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Started the morning off at O dark thirty, cant tell you where but Im sure someone will guess it [:p]. With a starting temp of 22* we headed out. I have no idea where we where fishing because by the time it got light the fog had set in upon us. Cold as hell when the fog came in, it felt like -4000! Right away bent-hook, hooks up with some crappie on the finder. Had around 10 hooked up by sun up.
Around 7 circus-act (who is not part of this forum just yet, but that will be his call sign after hooking up with a perch and Crappie on smae pole.) caught up with us. Ended up being a great day for the 3 of us. Kept 20 keeper Crappie and 4 decent Perch and released twice as many that just didnt quite fit the bill. Curly tail jigs in colors: Purple, chartruese, and white was the lure of choice. Looking forward to more days like this.
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Good job on the slabs. I would love to get after some of those, I've never caught one are they good eating? how do you prepare them,fillet them out or what?
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They are really good. I fillet them out and either cut them in 1" chunks and get some Cajun breading from sportsmans and throw them in the deep fryer or throw the fillets in the oven and make up some mean fish tacos.
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I'd say the best of the panfish. Flaky white meat, and they tend to grow bigger than most other panfish.
You can just slab em, skin em, then take off the ribs. Depending on size - I usually try to get the backside of the ribs too. You can feel down the center to make sure you get the Y-bone.
Some folks just behead em, clean, then fry - bones, skin and all.
That's a nice mess of fish there. That one closest to the bottle is a chunk! Good going.
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Mr Crappie Rangler you are a hero. Anyone can catch fish but you gotta have skills to rustle up them there Crappies.Good on ya mate. Hope for many more such days .to come.
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Was out about an hour before the fog lifted. Was out off the south side of cemetery and was only able to ice perch. My fish finder quit me shortly after I got out. Seems I can't even catch slabs on accident. Nice bunch you landed.
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Sounds tasty I've caught some nice looking blue gill before but have always tossed them back. How about them same thing? Just seems like they might be kinda tricky to fillet. [:/]
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I would assume so but I am not sure. Probably have to get into some decent sized ones or they might be a pain in the rear-end.
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Yeah it's been tough this year! The Crappie must have had a good success rate during the spawn. The Crappie might even be taking on the Perch genes up there. Seems they keep getting smaller and the big boys harder to find.
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[cool][#0000FF]Perch and crappie are not genetically close, but they do share one similarity. They bring off better spawns during springs with high water levels and stable weather. Perch need aquatic vegetation or stickups upon which to spawn. Crappie can spawn over rocky rubble but prefer to spawn around flooded brush and trees.
Pineview is NOT a stable reservoir...in terms of having predictable water levels at any time of year. Lots of differences from year to year. Some years are better than others for early spawning fish like perch and crappies. And if there are a series of cooling storms during the narrow window of water temp preferences the fish move in and out of the spawning areas and may never get a really good sustained spawn.
For several years after a good spawning year we are frustrated by hordes of small fish, with only a few larger ones holding over from other years. During bad spawning years there may not be enough recruitment for the offspring to even be noticeable in angler catches. We either catch the small ones or a few larger ones from other years, with no in betweeners.
Another negative downside to that situation is that in a water with limited fertility and little natural food, over-abundant perch or crappie of all the same size are forced to compete for whatever food is available. They swarm our lures and baits before the larger fish can get to them. Thus, we can cover the ice with dinks without ever really putting a bend in our rods.
It would be nice if our reservoirs were like some of the big natural lakes in the east...or at least reservoirs with continuous high volume inflows to maintain water levels within a predictable range. But the reservoirs are created for the water users and not angler preferences. We just gotta live with it and be properly grateful whenever everything comes together right.
Pineview probably has one of the greatest rise and fall cycles throughout the year of most of our reservoirs. And conditions may vary widely from year to year...both during the spawn and during ice fishing time. My personal logs show that the water level in November last year was almost 20 feet higher than the year before. Now, at the end of 2012, it was about 25 to 30 feet lower than in 2011.
In some cases we can still find fish hanging out in about the same areas...even during water fluctuations. That is often because of the zooplankton and other invertebrates that live in the mud bottoms in those areas. That stuff attracts the baby perch and crappies and they attract the bigger fish.
It ain't rocket science but there are some good underlying reasons for the variables. Too bad we can't train the fish a bit better.
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Fog or not! You sure know your crappie. Thanks for the great day.
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[#0000FF]I picked up on your sarcasm. Didn't think you were "biology-challenged".
A lot of my rants on this board revolve around the food chain thing. Ultimately, all species in any given lake depend on the health and abundance of that lake at the lowest level of the food pyramid. Hand in hand (fin in fin) with that is the spawning success ratio.
In good spawning years there can be a lot of young perch or crappie but not enough food for them to grow big and/or fast. Many fish in that year class may never grow to toad/slab status. In the years with less spawning success there is more food for the fewer "recruits" and they are able to grow in a more "normal" progression...ultimately becoming worthy targets for anglers.
Just doesn't seem fair. We either get lots of smaller fish or only a few larger ones.
Makes us old timers harken back to some of the glory days on different waters. Our eyes glaze over as we fondly remember covering the ice with mongo perch up to 16" from Yuba. And there have been a few good crappie years on Pineview when you could count on having a couple over 15 inchers in your limit of footlongs or better.
Gives ya hope for the future anyhow.
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