain the ponds in my area dropped down quite a bit. So I decided to drive 45 minutes north because that area did not get quite as much as we did. 

I kayaked a small lake I have had permission to fish. The water was up 4 feet and was very muddy. To be honest I was not expecting anything In these post flood and cold front conditions. But if I get a chance to fish I am going!!

I paddled around and just could not find any concentration of fish just small roaming schools of a few fish. the fish were 4-5 feet down in 7-9 feet of water. I rigged up ice fishing jigs and either wax worms or minnows using ultra light combos and slip floats

One spot number three I miss a fish. Son of a..... Spot four I repeat the same thing!!! WTH! The next three spots I managed to pick up one nice 10 inch crappie per spot. Whew. I really had to move around and keep at it in order to score. But looking at what mother nature dumped on the area I consider myself lucky just to get on the board.

Fish can be caught post storm or even flood. You have to just stick with it and be willing to move and change spots, presentations and even species or locations at times. Being able to change or roll with the punches will give you more fish and success in tough conditions.

Fall Trout Fishing 2013

Excitement took over the tired as 330 came and the alarm screamed in my ears. Brim Reaper and JcCrappie met me with their yaks in tow ready to hit the water. We had planned on Silver Lake but a forecast of high winds made us change locations. We chose Loon Lake at Silver Springs because it is a long narrow lake that runs east to west and the winds were out of the south. We did not realize just how windy it had gotten until we were finished and pulled out of the park and my van was blown all over the road!!

Loon was the perfect choice it totally shielded us. The south shore has a high ridge and block of forest which completely saved the day for a group of addicts in small yaks!

We arrived at 530 and a score of shore angler were already pounding the water in the dark. The shoreline was riddled in night bobbers and head lamps. We were unaware that you could start at 5.

Once on the water we had space for ourselves and only had a handful of other watercraft to share with.  The trout were grouped in schools. All swimming from 2-5 feet down I tried spinners but no luck. I watched a group of anglers score several trout quickly from shore. I paddled out of their casting range and dropped anchor. The school I marked on my Lowrance was much thicker here. That’s when the fun started, my floats disappeared quickly as minnows were attacked at 4.5 feet. At one point I had 2 on at once! Chunsum hooked a couple as well.

At one point I lost feeling in my ass and needed a break. Brim and I headed to shore. The great thing about Loon is that they were prepared for fisherman. Bathrooms, bait, and food were available. We enjoyed a hot dog and shot the shit as we watched the guys fish for a while.

Later Sooner bass joined our DuPage Angler Kayak Trout Party and scored a large trout.  I believe it was fooled by a sassy shad. We found a fish crib and managed to catch some crappie off of it before the wind was too bad on that end of the lake and had to move.

Back were we started, I finally got a Loon yellow bass! This was my first yellow in years since the die off in the Fox River and Chain. It didn’t matter how small it was, I was excited.

It was pretty cool to four guys from DuPageAngler.com on the water all in kayaks!! I had a blast and cannot wait until the 2013 fall opener.

Gearing up for Spring Podcast

The podcast are on a regular schedule now Wednesday at 830 and the site has a new chat feature to chat in questions and comments during the live show. There is always the option to call in as well!!

THIS WEEK CLICK HERE

The Podcasts are also available on iTunes!

Crappie Day Turns to Bass Blast

After a very cold one fish day a couple of weeks ago, I needed to settle the score. I decided to take my kayak for crappies. I arrive to a lake of glass and just a hint of mist on the water. The air even this early is twice as warm as the last trip. I took the first hour just to paddle around looking for structure, memorizing depths, and searching for a school of crappie. Next to a large flat of 5 feet the bottom sloped to 7.5 feet and there were the fish. There was nothing from 5ft down and the bottom was void of life 9 feet and deeper.

The crappie bite started and man was I relieved. I was starting to doubt my decision to hit the crappie instead of going to LaSalle for hybrids and cats.

The bite was not as fast as I would have liked. My old friend Steven Murray of Tarpon Headquarters use to bring a container of crawlers every time we went fishing even on our most hardcore artificial largemouth bass days. This drove me crazy. UNTIL those crawlers saved our asses on more then one occasion. I learned my lesson and always have crawlers in my bait fridge.

I rigged a spinning rod with a raven float, raven shot, and a raven #4 specialist hook. I set it 4 feet down and baited with a ½ crawler hooked in the nose. To be honest I was searching for bonus hand size gills when the onslaught started. BAM! BAM! BAM! The bass came one after another. They totaled 15 fish with 3 of them over 15 inches!! It was a blast. 

I managed to scrape up about 9 crappies as well on minnows, waxies, and tube jigs. One big white measured out at 13 inches. The funny part I only caught one gill all day and it was not even on the crawlers.

The lesson here is to have a back up plan such as crawlers. Don’t be a stuck up idiot and look down on bait or certain lures. The truth is if your eyes are closed, you just cannot see. Don’t miss out on a great day, please keep an open mind and expect to learn from old, young, expert, and new fisherman. In this case going old school gave me the edge to achieve a great day and a wonderful angling adventure.