# Mosquito crappie



## toby2 (Jul 15, 2012)

I’ll be spending a couple of days there. I’ve always fished for walleyes. Pretty clueless on crappie fishing. Need some help to get me pointed in the right direction. Just some basic stuff would be nice.


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## chaunc (Apr 11, 2004)

Find brush in water 5-12 ft deep now. You’ll find both spawners and post spawners in these depths. Bobber and minnow drifted or cast will work. I prefer jigs and nibbles. This will work on both ends of the lake, north and south.


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## Karl Wolf (Apr 26, 2020)

chaunc said:


> Find brush in water 5-12 ft deep now. You’ll find both spawners and post spawners in these depths. Bobber and minnow drifted or cast will work. I prefer jigs and nibbles. This will work on both ends of the lake, north and south.


Those crappie nibbles really work? I always laughed when i see them.


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## PG2 (Jan 28, 2020)

They definitely do!! I like the chartreuse sparkles...


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## Karl Wolf (Apr 26, 2020)

PG2 said:


> They definitely do!! I like the chartreuse sparkles...


 I guess i laughed about trout on power dough also but have even caught steelhead on it.


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## Doboy (Oct 13, 2008)

Toby,,,,, 2 of my neighbor friends caught 117 keeper specks & 5 nice perch in 2 trips, the last 2 weekends.
Like Chaunc said,,, they were fishing 2 humps in 9'-12' ow. (no grass)
Out of those 117 crappies, only ONE had small eggs. None were 'milking'. ????
Quietly, anchor away from hump,,,,, cast to it. A small throw marker float is very helpful in positioning boat, up wind of humps or snags.
CAST, Small split shot, 12"-16" leader, plain hook & fathead. Slowly dragging it across bottom.

Good Luck.


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## toby2 (Jul 15, 2012)

Ok. Thanks to all. I would of been drifting aimlessly to find something. Now I’ll have an idea as what to do.


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## Saugeyefisher (Jul 19, 2010)

Karl Wolf said:


> Those crappie nibbles really work? I always laughed when i see them.


I started using them alot this year. I used to always tip with a wax worm during tuff prespawn bites. But really like the results of the nibbles so far. Bluegill like them to. But Just use them to tip a jig or maybe even a minnow at times? I wouldnt think they would work well as a primary bait. Like a plain hook with just crappie nibbles on it. Though I could be wrong.


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## forrest r (Mar 14, 2020)

Doboy said:


> Toby,,,,, 2 of my neighbor friends caught 117 keeper specks & 5 nice perch in 2 trips, the last 2 weekends.
> Like Chaunc said,,, they were fishing 2 humps in 9'-12' ow. (no grass)
> Out of those 117 crappies, only ONE had small eggs. None were 'milking'. ????
> Quietly, anchor away from hump,,,,, cast to it. A small throw marker float is very helpful in positioning boat, up wind of humps or snags.
> ...


Using the small split shot and slowly dragging across the bottom was what I was doing with the trout magnets.

I use these (gulp alive) instead of the crappie nibbles.









The gulp alive's stay on longer/better and are just as affective as the crappie nibbles. They flat out slay bluegill when tipping fly's with them (pictured above).


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## toby2 (Jul 15, 2012)

Giving it another try tomorrow. Hopefully It’ll come together this time. Crappie update?


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## brad crappie (Sep 29, 2015)

All the 9 to 10in fish u want!! Tourney fish far and few between


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## toby2 (Jul 15, 2012)

No 11’s? lol. Looking for a few crappie sandwiches!


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## chaunc (Apr 11, 2004)

toby2 said:


> No 11’s? lol. Looking for a few crappie sandwiches!


Those 10” black crappies have some fat fillets on them. Best eaters.


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## meats52 (Jul 23, 2014)

My son, my brother and myself fished Mosquito Wednesday. We were drifting in 15-17 fow on the southeast side. If you got in 14 ft they weren't there and the same thing if you hit 18 ft. Northeast wind was ideal for drifting these depths. They weren't picky at all today. Bobby Garlands and nibbles or minnows it didn't make any difference. I don't know how many we caught but we ended up with 65 keepers. No big slabs, everything was 9-1/2" to 10-1/2". We kept 3 nice bluegills and a perch also. We were off the lake by 11. Water temperature was 76.


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## c. j. stone (Sep 24, 2006)

Found the fly/Gulp bug picture interesting! First thing I thought when viewing this pic is(if the Eriee perch are "actually" eating bugs now-and there are actually some there!), is that a couple/three of those on droppers tied to a crappie/dropshot rig should find and "kill" the Erie perch! You got bug, scent, bite of food, and any depth you want!! I've actually already bought a couple dozen nympths off ebay a year ago to use this way but haven't had the opportunity to try them yet. Was going to tip with maggots but Gulp "smells" much more than mags. Sorry to "jack", but food for thought!


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## toby2 (Jul 15, 2012)

Well, we got a few. 1 on Tuesday with 6 bluegills. Few hours. And Wednesday 2 more and 3 more bluegills in about 45 minutes. Had to lea the campground and get home. Good pack of boats off the cemetery. No minnows just jigs and nibbles. Lots of bites tough to hook on them all. Not at all like walleyes slamming spoons on Erie. Sandwiches for lunch today. Meats52 you have to give me lessons.


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## fmader (Aug 8, 2018)

My buddy and I had a blast this morning. Our lines were in the water at 6:45 and we stopped fishing at 11:15. We probably caught at least 100 fish today. We kept 40 crappie and a bonus perch. Most keepers were 9.5-10”. There were a couple 11’s... Everything we threw back were 8-9.5” along with some dink perch. We drifted south of the causeway in 15-17 FOW. There was no fish at 14 and none at 18. We decided to not use slip bobbers and drop shot minnows instead. Yeah.. won’t be going back to slip bobbers in deeper water anytime soon. Once we got to a certain point south, we ran into dink perch, so we’d run back north and be successful with crappie again. We ran the drift 4 times. Love that 4 mph northerly wind. At some points, I just couldn’t keep up with two rods. What a terrible problem to have lol. These average sized crappie have some shoulders on them right now. 

Anyways... we had a blast rippin’ lips this morning! A day like this has been a long time coming for us.


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## chaunc (Apr 11, 2004)

I did about the same as Fmader only I was in shallower water. Eight to ten foot produced for me. Jig and bobber. Only kept fifteen that were ten inch or very close to it. Caught lots of eight to nine inchers. My hand ties tipped with a nibble did all the work.


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## EB1221 (May 24, 2012)

I have not fished mosquito in my boat for a couple of years now. are you hitting the crappie on the weed edges ? last time there the weeds went out pretty far.
thanks
EB


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## meats52 (Jul 23, 2014)

toby2 said:


> Well, we got a few. 1 on Tuesday with 6 bluegills. Few hours. And Wednesday 2 more and 3 more bluegills in about 45 minutes. Had to lea the campground and get home. Good pack of boats off the cemetery. No minnows just jigs and nibbles. Lots of bites tough to hook on them all. Not at all like walleyes slamming spoons on Erie. Sandwiches for lunch today. Meats52 you have to give me lessons.


I don't think that you need lessons, you just need to find the schools of crappie. The jigs work best if you have some kind of artificial, like a twister tail, Bobby Garland, Crappie Magnet, etc., to go along with the nibbles.


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## fmader (Aug 8, 2018)

EB1221 said:


> I have not fished mosquito in my boat for a couple of years now. are you hitting the crappie on the weed edges ? last time there the weeds went out pretty far.
> thanks
> EB


The weeds go on forever it seems like. But to answer question. No. We fished dead center in the middle of the lake yesterday.


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## meats52 (Jul 23, 2014)

fmader said:


> My buddy and I had a blast this morning. Our lines were in the water at 6:45 and we stopped fishing at 11:15. We probably caught at least 100 fish today. We kept 40 crappie and a bonus perch. Most keepers were 9.5-10”. There were a couple 11’s... Everything we threw back were 8-9.5” along with some dink perch. We drifted south of the causeway in 15-17 FOW. There was no fish at 14 and none at 18. We decided to not use slip bobbers and drop shot minnows instead. Yeah.. won’t be going back to slip bobbers in deeper water anytime soon. Once we got to a certain point south, we ran into dink perch, so we’d run back north and be successful with crappie again. We ran the drift 4 times. Love that 4 mph northerly wind. At some points, I just couldn’t keep up with two rods. What a terrible problem to have lol. These average sized crappie have some shoulders on them right now.
> 
> Anyways... we had a blast rippin’ lips this morning! A day like this has been a long time coming for us.


Sounds like you had a fun day. That's the same way they were Wednesday, they were only in the 15-17 foot range in the area that we were fishing. I see chaunc got some in shallow water so they have to be there too.


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## meats52 (Jul 23, 2014)

fmader said:


> The weeds go on forever it seems like. But to answer question. No. We fished dead center in the middle of the lake yesterday.


No weeds where we were either.


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## EB1221 (May 24, 2012)

fmander, meats, thanks for the reply. if I take the grandson out I'll have an idea where to look. EB


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