Home Forums Fishing Freshwater A great time of year.

Fishing this time of year is just plain fun. The weather's warmed up, so the sting's out of the air. The crappies just finished spawning, and the sunnies are on the beds. I've got several batches of fish in the freezer. We eat fish about once a week this time of year, so we're well stocked. Now I can just go have some fun catching bass, and trying for walleye, maybe a little trout fishing. The boat's running good, although it's to the point it needs a good bath. All that fish goo gets a little slimy. I'm on my second tank of gas this spring, which is a lot for me, as I don't do a lot of "running."

The damned water skiiers haven't taken over the lakes yet. School's out today, so this too will change. Time to switch off to the smaller lakes they don't like to go to. Maybe a run or two down to the St. CRoix, or the mighty Mississippi. Might even go try to tussle with a big river cat.

Yep, it's great time of year.

It's warming up here, in the 90's in MO, but I've taken my share of the pan fish. 158 crappie have been filleted, and am hoping for another 100 before the snow flies again.

Lately I've just been experimenting with my own tied jigs in a local lake, couple hours at a time. I haven't caught a decent catfish this year yet though.

Gotta work this weekend. Only have one day off next week. (The joys of running the joint and being short staffed) So might miss out on the sunnies before they move off the beds. I'll just have to hunt them down again. They never move real far on this lake. Pockets in the outside edge of the weed line can easily fill the boat with sunnies once they get off the beds.

Sounds wonderful.. All we have is trout.. Some walleye..
But I am boatless.. So our favorite eating fish is brookies..

But we will spend some time this next mth. with my wife's folks in Mich.. Fishing should still be fair I hope.. Nice bluegills are my favorite fish to catch and eat.. Love landing them on one of my old Fenwick Fenglass fly rods..

Was looking forward to great spring fishing at the pond but it hasn't worked out that way. You may recall the "big rain" in NW Louisiana a short while back. Locally 16 1/2 inches in less than 24 hours. All that water going in one end of the pond and out the other took a lot of fish with it.

Still catch a few crappie(white perch) and very small bass. Have caught only two bluegill the past month and I've been out 12 times.

Probably be several years before the population regrows.

I used to tie up a simple little fuzz bug to use with the fly rod for bluegills. Man, we caught a ton of 'em on that pattern. All it was was some colored fuzzy stuff wrapped around the hook with a little tuft of white haired buck tail tied on top. It was like cocaine to those sunnies-they just couldn't leave it alone.

Go catch a couple buckets of fish elsewhere and restock it. They'll come back just fine. We stocked a couple strip mine lakes on a friends property like that.

Heading up north of Brainerd for the 4th of July week. We're staying at a little family run resort up there on Lake Emily. It's a panfish/bass/northern pike lake, but not much of a walleye fishery. We can usually get enough sunfish right off the dock for a good fish fry. Then we'll hit the lake for bass and northern. The lake's small enough that it doesn't get heavy traffic, even on a holiday week. The Whitefish Chain is nearby, but it's a zoo over there, so we won't be doing that.

I deer hunt this area, and found two small lakes that don't have concrete ramps on them, but both are accessable to small boats like my 14 ft. Lund. One is suppose to have a good walleye population, and the other is supposed to be a good crappie lake. The crappie lake doesn't have a single cabin on it, which should be a fun experience. Really looking forward to having the lake to ourselves.