For the first I am getting a chance to go to Red Lake for some fishing time and trying to find the Crappies and Walleyes. My partner was up last week end and found the Walleyes ok, but could not locate the Crappies. I don't expect for any one to give away any special coordinates or your special place. I would appreciate any info that some one can give me.

I did read on another post that they had found that they needed to get away from the crowds. And the big thing was to move until you found the Crappies. The post said that when an area got crowded, the bite stopped.

So any help you can give me would be appreciated. For the Crappies what would you suggest for bait?

Thanks,

Ron

You will no doubt be accessing the lake via one of the resort's roads. Ask them and they will give you a general idea. Ask at the bait shop when you get to Waskish. I assume that's where you are getting on. Ask at the bars/restaurant that you stop at there. In other words, when you contribute to the local economy, they will be happy to help you out. Sorry for the vague answer, also the Fishing Minnesota website has a dedicated forum for Upper Red Lake, you can ask questions there, but you have to be a registered member to post.

Regards,

Scott Lee

Since there is six times as much water as dry land on earth, any fool
can plainly see the good Lord meant for man to fish six times as much as he works.

Ron,
Put very simply - with the advent of the walleye planting and ensuing success of the walleye population, there has been a decrease in the amount of NEW crappie spawn success's. As a result, it seems that most of the crappies being caught are of a very large variety, i.e. many years old. The net result of this situation is that the resident population of "large crappies" is gradually being reduced.

This is in line with expectations when the walleye restocking was going on. in other words, there is a given amount of biomass in the lake and if it is filled with waleyes and their offspring, there will be fewer successful Crappie spawns.

As a result of that, although there are many many very nice crappies to be caught in red lake; because of the nature of the crappies themselves, and their spooky nature and the diminishing size of the crappie schools: when a location is found that harbors crappies - it tends to be a well guarded secret.

The best clue is as follows:
1. Look for "dark ice" i.e. places where there are large drifts, pressure ridges, broken up ice. The dark ice all tends to provide more shelter for the crappies to hide from the large predators which roam red - like 40 inch northerns and 25 inch walleyes.

2. Look for areas that haven't been fished and are away from crowds. The noise and clutter of lots of vehicles and other commotion really tends to spook out the fish. Rather, take some educated guesses, drill about 100 holes across a stretch of ice, and then go back to the beginning of the line of holes and do some prospecting with your depth finder. Drop a line down about every 3rd hole if you find some likely prospects and see what you find. Don't spend more than about 3-5 minutes at any given hole unless you get some crappie action at the hole. Then move on to the next hole.

With a good auger, you can drill 100 holes in about 10 minutes. So, it is just a matter of searching and searching until you hit the mother lode.

Take care
REW

p.s.
When the bite quits - start moving again. It is likely that the school has only moved a few hundred feet from where you connected with them. If you have drilled a lot of holes before starting to fish, you can quickly move to another hole and stay on the school.

When the fish move - you move and you will stay connected. By staying on the fish, you can began to develop a sense of how the school is moving over the lake under the ice.

Another clue that works quite well is to put your depth finder transducer on a stick, and have the transducer mounted at about a 30 degree angle with respect to the bottom. That way, you can rotate the transducer 360 degrees and figure out which direction, the school has moved.

I like to keep two transducers connected to my depth finder via a switch.
I have one of the floating variety, that I can plunk down the hole to check out what is directly below me.
Then, have another one on a stick mounted at an angle, so that if I don't see anything going on below me with the floating transducer, I can put the angled transducer down - slowly rotate it, and look for marks that are up off the bottom. You have to use common sense to figure the relative distance of the school, but after working with it for a while - it all makes sense. The key thing is that if you rotate the transducer west, and you start seeing a bunch of marks off the bottom in a westerly direction; you can go west drilling holes. If you make a leapfrog jump of say 100 feet and then find that the marks are a bit east you can backtrack about 25 feet and try again. So, the angled transducer helps you to more quickly hone in on the school of fish that you are trying to locate.

Take care
REW

Ron,
Put very simply - with the advent of the walleye planting and ensuing success of the walleye population, there has been a decrease in the amount of NEW crappie spawn success's. As a result, it seems that most of the crappies being caught are of a very large variety, i.e. many years old. The net result of this situation is that the resident population of "large crappies" is gradually being reduced.

This is in line with expectations when the walleye restocking was going on. in other words, there is a given amount of biomass in the lake and if it is filled with waleyes and their offspring, there will be fewer successful Crappie spawns.

As a result of that, although there are many many very nice crappies to be caught in red lake; because of the nature of the crappies themselves, and their spooky nature and the diminishing size of the crappie schools: when a location is found that harbors crappies - it tends to be a well guarded secret.

The best clue is as follows:
1. Look for "dark ice" i.e. places where there are large drifts, pressure ridges, broken up ice. The dark ice all tends to provide more shelter for the crappies to hide from the large predators which roam red - like 40 inch northerns and 25 inch walleyes.

2. Look for areas that haven't been fished and are away from crowds. The noise and clutter of lots of vehicles and other commotion really tends to spook out the fish. Rather, take some educated guesses, drill about 100 holes across a stretch of ice, and then go back to the beginning of the line of holes and do some prospecting with your depth finder. Drop a line down about every 3rd hole if you find some likely prospects and see what you find. Don't spend more than about 3-5 minutes at any given hole unless you get some crappie action at the hole. Then move on to the next hole.

With a good auger, you can drill 100 holes in about 10 minutes. So, it is just a matter of searching and searching until you hit the mother lode.

Take care
REW

p.s.
When the bite quits - start moving again. It is likely that the school has only moved a few hundred feet from where you connected with them. If you have drilled a lot of holes before starting to fish, you can quickly move to another hole and stay on the school.

When the fish move - you move and you will stay connected. By staying on the fish, you can began to develop a sense of how the school is moving over the lake under the ice.

Another clue that works quite well is to put your depth finder transducer on a stick, and have the transducer mounted at about a 30 degree angle with respect to the bottom. That way, you can rotate the transducer 360 degrees and figure out which direction, the school has moved.

I like to keep two transducers connected to my depth finder via a switch.
I have one of the floating variety, that I can plunk down the hole to check out what is directly below me.
Then, have another one on a stick mounted at an angle, so that if I don't see anything going on below me with the floating transducer, I can put the angled transducer down - slowly rotate it, and look for marks that are up off the bottom. You have to use common sense to figure the relative distance of the school, but after working with it for a while - it all makes sense. The key thing is that if you rotate the transducer west, and you start seeing a bunch of marks off the bottom in a westerly direction; you can go west drilling holes. If you make a leapfrog jump of say 100 feet and then find that the marks are a bit east you can backtrack about 25 feet and try again. So, the angled transducer helps you to more quickly hone in on the school of fish that you are trying to locate.

Take care
REW

Don't head up there expecting crappies, you may get real lucky and get into a few but...Enjoy the walleye bite as it's second to none right now.

I've been up there a few times this season, ONE crappie, many, many eyes!

BIRDDOG

You will need good luck more than anything.All of the other things mentioned will help.Been going two to three trips a year for the last six years and every time things seem to change.Moving and being away from the crowds ussualy help.Our last trip late last year blew that theory right out of the water,we fished right in the middle of a pack of houses and caugth two limits of crappies in less than 45 minuetes while no body around us caught much of anything.This was right during the middle of the day.Twenty yards either direction of the spot produced nothing.The best thing is to be prepared when they do start to bite.We have multiple rods set up to use when the bite gets going.It seems if you can keep them interested they will stick around for awhile.I really dont agree that the population is down.We have caught just as many fish the last few years as we had when we first started going there.Burl.

Made the trip to Red Lake Saturday am. Went out at Hillman's. Started fishing around 9 am. Finished at 6 pm. Had portable so it was pretty cool with the high wind. One 15" Crappie, three Walleys under the slot. Got 4 in the slot. Talked to several other houses and it was slow. Some of the locals figured that the cold front that came through on Friday turned off the bite.
Going to go back in two weeks with a sleeper house to see if we can get into the Crappies. We were fishing in 14" of water about 3 miles out of the Hillmans access.

Fishman, how are Hillmans for service and their sleeper houses? Thinking of trying them the 1st week in march or so. Never been to red lake.

We just bought bait and an access to the lake which was $ 8.00 for the day.

Any place with sleepers you would / would not recommend? Thanks!!