best crappie lakes

[jawjerker]

Just looking for a little "friendly advice"...... Which lakes around the Twin Cities do you consider the best ice fishing crappie lakes and in the early spring after ice out, also for crappie???

Thanks for your responce,

Jawjerker

[karpbuster]

Sorry don't know your area ... but the same lakes that work during the rest of the year are usually good ice fishing. At Sam Rayburn, the crappie fishing is pretty good year round, they tend to school more when the temp drops. One of the best spots is the bridge pilings. This has a shallow point running under the bridge so fishing the drop off side, move from the shallow end out deeper until you find em. I would scout the lake when it is soft and set the GPS coordinates.

Good luck.

karpbuster

[Auggie264]

Over the past 2 years we have had a trap attack at Lake Chisago. It has some nice gills and crappies.

[no1son]

Just looking for a little "friendly advice"...... Which lakes around the Twin Cities do you consider the best ice fishing crappie lakes and in the early spring after ice out, also for crappie???

Thanks for your responce,

Jawjerker

Hi Jawjerker,

There are crappies everywhere in the metro at least on the Minneapolis side, including a whole lot of little water that the DNR stocks yearly with small adult crappies, bluegills and channel cats for Fishing in the City; check out the DNR website for them. Some of those waters are barely 10 acres. Not all of them freeze out or get fished out during the summer and may be very good at early ice, and so there is a possibility in many of them for some good fish. If they are stocked for Fishing in the City they will have public access, but motorized vehicles like snowmobiles and ATVs may not be allowed, and driving a car on them almost never is, but then they are pretty small anyway. A lot of them are city park "lakes" and some are aerated so it pays to check with the relevant city park department in a lot of cases.

There is also heavy fishing pressure for crappies in the Metro proper. The daytime shoreline fish tend be smaller, since that is what gets the heaviest summer fishing pressure; so the size often leaves a bit to be desired, but there are 13 and 14 inch fish to be had from time to time and from place to place without leaving the Minneapolis city limits or the first ring suburbs, and 9-12" fish are still rare, but if you work they are to be had a bit more regularly. They are often taken after dark or just at dark. Daytime you will have to look for open water schools over or in deeper areas. One place to look for the smaller daytime fish is where the milfoil is still green even in late winter, especially if there is water running into the lake such as a creek. There is often an occasional larger fish or two mixed in. Be ready with extra rigs, because if you get a good crappie bite going, it will often attract wolf packs of the muskies that the DNR has put in far too much of everywhere and all of a sudden someone will hook a crappie that suddenly takes off for the next state and doesn't stop. If you are lucky you may get back most of your line when you are finally cut off. They frequently target hooked panfish and even walleyes to as much as 16 to 18 inches. It is not uncommon for one to get multiple musky attempted steals in a day, I have had as many as half a dozen passes in a single afternoon.

One place that is often overlooked is the Mississippi River. Another that is well known is Lake Minnetonka at times with bonus bull gills. There are also good crappies in Medicine. Nobody is going to tell you exactly where, however, or there will be hordes of fishermen sitting on the best holes. Bluegills are nearly everywhere, too, but finding good ones is harder than finding decent crappies. If you are looking for both good bluegills and crappies fish the bigger waters, for crappies alone some little waters can be gems, but you will have to dig them out yourself. Some can be very good, many not so much.

One thing to do is scout the lakes and ponds to see who is fishing where. Check where the most holes are once we get enough ice and those two areas will be good starting points. Crappies are the most common target of Metro ice fishermen. Some of these waters seem to be extremely hot on any given day and then dead on the next. So you may to have to run and gun for good fish; sometimes for any fish. Some of the lakes are either on or off seemingly with no middle ground. Calhoun is notorious for that with the summer shoreline fishermen, and it is usually crystal clear under the ice making for difficult fishing. There are times that a good day is only a couple of smallish fish, but it has some trophies of several species, and they are taken once in a while. There are perch in Calhoun, too, but I have yet to see one big enough to clean in the last three years. It is also one of the last to make safe ice on the west side of the Metro, since it is both round and has some very deep water. You will probably be fishing a couple of other spots by then, but file that one away, because if you can work out ice on Calhoun you will be doing better than most, which is why most of it doesn't get touched in the winter. Virtually anywhere you live on the west side of the Mississippi in the metro will have park lakes with a road around some of the shoreline. Nearly every one of any size will have crappies in it; many of them are regularly stocked.

We still have open water with almost no shore ice on a number of lakes. There were even a couple of boats out on Calhoun when I came home from work about 4:30 tonight, probably working the late open water walleyes in the bay where the channel from Isles opens out. There is a pretty good shell developing on some of the smaller bodies already, however most of them will be posted for unsafe ice for quite a while yet, some of them long after they start to become fishable. As long as the signs are up there is always the chance that some busybody will try to chase you off safe ice, and sometimes that person even has a star.

Everybody who lives in the metro probably goes by fishable water with crappies in it everyday to and from work. It takes very little to work in a scouting route on that trip. Or just take the time to cruise the parkways if nothing else and look for evidence of holes and/or fishermen sitting over them. If you see any boats out now, mark about where they are if you are interested in walleyes, or muskies since that season is just about over, but that may point you to pike which are the natural top predator around here in most waters.

Good luck. It is not hard to find crappies in the metro, but it is a little more difficult to find anything over about 8", although they are there, too.

[fishingsucks88]

I have experienced some very good crappie fishing up around white bear lake. The ice there is about 3-5 inches in most parts of the lake. One other lake I recently traveled to is Big Stone. My wife and myself have caught some very nice sized crappies up around the north point next to the islands :cheers:.

[went522]

Mn lakefinder on the DNR website will point you in the right direction. I've lived in my current home for 6 years now, the last couple years I got sick of the local crowds. I looked at a map, searched all the near by (off the beaten path)lakes on lakefinder, narrowed 6-7 lakes nearby that looked to have promising crappie populations. A couple of them turned out to be outstanding!! Best part is...NO CROWDS and the satisfaction of knowing I searched them out. My friendly advice is use "lakefinder", it's a great tool.

BIRDDOG

[AllenW]

""""
Good luck. It is not hard to find crappies in the metro, but it is a little more difficult to find anything over about 8", although they are there, too.
""""""

That might sum up all the local lakes, years back we hit sunfish during the summer that were huge at lake hiawatha, friends have hit keeper sized crappies on Nokomis and Harriet also, but ya gotta work for them.

I'd pick a lake and just spend a few days fishing it, I'd think most any will/can produce nice sized fish if your patient ennough.
Just find one that doesn't freeze out often..:)

Al