# 100+ crappie day!



## Rooster (Apr 8, 2004)

I was a train wreck yesterday morning. My buddy beat me to the lake (never happens), I pull out my rods and three are so tangled together that I have to cut and retie. Finally get out on the ice, turn on the sonar, and no power. Open the batter box and realize that I cut my power cord, but forgot the trusty multi-tool. I had to “repair” using a pair of line clippers. Put the battery box back in the sled, and SNAP…the battery box caught the line of one rod and the tip snapped.

Didn’t drill my first hole until after 8am, but after catching a few crappie on a UL Rippin Rap, I forgot about all the problems earlier. The bite was pretty consistent, and I caught 3-5 crappie per hole, and moved on. The Rippin Rap would call them in. I would maybe catch one on the rap, but only the most aggressive fish. Once they were in the area I would feed them a Gill Getter with waxie. I move around a lot, and if I’m not catching I will move after about 10-15 minutes.

The weather was fine (was able to fish without gloves), the sled was pulling easy over the hard snow, and the fish were biting. Drilled a hole at high noon, nothing on the sonar, and decided to have lunch. A thermos full of hot cheddar potato and bacon soup on the ice……life is good!

After lunch, I started calling in the crappie with the Rippin Rap. I was in about 14 FOW, and the crappie quickly packed in from the bottom to about 8’. The onslaught had begun. I could no longer get them to eat the Rap, but it really got them into a frenzy. I dropped the Gill Getter down to about 7’, the first crappie came-up, I slowly raised the rod tip and BAM. It seemed like the smaller fish were the most aggressive, and at first I caught the 7” dinks. But, after working through them, I was catching 9-12” healthy crappie. Nothing huge, but as the school thinned-out I seemed to catch the bigger fish. At times they would disappear completely, but a few jerks of the Rippin Rap or Buckshot spoon, and they came back…and they kept coming back until around 4pm. It was pretty much constant, and they were eating my jig as fast as I could get it down to them. After a few hours I was down to a single jigging rod. Jigs had broken off my two other rods from constantly catching without time to retie. Saw dust was everywhere, and there were wax worms all over the ice as I spilled a container in my rush to get meat back down to the ravenous crappie. My back started to hurt, and my fingers were bleeding and raw. But, I was not leaving until the crappie did. At times the fish that I had just released was still in the hole, and I ALREADY had another fish hooked. It was absolutely unbelievable.

If you were in ear shot of my Clam, I apologize for the laughter, profanity, and talking to myself. I was a madman.

I’ve read about people getting on a hot crappie bite, but this was my first time…..can’t wait until the next! I wish that I had a Go Pro to record the action, or wish that I would have kept fish (think that I would have filled a sled).

I halfheartedly hit a couple of holes on the way back to the car, and got a few more crappie in each. At that point I was down to just a buckshot spoon as I didn’t have the energy to retie. I tried to get a pic of the sonar, but I was just too busy to get the pone out to take a pic (the pic below is during one of the “slow” periods).

https://www.ohiogamefishing.com/media/sonar.80566/full?d=1515414927

https://www.ohiogamefishing.com/media/crappie.80565/full?d=1515414903


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## Coryfisch (Jan 3, 2018)

Sounds like an awesome time! What location?


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## Phish_4_Bass (Sep 18, 2008)

Coryfisch said:


> Sounds like an awesome time! What location?


On top of the ice


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## redthirty (Sep 19, 2014)

Day you will never forget! Nice job.


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## 1BigIcehole (Nov 19, 2015)

Days like that make the slow days worth it.
Good job


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## sherman51 (Apr 12, 2011)

thanks for letting us in on a great fishing story. always love reading about any of you guys having a great day. sure does make up for the slow days. i quit ice fishing some yrs ago. but if we got to have winter i wish all you nit wits the best of luck and good ice.
sherman


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## Steelheader88 (Aug 14, 2008)

My palms were sweating reading that...


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## 25asnyder (Dec 10, 2016)

You my friend do what most ice fisherman strike out not doing I am a firm believer in finding fish that are bighting before setting up camp when I read posts that say I got skunked today sitting on the same hole all day I would think it’s obvious y the skunk happens good job moving and finding aggressive fish the way I look at it if I’m not marking fish on the vex that are at least rising and looking at my bait and seem generally interested I’m moving good job out their keep slaying them slabbys


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