Pineview Crappie 1/21

[obifishkenobi]

Pineview Crappie has been the most consistent bite I've fished this winter. I fished with four people last night from 4-11:30pm, three of us limited out and the other two caught 9 between them, those two where newbies to Crappie fishing. our total was 69 crappie between 9-11". we where near the care takers house in 42' of water with most of the fish hooked around 32' down. We all used some variation of a dropper under a spoon I tipped mine with meal worm, everyone else used glow crappie nibbles. The best bite was as the sun was setting and it got progressively tougher from then, I caught half of my limit in the first 2.5 hours. 

If you fancy yourself a finesse fisherman then the crappie bite is fun, you almost have to will them to bite, which is so light you wonder if you  imagined it. The best tactic  for us was to drop our offering into the top of the school and dead stick and wait for the lightest of taps, then anticipate the next tap, lift the rod over your head and if it loads up start reeling. otherwise drop it right back down and repeat. 

I dropped my favorite panfish rod and reel down the hole last night and one of the other guys dropped a pair of sunglasses. Ice conditions are great, firm edges, frozen slush, and several inches of fresh snow on top, It is good to go for any type of machine, if you can find a place to get it on the ice. it is a bit of a work out climbing back out to the Parking by the Caretakers house where I park, with the low water, but I just take it one step at a time and imagine that I'm climbing up a long set of stairs. I didn't get home until 1:30 am, one of the guys brought his snowmobile to give it a shake down run before our trip to the Berry next Saturday and got stuck trying to get out of the Wind Surfer beach parking pulling his trailer with a 2 wheel drive pick up, I ended up hooking his trailer to my truck and pulling it up to the Highway for him and even then it took him a number of attempts to get out, he would lose momentum and traction few feet short of the pavement.