Ice gone, bounties of slabs in the freezer


The ice conditions in Vilas Co have finally disintegrated enough to call it unsafe and inaccessible for the greater majority of lakes and there should be open water with in a couple days.  I managed to end the ice fishing season with my personal best average individual crappie size for a one-man limit.....12.26 inches.  I challenge anyone on the planet to beat that, legitimately. 

Crappie Slaying..... it's that time of year again, and boy do I love it



Let’s be real here, nothing beats absolutely hammering the crappies in the warm springtime climate.  I’m not talking about being hopeful that you can get a dozen nice ones, I speak of 100% being at slayersville during slaytime, yea you heard me, slayersville.  Have you heard of it?  Let me tell you about it, it’s a place where dreams come true, little boy’s fantasies are fulfilled, where the crappies are so densely schooled that losing big slab crappies at the hole and laughing about it is common because 10 seconds later you got another one, and its bigger, and its 50 degrees outside and no other angler is on the entire lake, because it’s a secret freaking lake and upon leaving this wonderful place, it is best to make sure no crappies jump out of your overflowing buckets.  Home sweet home baby.
The code of pure slaying is a difficult one to crack, and I believe it has everything to do with where you fish.  If one thing is certain, you can’t catch something that isn’t there, even if you think you’re a long lost Lindner.  And often times crappie fisherman know this and group up on popular lakes because of things they had heard recently, or had some success themselves (all day for a half dozen), or quite frankly, because it’s easy.  I do this all the time also, I’ll check out a crowd of crappie fisherman on a particular lake only to find it to be a complete waste of my time because there aren’t any slabs there.  On a side note, that is why you can’t underestimate the power of the stealthy crappie fisherman, a honing of skills much like a ninja.  In a crowd, the ninja crappie slayer will catch fish that people won’t see, but not everyone can behold these skills.  In these crowds, it is Wisconsin’s version of Alaska combat fishing for kings in downtown Anchorage, it is a war for only a few fish, it’s crazy.  Anyway, you can either waste your time on a crowded lake catching nothing or go explore.  This is what I do.  But I’m not going to sit here and lie and say that I can find these lakes simply through my own intuition like point at a map and magically know where huge slabs are.  I do get lucky and find awesome lakes all the time, but I strike out all the time too.
My uncle, who will remain anonymous for now, figured out that the best possible way to find the best lakes in the world is find someone else that knows of one and then to find the nearest tavern!  I have adopted this technique as my own and absolutely promise you that it works.  Some of my best slaying days have come after Fred Local had one too many and spilled the beans about his brother in law’s top secret lake.  For those of you that don’t live in Northern WI, let me emphasize that there are thousands of lakes all over the place, big flowages, small ponds, deep lakes, lakes with no cabins, lakes with hot girls, lakes with good wake boarders, lakes with big crappies, and I’d bet all the debt I’m in that there is a record musky in one of them.  Anyway, so there are a lot of lakes and it can be really exciting and overwhelming at the same time, so information is everything.  How do you identify those who behold the wisdom of secret lakes, you might ask.  Well that’s hard to say; usually they wear sturdy mustaches and have buckets of slabs in the backs of their truck. 
There’s simply nothing better in my eyes than being on lots of big fish and having one or two trusty slayers with me to hold together the secret knowledge of the whereabouts of that spot, and to never give up information to anyone, no matter how cute she is.
Ok ok, so now you’re concerned that you’ll never meet someone with awesome crappie knowledge, and you may ask, what if I don’t?  Well I cannot help you here.
Knowledge is so important that I can’t shout it loud enough, but it’s only half the battle, you have to find these dense schools of slabs and be there when they are biting.  Now you are like, cripes, maybe this crappie thing isn’t for me, going through all this trouble like this; if you are having these thoughts then indeed you should stop reading now because this story is only for people who desire to be great crappie slayers.  It is the last piece of the puzzle, the actual slaying.  Now am going to share my notes from last year with only regard to last year’s peak harvest of crappies and what lead to such a magnificent occurrence.
Remember I fished nearly every day during this stretch for walleyes, perch, bluegills and crappies, these notes only relate to this one particular lake and only to crappies on that one lake.  I will refer to the lake as SuzyQ.
16 February – 25 F cloudy gusty.  Searched for crappies on SuzyQ this afternoon.  I did locate a good number of them in the old spot but very inactive.
17 February – 32 F sunny.  Took the wheeler over to SuzyQ from 1300-1630.  Saw a couple crappies in every hole but couldn’t get any to bite.  Need to work this spot in the early morning or at dark.  I will w/in the next couple days.  They are tight in the weeds. 
20 February – 38 F sunny.  Got to SuzyQ at 0700 and tried for crappies, then at 0830 moved outside of the weeds to 12fow, saw a couple walleyes with the camera and caught 4 walleyes in 10 minutes around 0900.  One was a beauty 24” 5 lb fat girl. 
23 February – Cooler/snowy 25 F
26 February – Windy E
27 February – 30 F cloudy E wind
28 February – 25 F snow
1 March – 30 F sunny
2 March – Sunny upper 30’s E wind
3 March – Sunny 35-40 E wind.  SuzyQ from 1600 – dark. Crappies are in but not active
4 March – Sunny 40 F E wind
5 March – Sunny west wind
6 March – Dropping B pressure sunny and warm
7 March – 25 F morning cloudy
9 March – Very mild 50 F cloudy afternoon
10 March – Rain and mid 40’s. Got 1 crappie at SuzyQ around 1000.  Not quite in the right spot. 
11 March – Cloudy mid 40’s.  SuzyQ 0930 – noon.  Found some out a little further.  Managed 11 nice ones on plastics and minnows.  Back from 1700-1800, no fish they may have moved out a bit more.
12 March – Upper 40’s cloudy.  Worked SuzyQ with Schuff got there at 1100 didn’t find fish right away but then found some out toward the edge a little more and absolutely slayed the slabs.  Left at 1400 with a limit of 50 crappies.  Average at 11.0 inches, but the majority of misses (total misses =  ~25) were above 12 inches.  Tipdowns with minnow (bigger the better) jig with minnow or white/pink plastics were the ticket.  Regrouped and went back there with Matt and Schuff for an hour before dark.  Same spot.  Caught 22 more crappies.  Would have caught more but were being stealth ninjas because someone was watching us.  Hot action all day, two man limit in 3 hours, can’t beat it.
14 March – Sunny 50’s.  Fished SuzyQ with Matt and Randy from 1200 – 1730.  Took a while to find them again, like 45 minutes, finally did and caught them consistently.  Kept 38 crappies and left could have kept catching them.
Now you can take from these notes what you will, but one thing is for sure, it took a little effort to pin down those tasty slabs, and it all came together after a noticeable warming trend when the ice was melting and providing a rush of nutrients and oxygen into the water to get them revved up.  Also, all action occurred on a hundred yard weed bed filled with coontails and thick cabbage, and the crappies would always be in a tight area within that weed bed, not always in the same spot.  My underwater camera was the unsung hero in this story of slayer vs. slayed.  Also, this lake has produced this same exact way the past 6 years or so, and I clean up big every time.
A side fact – crappie sustainable yield is about 30 percent of the population and they only take three or four years to reach the ten inch mark, so filling buckets is usually not detrimental. 
Another side fact – crappies and walleyes share a very similar food source, so when big walleyes exist usually so do big slabosaurs.

Early Trout Opener


Joe Ertl and Tyler Johnson
I used to think that this upcoming time of year was dull, the span between ice-out and the walleye opener, besides late-ice crappie fishing and shooting a gobbler, was a non-slaying period of time that I struggled to power through.  However, I was reminded recently by gear-guru and multi-species angler Joe Ertl that this time of year is awesome for early season trout.  Until May 1st, trout are catch and release only and anglers are restricted to using artificial lures only, and barbless hooks are not required anymore, but should be used whenever possible to decrease hooking mortality rates.  Coincidentally, the streams are flowing with some extra oomph right now, the biting insects aren’t swarming yet, the vegetation is low, and the air is nice and cool.  And best of all, very few people are taking advantage of the early trout season, so scouting and discovering new pools and hot spots is easier than ever without added pressure from other fisherman.  
If fly fishing isn’t your thing or even an option, then spinning tackle with a Countdown Rapala is hands down, your best bet.  The countdown version of the Rapala makes it easy for the angler to cover every possible inch of every pool in a stream.  Its steady slow-sinking action allows the angler an advantage by knowing precisely how far the lure has sunk before retrieval by counting, hence the name.  Count how many seconds it takes for the lure to sink a calculated distance, in your sink at home or wherever, and bingo; determining its sinking rate is simple and counting down in your head after every cast will allow for super accurate depth control when tackling a pool.
Basically, Ertl compares fishing for trout this time of year to playing baseball like Nyjer Morgan – hard and fast.   Cruise up and down the stream and hit all the pools that look good, pretending that the ‘hit and run’ is on at all times.  Precision cast all of the possible angles in each pool, like crossfire, making sure to cover the entire hole at all depths and all sides possible.  Once a few fish have been caught, move on to the next good looking pool and continue with this mentality.  Obviously don’t forget your polarized glasses to see structure and other hidden treasures along the way.