Crappie, sunfish and bass on small soft plastics and jig heads

[saltystick]

A local lake I use to experiment on with my soft plastic creations didn't disappoint. The water temp has come up from 56 last week to 69 today which means some panfish have spawned, some are in spawn and some post spawn. Perch were the first and now the most difficult to find. Crappie are getting ready and finding a large aggressive school in deeper water was a blast for my partner and me.

He had never used the lures or presentation I showed him, having fished with heavy tackle or live bait (for lakers) all his life. His only problem is setting the hook with the rod swept high like you would for a bass  which a small gap and hook size doesn't allow. Half his fish came off.

Today the school wasn't near the surface like it was a few days ago under a partly cloudy sky, but crappie were within 30 yds of the area. I even caught a half dozen using a float and jig/soft plastic lure under it. Pulled that float straight down! Vertical jigging in 7' caught a few.

I my way back to the dock, I downsized the lures by 1/4" from 2" and caught about 18 sunfish and a few more crappie closer to shore. I actually saw two crappie starting to spawn in 2' of water and yellow perch nearby ready to eat the eggs. They didn't care a bit that I was only 4' from them standing in the water watching. After the show was over I finished getting the boat ready to get it out of the water.

What a day!

[Lipripper]

Thanks for the report and I love catching Crappie and pan fish on my UL gear.

[saltystick]

What always amazes me is the difference in quality between waters.  A pond I fished today has larger perch and sunfish than the lake I fished yesterday. The crappie average the same size -
9-11".  33 fish today (belt counter) were mostly found near shore lines whereas those yesterday were caught in deeper open water.