Took the day off yesterday in hopes of not missing the last of the spawn. Headed to Mogadore. Fished from 7am til 2pm. Found a decent amount of small crappies, less than 9", in shallow waters. Only caught 6 that were 9" and above. I think the big ones have already spawned and left for the deep water!
Found a few places where the gills/sunfish have moved in to spawn. Didn't see any big ones on the beds, so I didn't stop to fish. Tried drift fishing around the sunken island and only caught one catfish. I don't know where the big fish went. We sure didn't catch them! Beautiful day to be on the lake though! Glad I took the day off!
I'll disagree just to disagree, but I doubt the crappie spawn has reached its pinnacle yet. Every crappie I cleaned yesterday was full of eggs. Almost thought about releasing them because of it.
I went out yesterday as well and found the same with the crappies in term of size and numbers. Got three over 9". Mine all came from deeper water though, 9'-13'. Been reading a lot of other reports of fish relating to wood but didn't try that. It sure was a nice day!
Took the day off yesterday in hopes of not missing the last of the spawn. Headed to Mogadore. Fished from 7am til 2pm. Found a decent amount of small crappies, less than 9", in shallow waters. Only caught 6 that were 9" and above. I think the big ones have already spawned and left for the deep water!
Found a few places where the gills/sunfish have moved in to spawn. Didn't see any big ones on the beds, so I didn't stop to fish. Tried drift fishing around the sunken island and only caught one catfish. I don't know where the big fish went. We sure didn't catch them! Beautiful day to be on the lake though! Glad I took the day off!
Berlin today for only 1 hour of actually fishing we had 3 in the live well before the rain hit. All in 3 to 5 foot of water. Biggest was 13+ inches. Smallest was a little over 10. Threw back about 8 6-9 inchers.
I fish mostly "smaller"(closer to home) lakes for crappie(Wft, Mog, my pond!) and I agree 100% with you! Those waters warmed up fast-and early! Favorite spots where I've caught them from during "normal" years showed huge, empty, fanned out bedding areas(where I've found nicer spawners over perhaps the past 40 yrs),in the past couple weeks, had only a couple "junior" fish that weren't there for any particular reason! Adjacent to these were "many" spawning sunfish, which is no fluke-they always are next in line! On the smaller lakes, the breeding activity of the mature fish is done! Just have to get started after them earlier in future years I guess(or fish the bigger lakes...)
not as expierenced as others that have commented... BUT-my thoughts would be that if you are catching small fish shallow hopefully the bigger fish are yet to come in behind them. i know in my neck of the woods the season should be a little farther along than yours and ours still have eggs down here with a lot of smaller males up shallow right now. keep after em! there is more spawning action to come!
I just left mosquito for second day in row I’ve caught multiple larger crappie with eggs still. All trolling with husky jerks and flicker shad. I was actually amazed how many I caught with theses. I’ve Been crappie fishing west branch hard and catching a lot of small fish for last month and wanted to go after Walleye at mosquito and now only seem to be catching big crappie lol funny how that works.
I've used the adage "when the dogwoods bloom(based on ground and atmospheric temps), the crappie spawn is happening"! They've been blooming for a couple weeks locally(NEO) and I haven't caught any spawners to speak of.
Yeah id say you guys still have some time. Like said already the shallow lakes in central ohio an lakes like glsm are still producing spawning crappie,im positive theres still spawners left up there....
Good luck
FYI, I went out Sunday afternoon to Pymatuning Lake. I caught between 30-40 crappie. Most were between 8"-10" and kept 15 of them for a nice fish fry. From the 15 that I caught 12 had eggs. I was using small white tube jig tipped with minnow.
We are going out very early Saturday morning at Berlin. Just targeting crappie. I know it's going to be a crazy day on the lake with all the party boaters out. Hopefully alot of them think Berlin is closed!
Fished two lakes in my area this week and found spawners in both. Pymatuning and Mosquito. They’re spewing their eggs now. We threw back all the females we caught yesterday. Still kept 24. Pymy, I fished alone and kept a limit.
Still going at it at Pymatuning. Got these this morning.
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