# Grand Lake St. Mary's Crappie Bite



## zaraspook

I fished from shore on Saturday, 10/1, in the afternoon and evening between doing chores and watching as much of the Buckeyes as I could swallow. The first 90 minutes caught only three crappies and one bluegill, but 2 of the crappies were 10.5 and 11.25. Those fish were caught on triple-tip grubs.

I figured the bite was slow, so the next session started to play with fishing depth and cycled thru 3 different baits and six different colour combinations. Once located depth and tube colour, the bite was very active, with both crappies and bluegills willing to play the game. By the end of the day Saturday, the catch was 23 crappies, 18 bluegills, and one 10" bass. I don't tip with wax worms, but many GLSM fishermen do.

GLSM has an exceptional class of crappies. Sixteen of the crappies were legal.....very few short fish. 11.25 was the biggest, with most 10.25-10.5". Bulk of fish were white crappies, although just before dark, I found some fast action for black crappies in the 9.5-10" range.

More than 1/2 the bluegills were keeper size, thick, 7-8". When I arrived Saturday around noon, my neighbour was quitting.....in a bucket; he had 13 great-looking gills to clean. He said he kept 18 earlier in the week, and he and a friend stopped at 50 gills the previous weekend.

I fished for an hour and a half Sunday morning. The bite was slower but caught six crappies, four bluegills, and another small bass. Four of these crappies were 10+, including one at 11.75. 70% of my crappies were legal......impressive, and it said something about the impact of the state's 9" size limit.

The real key to catching fish was depth. Fish were holding around brush/cover, but right off the bottom. They weren't aggressive and required you to hit them in the nose fishing within a few inches of the base. The Water temp was 57 degrees (earlier in the week, I was at Brookville, and the water temp there was 67 degrees......big difference).

Below is a pic of an 11.25-inch crappie caught Sunday by my nephew.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspoon, sounds like the fall bite is ON ! Well done, sir ! And AGREE whole heartedly, in coming yrs the 9" limit will more and more have a impressive effect on MANY lakes. You the MAN !


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## zaraspook

Saturday 10-8 fished about 2 hours for crappies at daybreak.....bite was s l o w. Just two crappies and a single bluegill. But the crappie size is till holding up. One was 1/2 inch short and the other 10". A couple times thru the day I tried again for 15-20 minutes each time with only a gill to show for it. Just before quitting my chores to go home at 6:15pm tried again for 20 minutes. Caught 4 quick crappies with 2 a bit over 10". Went home. Watched the Buckeyes fold.......shoulda kept fishing.


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## zaraspook

Pan fish bite at GLSM was very active Saturday, but not for the crappies I targeted. Fished for about 3 hours Saturday and only managed 4 crappies, two were legal. Bluegills on the other hand were much more cooperative. Caught 23, more than 1/2 were hand sized. That's a good sign for the crappies......when the big gills are in the channels, the bigger crappies are usually not far behind.

Water temp was 58 Saturday, warmer than the air when I was fishing in the morning. Cool days and cold nights this week should be a catalyst for the fall bite to shift into gear.


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## zaraspook

Fished a little over two hours Saturday morning and found a better crappie bite than previous weekend. Caught 11 crappies, 6 were legal size and a few bluegills. Three hours more fishing on Sunday produced 19 crappies with 12 over the 9" minimum. For the two outings 18 of 30 fish legal size......that's a great ratio and consistent with the fall class of fish. Most are 9.5-10.5 length. Biggest one this weekend was 11.25.

It was a subtle bite........fish would take the grub and barely move, very slowly if at all. The majority of fish were taken on a triple tip grub.....color called "motor oil". When the bite slowed down on Sunday I up-sized baits after noticing the guys throwing really small baits weren't catching much. About 10 of the 19 were caught on a Southern Pro "hot grub", which is a a bit larger than the triple tips. The color I used was ugly.....I think called June bug/acid rain.


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## zaraspook

Sunday 10-30 bite was better.......water temp down to 48.3. Fished on and off between noon and 5PM while cutting grass and playing the fall battle with leaves. Crappie bite was better noon to 3pm......bluegills better later in the day as the crappies seemed to slow down. Caught 25 crappies but more of a mix across the size spectrum......some were as short as 5" with 11 fish at 9" or better. Largest was 11 1/4. All fish 10" or better were very chunky black crappies.

Also caught 17 bluegills of which very few were dinks. All the gills and crappies were caught on plastics......grubs, although I switched size and colors a couple times when bite would slow. The 25th crappie took more than an hour to catch.......crappie bite really fell off as the afternoon progressed. Ran into one other angler who had 20 big gills in a bucket but only 5 crappies. He was using a smaller plastic but tipped with meat (wax worms) and said he only kept about 1/2 his bluegill catch. I don't use meat unless I'm desperate for a bite.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspoon, if you keep reporting catches like that soon it`ll be "shoulder to shoulder" like the Maumee ! Again, glad to hear it`s doing that well !


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## zaraspook

LHT.......Local food proprietors and bait stores would love to see some shoulder-to-shoulder action. I'm selfishly content with the present day status of only sparse competition fro crappies. 

GLSM still needs another species of game fish to bring in the anglers. The bass guys know our largemouth population is more than respectable. Cat fisherman are well aware the channel cat concentration is attractive. Crappies have been steady the last few years and the 9" size limit is a positive boost in my opinion. With the good class of 10-11" crappies currently, next year we could see 13-14" fish with regularity. Saugeye could be the catalyst for GLSM if the DNR would make a sustained commitment. Battelle Institute brainiacs more than once recommended another gamefish is needed, but DNR is dragging their feet.


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## zaraspook

Got to GLSM at 8:30AM Saturday morning. Air temp on my thermometer was 28 degrees. Gotta say this was one my best crappie days in recent years at Grand Lake. By 9:30 I took a break to make some sausage an eggs. Caught 13 in that first session......damage could have been more severe but lost an unusual number of lip-hooked slabs lifting them from water to bank. Fish were too heavy for those paper mouths. 

Went back to fishing about 11am. I was bouncing between two spots about 75 yards apart and fishing a bit shallower than I had since September. Odd that even though cover was similar, one spot produced all black crappies, the other was mostly whites by a ratio of 3:1. Stopped at noon to watch the Buckeyes. Crappie count was up to 29 now. Fished during 1/2 time and had to shift a little deeper when the bite slowed a bit.

With the Buckeye game over it was back to serious fishing (and catching). Stayed a one spot 'til 4:30 and at one point caught 9 consecutive blacks between 9.5-10.5". Tally was now 50, a good number to quit on, so stopped to do dishes and straighten up my place before heading home. Car loaded, decided to take one more shot at it and grabbed my crappie rig for a final 20 minutes. Six more crappies before leaving. Water temp was 48.3 degrees Saturday.

Of the 56 crappies 4 were 11"+......33 were legal size and most of those right around the 10" mark. Great fun it was.....all fish caught on twister tail grubs. Each time the fishing slowed I fished a bit deeper and the bite picked up. I didn't tip the grub....no meat. Also caught 8 nice bluegills.

Great class of fish at St. Mary's.......next year could be awesome for 12"+ slabs.


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## chaunc

Gonna leave this open but leave the nonsense out or i'll have to close it. Great reports Zaraspook. Keep them coming.


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## Lowell H Turner

I humbly apologize if anyone (fish included) took "offense' to my deleted post...goes back to several jokes from some wet miserable days in the service...(I voted for Obama)


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM for a quick two hours of crappie fishing Weds evening. Was hoping with the full moon and low pressure system barreling thru, the hot bite from last Saturday would still be on. It was 62 degrees when I arrived. 20 minutes into it and just a single timid bite gave me the answer........the bite sucked. 

Caught 9 during the 2 hours but most were well short of legal. Only 2 fish were better than the 9" mark. Majority of fish were black crappies. I switched soft plastics a number of times, varied presentation, moved to other types of cover but never found a recipe.

Last Saturday water temp was 48. Incredibly, surface temp Weds was 53 in my channel. I know the nights have been warm all weekend and thru Tuesday, but a +5 rise in water temp is hard to believe. Hope water temp is back down to upper 40's this weekend. When I departed for home the air temp had fallen from 62 earlier to a nippy 46.


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## zaraspook

Sunday 13th fished GLSM from 9AM to Noon. With water temps back into the upper 40's, the crappie bite was back on track. Caught 35 crappies and 7 gills. 17 of those crappies came in the first hour but only 4 of those legal size. I upsized baits and the pace dropped off but size improved substantially. Of the last 18 crappies 9 were legal and most fish in the 10-11" class. For the day, 3/4 of the keepers were black crappies. 

My neighbor reported crappies were on fire Friday and Saturday...............said he caught 150+ crappies and more than 40 keeper bluegills and appreciated my tip last week to fish deeper than normal for GLSM.

Using my thermal probe, water temp Sunday was 47.3 after climbing to 53 on Weds. Key at GLSM for bank fishing now is jigging on or just off the bottom, usually in water only 3-5 ft (that's most of the lake). Majority of fish are pretty tight to submerged brush/logs/wood at those depths. The bite is subtle and fish don't move fast or far with the bait. I like to see night time lows remaining in the 30-40's to keep water temp in 40's. Also noticed a minor improvement in water clarity. Lake still has plenty of chlorophyll matter in it, but thinning somewhat. Lots of good crappie fishing yet to come!


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## Lowell H Turner

For a 'less than ideal day" (winds a-blowing) you did VERY well sir ! What sizr jigs and how rigged?


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## zaraspook

Used a twister tail grub called a Triple Tip by Southern Pro on a 1/16 oz red grub style jig head. It was a color called "motor oil". When I up-sized the bait I stayed with same jig head, but used bait by Southern Pro called a Hot Grub. It's thicker and longer than Triple Tip. Body is 1/2 white, other half yellow, and twister tail is purple fleck. Official color is called Acid rain/Junebug and it is butt ugly to me. Crappies don't care about my opinion....they like to eat it.

Though many tip the bait with wax worms, I don't. Can't keep the bluegills away.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, as they say, "beauty" is in the eye of the biter...again, well done, again !


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## zaraspook

GLSM crappie bite continues solid. Saturday 19th fished from 10:30-1:30PM. Pulled in 29 crappies of which 9 were legal. Most of keepers were black crappies 9.5-10.5 inches with largest 11.75 (a white crappie). 

Again, bigger baits were more productive than smaller ones and color was a factor. My neighbor was fishing 20' from me in the same kind of cover, but using a very small stinger type plastic only an inch in length. He tipped with wax worms. During the 1.5 hours we fished together, he caught 4 crappies (one keeper) and 10-11 bluegills. I caught 16 crappies, one jumbo gill, using a Hot Grub which I think are 2.5-3 inches in length. When my June Bug/Acid Rain color grub got beat up, switched to same bait but different color. It produced one bite and no fish in 30 minutes. Switched back to the June Bug/Acid Rain and bite was once again lively.

Water temp is 46.5.......down a couple degrees from prior weekend. Water clarity is improving, maybe 10-12" which is clarity we haven't seen since early May. As stated before, we have a great class of 9.5-10.5" crappies. Good chances next year will produce solid numbers of 11-13" slabs. Crappie tournaments at GLSM next spring may take a big bag to win..


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, I would guess the ice fishing might be pretty GOOD; keep those GREAT reports coming, sir...


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## zaraspook

Got in a 90 minute crappie session late afternoon on Weds before Thanksgiving. Changed baits 3 times and finally got it going. Caught 13, only 3 keepers but they were each 11"+. That ugly June Bug/Acid Rain "hot grub" is still the best ticket. More than 1/2 the fish and all the biguns fell to it. Water was 46.5 but very stained to downright muddy. I'm wondering how much longer the bite will last from shore. Guess I'll find out.


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## Lowell H Turner

Time will tell sir. But as soon as ice up occurs, would expect to find them deeper.


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## zaraspook

If we skip the hardwater stuff this year it's ok with me.

Like many lakes in Ohio, GLSM is high from all the rain in Oct and Nov. Levels are about where they were in May. According to the Battelle Institute report one of lake's chronic problems is lack of flow, lack of changeover of the water volume in the lake. It takes 1.6 years for the outflow of GLSM to equal it's typical volume. The Oct-Nov rains could be a plus in that regard, pushing algae and phosphorus laden liquid over the spillway and down the few creeks that exit the lake.

Of course any benefit from increased outflow is offset by new contaminants entering into the lake from agricultural heavy watershed. As long as the rains are not sudden downpours, washing manure concentrate from fields in the watershed, I think more bad stuff is going out than coming in. This is an area where the farmers in watershed have been disappointing. Few if any fields near creeks show any increase in the size/width of natural buffers. It's legal of course, but over the last 2 months fields are getting tons of manure. Driving thru the watershed the aroma of fresh hog manure can be overwhelming.


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## spfldbassguy

Zaraspook you definitely are having some fun catching all those crappies and gills with a few little largemouths thrown in for good measure. You're absolutely correct when you say that the buffers could be bigger (as they should be everywhere in the state) and that the outflow could compensate for the influx of bad stuff. I hope for the sake of everyone that lives close by and those that fish it that the lake does indeed improve and these problems go by the wayside.


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## Lowell H Turner

As have previosly stated sir, the accursed 'grace period' for those REQUIRED improvements is FAST approaching. And the "guilty parties" are WELL AWARE that with the continuious satalite recon/ photography capability they WILL NOT be able to hide or deny their then criminal culprability. The days of "pollute the lake for free' are RAPIDLY coming to their conclusion. And just a "suggestion"- if the politicans and local gov`t officials WON`T prosecute them VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE. ELECT someone who WILL! The future of the lake and surrounding area is too IMPORTANT to allow a few to RUIN it for ALL, requiring that the WHOLE state PAYS to allow them to continue their IRRESPONSIBLE livestock practices. Plainly put- hope they FIX IT or get FINED out of the livestock business. The choice is THEIRS.


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## zaraspook

spfldbassguy.......you're spot-on that it's been a great fall at GLSM for the panfish. Bluegill size and numbers have been good for several years. Last year crappie numbers were impressive, size was disturbingly small. The dink crappies of last year and this spring turned into a super class of 9-11" fish this fall. Landed only about a dozen 12"+ crappies this year....that's disappointing but this great class of 9-11" fish should produce a bumper crop of 12-13" fish, maybe bigger, for 2012.

Our bass population seems to hold steady. My biggest was 3.5# but I rarely fish for bass. I'm usually good for 3-4 small pike each year but caught none this year. We need another game fish.....Battelle Institute report speaks to that issue. But our biggest Christmas wish at GLSM is manure in the lake.....no mas, please!


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## taxiecab

Are there any Zebra mussels in the lake now??? If there are not, I wonder if they would help to clean up the water problem?
We have had them in C C for years now and I think they have been a huge help cleaning up the water like they did Lake Erie.
I know that the problem is more than muddy water but it was just a question about if they would help or not.
I would be shocked if they were not there all ready in large numbers.


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## Lowell H Turner

taxiecab, am not sure they would be of much actual help, sir. The lakes`s biggest problems are #1: of course the excessive livestock "by products' that are being allowed to migrate into the lake by way of drainage ditches and several small streams. Once into it, it settles and provides excess food for the algae, which LOVE it, and therefore "bloom" during the warmer months. #2: Although the lake was origionally 6-12 fow when constructed in the late 1820`s to early 30`s much of it has sedimentated to where now it`s average depth is less than 5 fow; although a very LARGE lake there is little in flow or outflow, tending to cause stagnation during warmer months. #3: To top things off, many decades of household laundry wash run off went into the lake (this no longer occurs as municiple sewage systems now ring the lake, thankfully) and fertilizer from farm fields upstream also still enters the lake. These last 2 are particularly BAD, because they BOTH contain phosphates which is a long lasting form of plant and algae food. While it settles eventually into the sediment, it CAN be easily put back into suspension by storms, wave action, and high thrust modern boat propellers. Hence the dredging operations to A restore depth to the lake and B remove the majority of the built up phosphate. When deepened, the lake will not "heat up" as much and the deeper the remaining phosphate is, the less of it that`s likely to get back into suspension.


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## Lowell H Turner

Forgot to mention, a deeper lake should be a better fishing lake TOO !


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## zaraspook

taxiecab said:


> Are there any Zebra mussels in the lake now??? If there are not, I wonder if they would help to clean up the water problem?
> We have had them in C C for years now and I think they have been a huge help cleaning up the water like they did Lake Erie.
> I know that the problem is more than muddy water but it was just a question about if they would help or not.
> I would be shocked if they were not there all ready in large numbers.


No reported population of zebra mussels at GLSM. It occasionally comes up, like your suggestion, and someone probably studied it, but nothing I've ever read on the topic. 

Battelle Institute experts say shallow lakes tend to take on one of two forms......either clear water and dominated by rooted plants, or turbid with algae dominance. Battelle seems to favor virtually anything that will help flip toward a higher level of plant population. Here's an excerpt from Battelle's report "......lakes are likely to be dominated by cyanobacteria unless some action, such as rough fish removal, is taken to flip the lake to the alternate stable ecological condition dominated by plants rather than cyanobacteria." Rough fish such as carp are planktivores and eat zooplankton. Zooplankton feed on algae among other things and a goal is to increase zooplankton. Battelle says GLSM needs to remove rough fish to no more than 25% of the fish population. Also, game fish (piscavores) numbers must be increased and maintained to help control rough fish population. Water clarity will improve, light will penetrate deeper into the water depths, plant growth will rise and the chain of events put in place to flip the lake.

There is a lot more to it than just the rough fish angle, it's just a piece of the plan. However, it's one reason I've supported saugeye stocking at GLSM. As gamefish saugeye are eating machines and will help control rough fish. To raise gamefish (piscavores) density let's stock saugeye.

None of this works without reducing the new flow of phoshorus into the lake. Battelle's study measured phosphorus in all creeks entering GLSM. The phophorus levels must fall by 80% to get to a sustainable level for lake health. The farmers and livestock guys are responsible for that 80% reduction.


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## TPfisher

I really don't understand why GLSM is being discussed in the Southwest Ohio portion of this board at all. If anything this lake is in the Central portion of the state. I'm down in Cincinnati and this lake is a good two hours from me and it only takes 5 hours to be in canadian waters on lake Erie from Cincy, so I just don't see how a lake that is halfway between here and Canada can not be considered Central?


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## fished-out

I fish St Mary's often and don't mind the thread here. You don't have to read it.


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## fished-out

Thus one of the major differences between St Mary's and Indian--tons of lily pads and weeds in Indian, and Indian's a better fishing lake. Water depth itself does not seem relevant, as Indian on average seems even more shallow than St. Mary's.






zaraspook said:


> No reported population of zebra mussels at GLSM. It occasionally comes up, like your suggestion, and someone probably studied it, but nothing I've ever read on the topic.
> 
> Battelle Institute experts say shallow lakes tend to take on one of two forms......either clear water and dominated by rooted plants, or turbid with algae dominance. Battelle seems to favor virtually anything that will help flip toward a higher level of plant population. Here's an excerpt from Battelle's report "......lakes are likely to be dominated by cyanobacteria unless some action, such as rough fish removal, is taken to flip the lake to the alternate stable ecological condition dominated by plants rather than cyanobacteria." Rough fish such as carp are planktivores and eat zooplankton. Zooplankton feed on algae among other things and a goal is to increase zooplankton. Battelle says GLSM needs to remove rough fish to no more than 25% of the fish population. Also, game fish (piscavores) numbers must be increased and maintained to help control rough fish population. Water clarity will improve, light will penetrate deeper into the water depths, plant growth will rise and the chain of events put in place to flip the lake.
> 
> There is a lot more to it than just the rough fish angle, it's just a piece of the plan. However, it's one reason I've supported saugeye stocking at GLSM. As gamefish saugeye are eating machines and will help control rough fish. To raise gamefish (piscavores) density let's stock saugeye.
> 
> None of this works without reducing the new flow of phoshorus into the lake. Battelle's study measured phosphorus in all creeks entering GLSM. The phophorus levels must fall by 80% to get to a sustainable level for lake health. The farmers and livestock guys are responsible for that 80% reduction.


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## Lowell H Turner

My point is while reducing the manure and phosphates from entering the lake will certainly HELP, there is an accumulation of slightly more than 100 yrs worth of phosphate already deposited into the lake. Being chemically "light" it tends to work it`s way up through sediment. With a strong summer wind storm, much of it will be agitated by wave action back into suspension. And keep in mind, a little phosphate goes a LONG WAY to promote the algae "blooms'. Short of some process that I am not familar with, there`s basically only 1 way to remove the literally TONS of accumulated phosphates and that is DREDGING it from the lake. Once removed the "muck" is EXCELLENT fertilizer and exposing the phosphate to air and warmer temps tends to help break it down into slightly less algae "friendly" compounds. And bear in mind with a deeper lake, any remaining phosphates that DO get resuspended stand a GOOD chance of settling into the newly deepened areas and settling there, basically safely "trapped' away, out of the reach of wave action and boat propellers. Also AGREE that getting lilly pads and other aquatic plants reestablished would be VERY benefical...


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## zaraspook

TPfisher said:


> I really don't understand why GLSM is being discussed in the Southwest Ohio portion of this board at all. If anything this lake is in the Central portion of the state. I'm down in Cincinnati and this lake is a good two hours from me and it only takes 5 hours to be in canadian waters on lake Erie from Cincy, so I just don't see how a lake that is halfway between here and Canada can not be considered Central?


TPfisher........my apology if you feel GLSM fishing stuff isn't of interest to SW Ohio members. If you invest any time at GLSM you'll find 40%+ of boaters, fishermen, and cottage/property owners who do not live permanently at lake, are from the general Dayton area. In my opinion Dayton is considered SW Ohio, not Central. These are people who live in a quadrant from Kettering to Piqua, Eaton to Springfield. Satellite TV and cable give you Dayton area TV stations at GLSM. If DirecTV says that area is in Dayton demographic area, I'm OK with it. GLSM does draw from the north, but much less than numbers to south. 

I'm guessing the Central Region guys would say GLSM doesn't belong there, and NW guys would say the same. The thread started as just a weekly fishing update aimed at the crappie guys who live in/near Dayton. Sometimes it gets off track.


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## zaraspook

fished-out.........great observation. Indian Lake is perfect example of Battelle objective. DNR and EPA would be tickled if GLSM could flip to a plant dominant model like Indian.


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## fished-out

Actually, just found this and the debate is moot. State of Ohio considers St Mary's to be Southwest Ohio. Below is a picture from the DNR's website for lake maps that shows St Mary's grouped with other southwest Ohio lakes.


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## Lowell H Turner

Point is that as the conditions at GLSM continues to improve and the dredging and other corrective efforts are implimented and achieves their goals the fishing reports from there will become wonderful, considering the recent detremental 1`s on the news. Anyone remember the "Crappie-thons' that used to be held there? I fished in several, and enjoyed the lake immensely- it was and soon will be as great as ever. Planning on hittihg the lake come spring...


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## zaraspook

fished-out...........If DNR says GLSM is a SW Ohio lake, it's good enough for me. Thanks for clarification.

I fished 2.5 hours Sat afternoon 12/3. Water is way high, easily over some of the lower seawalls, and in places I normally fish I was standing 4' father back due to high water. Water is stained/muddy, more so in channels fed by creeks. However, less algae/green matter suspended in the water so clarity is actually better than anytime since May and improving.

Glad I didn't check water temp until after I fished. Might have been less enthused to fish had I known the water was only 41.1 degrees. Worked pretty hard to catch 7 crappies with 3 keepers. Biggest only 10.75. Bigger baits still did better than smaller ones but water is getting darn cold............that could change soon. When you found a bite it was aggressive and most fish were solidly hooked in roof of the mouth. These fish are definitely eating hearty. A 10" fish now ways more than an 11" fish caught 8 weeks ago. I changed baits, colors, and depth frequently but caught 5 of the crappies on same bait/color. Also, caught a super chunk bluegill.


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## zaraspook

LHT......previously I wrote that thought the rains were a net positive, helping the lake turnover it's water volume.......more bad stuff flowing out and over the spillway than bad stuff (new manure) coming into the lake. Last couple of months the odor of new crap spread on fields has been as strong as ever. Farmesr are trying to get it down before the December cutoff date. As long as the rain didn't have soil totally saturated, I believed GLSM wasn't getting too much runoff from fields into creeks and downstream entering lake. I'm no longer in that camp. Weather guys have been saying soil is overly saturated......everything now running off and carrying that fresh layer of new manure into the streams. GLSM may have been taking forward steps over the last year, but I'm guessing last 6 weeks of saturating rains reversed it all.

I do remember the Crappiethons.......people in the area bring up the topic from time to time.


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## Lowell H Turner

Have talked to a gentleman on line with the "Lake Improvement Group" and he states the same thing unfortuneately. At this time, it`s still "legal' if just plain IMMORAL, STUPID, RUDE, and IRRESPONSIBLE. Come January 1st at 12:01 their much abused "grace period" is UP, and am lead to believe between the ground based "observers' and the multi million dollar "eye in the sky" they BETTER just start flushing all that excess crap down their house toilets. Close to 90 persons are going to be watching and RECORDING (8 X 10" glossy photographs, GPS, ect, ect, ect) EXACTLY when, where, how much, who, weather conditions, previous percipitation, ad nauseum (pardon the pun)...sure hope they are AWARE of all this. Sad thing is it only shows little has changed as far as they are concerned. The class action LAW SUIT in the works that is looking for signatures very shortly will perhaps change their mind in a financial sort of way, though...and THAT is going to HURT their hearts and WALLETS. Kinda like Bugs Bunny taking off his glove, slipping a brick into it, and smacking Yosemite Sam across the face vigorously several times with it, and then shaking out the brick crumbs while Yosemite Sam staggers around dazed, stars dancing around his head, barely hearing the words "Of course sir, you KNOW this means WAR !"


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## zaraspook

LHT......new regulations wouldn't have prevented this. Under new rules they can still spread manure until some date in Dec (don't recall the exact date) or until fields are frozen. The agricultural landowners in GLSM watershed didn't know we'd have record rains for several months so I'm giving them some slack. The farmers are an easy target, but Mother Nature more to blame for this one. At some point the new rules will need to be tightened, but it took more than a decade to get current regulations.


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## Lowell H Turner

According to the gentleman with the group, only 1 local farmer has done any serious work at implimenting any of the "recommended' changes as far as intalling the enlargened settling/ containment ponds, buffer strips and containment edging at this time. his efforts were confirmed from both the ground and "the eye in the sky", and personally believe he is due some public acknowledgement for his voluntary progress. Very little has been done so far by the majority of the others, although HOPEFULLY this will change...I guess the main point is generally most farmers consider themselves and WANT to be seen as "good stewards" of the land they use. Am sure they are aware there IS a MAJOR problem with their run off and that they would be making atleast token efforts to help mitigate their "footprint" down stream...


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## zaraspook

LHT......I've expressed my disappointment before there is little visible evidence of change in the watershed by the ag community. Fields immediately adjacent to streams show no change in buffers which means the fields extend to within 30' or less of the streams. Until springtime planting we can't tell if any of those farmers intend to pull back cultivation farther from creeks. 

The one guy constructed a new containment pond.....it was good to see but isn't obvious who owns the pond. Pond is located across the road and about 100 yards west of a hog operation. That hog operation was one of last year's culprits. He was spreading manure in February on ice/snow covered frozen fields. I filed a complaint, but was beaten to the punch by two others already filed. He was paid a visit by state people who reported back that he wasn't aware he was violating any regulations. If he's the one who constructed the pond, at least he's taken action. 

I'd hoped there was more change happening in the watershed, but maybe not visible from the county roads. Sounds like aerial observations suggest otherwise.


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## Lowell H Turner

No idea exactly where the complying gentleman is, the "source" didn`t say. But rest assured, you have company willing to REPORT any violations; hope you`re able to "beat them to the draw" next time...


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## zaraspook

Tried to crappie fish at GLSM on Saturday 10th. My channel and my best spots were ice over. I broke up the ice in a few small areas and raked broken chunks on top of adjacent layer of ice. Tried fishing for maybe 30-40 minutes. No bites. Water level is way up, water mud stained and milky to make it tougher. I quit, came back 90 minutes later to try again. Areas I cleared of ice were skimmed over with ice. I packed it in........didn't get out of 20's Saturday.

Though channels were frozen, main lake and mouths of channels were open. Any channels that saw wave action were open. Prior weekend I caught some nice crappies and I think I'll catch more as long as we don't freeze solid like last year.


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## Lowell H Turner

Doing any good, sir? Happy Holidays !


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## zaraspook

Since my last 3 trips were unproductive with ice on the channels, I wasn't gonna fish this weekend. But, got my major chores done Saturday, so took off for GLSM Sunday. Big sigh of relief when I arrived and my channel open and totally ice-free. Didn't know if I'd catch any crappies, but at least I'd get to wet a line for a change. It was 12:30 when I started and good amount of sun. 1/2 hour at my first spot.......no fish, no bites. 45 min at next spot........no fish, but 1/2 dozen timid bites. Decided to change baits and going against conventional wisdom of cold water/small baits, decided to upsize. Maybe with stained/muddy water, a bigger bait would be easier for fish to sense/find. Over the next hour, pace of bites picked up substantially. Bites were timid and finally caught two fish. But, they were gills, not crappies. At least I satisfied the urge and didn't get skunked. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon on Dec 18.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, if you got bites you`re doing something right ! Congratulations !


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM a bit, maybe an hour and a half, on Christmas Eve (Saturday). Lake is still high with water levels similar to springtime. Lake is definitely muddy, but slightly improving clarity. Water temp is down there, only 41.3 degrees. Fished in my channel and was looking for crappies. Had four timid bites, no fish caught. This is the latest in the year I've tried to locate crappies. Don't have a clue......


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## poloaman

I hear they are bitting below the spillway as of 12/25 I guess it's so good they are shoulder to shoulder. Have not tried myself just heard this from a few old men in the tackle shop I frequent. Might try this week if kids allow lol


Polo
Outdoor Hub mobile


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## bigbasser71

I tried the spillway the day after Christmas, there were a few crappies biting, but i think there getting pretty well fished out.Plan B, I tried a while with a 3/8 ounce jighead and a fire-tiger curly tail for walleye, ended up with one about a pound.Next i go to plan c, i had a few shad that i snagged, so I cut them up and rigged chunks on a 7/0 Gamakatsu octopus hook and tried for cats. I got bit as soon as it hit the bottom almost every time, and ended up with about ten decent channel cats (Just shy of 3 lbs)


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## zaraspook

poloaman........I'll try GLSM again sometime between now and the weekend. I'll run past the spillway and check it out......haven't seen shoulder to shoulder fishing in forever at GLSM. I'd like to see what that looks like.

bigbasser.......way to go with the channel cats and glad to hear you caught a walleye. I'm doubtful I could tell tell them apart, but keep in mind the DNR put a scant number of saugeye in GLSM in spring of '09, then followed with a significant stocking of fingerlings in 2010. That 2009 saugeye class could easily be 10-12", maybe more. If you catch a walleye-looking fish of that size it may be a saugeye. In fact, since walleye haven't been stocked since 2006, any walleye that comes out of GLSM should be 18+". That assumes the walleyes stocked from 1999-2006 never successfully reproduced. Although the consensus is GLSM walleye did not successfully reproduce, I gotta think reproduction did occur at least in small numbers. If/when you catch another walleye, take a photo and post if at all possible. I've heard a few rumors but never seen evidence of a saugeye catch. The state DNR might be more inclined to stock more saugeye in GLSM is we can show them the fish can survive there.


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## fishwhacker

Shoulder to shoulder is right don't know if the fishing is that great or if people are just enjoying the weather and open water while we have it. Most people I have talked to only had 6-8 nice crappies nothing spectacular. Does the DNR take counts when they do fish shocking.... Can they tell if the walleye have reproduced or the saugeye have survived? I know I saw plenty of people taking walleye out of the spillway last spring but don't know if any were saugeye.


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## Lowell H Turner

Was curious how deep is the pool below the outlet?


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## fishwhacker

Right below the spillway it is very very shallow. During some draughts years ago they installed an aeroter to keep oxygen levels up because so many fish were dying between the rocks now right in the middle i believe is a little deeper but not much the further down you go the better until about the 127 bridge then it shallows up again. I have tightlined for catfsh down there mainly to find out where the deeper holes are located. I'm guessing if I guy tosses just a sinker on the end of his line and counts till it hits the bottom he could figure it out in less than an hr. I'd say there are holes as deep as 15 ft in there but for the most part it's pretty shallow


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## Lowell H Turner

Thank You for the information, sir!


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## zaraspook

Hit GLSM Friday 30th in the afternoon. Stopped by The Outdoorsman and was surprised with the steady traffic buying bait.........six cars in and out for bait in the 15-20 minutes I was there. Proprietor Dan Manning related he'd heard spillway area had been producing some walleye and a few boats were seen trolling for walleye all along the west end of lake. Though trolling is common place at other Ohio lakes, it's a rare sight at GLSM. Dan also said he and others were still catching crappies and bluegills, but he hadn't fished in the last 10 days.

Conditions were windy, and wet with showers off and on. Water level remains a foot above normal for this time a year. Clarity in channels is perhaps 10", stained, not muddy, and not as green as main lake. Main lake is still pretty green and clarity less than 6 inches. I spent 1.5 hours in my channel looking for crappies but no takers. Did manage 2 gills but action was slow with maybe a dozen bites.

Decided to try Windy Point with a plan to throw suspending stick baits for walleye, and mix in some jigs. Water between the end of Windy Point fishing pier and the water fowl island/refuge is 12-16' deep. There is a shelf out there where water depth quickly transitions to 6-7', then gradually shallows to 3-4' as you move south along the rip-rap pier toward parking lot. Problem was the road to parking was blocked to cars..........not sure why it was blocked but a lot of dredging pipeline lined the road. Changed my mind, turned around and instead headed to the West Bank State boat ramp area to test the rumors of walleye action that end of the lake. Not that I expected to catch a walleye, but hoped to be pleasantly surprised.

I worked a 150-200 yard stretch of rip-rap bank that lines the state ramp/parking area. Started with a suspending Husky Jerk cranked down to maybe 4', then a stop/start with lengthy pauses and an occasional twitch in between. It was soon clear, however, the bait was slowly rising to surface, not suspending and I was without lead tape to modify the action. Switched to jig/twister tail or jig with 3" Gulp minnow for next hour. With 15-20 mph winds blowing rod and line around, detecting bites was a challenge and I chucked it in after less than hour and half into the walleye venture.

I drove by the spillway.....only one fisherman at the tailwaters and tough to tell if he was fishing for eyes, crappies, or other.


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## Lowell H Turner

TOUGH conditions, sir ! Sometimes despite the best effort, the fish simply ain`t having it...excellent report. Might have been tempted to try that drop off though, unless posted as closed. Happy New Year, Zaraspook !


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## zaraspook

LHT.......and a great 2012 to you! Conditions could have been worse...air temps were mild, not cold at all. Hopefully I'll hit the shelf/transition area before hard water. I haven't come up with an explanation why the road out to Windy Point was closed. Maybe someone else knows.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, is GLSM iced over yet? We have some sheet ice at CJ.


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## ffunk5

seems like a lot of action lately


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Zaraspook, is GLSM iced over yet? We have some sheet ice at CJ.


Don't know about ice conditions today but no ice as of last time I was there (Friday 30th). My bet is channels have a skim sheet of ice after the last couple nights. The mouths of channels, where they meet the lake, are probably without ice on the south side of lake. Winds from north create wave action that slows ice formation.

Main lake probably has thin ice on northern edges along banks but open otherwise. There is a lake cam on the West Bank of GLSM. Cam is very near the NW corner of lake near Celina. Link to the cam is posted below. Too dark when I wrote to see lake, but I'd guess some ice will show along rip-rap on the left(north). 20-30' out I'm guessing ice free but might have sheet ice. Might be able to tell after sun comes up. Actually, since winds shifted from west or southwest yesterday, that west bank area where cam is would have been more protected from wind, less wave action, and may be more ice than I think. Web cam link is 
http://webcam.wabash.com/westbank2.html


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## zaraspook

ffunk5 said:


> seems like a lot of action lately


ffunk5.....I can vouch for more fishing going on lately at GLSM. Can't vouch for more "catching" though. I only got 2 bluegills last effort. I assume the other guys know more about catching than me.


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## zaraspook

Drove by the GLSM spillway this morning (Sat 7th) about 9AM. Just as fishwhacker and poloaman recently suggested it was nearly shoulder to shoulder with fishermen. The stretch from the spillway to bridge at 127 can't be more than 100 yards but the bank was stacked with a fishermen every 20 feet. I pulled off 127 on 703 and backtracked to the spillway..........sat and watched the crowded lineup for 15 minutes from the back of the Italian restaurant's parking lot. Only witnessed one fish caught and couldn't identify the fish from my perch. It was too long for a crappie, probably 16-17", and my guess a channel cat or maybe a walleye.

All GLSM channels I passed were 80%+ iced over. There entire west bank and southern banks of main lake are free of ice. The southern half of the east bank is ice fee. The northern banks are well iced going out of Celina all the way to the east bank, and in some areas the ice stretches 200-300 yards toward the center of the lake. Ice on my channel was 1", but day long sunshine Saturday was doing a number on it. With forecasts for temps in the 40's thru Weds, I think this ice will be nearly gone before the next cold snap.


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## young-gun-fisher

I have been up to the lake a few times in the past two weeks. Fished mostly down in the spillway but also fished some of the docks around the lake for crappie and bluegill at a depth of about 3'. The spillway has been pretty steady at producing keeper crappie but has definitely slowed down a lot. Only 3 keeper crappie and 5 8inch bluegill today. Last week me and a buddy pulled out over 20 keeper crappie in about 3 hours with another 40 or so short fish. I have seen a lot of walleye fisherman in the spillway but only 1 caught along with a bunch of snagged carp and shad.

the lake today had minimal ice, mainly the channels and about 20 yards out and around the ramp on the west end but none on the main lake.


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## poloaman

Zaraspook just want to say your the man always have great updates!!! Do u live on the lake? Would be nice maybe to catch up with u one day for some fishing. 


Polo
Outdoor Hub mobile


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## zaraspook

poloaman.......I live in Indiana but have a place on a southside channel of GLSM. I try to fish the lake as often as I can and love pulling crappies out of there. Very optimistic for 2012 and expect excellent numbers of 12"+ crappies this year. Maybe we can share some fishing knowledge.

young-gun-fisher.......working that 3' depth was a key for me, too. When you've caught crappies in the last 3-4 weeks, what bait has been most productive? Surface water temp Saturday was 36.1 degrees.......once water temp fell below 40 in my channel the bite tanked.


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## Lowell H Turner

Too bad no one`s trying the newly dredged edges...gotta figure it`s the deepest water in the lake now...


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## young-gun-fisher

zaraspook---- I was using a red jig that had a single long tail so it looked more like a minnow and I also tied an ice jig about 8" above that with crappie nibbles on them. my friend and I were both using similar rigs and catching fish on the top and bottom jig.


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## poloaman

Zaraspook I totally agree the fishing should be great this year and would love to share some knowledge. I'm really partial to my jigs that I tie so I really work them hard when I make it out always trying new color combos 


Polo
Outdoor Hub mobile


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## zaraspook

young-gun-fisher......good idea to double rig, a lure low and high. You're single tailed jig sounds similar to a crappie "stinger" style bait, usually a solid body 1.5-2" length with a single tail that tapers back to a point.


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## zaraspook

poloaman said:


> Zaraspook I totally agree the fishing should be great this year and would love to share some knowledge. I'm really partial to my jigs that I tie so I really work them hard when I make it out always trying new color combos
> 
> 
> Polo
> Outdoor Hub mobile


I don't tie, but a friend of mine is an avid fly-fisherman and ties. Most of the time he fishes traditional casting and spinning rigs for anything that swims.  For Christmas he gave me 1/2 dozen "sissy-jigs" he tied. It's basically a hair-jig, 1/8 oz jig-head, and really not too big for crappies. It's become his "go to" bait for all species. Here's a link below that shows some basic pics of the jig and tactics. I haven't tried it yet but will work it in sometime this year.
http://www.bigindianabass.com/big_indiana_bass/a-sissy-jigging-primer.html


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## poloaman

Those I very nice I tie some also for bass but not quite like that my crappie jigs are mostly 1/32 but also tie 1/16 to I know a lot of people who think either one are too big and use 1/80 or 1/64 and some even smaller at 1/100 but I have never had to use anything that small I will try to post better pics I have some in the tackle making forum but I loaded them from my phone and they are very small pics 


Polo
Outdoor Hub mobile


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## zaraspook

Took a quick trip to GLSM today (Sun - 15th) but not to fish. Needed to check my water pipes.....make sure water lines didn't freeze during the cold. Lines were fine. Drove around the entire lake.............locked up solid with hardwater and lightly snow covered. Zero open water. Even the spillway is 90% frozen over.

I busted thru the ice on my channel to check thickness. If you're an ice angler don't get too excited. It's only an inch and a half and despite the cold temps the ice seemed a bit soft. Weather forecast for next 9 days only shows Weds with a high temp below freezing, and outlook for next Sunday is 51 degrees. Five of next 9 days are predicted to see rain showers. Doesn't sound like a pattern to build ice. We may see open water again before decent ice thickness.


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## Lowell H Turner

Thanks for the report, Zaraspook.


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## young-gun-fisher

I saw that on the hard ice forum that there were a few people out on Indian today. I have a friend that is wanting to fish the spillway at st. mary's tomorrow but I will let him know that most of it will probably be frozen. Thanks for the report!

zaraspook--The jig that you described is exactly what I use for crappie everywhere and it usually produces very well for me compared to other jigs that I have tried.


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## zaraspook

young-gun-fisher.......Since that's moving water in the spillway, maybe it will open up?


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## zaraspook

Woo hoo!

According to an article in Celina Daily Standard, the Ohio EPA plans a whole lake alum treatment this spring. The original plan to treat the entire lake last year was scaled back, only the center of the lake treated for $3.4 mil. Phosphorus levels were reduced by 56% in the center of the lake which was treated while non-treated areas fell 20-30%. But the 2011 treatment wasn't done until June when algae levels were already substantial and dissolved oxygen levels were low and falling. This year's treatment is scheduled for April. EPA Director Scott Nally said actions to control actions at Grand Lake will be duplicated at Lake Erie to help control algae blooms in the western basin of Lake Erie.

Local anglers were hoping for the state to resume saugeye stocking for 2012, but their is no commitment for 2012 other than the matter will be discussed with state wildlife officials. The article suggests a tone of improved cooperation between the stakeholders to resolve the lake's water quality issues.

Article covers a lot of stuff and can be found at this link http://www.dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=17025


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, VERY GOOD news sir ! Implimenting the alum spraying over the WHOLE lake early (before it significantly warms up) should do a great deal to reduce or possibly even eliminate the need for any water advisory this year. Also HOPEFULLY those dredges will be working ASAP after ice out; DEEPENING the lake AND removing the bulk of the 120+ yr accumilation of built up phosporous deposits and putting the remainder largely out of reach of storms and boat propellers is still the LONG TERM solution, but reducing the agricultural run off to a minimum and sharply lessening the carp population are also necessary steps in the RIGHT direction as well. Was curious if anything further has been said about the Wisconson based potting soil/ mulch company still being interested in setting up a facility? As SOON as someone starts to actually make BIG $$$$$$$$$ outta that "muck" within 10 yrs it`ll ALL be GONE and the lake will end up with 15 fow ... any further word on the "wetland" buffer areas?


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## chrsvic

An article in the Dayton Daily News mentioned using some of the dredging material to create wetlands. Sounds like a good idea, hope it helps.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news...grand-lake-st-marys-trouble-free-1314829.html

In another major undertaking, federal funding will pay for an 18-acre wetland being built this year on Prairie Creek, a major feeder to the lake.

The wetland should help naturally filter farm field manure runoff, which feeds to the algae blooms. Additional filtration projects are under way at the other creeks on the lake.

Plans are being developed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to by 2014 build an additional 80 acres of wetlands in locations in the lake that used to support them, said Jared Ebbing, Mercer Countys development director. The new wetland acreage could multiply within 20 years, he added. The new wetlands will be built using 270,000 cubic yards of lake bed that will be dredged out of the lake this year, said Nally.


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## Lowell H Turner

Excellent news, chrsvic ! with several dozen acres a piece the filtration effect should have a subtle but pronounced effect on the lake in coming yrs as far as overall water quality AND biodiversety; wetlands are normally 3X more varied than water or shore land. They are nurseries for ALL knids of creatures and as they are allowed to spread the total effect of their presence only goes up...this is GOOD !


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## young-gun-fisher

That is some good news!! 

I was up at the lake yesterday, north side of the lake had about 2-3" on it while the south had about 1". Went to the spillway for a little and I saw a guy with 2 eyes on the snowy bank, one was a MONSTER!!! I only caught a few small crappie so headed to Indian to ice fish. Caught 1 keeper gill at long island and 2 keeper eyes at moundwood. I saw a couple guys there pull out a few nice ones there as well. 

With the warm spell and rain i don't know if it will be too much longer until we can get our boats out again..... which reminds me, I also stopped at Loramie to fish for some eyes because it is a lot closer than indian, and saw a few guys putting their boat in at the state ramp going to their duck blind. Apparently they were going to bust the 1" ice up all the way to their blind.


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## Lowell H Turner

An article in the newspaper confirmed at least 1 heavier duty dredge is bound for the lake almost immediately after ice out (?) and the COE is partnering with ODNR and the County Engineer to begin several marsh and wetland projects on almost EVERY inflowwing stream, creek and ditch running off into the lake. The hope is that between reducing the carp which consume various aquatic plants hopefully the marshes will in time spread and consume much more phosporous that does enter the water. Another significant corner will be turned upon the re-establishment of these necessary natural filteringenviroments which are also natural nurseries for a very wide spectrum of fish, frogs, birds, mammales of all kinds and reptiles. The "tide" is slowly but definately beginning to turn back in the lake`s favor...


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## zaraspook

young-gun-fisher..........nice report. That's really interesting to hear of 2 walleyes caught by same angler, plus one of them a monster! Any chance the big one was as big as the 9.6 pounder caught 2 years ago during an early cat tournament? That fish was almost as big a round as it was in length. Congrats on your Indian eyes. Keep it up.

Obviously the spillway was open from ice. I didn't make it up to lake.....haven't fished for a few weeks. Need to do something about it.


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## zaraspook

LHT..........that's your mantra "Dredge, baby dredge!" Keep at it. GLSM can use all the dredging help we can get! Gotta get those wetlands going if we're gonna flip the lake to be plant-centric. To help thin the carp population from eating our sparse plant-life we could use a thriving population of saugeye. Too bad the ODNR doesn't see it that way. Those eating machine saugeye would put a dent in the carp baby population.........keep those babies from growing to adults. Battelle acknowledges game fish population must rise. Rough fish population must fall to flip lake. Bring on those saugeyes to chomp away like pac-man!


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## Lowell H Turner

Zander then, perhaps? The GODZILLA of the walleye subspecies...


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## zaraspook

LHT........although zander do well in murky waters, a nice fit at GLSM, they require plenty of oxygen, not exactly a strong suit at Grand Lake. Zander disappear in eutrophic conditions like GLSM. Interesting proposition, however, to have 50 pound walleye-like monsters roaming GLSM! Now if we could train them to chow-down on rough fish only.....


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## zaraspook

Did I hear right that the Governor is gonna do his "state of the State" speech from somewhere in Celina? That's interesting that of all locations available in Ohio, Celina is the spot. Wonder if Kasich has something new up his sleeve to announce?

I read a couple days ago the state will continue to discount some fees at the GLSM state park. Rentals of state shelters, camping charges, and dock fees will carry a discount again for 2012. Discount isn't as big as some prior years, but dock fees stay at a 50% reduction. The others are 25%.

From lots of dredging and a whole lake alum treatment, water quality should be best in a decade (if the rain ever backs off). Better reserve your spots now!


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## Lowell H Turner

With a DEEPER lake, particularly if the "powers that be' deliberately TARGETTED those probable submerged springs in the lake perhaps. which begs the inevitable question: if you successfully wrestled that BIG ole wickedly fanged fish in, it would be WORTH grabbin` her by the jaw to "seal the deal', right? I`d LIKE to think "(deleted) YES!!! I`d GRAB that GODZILLA of a walleye with NO hesitation..." In reality, MAYBE NOT. Apparently a 20 lb zander commonly have 1"- 1 1/4" long razor sharp fangs quite capable of penetrating fairly thick leather gloves...not to mention skin, callous, tendons, muscle, smaller bones, ect. The supposed "pros" state not to hold the fish`s jaw while it`s thrashing- DUH ! Same advice with sharks, barracuda, bobcats, wolverines, and of course grizzly bears...


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## zaraspook

Never saw a zander up-close and personal. Not to suggest I'm a wimp but from the set of chompers you describe I'd probably cut my line.......


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## Lowell H Turner

Not on purpose! But that`s exactly how most zander "get off', close to shore or the boat and get the line between those FIERCE fangs..."BINK !" and another "fish story" begins. A German "pro' who has dozens of large zander catches swore he lost a 70 lb fish about 15 yrs ago had video and several witnesses to back him up; a new world`s record that busted off at the shore 3`- 4` away and thrashed away like a rocket...


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## zaraspook

New dredge LHT mentioned is named Brutus per below:

-New dredge Brutus scheduled to be delivered 2nd week of February. This will be a replacement of the 1968 St. Marys dredge
-Dredge program goal is 275,000 cubic yards

Also on tap for GLSM:

-Rough fish removal will continue with an additional 3 new nets ordered and funded by ODNR Division of Wildlife. 
-Littoral Wetland  US Army Corp of Engineers in cooperation with ODNR funded a study of a littoral wetland. The study will be completed this spring.
-Aeration pilots  The State Park will be working with various companies to pilot different aeration technologies during the summer.
-Relocate Airy Gator from Park Grand bay to mouth of St. Marys Boat Club. This until will be monitored for impact in a open channel.

Above info and more came from website of Grand Lake Improvement Association at this link http://www.lakeimprovement.com/


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## Lowell H Turner

You already KNOW my personal motto...just hope they have "Brutus' roaring at ice out. And the carefully considered multi prong stratagies should prevent any water advisories this yr. The re- established marshes and wetlands are equally as CRITICAL to the long term solution as "Brutus". I imagine the local economy is about 'on the ropes' and desperately NEEDS a solid profitable "good" year. Here`s hoping they get it; obviously much remains to be done and here`s hoping the "powers that be" choose to put on a "FLAT ALL OUT DECISIVE ATTACK" effort into the battle these coming months...it isn`t the beginning of the end of this fight, but it IS the end of the beginning of the effort; yet another page is turned. My only fear is that the locals will tire of the effort and allow those "powers that be" to ease up on the efforts PREMATUELY...


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Y I imagine the local economy is about 'on the ropes' and desperately NEEDS a solid profitable "good" year. Here`s hoping they get it; obviously much remains to be done and here`s hoping


About 2/3's of GLSM is in Mercer County and 1/3 of lake in Auglaize County. Contrary to what you'd expect, the December Ohio unemployment numbers shoe Mercer County (Celina) has the LOWEST unemployment of all Ohio counties. Rate is 4.9 %. Auglaize is 6.3%, not as low but well below the average for the state and lower than most other adjacent counties. Likely that's why Gov Kasich plans to give his "state of the State" speech in Celina.

While the local lake recreational economy is miserable, other portions (manufacturing and agriculture) are booming. Since people can't play at the lake, less fishing and playing in the water, all those people must have gone out and found a job! Hey congressmen.......listen up. If people are bored and don't have anything else to do, they will find work! Or, maybe all the lake cleanup needs created a new stream of employment, a new blossoming economy?

Yes lake businesses, lake property prices, marinas, and lot of restaurants and bars are hurting around the lake, but rest of economy there is good.


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## Lowell H Turner

AM glad to hear that. Was thinking about the part of the local economy that in the past depended on recreational use of the lake. And for what it`s worth, after the basically decades of "hem hawwing' and delaying the much needed actions necessary to reverse the impending disaster a few far sighted individuals actually foresaw coming, at LEAST once the magnitude of the problem became known AND the public became OUTRAGED enough, the resources of the State WERE rather rapidly brought to bear. Hopefully this will increase enought in these following few years to DECISIVELY "turn the tide"...


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## zaraspook

At GLSM for couple hours today (Sat) but not fishing. My channel completely iced over but ice only 1/2 inch thick and not good quality. Wouldn't take much to melt. Where I broke ice it was nice to see clarity to about a foot depth. Best it's been since last spring. Water level is up at least 4" from 2-3 weeks ago.

Drove around the lake................no open water to speak of except West Bank area from spillway south toward state boat ramp. The area around the floating docks where the aerators are located is open. Spillway is open and the only location where I saw fishermen. Two guys were on the southside of spillway while a single angler on north side. Looked like all 3 were crappie fishing. In the 10 minutes I watched saw no fish taken. Only other open water I witnessed was the channel at Rustic Haven (south east area of lake).

Mon-Tues-Weds forecast calls for high temps 45-50 and low temps above freezing each night. Expect a lot of open water by Tues-Weds if you're looking to wet a line.


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## zaraspook

Fished for crappies maybe 75 minutes Weds (2-1). Started in my southside channel which was 90% ice-free. No bites after 75 minutes. Packed up some gear and headed to spillway. Western 1/2 of lake is pretty much free of ice. I threw swimbaits at spillway for 60-90 minutes, trying to stumble into a walleye. Nothing going on for me and little happening for the other 15-18 anglers at spillway. While I was there I saw one small bluegill, one small crappie, and a good size sheaphead caught. Fishermen were coming and going with regularity.

Headed back to my channel to try again for crappies for an hour before sun set. Without a bump all day, I was caught off guard and missed a few fish on a series of very timid bites. Paid better attention to the light bite and caught my first two GLSM crappies of the year. Fish weren't keepers but a welcome surprise at the end of the day.

Surface water temp in my channel was a brisk 37.9 degrees. Water was milky murky and clarity no more than 6". Before heading home I drove along the east bank of lake. Surprised to find most of the east bank still iced over for as far out as you could see.


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## Lowell H Turner

Sir, congratulations on the 1st fish of the yr! Hopefully to be followed by MANY more...


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## zaraspook

Tried GLSM for crappies Friday afternoon. Couldn't find 'em and few bites. Did catch one fish.................surprised to pull in a perch. Great color and very chunky specimen of 7-8 inches. Would have been fine with me to catch a mess of perch but no other takers.


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## Lowell H Turner

1 BEATS none...


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## zaraspook

"One" is a great number. One keeps you off the skunk line. One, indeed, is better than none. Also, although we know perch are there, they are not widely caught. It was my first perch in 3 years at GLSM. State workers doing the rough fish netting last year spoke of netting lots of perch, but we infrequently see perch at the end of our lines.


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## Lowell H Turner

More and more perch are being reported out of CJ recently, which is very good. From what have read rising perch populations are a GOOd sign for the walleye population also, particularly the prespawn females.


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## zaraspook

Miscellaneous tidbits....

For you bugle mouth bass fans, the 2nd annual GLSM carp derby is scheduled for May, but I haven't seen firm dates. The derby last year was hosted in the first week of June when 300 anglers removed over 8000 pounds of carp. A Huber Heights guy collected the prize for largest carp at 20.6 pounds. 566 pounds was the winning total weight by another angler.

The 272,000 cubic yards dredged from the GLSM in 2011 was almost 4 times more than dredged in any single year before 2010. 2012 goal is 275,000 cubic yards.


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## CHOPIQ

Was in St Marys over the weekend and had a little time to hit the docks. Plenty of crappies. A few of us caught our limits with a lot of them over 11". You woud be fishing and catching a lit of little ones and then a school of big ones would come through. Caught about 8 little ones for every keeper. Was using red jigs tipped with wax worms about 3' deep. Was hitting docks.


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## zaraspook

Nice going, chopiq. Sounds like you had it going good. I tried docks (they were wooden docks), too, but not with your results. Closest I got to red was with purple crappie tubes. 3 feet depth has been right since the fall. Good to know the crappies are hungry.....if you find them.


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## zaraspook

A plausible explanation of GLSM's disastrous algae bloom in the summer of 2010? First time I've heard this one. Article in Celina Daily Standard suggests the nasty 2010 bloom was the result of extended ice cover on GLSM during the winter before. Here's the theory.......ammonia gas in the water normally escapes into the air but was trapped by an extended ice season. GLSM's "normal" algae is Planktothrix, but it's growth is stunted by ammonia. The algae that took over in 2010 was aphanizomenon, which isn't impacted by ammonia. With the normal algae stunted, not growing as usual, aphanizomenon which is always in there, was able to compete and thrive.

The source of the theory states GLSM was on track for a repeat with last years extended ice (high ammonia levels), but the heavy rains in the spring broke the ice cover and "flushed it out". Bacteria in the nutrient-rich sediment of the lake converts nitrogen into ammonia.

Interesting theory and seems plausible to me. Article is at this link http://www.dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=17197


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## Lowell H Turner

Interestig theory; am nothing close to a biologist, but am aware that the previous held notion that the biomass of any given body of water is no longer thought of as a classic pyramid type structure with the lower life forms on the bottom. Most biologists now look at it in terms of a generally VERY wide based curving spike. Modeling the most fantastically predator heavy bodies of water produces a spike (representing apex predatores ) only 1/9th the height of it`s base at best. Many lakes average a 1/16th to 1/35th ratio for lakes of the far North. Most oceans average about 1/14th...


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## zaraspook

Wish I could say I caught these, but it isn't so. Reports of Grand Lake St Marys walleye sows have been frequent this winter. This is the first physical evidence I've seen as proof. Rare in my opinion to see a pair of piggies like these from any inland Ohio lake. Lake Erie caliber fish for sure. Info on weight or length wasn't available.....anyone venture a guess on size and age? 

Photo provided by the Outdoorsman on the East Bank of Grand Lake. Photo was taken the last week of January 2012 and these two caught below the spillway which is on the west bank of the lake. My apology to to the unknown anglers in the photo.........in case they told their wives they were working instead of fishing.


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## Lowell H Turner

Woul LOVE to get into a couple like that ! And still say those deeper dredged area`s edges might be PRIME spots...Great report Zaraspook ! HARD to doubt THAT kind of evidense! (5 1/2- 6 pds?)


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Woul LOVE to get into a couple like that ! And still say those deeper dredged area`s edges might be PRIME spots...Great report Zaraspook ! HARD to doubt THAT kind of evidense! (5 1/2- 6 pds?)


LHT.........I think 6# is on the light side. One posted in the past from GLSM looked similar length and tipped the scales at 9.4 or might have been 9.6#. These two share that same girth profile. I'd give the one on left a good shot at nudging 8#. Harder to judge fish on right with the tail curled, bit it looks like it inhaled 3 softballs. Regardless, those pigs are clearly well fed and never missed a meal. How many people would give GLSM any consideration to produce trophies like these?


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, you will have to pardon me, sir, but I always "underguesstimate" the weight and lenght of fish. Anyone who`s seen any I caught would have to say "Yeap, it was at LEAST what ever he said." Sort of a bad habit...STILL those are VERY hefty fish and just between us, I`d honestly say you`re closer to the mark.


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## CHOPIQ

I believe that with the lack of fishing pressure for the last 2 or 3 years this year you will see more big fish caught then in a long time. I have see some BIG crappies already from the lake. They looked like Indian Lake crappies. Real broad shoulders and thick in the back. Should be a great year if the algae holds off.


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## young-gun-fisher

I did talk to the owner of the Loramie bait shop and he said that they had one saugeye weigh in over 10 lbs and a few 9 lbs too. All from the spillway area. And those walleye look like they are pretty close to that 8+ lb range. 

Wish I could have caught one of them that's for sure!!!!


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## zaraspook

chopiq......you'll find a lot of people agree with you about expectations for a grand crappie year at GLSM. Fall and winter of 2010, despite the nasty algae that summer, crappie numbers were very high but size wasn't much to shout about. Last spring numbers were still up and size improved substantially. Percentage of fish in the 10-11 inch range was amazing, both black and white crappies, and pattern was the same for fall 2011. Should be a banner year for crappies 12"+. Along with lack of fishing pressure, personally, I think the state's 9" size limit is a big factor, too.


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## zaraspook

Young-gun.........Outdoorsman bait shop at GLSM said they were seeing a few of those monster walleyes every week up until about a week ago. Fish were largely coming from spillway but also reports of some boats trolling the west bank area. 

9-10# saugeye at Loramie is outstanding! We need to mount an organized effort to push the DNR to restart saugeye stocking in GLSM. No reason saugeye won't survive there.......walleye are still living even though no walleye stocking since 2006. Saugeye are more tolerant of turbid water conditions. No saugeye stocked in GLSM last spring and stocking plans don't include GLSM this year. Since Battelle Institute experts say the game fish numbers need to rise at GLSM to help control rough fish population, saugeye stocking should be a clear winner.


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## young-gun-fisher

Unfortunately a "clear winner" in our eyes doesn't always come across the same for ODNR. and I really do think that by stocking aggressive saugeye in GLSM would help the lake as well as local area bait shops.

zaraspook--is the outdoorsman bait shop over by windy point or am I thinking of someplace else?


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## zaraspook

young-gun..........I think the Windy Point bait shop closed about 2 years ago. Outdoorsman is on the east side of 364 almost at the intersection of 364 and 703 in St Mary's. It's essentially the very northeast corner of the lake, next to Villa Nova gas station/convenience store/pizza place. Outdoorsman also sells/services boats, etc. They sponsor a lot of fishing tournaments, too.

DNR has stocked saugeyes in GLSM. First year was spring 2009 but only a token 23,000 fingerlings. Spring 2010 DNR stocked something like 230,000 fingerlings. 2011 GLSM was skipped, probably a decision after the weird algae strain that bombed the lake in summer of 2010. I contacted the DNR in the fall of last year to find if stocking would resume this spring. Word I was given "no plans for stocking saugeye at GLSM".....it sounded like GLSM was indefinitely removed from the agenda.

Regardless, we do have small numbers of saugeye in there. If you happen to catch one of the first class stocked, could be 12-14 inches in length, or more. Fish from that first year will be 3 years old in April/May. If 5% of those first 23000 fingerlings survived the 3 years, we'd have 1150 of them roaming GLSM. 2010 year fish should be approaching 10-12" and in higher numbers. You're gonna catch one sooner of later. Take a good photo when you do and we can let the state boys ID it and figure growth rate.


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## Lowell H Turner

Plan on coming up in mid April (weather permitting) would like to meet you all...and catching acouple of fish too.


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Plan on coming up in mid April (weather permitting) would like to meet you all...and catching acouple of fish too.


Are you saying you intend to fish GLSM in April? A fishing tourney perhaps?


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## zaraspook

Briefly was at GLSM for a while Saturday. Would have tested the crappie fishing but my channel and adjacent ones were iced over. West 1/3 of main lake was free of ice, while east 2/3 of main lake all ice. Water clarity in my channel was less than foot however heard another report suggesting main lake clarity almost 2 feet......that's encouraging. Saturday afternoon there were 4-5 vehicles and fisherman below the spillway. Warmer temps this week should take care of the ice.......might get to try my luck upcoming weekend.


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## Lowell H Turner

Perhaps. Weather permitting of course.


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## zaraspook

3 of last 4 times I hit GLSM, my channel was iced over.......no fishing. With temps in the upper 60's couldn't resist a short visit. Got in about 2 hours of fishing before dark. Looking for crappies, all I could find were bluegills. At least 1/2 of the gills were keeper size. Finally stumbled onto a crappie, surprisingly in only 18 inches of water, but no cooperation from others that might have been in the same area. 

Aat the time I changed baits from traditional crappie tubes to a stinger, I'd caught 8 gills and only the single crappie. Last 1/2 hour was a good turnaround. Stinger seemed to be the ticket as 4 of next 5 fish were crappies. Three were legal keepers, biggest only 10", but I was pleased to catch crappies again after a poor February. None of the crappies appeared to be females with eggs

Water clarity was about a foot.....forgot to check water temp. In the two channels I fished there were huge clouds of shad. The shad were predominantly 3-5" fish, but massive schools and slow moving.

Ended up with 9 gills, 5 crappies (3 legal size) in about 2 hours. Not bad for Feb 29 and I had a good time.


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## Lowell H Turner

Welcome to SPRING ! (I think...on 2cnd thought...)


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## zaraspook

Tried to get to GLSM to crappie fish during the storm Fri afternoon/evening. Arriving at 4:30PM the lighting was done, just some driving rain to deal with. Rotating thru 2 different baits and multiple color combinations produced a grand total of 2 bites, 1 bluegill too small to make cutbait from, and water filled sneakers from my rain pants funneling the water to my feet. That was the first hour and 15 minutes.

Talked myself out of quitting......decided to at least give a shot to my "go to" crappie tube and color combination. Not that I tore 'em up, not that any were ginormous fish, but the final 45 minutes before dark were entertaining. My "go to" tube/color produced 3 keeper gills, a respectable perch, 2 crappies (a keeper and other just short), and the final fish a spunky and chunky largemouth. Bass was only 12-13", but fun on a crappie rig. 7 fish in 45 minutes keeps you happy, especially the first weekend of March.

Clarity in my channel about a foot. Channels fed by creeks were extremely muddy from the rain. Water temp was 41.4...crappie fishing will only get better as temps nudge upward.


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## zaraspook

When I saw this article about a drawdown of GLSM, I expected it was related to the alum treatment planned in April. Battelle Institute guys at one time recommended drawing the lake down before treating with alum. It made sense to me if you were treating less water volume with a fixed amount of alum, impact would be greater. Not the case, however. Downriver (actually a creek, not a river) property owners sued the State last year and won a settlement about State not controlling lake overflow and damaging property from flooding.

Bottomline is the State will open one "tube" for a week, lower current water level which is a foot above normal pool, while measuring/monitoring flow and impact. For the guys who normally fish below the spillway, this should change water volume and rate coming your way. Hard to say if it will mess up or improve fishing conditions at spillway, but we're going to find out. The "tube" was opened Monday (5th) morning. Hope the increased flow doesn't wash the walleyes downstream.

Celina Daily Standard article is at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=17419


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM from shore for about 2 hours Weds evening. I moved around a lot trying different cover. Couldn't find fish except in one spot which was submerged brush. Those fish were right on the bottom in 4-5.5 feet of water. Crappie bite was hard to detect, very timid, and fish were going nowhere once they took tube. Ended up with 6 crappies, biggest a 10" and 2 others just short of 9.5". Definitely no ladies yet and these were all white crappies. 

Most surprising and the best news was the rise in water temp in my channel. Temp rose 3.5 degrees in 5 days....now at 44.9. My channel usually runs 2-3 degrees warmer than main lake. Clarity still improving at 18". Also caught 4 bluegills......one of those a keeper.


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## young-gun-fisher

I fished GLSM on Wed. from my boat out of windy point and boy did it live up to its name cause it sure blew me everywhere!! I started out fishing for bass but was unsuccessful for the first couple hours so I thought I would try my luck at the crappie. I ended up catching 1 keeper crappie around bass island and one big bluegill, around 1.5' deep on a red stinger. Most people I talked to said they were only catching a few small short crappies but one guy said his buddy who was also fishing out of windy point from his boat caught 58 crappie, with only a few throwbacks. 

and the water temp was about 42 when I put my boat in but almost 44 when I pulled it out, while Loramie was a muddy mess and less than 42 degrees.


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## zaraspook

Good report, young-gun. Agree it's very tough to fish Windy Point area from boat unless wind is down. If wind is from the south or southeast, chances are decent. With southern shoreline blocking the wind, waves aren't big on southside and improves your chances to maintain position without burning up a trolling motor. Wind from any other direction creates problems.

Did you monitor water depth at very northern end of Windy Point area?

Hope to get a chance to fish GLSM Sunday. Had it on my schedule to fish there today/Sat, but wife has the punies.....flu-like stuff. If I don't stick around, I'll be in the doghouse.


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## fishforlife

Hey to all just saying useually put this on north west do to lake being in the north west but none the less is good all post so all can see. not being a a hole just was out yesterday and the lake looks good . water temp in most places was 42 to 44 and water was alittle cloudy but clear for most part. and got some nice gills and crappie in about 1 hr and 45 min. was just running the boat and checking all out and trying new humminbird down imager..nice. but had wife out and she got a 13 in and went 1lb5oz she dont fish much but will now. good luck to all and the birds are feeding like crazy on the little shad here.


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## Salmonid

also fished all day yesterday, main lake 43.2 degrees and found a few shallow coves that were right at 46 degrees. We had a few catfish bites and landed some small ones and found some shad back in some channels, ( Thanks Zara) also fgished a bunch of spots I had never been to before so it was a great day to be out on the water, they are pulling a lot of water through the dam and the spillway guys were hammering the smaller crappies.

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Salmonid, what`s the deepest water you marked ?


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## Salmonid

Lowell, 14.5 ft, and thats at 2 different places, I been told there is another spot that deep near the upper end of the lake but havent gotton to locate it yet, all dredge holes BTW. 

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

If ALL the dredged areas end up over 12- 14 fow that means the phosphate build up will largely become an "non issue" in those locations...plus if they dredge off the overlaying muck off several of those previously known springs, with or without added cover they WILL become fish magnets, especially over the winters (assuming we ever get solid ice again). Thank You, sir !


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......You say supposedly another "hole" in upper end of lake........by upper end do you mean west bank area or north side?

By the way, I was at GLSM late Saturday and early Sunday and didn't see the shad activity in that one channel like it had been for previous 2 weeks.


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## zaraspook

Fished for crappies Saturday after the Buckeye game.....maybe an hour before dark. I was shutout for first 45 minutes.....a few bites but no catching. Just before dark it livened up. Three crappies and a bluegill in 15-20 minutes. One crappie was a keeper, other two were short.

Went back at it Sunday morning for an hour and a half, but bite was pitiful. Changed bait and colors often without any success. Bait store owner said he thought the lowering of lake had things messed up. If I understand correctly the State now has both "tubes" open discharging water at spillway. Process of lowering water may go on all month, not just a week, with target to lower water level a foot. That may not seem like much on other lakes, but if avg water depth at GLSM is 5', lowering one foot equals 20%. If spring rains don't materialize to refill, lake levels could be treacherous by August.

I'm sure dropping water levels has some impact on crappies, but I suspect water temp also playing a role. Temps had been slowly rising last 3 weeks. In my channel it was 44.9 last Weds and yesterday down to 43.5 (Sunday morning). It will head up this week according to weather forecast.


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## young-gun-fisher

Most of the depths that I marked around windy Point (around the ramp and out toward the main lake) were from 5'-8'. The main lake was the shallowest and even found a few spots that were 3.5-4'. Last year when I drove the boat between the pier and the island out at windy point I found a spot that was 16-17' deep.


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## Lowell H Turner

Personally would be exploring those holes especially with the depth dropping...


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## zaraspook

Celina Daily Standard article reports the State now has funding and will do the whole lake alum treatment. No specific date is mentioned for treatment to start, but April time frame previously rumored. Last year's partial treatment of GLSM was in June when algae growth was already well advanced. Article link is http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=17472

****The Lake Improvement Association says alum treatment scheduled to start April 1.***


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## Salmonid

Zara, NE side, when i find it, Ill let you know where it is, LOL

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid........if it's the result of dredging, I may know about where it is. I recall seeing a dredge stationed NE side most of last year. Not sure of exact location but if I get over there I think I'd recognize the area. If I get my fishing boat up there I may scout around, but haven't used fishing boat yet this year. Interesting.....location I'm thinking of is directly across lake (due north) of location I mentioned for shad on SE side. 

Good luck this weekend!


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## CHOPIQ

Brothers and Dad fished GLSM on the west side yesterday. They caught over a hundred crappies. Most were small 5-6" but they did keep 21 over 10". Small red tubes under cork about 1' down. They are going back again tody. 
On a side note don't the catfish tourneys start this Saturday?


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## Salmonid

Zara. that sounds about right from what I was told. I just havent been over to that area yet with the boat. and yup, the first catfish tourney is this Sat from noon till 6 pm. Il be there donating to the prize fund as usual...

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

CHOPIQ........sounds like your family had a blast. Thanks for the report. "Red tubes"....consistent with what I've heard, although I usually go for purple. The two colors are close enough that if one works, the other does, also. Hope I get up there this weekend before all the crappies are caught.


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## Salmonid

Hey Zara, you aint gonna believe this but water temps today were 55 in the main lake and even found some 58 degree water in the coves!! hard to imagine just 4 days ago was 43.......caught a few smaller cats today!

Salmonid


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## CHOPIQ

Brother and a couple others hit St. Marys again on Wednesday afternoon. They hit Anderson and nothing going on there so they went to the Celina side and found the crappies again. They kept 41 crappies over 10" and the biggest was just over 12". Same as Tuesday, red jigs about a foot deep. Most of these were on the rocks. They didn't do good on the wood.


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## zaraspook

salmonid.............I believe it. I'm at GLSM now(Friday night). My channel is 62.4 degrees. Amazing. Lots of fish action on the water surface.


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## Lowell H Turner

Oh, "Crappiethon", oh "Crappiethon", how i do MISS thee...


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## Salmonid

Hey zara, from some of your help and a few others folks and a lot of homework, me and my partner won the catfish tourney yesterday up there, 70 teams! best 6 channels were 42.90 lbs, I also had one just over 10 lbs, it was second biggest fish, another was right at 13 lbs, those are some real dandies! Water was 59+ in the main lake and low 60's back in the channels.

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Wonderful and congrats, salmonid! 70 teams and you win 1st time in the event. Fill me in later on how you and partner did it. Some great sizes to those channels!


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## Marshall

Saw on the news last night that the state is planning on dumping a chemical into the lake to try to combat the algae this year.


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## Lowell H Turner

Salmonid, VERY well done ! That`s a haul of fish !


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## zaraspook

Salmonid...........gotta ask you since you're a cat guy, how does GLSM rate as a cat lake? Also, did you do the most damage on the main lake or in channels?

Did you notice lake is down a good foot since they started draw-down 14 days ago? I don't like it..........getting dangerous to motor and hope they stop soon.


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## zaraspook

Marshall..............supposed to start alum treatment first week of April.


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## Salmonid

zara, I really didnt notice dropped water that much as I was in both open water and some channels but always careful in anything less then 6 ft deep. 
From what i seen yesterday, tons of dinks/skillet fish of 13-16" and everyone having a tough time finding bigger fish, we weeded through approx 50 fish to get our best 6 and were lucky to win, 4 teams were withing 4 lbs at the top. Word is that the lake fish seem to be getting bigger every year which probably coinsides with heavy shad hatches. It seems many lakes in Ohio have an issue where the channels top out at about 9 lbs and St marys, Acton, Eastwood, Paint Creek, Deer Creek, CJ Brown and Indian are all on that list, Not sure what causes some lakes to surpass that size but Rocky Fork and Cowan seem to get over that hump with regularity. 

Back to the point, if your wanting to catch LOTS of smaller fish, Indian, and St Marys are the place to go as is CJ Brown. 
Just my opinion from fishing all of them. 

Ill be back up Thursday to try to find them as they stage out of winter mode into feeding mode!

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

salmonid.....when GLSM had the nasty algae bloom in summer of 2010, lake had several low oxygen events. Despite warnings I was out on the lake several times scouting the fish kill. Observed some ginormous cats, and walleye, too. Wonder if those bigger/older cats are more susceptible to stress from the low oxygen events........regular events might prematurely thin the population?


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM for crappies off and on from Friday evening to Sunday morning. Bite in my channel was better, but still not like reports on the northside of the lake. Caught 24 crappies, not an overwhelming number, but average size fish is moving up. 15 of the 24 were were above the 9" limit, most were in that slot of 9.5-10". 

Water temp Friday evening in my channel was a hard to believe 62.4 degrees, up almost 20 degrees in about 2 weeks. It held between 60-61 degrees all weekend. Water is still stained, clarity about 10-12" in my area. Water is down a foot from the drawdown going on. Also caught a few gills, not big ones, and first fish I caught was a small bass.


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## Salmonid

just like all shallow body of waters, farm ponds/ St Marys, two times a year there are low oxygen levels which cause HUGE amounts of stress and the biggest fish typically require the most O2 so they are the first to sucumb to winter/summer fish kills. ( probably Mother natures way of thinning the older less productive part of the herd off) 

Typical Winter fish kill happens when pond has hard ice and snow cover for extended periods of time, no photosethysis occurs and all oxygen slowly float to top half of pond but semi dormant fish are on bottom, been told its like a CO2 poisioning, just slowly go to sleep and its all over for them from lack of oxygen.

Typical summer fish kill happens when the surface water is hotter then the bottom and say a very cold front thunder storm shows up, cools the surface temps, and the colder water is heavier then the warmer water( also because there is less oxygen in it as its always floating up) and you get a summer "turnover" causing fish all sorts of stress, Add to the fact that the thermocline is always an option and in a shallow lake, that could really cause some problems.

While growing weeds add to the oxygen ( Photosenthysis) dying weeds in the fall and winter consume oxygen. 

I hope that makes some sense, I think bottom line on fish size is more dependant on food source cycles then anything else..( Shad hatches) and some lakes are always behind the curve with too many small shad that can not over winter and fish consume the majority of thesesmaller shad before they can have heavy spawns. Some lakes have many bigger shad ( St marys) which are too big to be eaten and thus the lake will always have more shad then gamefish can eat, thus ideal conditions as we will have this summer after the light winter. Here is a prediction, if we get a hard winter this next fall, with lot sof ice and snow cover, i bet youl see a HUGE shad kill next spring/Ice out. Just thinking out loud here. 

Salmonid
PS Zara, Id like to meet up with you and do some crappie fishing up there sometime and Ill take you out for cats as well.


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## Lowell H Turner

Gentlemen, consider it official; the Wisconsin peat and potting soil company was on Channel 7 announcing their commitment to building and operating a brand new factory at Grand Lake Saint Marys. They are in the closing ends of an agreement to buy the BULK of the mega farms` "livestock by- product" and are supposed to see about buying some of the dredged muck as well. Oh, HAPPY DAY ! (I HOPE they get STINKING RICH !!!- pardon the pun) Now if those dredges will start roaring again...


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## CHOPIQ

Salmonoid, my brother and a friend fished that catfish tourney also. They thought they were doing good with their fish until they got to the weigh in. LOL. They had around 25 pounds. I thought they said there was one that was near 15 pounds? I also heard that a few eyes are being caught. brother saw one that was pushing 8 pounds.


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## zaraspook

LHT.......an article in the St. Mary's newspaper, The Evening Leader, reports about the news you observed on Channel 7. The planned manure processing plant and research facility hopes to break ground in April, pending approval of financing. Capacity will be 590,000 tons of dry fertilizer, 60 jobs, and an ancillary company to sell the fertilizer (retail) and another ancillary company to pickup and transport manure/waste from local animal operations to the processing site. Here's the link to the article http://theeveningleader.com/content/plant-coming-mercer-county

Step one is to get the poop.......step two is processing the peat (dredged).


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## Salmonid

Chopiq, the basket they used weighed 2 lbs so the 15 was realy right at 13 and our 12+ was just over 10 lbs. 25 lbs put them right in the middle of the field so thats not a bad showing at all. Its where ill probably be in the next one, LOL. Knowing the lake and experience will help them get more weight. Just remember, its spring mode, then pre spawn, then spawn, then post spawn and then fall then winter patterns. Once you figure out where they are for each of those in the lakes, let me know....will ya....

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Would assume (considering their past proven experience and results) that funding will be a "no brainer". Are the dredges working yet? DREDGE, baby, DREDGE !


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## zaraspook

LHT......don't know if dredges are active yet. I heard the new dredge, Brutus, was scheduled to arrive a couple weeks ago.

salmonid......appreciate your info about fish kills. Good idea to meet up sometime. I scouted around last Saturday for the northside "hole", but got side-tracked. I stumbled upon a boater with motor problems stranded at Safety Island. Towed him into Windy Point State ramps and ran out of time to search for the hole. Did you locate the hole? CHOPIQ said something about a few jumbo walleye taken. Did you hear of any walleye taken by the tourney catfishermen?


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM in time to fish 2 hours before dark 3/21 (Weds). Bites were few and far between. Managed only pair of crappies. Both were keeper size at 10" and 10+". Talked to a guy and his wife boat-fishing for crappies who lamented same story.......just 2 crappies in several hours, plus a few gills. The combination of water level drawdown and skyrocketing water temps haven't been a positive influence compared to the bite in prior 2-3 weeks.

Water clarity is taking a hit.......algae getting an early start. Hopefully the alum treatment next week will put the algae in check. Drawdown is now 16", maybe 18" which may not sound like much. In a lake with average depth maybe 5', that's a 27-30% drawdown. Less water volume (30%) means the the sun and warm nighttime temps heat the lake faster. 3 weeks ago water temp was 44 degrees and Weds evening 72 degrees. The boat fisherman confirmed water temps of 70+. If the fish aren't confused by the conditions, the fishermen are.


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## young-gun-fisher

This spring has been crazy with how fast the water temps warmed up, especially in the shallow bodies of water in the area, and especially when they draw the water down like that!! I hate to think about how warm the water will be in the heat of summer.....


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## zaraspook

Tried Grand Lake both Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning last weekend, fishing in-between doing chores at my place. Estimate I bank fished 2-3 hours Saturday and another hour and a half Sunday looking for the crappie bite. End result was about 10 bluegills and a skunk on the crappie side of the ledger. Can't recall when that's ever happened in the spring......no crappies, zero, nada, not even a dink and even the bluegill bite was anemic.

I had all my excuses lined up......lake drawdown of 18', wrong weather system, moon phase out of kilter, water temps too warm for this time of year. Certainly no blame to place on the fisherman. Sunday after I'd put the crappie rig away for the day, I stopped in The Outdoorsman to check on the Crappie tournament held Saturday. The acknowledged "yes, the bite was a bit off" and had been slower the last week or two. Winning basket of 6 fish was 5.8 pounds. Duh! The crappies were there to be caught. The experts almost always find the recipe. I went home with my tail tucked between my legs. 

By the way, water temp was about 65 degrees Saturday, down about 7 from prior weekend. From the cooler air temps this week, expect those water temps are down to mid or upper 50's. I'll be back when my ego recovers......


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## Lowell H Turner

There ARE times when even the "experts" go home with THEIR tails `tucked up twixt their legs...an old codger once told me "The fish are ALWAYS right...and sometimes they just WON`T bite."


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## alumking

Hey guys I have a question for you. I am bringing my circuit up there in May the 2nd week. Is the lake going to be allowed to come back to normal levels by then? You guys said treatment is early April. Do not want anything to do with a low Grand Lake it can eat boats!

Jami Norman www.ombtt.com


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## zaraspook

alumking.......looked to me like the draw down ceased sometime last week. Haven't read anything definitive, but from personal observation water level was no longer falling. We're now at the mercy of natural inflow from creeks plus new precipitation. Probably some data available about flow in/out from creeks but who knows where. Historical rainfall averages for April/May period is about 7-8". If lake rises by that amount, I'd be surprised if your guys would have any problems. In fact, current level reminds me of what we normally see in Aug-Sept without significant issues. Not a lot of sudden changes in water depth at GLSM. If boats are getting into very shallow water, usually get plenty of warning from a gradual change.


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## zaraspook

I noticed the Grand Lake fish hatchery ponds were filling last week. Only a few were empty. Celina Daily Standard did an article on the 43 acre hatchery activity (link below). The St Mary's operation breeds walleye, saugeye, perch, catfish, sometimes largemouth, plus fathead minnows for forage used at GLSM ponds and other hatcheries in the state.. In addition the GLSM ponds raise catfish and muskies bred at other hatcheries in the state.

Turns out that the high nutrients (green water) is a positive environment for breeding and raising fingerlings.......high in nutrients to grow phyto and zooplankton consumed by fry. However, oxygen levels are monitored and sometimes require aerators or water from onsite wells, especially in June or later summer months.

The state hatcheries are enabled by all of us who buy fishing licenses, pay taxes on boat purchases, etc. Thank you St. Mary's for providing a significant portion of the gamefish you enjoy catching throughout the state.

More info at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=17566


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## alumking

Thanks for the info. Hope we get some rain to bring her up. Really looking forward to the tournament the fish should be getting much bigger without any pressure. 

Thanks again, Jami


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## zaraspook

Grand Lake St Marys alum treatment began yesterday 4-2-12. With cooperation from the weather it will take approx 30 days to treat the 13,000+ acres. Two barges working 16 hour shifts will put down 3.5 mil gallons of liquid. Channel 7 news has a video at this link http://www.whiotv.com/news/news/local/big-day-waters-grand-lake-st-marys/nMHs2/

Celina Daily Standard has an article about the alum treatment at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=17625

Also, the new dredge Brutus was commissioned Monday at the 
East Bank. Once trial runs pronounce Brutus ready for action it's heading to the Otterbein area (southeast corner of the lake) to start that giant sucking sound.

I'm starting a rumor that Coors is looking to build a beer plant on the banks of GLSM in 2015. Coors is confident GLSM will soon be better for brewing than those clear rocky mountain streams........


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## Spence88

Not a big fan of Coors but otherwise good news. Any word on if they have stopped drawing water at the spillway? Or maybe that is old news. 3 weekends ago it was flowing heavy with the one tube open. It was crazy to see the water getting sucked down (main lake - next to the spillway) directly above the tube intake - it was creating a vortex. I've got pictures of it somewhere along with the flow out of the tube. A lot of good things going on and a lot of involvement by many parties.


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## Lowell H Turner

FIRE that dredge UP ! Wanna see a BUNCH of muck go BYE BYE !


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## Salmonid

Ill be fishing up there on Thursday, prefishing for the Sat-Catfish tourney, Im curious what the alum will do to the fishing??
Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Spence88.......post the pic of the vortex if you can.......I'd appreciate seeing it. I heard rumors the drawdown was done, but can't verify. Was at my place last Saturday and I thought water level had fallen another 1-2" from prior weekend. Have nothing scientific to prove it......just an observation.

salmonid......great question about the alum and impact on fishing. Not much history to go on since only prior treatment was June last year and just central part of lake. By that time (June) fishing results were already declining. We're learning as we go and you'll be one of the data points. 

I believe a reason for using a buffering agent with the alum is to minimize sudden drop in dissolved oxygen levels and minimize quick change in ph levels. Someone else might technically clear that up, but clearly the treatment does have an impact on water chemistry, therefore would expect fish to be stressed or impacted in some way. Last June treatment schedule had to be altered. Dissolved oxygen is at lowest levels near morning daylight. Treating at that time drove oxygen levels too low.....start of daily treatment had to be pushed back a few hours. Barges were equipped with lighting to enable treatment after dark and stay on schedule. 

Round 1 of treatment is 1/2 the lake, but haven't read which half. I'm guessing treatment barges and staging area is at West Bank for round 1 .....just a guess. If you're pre-fishing Thursday you'll know quickly what's happening and where. Let us know what you find. Crappie fishing the last few weeks was so spotty any change could be a positive one. Pressure is on you and your partner for a REPEAT performance! By the way my channel was 56 degrees Sunday and down from 62-63 prior week.


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## Salmonid

Quick report, Ill post some pics later if I get time, fished yesterday afternoon from about noon-4 pm, looking for some bigger cats, got a few small guys in the first two hrs then the temps dropped and the wind picked up and the clouds showed up and it got down right COLD! so we never gt a bite after that, anyways put in at West Bank Ramp and there are hundreds of dead 1-2 year old sheephead /Drum along the ramps assuming its from Alum treatment as the gamewarden was there also making the same case since the alum base camp is right there, the boat is pretty cool, again, pics later. also saw a new green working barge base and a dredge working the mouth of Coldwater Creek. ( more pics as well) water was 57-5 all over the lake and water is filled with a algea bloom making visability about 4" at best. Should have decent condition sfo rthe cat to0urney on saturday if someone can find the fish, Im sure they will have good weights. Im guessing it will be one of those days where a handful of teams do really well and the majority wont after coming off this nasty Nor easter cold front for two days straight.. Will post pics later...
Salmonid
PS also not pulling any water at this time


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## Lowell H Turner

Thank you, sir !


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## zaraspook

Was at GLSM for a few hours both Friday and Saturday. Didn't make it out on the lake, just bank fishing for crappies. My channel is probably 6 miles east of the West Bank. I also noticed sheephead, maybe 2 dozen of various sizes, floating dead or swimming in a death spiral. Sheephead dying may be linked to the alum treatment, but I first noticed floating sheephead the weekend before alum treatment began (weekend of 31st). Other factors could be contributors........quick drawdown during the month of March, water temps spiking into the 70's from mid-40's in a span of 2 weeks, increased algae/green stuff when water temps spiked.

It was good to see the crappies returning to channels. I caught 19 Friday in about 2 hours of fishing. The action wasn't fast but it was steady. 12 of the 19 were keepers in the 9.5-10.5" size range. That's a good percentage. Saturday caught 18, but only 8 keeper size and fish were not as aggressive. The short fish were really small. None of my fish looked to be females stuffed with eggs. Also caught a couple nice bluegills, a sheephead, and lost a 2 pound bass when it did decided to do some acrobatics as I was reeling it in. Water temp was 56.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......how was the cat tourney Saturday? A day for a repeat?


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## CHOPIQ

Zara- my brother fished the tourney and it was tough fishing. Him and his partner only caught 7 fish. Sounds like that about what everyone caught. A couple teams caught some nice ones but nothing like the last tourney. Speaking of the alum treatment, all the fish my brother caught he said they had a funny color to them. Wasn't sure why but he thought it was because of the alum treatment.


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## Salmonid

well, the cat tourney was a bust for us anyways.LOL, we caught about 25 channels but could nt find any better ones until about 30 minutes left in the day, go figure....also lost the best fish of the day halfway in, ( bummer for sure) we had 6 fish at 18.5 lbs, good for 16th place out of 49 teams, best weight was 33+ lbs then next was 29+ then 28+ and so on, so compared to last tourney with 4 teams ofver 40lbs, it was a big difference, several factors all played a part in the slow fishing, post cold front, alum spraying? HEAVY algea bloom with about 2" of visability, day after full moon, weird barometer day, bluebird sunny skies, weird NW winds, etc. all contributed to a crappy bite all day, we worked our butts off for our fish, moving constantly. 

Salmonid


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## Salmonid

Ok, I finally got around to resizing and hosting some pics, 
Here is a few of the HAB Enterprises ALUM Sprayer rig, consists of a flat barge carrying all the liquid alum in tanks, a small tugboat and a long array of pontoons spread out about 75 ft Im guessing to which the spray is applied, like on a farmers field. Total out an back takes about 3-4 hrs, they are housed at the West Shore ramp area. Also the last shot is of the Green dredge now housed at the mouth of Coldwater Creek.




























Here is the green Dredge, 









Last photo shows all the dead 1-2 year old sheepshead all over the place....










Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Good set of pics, salmonid. Thanks for sharing.

From the cat tourney results it's clear Saturday was a tough day. Crappie bite had same problems. Friday the fish were aggressive, they were chasing baits, inhaling plastics, and fish were almost all keepers. Saturday bite was timid, had to conk 'em on the head, slower presentation, and size went to hell. 24 hours can sure turn things around.........that's fishing.

What was size of the big fish Saturday? By the way, you may feel the suspended algae is water column is heavy, but you "ain't seen nothing yet". I'm hoping alum treatment maintains current levels. If not by mid-June the suspended particulates will by several times more dense.


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## Salmonid

Big fish was an 11 lber, several 8+ to 9+ lbers so the bigger fish seemed to have been around, just not where I was fishing...I really needed one of those big guys on sat to move me up to the top 6-7, each of the top teams always has a "Kicker" fish, without it, your screwed in any catfish tourney..LOL ( Just like most of the bass tourneys)

water was dense enough already that you could use a fork to spoon it out, Ill hate to see it later in the summer... 

Salmonid


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## young-gun-fisher

Nice pics Salmonid! and does someone out there have a picture of the spillway tubes when they were open? I am kinda curious what that looked like...


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## Lowell H Turner

Thank you Salmonid ! Well done regardless, you got on them! And nice photos. (Would have rather seen Brutus doing it`s thing...)


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## zaraspook

young-gun-fisher.........What's your take on the crappie bite at GLSM last couple of weeks? Last half of March I sucked. Last weekend much better for me. Fish were back on wood.


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## young-gun-fisher

zaraspook.... I haven't been up that way for the past few weeks due to being stuck in Oxford at school. But I had been fishing acton lake and the crappie were on fire, until that cold front came through about a week or 2 ago. I would imagine that this weekend would be a great time to get on a nice crappie bite at either lake since the water will be warming up again. 

And the best bait for me has still been a red stinger with a chartreuse crappie nibble on it.


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## zaraspook

young-gun-fisher.........cold front (plus lake drawdown) turned off the bite at GLSM, too. Made it to GLSM at about 4:45PM Weds and managed too fish for almost 2 hours. Bite is back on track, more like you'd expect this time of year. Caught 15 crappies and 7 bluegills in the 2 hours. 9 of 15 crappies were legal size but none over 10.5 inches. The big boys and girls don't appear to be in channels yet. All fish males......no big belly females.

Shad were very heavy in my area and lots of big shad were floating recently dead or dying. These were 12"+ fish......haven't seen that before yesterday and could be tied into the alum treatment going on. Getting rid of some of those jumbo shad is probably a good thing. Water temp in my channel was 54.5. It's stabilized at 52-55 for a week or so....good for fishing I think and we could be ready to bust loose at GLSM for crappies.


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## fishwhacker

The fish bite has been excellent for me the last couple days even with the colder evenings, the sunshine warms that water up enough to get them turned on late afternoon untill early evening. Mornings seem to be a little slower. Finding most of the big crappies around brush and nice gills around the rocks. Sounds like this weekend will be nice and the fish will really start hitting again.


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## zaraspook

In the event anyone is curious, there is a live feed to at the link below that provides GLSM water conditions. The sensors are on a buoy near the center of the main lake. Lots of data there but you can observe the daily rise/fall of water temps. As of 6:30AM Fri the sensor shows 51 degrees and it will be the coolest for the day. Yesterday at this time temp was 49, rose to just under 53 by about 8PM, then water temp slowly fell overnight. I've noticed my channel runs 2-3 degrees warmer than the main lake and it confirms fishwhacker's observation of warming water temps thru the day. Other data there...I've tried to watch for water ph changes during the alum treatment. The upper ph sensor seems relatively stable while the bottom ph sensor is wacko and all over the place. Don't know if wacko readings are alum effects or sensor is messed up.

Link is provided by the US Geological Survey http://waterdata.usgs.gov/oh/nwis/uv?site_no=403139084293900


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM for crappies Friday evening, on and off Saturday in the rain, and a bit more Sunday morning. Friday bite was most aggressive catching 20 in 2 hours, 13 of those keepers. Saturday was tough, had to fish deeper, much slower and smaller baits to get anything going. Ended up with 20 again, 12 keepers but put in twice as much fishing time. Biggest crappie was 11.75 inches. Sunday in great weather the bite was slower than Saturday until I found them under a wooden dock. Caught 14 crappies, 8 keepers plus 9 big gills. All fish caught on 1/16 oz jig and plastics without waxworms but I know many like to tip with meat.

Water temp on the main lake was 54 Sunday morning. Channel was about 3 degrees higher. Still seeing a high percentage (60%) of fish greater than the 9" size limit. Most are 9.5-10" and a few 11+". No jumbo ones for me yet but my neighbor pulled in a 14" Saturday morning. Impressive fish.


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## SlabBuster

Is the water green now??????????Or Is the treatments working there?


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## Salmonid

from what i heard, the alum treatments base camp has now moved from the West Bank ramp down to the State park so it appears they are now working on the Eastern half of the lake. Im hoping to get up there tomorrow or Thursday mid day, Ill post with water clarity in main lake then. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

SlabBuster......water is green. It's a question of degree of green. Without the alum it would be greener. Alum is supposed to bond to phosphorus, render phosphorus unavailable for algae to consume, limit algae from unchecked growth. All of phosphorus won't isn't removed from water column The theory is less phosphorus equals less algae. Algae got a head-start 3 weeks ago when our temps soared into 80's and water temp at GLSM bloated to 72-73. Whatever the color, it would be worse without treatment. Clarity last weekend was maybe 4-5".


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## fishwhacker

I think between the whole lake alum treatment, the farmers doing a much better job at managing their manure, the active dredging, and the low rainfall so far this spring that the lake should really show if were heading in the right direction.Sounds like conditions should be perfect to show even more improvement from last year.The only thing that concerns me was the unseasonable warm weather made for a very small fish kill of the rough fish. I'm sure there will be more carp and shad than ever. I do believe they should have shut the tubes off a little earlier than they did in the spillway this year. They can say what they want but I truly believe the lake is way below normal pool. A lot of the fishing structure i normally fish around is exposed this year by feet not by inches. I understand that this is the first time they used the tubes to lower the level of the lake, I hope they have learned a bunch from doing it and know when to shut it off a little better next time. Guess its just an oppurtunity to find deeper structure so I can find them when the water cools off and they go deeper in the fall


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.....you're on target with your statements about the drawdown. At this point it looks like the State went too far. Historically we get 7-8" of rain April/May period. It's still early but if this dry spell hangs on, the summer boating season is in trouble. We may avoid water quality warnings, but lake traffic will come to a standstill when boaters can't get out of the channels to the lake. It's up to Mother Nature now.

I fished Weds evening for about 2 hours. I couldn't fish a couple of my top spots........property owners were unexpectedly home and the spots inaccessible. Still managed to catch 14 crappies with 9 keepers. Biggest was 11". Most of these fish were in shaded areas, very close to the bank and bite was aggressive....no messing around with the bait. With the drawdown most of the water I'm fishing is 3' or less. Water temp in my channel was 63. Clarity in my channel not more than 4" and the hue of green looks more like May than April. Main lake isn't as green as channels. Carp are moving back in. In my opinion if the crappie spawn hasn't started yet, it's not far away if water temps remain above 60. Weekend temps are predicted to be cold with lows in 30's....might slow the spawn.


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## zaraspook

In 2.5 hours Friday evening caught 22 crappies, 13 of 22 were keepers with 2 at 11+". Most keepers were 10-10.5". No playing around Friday......bite was aggressive. After I caught the first 4-5 I up-sized my bait and felt it was a good move. Storm front went thru Friday evening, winds cooled fast and changed to NW flow, but didn't impact the bite immediately.

Saturday AM fished another 3 hours and action was s l o w. There was a crappie tourney going on and it didn't seem they were lighting it up either. I caught 15, 7 keepers but fish were tough to locate. Majority of crappies caught Saturday AM were within a foot of concrete seawalls, but occasionally pulled a single from normal wood locations. Also caught a small bass, 1/2 dozen gills, and a sheephead Fri-Sat.

Didn't check water temp but would guess it was about 60. Water level remains low. The front didn't produce more than a tenth inch of rain.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> from what i heard, the alum treatments base camp has now moved from the West Bank ramp down to the State park so it appears they are now working on the Eastern half of the lake. Im hoping to get up there tomorrow or Thursday mid day, Ill post with water clarity in main lake then.
> 
> Salmonid


salmonid.......tough conditions for the St Marys Catmaster last Saturday. Were there a lot of boats/teams in the tourney and how was the bite?


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## Salmonid

sorry, was meaning to post but forgot, had 45 teams for the tourney and the main lake was right at 63 degrees, we fished more out in the main lake this time, water was better with about 7-8" visability in mid lake region. I was suprised the bite was as good as it was, we caught probably 30-35 fish, just about all dinks with a 4.25 lber as our biggest fish, ended up in 9th place with just over 24 lbs, took 38 to win, so overall weights were down only a hair so the bite was decent for most of the better teams. Caught one of the ugliest black tarred channels ever, my partner has the pics, Ill try to get them, also saw about 5-6 lb walleye floating out in mid lake. was a real nice fish. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

salmonid........lots of fish but short on heavy ones, huh? I guess the floating walleye was a dead one? In 2010 I caught an ugly, tarry black channel as well. It was in the 4-5# range. I couldn't understand or explain the streaks and patches of black. Do you have a theory on the coloring?


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## zaraspook

Got in 2 hours of bank fishing for GLSM crappies Weds (25th) evening. Fast paced bite for the first hour. After the first 4 dropped off lifting from the water I caught 16. Second hour was slower, only managed 6. Overall 13 of the 22 were keepers, but no big ones. These were all 9.5-10.5" fish and dark, likely males, and caught from submerged wood/brush in 2-4' water. 

Most crappies guys at GLSM opt for very small plastics, split tails and stingers in the spring and switch to modest size grubs in the summer. I'm a contrarian, because of GLSM's murky waters. Usually use grubs, specifically Southern Pro Triple Tips and upsized to Southern Pro Hot Grubs in the last few weeks. My theory is the larger profile and swimming twister tails of the grubs displace more water than smaller tubes/stingers/plastics......easier for the fish to sense and locate the bait. With the big mouths they have, crappies certainly have no problem inhaling larger baits.


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## fishwhacker

I agree zaraspook the bigger lures really do attract nice crappies in GLSM I have even recently thrown cranks baits to catch them. I think most GLSM fisherman use smaller baits because of the lack of crappie population the last 5 more like 10 years. Many have moved to the bigger bluegill population. I think people have discovered around the area that bluegills are just as delicious as crappies and the fight can be just as fun. I also think little chartreuse hair jigs is what most of our grandfathers used so we just follow suit. I think this is also why bigger rubber or plastic jigs are working so well now because many of the crappies have never seen them.


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## young-gun-fisher

I agree with using larger baits now that the water is warmer. Earlier in the year only stingers produced for me, but in the last 3 weeks or so the crappie have been slamming jigs that are 2-3 times the size of my normal jigs. These larger jigs also make it much easier to hook those elusive paper lips.


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## zaraspook

Saturday was my only opportunity to fish GLSM last weekend. Got there about 9:30am.............first round of storms hit 20 minutes later. Decided to stay dry and ran some errands. Fished about 1/2 the time between 11:30 and 2:30PM. Just couldn't locate the fish..........moved a lot, changed up baits, color, sizes without respectable results. Doubt I had more than 8 bites.....caught only 5 crappies, one at 10.5" and another just past the 11" mark. 3 of my fish were caught after downsizing to a purple and silver tube, but action still s l o w.

Talked to another guy who caught just 2 in 3.5 hours but said the bite was smokin' hot Friday evening before the front. I'd planned to stay Sat night and fish Sunday morning,too, but chucked it in and went home late Saturday afternoon. Water temp was 54 in my channel....coolest it's been in weeks.


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## zaraspook

Good to hear you guys are upsizing, too. It's a good point that better quantity and quality of fish make those bigger baits more practical. I'm sure the crappies haven't seen some of my plastics.........got some butt-ugly color combinations I use and it seems the the uglier the better.


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## Lowell H Turner

"Beauty" IS in the eye of the beholder, sir...soon. VERY soon.


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## zaraspook

LHT.....haven't heard much from you lately. You must be doing some fishing? Dredge, baby, dredge!


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## Lowell H Turner

Forgive my absence, sir. Have been waging a relentless effort in our basement that currently is approaching the size and scope of the Battle of the Atlantic; I have 165 more blocks to grind clean of old flaking deteriorated paint and failed epoxy patches to achieve a (relatively ) clean bonding surface after renewing 90 linear ft of mortar that currently is also in need of replacement. After sealing the (hopefully) dry clean block faces and applying the waterproofing it`s outside to dig down 6` just lower and alongside the footer to install new mortar, waterproof Flex Seal fabric, 6" oversized drainage, gravel, ect. The basement is becoming a 2" deep minnow pond and she is (deleted) mad as (deleted). She said (DELETED ) NO !!! I can`t keep it regardless of how much it will save on bait cost, so it`s finish it off, i guess...


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## zaraspook

LHT......don't envy your (deleted) ordeal but you clearly have a plan. If she sees no merit in converting the basement into a minnow pond, if she'll allow another foot or so of water depth, perhaps she'll acquiesce for a full-blown fish hatchery? You could raise walleye fingerlings for stocking CJ?


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## CHOPIQ

My Dad fished St Marys on Monday afternoon and did well on the crappies. He said in about 2 hours he caught at least 25-30 keepers and a few gills 9-10". He said you had to be right on the wood to get a bite. If you weree a foot away nothing.


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## Lowell H Turner

Thank You for seeing the merit in making the utmost GOOD come from an admittedly otherwise ugly situation; but alas she is standing firm if still slightly damp and has all but acceded the neccessity of moving Heaven AND some earth to FORCE that much water where she would RATHER have it go vs. where it`s running lately. And forgive my over confidence, but most of the outside is largely unpainted or tarred, power spray it off after excavating it, repair the mortar (or fill the blocks- evil laughter sound effect here) add waterproof sheeting and fabric, 6" oversized drainage, gravel, ect; 3 months tops, less than $1000 total. Something about mice and men...


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## zaraspook

Weds afternoon/evening fished from bank for crappies at GLSM. After an hour......just three and disappointed. Cut grass for a while then back to fishing. Caught 9 more in 2nd hour. Things are looking up but had to finish mowing grass. Grabbed the rod then caught another 9 that hour. Took a break to put mower away, clean up and got ready to head home. Started to put away the rod, but decided I'd try just a bit more fishing before dark. In half an hour managed 8 more. Put my rod away and had a pleasnat drive home.

29 total but have to admit I got into a lot of dinks I haven't been seeing. Only 7 were keepers, a significant drop from April's rate of 55% keepers. Biggest was 11.25. When you found fish they were aggressive but spotty, probably due to quite a few carp in the channels and shallows. Areas that normally produce wouldn't yield a bite, but an hour later you'd catch 4-5 in less than 10 minutes (after carp moved on?). My catches were all around submerged wood. Water clarity not great in my channel, somewhat due to rain but predominantly rising chlorophyll levels. However, water level was up 2-3" from the Tuesday rain....hope the rising water trend continues.


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## zaraspook

According to the link below, anglers say the best crappie lake in Ohio is...................._*Grand Lake St Marys*_. Everyone knows that, right?

Link is http://www.daytondailynews.com/ohio...some-area-lakes-the-best-in-ohio-1363823.html


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## Lowell H Turner

Dare say did I hear the word "Crappiethon "? SOON...but untill then DREDGE, baby ! DREDGE !!! Wanna hear Brutus ROARIN` !


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## fffisch

I live just 10 miles from GLSM and fished it a couple times back in March, but did not keep anything. When I get a notion to maybe take a few from there for the table, my friends will say to me " your not going to eat any fish from there are you" so then I don't. I know that people say they taste just fine, but I seen the lake look like a sludge lagoon just 2 summers ago and that picture is still in my head. Maybe in a couple of years of more clean up. Right now I am catching all the fish I need at Indian & Loramie, but really miss the fishing at GLSM.


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## Lowell H Turner

Hello fffisch ! How`s everything?


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## fffisch

Hi Lowell. I am doing quite well. Retired about 5 weeks ago and have been enjoying spending alot of time in my new office: ( My Nitro bass boat). Have not seen you on the Ohio chapter site for awhile?


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## Lowell H Turner

Attempting to stem the over abundance of H2O in the basement. Will post there shortly. Congratulations on your retirement, sir...


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Friday evening, less than 2 hours......caught 30 with 22 at 9" or better. Most fish were 10 inchers with 1 at 11". Bite was crazy and found fish about everywhere I tried. There were two 20 minute rain showers Friday while I fished, then a 45 minute deluge about 9:15PM.

Both a crappie and a bass tourney were going on Saturday so couldn't fish some of my spots when I wanted to but fished for about 2.5 hours in the morning before leaving around noon. Caught 20 with 12 legal size.......fish were much tighter to wood. Again, most keepers were solid 10" fish but 2 between 11-11.5. Also caught a small bass.

Came back Sunday evening and began fishing at 7:15PM, quitting at 8:30PM to head home. Caught 19 but only 7 keepers, but one was 11.5" and another 1/4'' past the 12" mark. The 12"+ fish was a female and bulging with eggs. I'm sure some fish have spawned but at least that one girl hadn't deposited her eggs. 

Over the 3 sessions the catch totaled 74 crappies with 41 legal sized or better. Didn't check water temps but expect it at least 73-74 degrees. Lake is up 3-4 inches in the last 10 days. Still low but approaching a reasonable level.


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## fished-out

Was there Friday and Saturday as well. Results were the same--tons of 9.5-10" fish with a few over 10". Released all of them. Had at least 50 keepers each day. Bodes well for bigger fish in the next few years.


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## zaraspook

Celina Daily Standard reported GLSM did not receive a "whole lake" alum treatment. The treatment ended Mon 4-30, treated the center of lake again, but with a heavier dosage of alum than last year. Three dredges are in operation. Rough fish removal project is in action. And remember the GLSM carp tournament is May 18-20! Article is at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=17912


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## fished-out

By the way, saw at least a dozen big dead walleye floating around last week. I'm talking 5 pounds and up. No indication of what killed them. Also, I've never seen so many decent sized snakes--in the water,hanging in the bushes (doing the wild thang), in the trees, rocks, docks--everywhere! Kinda freaky.


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## zaraspook

fished-out.....regarding the big walleyes you saw floating, possible some are dying from old-age/natural causes maybe. Walleye were stocked from 1999 to 2006 and word was they didn't reproduce at GLSM. Some of those walleyes could be 13 years old now. Even the younger ones would be 7 years old. Where did you spot the floaters?

Noticed the same regarding the snakes and they are a bit too curious for my liking. One huge one was as big around as my wrist and near 4' in length. Saw an oversized snapping turtle too. It came up, floated on the surface for several minutes. Shell diameter was the size of a large bird-bath.


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## zaraspook

Crappie bite at GLSM was smokin' hot Weds 9th. Was there late afternoon and evening. In 3 hours caught 53 with 26 keepers. My best was a 12", with a few 11"+, and again a lot of fish just over or under 10". Took most of them within 2-3 feet of bank, near wood , but caught fish almost anywhere. Took a few nice chunk gills and a 16" channel cat. Fast action and fun. Doubt it can get any better and this action won't last long.

Caught the first 15 using a Southern Pro "Hot Grub". It's a good sized grub/twister tail.....larger than most GLSM fishermen use. The last 38 were caught on a new bait for me. It's called a "Lindy Whatsit". Fish liked both and I don't really think it mattered what bait you tossed.


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## Lowell H Turner

Good day fishing, sir !


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## fishwhacker

Was feeling lazy last night so got 2 dozen minnows instead of jigging like normal. Ran out of minnows in 2hrs with a nice crappie being caught on each one. Lots of 8's and close to 9's but only had 4 keepers


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## fished-out

Saw most of them floating in the main lake as we moved from canal to canal. Guess it could be natural causes, but I fish alot of lakes, including the walleye lakes in ne ohio, and can't recall ever seeing so many at this time of year on any lake. In fact, it's been unusual to see dead walleye period. Several of them looked to be only a day or so old (no fungus).




zaraspook said:


> fished-out.....regarding the big walleyes you saw floating, possible some are dying from old-age/natural causes maybe. Walleye were stocked from 1999 to 2006 and word was they didn't reproduce at GLSM. Some of those walleyes could be 13 years old now. Even the younger ones would be 7 years old. Where did you spot the floaters?
> 
> Noticed the same regarding the snakes and they are a bit too curious for my liking. One huge one was as big around as my wrist and near 4' in length. Saw an oversized snapping turtle too. It came up, floated on the surface for several minutes. Shell diameter was the size of a large bird-bath.


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## zaraspook

Got in about 2 hours fishing Friday evening at GLSM. Bite was good.......28 crappies and amazingly 22 of those >9" state limit. 11.5" biggest. 

Saturday fished for 3 hours yielding 29 crappies of which 19 were >9". Bite was a little more timid and crappies weren't chasing as much. Required a slower presentation and closer to the cover. My biggest was 11.5". My son and a couple nephews caught about 40 between them, one of which was a 12". 

Sunday morning in two hours I caught 34 . A lot of these fish were 10.5-11" and definitely more aggressive than Saturday. 23 were keeper size.

In addition to the crappies I caught 6-8 bluegills, a 4 lb channel cat, a 14-15" shovelhead cat, plus a small bass. Crappie fisherman were abundant and a Bass tourney going on Saturday. Locals are suggesting this is the best crappie fishing in 10-12 years. Business was brisk at the bait shops. I heard the winning bag for the bass tourney was about 14.5 lbs (5 fish) and biggest bass reported at 5.7 lbs. Water temps were about 68 Saturday and 70-71 on Sunday in my channel.


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## zaraspook

After work hustled to GLSM to see if crappie bite was still hot. It is, however, bite was slow in the places I normally can count on. Wasn't "hot" until I stumbled into the back end, very shallow areas of channels. Caught 34 with an amazing 25 of those keeper size. Nothing bigger than 11.25", but fish after fish was just under or just over 10". 90% of fish taken within 6" of the bank and water depth less than a foot. I caught 'em off rip rap, gravel, and wood (nothing more than a few twigs). 

Also found a couple of largemouth bass in the same cover. They liked my crappie jig, too. One was 13" and the other 14.5". The bigger one looked to be a female......really fat with eggs. Those aren't jumbo bass, but on my 9.5" flyrod put up a good fight. Also caught 1/2 dozen bluegills and a couple small cats. According to guys in a bass boat, water temp was 77 where I was fishing.

If you go, seek out the back end of channels, the shallower the better. Swim your jig/plastic right next to water's edge and out a couple feet. Drop it in every nook and cranny along the shore line. You'll have fun.


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## zaraspook

Fished last Friday (18th) for about 3 hours. Coaxed 32 crappies on to shore. 19 keepers and largest 11.5". Was doing better on keepers until the last 1/2 hour before dark......7 in a row were dinks. Also caught a small bass, lost a better bass on it's 2nd jump, and caught a couple cats. Also a few gills but no size to speak of. 

Got in another 1.5 hours last night (Mon -21st). Still some crappies spawning, but we're well on the backside. Caught 15 with 11 keepers and 2 were 11". 75% of the crappies were caught in very shallow areas and within a foot of bank. Also caught a small bass, a few dink gills, and a couple more catfish. I'm still amazed at the way the crappies try to eat a plastic called the Watsit Grub by Lindy. You'll catch 'em on all the normal plastics everyone uses, but the bite is different on the Watsit. They flat out want to eat it. Few hookups are in the lip.....these are deep and well into the roof of the mouth. Plus, I nearly always catch a bass on the Watsit....not as common with other small crappie plastics.


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## Lowell H Turner

You seem to be doing very well with them. Will have to check out the "Watsit" bodies...


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## zaraspook

My son found the Watsits in a discount/clearance bin at Bass Pro in Cincy. Haven't located them at any other retail outlet, but our supply is running low. The color combination we have is a green (maybe a chartreuse green) on the top 1//2 of bait and a yellow (or chartreuse yellow) on the bottom 1/2. It looks more like a creature bait......small legs on the ribbed grub body. We buy just the grub bodys, not pre-rigged ones, and put them on a 1/16th jig head. with a little TLC the grub bodies will last for 50 or more fish. Since my stock is low, I'm into the repair business.....super gluing ripped Watsits that are ripped to shreds.
http://www.lindyfishingtackle.com/productdetail.aspx?id=watsitgrubbodies


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## Lowell H Turner

Apparently another algae "bloom" is underway at the lake; Channel 7 (WHIO) reported signs have been posted. DREDGE that bad boy !


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## zaraspook

LHT........The advisory is somewhat of a mixed bag. World Health Organization standard for water recreation is 20 ppb. Ohio has a new advisory system........6 ppb microcystins for very young and aged. The beaches at GLSM tested at about 11 ppb. In past years no advisory would have been posted. Any advisory is not good. At least for now GLSM has no chance to stay under 6 ppb from May to Sept unless we have no sun and water temps are under 60 degrees. Without the alum treatment beaches probably would have been beyond the 20 ppb level. Hard to imagine beaches won't exceed 20 pbb by the 4th of July holiday.

Boat traffic at GLSM for the holiday weekend was light and steady but did include jet skis and tubers being pulled. Boater beaches were popular and people in the water cooling off. Channels are pea soup green and probably worse than normal for this time of year. Early sun and March heat got things going early. Channels were not treated with alum. On the other hand, main lake was treated with alum and is more brown than green. Very unusual coloring.....haven't seen it before but most locals feel less green is a good thing. Locals are more worried about low water level on lake and wonder if we'll be able to navigate channels to reach the lake. Lake is no where near "normal" level - haven't recovered from the drawdown in April.


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## zaraspook

Pleasantly surprised Friday night to still see signs of crappie spawn ongoing. Friday 25th evening fished an hour before dark catching 19 crappies, 11 keepers. Also caught a bass, couple small gills and a catfish. Most of the crappies were in a foot of water or less and next to bank.

Took an hour Saturday morning to catch 11 more, 6 keepers, then 6 more Saturday before dark with 4 of those keeper size. Shallow bite is waning but good 10-11.5" fish still being taken. Didn't get to fish the rest of the weekend.

Doubtful I'll get to wet a line before month ends. Tallied up my crappie catch from GLSM during May. Caught 367 for May 2012 at GLSM, up about 40% from last year. In 2011 30-35% were larger than the state minimum of 9". Haven't tallied it yet but expect 55% this year were greater than the 9" minimum. Should be some great fall crappie fishing and spring 2013 could be outstanding.


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## zaraspook

Spring crappie bite waning at GLSM. In an hour and 10 minutes Friday just before dark managed to catch 9 with 6 of them 10-11 inch keepers. That was actually better than I expected. Saturday AM tried again but chucked it in after an hour with no crappies. That was actually worse than expected.


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## zaraspook

Hoped that lower water temps from our cool weather would spur the crappie bite at GLSM. Fished almost 3 hours starting at 5:30PM Weds evening. I moved frequently to catch 10 in the first hour and half. The 10th fish was the first short of 10". In the next 45 minutes caught 8 crappies, also 7-8 bluegills. Took another 45 minutes to pick up 2 more to reach 20. Total of 13 were keepers. 

Fish weren't inhaling the plastic like a few weeks ago.....at least 10 dropped off as did a 14-15" largemouth. The Watsits weren't producing as well and I changed early to a Triple Tip grub, a color called "motor oil". Most of the fish were near bank, very shallow, and best spots were around grass and plant growth next to bank. The fish were cool when you held them....suspect water temperature was 69-70 range. It was fun but had to keep moving to catch fish.....except one area that produced 7 crappies in about 30 minutes.


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## zaraspook

On Saturday 6/9 fished GLSM for an hour and half before dark. Caught 12 crappies with 8 legal, biggest was 11". Also caught 2 small bass (10-11") and a few small gills. Tried again Sunday morning for an hour and 15 minutes. 8 crappies but only 4 keeper size and 6 gills (only 1 a keeper). Session also produced another small bass and the most fun was a 3# channel cat. Don't know if it was eggs or just well fed, but belly was about to explode. Looked like it had swallowed a tennis ball. A 3# channel cat is exciting on a crappie rig.

All fish caught on curly tail grub (Southern Pro Triple Tip) in Firetiger color. I'm surprised crappie fishing is still this good. Most of the fish were caught very shallow, under 2 feet of water.


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## Lowell H Turner

Sounds like you`re still kicking tail and takin` names, sir. And will attest the only thing better than that 3# cat was a BIG ole brute who inhaled my catch while messin` around with an ice pole for crappie during a hot summer night off the fuel pier. Caught the crappie, and suddenly the line went slack. Up to the surface came a cat who`s lips were sporting my crappie`s tail still thrashing...it`s head was atleast 6" wide. Touched the surface and I tried to quickly grab him; he literally SMOKED the Zebco UL 33`s drag and broke off...


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## Salmonid

Good story Lowell, nothing like a big cat showing up when ice fishing....

Zara, hows the watr looking right now, Ill be up this weekend for the Outdoorsman 3 day catfish tourney. Good job on still getting them specks!

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......the channels, particularly closed end channels, are very green. Main lake less green with a brownish hue. Big story is the water level. If the state guys had known spring precipitation would fall this short, I'd like to think the drawdown would have been nixed or at least less severe. Lake is at a level typical for August in my opinion. If rain pattern doesn't change, by summers end boats in many channels will be moored in muck. Dry air easily evaporates 2" a week of water level.

Water will be cloudy with suspended "stuff", but main lake not as cloudy as channels. Temps about 72 degrees in AM and 76 by sunset.daily......up about 4 degrees from this time last week. Bite is surprisingly good for crappies, bass so I'm guessing cats should be active. Could take a hefty bag to get into the $. Good luck!


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## Lowell H Turner

You can do it Salmonid...SPANK `em !


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## zaraspook

LHT......one of the greatest attributes of fishing is never knowing what you may hookup with. You can only guess and hope until you see the catch. Had a few Zebco 33's myself.


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## zaraspook

Still getting a decent crappie bite, but best to play early morning and in the evening. Friday 15th evening produced 12 crappies in a bit over an hour - 10 of those keepers. Saturday AM produced 7 crappies of which 4 were dinks. I didn't get to fish Saturday evening, but Sunday in the morning caught another 7. None were bigger than 10.5" but rare to catch anything shorter than 7-8" this year. Keep moving and fish shaded areas.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.........how'd you do in the 3-day catfish event at GLSM last weekend?


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## zaraspook

Managed to get in an hour and a half of crappie fishing late evening Friday 22nd. Two crappies only, couple of nice bluegills, and 2# channel cat decided to eat my plastic. Tried again for 45 minutes Saturday early AM but nothing shaking except a few bluegills. Water temp Friday was an ugly 87 degrees in my channel. Water that warm doesn't bother the fishing, but it sure screws up the catching. Water level down another two inches and alarmingly low for this time of year.


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## zaraspook

No GLSM crappie posts lately because no paper mouths caught lately. Cats are active, but not much else going on. Was at lake Sunday afternoon for 2 hours, just to pay a local lumberjack for taking 1/2 a tree off my roof. Tree came down during that Friday evening storm 6/29. 

Worked on cleaning out my storage shed then putting it back together. Last item to go into shed is my crappie rig. Decided to dunk a jig before putting rod away.......hadn't used it for couple weeks. First cast swimming the jig thru a series of tree limbs I added near shore, a fish grabbed the jig and headed under an nearby limb. Took a few seconds to bring the fish back around the limb and thought I had on a whopper crappie. Instead it was a 14" largemouth bass and very pretty specimen. I was surprised to catch anything and will take a respectable LM any day. 

Water levels are dangerously low at GLSM. Drought has done nothing to help recover from the spring 16-18" drawdown. A few more weeks of this and water depth at my seawall will no longer float my pontoon. Unfortunate, but state boys drawdown tactics have diminished GLSM boat traffic more than this year's algae.


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## Salmonid

Good post Rande, we are not back up there for another catfish tourney until the 21st, my buds up there say the BG algea is starting to show up in the stagnant low waters. 
Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Correct, Mark. Stagnant areas have more dense algae. That water will have a film on it, and scum in some areas similar to a farm pond. If you drop a fish into the filmy water, it will create bubbles on surface, like dishwater. The bubbles don't go away. Film is not evident on wind blown water of main lake. 

Scum was worse previous 2 years. Alum treatment helped in my opinion but drawdown (less water) means current algae is concentrated in less water volume. With normal rainfall amounts, I think lake would have looked best in quite a few years. Water depth is more of issue than algae. People need to be cautious. Water depth deceiving in places......150 yards from shore where water is normally at least 3-4 feet, it's down to 2'. Doesn't take much of an object in 2' of water to interfere with prop. Be careful out there during the next tourney.


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## Lowell H Turner

You absence was noted, sir. Hopefully the tree didn`t do any serious damages to the roof or house, am certain you might find a place to keep some of the limbs wet. And yes, think perhaps the "powers that be" may well have misjudged the rainfall totals abit. We NEED some good soaking rains rather badly...hopefully the dredges are working...


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## zaraspook

LHT.....tree was an 75-80' maple about 15' from house. Winds cracked it exactly 1/2 way up. The top 1/2 of tree remained hinged to trunk and must have been in a controlled fall as it fell to roof. Fortunately, no significant damage to roof. Some of limbs already strategically soaking in my channel. However, channel water depth is so low (2-4' at best), unable to completely submerge even a well-trimmed limb. Crappies will like the new cover.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....Did I read it correctly....your team hauled in nearly 42 pounds in St. Mary's Saturday catfish tourney but it was only good for 3rd place? Congrats! 1st place team must have had a big kicker.


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## Salmonid

Yup.. we had 41.75 lbs and 2nd had 41.90 but the highlight of the day was a new lake record for first place who brought in 52.05 lbs and a big kicker of 13.40 lbs ( all weights include the weight of the basket so in reality remove 2 lbs from everything for the real weights) but 50 lbs on a 6 fish ticket is really something!! The lake looked pretty good, water ris still a little low but the dropping water temps must have had the bite "on" since everyone it seemed had over 30 lbs,

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......I was at GLSM Saturday and in the evening took my wife out for a leisurely cruise on the lake. After about 10 minutes it sunk in.....there were a ton of fishing boats out there and I then remembered the catfish tourney was going on. It was really an unusual site.......not normal to see a lot of fishing boats scattered across the surface of GLSM. Rarely do bass guys, or crappie anglers fish the main lake. You rarely see more than a 1/2 dozen anglers out there. Enjoyable to see 40+ rigs out angling in the lake.

Congrats on your winnings. You and your partner seem to be doing well in your 1st year of the Grand Lake Catmaster series. That was an expensive .15 pound differential between 2nd and 3rd place.


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## zaraspook

Haven't crappie fished GLSM for a while but caught this largemouth Saturday evening (28th). Put up a good fight on my fly rod. Length was 17.25 inches and guessing the weight at 3.25 pounds. Apologies for the crappy photo.....my cellphone cam adds a ton of contrast.....the scale isn't legible. Caught a 2nd bass but this one could have eaten it as a snack.


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## Salmonid

Thats a nice healthy looking bass, I got one about the same size in a cast net about a month ago along the road wall at the West End Ramp. 

I noticed lots of 7-8" shad recently so Im thinking they will do a mass bombing of late season fry when they get there first spawn in in a few weeks. Should be a ton of food for the fall eaters to fatten up for the winter!

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....I concur with your observation of 7-8" shad. Seeing lots of them in my channels. Your cast-netting isn't making much of a dent on the large shad population and not many predators in GLSM that can handle that size. Please feel free to harvest at will!

When is the next event in the GLSM Catmaster series?


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## Salmonid

Aug 18th (6pm -midnight)is the last official event but we qualified for the Invitational which is Sept 8th (noon to 6pm) and yeah, we would love to find more of the bigger shad but the last few times out all we could find were the 7-8 guys which work fine but I like the bigger ones as you get more pieces out of em. Is there much of fall crappie bite at GLSM??

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......Excellent fall crappie bite at GLSM.......better than in spring and fewer anglers to compete with. Oct and November are usually best months of the year. I also seem to run into more channel cats in the fall.

I was at GLSM last evening.......fished from shore about an hour for crappies even though I hadn't caught a crappie since late June. Did manage 2 crappies, a 6" dink and a nice one 10.5-11" range. Surprised that I caught any. Highlight was a channel cat of about 3#'s that liked my jig. It was one of those dark ones, speckled with black splotches all over. The black almost looks like tar and I think I read you caught one of those during the cat tournaments. Devilish looking things, but it was healthy and a handful on my fly rod.


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## zaraspook

Had to make a quick trip to my lake place at GLSM Thursday evening (8-16-12). It was sprinkling rain but never hard enough to rate as a shower. About 7pm pulled out my crappie rig to test the bite from shore. First spot was empty and moved on. 2-3 bites at 2nd location but no fish.....figured they were gills and not crappies. Third spot produced a quick 10" crappie followed by 2 more that were short. Kept moving picking up a single here and there working a 100 yard bank of mostly concrete seawall. After an hour and 20 minutes I'd coaxed 9 crappies onto shore, a small bass, and a chunky 7"+ gill. Only 2 of the 9 crappies were keepers, the others in the 6-8" range, but great to see the bite warming up as water temp declines.

Water temps are running 72-76 this week, and actually dipped below 70 5-days ago. The water I was fished is no more than 3', lake level is very low but seems to be holding at current level.


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## Salmonid

Zara we were prefishing up there on Tuesday night, had the entire lake to ourselves, seriously, from 4-dark, we saw only two other boats. Yeah water was 74-75 and in the main lake was still only a few inches of visability and fairly turbid with algea. We caught some good fish though but kept moving to find fish, found fish in 3 of the 4 places we went so that was good. Last regular catfish tourny is tomorrow from 6-mid, then the classic for the top 30 teams will be held on the 8th noon -6 pm, after that you can have your lake back...LOL

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......I was at GLSM this weekend. Caught a few crappies Friday evening but nothing to speak of Saturday and Sunday. Took a group out on my pontoon Saturday evening just before sunset and could tell the cat tourney was on......more fishing boats than pleasure craft on the lake. Boat traffic is way down. Low water level has boat owners spooked, water levels too shallow in some channels to even get to main lake. If my channel drops another 4-6" my pontoon will be locked in.

I checked the Outdoorsman website for your cat tourney results, but nothing posted yet. How did you and partner fare?


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## Salmonid

Luck has not been on our side lately..we finished 6th out of 35 teams, typical we had the second biggest fish for the 3rd time this year there, this time got beat by .05/100 of a lb. ( ours was 10.8 lbs) and with an hr left in the tourney, I lost a pig of a fish just out of nets reach, that fish would have given us 3rd place and some money. Im not sure what i need to do to appease the fish gods but apparently im on the "list" right now, also blew out a trailer tire on the way up...

First place was almost 47 lbs, 2nd was 46, 3rd was 41+, 4th was 40+,5th was right at 40 and we had almost 39 lbs.

Looking forward to a noon to 6 pm classic on the 8th for thats where the top 30 teams will compete, we seem to do much better durring daylight hrs. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......understandably frustrating when you get bested by so little weight. 0.05 pounds is the maybe the weight of a cat whisker? Your team seems to consistently push into or near the top tier. You're right on the cusp, Mark. Good luck in the Classic during daylight. It might help to wear your ball cap backwards.


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## Salmonid

Yeah we have really had a pretty good year up there for our first year of fishing the tourneys up there against the life long residents, we had a 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th and 2 events during the spawn we choked on but learned a lot and am ready for next year.... waiting for them to update the points race for the entire season, I think Im gonna be in the top 10 out of almost 300 entries so plenty of room for improvement. Thanks for your reports even on the crappies, always enjoy them, BTW we got into a bunch of them castnetting up Coldwater creek where the water temps were 85 vs 75 in the main lake. Several were keepers though!

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......I see your name at the top of the list of "automatic qualifiers" for the Classic, info at this link www.theoutdoorsman.biz/classicqualifiers.htm . Not bad for a rookie! 

Thanks for the info about locating crappies in very warm Coldwater Creek. The few I've caught lately have been water much warmer than I'd expect to find them, but water I expect has higher dissolved oxygen levels.


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## zaraspook

GLSM is testing an alleged algae-killing machine that was installed Weds 23rd. The Japanese-made Kria ionizer negatively charges oxygen molecules, injects the molecules into the water which is claimed to pull carbon molecules out of organic material, including algae. The process kills algae and claims other positive attributes. During a free 3-week test of the unit, water data will be collected to analyze the ionizer's impact. The units carry a $299,000 price tag and claim some successes treating other water quality issues. Could be another tool to use toward treating GLSM's phosphorus/algae issue. The following link to a Celina Daily Standard article provides more detail http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=18815 .


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## zaraspook

Spent about 90 minutes searching for crappies at GLSM last Saturday (25th). Fished from shore in the morning, 7:15 - 8:45 am and kept moving in my channel. Saw only a few timid bites until about 8am. From a 15 foot stretch of bank it started with a chunky 13" bass. Next were back to back keeper crappies followed by a 2 pound channel cat. Final fish was another crappie. Caught all 5 fish within 4 feet of each other in a span of 20 minutes. No bites nor fish after that.


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## Lowell H Turner

Hope they weren`t attending school ! Nice haul though !


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## zaraspook

LHT.......I think that 20 minutes of action was during "recess". Bite has been slow at GLSM. I'm ready for the water temps to cool and water levels to rise. How you guys doing lately at CJ?


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, I haven`t been out much; last spring I promised the significant other if she`d let me help finish that yr`s cover "splash" that afterwards I would work in our basement to dry it up, regardless of what it took. Have hand trenched 45+` of cement to do so after stripping about every speck of old paint and sealent and epoxy from the walls and floor. have about 20` left to trench, some mortar and cement work, and finally paint it. Have been out like 6 times this yr so far...but I will keep my word to her; am intentionally over "Roman engineering" it so will NEVER have to redo any of it again.


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## Lowell H Turner

Forgot to mention that the hardest part is attempting to maintain the required 2-3 degree downward grade in the bottom of the trenches; this ensures drainage while eliminating unwanted puddling afterwards. Am acheiving this grade by constantly pouring water into the trenches as I chip away at it...for such a simple idea ie, gravity is still in effect and water ALWAYS go downhill, it`s rather difficult to actually execute it...however will also say once done it will need ZERO maintainance.


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## zaraspook

LHT.......admire your commitment to please the better-half, but it sounds like painstaking work. Fishermen need to fish. Reward yourself. You've earned it and the floor isn't going anywhere.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM for crappies off and on during the Labor Day weekend. 30-60 minute sessions were usually at daybreak or just before sunset. Crappie bite in my channel is a long way from being good, catching only singles and constantly moving. Ended up with 10 crappies caught, largest an 11.5" white crappie. White crappies are definitely a minority of the paper-mouth population in GLSM. 

Bluegills were active, but mostly small. Also, picked up 3 small bass. Largest just under 13". Had a blast playing nice channel cat on my fly rod. Playing tug of war with only 4# test, this fish went pretty much wherever it wanted to go. I managed to keep the fish away from logs and other obstacles nearby. With no net it was finally tuckered out after 10 minutes and I dragged it onto the bank. The cat was 23" plus a tad and was wearing a nice belly. My best guess put it at about 6#. It was a nice specimen, very healthy, the only blemish being loss of an eye. 6# channels are hardly trophy fish, but on a fly rod it's like catching a 15 pounder. During another session later that day I picked up another channel of about 3#. All fish were caught swimming crappie sized plastic grubs/twister tails.

GLSM is at dangerously low water levels. A generous guess is at best it collected .25" of rain from the remains of Isaac. By the time the fall crappie bite turns on, may not have water to fish in.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, swore to her I would attack our basement without being told to, and would RELENTLESSLY simply keep doing so until A: it was done, B: I dropped dead or C: she was unwilling to buy what is needed to do it in return for her allowing me to assist with last yr`s CJ cover project. Unfortuneately, the time had come to "pay the piper". Good news is i have exactly 48" of cement left to remove, and recast, approx 90+` of joints to remortar, clean up and some very good waterproof paint to slop onto the walls. Should be done by Oct 1st...BTW, am sure that 6 lb cat was a fistful on 4lb line ! Hopefully the dredges are roaring...


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## zaraspook

LHT...... you're a good man, Charlie Brown. The dredges are a dredgin', at least where there is deep enough water to cover the pipes that carry the sludge. Water is so shallow boat traffic above can hit the pipes running along the bottom.


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## Salmonid

Zara, good report and yeah I know the dredge at Coldwater Creek has been busy but its a slow process, where are the other one(s)I thought there were 3 on the lake but correct me if Im wrong. 

Yup those bigger channels on a long limber rod will give you your moneys worth, LOL Ive caught plenty of them on the fly rod. 

We will be out Saturday in the cold front/rain from noon to 6 this Sat for the Catfish Classic we qualified for , (top 30 teams)

Still havent a plan for where to go since prefishing will be a waste since the conditions will change drastically on Sat so I guess all the guys prefishing this week will be screwed, ( I hope so anyways) 

Hopefully the colder weather will turn the crappies back on and you get a good bite in before the leaves get too bad in the channnels and we can get some rain back in the lake!

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Good luck Salmonid; bring home the "kitties"...I gotta wonder if the deeper water where the dredges have been might do any good ?


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## Salmonid

Good news on two fronts, first while castnetting shad along the rocks at Windy Point, we scored about 2 dozen crappies mostly between about 8+-11" with one beast I should have measured, maybe 13?? so good news there,

Secondly me and my partner Ryan ( Catfish_Chaser) won the Catfish Classic today with 6 channels totalling 42.15 lbs! Ryan going up for polygraph tomorrow. We always do well in cold front conditions and today was no different, fished two spots today and took about half our fish at each place , places we prefished last week and the fish were still in those areas. All taken on fresh cut shad and it was a good day when your throwing back a handful of fish around 6 lbs. 

Water was nice and green, lake temps around 74 and all the creek mouths were chocolate from last nights storm so that should help the lake a little bit.

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Very well done, both of you ! Forgive my asking, how deep were they ?


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## Salmonid

Lowell, they were mostly in 4.5 -6 fow which is fairly deep for GLSM but the dredged areas can be anywhere from from 4-8 Ft deep. We have never had much luck in the newly dredged areas at GLSM but have done ok at Lake Loramie in some of the dredged cuts but some of them have been around for many years.

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Congrats, Salmonid! Nice work by you and Ryan, winning both the first tourney of season at GLSM and the last one, The Classic. (link to Catmaster Classic results at bottom of this post) Thanks for report about the crappies while cast netting. Our crappie population is sitting good right now......numbers are up and size of fish should be outstanding for the fall and next spring. 13" is Fish Ohio class and nice fish for GLSM.

Brutus, the new dredge is deployed in a channel just west of Otterbein area on southeast area of lake. I haven't seen the 3rd one but was told it's somewhere on the north side of lake.

I fished for crappies 1.5 hours Sunday morning at sun up. Caught only 2 crappies but one was 10" and other just over 11". Also caught 2 small bass and 5 gills. Water level appeared to be up 1-2" from recent rain.....a nice change from losing water for last 5 months.

GLSM Catmaster Classic link http://www.theoutdoorsman.biz/Classic.htm


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## zaraspook

Lifeforms and critters returning to GLSM? Celina Daily Standard reports it's the case. Freshwater clams and bryozoa according to the article at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=19012 . I've personally seen about 8 bryozoa in my channel at GLSM.


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## Lowell H Turner

Liked the article especially the part about the aeriation tubes. Individually a small fix, but as a hopefully coordinated effort the effect is accumulative. the return of the fresh water clams is an EXCELLENT sign...the "tide" IS turning, however slowly and every bit of progress only strenghtens the overall effect !


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## zaraspook

Bryozoa (moss animals)........the bryozoa we're seeing at GLSM are similar in appearance as the photo below. Color is more brown than the yellow or golden in the photo. Most are about 8-10 inches from top to bottom and found attached to limbs/twigs suspended underwater. They are circular in shape, 6-8 inches in diameter at the widest point. I've noticed some attached to the bottom of platforms such as dock structure. Guessing they would attach to bottoms of pontoons that aren't often used.

Bryozoa are supposedly good for water quality.....a natural filtering system. Kind of gross looking.


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## Lowell H Turner

Agreed, they are not initially appealling. BUT they are a very necessary part of the food chain and biomass AND still FAR more appealling than blue green algae ! Was reading an article in an older issue of National Geographic about aquatic food chains; was surprised to realise that an accurate model of a typical food chain with apex predators on top is on average 16 to 135 times as wide at it`s base as it is tall, depending on where it is and the time of yr...you can have the base (lower organisms ie, bacteria, plankton, diatoms, mosses, algae, ect ) without the top predators as a wide disc shaped model but you simply CANNOT have the apex predators without the base; the system instantly collapses and the predators starve very rapidly. Guess that something we as humans should be more aware of...


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## zaraspook

From reading a 13 year online series from a lady's study on a lake in Massachusetts, she noticed the bryozoa only apprear on her lake during summers of significant drought. Her theory is that drought means no significant runoff entering lake from the watershed. Without the phosphorus and nitrates flowing into her lake, the bryozoa do their thing. Normal rainfal means normal runoff and the stuff doesn't appear and thrive. Duh! Our summer conditions support her hypothesis. 

The appearance of bryozoa at GLSM may not be linked to efforts to clean the lake, but due to lack of new "crap" entering the lake this year. ?


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## Lowell H Turner

Believe you are correct; the organisms are present but normally lack the conditions that allow them to become more obvious and more abundant.


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## nitsud

Bryozoa are seriously awesome things that had me marching over the web, starting here. I hope they are harbingers of better days up there!


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## zaraspook

nitsud.....Was at GLSM last evening (Weds). Did not see the bryozoa "pods" at the locations previously found. All were previously attached and suspended to underwater limbs/branches. I'm speculating dramatic drop in water temps could be related to disappearance. Last Friday evening water temp was 75-76. Water temp yesterday was down to 65 and noticed from an online sensor this morning temps are 62. 

I fished a bit for crappies. Caught only one but it was just over 11" and thick. Lost another lifting it out of water and over the seawall......it was a good 1/2 pound heavier than the 11" one I landed. Also caught 8 bluegills and 5 of those were eater size. Bluegill bite is definitely active and bigger fish showing up. I expect an excellent fall crappie bite, lots of 10"+ fish, if we have enough water in the channels to hold fish. Water levels at bank which are normally around 3' this time of year are only 14". My neighbor must have caught 30 gills in an hour, but his fish ran smaller. He uses much smaller plastics than I do.

Water is about as green as it's been anytime this year. I don't suspect algae is more abundant. As the water volume of lake continues to fall from evaporation, the algae/chlorophyll content becomes more concentrated.


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## zaraspook

New concept under testing at GLSM with goal to help reduce phosphorus flowing from hog farms and into the watershed. The process may stink but the goal is worthy. Costs to ship liquid manure out are high due to weight (manure is 95% water). The concept uses settling tanks to allow heavier crap to settle to the bottom of the tanks. The sludge at the bottom of tanks is more highly concentrated with phosphorus than the liquid on top. Hauling the concentrated sludge will be more economical and the sludge commercially attractive as fertilizer.

Testing is being done at the Heitkamp farm just north of Maria Stein and within a couple miles of GLSM. The Celina Daily Standard article is at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=19032 . Kudos to the farm-owner and other involved for their efforts. A state grant of $4500 is funding the test. Could be the crappiest but best investment ever made by the State!


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## zaraspook

Friday (21st) evening managed to fish for 90 minutes. Light to medium rain the entire time, but didn't get wet wearing a rain jacket. I knew water temps were down around 62 and expected some good crappie action with the front moving thru. Action was disappointing. Caught only 6 crappies, the biggest just over 11" among 3 keepers. Gills were more active, probably 8 of them with 3 or 4 solid keepers. Saturday AM crappie action was slower yet, but gills were frisky. Only caught one crappie in 90 minutes. Downsized my bait and switched from a grub to tube. Caught 5 crappies in the next 45 minutes, 3 were keepers. I think the key was slowing down. A slower presentation with smaller bait was what they wanted. Wished I'd changed Friday evening and might have done better. 

I noticed online this morning that water temp at GLSM has fallen below 58. The shallow action in channels should be turning on.


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## Lowell H Turner

Anything reasonable and economically practical that prevents the majority of the runoff out of the lake is money well spent. Where there is a will, the only obstical is how to make it PROFITABLE. Once THAT happens the majority of the farmers won`t WANT that "extra cash" getting into the lake...


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## zaraspook

LHT......agree. If you build it, they will come (as long as it's profitable).


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## Salmonid

same with the arival of the Asian Carp, if we ( commercial fishermen) can find a way to make a profit, a lot of peope will get mighty rich off them...

Salmonid
PS hey Zara, how are water levels??


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.........water levels remain low. Shouldn't be much different than during your winning performance at the GLSM Classic last month. Lake hasn't received as much rain in last month as around you and the I-70 corridor. However, water temp has plummeted...........57-58 degrees today! Temp was as high as 78 less than 2 week ago. Shallow as it is GLSM warms fast in spring, loses temp equally fast in fall. What should 58 degree water temps do for the cat bite? Will the kitties be on the prowl?


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## Salmonid

We see an eager cat bit for channel cats all the way down to about 45 degres, from there each degree drop is a big step in activity, Ive caught em in 39 degree water from a boat buts tough, better to wait until ice and then catch them with tip ups a t that point. Once water temps settle down and get into a steady rate vs this quick up and down, channels should be putting on the feed bag, Last November was one of the best months I ever had...Food for thought....

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Weds evening fished GLSM from shore for crappies. Was itching to test my theory from prior week to fish smaller plastics and slower presentation. Within 3 minutes had on the first one, a biggie of at least 12". Had to lift him over a limb near the surface and the jig ripped thru the lips. No big deal, I have another 2 hours to fish, and I'll get more big ones.

But the bite wasn't even close to what I'd hoped for. In the first hour I caught four but only 2 keepers. Had two more nicer fish drop off, only hooked in the lips. Nearly every crappie caught was lip-hooked, not that solid roof of the mouth hook set. The crappies were taking the bait but not eating it. Thought I'd change colors, maybe get a more aggressive bite. Caught 5 more in the next hour, but nothing bigger than 9.5", and all lip-hooked. I tried another 40 minutes to catch a 10th crappie, but the bite totally shutdown.

Water temp was 59 and fish felt cold in your hand. Also caught 3 gills but they weren't keepers. Lake water level is holding it's own, no longer falling, but areas normally 3' are 15-16" in depth. Fall bite is not off to a roaring start and I think impacted by low water levels.


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## zaraspook

Got in about 3 hours crappie fishing at GLSM. Managed 9 crappies and at least 20 gills. Starting to see some very nice gills, but majority are small. 3 of crappies were keepers, biggest 11". Best news in 5 months was the the rise in water level. For the week the area collected 3" of rain and lake was up about 3-4". Water temps were 60-61 range.


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## Lowell H Turner

Forecast is for more rain; should help raise the lake abit more...


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## zaraspook

Bring it on!


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## zaraspook

Add one more water quality improvement pilot to the list of GLSM projects. At no cost to local or state tax payers, this one sinks small aerators to the lake bottom. The devices generate air bubbles which react with microbes/bacteria to naturally consume excess nutrients in the water. To speed the process the area is sprayed with the bacteria. A company in Fraser, Mi called Organic Pond installed the system Tuesday into an acre test site in the Otterbein area of the lake. The company claims the system reduced muck in the bottom of a 160 acre lake from nearly 5 feet to about one foot over a three year period. Celina Daily Standard article about the pilot testing is below and it includes updates of other pilots in underway.
http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=19147


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## zaraspook

Got in almost 3 hours crappie fishing Weds afternoon/evening. The operative word is fishing, but not much catching. In the first hour I stayed with the theory of smaller baits and working them slower. Using the same color tube as previous trip, caught a jumbo bluegill in the first 5 minutes, a small cat, and had plenty of ticky-tacky bites like gills can do. None of the bites resembled the action of crappie. Switched to another color tube for 2nd hour and fished the same 1/2 dozen spots. The pattern continued with lots of small bites, caught a few gills, but still no crappie. Last 45 minutes I hit the same spots but tied on a larger grub/twister tail bait, Hot Grub from Southern Pro, which I work faster. Fewer overall bites with the larger bait, but I managed 3 crappie, 2 were keeper size, and a few more gills. Smaller tube baits produced zero crappie, grub earned 3. Wish I'd gone to the grub earlier.

Water temp was 61-62 range but should spiral downward this weekend with lows in the 30's expected. Water level was up a bit more, maybe an inch. My neighbor's rain gauge showed .7 inches of rain since last Saturday.


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## zaraspook

Saturday 10-6 got in a few hours of crappie fishing at GLSM between cutting grass and other chores. Landed 20 crappies, 11 of those better than 9.5" and 2 were a thick 11". Smallest crappie was 8". Bluegill were also active. Estimate I caught at least 25 and more of them keeper size than not. Water temp was 56 degree range. I fished from the bank. Bite was not active everywhere. A single spot produced 15 of the crappies.

Sunday late morning I had another go at it. Bite wasn't nearly as good. In an hour and a half managed 6 crappies, 4 of those keepers (2 were 11"). Bluegills were slower, also, only catching 5. The spot that produced most of the crappie on Saturday yielded only one crappie Sunday. Water temp on Sunday was 54-55. Lake water level is coming up nicely. It's up 6 inches in the last 3-4 weeks but still several inches low for this time of year. My neighbors rain gauge measured 1.7 inches of rain for last week.

Looking at the online water sensor this morning, it shows 52 degrees. That's just about where I think the fall crappie bite at GLSM goes to a strong green light. I'm a bigger bait advocate, particularly in the fall when those big mouth crappie have the feed bag on. Also, I noticed the bite was better late morning to late afternoon. Early AM and late evening the bite fell off.


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## Lowell H Turner

Am gonna do a hopeful bust out this week or next and get some time in on CJ; keep the good news coming in, sir.


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## zaraspook

LHT.........is that basement renovation completed? Better ask your lady before rewarding yourself with leisure time fishing. I think you've earned a fishing expedition. Open water fishing time is waning. Basement is indoor and prime attraction for those single digit temperatures coming in Jan. Go wet a line!


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## Lowell H Turner

Awaiting mortar, have about 90 linier feet to replace and then excavate, form and pour an approx. 5` long irregularly shaped drainage trench with a lower end settling catch that must be about 4" lower than the existing slab. After that, HD clean up, primer the blocks and finally cover the walls with epoxy based paint. Phase I will at long last be complete...


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## zaraspook

Oil derricks and dredging?

Link below is to a Celina Daily Standard article about dredging and oil derricks at GLSM. For those of you who don't know, in 1891 the world's first "off shore" (therefore the first oil derrick "on water") was drilled/constructed at Grand Lake St Marys. At one time 100's of oil derricks operated on GLSM. Today the spot of the last oil derrick on the lake is marked by a rock pile in the center of the lake. The article reports a group wants to erect a 30' replica of a well on the site. Yes......Exxon, Shell, BP and the others owe off-shore oil drilling to a humble beginning at Grand Lake St Marys.

The 2nd half of the article reports on 2012 dredging activities. Despite this year's addition of Brutus, a new dredge, silt/sludge removal is behind the record from 2011. Low water levels created problems floating the 3 dredges and unexpected obstacles slowed production. In the southeast area of the lake dredgers hit a decades old scrap rubber field that fouled dredges. In an hour enough recovered rubber would fill a 16-foot work boat. And a chronic obstacle is locating areas to deposit the quarter of a million cubic yards of sludge removed from the lake. Article is here http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=19195 .


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## fffisch

A buddy of mine was fishing GLSM a couple days ago and said he caught a pile of BIG bluegills. He also said the water still looks like crap. He was going to take the gills and put them in a cage in his grandpa's pond for a while and let them clean out. I don't know if that really works or not.

Hey Lowell. Good to hear you have made progress on the basement. How many months has it been since the start of it. It has been awhile. I retired back on March 30th and have lots of time to fish now. Lake Loramie has been good this year. Maybe next spring I can bring the Nitro down to Cj Brown and when can go out and get some slabs.


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## Lowell H Turner

fffisch, good to hear from you sir ! Congratulations on retiring, hopefully you`re getting in lots of fishing ! The "Friends" sank another 260+ attractors this summer into CJ, give me a call. I wasn`t able to help alot due to my "word of honor" to complete phase I of the "dundgeon"; basically ended up carving close to 65` of 4" wide drainage channels at a precise 2-3 degree downward angle anywhere fron 1' to 5 1/2" deep to the drain by hand via ye olde spudbar method. (If you ever get the chance to do that HIRE someone !) But am in the home stretch; 90+% of the hard part is finally finished...should be free before too long.


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## zaraspook

Crappie fished Weds afternoon.......bite was slow and timid. Worked hard to catch 10 crappies, 4 keepers, largest 11.5". Also caught 1/2 dozen bluegills and as post by fffisch said, gills are nice ones. My neighbor fished for gills Weds AM and said he kept 18, largest was 8.5" and smallest 7". He came back later in the afternoon for an hour, caught about 25 but didn't say how many he kept.

Yes water is cloudy chlorophyll green which is it's "normal" state. With almost no flow it takes 1.6 years for lake to turn water volume over once. Lack of rainfall May to August probably doubles that turnover time. We hope nutrient loading of phosphorus and nitrogen is on the decline, but when studies report nutrient inflow must be reduced by 85% we won't see visible improvement year to year. Farmers aren't moving at light-speed to reduce inflow and the loading already in the lake won't disappear overnight. With plenty of summer heat this year and no rain, the lake should have exploded with algae blooms. It didn't. No fish kills witnessed this year other than sheaphead in the spring during alum treatment. Crappies are bigger and in good numbers. Bluegills the same. Bass are good size and numbers. Fish are healthy and seem to do well in the environment. We're taking baby steps......we hope.


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## fffisch

I live 10 miles from St Marys and it is a temptation to take some fish out for dinner. But I know people from the state and have read some reports that keep me leary of doing so. There are some long term effects that could come into play and don't want to chance it yet. I have been doing well fishing Loramie and sometimes Indian. I think I will stick with them for now. Hopefully in a couple years or so the water quality will improve alot and then I can get back to fishing it again.


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## fffisch

Lowell, won't make it to CJ this year anymore, but will give you a call next spring and we will get together.


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## Lowell H Turner

Understand, do you still ice fish? Hopefully will see SAFE ice this winter for even 1 month. If a significant shad kill occurs CJ and likely a few other lakes will see some very strong mid winter bites. As far as eating panfish out of GLSM YES I would; particularly over the winter. Unless the levels become far worse in O2 content (ppb) and anoxic, fish flesh is largely immune themselves. Properly prepared and cooked adequately SERVE them up ! Golden brown beer battered piping hot flash fried crappie fillets.....(I gotta stop).


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, thank you for the article ! Hopefully the wetland project gets rolling next spring; that watershed seasonally sees alot of the "nutrient flow" into the lake.


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## zaraspook

On the subject of eating GLSM fish........Flesh of fish have been tested for algal toxin contamination all over the world. Testing usually does detect some toxin contamination in organs (liver, etc), and sometimes skin. If you eat fish guts as a form of a weird delicacy, don't do it on GLSM fish. Virtually every Ohio waterbody has consumption advisories for some species and issues with PCB's and mercury yet people catch and consume those fish. The state usually warns to limit consumption to two meals a week.

Here is an official advisory lifted from the Ohio EPA's website:

_Grand Lake St. Marys Note: Ohio EPA did microcystin sampling in Grand Lake St. Marys and Lake Erie during the 2011 season to determine if fish were affected by algal toxin. All samples taken in Lake Erie in November 2010, June 2011 and August 2011, testing yellow perch and walleye showed no detections. Grand Lake St. Marys samples were also taken in November, June and August, and only the June sample set showed a detection level, only in Black Crappie. To round out the limited data available, Ohio EPA plans to continue sampling, and will evaluate and post updates as they become available.

The usual Ohio fish consumption advisory for Grand Lake St. Marys (which is NOT based on algal toxin analysis) states that largemouth bass, sunfish and yellow perch from the lake are safe to eat twice per week; meals of all other species should be limited to one per week due to mercury contamination._

The state did not advise against eating crappie since 2 of the 3 tests (including the last test) showed no contamination. Most people will make their own assessment, as they should, but the science suggests "ok to eat in moderation". That's my take anyway. From my experience most locals do eat their catch in the spring and fall. They don't find summer flesh quality appealing so don't eat summer catch and fish very little in summer.


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## Lowell H Turner

If the State says they are safe in moderation 2 times a wk I`ll just eat a platefull once a wk...and did notice the flesh IS much firmer apparently from under the ice into early spring.


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## fffisch

35 years ago I was a park ranger for a few years at Grand lake and my cousin worked at the park for 37 years, just retiring last fall. So I have heard some things from people in the State park system and many of them say " I 'm not eating any fish from there" So you can see why I am on the fence about it. I hear one report that says Yea it's ok to eat some fish and then another that says no don't eat them. I catch all the fish I can eat from other places right now, so I am going to play it safe for awhile. But I have fishing buddies that eat them all the time, so if they don't glow in the dark here in the next year or 2 maybe I will get back to it again LOL !!!


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## fffisch

Lowell, yes I still ice fish. However didn't get out last year because of ice conditions. Plan to get out this year as soon as it is safe.


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## Lowell H Turner

Due to the liability would find it hard to believe the State would intentionally understate any danger...hopefully be able to get out with you guys this yr !


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## zaraspook

Crappie fishing at GLSM Saturday 13th......bank-fished for a while between 2:30 and 5PM. Didn't find a ton of fish but bite was aggressive when you did. Fish were really eating my Hot Grubs. Caught 20 with 12 keepers. The keepers were the best sized group I've witnessed at GLSM. 4 were over 11", 5 were over 10" but under 11", and 3 were 9.5-9.75". Smallest fish of the day was 7.5". It rained shortly after 5 so I quit. Also caught 8-10 gills but not as big as in recent catches. Water temp Saturday ran between 50-52.

Fished from 9-10:30am on Sunday, but it was about as slow as I've seen it. Very few bites. Haven't done well in the mornings for the last month. Ended up with 4 crappies, only 2 keeper size.


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## Salmonid

Zara, thanks for the lake info, I appreciate the great reports ( Ie... Honest even when you dont do well) Even though catfish tourneys are done Ive given the lake a rest and been getting boat, trailer and tow vehicle back in shape. New Exhast manafold on the truck, Brake lines getting done this week and new head unit for my Ipilot TM module that crapped out on me so Im looking to come back up Sunday and make sure my pet cats are still to be found and that way i can give some of them some exercise. LOL

Water levels still up a few inches ?

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Water level is 4-5 inches above the level during the Cat Classic you won in Aug, Salmonid.


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## zaraspook

Bank fished GLSM for crappies from 2:30 to 5:15pm. Wind was howling with the approaching front. Water temps were back up to 55 from 51-52 range over the weekend. Caught two 10" crappies in the first 10 minutes from a spot off my seawall. At 4 other spots nearby got no fish, just a few bluegill bites. Moved on to another place to get one nice gill, but crappies weren't co-operating. Stayed at the spot for another 30 minutes, slowed the presentation of my jig/grub and coaxed 3 crappies from the submerged brush below. One crappie was an 8" dink, but the others were 11.25 and 10.5". Returned to each of the 4 places that earlier produced nothing. Thought maybe the slower presentation would help - it didn't. Returned to my seawall and favorite spot to pull 3 more crappies, a nice gill, and a small (10") bass. Those 3 crappies included a dink, one just short of 10" and the final one just under 11".

Last 1/2 hour the bite was shut down. Although I only caught 8 crappies, 6 were keepers......one just under 10", one just over 11", and 4 solid 10"+ fish. The pattern continues......60-70% of my fall crappies are keepers.

My neighbor said he fished for gills Weds morning. Caught a ton and cleaned 14 gills and 3 crappies. He targets gills, fishes very small 1" plastics and usually tipped with wax worms. He catches a ton of fish, usually more crappies than I do, but his smaller plastics catch fewer keeper crappies. I use larger plastics, catch fewer fish, but my gills are usually keepers and the larger baits produce many more good crappies.


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## Lowell H Turner

Ah, the eternal question of quantity vs quality; you know you`re doing something right when you get both...


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## Salmonid

Zara, we got a bunch of nice 8-12" crappies today up at GLSM and thought about you!! LOL, problem was we castnetted them, about a bakers dozen all along the wall at the Montazuma ramp where were were looking for/castnetting shad, all withing 5 ft of the wall and mixed in with all the 3" shad, water on the main lake was still murky green/brown like its been all fall. Water was 51 degrees at 11 and when we left around 5:30, it was 54 all over the lake. We got a bunch of cats but my partner Ryan had the hot rod in the front of the boat today, we got a bunch of pics and he will post them soon. Beautiful on the water today with only about 5 other boats seen all day, I couldnt believe it and we were all over the West half of the lake.

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....I saw your partner's post before reading your post. You guys kicked some cat butt! 

Thanks for info on the crappies. I fished for crappies about 3 hours Saturday afternoon and 2 more hours Sunday morning. Saturday bite was tough until an hour and a 1/2 before dark, then got lively. Sunday bite was good. Caught 26 crappies, but only 12 keepers. My percentage had been running near 60% keepers. The 2 largest crappies were 11.25" and fat. Also caught 20-30 gills but didn't really count. Here's the odd thing.......from time to time while crappie fishing I'll catch a bass, but not every trip and rarely more than one bass. I caught 2 bass Saturday and 3 Sunday morning. Biggest was only 13", but five bass when you're not even trying means something is going on. I think it's a sign water temp in channels is right, forage fish are available, and the fall bass bite is on.

Took my pontoon out Sunday for it's last cruise of the year. Only saw two other boats on the eastern half of lake, both were also pontoons and not fishing. By the way, the green water will be there well into the winter. Cold water will finally stop it, but for now it continues....likes that sunshine. 

GLSM continues to be a good fishery for cats with little competition. It's the same for crappies. At other lakes guys have to catch 4-6 crappies per keeper. Bass the same.......little fishing pressure for above average results. But, don't tell anyone. I like having a private lake.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Saturday 27th for crappies. During 3 hours managed to catch 19 crappies of which 8 were keepers. Three of the keepers were 11"+ which is a great size at St. Mary's. I moved around a lot but a single location produced 13 of the 19 fish. Any other spot I tried never produced more than one crappie. Most of fish came 2-4 feet from the bank in 2-3 FOW and from submerged wood/brush. Water temps were 54-55, higher than last weekend, but I expect water temp to be more favorable (under 50) by mid-week. Current water level is 4-6 inches below normal for this time of year and the same as last week.

Bluegill bite was very active. My neighbor caught 40-50 gills in less than 2 hours. Don't know how many he kept but he complained size was down from prior weeks when water was cooler. He tips his small plastics with wax worms. He also caught about 10 crappies but only one a keeper.


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## zaraspook

Since last Thursday 25th, water temp at GLSM fell from just under 59 degrees to 45 degrees this morning (30th). Assume same is going on at other Ohio lakes, the dinner bell is ringing. All those cooler water species should be chowing down.....bite is on!


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## Lowell H Turner

Hoping for a couple of wks of stable weather and more good reports, sir !


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## zaraspook

Hope to crappie fish this afternoon (weds). I'd prefer to go for saugeyes but the State won't let us have any of those at GLSM. Want to see how the falling water temps impacted the crappie bite. Looking on line this morning it says GLSM water temp is all the way down to 42. That's 17 degrees in 7 days. Hope I catch something worth reporting......


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## zaraspook

Almost forgot that fishing is rarely what you expect. Weds afternoon brought me back to reality. Crappie bite was pathetic. From the few I ran into, the bite was nearly undetectable. When they took the bait, fish moved no more than 6". Began with my favorite large grub, switched colors and tried different presentations, but bites were few. Caught 4 but only one that barely made the legal 9" size. Downsized to Southern Pro Lil' Hustler tubes with very slow and minimal presentation which produced a little more action. Caught 4 more of which one made it to 10".

In hindsight water temps falling from upper 50's to 42 within a week may have put the crappies into shock. After temps and fish get stabilized for a few days, I'm still thinking bite will improve. It was cold (upper 30's), windy but not like previous couple of days, with light rain off and on. Wind from NW was driving waves/water toward my channel in the SE part of the lake and pushed water level up about 4".


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## zaraspook

Between my chores Saturday Nov 3rd got in about 2.5 hours of crappie fishing. Water temps continue on the cold side at 42-43. Crappie bite was better than earlier in the week, but not action-packed. At least when fish grabbed your bait, they took off with a purpose. Caught 19, 9 keepers, largest a tad over 11". Also, caught 8 gills.

My neighbor said he kept 18 gills out of 50 he caught Friday. He kept 10 gills Saturday while also catching 12 crappies (only 1 keeper).


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## zaraspook

Consultant refutes earlier reports that alum treatments at Grand Lake aren't working..........link below is to an article in the Celina Daily Standard. http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=19455


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## catfish chaser

Very good article Zara, I hope they keep clearing the lake up. Its slowly turning into my favorite channel cat lake

posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## Lowell H Turner

Allow me to do the broken record bit- DREDGE BABY, DREDGE ! GO FOR THE MUCK!


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## zaraspook

Broken or not, keep playing that record, LHT. Dredge baby, dredge.....


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## Lowell H Turner

Thank you, sir...


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## Salmonid

I know dreging sounds like a good solution but even when they are dredging all summer long it seems they only get a couple hundred square yards done in an area and then there is the problem of where to put it..... Bottom line is it will take a little bit of all the techniques they are using to really make any noticable difference. 

It will be interesting to see if they pull the lake down again this next spring after doing it this year and not getting any water to refill the lake. Im pretty sure thats gonna happen as they try to flush the early blooming algeas down river, 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......The State is in a defensive position. Property owners downstream won a $50 mil judgment against State for failing to control flooding from the lake onto their land. If we have normal winter fill up cycle, lake will be high come Feb-March and unable to handle normal spring rains. Downstream property owners will get flooded again and State will be see more law suits. In my opinion they have no choice but to draw GLSM down. However, State guys should have learned that Mother Nature doesn't guarantee spring rain to raise water levels if they drawdown too far.

State claims drawdown was only 11". That's bull. It was between 16-18". If average water depth is really 4' or 48", then 16" is 1/3 of the water volume. Without spring and summer rain the pleasure boaters soon found out it was dangerous out there. The low water level killed recreational activity by mid-summer.......boater recreational traffic diminished almost as bad as it would have from a repeat of the 2010 algae disaster.

Another drawdown is inevitable unless we see a winter drought, but I think it's less about algae and more about law suits. However, I expect 2013 drawdown to be less aggressive, maybe 1/2 of 2012. If they undershoot, later they can open the tubes again to adjust. You can always drain off more water but you can't add when you drain too much. In their defense, the 2012 drought was a once every 50 year occurrence. With "normal" precipitation levels 2012 plan probably would have worked. But, avoiding law suits by killing lake commerce isn't an economic win. They can better manage the water level without gutting boater recreation. State will get better at it if they tweak strategy. Perfection unlikely since one of the players is Mother Nature.


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## Lowell H Turner

Agree whole heartedly guys. Restoring the wetlands, alum spraying AND dredging all have their own place as pieces of the same solution. Am only saying there is roughly 150+ yrs worth of phosphat build up in the sediment with most in the top several feet of the muck. Dredging removes the stuff and puts at least 4-6 fow over top of the remaining stuff. Without dredging, the only real solution is to just fill the lake in; NOTHING will stop the algae blooms as shallow as the lake currently is during summer pool...


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM about 10:30 Saturday morning. Finally got to wet a line about an hour later. My neighbor had been fishing for 90 minutes and had 6 crappies and one nice gill in his bucket. He said he'd caught 25-30 gills. Except for the one in the bucket, the others were midgets. He was quitting....said the bite disappeared about the same time the clouds cleared and sun was exposed.

In the first hour I caught 6 crappies, all from shaded areas. Bites were hard to come by. I gave fishing a rest for a couple hours, worked on leaves and some other winterizing chores at my place. Time for a fishing break and with the timid bite, I downsized from a grub to a tube and slowed the presentation. Caught five more crappies and with a smaller bait got into the same number of gills. Ceased fishing for a couple hours and got back to the chores. 

About 4pm grabbed the crappie rig for a last hour of fishing. Not much changed......slow bite, 4 crappies and about 1/2 dozen gills. Ended with 15 crappies, only 5 were keepers with largest at 11". A benefit of the slow bite.....a lot more work gets done!


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## Lowell H Turner

Persistance and patience paid off, sir...


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## zaraspook

The heralded proposal for hog manure processing plant at GLSM falls short of funding. Company considering a scaled back alternative as reported in a Celina Daily Standard article at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=19476 .

The article also updates the status of a few other projects. New rules for applying manure within the GLSM watershed go into effect Jan 19. Farmers are prohibited from manure application between Dec 15 and March 1 without prior approval. Not all farmers in the watershed are prepared for compliance. The new rules were passed almost 2 years ago. Compliance has been voluntary and continues voluntary until Jan 19. Woohoo! GLSM finally has an enforceable tool to reduce the inflow of livestock waste.


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## Lowell H Turner

Apparently there are `interested parties` whom have already PAID in ADVANCE to lease the services of the unsleeping, unblinking "eye in the sky". Might suggest to any potential offenders, invest in a STEALTH tractor if there is such a thing. Otherwise...SMILE for the satillite watching and recording YOU with photos, infra red and GPS. Not to mention the persons on the ground. Can you say " BUSTED and FINED !?"


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## zaraspook

Let's hope there are no violations, no busting, and the lake gets a chance to experience a sustained period of less phosphorus. The sad part is that winter manure handling is a tiny piece of the equation to reduce inflows of bad stuff. We're 2+ years from the huge algae disaster during summer of 2010 and only now getting in this baby-step. The Battelle Institute experts say inflow of phosphorus must be reduced 85% in the watershed for the lake to mend. No one knows what portion of that 85% reduction will come from this one practice of no poop application from Dec 15-March 1. No one knows if dredging and alum treatments remove more phosphorus than what continues to flow into the lake. We don't know if we're at the breakeven point yet, where prevention and removal keep pace with current new loading. Very likely the lake continues to accumulate phosphorus faster than it's removed. For all we know the patient is getting more sick every day.........not dying as fast.


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## zaraspook

Got in 2.5 hours of crappie fishing at GLSM Weds (14th) afternoon. Disheartening that before I could get out my crappie rig another angler arrived and made a bee line to my best spot. 15 minutes at an alternate spot produced one bite and just a dink crappie. Moved on to another spot to catch a 10" crappie and lo and behold the angler at my best spot packs it in, leaves in his truck. Picked up another dink single at another spot, then headed to the now vacated area. Over the next two hours I caught 33 more crappies from the area the other guy vacated. Two were over 12". No matter how I tried to stretch the biggest crappie, it fell 1/4" short of the 13" mark needed for Fish Ohio. At 12.75" it was a chunky specimen for a Black crappie. Of the total 36 crappies, 21 were keepers (>9") and 4 were 11"+ but short of 12". The typical fish was 10-10.5 range.

The fish were clearly schooled up, active, and chasing my grub/twisters. Most were taken 8-10 feet from shore and in the vicinity of brush/wood but not necessarily directly on cover. It was my best session for the fall, definitely a high percentage of keepers, and for GLSM 6 fish at 11" or better isn't common. All were black crappies......rare to catch any white crappies these days at GLSM.


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## Salmonid

Great report!! sounds like a good day!

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Leave it to a pro...VERY well done ! BTW, in regards to the earlier post; agreed, but have to admit the run off from the "super farms' didn`t help. One old timer whom now resides in Springfield said he believes a large part of the phosphat build up was infact from yrs of septic systems that eventually put laundry waste water into the lake; he mentioned the summer of 1955, or `56 as having little rain and high temperatures and a strong algae bloom with a major fish kill. sais you could smell the lake MANY miles down wind. After the public sewer projects were completed, there weren`t any real problems again till recently...


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## zaraspook

LHT.....Absolutely on target that decades of septic waste from lake property owners was an early contributor to the pollution. I think the US Army Corp of Engineers finished the lakewide sewer system about 1980 but that's a guess. Plenty of blame to go around but clearly the large livestock operations are the current problem. And those operations are growing.......lots of brand new buildings in the watershed to house animals were built in the last 16 months. 

Removing that old septic waste, the bad stuff already lurking in the sediment below, is all the more reason to.......Dredge, baby. Dredge.


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## Intimidator

zaraspook said:


> All were black crappies......rare to catch any white crappies these days at GLSM.


Hard to believe...normally Blacks do not do as well as their cousins in stained or "FERTILE" water. They normally are the ones that need Good water quality to survive!
CJ is just the opposite...normally the only time people catch Black Crappies, are during the spawn! They think CJ is full of them until they are told to count the dorsal spines!


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## fished-out

One thing that could help the lake is planting lily pads; these little guys do alot of work in removing nitrogen from the water. Buckeye and Indian have tons of them, but I don't see that many at St Mary's. I'm told that years ago there were alot more.


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## Lowell H Turner

Again agree. There USED to be many more on the S side of the lake back in the mid `80`s; as that shore line was further developed Round Up type defoliants repeatedly made it`s way into the watershed and apparently water lillys are rather suseptical to it, as are tadpoles. That`s another reason the barrier strips of grass along fence rows and drainage ditches around the lake`s watershed area are important besides for erosion control and runoff containment. Getting the wetlands (effectively the lake`s liver and kidneys ) back into existance and expanding them and vigorously protecting them from further "developement" is CRITICAL. They are not the "magic bullet' solution, but they ARE a major part of arresting and substantially LONG TERM reducing runoff sediments and phosphat going INTO the lake. Plus they are simply AMAZINGLY productive areas with a rich and varied range of wildlife of all kinds; many plants and animals actually NEED their unique mix of shallow water, soft soil and sun to exist. They are also "nurseries' to many pan and game fish at least part of the yr...


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## zaraspook

You guys are right.......few GLSM areas with lily pads but used to be common place. Lack of them serves as confirmation the lake's environment is messed up. Plant life in general is non-existent. When we see plant life coming back we'll know we're on the right track to flipping the lake environment.


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## zaraspook

Before the Buckeye game I managed about 2.5 hours of crappie fishing Saturday 17th. Bite was tough to come by, not at all like the great action on Weds. Coaxed 13 crappies to shore, 7 were keepers, largest measured 10.5". I downsized to 1.5" tubes about 1/2 way thru without any real impact on the crappie bite, but the gills liked the change. Caught about a dozen gills but I think the gills are running smaller than last 2 years. Most gill fishermen at GLSM would dispute my observation on size. Only one of the dozen gills I caught would have been a keeper in my opinion.

Regarding white vs black crappie......I haven't a clue which of the species does better in stained water, but we catch very few white crappies in GLSM. Guys with a lot more experience than me say GLSM has been dominated by black crappie for years. A guy who says he fishes 200 days a year at GLSM and does well in local crappie tourneys, told me he hasn't caught more than 10 white crappies total all year. He wishes the DNR would stock some whites to give the population a kick start. My catch rate might run 2% whites, but certainly no higher. Maybe I'll add a new metric for 2013.....monitor and track white crappie catch.


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## Lowell H Turner

Am not completely sure but water clairity does have a role, as might available water depth...


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## zaraspook

Go Bucks! Kick some Michigan butt.


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## Lowell H Turner

O- h- i- o !


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## zaraspook

Fished Friday 23rd at GLSM for an hour and 45 minutes. Bite wasn't hot enough to endure the cold wind any longer and called it quits about 4pm I managed 14 crappies with 10 keepers. Took a nephew with me.........he caught 10 and half keepers.

Got in another hour and 45 minutes Sunday 25th in the morning. Better bite and a lot less wind made it feel warmer. Caught 7 in the first hour and felt the bite was short. Too many fish just lip hooked, not solidly hooked in roof of mouth, they weren't really eating the bait the way I'm accustomed to. I stuck with the larger bait but switched to different color and a lighter jig for slower fall and presentation. Tactic seemed to work as I landed 17 in the last 45 minutes. 14 keepers among the 24 total. Typical fish was 10" and none were over 11.5". With cold water temps it's probably wise to use lighter jigs. It was my best outing for a while...........good fun.

Buckeyes finished off those pretenders up north and the undefeated season. It was great to see Tressel get some love from fans and players. When Notre Dame loses in the BCS champ game, only the Buckeyes will stand as Div 1 undefeated for this season.


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## zaraspook

Found an active GLSM crappie bite yesterday afternoon (Weds-28th). I was fishing from shore in an area with very good submerged cover(wood). Started swimming my jig/grub in close, within 3-5 feet of the bank with no action. Concentrated on areas 6-8 feet out from the bank and picked up about 5 crappies, but still slow action. Moved out beyond the cover, now fishing 10-20 feet from the bank and 5-10 feet beyond the known cover and got into steady action and better sized fish. In an hour and 45 minutes I ended up with 24 crappies caught, 11 keepers, a 12.5" black the biggest. An alarm clock must have sounded at 3:45 as the bite quit but had slowed the prior 20-30 minutes. I expect I hit a school of fish that moved on chasing bait fish. All but one fish came from the same area of about 70' of shoreline. It was hot and heavy while it lasted.


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## Salmonid

Good deal man, stay on em!! I think me and Ryan are gonna come up saturday and see if we can find some "colder" water channel cats. Nice days are now numbered and so were gonna make the best of it...

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......60 degrees or better for weekend. Not likely to see many of those in the next 5 weeks so have at it while you can.

GLSM water clarity is a bit better last week or so. Not a huge improvement, but right direction. In the channels clarity at 5" vs 3" a few weeks ago. The big water may be better clarity. I'll bet water temp is in 30's.


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## Lowell H Turner

Good luck, gentlemen. Am going to try to make it out soon myself to the now exposed infamous gravel bar N of the Marina at CJ. Spring fed 56F degree 30 fow 45` SW of the western end where the bouy anchor is, with 2 sets of cover within casting distance. (The "nub" that juts out `bout 12-15` S there is usually just littered with prop blades and parts thereof by winter drawl down...)


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....link below is one I check for GLSM water temps. It's a buoy near the center of the lake operated by the US Geological Survey. If you look temps were 36-39 degree range then stops and no reports since about noon on 28th. Buoy was probably removed for the winter and shutdown that day.

Forecast next few days predict _low_ temps 48-50 range. With sun today and Saturday, lake will climb back above 40. Fish should like that.

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/oh/nwis/uv?site_no=403139084293900


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## Salmonid

Thanks, I appreciate the update, as of now still not 100% sure where Im headed tomorrow, may do a bait run down to the Ohio River to load up for the winter. Waiting on some reports to trickle in later tonight to see where we will go, but dont worry wherever we end up, we will be having some long rods out in search of ole whiskers....

Salmonid


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## Salmonid

Zara, bummer hung around all morning waiting for Ryan to finish some errands and by the time he was done no time to fish

Decided to Crappie fish this morning at Alum Creek, part of the IcefishOhio dock fishing tournament series. We did well, I ended up with 9 keepers and 5-6 short crappies in the pouring rain, all keepers were in the 9-11.5 " range, winning crappie was .84 lbs, and Tin GUppy on here won the Saugeye contest with a 16" fish weighing 1.25 lbs roughly. Took fish on Ice jigs tipped with Spikes, Rappla jigging raps or soft plastics

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Fished Saturday 12-1 for an hour and 15 minutes at GLSM. Didn't get there until 3. Had zero bites for 45 minutes at a number of favorite spots then ran into a 9.5" crappie fight off my seawall with no known cover around it. Downsized baits for the next 1/2 hour, hitting the same spots I'd tried earlier. Results were the same but did have a couple of tugs on the smaller bait, a tube. Decided to quit but might as well try the spot again that produced my only crappie. Pulled two more crappies from that spot. What bite I found was almost undetectable......fish were not aggressive and moved very little once they sucked in the bait. 3 fish, two keepers....packed it in and went home. On a good note, water clarity continues to improve at GLSM.


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## zaraspook

Son and I hit GLSM 12-5 about 1:30PM Weds. We bank fished for 2 hours and found a great crappie bite. My son caught 25, 18 of which were larger than the 9" state minimum for GLSM crappies. Most fish were 10-10.5". He beat me by one.......I caught 24 but only 13 of mine keepers. The two biggest fish were 11.5 and 11.75" (both belonged to my son). Crappies were active, chasing, and in a grab and go mood with our jig/grub combinations. Bluegills were also in the mood to feed although our grubs are too big for most gills to handle. We also caught 11 gills of which 4 of those good keepers. Bait color didn't seem to matter to the crappies but the gills showed a preference.

It was mostly sunny and a great result for a December day while fishing water no more than 4 feet deep. The icing on the cake......it was my son's birthday, too.


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## Lowell H Turner

Sounds like a really good time, sir ! Treasure them...so, uh, who cleaned the fish ?


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## CHOPIQ

The crappies are really hitting on the west side in the channels. Some nice crappies are being caught fishing about 2' down on jigs. They are barely hitting the jigs so watch your corks. Only used jigs, color didn't matter. If they turn off, wait a little bit they turn on again in about 15 minutes. Nice to see some nice fish being caught.


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## zaraspook

Saturday 12-8 the crappie bite was a bit slower, a more timid bite, but numbers are still decent. Size is running a bit smaller but we still managed 4 or 5 that were between a 11-12". We were fishing in a south side channel from the bank, using good sized twister tails, larger than most people use for crappie. Color didn't matter a whole lot but we've noticed lighter jig head gets more bites than slightly heavier ones. Fish aren't moving too fast....slower fall of lighter jig and presentation keeps the bait in the fish's zone longer. Most of our fish were taken 5-12' from the bank and in 2-4' of water. During a 3 hour session we caught 56 crappies of which 31 were legal (>9"). The photo was taken during a lunch break of some of the catch.....we fished more after gulping down some jumbo pork tenderloin sandwiches.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook and CHOPIQ, nice reports. I have to admit, you`re better men than me...if I fished a lake everyone else was AFRAID to even put a line into and was just camparatively KILLING `em with the average size and #s of the fish RAPIDLY increasing I KNOW what I`d likely be saying, and it would be appropriate for a horror novel: "Today I caught a 3 headed catfish. Ate him and he tasted "funny"..."Massive fish kills and the gulls and raccoons are starving rather than eat them..." I`d have that ENTIRE lake to myself (almost)! You`re passing up on EVERY fisherman`s DREAM...a lake about to SERIOUSLY "rebound"...you`re good men ! Post any further news about the wetlands projects and we`ll see who`s the 1st violator the "eye in the sky" picks out with the acursed "grace period" FINALLY coming to an END !


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## zaraspook

LHT........we're hearing rumors of a positive impact from blue-green algae. It seems the toxins (microcystins) at GLSM, in the proper dosage, cause a body reaction just like viagra, except with double the potency. Apparently exposure occurs when holding a crappie to remove a hook. Doing this 25 times appears to be the right dosage. More than 25 times the impact starts to increase exponentially. If you catch, handle, and remove a hook from 60 or more crappies in a single day, the treatment is reported to last up to 2 weeks.

I went to GLSM yesterday to conduct my own test of the "rumor". Wouldn't you know I couldn't get to my favorite spot? There were 14 crappie fisherman crammed into my little 40 foot section of bank. Never got to wet a line!


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## Lowell H Turner

Will take your report of the "Viagria" effect as gospel, as far as getting crowded out...SEE? NO "good deed" goes unpunished ! Feel free to use the 3 headed catfish rumor...


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## Salmonid

Yup, good deal on the reports of late, I enjoy crappies from time to time and have been getting some nice ones up at Alum over the last few weeks, several in the 11-12" range, my buddy fished in my pond yesterday and I went up to see how he was doing and while using one of his rods, I landed a 13.75" Black crappie, thats the biggest one yet from my 5 year old pond.. Waiting for the pics t make it to me and Ill post. 

Just keep on them guys.....I hope to make it up to do some ice fishing up there, Zara, you ever do any hardwater fishing??

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

LHT.........hope to confirm the viagra rumor as soon as possible. I'll let Salmonid work on the multiple-headed cat. A triple header would win him another cat tourney at GLSM.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid...........hey man a 13.75 " black crappie is a stout fish! White crappie of the same length won't nearly be as chunky as a black. At GLSM I haven't cracked the 13" mark with a black crappie. Great catch and look forward to the pic.

To your hardwater question, I've never ice fished. My urge to fish never exceeded the combination of freezing my butt off in the cold and insecurity on ice. Once the ice hits channels I'm rarely at GLSM but have seen guys on ice occasionally. I don't know how big ice fishing is there. Can you take channel cats thru the ice?


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## zaraspook

Some of you are familiar with the Drudge Report. This is the Dredge Report for 2012 at GLSM.

_Grand Lake St. Marys State Park Dredge Supervisor Tom Grabow reported that dredges removed a record 289,861 cubic yards of sediment from the lake this season. Last year the state removed 272,000 cubic yards, which was then a record. This year's sediment is equal to 19,334 dump truck loads. Lined up end to end, the trucks would stretch 87.8 miles, Grabow said. _

Dredging was running behind 2011 due to a few obstacles including the drought. Apparently the addition of the new dredge "Brutus" helped to push the cubic yardage across the goal line and a record score! In the words of distinguished philosopher LHT....Dredge, baby! Dredge!


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## zaraspook

The good crappie bite at GLSM is still holding. Fished with a friend Weds 12/12/12 for 2 hours in the afternoon. Started at a good spot I've been building with limbs and is normally good for a few fish.......nada, nothing, no bites. Not a good start especially since I've been bragging to my buddy about the great Nov-Dec crappie bite. But, I wasn't worried 'cause I knew the best spot at a neighbor's place always produces. Arriving at the neighbor's place the neighbor is just leaving. He said he'd fished for an hour, said bite was pathetic, and it wasn't a good day. Not to be dissuaded we were confident we could find a few the neighbor couldn't. In 30 minutes we found just a couple of pesky bluegills but not a hint of a crappie bite. My buddy is tying on smaller baits and ready to hunker down for very slow and deliberate fishing, but I'm not ready to give up on my bigger baits. My theory is the crappies are schooled up and somewhere in the channel.....just a matter of finding the critters. If I can find a fish or 2 there will likely be more nearby.

Trying another spot I run into a crappie but lose it lifting from the water. Three minutes later I land a good 10" crappie. I'm still not on a good bite but probably picking up fish on the edge of the school. My buddy rejoined me and we moved another 40-50 feet further down the bank. Over the next hour we caught 37 crappies, 21 keepers, 4 crappies were between 11" and 12". My partner was using smaller baits, catching a few, but not at the same rate as my bigger baits. He switched to the same grub as me and finished with 15 crappies to my 22.

The fish were not really on any cover, just cruising in open water. Our catches were mostly 6-12 feet from the bank in water 4' max depth. 90% of our fish were taken in a 70' stretch of water. The key was fishing in the sun. By the way the back end of channels if shaded still had residual film ice at 4pm. Started poorly but it was a good day. My buddy was impressed with the quantity and size of the fish.


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## Lowell H Turner

Good reports! Congrats for being persistant, sir ! Keep us informed...


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## zaraspook

In a Celina Daily Standard article (link below) the head of OH-IO's soil and water function vows to enforce the new manure rules in GLSM's watershed. As of 12/3 of the 156 farms 18 had not submitted nutrient management plans. December 15 is the deadline for submittal. The 156 farms actually own 270 livestock operations within the watershed. Chief Karl Gebhardt says _"Several have chosen not to participate," he said. "We'll deal with those folks."_ 
As of January 19 next month, farmers can no longer spread manure on fields between Dec 15 and March 1 without permission. The articles goes deeper into interpreting the new rules and outlines inspection plans.

The rules go into effect 2.5 years after GLSM went nuclear in the summer of 2010!
http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=19737


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## Lowell H Turner

From the safety of space, in nice weather and bad, in bright sunlight or darkest night, on the coldest 0`dark thirty in the wee hrs of the morn...rest ASSURED that high tech marvel the "eye in the sky" WILL SEE THEM in all their violations and PROMPTLY tell WHO, WHEN, WHERE, and HOW MUCH...it don`t blink and it don`t sleep. It don`t "play favorites", it don`t look the other way and it don`t lie. It simply OBSERVES, 24/ 7. 365 days a year and 366 on leap yrs. Good luck escaping it`s view...wonder who will be the 1st to test it? I hope their wallet is VERY deep...


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## percidaeben

I tell you what Lowell, that was fantastic man.


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## Lowell H Turner

Cannot wait to see the 8X 10 color "glossy" photographs on the front page of the local papers...(radar composite "photos" taken through the thickest thunderstorm or blizzard clouds will be in shades of grey) And ironically "they" WANT any potential violators to KNOW what`s about to start happening...SMILE for the "birdy' in orbit...


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## zaraspook

Raining 1/2 the time at GLSM Saturday while I was hunting crappie. I'm still hunting them.......didn't locate any and it was my first skunking for a long time. Had but one lone bite and I think that was a gill in about an hour and a half of fishing. Don't know if they were tight-lipped or in places other than wide variety of water I scouted.

On a positive note the water clarity is improving.


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## zaraspook

Deadline today....17th.....for farmers in GLSM watershed to file manure management plans. 14 farms haven't yet complied. 

The basic plan requires storage capacity to handle 120 days of manure. Farmers have to know how much poop herds generate, how much land they have to spread it on, keep records on when and how much they spread and the weather forecast for any days they spread. Soil samples are required to monitor nutrient loading. Process even requires calibration of manure spreading equipment to track the volume of manure applied and avoid over application. If they don't have sufficient land and/or storage capacity, plans require filing of how the excess will be handled and the carriers to remove.

Link to latest Celina Daily Standard article(15th) is here http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=19836 .


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## Lowell H Turner

Let`s see whom gets SOCKED with the 1st fine...(EVIL laughter sound effect...)


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## zaraspook

Crappie fished from 2-4pm Weds 19th at GLSM. Was apprehensive what the bite would be after the skunking last Saturday. In the first 45 minutes caught 7, then the catch rate fell-off to 5 over the last hour and 15 minutes. 7 were legal size with the largest 11 and a quarter. 

If I was into gills and willing to downsize baits it could have been a crazy day. The gill bit was aggressive and they seemed to be biting just about everywhere. According to my temp probe water temp was 43.

This is the latest into a year I've caught crappies at GLSM. Most years we have ice several weeks before now.


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## zaraspook

At least the State of Ohio gives the appearance of being serious. The first "skirmish" takes shape as _"The state has issued violations against 12 Grand Lake Watershed farming operations for missing Monday's deadline to have nutrient management plans completed. "_ Those farmers not in compliance with filing manure management plans are named in the full article by the Celina Daily Standard yesterday 12-20-31 at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=19865 . Probably too early to nickname these guys but how about The Dirty Dozen?


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## Lowell H Turner

Nicely done both fishing and keeping the rest of us informed. I will formally 2cnd "the DIRTY Dozen.' I can almost read their minds...(to the appropriate music) "I almost FEEL like, somebody`s WATCHING me, BUT it`s not a FANTASY..." Oh, YES, they ARE...would imagine a little paranoia CAN be a GOOD thing. The only bad thing is even that can`t physically keep them from eventually paying the STATE large FINES and (hopefully) HUGE court costs the 1st time, but if it`s STEEP ENOUGH EVERY TIME with an expodentual increase PER "offense" the "deterent value" WILL sink in...


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## zaraspook

24th got to GLSM to fish in the AM. Did not wet a line. My channel was covered with skim ice and decided to pass. From looks of temps in forecast my 2012 fishing is done. Hope to get a chance at open water before Jan ends.


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## Lowell H Turner

Happy Holidays, sir! With another snow event rolling in Sat. you might have fished your last in the lake for 2012. However, would imagine the pool below the overflow might still be open. Hopefully 2013 will be a decisive "turning of the tide" type year, similar to 1942 during WW2. "We have done well enough that I am now confident of eventual victory and while I cannot state we are at the beginning of the end of our combined struggle, I am assured enough to state we have seen the end of the beginning. Let us united press on..." Winston Churchill Dec 1942


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## zaraspook

LHT........appropriate quote. Happy New Year to you. Very likely below spillway is open but I'm done until my channel is ice free. Plenty of past due chores to keep me busy until then.

Water temp was 34.3 degrees on the 24th.


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## zaraspook

Sunday Dec 30th.......took a quick trip to GLSM but not to fish. My southside channel was 100% ice covered and without snow on it. Ice wasn't clear, opaque looking that was very inconsistent. Used a metal fence post to break thru the ice off my seawall. Thickness of ice varied from 1-1.5". 

Drove along the east bank. Main lake is frozen and snow covered as far as you can see. No open water anywhere along the East Bank nor in the Otterbein area. On the way home I drove along the southside of the lake to Windy Point. Again all channels are frozen. From Windy Point looking west it was all ice. Between Windy Point and the island off the north there may have been a couple of small areas of open water. From my viewpoint it was hard to tell if those areas were ice-free or simply ice without a snow cover. For hardwater anglers.....ice isn't ready yet but I'm sure a few crazies will try ice fishing soon. 

Though ice fishing isn't my gig, I could be tempted if the GLSM perch population improves in the next few years. Pulling perch thru the ice would make it worthwhile.


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## Lowell H Turner

"If you only KNEW the POWER of the COLD SIDE of the FORCE..."


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## zaraspook

Was at GLSM Saturday afternoon but didn't fish. Drove by spillway.....it was frozen as is entire lake. On the northside in the State park 50 yards east of the park office there were 4-5 guys ice fishing. At my place/channel on the south side, there we 3-4 holes cut in the ice not far from my seawall. No one fishing the holes but several looked fresh like they were cut that morning. Didn't measure the ice at the holes but my guess it was 3", maybe 3.5" thick.

Drove by the closest bait store, The Outdoorsman. Lots of vehicles going in and out suggesting someone is buying bait Forecast for warmer temps, even 50's and rain Thurs-Sat this week, can't be good for ice formation. Next week temps head back down.


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## Lowell H Turner

Hope they filled their holes back in !


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## zaraspook

I took care of the holes. Poured in quickrete and added a handle to the concrete. Looks like manhole covers......next time hardwater guys can just grab the handle, lift the cover and drop a line.


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## Lowell H Turner

Have many times used vegetable oil to keep the holes that drilled open longer and to precoat the caught fish for the pan, sir! (Attach brush or "C" trees to them before it thaws...)


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## zaraspook

I've been looking for discarded C-trees........need 3-4 to add to my honey holes or to start new ones. Hard to come by this year.


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## zaraspook

Yes, Virginia, despite extremely low water levels at GLSM last year and accusations the State lowered it too much, the State will again lower water levels this spring and every spring. In 2011 86 landowners downriver from the GLSM spillway won a judgment that the State was responsible for flooding of their land. Total damages were estimated to exceed $50 million. The state offered a settlement of about 1/2 that amount, landowners refused, and now the state is being sued for dragging its feet, not assessing property damages/values and making payouts. A Celina Daily Standard article reports on the first trial from an individual landowner at the link below.

If the State doesn't act to control water levels of the lake, the courts may find the State is continuing to contribute to flooding and open the State to new liabilities. With the 2011 judgment forcing the State to fork over as much as $50 mil, to avoid future new liabilities I think it's 99.9% probability water levels will be lowered again this year and every year. It's less expensive to tick-off boaters and lake users over low water than to pay multi-million $ judgments. Link is here http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=19985


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook what are the rules regarding sinking trees?? Thinking about adding some cover to my favorite honey holes, I know there are a lot of people that do it, didn't know if you needed permission of if it was a don't ask don't tell situation?


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## socdad

From the US Army Corps of Engineers web site  

Q: Can I place brush, Christmas trees, etc. in the lake for fish attractors?

A: Yes, however you must coordinate this activity through a Ranger and obtain a Specified Acts Permit (free of charge) with guidelines. You may not cut live vegetation for fish attractors unless written permission is given. Man-made attractors may be approved by contacting the Natural Resource Management Office.

 If you do not receive permission then do not get caught.


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## Lowell H Turner

From personal experience, allow me to suggest presenting a MODEST project (20- 30 trees or brush blocks ("BB"s); the COE and Dept of Parks WILL require you GPS them and follow their requirements. Other than that...As far as further draw downs in the spring, better hope they KEEP dredging. If the area then sees a very warm spring and/ or little rains...algae bloom soup.


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## zaraspook

socdad.......thanks for your info. Would never cross my mind to sink a Christmas tree illegally.


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## zaraspook

LHT.....dredging planned this year near my lake place. A 5-6 acre plot being prepared by State to deposit dredged sediment. Same plot was used 8-10 years ago. It's a shame no commercial venture has solidified to economically process/salvage sediment then retail it.

Thought I might get lucky Saturday and find all ice in my channel melted. It didn't happen. Ice was still about 2.5" thick. In some places near bank there was 3-4" of water on top of ice. I put a temp probe into small area of open water......34.5 degrees.


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## Salmonid

Zara are they done at the mouth of Coldwater creek? or are they gonna continue there again? also how can I find out where they will be dredging this year? I need to know where all the darn tubes are that im always lifting motor to float over are located..LOL

I heard the lake opened up on Sunday as we were trying to go up there on Sat but all our contacts said it was still locked up. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid........haven't heard specifics of 2013 dredging schedule. Park Office seems to be best place to get info and I think the main dude, Director or Manager, is Brian Miller 419-394-3611.

Definitely was locked up Saturday (2.5 inch ice thickness in my channel) and from the lake cam view lake looked open Sunday and yesterday. Saw ducks swimming from the West Bank camera at this link but I haven't seen lake up close and personal to confirm ice is melted rather than just covered by the rains. http://webcam.wabash.com/westbank2.html . Water is so cold, temps didn't break 30 yesterday, so I suspect thin ice returned to surface today.


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## zaraspook

State offers $1.36 mil. Landowner asks for $2.4 mil. Court jury orders payment of $1.9 mil plus $250k in legal fees for flooding of 222 acres of land downstream. Landowners won their case that flooding is due to GLSM's new spillway. Using this case as a guideline, it will cost Ohio $38-40 mil to settle the 2011 judgment for 86 landowners against the State for flooding issues. In return the land is forever recorded as permanent easement, therefore the State can flood into perpetuity. In December the State was found to be in contempt of court for moving too slowly to complete land assessments and compensate the 86 landowners.

For $40 mil looks like the State buys the right to flood, won't have to drawdown the lake? Article in Celina Daily Standard is here http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=20012 .


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## Lowell H Turner

So NO ONE has been the 1st to try any illegal field dumping yet? This COULD be a VERY GOOD sign...and if paying the settlement is what it takes to help to allow the lake to recover as opposed to keeping it at a much lower pool in the spring time and thus possibly risking a very early start to another disasterous algae bloom season, so be it. Hope they get started dredging early...


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## zaraspook

LHT........actually, the new manure spreading law doesn't go into effect until Jan 19th. Participation is voluntary until then. As I interpret it, as long as manure isn't spread at some overly dense rate, a farm operator would probably get off the hook if it's done before midnight Saturday. If the fields are frozen (definition of frozen?) the old law might have stipulations to prevent spreading crap, but I'm not certain.


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## zaraspook

Took a quick trip to GLSM yesterday, Weds 16th. Main lake appears totally free of ice and very muddy(milky brown). Channels off the lake are mixed for ice......some virtually free of hardwater, others mostly locked up, and some at various stages in between free and locked.

If my channel had been open I would have crappie fished. The first 100' into my channel from the main lake was ice free. My place is 250 yards from the lake and ice was about half inch thick at the bank but thickness increased to 1.5-2 inches at a distance out 7-8 feet from bank. 

Water temp at a depth of 2' was 36.1 degrees. Lake level is up 8-10" since last Saturday......must have had a ton of rain up there. Best guess is lake is up 15" or more since last Aug-Sept time frame. East Bank public ramp is not usable for boat launches due to ice in that channel. I didn't view the ramps at West Bank but those are probably usable.


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## zaraspook

State Park at Grand Lake will again offer discounts during the 2013 season with the exception of several prime time dates. Make your reservation now! 
_
"Grand Lake St. Marys State Park will offer extended discounts in 2013. Camping, docks and day use fees will all be cut 50 percent, while getaway rentals will be discounted 25 percent. These special rates will begin on April 1 and last until Oct. 31."

"The discounts may not be used during the following dates: May 24-26, June 30-July 6, Aug. 30-Sept. 1, Sept. 20-22 and Oct. 4-6."_

Official ODNR news release is at this link http://www.ohiodnr.com/home_page/Ne...-Marys-Offers-Special-Discounts-for-2013.aspx


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, then it`s my guess that like 1 day after the expiration date, we`ll have the 1st of hopefully the very few farm tractors vs state of the art recon satillite contests. I can almost see some farmer putting a slanted plywood cover over his John Deere as an attempt at "stealth". This WON`T take long...can we ALL say "BUSTED ! And here`s your 8X 10 GLOSSY photographs as PROOF ! AND your OFFENSE TICKET and WHOPPING FINE ! Oh, yeah, AND here`s your SIGN..."


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## zaraspook

Hit GLSM Saturday 19th with the plan to crappie fish if possible. Disheartened to find my channel still locked up with ice. Ice was only about 1/2 thick at the bank and out 8-10' out into the channel so I busted up ice. Created 2 spots that were kind of fishable between the chunks of floating ice. Figured if there were any crappies around I was sure to have scared them off busting ice so I left for an hour.

Stopped by the Outdoorsman to get a fishing report. Have you ever got a negative response at a bait shop when you ask "are they catching any?". Yep......"crappies and gills are biting good!" said the attendant while I whined my channel remained iced-over. "White jigs and also purple are working well" he said. I did see 3 fishermen at the back end of the east bank public boat ramp. 30-40 feet of of that channel were open.

Took a tour around the lake which was wide open, no ice. At the spillway, no ice but also no fishermen to be found. Windy Point channels were iced over but the fishing pier was free. Anything lake front was ice-free. Otterbein was pretty well locked with ice. The common theme.....most channels were 70% ice but held some open water.

Back to my place to try the 2 areas where I busted ice. Fished for 90 minutes, no fish, no bites and yes among others I tried "white and purple" jigs. Water is very muddy. Water temp measured 34.5F on my digital temperature probe.....the coldest for the winter so far.


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## Lowell H Turner

The worst you can do is try...still battling in the "dundgeon"; haven`t managed to get out. But let us get SAFE ice...


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## zaraspook

Despite having two years to comply with the new Grand Lake watershed rules, 5 farmers apparently missed the extension to file manure management plans. The delinquents face prospects of daily fines if they don't file a plan or request a hearing by February. The Columbus Dispatch story includes a bit of commentary from one of the non-compliants, a 200 cow dairy farm. Columbus Dispatch article entitled *State may raise a stink over farmers* can be found at this link http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/01/20/state-may-raise-a-stink-over-farmers.html


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## Lowell H Turner

Apparently the State IS serious about this...no "awardees' yet? Am sure the "eye in the sky" still hasn`t blinked or gotten tired of watching yet...


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## zaraspook

Haven't heard of any manure spreading violations yet, but keep in mind the rules really didn't go in effect until Jan 19, just one week ago. If farmers don't have sufficient capacity to store and/or haul manure, might see some attempts late Feb to spread illegally. As of March 1 they farmers can spread again.


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## Lowell H Turner

Realize American farmers literally feed a large portion of the world`s population, even during the worst of the Cold War, ironically, the US sold the former USSR a significant amount of the grain and food stuffs they consumed. Am aware that the vast majority of them are also responsible "stewards of the land'; am grateful they have been or are now being more responsible of the watersheds they farm on, and are honestly trying to avoid further excessive polluting of the waters down stream from themselves...


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## zaraspook

LHT.....I'm more skeptical than you when it comes to our farmers stewardship of the land. Acknowledging the existence of exceptions, our experience in GLSM watershed is farmers don't stepup until it is the law and/or they are given economic incentives. If the Fed or State government subsidizes, the farmers will take a step in the right direction. If they get grants from the government, they will install/create larger capacity holding ponds. Making wider buffers where their lands are adjacent to creeks and ditches requires no out of pocket capital investment. All that is required is giving up an additional 10-30' strip, not tilling and planting it, where adjacent to creeks. Over the last 2 years since GLSM blew up in 2010, in the watershed areas I travel not a single farm operation widened its buffers. Too many plant within 10' of creeks........not giving up a single inch of crop producing turf, though they know the additional buffer zone improves filtration exponentially.

Farm industry is addicted to subsidies. They know if they wait long enough, fed or state government will compensate them to do it. Good stewards of the land do the right thing without someone paying for the act. The past tells us "voluntary" rules don't work. Laws must be real and enforced with stiff fines or they don't change behavior.


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## zaraspook

Ice Fishing report for last weekend at GLSM..........Ice fishing hot on Grand Lake  according to the Celina Daily Standard. Brian Miller, manager at Grand Lake St. Marys State Park, said. "They were pulling out crappie, and some saugeye and walleye up to five pounds."

Nice article and photo at the link below. I'm not a hardwater guy so missed personal participation. I did notice that under the 2 inches of snow the ice was dark and clear...best of the winter. Fishermen were crowding the mouth of Coldwater Creek.

Link is here http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=20145


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## zaraspook

Grand Lake Ice Fishing.........this photo is from the Celina Daily Standard article about weekend ice fishing at GLSM.


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## zaraspook

Another photo borrowed from Celina Daily Standard article about "hot ice fishing at Grand Lake". The caption on the photo says "walleye and saugeye". Very interesting catches since the saugeye were stocked for only 2 years, very small number in 2009, and none after spring of 2010. Walleyes were last stocked in 2006. The fish were caught Sunday 27th.

From the photo can any of you decipher is those fish are walleye, saugeye, or some of each?


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## Salmonid

Wow, thanks Zara, I should have went there instead of Kiser on Sunday, that was a joke, 4 hrs and only marked like 3 fish on the Marcum...same story for everyone we talked to, I came home and fished my pond just to make me feel better that i did actually know how to catch some fish. LOL

I cant believe all those folks are at the mouth of Coldwater creek?? doesnt seem like a good place for fish to concentrate in the winter?? 

Im hoping for some soft water as I really need to start patterning some cats for the first tourney in 6 weeks, ( March 16th) 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......fortunate that you have a pond to come home and lift your ego.

Regarding Coldwater Creek....wasn't that area a recipient of some heavy duty dredging last year? Other than dredging I don't have a clue except for the old standby.......baitfish are there for some reason.


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## Salmonid

I suppose that baitfish in the area may be why, but even after dredging the mouth of CC, its still mostly 4-5 ft deep when it was 2-3 Ft deep, its basically a catch basin for all the silt to settle into right now from heavy rains. Is that the area they were getting walleyes?? I would think they would be on the gravel flats out in the main lake.. Any reports of guys getting thos Yellow Perch stocked this spring? they should be keepers by now, or close to it.

Yes, my pond has saved many a days....

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......I didn't see the ice anglers so can't personally confirm location. The newspaper report said "at mouth of Coldwater Creek". I imagine the collection of fisherman spanned out from the mouth in a 50-75 yard radius. Just a guess.

The survivors of last year's 100,000 perch stocking should be ready to catch. No rumors I've heard about recent perch catches but my circle of fishing contacts at GLSM is very small.

Gravel flats in the main lake? Agree gravel flats would be a walleye target area, but only gravel flat I've located at GLSM is my driveway. Seriously, if you've located main lake gravel flats let me know where. I'll fish them for walleye and/or saugeye. I find plenty of muck but GLSM gravel areas have eluded my sonar.

Keep in mind those dredged areas that were 4-5' deep late last year are different now. Last Aug-Sept the water depth at my seawall was 16"....that's it. I was there yesterday and same spot off my seawall measured 46". When you're fishing the early cat tourneys, GLSM water should couple feet deeper. 

I crappie fished for about 75 minutes yesterday. My channel was 1/2 ice and 1/2 open water. My new digital probe measured channel water temperature at 1 foot depth to be 33.9 degrees. I had zero bites.....no pond to go home to  .


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## larry2473

Yes that picture was at the mouth of Coldwater Creek. I was there Saturday and Sunday. Water depth was 5-7' got eyes both days. Had probably 15 on Saturday there was probably over 50 people there Sunday My shanty is in the picture. 


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## percidaeben

Looks like walleye on the right,saugeye on the left.


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## Lowell H Turner

(It ISN`T "too late" to play the "Due to toxic algae concerns no fish from GLSM can be kept" card...)


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## Salmonid

Zara, good info...and I do know of at least 3 good gravel flats but Id have to show you out on the water sometime. 

So your saying your water level is up 29" is that right?? from its lowest point. That is good news until they pull the lake down again...

Keep plugging away at those crappies, wont be long before they move back up into your channel for spawning...

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

larry2473........You mentioned you got "eyes" both Saturday and Sunday. Were they walleyes or saugeyes? Thanks.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......Actually, when I crappie fished this week I was also thinking maybe I'd stumble into perch. Caught two perch early last year. Surprised but encouraged to hear about gravel flats. Maybe the results of dredging? 

In 2009 I committed to catch walleye at GLSM. Boated two and lost a very large one at the boat, all caught within 7-days of each other. None after that despite logging many hours on the water over the next 3-4 months including some serious nightime efforts. Everyone thought I was crazy. In 2010 the lake blew up with the weird algae and shut down my walleye hunts. Never got back into pursuing walleyes at GLSM. Might have to reconsider.

Yes......at my seawall water is 30" higher than low point about early Sept. Not so sure now about a drawdown. Once they settle suit from the 86 landowners, I think State has paid for the right to flood that acreage. It's permanently recorded on maps as flood zone.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, pardon my mentioning it, but in the past have guessed those newly dredged areas might be "ok" fishing spots; so it seems to be. find where they deepened a silted up SPRING...(evil laughter sound effect here). IF you can confirm with thermometer, GPS THAT SPOT! Also BEWARE of thinner ice over it...


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## zaraspook

LHT......Maybe I'll rethink using my boat at GLSM and try to locate some of the dredged areas and hard bottoms. Didn't really use my fishing boat at GLSM last year. 98% of my fishing was for crappie and 98% of that done from shore.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, generally, even without a spring nearby, deeper water = COOLER water is guess main point trying to make, Plus deeper water edges = ambush points...


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## zaraspook

A few excerpts from a Celina Daily Standard article on Feb 4.....

ODNR Director Jim Zehringer says an alum treatment for Grand Lake is "unlikely" this year. Test results aren't completed from last year's treatment but he suggests results were not as successful. Also, the estimated $25-30 mil owed by the State for downstream property flooding means fewer dollars available for lake/water improvement.

Studies report the GLSM takes on 140,000 tons of sediment yearly. For a long time dredging removed only 40-50,000 tons annually. Last year and in recent years dredging removed about double the annual inflow of sediment. State will rely on aggressive dredging to remove phosporus/nitrate loading already in the lake.

A 95 acre area off Prairie Creek will hold 770,000 tons of dredged sediment and become a wetlands area.

Carcasses of walleye/saugeye caught in high numbers during recent ice fishing will be tested to identify the species. The tests are to determine which species might better be stocked in the future. Saugeye were stocked in 2009 and 2010. Walleye were stocked from the late '90s but stopped after 2006.

Full article can be found here http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=20200


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## kschupp

My Dad's coming out in May to do some fishing and I wanted to treat him to a trip with a guide. Has anybody fished with (or know somebody that has) with Russ Bailey from Midwest Crappie? I was thinking about hiring him to either go to GLSM or Indian Lake. Any suggestions? Thanks...

Kent


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## zaraspook

kschupp said:


> My Dad's coming out in May to do some fishing and I wanted to treat him to a trip with a guide. Has anybody fished with (or know somebody that has) with Russ Bailey from Midwest Crappie? I was thinking about hiring him to either go to GLSM or Indian Lake. Any suggestions? Thanks...
> 
> Kent


Can't provide you insight about Russ Bailey, but I'll offer up a suggestion or two. May will certainly put you into the thick of the best spring crappie fishing at either of the lakes. If you have a choice, avoid Saturdays for your junket. At GLSM you'll run into both crappie and bass tournaments every Saturday in April, May, and some in March. A weekday or Sunday will be better options. Crappies will be shallow, in the channels, and very accessible. Guided or flying blind, in May you'll catch crappies at GLSM.

The crappie population and catch was outstanding in 2012 for both quantity and size. Since the ODNR's 9" size limit was imposed a few years ago, we've observed a steady annual improvement. The typical fish last year was 10-10.5", good percentages in the 11-12" range, 12" very common, and largest I saw measured a bit over 15". 60% of my catch last year exceeded the 9" minimum. If the pattern holds for 2013, the average keeper may push 11"....excellent for an Ohio lake.


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## Lowell H Turner

Understand we can not realistically prevent ANY sedimentation from occurring. Hopefully aggressive dredging willbe enough, depending on the weather...wish they could get another "Brutus" involved, to speed up the rate of "gain"...


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## zaraspook

LHT......biggest problem is locating sites to dump/store the sediment. These sites require significant acreage. Three State bulldozers have been prepping a site near my place for 6 weeks (at least I think the site is to be used for dumping muck into it). Requires an earthen retaining wall around the perimeter. Depending upon how level the ground is, retaining walls could be 10-15' tall. Dozers don't work everyday.....depends on weather. If they use the entire area available at the site it's large enough to hold at least 8 full size soccer fields.

It would make more sense for the muck to go right into mobile commercial plant of some sort, extract the water, process the water to remove unwanted chemicals (phosphorus), process the muck down to potting soil or whatever. Instead we dump it into a big holding area, let it dry for several years, and after that I don't know what happens.


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## Salmonid

Zara, unfortunately you have answered your own question..nothing happens to the muck spoil piles and the nitrates and other goodies slowly erode and filter back into the water system, it just takes it a while to get there so actually by dredging the lake bottom, and moving the muck 200 ft to a nearby holding basin. You really havent fixed anything at all. At least they have gotten smarter about dumping it and now use rock and earthen dams to keep the sediment from washing right back in ( IE. Indian Lake style) Loramie was first to start shoring up the shorelines to protect from erosion, then St marys but they just never figured it put over at Indian. Sooo many piles of dirt that after 1 year are completely submerged again.. a real waste of time and money. 

Real problem is now that the lakes is known for its muck problems, I doubt ANYone would ever want that free topsoil...

Im hoping the lake will open up by Sunday so I can get the boat out, please let me know if that happens...

Salmonid


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## socdad

zaraspook said:


> LHT......biggest problem is locating sites to dump/store the sediment. These sites require significant acreage. Three State bulldozers have been prepping a site near my place for 6 weeks (at least I think the site is to be used for dumping muck into it). Requires an earthen retaining wall around the perimeter. Depending upon QUOTE]
> 
> The 1st question that comes to mind is when you put your place up for sale how much will that pile of crap cost you and 2nd might be are you down wind from said pile?


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## Lowell H Turner

Actually, the bulk of the phosphate was being used as field fertilizer to begin with, as it tends to 'bind' Nitrogyn to itself, making submerged "muck' some of THE very best fertilizers known to mankind. Putting up with the rather "aromatic' scent even a ways down wind is of course a minor drawback, but mixed in "sweet lime" will kill the odor la "Pepe la PEUY!" "Slump" is a very real concern as it erodes very easily, at least untill it largely dries out. But once dry and easier to haul, the stuff SHOULD be in demand as fertilizer...it is GREAT stuff !


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## zaraspook

socdad.....believe me first thought was "there goes the neighborhood property values" and 2nd thought was about odor. Half my neighbors are 10-20 yrs tenured. They say same spot was a dredging sediment site 10-11 years ago. They say "no odor" or at least not enough to rise above the normal agricultural odors we already experience. Nothing but farms and animal operations for miles to south, southeast, and southwest with heavy hog and poultry operations within 1/2 mile of lake. The odor is ripe already, especially when it warms, they spread manure, a nice rain occurs and then the sun bakes it. Any wind with a southern vector can make you gasp. If the sediment creates any stench it may actually sweeten the current concoction.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....Since the site was used before for sediment, when some of my more tenured neighbors are around I'm going to inquire about the cycle it goes through. In 2008 I think the area was fallow. Before 2008 I don't know the status but I think at some point the sediment/earthen wall was scraped off and hauled away. 2008-2011 it was planted with corn or soybeans. 2012 the area was again uncultivated. I might be jumping the gun and haven't heard an official announcement as a sediment site. One neighbor said it looks like a repeat of preparations from the last time. Plus, I know 2 nearby areas of the lake are on the dredging schedule. It sounds like a duck!

Sediment has to go somewhere. Like trash dumps, no one wants it in their neighborhood. Site has to be near the dredges and like hog manure, too costly to haul commercially since content is mostly water. After it drys I'm confident the topsoil is scraped off and hauled away. The plan isn't perfect but I'm OK with it.......better than stopping the dredges. GLSM needs sediment removal to reduce current loading of phosphorus and nitrates. It's up to the farmers to stop new loading. I'm betting the topsoil, if free, will have plenty of takers and may eventually end up in a bag at your nearby garden center.


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## Lowell H Turner

Hard part is getting it out of the lake, then drying it while keeping the "aromas' to acceptable levels (several companies are actually fuelling their equipt off of the methane by-product'), bagging it, then shipping it to where ever, including the farms it origionally came from. The State would likely GIVE YOU a tax break to get into this...all perfectly technologically "DOable". Wonder if solar power reflecters might (relatively) quickly dry it out to a greater or lesser degree? But can it be done "profitably"...


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## zaraspook

LHT......no need for solar panels. We can use the methane to power an engine/generator combo. Using the electricity produced by the generator to power all my wife's slightly used, discarded hair-dryers, could dry that muck in months rather than years at the sediment collection site.


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## fished-out

And you could always use some of the hot air you find on this site...


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## zaraspook

Visited my place at GLSM late Saturday afternoon. No open water anywhere (lake or channels) in the event you're a soft water fisherman. If you're a hardwater guy, the ice is poor quality, 2-3.5 inches thick, and poses a danger we're not accustomed to at GLSM. The State initiated a drawdown sometime in the last 2 weeks. As a result the surface ice has not uniformly followed the water as the water level was lowered. Gaps exist between the water surface and the ice layer that normally rides on the water surface. 

Don't know when the draw down began or how far it's going. As of Saturday I'd guess the water level was down 3-4 inches, maybe more. Previously I heard water level was 9" above "pool", whatever pool is. Last spring was the first time the tubes in the spillway system were used to control the lake water level. We're on a learning curve with this stuff and I hope the State guys go forward cautiously. Last year's drawdown was blamed by locals as a significant factor in low water levels that cut into normal lake summer boating activities.


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## zaraspook

Discharge of water from Grand Lake began Monday 4th. Originally 2 tubes (5 foot diameter) were opened with the lake 9" above pool. Discharge created overflow issues downstream in Beaver Creek requiring closure of one tube. Plan calls for the single tube to remain open approximately 20 days. Data from last year's drawdown indicates one tube lowers the lake 1/3 of an inch per day.

Hope they double-check the math and monitor very closely. Easier to take water out than it is to put it back into the bottle. Celina Daily Standard article from 2/7/13 about lake discharge and plans to control water levels is at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=20233 .


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## fished-out

I was up there on Sunday meeting with a guy to set up some crappie tournaments, several guys came into the bait shop looking for minnows and wax worms, fishing open docks from what I understand. They claimed at least one guy was out on the ice 50-100 yards from shore!!


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## zaraspook

fished-out.......I was there Saturday afternoon but no fishing for me. Saw 4 guys fishing, sitting on the end of docks in State park area, not on ice, but holes cut thru ice just below their feet. Smart of them not to on the ice. Can't imagine anyone crazy enough to venture out 50-100 yards. That's nuts. Hope he caught something to reward his effort.


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## zaraspook

Was at GLSM Friday late afternoon. Some south side channels were mostly free of ice. My channel still locked up though ice was very thin. East end of lake is locked up as far as you can see to the west. Water temp off my seawall was 35.9 which is better than 34.6 last week. Water level is down another 3-4 inches. Since draw down began almost 2 weeks ago, level has fallen estimated 8 inches. That's enough.


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## zaraspook

Director of DNR Jim Zehringer says.......

- 5 farmers who failed to file manure plans are working on it.
- GLSM water level will be controlled to "normal" pool levels to create capacity for spring rains. (what's the definition of normal?)
- Still no "results" available from 2012 Alum treatment.
- Alum treatment for 2013 is not planned.
- GLSM focus will be to reduce flow of nutrients into lake.
- The State will Dredge Baby, Dredge to reduce current GLSM loading plus continue to remove rough fish.
- and Ohio will Frack Baby, Frack for natural gas in eastern Ohio.

Celina Daily Standard article about the above and other topics is at following link http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=20353


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## Salmonid

Good info Zara, were tentative to get the boat out on Sunday, weather pending.. Will post any results if we do make it out. Will be launching out of West Bank and poking around out in the main lake

Salmonid


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## macfish

I have not fished glsm sinse the day og Fishing for friends outing started br a fellow Ogf,er(bubbahunter) . was wanting to bring my camper and fish from the bank this year, can you offer any insight?


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## Salmonid

Campgrounds offer some bank fishing but there are tons of bank access places spread all along the banks at GLSM. Zara probably knows them by name and can point you to some better fishing spots, Im always in a boat when im up there.
I would think May would be prime time with crappies, bass, crappies and catfish all near shore for spawning. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......good luck with fishing Sunday. West Bank is iced over according to the lake cam, but last weekend a large part of western lake was open. Hard to tell if weather will be warm enough to open it again. My channel was about 1/2 open Tuesday but yesterday back to ice.


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## zaraspook

macfish..........lots of public access for fishing at GLSM. When you say "bring your camper" do you plan to just fish for the day with your camper nearby or do you plan to use a campground for over-nighting? State campgrounds are discounted 50%. The state campgrounds have ample lake frontage for fishing and also docks if needed. Also, the State constructed several rip-rap fishing piers at GLSM. In every direction, north, east, south, and west you'll find one or more public fishing piers. Some stretch 250-300 yards out into the lake (Windy Point). You won't find crowds on the piers.

Let me know what you plan to fish for and when. I'll suggest some options for location. April and May should be great for crappies. Size and quantity of the fish was outstanding in 2012. Bluegill bite was very good the last 2 years. Catfish are usually cooperative. We have a native perch population, but lst year the state stocked perch to kickstart the population. Perch should show up in creels this year.


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## Lowell H Turner

Would love to see someone try those dredged edges...


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## zaraspook

LHT......The last weekend of January when 50+ ice anglers were massed and catching keeper walleye/saugeye, it was in an area heavily dredged last summer. Coldwater Creek area near SW corner of GLSM was the hotspot. I know the DNR asked for carcasses of the fish to make a positive identification of the species. Haven't heard a report yet whether the fish were walleye, saugeye, or some of each. Walleyes were last stocked in GLSM in 2006. Saugeye stocking was 2010, maybe 2011, not sure. But to your point, that area of the lake was dredged last year and a fishing hot spot less than 6 months later. Whether the two events are related or just coincidence is above my pay grade.

Just looked it up....the saugeye stocking was 195,330 fingerlings in spring 2010. A miniscule number of 23,000 saugeye fingerlings were stocked the year before (2009). No saugeye since then. If the ice guys were catching saugeye, the fish should be close to 3-4 years old.


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## fishwhacker

I saw a guys catch the other weekend, not going to say where he found them but they were either walleye or saugeye I can't tell the difference. They were all about 19 to 20 inches long so either they were saugeye or the walleye actually spawned and produced a new generation. Most of the guys catching them have had monster walleye from when the first time they were stocked. Thats why I believe what the guy had were saugeye. It would be hard for me to believe that the walleye from the first time they stocked actually produced eggs that hatched because I know that the silty bottom of GLSM would make it nearly impossible for the eggs to survive, unless they found some hard bottom creeks(which are also few and far between). I hope i'm wrong because I love catching eyes, but my skepticism leads me to believe that walleye will not have a population if they stopped stocking they will live their life without producing the next generation, and eventually there will be no population left. That's why most guys have been pulling out monster walleye the last few years and that's it. I never viewed any 20inch or less younger walleyes being caught.


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## Lowell H Turner

3 thoughts sir; #1: just the difference in water temps from shallow to the now deeper dredged areas plus shadows is attractive to fish. #2: IF there are any uncovered or "reopened" springs or even "weeps" in those dredged areas BINGO! #3: if someone went to the "powers that be" and got OFFICIAL permission, and put LONG LASTING cover onto or even near #1 DOUBLE JACKPOT (roughly 3- 5X as productive as prior)


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## Salmonid

Lowell, any cover in those areas will be covered up after 2 or 3 goode heavy flushes of sedimend come in and drop, the majority of the dredging is in area that continually get filled back in with sediment like creek mouths, and super shallow areas. Also there really are not any big ledges when they dredge, but they usually shollow up the edges so sometimes a 2 ft drop but its not like you go from 2- 8 ft in a mater of a few feet, its is usually a gradual ledge unless its about a 2 ft drop from all the areas we have seen up there. 

In th espring the mouth of Coldwater creek is full of shad normally since the creek has warmer water then the lake, thas what we have found and may have been what caused the fish to stack up there this winter. 


Salmonid, PS were still planning on getting the boat out on Sunday! Cant wait!


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## Lowell H Turner

How deep are those dredged areas? And understand about the "fill back in" tendency; kind of like building a sand castle in the surf...


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......really interesting about the catch you saw of 19-20" fish that were walleye or saugeye. Were the ones you saw caught thru ice or open water?

The 2010 GLSM stocked saugeye should be 3-4 months shy of 3 years old. According to a study done by the Pennsylvania Fish/Boat Commission on walleye and saugeye growth rates, it should take 3.8-4.3 years for saugeye to reach the 19-20" mark. Walleye require 4.9-5.5 years for 19-20 inch length. Last stocked in 2006 that class of GLSM stocked walleye should be almost 7 years old. If the Pennsylvania study is accurate, our youngest (2006 stocking) walleyes should be 22-23" range at about 7 years.

If you use the Pennsylvania data as gospel, 19-20" fish at GLSM could not be saugeye. Our saugeyes shouldn't be that big yet. Also, 19-20" fish can't be stocked walleyes. The last stocked walleyes in 2006 should all be bigger than the catch you saw. By deduction 19-20" fish must be walleyes from natural reproduction, and approximately 5 years old. That would be really cool if walleyes actually are reproducing at GLSM!

Before jumping on the band wagon, a couple things screw up my deduction. Either walleyes and/or saugeyes can grow faster or slower depending on the water body. Female walleyes and female saugeyes grow faster than males. Plus, there was a tiny stocking at GLSM of saugeyes in 2009, only 23,000 fingerling. I read somewhere that 5-10% of fingerlings survive 3 years, therefore maybe 1000-2000 survivors. However, those 2009 saugeyes should be 19-19.5 inches, similar to the catch you saw.

I guess we'll never know. Here's a link to the Pennsylvania saugeye/walleye study on growth rate http://www.fish.state.pa.us/pafish/walleye/00walleye_overview.htm .


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......hope you get the boat in tomorrow at GLSM. Video from the West Bank lake cam doesn't look encouraging but difficult to tell water from ice at a distance. Friday evening my channel was still iced over with about 1.5" of hard stuff.


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## larry2473




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## bigmexican

Zaraspook cant say for certain you wont get out but I just got back from GL and it was covered in ice.Very few of the channels were open either.I crappie fished the beaver and a channel at Harmonds with no luck.


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## bigmexican

larry2473 said:


> View attachment 70531


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## zaraspook

larry2473........absolutely terrific catch and photo! That's some of the best GLSM fishing news I've heard/seen in years. Really impressive. Not a close enough look to tell if they are walleyes or saugeyes. I'd lean toward saugeye since the sizes are about right for the saugeye stocking of 2010. Did you measure them, Larry?


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## zaraspook

bigmexican......I agree with you that chances are low for boating on the lake. My channel was locked up last night when I was there briefly and no open water as far as you could see from the east bank. I'm not the one planning to go out..........it's Salmonid who wants to test the channel cat bite.


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## bigmexican

Zaraspook I guess I should read a little slower sorry about that.


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## Salmonid

so are you guys saying its still locked up?? Would appreciate the report before 9 tomorrow morning.. LOL

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Mark,
I haven't personally seen west bank for several weeks so I don't have 1st hand info. But I look at West Bank lake cam daily and the camera showed West Bank was open Tuesday but back to hard water Weds when temps went back into the teens. This morning the lake cam, which points at NW corner of lake, looked locked up. The east bank hasn't been open in several weeks and it was locked Friday evening. If any part of lake is open from today's sun, it will be the West Bank. Open water always come first to West Bank and moves east. I suggest in the morning you view the lake cam at web link below. If you need a 2nd opinion about status of west end, call the Pullman Bay restaurant Sunday morning. The restaurant sits on the lake in Celina, faces south with a great view of the NW quadrant of lake. Pullman's phone is (419) 586-1664 and they probably open by 8am. If I was at the lake I gladly run by the west bank to get assessment.

I think odds are slim lake is open sufficiently. Another day of sun plus wind will accelerate process. Monday is probably a better bet. We probably need temps 45 or better for almost a week to clear the entire lake. Lake cam link is http://www.seemore.org/webcam.html


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## Lowell H Turner

Keep in mind that even with "less than idea" conditions depending on food availability those fish reasonably COULD have done better than expected. And as far as naturally reproducing, there is a gravel pit in Clark County that was last stocked with walleye in the mid 1980`s. 3 yrs ago a friend did the "0 dark 30 " fishing trip into the place and SWORE he caught 3 5-6" walleye...draw your own conclusions.


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## Salmonid

Thanks guys, i made some calls last night and verified most of the lake was still locked up so then started planning on plan B, Rocky Fork and also found out it was locked up as well so we just skipped it for the day.. Frustrating to say the least, the boat has been bugging the snot out of me to get her out and the weather just has not been very kind this winter...

Keep me in the loop but at this rate Im only available on weekends and long term weather forecasts have it below freezing going into next weekend, not looking good....

Salmonid


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## Goosekiller

Salmonid, I heard today that the lake is currently off limits till July to anyone living south of I-70. Btw we have just a few very small open spots I noticed today. A good strong wind would be nice right now.


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## fishwhacker

The fish I saw were caught in open water. I really hope they are the reproduced walleye. Maybe there is some hard bottom places just never seen too many and none very big. I guess i always assumed silt would get on the eggs and not allow them to hatch kind of what happens at lake erie with a windy rainy spring thats why the years that happens up there doesn't produce a good class because the silt that gets stirred up and settles on the eggs.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker......thanks for info. Somewhere I have the data on the walleye stocking that went on during late '90's and up to 2006. I think it was '98-'06 but not sure without the data. There were several million stocked, but that included fry some years rather than all fingerlings. It's my opinion that if only by chance some reproduction occurred. Nothing suggests reproduction is at a rate to sustain the walleye population, but hard to believe no reproduction at all.

However, it seems the reports of walleye/saugeye catches has spiked, more than normal. One change we know of is that saugeye were stocked for 2 years (the tiny number in '09 and a healthy number in 2010). Those saugeye should now be about the size of fish we see in some of the photos. I'd lean to thinking most of the catches are saugeye. That's unfortunate. The State is not likely to renew saugeye stocking at GLSM. There is a chance saugeye can migrate to the Great Lakes from GLSM. There is a chance if the fish migrate to Lake Erie, they could mess up the walleye genetics in Lake Erie. Other than the brief lapse in '09 and '10 when saugeye were introduced to GLSM, the State has held firm against saugeye in GLSM. More likely we could see a renewal of walleye stocking. We got perch last year and we've heard DNR people suggest perch more perch are on the agenda near term. DNR probably won't do both perch and walleye. It will be interesting to see what strategy the DNR takes.....


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## larry2473

zaraspook said:


> larry2473........absolutely terrific catch and photo! That's some of the best GLSM fishing news I've heard/seen in years. Really impressive. Not a close enough look to tell if they are walleyes or saugeyes. I'd lean toward saugeye since the sizes are about right for the saugeye stocking of 2010. Did you measure them, Larry?


They were around 16" to 23" or so mostly saugeyes but did get some walleyes to. 


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## zaraspook

I'm really impressed! Thanks.


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## zaraspook

After taking care of some business earlier, got a chance to fish GLSM Weds about 4:30. Most channels are still 50-75% ice with some open water along the shore lines. From the East Bank the lake is iced as far as my eyes can see. Didn't make it to West Bank but the lake cam suggests a nice chunk of water that gives the appearance of being open.

The back ends of my channel were mostly open. As you go toward the lake you ran into more ice in the channels. I covered 4-500 feet of shoreline, had 4 timid bites that produced one fish.......a bluegill and not my target. Interesting that all my bites came in open that was adjacent to ice.

Water temp on my probe was 36F. Water level was up 4" over my last visit. Lot of rain up there earlier this week. Water clarity was best I've seen it in 2 years in my channel. Wind and driving snow was miserable. The only thing colder than me was that lone bluegill I caught out of 36 degree water.


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## Salmonid

Good report Zara, thanks, It islooking like NEXT weekend may shape up into some decent weather but that is always too far away to tell. Im really needing to get out though, and the boat calls for me all day long, every day, I hear it even though its locked in the garage..

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......Understand where you're coming from. I have an itch that can only be eased with some fishing time. Beware of those weather forecasting guys. Multiple times they predicted warming trends 5-10 days out. Particularly the last 5-6 weeks the predictions didn't materialize or we had one day of teasing temps then back into the dumper. If weather guys are gonna miss, would be nice to see them miss in our direction for a change.....better than expected results rather than worse.

Here's a thought for you. Winter of 2009-2010 we had extended ice. What followed was the summer of 2010.......that was when GLSM went ballistic with the other algae strain taking over the lake. Spring water clarity that year was like a Colorado trout stream. It became the summer of the nasty smelling, nasty looking, floating rainbow-colored mats of bad stuff. The final diagnosis was ice prevented naturally forming ammonia gas from escaping the lake. GLSM's normal algae strain didn't like the concentrated ammonia gas, didn't grow like normal, allowing another strain to become dominant and grow without competition. The result is history. I don't think the ice cover this winter has been at same levels as then......lake opens significantly every few weeks this year. Not that I expect a repeat of 2010, but who knows when ice cover is over the top, creating a mix when the nastiest algae strain again goes dominant? When we reach that point again, we better have phosphorus levels down so the monster can't feed.


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## zaraspook

GLSM main lake is about 75-80% open. No ice on the west bank and going east for more than two-thirds of the length of the lake. The east bank and northeast areas are still with considerable ice. On the south side of lake most channels are 80% open. Don't know about channels on north side of lake.

I hit Windy Point about 5pm Friday evening. Haven't fished for saugeye before but with the recent hoopla over saugeye catches at GLSM, decided to try stick baits from the long rip-rap pier. The 15-20 mph winds in 28 degree temps were brutal and made it extremely tough to slow fish the stick baits with long pauses. I also threw a blade bait (Cicada) which was easier to cast in the wind and maintain contact with bait, but neither of my offerings earned a bite. Planned to try my Big Joshy swimbaits but an hour was all I could handle.

Back to my lake place it was nearly dark, but tried 30 minutes for crappies. No crappies, caught a dink bluegill, and had several more sluggish bites which I suspect were also gills.

Water in main lake is definitely more stained than my channel. Any channel fed by a creek is very muddy. The channels at Windy Point on the east side of road showed nice clarity. I wish it would warm up......44 degrees is normal high this time of year. Lucky to see 44 one day a week. Patience, grasshopper.


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## Lowell H Turner

You tried, sir! Wish you luck with "punching the tooth fairy" dead in the mouth! And thank you Zaraspook for the many fine reports!


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## Salmonid

well me and partner Ryan hit GLSM this morning around 10:30 only to find 90% of the lake locked up with skim ice, and found old ice at West Shore ramp at about 1" thick, so we tooled around the North Shore and saw some bigger patches of open water if we could only find a ramp.. so we headed down to the Outdoorsman and chatted and they said the Sailboat ramp was open so we hit that and noticed about 2 dozen shore guys beating the snot out of that area for crappies, LOL didnt talk to any of them but they were all around the ramp and docks there so we went back to the small ramp just East of there and launched, carefully as we had to drive through a few hundred feet of skim ice to get to open water. Tons of dead shad everywhere and water was a toasty 35.7. headup back towards Celina area fishing several past spots with no success and as the sun showed up for an hour or two and the winds picked up, it opened most of the lake right up ( main lake that is) we tried 6-7 spots looking for some catfish but none were to be found by us but both our buddies were also out ( 3 boats total on the lake today,LOL) and caught a few little guys. warmest water we found was main lake at 37.5, excellent clarity on the main lake also. tried all the usual spots and even where saugeyes were caught recently, nothing, didnt even mark any fish or shad in that whole area. when we left the ice was all gone on the main lake eexcept for several hundred yards out from the bank on the East end, so forget putting in at East bank, at least today... 

Came up with another game plan for next weeks tourney and hopefully can find some more and bigger fish for that event, I really hate not being able to get out and really find fish before tourneys....

Salmonid


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## CHOPIQ

salmonoid; my brother fished St Marys today and they ended with 25 keepers crappies. Also I know you catfish some; the catfish tourneys start next week.


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## zaraspook

About 11 am Saturday arrived at my GLSM place. Did not expect the 50-60%+ ice cover in my channel. With a long metal post I broke up ice from shore out 8-10 foot in the channel, but only busted ice at 2 of the areas I like to fish, Couple hours later the broken ice dissipated enough to fish between the chunks. Got very few bites, no crappies, catching just a few gills.

Decided that Sunday AM I'd hit some of the northern channels of the lake that Saturday were packed elbow to elbow with crappie fishermen. Unfortunately, though out of bed early Sunday to hit those places, I never made it to my planned crappie destination. A transportation problem prevented me from going anywhere. Couldn't find my blankety-blank car keys. At least my channel was now 75% open, easier it fish without the limitations of ice, but had been void of any crappie successes up to this point. Ended up catching a few gills and mid-Sunday afternoon I landed the first crappie of the season to come from my channel. It was a 4" dink and made me laugh it was so puny. I guess you gotta start somewhere. 

By the way after more than 6 hours of tearing my place apart I did locate my keys mid-afternoon on Sunday. From the normal resting place on top the refrigerator, the keys apparently had fallen into the freezer compartment when the freezer door was opened. I immediately headed home before losing the keys again.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....east bank was still locked up when I left GLSM Sunday. Open water was progressing eastward and had encroached within a couple hundred yards of the park on east bank. My channel temp was 35.9 Saturday and 37.4 on Sunday (ice virtually gone)......similar to your readings. Water clarity in my channel was a little less than a week earlier, it was muddier but still very good by GLSM standards. The shad kill looked pretty normal to me and I liked the fact a high percentage of the dead ones were big dudes.


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## zaraspook

Epilimnetic circulation coming to GLSM.......sometime early this spring GLSM will be invaded by Bees, SolarBees that is. The State guys are back to tactics of aeration and circulation to improve GLSM water quality. 6-7 SolarBees will be deployed in a free trial. If it's solar it has to be good, right? I'm surprised the federal government doesn't have some stimulus dollars tied up in this, but maybe they do. More info and details can be found on the Lake Improvement Association's website at this link http://www.lakeimprovement.com/solarbees-could-be-coming-grand-lake-st-marys .


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## Lowell H Turner

Guess we will have to see what happens, sir...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid...........I'll bet your practicing tomorrow? Good luck in Catmaster kickoff tourney Saturday at GLSM. You set the bar high last year with a win last year.........pressure is on for a repeat. Good luck.

Live internet feed from the West Bank lake cam was amazing today. With the sun out and blue sky, GLSM lake water looked BLUE. That could be a first. Maybe it won't be blue when you see it up close and personal but water clarity should be pretty good.


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## zaraspook

LHT........any increment to GLSM circulation is a positive. I'm all for the trial. Question will be if circulation is improved sufficiently to justify a long term investment. Sooner or later these trials will produce a winner. Such a big lake, tough for the scale of most devices to impact significantly. Stopping inflow is paramount, then we have a fighting chance as long as we "Dredge baby, dredge"!


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## Lowell H Turner

Agreed. Likely, as the wetland restoration projects get started and "take root" (pardon the pun) the incoming run off will begin to significantly lessen. That will leave actually removing the phosphate "over load" and adding depth to help reduce the amount of it remaining that can be disturbed and resuspended by storms and boat propellers...it will take time and a cocktail of different things, but better overall water quality IS coming...


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## Salmonid

Zara, I wish i was prefishing today but alas, Im working, not feeling too confident for tomororw as had little time to prefish and weather tomorrow will make it tough.... LOL, everyuone loves a Noreaster...

Full report late tomorrow or early Sunday

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Good luck Salmonid!


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......weather may not be as bad as Channel 7 is putting out there. Definitely won't be warm but one model I saw says winds 7-8 mph most of the day, chances for rain under 20% and only in the morning, even some occasional sun breaking thru cloud cover. Bundle up. Maybe I'll run a couple of beers out to you about 1PM. (Not! My boat's in the shop for impeller replacement)

For me I finally have some time to do some fishing. Probably will make it to GLSM early evening Friday for a bit of wetting the line and hope to get in a few hours Saturday morning.


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## backlashed

The Kozy Marina boat show is this weekend, and the US Coast Guard Auxiliary has boater safety classes going there as well.

Boat show is Saturday and Sunday.


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## fishguy 888

Crappie bite was slow today only managed 3 fish nice legal keepers though


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## Salmonid

Zara, weather was as bad as forcasted, LOL heavy winds from the North, falling temps from 45 down to 28 by the time we ended, whitecaps beat us all day long as we tried to fish the open lake all day, only saw 2 other boats out in the lake out of 42 teams today, got our butts handed to us by the locals, ha ha, we only managed 8 fish today and the first 2 were nice at 7+ and 4+ lbs, then all dinks, we ended up around 20 lbs for 6 fish, winning weights was around 38 lbs and Big Fish was a heavy 13 lber!

Water temps were 39 everywhere all ove rthe lake including up a bunch of channels and creek mouths. we were castnetting some shad up Coldwater Creek and all the crappie guys were hammering the fish there and we castnetted between 1-4 crappies with every throw up there including 1 that was an honest 13+" and fat and a dozen keepers in about a dozen throws of the cast net. FWIW they were all in the middle of the channel and down about 2-3 ft in 5 ft of water. They were mixed in right with all the shad. 

Now im fired up for next weeks tourney at Rocky Fork where I always do pretty well at, Its redemption time....

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid..........surprising to me you and partner managed 8 fish. It was a booger of a day. And a 13# cat yesterday? Very impressive as is a 38# winning bag..........that's not much under last year when weather and water weremuch warmer.

I was up there at 5 Friday night. Fished until rain started at 6:30 pm catching 11 crappies (only 2 keepers) and 4 bluegills. Went back at it Saturday morning catching 13 crappies (6 keepers) and at least a dozen gills. Where you located crappies while cast netting is exactly where I found them in my channel. All were caught in the middle third of the channel at 3' depth of water 4-6 foot deep. Didn't catch a single crappie within 12' of bank although gills were a little closer. Crappie pattern has been the same ever since they schooled up last fall. They don't relate much to cover once the water cools, travel in schools chasing baitfish, and are out from bank. If you find the school you catch a lot of them very quickly, otherwise you get shutout. Fish didn't move far or very fast when they took the bait

I was happy to catch 24. None were over 10.75" but that will improve significantly over next 2 months. Water was stained more than prior weekend but my channel was more clear than main lake.


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## fishwhacker

crappie bite has been slow as of lately was having a blast the last couple weeks then the water got muddy. Got 15 crappies today only two keepers but something new for me I got all mine tight on cover. Seemed to pull 2 out of every brush pile I hit. Lots of guys casting in the middle which has been the theme so far this spring but I was catching at a higher rate than them. Seemed like they were struggling to find keeper also. Need some clear warm weather so they can really move in shallow and start hitting baits hard. Only had one take the cork under today of course cold weather and a bad wind never makes them aggressive. Can't say i'm excited over the crowds had a lot of my favorite spots covered with fisherman but oh well thats what happens when the crappies come back in full force. Lots of saugeye being taken in the spillway yet few walleyes mixed in. Word around the lake is that of the fish caught through the ice most were saugeye and that isn't making the odnr happy because the fear they will reach erie and crossbreed with the walleye. Don't see any future saugeye stockings happening. I would be alright with more walleye and perch stockings though. Ready for warmer dryer weather keep buying more gear I don't need when I can't use the stuff I have already. Need to check in the Fishing Gear Buying Anonymous(sponsored by Cabela's) lol. Good luck to all braving the cold


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## blindcop204

Is St. Mary's safe now? I have heard it was ok and then I heard the water was bad again and now I see your fishing it. Just curious because I enjoy the lake. Thanks in advance for an answer.

Chris


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......agree that we've seen the last of saugeye stocking for exactly the reason you stated. State fears migration into Erie and messing up gene pool if cross-breeding would occur with walleye. However, saugeye are virtually sterile to begin with and the fingerlings stocked into GLSM were something like triple treated to make sure of sterilization. Someone in 2009 and 2010 thought there was no risk of cross-breeding. Too bad if we don't get anymore saugeye 'cause it sure looks like they are thriving at GLSM. A sustained walleye and perch stocking program wouldn't be bad.

Speaking of perch.......the experts said perch population has fallen over the last 15-20 years. Might it have been linked to the heavy walleye stocking late 90's to 2006? Aren't perch the favorite breakfast, lunch, and dinner of walleye? Duh?

Glad to hear you're picking up crappies around cover. Hasn't been the case yet in my channel but the middle channel bite didn't show up until the last week. I'm only getting gills at this point from normal brush/wood locations.


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## zaraspook

blindcop204.........By "safe" do you mean is the water safe to drink, to touch, or to eat fish from it? Wouldn't recommend drinking the water from any Ohio waterbody. There are no advisories for water contact at GLSM. Algae and microcystin issues don't surface until we get prolonged sun and warming of the lake. Because of past water issues at GLSM, it is probably the most tested lake in Ohio for fish consumption. The only advisory for Grand Lake St. Marys is to limit eating of largemouth bass to 2 meals weekly. It's a very common advisory for many Ohio waterbodies. Go to the link below. It's put out by the Ohio EPA and lists all advisories for all Ohio waters. 123 Ohio lakes/streams are listed. Read for yourself and make your own assessment.
http://www.epa.ohio.gov/dsw/fishadvisory/LimitYourMeals.aspx


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## blindcop204

I appreciate the info and quick response. Also no I didn't plan on drinking the water haha. Thanks again!


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## Lowell H Turner

ODNR has repeatedly said that perch are largely "boom and bust" ie, under certain conditions they do VERY well and with the same conditions save 1, their numbers can rapidly plummet within a few yrs. The biggest condition is spawning cover; perch lay their eggs in long "strings"; on cover (brush or submerged weeds or even fence), they have like a 70-90+% hatch rate. Laid on muddy bottoms the hatch rate bottoms out at less than 5-10%...


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## Salmonid

Lowell, there is more cover around then you think, all the rip rap will work as well all the laydowns in every cove plus it seems every dock has a christmas tree or thre under them and then there is the random stumps still all over the place up there. If the perch are gonna spawn, they will do ok but id like to see the state dump a few year classes in the lake to really jump start them in case of a bad year spawn. I have them in my pond and there holding there own right now with only a few ceder trees to lay eggs on. I imagine all the new brush at CJ will definatly boost the YP population at CJB but it will take several years before folks realize it. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Speaking of perch spreading eggs, here's a report of spreading of another kind. Celina Daily Standard ran an article about the GLSM farmers resumption of spreading manure. March 1 ended the new manure application rules for the winter. Sounds like some behavioral changes have and are occurring.....that's good. However, the manure is a flying now as the rush begins to spread it before planting time. Sure hope Mother Nature backs off on heavy rains to avoid runoff, otherwise we will have only postponed new loading of bad stuff rather than prevented it. With fields still frozen it won't take much rain to carry recent applications to the lake.
Celina Daily Standard article is at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=20538 .


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## Lowell H Turner

Salmonid, believe it or not, that WAS the #1 reason origionally for the "project". More than 1 study has concluded more YP = more walleye while declining perch= less walleye. The area lakes have been blessed that we haven`t had a MAJOR shad winter kill in 5 yrs; but when the next 1 DOES occur, the majority of the walleye`s diet becomes guess what. And having abundant prey for the pre spawn females is critical where they naturally reproduce...


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## zaraspook

LHT.....in a previous post Salmonid mentioned dead shad levels were pretty high at GLSM. I commented that in my opinion winter shad kill was about normal. After being a little more nomadic and viewing more of the lake lately, I've been surprised. Shad kill is higher than I thought. Wouldn't call it massive but surely a pretty good one and more than occurred in last few years. Doubt it put much of a dent in GLSM's shad population.


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## Lowell H Turner

So long as they are still fresh YES walleye/ saugeye WILL still eat them, same smell, taste great (hopefully) AND no chase involved; eat all you want free feast...


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## zaraspook

Fished from 5pm to 6:45pm Weds evening at GLSM. 28 degrees upon arrival and a brisk 26 when I left. Took me about 10 minutes to locate a bite and ended the first hour catching 9 crappies. The bite in one 75' stretch of a channel and away from the bank out 10-20'. That area showed some decent shad activity. Took a quick break to thaw my fingers then back to the same spot for 40 minutes. By then the area was shaded, only managed 3 more for a total of 12. 5 were keepers, largest 10.5". Not seeing big ones........yet.


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## zaraspook

Officially announced now that GLSM will not receive an alum treatment this year. Despite the alum treatment last year, by the fall algae concentrations and microcystins(toxins) were higher than before the treatment. The article does mention last year's drought as a contributing factor, but doesn't mention we had 80 degree temps in March and the algae levels were off and running very early. The winter in 2011-2012 had very mild temps....we were catching fish in Jan. In April last year the water was already as green as it normally would be in June. Celina Daily Standard article goes into more data and specifics. This announcement isn't a surprise.....it was well telegraphed at least in the local GLSM area. http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=20573


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Fri 22nd from 5:30 to 7pm. Areas I wanted to fish were 80% covered with thin ice. Broke up the ice with a long pole then waited 1/2 hour to fish. Caught 6 crappies. All were out 15-20 feet from bank in water 4-6 feet deep. Interesting that bite was very light, almost undetectable, fish didn't move far or fast, but fish were fully eating the bait. All fish hooked solidly in roof of mouth....none lip hooked. Plan to try again Sat morning. Hope no ice this time.


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## zaraspook

Dang it! Channel fully covered with ice Sat morning. Busted up the ice again, at least in my sweet spots, and did chores for 3 hours waiting on the ice to melt. At 10am the honey holes still with nuisance ice, so moved to the end of a channel that was very clear of ice and basking in the sun. Within 5 minutes I was into a school of crappies, catching 26 in the first hour. After 20 minutes for a coffee and potty break, back to the same area. In another hour of casting the tally was 19 more crappies but bite really falling off. Stopped for lunch and to watch some round ball then went back to fishing for a final session. Couldn't locate a school but kept moving and picked up 2-3 fish in several different spots but nothing like the first two hours. During the final stint it took 90 minutes to catch 16. Total of 62 crappies caught Saturday with 32 keepers. Biggest was 11.25" and average fish size is climbing and best so far of the year. Between Friday evening and Saturday the catch was 68. Saturday action was excellent, fish were more aggressive.........accompanied by sunshine and low 40 temps it was a near-perfect day.


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## fishforlife

Just woundering how you go bye putting post on this sight . on odnr sight they got a map and have north south central and ect. when i post on here i would think some lakes are in strange locations but i maybe wrong and not trying to cause a issue . i just want to be sure i am putting stuff were all can find it in correct area make it easyer i tell alot of people about this sight and try to help and post because any help with the price of things is better so all can go fishing camping and places and get best information and time and money out of trip. sorry if anyone is offended or off on this i just want to help others . thanks for your time and good luck to all


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## Lowell H Turner

Again, well done Zaraspook!


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## Salmonid

I agree Zara, well done, your persistance has paid off! we went 8 hrs in a tourney at Rocky Fork yesterday without a bite....so Im off to the worst start in over 10 years of tourneys.... planning on prefishing GLSM this Sat getting ready for the tourney up there on the 6th. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

fishforlife.........Are you asking why posts for GLSM are put into the OGF Southwest region rather than in Northwest? If that's your question the answer is 2-parts. First, Ohio DNR categorizes GLSM as one of its SW region waterbodies. Secondly, GLSM draws 2/3's of its fishing and boating traffic from a 35 mile radius of Dayton. You're on target that GLSM clearly isn't located in Ohio SW. West Central would make more sense but Ohio DNR puts us in Southwest regardless of map.


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## fishforlife

yes and thank you . me i just want to help people out and i fish st mary s alot i leave 8 miles away. and the lake look good and is up in water level not real low like last year. fish bit is on from bank about anywere. and we boat fished sat water temp was 37 and clear for most part . shad kill is still going on and gill and crappie are doing preaty good. good luck to all and i ll post on this one so all can get info.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......no bites in 8 hours? Bummer! 

Wish I could translate crappie activity into channel cat behavior. Saturday a surprising portion of my catch came from water 30" or less depth and within 3-4 feet of the bank which has not been the case. Also it was toward the back of closed channels and in areas of full sun. It suggests those fish are tired of this cold water and favoring even a few tenths higher temps. The same areas held some cruising big carp and significant shad activity. By 6th we should be normal air temps but water temps will still be lagging norms.


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## zaraspook

A buddy and I made it to GLSM Weds 27th for some crappie fishing from shore. It was 3:00 when we first wet a line, starting at the same spot that produced most of the 62 crappies I caught last Saturday. Action was s l o w and after 45 minutes and only 4 fish we moved to another spot. It didn't take long and it was clear we were into a school. Bite was steady until we quit at 6pm. Final tally was 88 crappies caught in 3 hours, 50 for me and 38 for my partner. None cracked the 12" mark in length but several measured 11.5-11.75". My partner estimated 60% were legal although we released all.

Once again the bite was "out" in the channel 10-30' from the bank. Not more than a handful were caught within 8' of shore. Bites were not easy to detect, fish didn't move far or fast with the bait, but fish were eating the bait.....not many fish were lip hooked. 

Quantity and size of the catch are really good so far. No monsters yet, but the size is incrementing higher with each each time out. Water clarity was good in the channel we fished. The main lake appeared muddy. Sorry but I forgot to check water temp. Hope to get out again Friday or Saturday. Get out now to take advantage of the uptick in temps....I'm hearing more white stuff possible next week hope this is one of the times the weather guys get it wrong.


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## SPAZ

The Outdoorsman has the start of their crappie tournament starting sat. With the "predicted" forecast they should have a good turnout.


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## Salmonid

Nice job finding them Zara!! One of these days Id like to trade a trip with you cats for crappies..LOL anyways I was up that way for work about 4am yesterday and most of the lake has a thin skim coating on it, you could see it flexing as I pulle dover along the West bank thinking the water was playing a trick on me Nope really skim ice, LOL Thinking of prefishing for the Apr 6 Catfish tourney this weekend, not sure though and watching the weather as I know water temps still cant be over 39 with all the snow still on the ground and Im afraid if I find fish this weekend, that will highs next week in the 50's will move them before the tourney, thus a wasted prefish trip.. May hit a tourney on the Ohio river instead,,,,decisons....LOL

Good luck and keep on the pattern!!

Salmonid


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## fished-out

SPAZ said:


> The Outdoorsman has the start of their crappie tournament starting sat. With the "predicted" forecast they should have a good turnout.


Buckeye Crappie Challenge has one on 4/27 too. Tis the season.


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## zaraspook

salmonid.......if you find fish this weekend I doubt bite will move much by next weekend. Forecasted highs for lake next week are only 30's Mon-Tues and lows below freezing. Slowly warming towards end of week and next Sat no warmer than this Saturday.

Don' know if your cats follow the shad into channels, but all of my crappies are coming around larger shad doing the slow motion death dance. If I don't see shad dying then I don't catch crappies. Maybe those big cats are in the channels gorging, picking off easy target shad?

I've been lucky finding crappies last couple weeks. Most Weds afternoons and Saturdays I'll chase them at GLSM. Let me know if you want to catch a few. I'll check water temp this weekend.


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## fishguy 888

Heading to spillway in morning will post results when im done


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## fishguy 888

went to spillway in the morning it was slow for saugeye and crappie moved around the lake not biting very good today went to three different spots


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## zaraspook

fishguy 888.........I had problems today as well. Crappie bites were few and far between except for a period of 30 minutes when I caught 8 of my total of 15 for the day. My nephew caught 6 and a really nice bluegill. A crappie boat working my channel was spider rigged and I think caught about 20 in a couple hours. Size was off all day and fish were timid, not in a hurry with the bait. I covered a lot of ground today, caught nothing close to bank. Very surprised to find water temp was 45.6 degrees a 5pm, at least 3 degrees warmer than I expected. Disappointing...........maybe the end of the full moon played a factor.


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## Brad617

Fished up there yesterday as well. First time I got boat out this year. Started @ 2 and fished till about 5 and also found very tough crappie bite. buddy and I ended up with about 6 crappies with 3 being keepers.(however we did not keep) but the bluegills kept us busy, but not alot of size on the gills. On a side note my buddy loves to fish with minnows and absolutely tore up the bass. and some nice sized ones at that. And the boat ran great!


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## zaraspook

Brad617..........that's the first report I've heard about bass. Very encouraging. Thanks for the report.


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## fishguy 888

Ya they would bite for about 15 or 20 minutes and just turn off like a switch one guy at Andersen channel had 21 keepers
tried the spillway Andersen channel and the yacht club


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## fishguy 888

Launched out of windy point went to rustic haven crappie bite was nonexistent


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## fishforlife

lake is alittle muddy . outdoor tourny went ok 6lb won and about 3 teams had that. 20 teams in and all had 8 fish at scales. just work slow and keep at . bit was slow and took awhile to get . we had about 18 keepers and alot short. water temp was 38 to 42 and muddy or stained. good luck to all and can only get better with spring.


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## zaraspook

fishforlife.........sounds like you and your patner did pretty good in the tourney and not out of the money by much. Nice work!


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## zaraspook

Shooting for a new muck removal record, the State is setup for years to come with new dredge material relocation areas (DMRA). Places to put the stuff is always a limiting factor. That restriction is gone for the next several years with a host of DMRA's plus a wetlands creation project that will accumulate tons more. A 440,000 cubic yard site is located withing an easy 8-iron shot of my front door at GLSM. Dredge baby, dredge! Scoop the poop! More info a la the Celina Daily Standard is at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/story_single.php?rec_id=20672 .


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## Lowell H Turner

A no holds barred flat out record attempt at mud moving PLUS the beginnings of the wetlands restoration, giving the feeder creeks back their filtration capability, lost long ago with the `development` of the area. A multi direction attack on the same man made problem...DREDGE THAT SLOP OUTTA THERE! Go for the depths! (Even if it`s only 8 fow...) Dredge, baby, DREDGE! Want those dredges ROARIN`!


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## zaraspook

If you want to read it, the official State report on last year's GLSM alum treatment is at the link below. It's a pdf file available for download. My summary is the report claims existing available phosphorus was reduced as intended. Because of the mild winter before 2012 treatment and warm spring temps, algae growth was already off and running before the application. The dry summer and lack of rain further created conditions for algae growth, therefore, there was little visible impact and algae/microcystin levels were higher in 2012 than the previous year.....but it would have been worse without alum treatment. Alum was never meant as a cure, but a stop-gap measure. The focus now is on the long-term measures to control new loading while removing existing loading of phosphorus.

The report is 85 pages, but 1/2 or more is data. It might be a better read of you drink 3-4 beers first. It's on the Grand Lake Improvement Association's website at http://www.lakeimprovement.com/knowledge-base/alum-application-report .


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## zaraspook

Fished for crappies at GLSM Weds from 4-6pm. The route to success had been to locate a school out from the shoreline and pound it to death until you got tired of catching them. That didn't happen, couldn't find a school so hunkered down, moving frequently and trying different habitat. It wasn't very productive, 7 crappies in 2 hours and only one of those a keeper. Only once did I pull more than one from a spot. On the other hand the bluegill bite was active and could have caught a pile of them if I downsized baits and targeted them.

The lake remains stained, somewhat muddy. No rain to speak of since last weekend but my southside channel was more stained. It's due to the northerly winds blowing water from the lake into the channel. Water temp was 47.6 at 6pm....about 1 degree higher than last weekend. Water level was steady from last week, no evidence of a draw-down.

Results of last Saturday's crappie tournament are at this link http://www.theoutdoorsman.biz/mar30crappie.htm


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## zaraspook

Fished Fri evening 6:30 to 7:30 pm. Caught just 5 crappies, 1 keeper. Bluegill bite is still crazy but not my target. No pattern for the crappies. Will wet a line again Saturday. Good luck to the catfish tourney anglers tomorrow.


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## zaraspook

Saturday 6th fished at GLSM. Over a 2.5 hour time frame managed 15 crappies, 6 keepers and 2 that were 11"+. Fish were scattered and seeing more crappies in close. Now catching some better sized fish from traditional brush areas near the bank. Out in channel hunting schools at 2-3' depth had been best approach. Wished I had switched to shallow bite earlier.

Next 5-6 weeks should be as good as it gets until the fall. Water temp was 47.6 in my channel about noon. I'm sure the temp topped 48 later in day. Water clarity is good, much better than at this time last year when water temps and algae/green matter were already rising. Bluegill bite is crazy....critters are chasing any and everything. Caught at least a dozen even tho most of them choke on my plastics.


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## Salmonid

Zara, glad you got into some specks!! we on the other hand, for our catfish tourney had yet another dismal day....Thanks Mr wind....water was 48 all around the lake, strong winds killed our style of fishing the main lake... 2/3 rd of the way through the tourney we still hadnt a single bite, ran through half a large gas tank looking. finally in the last hr got 7 tiny cats, we didnt even take em to weigh in... 47 lbs won it, took 38 lbs to get money ( 4 places) 43 teams. Im ready to sell all my stuff and take up knitting... this is the worst tourney year Ive had in over 10 years, very frustating the whole points series is over for us at this point. shows what happens when you cant prefish many times to find fish before toury days... LOL ( IE job and cost of trips) 

Rant over....
Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Salmonid, know it can get frustrating, but in the semi immortal words of Blutowski from "Animal House": "Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? (deleted) NO!" Point is, there will be bad days, and better days ahead too...


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## Salmonid

Lowell, I know I know.. its just frustrating , I quit fishing the Ohio River because there arent any fish left and started fishing the lakes and last year was a great year but this year with the weird weather and all its not been condusive to us so far. Not much to look forward too with the next 6 weeks as the kitties start to go dormant for the spawn. LOL Realy hoping the next week will warm up the water enough to get everyone active vs a few fish fish thats all we have seen the last 4 weeks. 

Even my buddies at CJ havent been able to get hardly any cats. its been a rough year everywhere. 

Ill be trying Eastwood and Acton in the next 10 days so hopefully Ill be able to actually remember what its like to catch some fish. Heck Im already out about $700 so far in gas and entry fees over the last 6 weeks, My tourney fund is wiped out as I was hoping to add to it so far... not deplete it 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid........the wind was a real booger. I had my fishing boat on GLSM that day testing a new prop and quit ater 20 minutes. Can't imagine an entire day of trying to fish in it. I saw several boats fishing.........all hugging shorelines to stay away from the incessant whitecaps. 47 pounds to win is impressive. Under those conditions 47 pounds is miraculous! You and your partner are due for a big day in the near future. Get back up on that horse!


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## zaraspook

Figured the approaching weather system might kick start the sluggish crappie bite so went back to GLSM Sunday afternoon. Unsure if the coming front had anything to do with it, or maybe I just got lucky today. Either way, I'll take it. 

This time I started shallow and fished known cover/brush near the bank. In the first 30 minutes from 2 spots right off my seawall, I pulled 6 from cover that produced only 2 crappies all spring.......a good start. Off to another spot to find plenty of bluegills nipping at my bait, but only one crappie plus a bonus 10" bass that was 2' from the bank. Decided to work my way 100-yards to a very shallow backend of a channel with some decent cover.....no fish and no bites until I got the the backend and the fun began. Next 50 minutes was action packed with 15 aggressive crappies and 13 bluegills. Most of those fish were 3-5' from shore in water less than 3 feet deep from a 15' stretch of bank. Not only was that backend shallow, it also basks in the sun from early morning until 5-6pm.

In 2 hours and 10 minutes the total was 22 crappies, 15 gills, and the spring's first bonus bass. 9 keeper crappies up to 11", 3 of the gills were big boys. It was well worth the additional 2 hour and 20 minute roundtrip drive and a good finish to the weekend. I was home in time for dinner.


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## Lowell H Turner

Those shallow warmer channels seem to be drawing them in...


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## CHOPIQ

Salmonoid, my brother and another guy fished the tourney also on Saturday. They fished from the bank. They had about 27 pounds. They caught a lot of fish just no size to them. Like he says, its hard to beat the pros in that tourney. Good luck on your next tourney.


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## zaraspook

Forgot to mention water temp Sunday about 4:30PM was 51.3. First crappie caught was roughed up on his underside. Belly, anal fin, and bottom of tail reddened severely, I guess from fanning the bottom to create a bed? None of the others showed similar signs. That guy must be overly anxious or his clock is off......probably forgot to reset his watch for daylight savings time.


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## SPAZ

I fished from 9-3 in 3-6ft of water and ended up with 26 crappie all over 10". This is the first weekend in four that Ive seen fish this size and numbers. Looking for someone to give me some advanced tips on finding the saugeye in GLSM I will even take that person out on my boat if they have the knowledge to find them. First year with a boat I down know the lake at all. Any body have ideas let me Know. Heck I will trade crappie for saugeye.


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## zaraspook

SPAZ.........nice haul yesterday for you. Were you fishing main lake or channels? 

Hope you get some instructive responses regarding putting saugeye in the boat at GLSM. I'd like to know, too. One of my objectives for the year is to catch a few GLSM saugeyes, but hate to start from a totally blank page. Remember saugeyes only stocked 2 years then the ODNR shut it down. Majority of us will be novices since we haven't had saugeye population 'til now. Out of habit I focus on crappie...would put in some saugeye time if I weren't clueless.


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## SPAZ

Fishing channels on the south Iam in a 17' flat with a 40 yamaha. Keep an eye out for me if ya see me flag me down. generally around windy point. Ive seen some very nice saugeye getting "snagged" at the bottom of the spillway so that tells me there in the lake somewhere. Iam going to find out how and where and I will be sure to let you know. I dont have any idea on where to start on saugeye


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## zaraspook

Dredge deployment to start the season below:

_All 3 dredges should be up and running in the next few weeks in the following areas  Eagle"  West Bank Launch Ramp Harbor, Brutus  Beaver Creek & Pump a Little  Otterbein. Be aware of the dredge pipe that is marked with the orange buoy balls._


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## Lowell H Turner

That is GOOD news, sir! The SOONER the better!


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## zaraspook

Weds afternoon got in about 90 minutes of fishing before rain and lightning became obscene at GLSM. Caught 6 crappies, one that just barely made the 9" legal mark, but other 5 were 10-11.5". Fish were within 5' of bank and in water 2-3' deep. Bite turned off like a light switch when the monsoon type rain started and thunder was booming. 

I'll bet St Marys had 1.5-2" of rain from 4-6 pm, and when I left it showed no signs of letting up. Fields, ditches were flooding big time which means lots of runoff into watershed and lake. Unfortunately, farm fields had plenty of manure applied since March 1 when manure spreading ban expired. For the last month the air is ripe with the odor of fresh manure. With fields barren, no crops yet to slow the flow of water, the lake is sure to take a heavy hit of new phosphorus loading. Not a good recipe and lake will pay a price this summer......particularly sad since GLSM water clarity has been unusually good this spring.


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## Lowell H Turner

If there IS a "bright side" at least with the ground thawed, some of it will hopefully get into the ground. TOO bad there isn`t more in the way of mandatory larger grass buffer strips...


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## zaraspook

LHT......you're on target. Anything to slow the flow(runoff) is a positive. The cost to "install" additional grass strips/buffers is almost zero. Studies show filtration improves exponentially. A 30' buffer/strip filters something close to 65% of bad stuff whereas a 10' strip is in the neighborhood of 15%. It's my biggest gripe with the farmers in watershed. Even on land adjacent to creeks they won't add 20 additional feet of buffer which I consider as proof they aren't serious. 10' is the standard throughout the watershed. No way will they commit to taking any acreage out of production. Farmers are too accustomed to being paid to change. If the State gives grants, they'll add manure holding ponds but without grants they won't budge. Precedent of government paying farmers to be good citizens goes back decades. Farmers know they can hold out, resist, and sooner or later govt will ante up. If any other kind of business "pollutes" the environment they get fined or shutdown.

For the long term, at least we have a set of restrictions on the books. Should not be as hard to ratchet up the restrictions, tighten rules going forward. Piece by piece tougher regs should come together.


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## Lowell H Turner

Agreed. By and by, by `hook, crook, or other means` their overall impact is just TOO GREAT to remain forever unaccountable. Kind of like boiling a frog; if you put him in boiling water, he just hops out, scalded. But, if you put him in a pan of nice cool water, turn on the gas and very SLOWLY increase the heat, why, that frog will happy just stay there and eventually boil to well done...guess change takes time. And the WILL to bring it to pass...


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## kschupp

Lowell H Turner said:


> Kind of like boiling a frog; if you put him in boiling water, he just hops out, scalded. But, if you put him in a pan of nice cool water, turn on the gas and very SLOWLY increase the heat, why, that frog will happy just stay there and eventually boil to well done....


Normally my frogs go in a pot of HOT grease and I normally cut the legs of so they can't jump out.


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## zaraspook

Hey Salmonid........take a look at the webcam on GLSM West Bank (link below). The live video feed looks like lake is up minimum of a foot. Water isn't far from encroaching on State Route 127 as it reaches Celina at NW corner of lake. When I was at GLSM Weds late afternoon rains were still in early phases, but I knew the lake was in trouble. Never expected the rains to continue another 24 hours and push lake this high. Whatever hog manure was on the fields as of Tuesday has found a new home. 
Lake cam link http://webcam.wabash.com/westbank2.html


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## zaraspook

GLSM was high, very muddy, and routinely breaching seawalls in many places places when I arrived Saturday afternoon. It was easily up an additional foot from prior weekend when the State boys said lake was +8" above pool. Conditions were anything but conducive for crappie fishing but I was in the mood. Fished for an hour, watched some of Masters, and fished another hour before dark. It wasn't pretty, just an occasional bite of bluegills no hint of the papermouths. Caught just 2 bluegills and my third 10" bass of the crappie season.

Went back at it for a couple 45 minute sessions on Sunday. Again, no bites that resembled cooperating crappies. Was about to quit when there was a quick tap, an absence of any weight, then the line heading away. With a lift I could tell it was a toad. Got the crappie 2/3 out of water before the jig ripped from its lips. No crappie this time, but I'll be back soon..... after that toad.


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## zaraspook

Don't know how much rain fell so far this week at GLSM, but whatever amount it can't have helped already heavily muddied water. On my way out of town last Sunday I stopped by Windy Point to see how the channels were on the east side of the road. This channel contains the State boat ramp. Channel there was almost totally absent of any muddy condition with very good clarity. I didn't fish but lots of other fisherman must have known the muddy lake conditions would not impact that area. There were at least 20 anglers on the bank and 3-4 boats working the banks for crappie. Only witnessed one crappie caught so can't guarantee you'll catch fish. However, it should be an area to escape muddy water if you don't mind some competition on the bank. Hope I'm not revealing anyone's "secret"....it is a State public area.


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## fffisch

I fished the main park area yesterday and some places the water looked good and others muddy. Only caught some little gills. The crappie seemed to have vacated or got lockjaw. Where we caught them a week or 2 ago in numbers , now can't get one to bite.


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## zaraspook

fffisch.....anyone I talk to says when the lake is muddy, cutting your grass is a better time investment than crappie fishing. I figure they gotta eat sooner or later, we have to find them. Might be wise to keep the mower's gas can filled though.


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## Lowell H Turner

Good to hear from you, fffisch! Hopefully retirement is agreeing with you! Please give myy regards to the others at the NAAFC Ohio Chapter! Can`t seem to get on the site anymore...Good luck with the fishing, sir!


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## zaraspook

Tried GLSM Thursday evening from 6-7:30 pm. It sprinkled off and on, but steadier showers held off 'til later. Very muddy conditions remain in my channel with perhaps miniscule improvement. Water level is down only 2-3" from last weekend and water temp 57 degrees on my probe.

My efforts didn't produce many fish, but variety was there. Bluegills were more active than anything else. Few of them can handle the bait size I use. Caught 4 of them......none would rank as keepers. One yellow-belly of 10-11" ambushed my jig. He was more fun than the 5" gills were. Picked up another small bass, 10" variety, that produced more excitement than the catfish. Caught two stray crappies, both just over the 9" minimum. Those 2 were the first crappies I've coaxed to shore in nearly two weeks since muddy conditions rolled in.

My opinion is muddy or not, the muddy conditions have lasted long enough the fish will stabilize to the new conditions. Water temps are getting up there and the call of the spawn should push the fish in. Crappie bite should slowly improve, particularly if rainfall backs off.


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## Salmonid

nice report Zara... keep at em and your right, after so long in the muddy conditions they will adjust and start eating. 

Really hoping its not snowing tomorrow am for the start of the Catfish tourney up there, LOL

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....Didn't realize 2nd event is tomorrow. Do you launch from East Bank? Ramp and parking lot are much improved. Hope you don't get blown around like last time. Good luck!


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## Lowell H Turner

Good luck Salmonid! You know how, would guess it`s more a case of "Where on the lake?"


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## Salmonid

actually its the 3rd event so far on the season and most likely will launch at West Bank or Windy Point. Wind forcast is gonna be fun tomorrow...LOL
all in a days work I suppose. Will post results, good or badlate tomorrow or early Sunday

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Winds should be under 15 mph. That's on the light side for the flat terrain of GLSM. Good day for you.


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## Salmonid

ha ha, so when have the weather folks been right this year at GLSM?? winds were 15-20 all day with alternating gusts from the NW and steady from the West, 3 ft rollers and some white caps on the main lake and the wind was quite cold, 42 teams today for the catfish tourney, 47 lbs won it and a 12 lber was big fish. Needless to say we had a good day of catching , just couldnt locate any bigger fish, we finished in the middle of the pack but caught a lot more fish then a few of the folks we spoke with, so go figure, all our fish were between 3-5 lbs and we weeded through almost 30 fish to get those. moved all over, water was murky to muddy depending where we were, near the creeks the water was muddy and colder at 49 degrees but the main lake was 52-53 and only dingy. Overall it was an ok day but will need to find a better pattern for the early spring for next year, the next tourney will be around the presapwn period where we never do any good at then either, LOL its the best pattern we have, ( IE never doing any good durring the spawn) 

Gonna be "fun" fishing the next few weeks at some new lakes so that will be exciting!

Zara, any luck today?? we saw a ton of crappie guys out but didnt see or talk to any of them reall to find out if they did any good, BTW at least 50 people in the spillway this morning and after the tourney. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid........servicing my lawn tractor and mowing most of Saturday so didn't make it to GLSM until 3-3:30pm. Drove by the East Bank and could see the white caps and lake looked less muddy. Saw one boat out 75-100 yards from East Bank and assumed it was a catfish tourney guy.

30 channel cats? Sounds impressive and probably a great result for most tourneys. I'd a been a happy camper with that number of crappies Saturday. Only managed 7 in about 2 hours, surprisingly that's my best action since muddy waters set in. My channel was down to 54 degrees with slight improvement in water clarity. Air temp was 43-44 and wind forced me to add a layer of clothing.

Wonder what's going on at spillway? Must be something toothy (walleye or saugeye)? Kind of doubt a hot crappie bite is enough to draw an elbow to elbow crowd. Maybe someone will post what the buzz was about.


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## fishforlife

fished a crappie tournament on st marys was shelby county crappie club took 7.70 to win and was crazy day snowed blowed and water was muddy and standed . big fish was 1.4 lbs. all teams did well . is a 8 fish weigh in . good luck to all and the lake is good even in a cold front.


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## SPAZ

Stop done there sat morning to try for some eyes . Everybody fishing sat we're crappie fishing .


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## zaraspook

Got to wet a line Sunday 4:30-6pm at GLSM. Bite was a little better than Saturday, but nothing to write home about. Crappie count was again 7 but this time 6 were legal size......most caught around traditional brush and docks from 4-10 feet from bank. Bluegills were crazy active within 3-5 feet of bank. Also ran into another small (9-10") bass......that's the 4th or maybe 5th bass in same size range caught this year while crappie fishing.

Good to see water clarity is slowly improving in channels. It's still stained (brown), not green (algae). At this time last year algae was off and running and water very green. Water level is high...prefer it high over the low levels from drawdown and drought of 2012.


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## zaraspook

SPAZ........how was crappie bite Saturday at spillway?


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## SPAZ

My neighbor was there and he told me that it was full buckets early morning. When he got there it was on the slowing down. We didnt get there till 10:30 we had came from larmie spillway with one 22" saugeye hoping to do better in the clearer water no such luck.


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## zaraspook

SPAZ.....if rain on way doesn't muck it up, crappie bite should be on the rise. Also, full moon comes Thursday. Next 3-5 weeks should be prime time!


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## SPAZ

Would you believe me if I told you iam sitting in my boat as it is hooked to the truck. Iam like a little kid making motor noises and everything. C'mon mother nature be nice to us. Having next week off is going to be awsome for me first couple of days at GLSM then to buckeye for a few.The weekend couldnt get here quick enough.


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## SPAZ

The water temps are border line if you were to be shooting them with a bow. I'd bet they have a good turn out though


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## larry2473

What does the water look like after the rain


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## zaraspook

larry2473.......maybe someone will respond who's been there since rain. If not, this link will take you to a live shot at NW corner of GLSM from a lake cam. Water looks high but not muddy from the link. I'll bet clarity in channels will be more stained than main lake.
link is http://webcam.wabash.com/westbank2.html


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## SPAZ

I will get over there tonight or Fri I will post what I find out


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## fishwhacker

Drove by today it is very muddy anywhere there is a soft bank which is most of GLSM rocky banks arent as bad


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## larry2473

I ended up going down there today after work fished for about 4 hours. Ended up with probably over 50 fish 


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## SPAZ

We're you crappie fishing? Was this in murky water? Boat or shore? Any help would be great .


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM from 6-7:30pm Thursday. Gotta be a lot of water going over the spillway but it hasn't made a dent in water level since last weekend. Water still high......muddy to murky, at least in my channel. Couldn't find much of a crappie bite in the short time I fished. Only caught 3 and that was after going much deeper in the water column and near the bottom. On the other hand, bluegills were in attack mode. Though trying to avoid the gills, caught about 10 of which 3 were extremely nice ones. 

Water clarity is peculiar for GLSM. If it weren't for the muddy conditions, visibility would be very good. It's surprisingly absent of any green hue from algae/chlorophyll. Not to sound an alarm, but last time GLSM wasn't green this time of year we paid for it in the summer. Knock on wood.


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## larry2473

Yes crappies is what I caught on jigs not really sure of names of places where I caught them live hour away and I was all the way around the lake fishing channels from bank


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## SPAZ

All day skunkfest terrible


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## larry2473

I was down there yesterday got probably 30 or so out of lake. Caught a lot down in the spillway. 


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## zaraspook

Poor results for me, too. I was there Saturday from about Noon to 6pm. With the lack of a crappie bite I spent most of my time running errands and doing chores. I'd estimate 2.5 hours of fishing for 2 crappies, 6 gills, and a small bass. Only positive aspect was one crappie was 12" and one gill 8.5". 51.7 degrees water temp on my temp probe. 2-3 weeks ago temp was mid-50's. One of the 4-5 crappie boats in my channel during the day said water temp was 49. Not sure if the muddy conditions or temp played a bigger role in shutting down the bite. Didn't witness any of the crappie tournament guys catch a fish.

After a very good March the month of April has me stumped. Was catching as many as 62 at a time in March and now can't hit double digits. Lake is still high but down maybe 2 inches since mid-week. Clarity improving.


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## larry2473

When I was there Saturday I got most of mine on a channel by Celina. Fishing deeper not sure what its called surprised there was no one else fishing that channel. Caught a lot in spillway though. 


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## fishwhacker

Bite has been tough lots of rain and cool temps. Muddy and that cooler water made the crappies sluggish this weekend. I found a few crappies and hit up a bunch of nice gills (my favorite). It might almost be may but the water temps aren't saying that. The crappies aren't chasing the shad and they aren't spawning, so they are definitely suspended. Couple consistant days of warm sunny weather without rain will bring them into that 55 degree water temp and have them move up shallow soon. Unfortunately I would think the spawn is going to be short the bite will be fast and furious but i'm guessing it will only last a week or 2 and back out they will go. I have seen this in the past with our great ohio weather. Hopefully we can keep a slow and steady temp climb and maybe get 3 or 4 weeks of a spawn bite that is if the rain quite pounding us and the water has a chance to clear up a bit.


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## larry2473

The males in the spillway were starting to get dark bellies on them


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## fished-out

I was in the tournament on Saturday, took 2nd, only weighed 5.36 pounds for 8 fish with 5.5 pounds winning it. Another tournament last Sunday took over 7 pounds to win.

Bite was very tough; we had to resort to myriad techniques and areas. Friday bite was much better, not sure what happened overnight, but everyone struggled on Saturday.

We don't use minnows, but kinda wished we had some to see if that would have made any difference. I'm happy with our finish, but not with the bite.


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## zaraspook

Reassuring to know no one is really lighting 'em up. Keep your chores done so you get plenty of fishing time when they perk up. Like fishwhacker says, when they come in and spawn gets started it, it may be a quick gold rush this year. Lake will add temperature fast with sun during days and night time temps near 55 degrees next few days. If it's cloudy and lows dip into 40's at night it will slow process down. That's the forecast for later in the week. We should see water temps in upper 50's soon then sit there for a while and give us a chance to pick off fish as they move in.


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## zaraspook

fished-out.......congrats on your 2nd place finish last Saturday! Just 2 and 1/4 ounces from 1st. In your tourney, how many fish do you take to the scales?


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## zaraspook

Crappie bite is definitely back on track at GLSM......had a great Weds evening 4-7pm though I spent some of that time working on my yard. It took an hour and 45 minutes to catch the first 10 crappies. Had to keep moving, catch 1 fish and move on, bite was sporadic but size is coming on. 6 of the first 10 were keepers including 2 between 11-12". Clarity in the first channel was surprisingly good, maybe 10-12 inches and water level down 2-3 inches from the weekend. Just 1-2 of those fish were shallow and near the bank, and they were the smaller ones. Others were bigger, 6-10 feet out while fishing at a depth of 3-4 feet, deeper than anticipated. 

Moved to another channel and everything was reversed. Channel was not as clear, no more than 3-4" visibility, and rather than picking up singles the next 10 all came from a single pile of brush extending from the bank out 4 ft into the water. All 10 came in less than 45 minutes, all were legal, only 2 under 10" and 5 were 11-11.75". Most were within 2 feet of the bank in water depth under 18". Several hit the jig on the rise only 2-3" under the water surface.

16 keepers out of 20 fish is outstanding....just the type of fishing we expected this year. 3-4 years ago not even the most optimistic crappie fan could dream of catching seven 11" fish out of a batch of 20. 

After reading water temps under 52 degrees last Saturday, it was a shock to register 62 yesterday. Most of the fish were wearing black war paint and clearly males.....only 2 of fish had bulging bellies to suggest they were females with eggs. Doubtful the spawn has started but fish are making preparations. We should have 3-4 weeks of good fishing ahead. Whether you find them out or in close, the size and quantity of GLSM crappies may be the best we've seen in decades.


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## Lowell H Turner

GEEZ dude, WELL DONE! A haul to be proud of! BTW, are the dredges going yet?


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## zaraspook

LHT........great question. Don't know the answer.


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## Salmonid

I dont know either about the dredges but at Acton lake 2 weekends ago they had already started there. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Crappie bite wasn't crazy good at GLSM Saturday, but decent enough to keep it interesting. Didn't get there until noon and stopped to do chores periodically, allowing me to fish about 4 hours. Although most fish were caught around wood/brush, can't say I really found a consistent pattern. Some fish were caught in as little as 18" of water and near the bank, others were 8-12' out at a depth of nearly 4'. Changing bait or colors didn't have much impact, however when one hit there was no fooling around. Fish were feisty and most well hooked in the roof of the mouth. Ended up catching 42 with 29 legal. Typical fish was 10-11.25". One ticked just above the 12" mark, the first 12+ since March. More rare, I caught my first white crappie of the year. It was well short of keeper class at about 8". Gills were not active, only caught 2, and also a 10" bass.

Water clarity is decent, showing some green, but nowhere near last year at this time. Water temp was 68. Multiple bass tourneys were going on.....sometimes as many as 4-5 boats jockeying for position. Bass guys seemed to be having a good day.


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## fishboy

Got 14 keepers in appox 2 hours on laydown wood. jig with bobber at 1 foot. all between 10-11 inchers. lots of short fish too. 5/5/2012 fished bass tourney caught 9 keepers all small many many heavy strings weighed in. Great to see how good the fish are doing again.


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## zaraspook

fishboy................Crappie population is definitely in a good zone. In that Sunday bass tourney one boat put 3 bass in his livewell from my channel. I didn't see it but my neighbor said one of the 3 looked to be 5 lb or better. What was the big bass in that tourney and what was weight of winning bag?


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## larry2473

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## Lowell H Turner

larry2473, if that is a standard spray can in the foreground as a point of reference those are 70 NICE crappie! The biggest was 14+"?


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## larry2473

Yes standard spray can


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## larry2473

The male in front was over 14" female 15"


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## zaraspook

larry2473........nice work. You can feed the neighborhood with those slabs!


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## fished-out

Sorry, Zara, haven't had time to check posts in awhile. 8 fish in BCC tournies. The week before, we placed 2nd at Buckeye with 7.35 pounds, and the following week 2nd at St Mary's with 5.36 pounds. Deer Creek this weekend!


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## fishboy

4.74 and 4.7 were 1 and 2 big bass 11.62 was smallest weight to place.


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## fishboy

forgot 14.06 won


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## zaraspook

fishboy......14.06 sounds like a decent winning bag. How many fish....5?


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## fishboy

yes best 5


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## Lowell H Turner

larry2473, am suitably impressed!


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## larry2473

Yesterday's catch


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## Lowell H Turner

HEY NOW! Let`s NOT "over do" it !


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## zaraspook

I'd be a candidate for carpal tunnel after cleaning back to back piles like those.


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## larry2473

Today's catch think there's 108


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## kschupp

Please tell me that there were at least 4 of you fishing.


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## larry2473

Why is that


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## larry2473

Why is that


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## Lowell H Turner

Or that you have 4 concurrent licenses...? Pretty sure the state lowered the creel number of crappies to 30 from the previous 50 awhile ago...not to worry, I won`t tell.


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## Salmonid

Todays report: Myself and a buddy "Scott" met up with Zaraspook around 4 pm and he was very gracious to show us around a few of his honeyholes as the 3 of us went in search of a nice little mess for the fryer. Visability was good, water calm and a nice 70 degree overcast day. We worked around some rocks but it seemd the shad were spawning right on the rocks and making quite a ruckus and we had a tough time finding any specks in those areas so we kept moving all around the whole area and figured out three things, fish were off the shores a bit, liked chartreuse twisters and were more focused around wood then rocks. In the next 2.5 hrs the 3 of us probably hooked around 40 crappies, landing maybe 30-32 of them, and ended up with 21 keepers from 9.5-11.5". No super pigs but several nice healthy biggger ones that it seemd favored Rande's offerings. Rande was very nice letting me and Scott take the best spots which was awesome. We had a great time and it was a pleasure meeting him and his hospitality. I thank you for the opportunity! Cant wait to do it again. The fish were not easy and we had to work for them in all the spots except 1 where we got about half our keepers. 

Until next time!!
Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Get on them guys...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......good time with you and Scott yesterday. Thanks for joining me. 

We were lucky Scott figured out the right bait. Those spawning shad were the only distraction for the day as they pushed the crappies out of some normally productive spots. Glad we finally hit "Dennis' place" and ran into solid crappie action. Hope we can do it again and catch them on a little better bite. Thanks for the good company and I picked up a few fishing tidbits.

By the way I talked to Dennis for about 1/2 hour while he fished. When I left he was up to 13 crappies from exactly the same spot you/Scott found productive. That is a sweet spot!


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## olewhiskers

Hay Salmonid ready for GLSM cat Tournament? I felling lucky this week lol. Hope we can find some 12 and 14 pounders like them other guys did last time. We would take 6/ 10 pounders lol. Hope you guys have better luck this week but hope ours is better lol.....:B


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## Salmonid

Whiskers, because of the spawn, we opted to fish an Ohio River tourney today instead of ST Marys, so you can have all the 1.5 lbers that we normally would catch, lol

Good luck and let me know how it goes for you!

Salmonid


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## Speck'nManiac

Been awhile since I've been up to glsm but will say I've never seen anyone pull out a stringer like that...is it safe to eat crappie out of this lake?


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## olewhiskers

They say its alright to eat fish from st marys but i wont. this weeks winning team weighed in 65.90 pounds with 6 fish limit.


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## Lowell H Turner

ODNR and the EPA both have extensively tested the fish and repeatedly said that the fish themselves are SAFE to eat. I have trouble believing that they would openly and repeatedly say it`s SAFE if it`s not...


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## Speck'nManiac

Thanks guys good to know


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## fishwhacker

The way I figure it after the testing the found only problems in the brain and guts so unless u eat sushi you should be fine. They also don't tell you to limit your consumption and have no warnings about eating them. Lake Erie walleye the most famous eating fish of ohio has mercury levels so high that you should only eat 1 meal a week and small children should not eat them at all. I take this as glsm crappies are less dangerous to eat than lake erie walleye. Now personally I eat them but only in the spring before the algae blooms and maybe i got it in my head but I believe the meat turnsa little more mushy in the summer months maybe thats just me. This is only my opinion been eating them for years and years and never had the first problem. You can throw them all back i'll catch them and eat them.


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## zaraspook

Saturday 5/11 crappies..........bite was definitely better than Thursday. Fished off and on during the day, estimated 3.5-4 hours total. Caught 61 crappies total with 37 at keeper length or better. About 10 of those were 11"+ but none cracked the 12" mark. Wood was the most productive for both numbers and size. Two fish were white crappies which are sparse at GLSM. Also caught 12-15 gills and the highlight was a fish that was unknown until I netted it. It was a brute (doesn't take much to be a brute on the flyrod I use for crappies). For 4-5 minutes it went where it wanted when it wanted.....was a channel cat in the 3.5-4 pound range.

My son and his nephew fished a couple hours as well and managed 35-40 crappies. They were both fishing curly tailed grubs (colors were chartreuse or a combo which included chartreuse). All my fish came on a Lindy Watsit grub in a combination chartreuse green/chartreuse yellow). The cat and bluegills also liked the Watsit. For the most part we fished 18" deep or less in 2-3' of water. Water temp was 64 degrees.

Lot of bass boats in my channel Saturday. A 2-person crappie boat fished a an island in my channel for 3-solid hours. They kept 60 from a total of 102 caught.


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## zaraspook

On the topic of "safe to eat" at GLSM, hate to be a broken record but GLSM is likely the most tested water body in Ohio. There is evidence of toxin retention in fish guts/organs. If you eat fish guts, good luck. The only GLSM warning issued by the EPA is no more than 2 meals a week for LM bass. Numerous other water bodies carry long lists of warnings and most Ohio water bodies carry more advisories than GLSM.


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## SPAZ

5/13/13 Just stoped by a few spots along the lake and things are not looking good in my mind . Noticed last week in my live well that it was getting cloudy but now you can see the green in it!!


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## SPAZ

The Dredge on west bank was running also.


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## Lowell H Turner

You already KNOW what am going to say...


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## SPAZ

No I don't but I can't wait to hear other opinions


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## zaraspook

Spaz........my post on 5/6 stated green hue was coming back. Though cold temps and forever lasting winter was a nuisance it's a blessing to holding down green matter suspended in water column. Last year in March GLSM was already at toxin advisory level......purely a matter of sun and water temps. We'll see toxin warnings this summer and many summers to come. Improvement to phosphorus loading is virtually unchanged and the rains of March and April washed huge amounts of new hog crap into the lake. Battelle scientists said incoming phosphorus needed to be reduced by 85% to make headway for positive lake improvement. Change in last 2 years is miniscule. I'm thrilled with current level of green stuff in water and optimistic we could avoid advisories until after July 4th. Chances are zero for GLSM to make it thru summer without high toxin numbers. It's coming........not enough change yet. Maybe in a decade if we keep making baby steps forward.....


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## zaraspook

Weds 5/15 arrived at GLSM at 6pm for some crappie therapy. Took a while to find the first bite and landed a chunky 11" male. Caught 23 more over the next 2 hours.....not bad but fish were scattered. I expected to find fish within 1-2' of the bank and very shallow but it wasn't the case. Instead, most of mine were out 6-10' from bank. Only 10 of the 24 were legal, more short fish than has been the GLSM norm, and that first fish of 11" was biggest of the day. Carp are active in the shallows and I think the crappies don't care for carp company and move out further. Just caught one bluegill but it was a dandy.


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## Lowell H Turner

Nice catch, sir! Fishing the crappie tournament Sat?


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## larry2473

Who is doing the crappie tournament is it outdoorsman


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## Curtis937

Yea it's the outdoorsman


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## zaraspook

Hadn't seen a long-time buddy for 9 years. We grew up in same neighborhood and attended same Kettering schools elementary thru high school. Hunted and fished together as well as playing poker, hitting the bars, and all that normal teenager stuff. Our favorite haunt for fishing was wading Caesars Creek......not the lake but the wonderful stream before the lake was created in 1978.

Back to the report......we met up at my place at GLSM for some crappie fishing Friday night thru Sunday morning. My buddy couldn't remember the last time he fished freshwater after living in N. Carolina for 20+ years and just moved back to Ohio. Had a great time re-living our youth....he has an incredible ability to tell stories and remember names and places.

Despite little daylight Friday night when we arrived we managed about 30 crappies before total darkness. Saturday, fishing off and on for about 4 hours, we caught 80+ despite crappie boats sitting on my best spot most of the day. Sunday morning we quit after about 35. More than half the crappies were legal, largest just ticked a bit over 12", 10-11 inchers were most common. Other miscellaneous takers were 15-20 gills with some real jumbos in the mix, 3 bass - none to brag about, and 4 channel cats - all but one in the 2.5 - 3.5 pound range (great fun on my flyrod). Water temp Saturday was 71 in my channel and 69 main lake. Water clarity which previously was good all spring is taking a hit from suspended green matter....looks pretty green. Fishing action is definitely better early and late in the day, but you can find fish all day. Look for shade and wood.

Good fishing, good company,good stories, and a good time!


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## zaraspook

Last weekend's "Get the carp outta here" tourney at GLSM produces a record haul of 15,541 pounds. Previous record (12,831 pounds) set in 2012 was eclipsed by 21%.

You can still cash-in. Only one of 22 tagged fish were caught. Still 21 of those bad boys on the loose. Until July 4th for each one you catch and turn in at The Outdoorsman receive a nifty fifty ($50)! More at the is link from the Celina Daily Standard http://dailystandard.com/archive/2013-05-20/stories/21095/carp-derby-catch-sets-record


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, any more word on the wetlands restoration projects yet?


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## zaraspook

Hit GLSM Weds 5-22 just to work. Cutting grass and mopping floors sucks when you know the crappie bite is hot. My wife let me out for one hour, 60 minutes, and zero seconds more until my next chore was ready. Made the most of it.......caught 14 crappies of which 5 were short. Most fun of the hour was easily hooking into another 3# channel cat. It's a blast to play the channels on my flyrod. Salmonid.....you probably remember the log near the aerator? Cat was laying under the far end of that log.

GLSM crappies are definitely in shallow water and can be within inches of the bank. No messing around, they grab the plastics and go, really eating the baits.

LHT.....I'll see what I can find out.


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## zaraspook

LHT.......Prairie Creek area is one place where several restoration projects are going on. There's already an area there that produces a good growth of lily pads. The State just created a 12-15' wide barrier (rip-rap) that stretches in a shallow arc for 200 yards where Prairie Creek bay joins the main lake. Purpose of the barrier is to create still water, block wave action that pounds the bay when winds blow from north and east. With calmer water in that area State expects the existing lily pads to expand significantly.

To the boaters in that area, they will be shocked to see the expansive barrier in an area normally open to boat traffic. State has buoys to warn of the new obstruction, but I'm sure we'll hear of a few incidents where boaters, mostly at night, demolish their boats. The barrier was only recently completed......state plans to put warning lights on it.


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## AEFISHING

Praire Creek used to be a great spot for big slabs but really went down hill when the lake did. Hopefully this will bring new life to it. Thanks for all the updates.


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## Lowell H Turner

As the area gradually silts up, you are correct, the cattails, arrowhead lilies and other aquatic plants will expand and recreate a natural wetlands area, more of which are CRITICAL to help "filter" the incoming runoff from the drainages...are you aware of any more on going projects? Read somewhere the ODNR and Ohio Soil Conservancy Agency had recommended at least 50- 100 acres be set aside on each drainage for eventual wetlands restoration. Any idea how many "main" drainages/ streams go into the lake?


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## Northern1

I went bank fishing yesterday. I only managed one crappie- missed a couple of bites. All were close to shore. But two big problems stood between me and a good day of fishing- 1. The carp are spawing and causing a scene everywhere. They are all over the channels I was in, and even the marina at the state park. What a mess. 2. There are cotton trees throwing their cotton everywhere. It gets all over your line and lure. 

All and all it was nice to get out there, but dang, it could have been better.


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## zaraspook

Got to GLSM Friday evening. Didn't take much time to figure out Mother Nature screwed up the crappie bite. An hour into it.....1 crappie was it. Switched tactics, targeting rock or rip-rap banks and the bite picked up, although it still wasn't great. Finished my 2.5 hour stint catching 14 of which 8 were legal. Fished Saturday and Sunday as well with similar results. 17 caught Saturday and 22 Sunday fishing early or late in the day. Fished very little Monday, Memorial Day, after the rain stoped only getting 8 before heading home. Of the total 61 I caught during the weekend the biggest was 12" with 36 keepers but not many at 11" or better. Water temps were way off from previous weekend, down to 63-64 degrees, and I think the falling water temp was the biggest reason behind the slow bite. The pattern did not really change over the weekend.....80% of fish pulled from rock and 20% from wood, the reverse of expectations.

Only caught a handful of gills, but 2 were really big. Managed 2 more channel cats in the 2-3# range and a short bass. Had on another bass of 14-15" that came unzipped during a jump. Carp activity wasn't as bad previous couple of weeks. Cottonwood is flying everywhere and a typical May nuisance. Chlorophyll in water column is climbing, therefore water clarity very diminished.


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## zaraspook

Hydroplane races are back at GLSM later this summer. Last year's race was canceled, not due to algae issues, but low water levels from the drought. The Governors Cup Regatta runs August 24-25th. WHIO TV/Channel 7 report is at this link http://www.whiotv.com/videos/news/grand-lake-st-marys-regatta-on-for-august-24-25-on/v3bQP/ . Admission is free. Entire race course is viewable from Lake Shore Drive area of Celina.


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## Northern1

Zara- have you seen if the cottonwood trees are still throwing cotton all over the channels? Still deciding where I want to go this weekend, but if the channels are full of that cotton, it'll probably be a no go there.


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## zaraspook

Northern1.......unfortunately don't have an answer for you. Haven't been to GLSM since Sunday. Lake had good wind all week so maybe the loose cottonwood is down, but i wouldn't on it. I'll make it to GLSM sooner or later this weekend but nothing firm yet. If you go, good luck!


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## emptyparad0x

Zara,

I've been reading through your posts about crappie fishing at GLSM. Your numbers are very impressive, even on the days you think are poor. Can you give me and my father any pointers? We've been up to the channels at Windy Point 3 times in the last month and have caught maybe 12 crappie total (4 keepers). Our usual rig for crappie in the past was a small (1/2"?) split tail or curly tail with a wax worm on the hook. Fishing a couple feet deep off the banks. We use the little foam floats that you stick a toothpick in. 

Any pointers would be really appreciated. My father has been getting discouraged with the low numbers of fish we're pulling in. We're just now getting back into fishing together after a decade or so of life getting in the way. I hope to keep taking him, but it's always more fun if you're bringing in some fish.

Thank you for any advice!


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## Northern1

Zaraspook,

Thanks for the info. I'll probably just go to indian and cast for some eyes tonight then. But on a different note, did you hear about the Kasich meeting recently. He said he's not going to spend the money to continue to make adjustments to the lake for fear of water levels rising and lawsuits that will be pending. Very interesing article on it in my daily news paper yesterday. If I can find the online link i'll post it.


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## Northern1

Here it is, not my newspaper, but the lima news covered it.

http://www.limaohio.com/news/local_news/article_af9d273a-c8c7-11e2-83c3-0019bb30f31a.html


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## Lowell H Turner

Pardon my wryly noting that these are the SAME people also experienced flooding in the past several times, CHOOSING to live down stream from a 150+ yr old lake while benefiting from it even indirectly; and while the economic loss is real, by the SAME token, the persons who even "unintentionally" (ie, previously completely unconcerned) polluted the lake for DECADES receive NO "fine" at all...paid for by the "help the lake RECOVER" funds. Nice to know GREED and "SELF interest" are alive and THRIVING in America...BTW, should the State charge them for the nutrients those same "floods" deposited on their farms?


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## zaraspook

emptyparad0x.......admire you for fishing with your Dad. You'll both build memories regardless of the catch. More fun and keeps you coming back when you have more success.

The gear you're using sounds normal for GLSM. I use the small foam floats with toothpick, small plastics, too, but I'm partial to curly tails though split tails are immensely popular and successful at GLSM. What rod length do you use, and do you use jig heads for the plastic baits or unweighted hook? I'll try to tailor advice depending on the info you give me.


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## zaraspook

This time of year I prefer to crappie fish early morning or evening, but company at home didn't permit that. Got in 2 hours of fishing 1-3pm Saturday at GLSM. First hour was tough, only 2 crappies but both keepers and fished a lot of spots that should have been productive. Second hour started slow until I hit a very shallow end of a channel. Pulled 4 from it, all keepers. When that action slowed moved to another shallow end of a channel. Caught 6 more including a 12.5" specimen. 10 of 12 crappies were keepers, a very nice hit rate. Also managed 6 gills, 3 of which were dinner-fare and a small bass. It was a good break from the company at home.

All fish caught on my favorite crappie bait for GLSM, called a Hot Grub from Southern Pro. Used 2 different colors and it didn't seem to matter. I don't tip with wax worms. Didn't check the water temp, some occasional sun breaking thru the clouds. Fish were 2-4 feet from the bank, off rocky shore line, and seemed to be hanging around vegetation in the water.


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## emptyparad0x

zaraspook said:


> emptyparad0x.......admire you for fishing with your Dad. You'll both build memories regardless of the catch. More fun and keeps you coming back when you have more success.
> 
> The gear you're using sounds normal for GLSM. I use the small foam floats with toothpick, small plastics, too, but I'm partial to curly tails though split tails are immensely popular and successful at GLSM. What rod length do you use, and do you use jig heads for the plastic baits or unweighted hook? I'll try to tailor advice depending on the info you give me.


Zara, We went up again on Sunday. We arrived at the channels around Windy point at about 7am. We used yellow, white, and black curly tails with weighted jig heads. The rods we are using are 6'-7' light action ugly sticks. We tried three different spots in the channels for about an hour each, and only managed to get 3 or 4 BITES per hour. The channel fishing was abysmal this time. When we fish the channels, I usually also have a tightline pole out for catfish, and I couldn't even get any bites on that. We managed to catch one crappie which was a keeper and 6 bluegill. Only one of the bluegills was a keeper. After three hours we decided to cut our losses and try going out on the point. This turned out to be a fruitful decision. My father had one tightline rod out and I had my tightline and a slip bobber closer the bank. Trying various baits (Nightcrawlers, Shrimp, Cut Bluegill, and artificial Cut Bait), we ended up catching 6 channel cats in about an hour. All of them were keepers. One was about 5 pounds. 

We did notice that the water seems to be getting greener each time we go up. Visibility back in those channels was probably about 6-8". I didn't notice anyone else bringing in crappie or bluegills either. Do you think the visibility is causing the lack of bites?


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## Lowell H Turner

Well done to both of you !


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## zaraspook

emptyparad0x........nice going with the cats! GLSM is an excellent lake for channel cats. I'll get them crappie fishing and a 3-6 pounder on a crappie rig will get the heart rate thumping.

It's a good idea to keep moving when you crappie fish. 20 minutes is the limit to my time investment in any one spot. No fish and few bites at a spot means it's time to move. When I'm fishing grubs/twister tails my bait never sits still. I "swim" the bait along, keep that tail moving. The best attribute of a twister tail bait is that tail.....keep it moving to use that attribute to your advantage. A lot of anglers "pop" the bobber, wait 1-2 seconds, pop it again, repeating the popping cycle as they horizontally advance the bait. I rarely do that with a twister tail and my bobber never touches the water. The bobber is a marker for me that visually helps me gage how deep the bait is below the bobber. I swim it erratically, higher and lower in the water, faster and slower, changing directions to find a cadence and depth that the crappies want. Without the bobber touching the water surface, I'm actually fishing tight line. You can feel the slightest tick from a branch, or feel a fish interrupt the swimming motion. Instead of relying on the bobber to show me a bite, I can feel it immediately when the fish changes the direction of the lure. Crappies like to swim up to the bait. If they grab it and come toward you or up in the water column, when you're tight line it feels "empty" or weightless. You sense the bite sooner and will get more hookups. I don't know if the tight line technique produces more bites, but you catch a higher percentage of the fish that bite.

If you swim the bait and detect brush or a limb, spend more time at that limb. Go back over it several times from different directions, or vertically jig the spot. Finding limbs, logs, branches is important because that's where those crappies are. Any angler can see/fish cover that is visible above the water surface, but the most productive cover isnt seen from above. 

I favor 1/32nd ounce jig-heads early in the year, but usually switch to 1/16th at some point. The lighter jighead produces a tantalizing, slower presentation as it falls which is very productive especially in shallow water. Small jigheads have small hooks, fewer snags, and don't seem to reduce hookups once you get the knack of swimming the bait and sensing the lightest of strikes. I havent switched jighead size yet this year.

Agree with you that water is greening up by the week and reducing visibility of your bait. Thats one reason I prefer larger baits than most crappie guys. Larger bait displaces more water, creates more disturbance as it goes thru the water and more vibration for the fish to pickup. In turbid water I think the fish adjust, rely less on sight and more on other senses to detect feeding targets. However, there are times when my bigger baits produce nothing while small baits kick butt. Nothing works all the time. If you arent catching them, move, change baits, change depth, change presentation, change the type of cover youre targeting. Work on finding the fish first. 

We're on the backside of crappie spawn. Catch numbers will decline.


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## zaraspook

Very good report about GLSM dredging (both volumes and areas being dredged), wetlands, solar bees, holiday attendance at state camp grounds, and more at the link below from the Celina Daily Standard. It was a slow start for dredges, but...... http://dailystandard.com/archive/2013-06-03/stories/21240/grand-lake-dredging-starts-slowly


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## emptyparad0x

Thanks for the tips Zara! We definitely have a few things to consider.


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## Lowell H Turner

The tide has definitely "turned". With the wetlands restoration project started a milestone has been reached...


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## Northern1

zaraspook said:


> emptyparad0x........nice going with the cats! GLSM is an excellent lake for channel cats. I'll get them crappie fishing and a 3-6 pounder on a crappie rig will get the heart rate thumping.
> 
> It's a good idea to keep moving when you crappie fish. 20 minutes is the limit to my time investment in any one spot. No fish and few bites at a spot means it's time to move. When I'm fishing grubs/twister tails my bait never sits still. I "swim" the bait along, keep that tail moving. The best attribute of a twister tail bait is that tail.....keep it moving to use that attribute to your advantage. A lot of anglers "pop" the bobber, wait 1-2 seconds, pop it again, repeating the popping cycle as they horizontally advance the bait. I rarely do that with a twister tail and my bobber never touches the water. The bobber is a marker for me that visually helps me gage how deep the bait is below the bobber. I swim it erratically, higher and lower in the water, faster and slower, changing directions to find a cadence and depth that the crappies want. Without the bobber touching the water surface, I'm actually fishing tight line. You can feel the slightest tick from a branch, or feel a fish interrupt the swimming motion. Instead of relying on the bobber to show me a bite, I can feel it immediately when the fish changes the direction of the lure. Crappies like to swim up to the bait. If they grab it and come toward you or up in the water column, when you're tight line it feels "empty" or weightless. You sense the bite sooner and will get more hookups. I don't know if the tight line technique produces more bites, but you catch a higher percentage of the fish that bite.
> 
> If you swim the bait and detect brush or a limb, spend more time at that limb. Go back over it several times from different directions, or vertically jig the spot. Finding limbs, logs, branches is important because that's where those crappies are. Any angler can see/fish cover that is visible above the water surface, but the most productive cover isnt seen from above.
> 
> I favor 1/32nd ounce jig-heads early in the year, but usually switch to 1/16th at some point. The lighter jighead produces a tantalizing, slower presentation as it falls which is very productive especially in shallow water. Small jigheads have small hooks, fewer snags, and don't seem to reduce hookups once you get the knack of swimming the bait and sensing the lightest of strikes. I havent switched jighead size yet this year.
> 
> Agree with you that water is greening up by the week and reducing visibility of your bait. Thats one reason I prefer larger baits than most crappie guys. Larger bait displaces more water, creates more disturbance as it goes thru the water and more vibration for the fish to pickup. In turbid water I think the fish adjust, rely less on sight and more on other senses to detect feeding targets. However, there are times when my bigger baits produce nothing while small baits kick butt. Nothing works all the time. If you arent catching them, move, change baits, change depth, change presentation, change the type of cover youre targeting. Work on finding the fish first.
> 
> We're on the backside of crappie spawn. Catch numbers will decline.


+1 Now that is what you call good information on this website!


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## zaraspook

GLSM received another perch stocking Friday May 31st. Info is at the link below from the Lima Daily News. The 100,000 fingerlings this year matches a similar stocking in 2012. I read somewhere a 3rd stocking, 3 yrs in a row is the normal schedule. Therefore, we'll likely see a final round in 2014.

The State has 26 ponds at it's Grand Lake hatchery to raise fingerlings. Nice to see some of the fingerlings raised at GLSM actually end up in the lake. This is one of those times. With he great winter saugeye fishing we saw this year, we'd love to see another round of saugeye stocking at GLSM.....it won't happen but thank you DNR for the perch.

One of these days GLSM may be the best Ohio perch destination next to Lake Erie? Lima Daily News link is here http://www.limaohio.com/news/local_news/article_61831ebc-c96a-11e2-a248-0019bb30f31a.html .


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## Lowell H Turner

More GOOD news! And wouldn`t necessarily count those saugeyes out "permanently"...


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## zaraspook

We had visitors from Tenn, did a quick Weds evening cookout at GLSM, boat ride, and managed to get in maybe 2 hours of crappie fishing between events. Didn't get to hit all my spots but most my crappies were found in the backend of a channel, very shallow water (under 2.5 feet), and within 3-5 feet of the bank. Size is great....only 3 of my 16 crappies were short ones. Biggest ones were 11"+. There was no fooling around with the bite, they'd grab it and go with enthusiasm.

Bluegill bite was the real story. I don't target them but caught 11 and I think I could have caught 50 in an hour. Definitely some bulls among them and close to half would have been keepers. Gills were also in very shallow water, under 1.5 feet, and very aggressive.

Speaking of the water.....did not get the water temp. Water is very green with heavy chlorophyll suspension. With the absence of an alum treatment this year, and heavy rains washing manure from fields into the lake in March and April, plenty of phosphorus is available for algae to go ballistic. The microcystin (toxin) count is sure to jump and maybe to alarming levels.


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## fishwhacker

Zara was wondering if all of your keepers where white crappies or black. I have been catching black ones a lot lately but they are all under legal limit and all the whites are over the limit. Was wondering why the whites are bigger than the blacks by quite a bit. I've tried everything from 1/64oz hair jigs to 1 1/2 crankbaits and they all bite on the same things.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......very rare for me to catch white crappie at GLSM, but I haven't been counting dorsal fin splines (5-6 for whites and 7-8 for black). I've heard from a few sources the white crappie population at GLSM used to be dominant, but it's flipped in last 10-15 years. For black crappies the black spots are marbled, kind of random blotches on the sides of the fish. On white crappies the black or dark specs are aligned in vertical bars that are usually pretty evident. This time of year the males of both white/black look like they have black warpaint on.

If its possible I think many GLSM crappie may be halfbreeds, a hybrid of the two. But to your question my legal fish are rarely white crappies, but I just don't catch many whites. My keepers are usually black (or maybe they are hybrids). 

The crappie gurus also say black crappies spawn first/earlier, white ones soon to follow. If that's the case I'm looking forward to catching some white ones soon.


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## zaraspook

LHT......you've asked about the wetlands restoration projects at GLSM. Prairie Creek is one of those projects to naturally filter incoming water flow. The Grand Lake Improvement Association has a recent photo posted of clear water discharge from the Prairie Creek treatment train. Prairie Creek runs thru the heart of the GLSM watershed populated by farms and live stock operations. Picture isn't razor sharp so use your imagination........link is http://www.lakeimprovement.com/clear-discharge-prairie-creek .


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## Lowell H Turner

As have said, restoring those wetlands as fully as possible are literally CRITICAL to whether even the dredging long term succeeds...


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## fishwhacker

I guess it must just depend the spot because i just recently tried a new spot which produced a bunch and i mean a bunch of smaller white crappies with no black crappies to be found and its just half a mile from where i was catching big whites and small blacks, and yes both species have there war paint on big time. Never thought about a hybrid that probably is a definite possibility. It used to be very very rare to catch a black crappie probably 5 a year. I think the white crappie population is still dominant but you can definitely get into big schools of black crappies. Like I said it seems like population and size changes every hundred yards or so.


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## Salmonid

Todays report, me and Ryan got on the water around noon and spent a good hr trying to find shad, very scattered but we finally manged a dozen good sized ones, water as expected is very green and has hardly any visability. water temps started out around 74 and by 5:20 when we pulled out was around 77 about all over the lake. fishing was tough today???? we managed only 15 channel cats and fished 6-7 of our best post spawn spots, caught 1-3 at each spot. had a handful of decent fish up to 6.5 lbs but definately not what we were expecting. Water was void of hardly any wind so it was nice out on the main lake and there were was a decent amount of traffic out there but far from crazy. Will be trying to get up there again later this week or next weekend to see if we cant find the bigger fish for the next tourney on the 22nd. 

Salmonid


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## Fishslayer9

Fished Friday night from 8 at night to 1 in the morning and managed 60 cats. Biggest was 15lb channel


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## Salmonid

great report Slayer, were you shore or from a boat? bait??, those were numbers I was expecting....its what we been getting everywhere else ( Loramie, Acton... the last few weeks)

Salmonid


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## Fishslayer9

From shore on shrimp and chicken liver. Chicken liver being favored.


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## zaraspook

Crappie fished for almost an hour Friday night at GLSM just before dark. Caught 6, first 2 were 12" and 11.5", but only 1 of last 4 were keepers. Got on a pile of bedding bluegills, nearly 1/2 keeper size, catching 11 in no more than 15-20 minutes. 4 kids were fishing nearby, getting only a rare bite. I turned the gill hot spot over to them. Very entertaining to hear young fishermen whooping and hollering as they catch catch one fish after another!

Saturday Crappie catch was 23 fishing mainly early morning and then again in the evening. 16 of those were keepers which included another 12" and 3 at 11" plus. Caught a bunch of gills, too, but didn't count them. Pattern was similar to last 2 weeks with most of the crappies caught at the back-end of channels, 2' of water or less, and in/around grassy cover.

Sunday morning was a different story. Carp were busy Friday and Saturday but 10 times as much carp mating madness on Sunday. They were ripping thru the shallows and messing up the areas where crappies were hanging previously. Only caught 5, two keepers, and those were out from bank 6-8'. 

Green intensity of the water is unfortunately escalating. That's not good but I'm not yet seeing heavy algae patches getting organized on the water surface. Cottonwood did not interfere with fishing other than Saturday afternoon. I wasn't fishing then but winds were light and allowed cottonwood to collect in patches on the water surface.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, sounds like the bite is still going strong! BTW, are the aeriators in operation? Hopefully the dredges are roaring...


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## zaraspook

LHT........at link below from Celina Daily Standard is a very good article about the Prairie Creek Treatment Train. Amazingly, it states old aerial photos from 80 years ago showed approximately 4000 acres of wetlands at GLSM. That's roughly 30% of total lake acreage. Nothing even close to 4000 acres today.

The last Prairie Creek article didn't say anything about testing. They really don't know how much the treatment train reduces phosphorus. Plus, part of the treatment train will be alum treatment. The pre-treament part of the "train" hasn't started yet, but will soon, along with testing to measure phosphorus reduction.
http://dailystandard.com/archive/2013-06-07/stories/21281/prairie-creek-results-turning-the-tide


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker........I should watch more closely and take a quick count of splines. Leading up to and during spawn, the black warpaint on white males can easily make them look like black crappies. And, I agree the species can vary from one spot to the next.


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## Lowell H Turner

In the era of the Roman Republic and Empire, it was a DEATH PENALTY offense to fill in or in anyway alter or drain a wetland with out the specific permission of the Roman Senate...and the Senate`s civil engineers almost always said "NO." After several particularly bad epidemics, the Roman Senate ordered the restoration of marshes along the banks of the Tiber River that ran thru the city proper of Rome and offered REWARDS for turning in persons who DARED to attempted to reduce or fill them in for building space...


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## zaraspook

LHT.....dredges are running. Not sure about status of airy-gators. Some solar bees are a buzzing. I believe another project, sediment collectors, was shelved after 2 years. The collectors were planted in watershed tributaries and determined insufficient flow to make them worthwhile. The tributaries suffer the same malady as the lake......stagnation.....and tributary flow actually reverses when wind blows from north. The waves raise water level in southern areas (watershed) and drive water back into tributaries. 

Strategy now is (1) dredge to reduce existing phosphorus levels, (2) aeration, (3)improved natural filtration and pre-treatment of inflows and (3) reduce/control new phosphorus loading from animal operations in south. People don't realize that even though we're 3 years from the great GLSM blow-up in 2010, this is the first year for the new manure handling rules. Rules were "voluntary" prior to Jan 19th this year.

GLSM benefited from cool weather in the spring which retarded algae growth. No longer the case now. Both the eyeball test and actual EPA test data show suspended algae is going nuts. Microcystin count is highest it's been since 2010, probably due to absence of an alum treatment this year. Despite optimism over the last 18-24 months, the numbers suggest a tough summer ahead for GLSM. Hoping I'm wrong.


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## Lowell H Turner

As more and hopefully MORE acres of wetlands are restored AND the lake gains critically needed depth, the "results" will become obvious even if seemingly slowly...and am in agreement, there will very likely be a couple more "bad yrs" ahead; the "impossible" takes a little LONGER...


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## zaraspook

Got to fish GLSM for 3 hours Weds, starting at 4pm. Caught 7 crappies first hour, 7 more the 2nd hour, and after a dinner break the last hour produced only 4. Of the 18, 12 were keepers and largest was 11.5". Also caught about a dozen bluegills plus 3 channel cats. It's not odd to hook into an occasional channel cat with my grub/twister tails but 3 in one trip is really unexpected, but fun on a fly rod.

Fishwhacker...........I counted splines on most of the fish caught Weds, probably 13 out of the 18. All were 5 or 6 splines, therefore whites. I was in disbelief. None of the fish showed sides with the vertical bars I associate with white crappies. I will say the fish seemed thinner, if that makes any sense. Now I question if I've been improperly identifying fish all year.

A guy told me blacks usually "come-in" and spawn first, then the whites. If true I could be witnessing the 2nd wave, therefore more whites. To further mess things up......if hybrids do naturally occur as claimed, is the end product 5-6 splines like whites or 7-8 splines for black crappie?


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## zaraspook

The GLSM Lake Improvement Association had a link to this company on their website. It's pretty cool stuff. The process and equipment claims up to 90% reduction of phosphorus and up to 50% cut in nitrogen with hog manure. The video gets up close and personal with people sniffing, just inches from their noses, a nearly odorless end product. Something like this could be a game-changer for GLSM and the animal operations in the watershed. http://www.electrocell.us/ElectroCell_Technologies_Rev_2/electrocell-manure-treatment-benefits.html


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## fishwhacker

I know what you mean zara with all that war paint it can be hard to tell guess hybrides should have 6 1/2 splines lol. Guess it doen't matter they pretty much hit the same just trying to pin down a pattern to keep on them. What that gentleman is always what I heard too but I guess it more depends on water temp and how far they travel to spawn. I'd say we are definitely on the very end of the spawn because i'm picking up 2 here move down get 2 more. Not like the early early spring where you didn't have to move and could pick up 50 fish in one little spot. They are traveling right now and soon will be suspended. I think the population is so strong right now though you will be able to get a limit anytime of the year just might have to do some moving and spend more time to get them. Not gonna be able to get a limit in under 2 hrs like early spring. Doesn't stop me off I go, lawn and projects can wait.


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## Salmonid

Catfish_chaser and myself went up to prefish for the catfish tourney next weekend and found the lake to be the exact same as the last 3 weeks, water was pea green, around 77 degrees, at a good height and the fish were all aboutthe same as the prior weeks and thats not good for us. zparently the catfish spawn has went on for the last 7 weeks and its getting old.. fish nowhere to be found in any size or numbers, we pcked up about 20 today so that was fine but the size was small and we never found any better fish. We fished 4-5 new places today and 1 of them has some potential and also found some good structure I got coordinates on so in that regard a decent day on the water. I took a picture of the water Ill post after a bit, color matches the trees and grass...LOL

Mark ( Salmonid)


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, all I can say is "HOW do we get EVERY livestock farmer to USE this system?" I am TRUELY impressed !


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## zaraspook

LHT.......farm guys don't respond to anything but grants from State or Fed governments. We'd have to buy them the equipment, probably a worthwhile investment for the state to make for livestock operations within the watershed. But, many wouldn't use it............requires a behavioral change so State would have to change laws. Law would dictate no manure applications allowed to land in watershed unless applied thru this process and equipment. Farm lobby would fight law change even if law made sense and government gave tax break or grant to pay for the change.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM for close to 2 hours Friday evening just before dark, then again Saturday morning for an hour before heading home. Kids were treating me to the Reds game at Great American Ball Park Saturday afternoon. Had tremendous seats a dozen rows behind the visitors dugout - too bad Reds didn't wear their hitting shoes Saturday. Painful to watch them shutout but it couldn't spoil an otherwise perfect day.

Back to fishing.............8 crappies Friday night was better than I expected. Had to keep moving to find fish. 5 were keepers, largest 11". Keeping with my recent theme for proper identification, according to splines counts 7 of the group were white crappies though none displayed vertical bars of whites. Saturday's short stint produced 4 crappies, two keepers that were both black crappies 10.5-11.5". The 2 other fish were both short whites. Fishwhacker has it right.........no more easy pickings as the crappies are and will be harder to locate.

Friday night I also caught a channel cat estimated at 5-6 pounds. My crappie rig didn't offer much resistance to the cat. For 7-8 minutes the cat went where it wanted and when it wanted. Finally I managed to drag it up a rock bank and view a beer belly that looked like it swallowed a grapefruit. I assume the cats are in the channels spawning but not sure about it. Catching a lot of them lately while crappie fishing. This one was off some rip-rap, no more than 2 feet from the bank. There was also a lot of shad activity in the area I hooked the cat.


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## Lowell H Turner

Still some nice catches to be man, sir. And yup, unfortunately your probably right about the equipment...


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## zaraspook

LHT..... With the poop zappers like in the video, if byproduct is up to 90% phosphorus-free, maybe farmers using the equipment could be permitted to spread year-round thus reducing cost/investment into storage or hauling? This technology must fit into the scheme of things somewhere.

The cost for 2 partial alum treatments (2011 and 2012) for GLSM was something like $8.5-9 mil. The alum treatments were one-shot deals, very little that was a lasting or long-term return. I wonder how many of those manure electrocution units $9 mil would buy or at least partially fund? I understand our farmers, like any business owner, need to see a return on investment.


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## Lowell H Turner

VERY good question; wonder if anyone has brought this to the State`s attention? IF they were CERTAIN to be USED constantly, it would be WORTH the money spent; but how do you FORCE the farmers to USE them? Tax write offs as incentives and STIFF STEEP fines if not...


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## zaraspook

LHT........State legislature created the existing law for "distressed water body/watershed",our law that prevents manure spreading during winter and same law that requires manure management plan to be filed annually with the state. That law creates the special circumstances to regulate and is the vehicle to add/subtract more controls. In theory the State could say phosphorus soil content must be maintained at a level low enough to almost force use of the equipment. Actually, if farmers found a way to hit the level without the equipment, more power to them. The point is, any law once on the books is usually tweakable. Like food stamps.......standards are raised or lowered with frequency to make more or fewer fit within the eligibility range. As you say, the penalty for non-compliance needs to be stiff.

Sadly, if more stringent laws were on the books today, it would be at least 3 years before going into effect. Could by another 7-10 years before impact from phosphorus zappers was noticeable on the lake. If you saw the lake today, the heavy green from existing phosphorus and algae, you'd readily agree we need more tools to reduce existing phosphorus in GLSM. After 3 years of dredging at record levels, plus alum treatments, the lake is not far from becoming the greenest it's ever been.


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## Lowell H Turner

The Battle of the Atlantic was at it`s worst in March of `43. Then, finally the 1st convoy sailed with more than 1 escort for every 5 cargo ships. The 1st graduates of the newly established Anti Submarine Warfare "colleges" started to show up in those escorts. The 1st "hunter/ killer" groups of 3 sets of escorts and escort aircraft carriers showed up. It was also when the 1st ULTRA long ranged LB-30 (heavily modified B-24E) "Liberators" started showing up with 5 entire squadrons of 12 planes each to begin patrolling the mid Atlantic "black hole" that previous a/c types simply could not reach. Also the 1st use of the streamlined fast sinking 600lb RN/ RAF USN/ USCG depth charge; prior models were 300 lb, and sank much more slowly. 1st use of "FIDO" an acoustic location deep diving homing torpedo. 1st large scale use of the Leigh Light, a 1/2 million candle power search light allowing attacking a/c to use radar to locate surfaced subs, glide in and at 1 mile snap on the light and straffle the sub`s defenders while also dropping "FIDO" or those 600 lb depth charges. 1st continuous month long patrols of ships and a/c across the Bay of Biscay, leading to and from the Uboat bases and the open Atlantic. Summary: March 1943 losses of Uboats: 15. April: 31 May: 58...1 yr later in May of 1944; 1 wk before "D-Day": 89 Uboats sunk in 31 days...allied ships sunk during and 5 days after the Normandy landings: ZERO...pour enough effort onto ANY "problem" relentlessly enough and it`s "BYE BYE problem"...


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## zaraspook

LHT......appreciate the encouragement. I'm just whining, and impatient. Lack of visible progress is frustrating.

Got to be a faster way to decrease phosphorus already residing in lake. Came up with this idea recently. We know that algae consumes phosphorus. Rather than working to reduce algae, maybe the strategy should be the opposite. More algae removes more phosphorus. Let's overdose the lake with algae! Shut the lake down for a season or two and tell everyone there will be a couple years of pain. I'd like to see the scientists work on the theory of adding algae to consume phosphorus, eventually to starve future algae growth. The idea is similar to getting control of wildfires. Sometimes we start more fires to burn the fuel the fire needs to continue. Remove the fuel.....fire runs eventually dies (with lots of other help).

Assuming new phosphorus loading is under control, that is that current restrictions are effective and farmers in the watershed are in compliance, then the concept could work. Otherwise, the concept could create a disaster. Am I crazy?


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## Lowell H Turner

Briefly considered exactly that same thing for a while. Several drawbacks: A: at "best"(?) without complete agitation to expose even 50% of the phosphate to algae to allow it to be consumed it would take forever. B: WITH agitation of some sort the rate of algae "bloom" would quickly reach the point where there would literally be a "mat" thick enough to likely walk on; it would literally rapidly create an anoxic high Ph concentrate "muck hole" Wrath of God Old Testament type biological disaster is the only "kind" yet accurate words I can think of. EVERYTHING in the lake except what ever was hugging submerged springs would die. The stink would be "noticeable" 5 or more miles from the lake and the run off down stream would biologically be "undesirable" to put it kindly. There WOULD be law suits GALORE. The area around the lake would have to become a "dead zone", basically unhabitable for several yrs. Property values might suffer a decline in value. WOULD IT WORK ? YES. Your idea IS accurate, but to have the LONG TERM "effects" sought, would require the equivelant of "nuking" the lake for 4 or 5 yrs at least...perhaps longer. But YES, it would work, assuming you could get rid of even 75% of that phosphate. Sort of like the young Air Force officer doing a press briefing during the Viet Nam war: "To save the village from the enemy we had to bomb it with B-52s and now it`s completely destroyed..." Would say that if you could "section off" areas of the lake off to somehow "control" the biological breeder reactor that will be unleashed into a worst case scenario, the overall effect would be much LESSENED...


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## zaraspook

LHT......I'm sure there are catastrophic scenarios. It doesn't necessarily mean all scenarios of adding algae are catastrophic....can be measures in-between that could be productive. That's why I suggest to have the scientific minds study the concept (if it hasn't been considered). How much phosphorus is there now? Algae consumes phosphorus at what rate? What phosphorus level do we need to hit and within what time frame? How much new algae required to accomplish the task? If it is at all plausible and we do it, what is the collateral damage? Perhaps it can be a tool, but haven't heard it discussed.


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## zaraspook

Fished from 6:00 'til 7:30pm Weds hoping there was still a crappie bite. Didn't find it and didn't have enough time to do much experimenting. One crappie, 3 gills, and a yellow belly. Would have liked to stick around to fish 8:30-9:30 time frame, but couldn't. Water was still, no wind, and water temp 80.4 on my probe. Carp still doing their thing but considerably reduced. Had some decent shad activity in my channel but they were big ones.


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## Lowell H Turner

Forgive me if I was a bit overly "graphic". The BASIC idea still has merit; as had suggested, IF the area can be divided off and THOROUGHLY agitated to "burn up" that phosphate while containing/ minimizing the "ill effects" YES, it IS a workable solution...you`ll still have some smell, but supposedly bio fuels can be made from it !!!


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## zaraspook

Round #5 of the Catmaster tournament series tomorrow, Sat 22nd. Salmonid....are you doing Catmaster and did you pre-fish?


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## Salmonid

yeah were fishing it so the winners can split up a litle more of our money.. we fished last weekend and its been the same thing, lots of little fish and no bigger fish, this spawn really needs to just be over, its been ongoing since before the April tourney. Were at the point that every day more and more fish will move from post spawn to the summer pattern. Will post the results, even if very discouraging as i expect from us. As usual someone will find a bunch of big heavy fish, but Im pretty sure it wont be us...

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Sir, it is a case of skill. experience, knowledge of your targeted species, and more than a couple tablespoons of luck. Have faith you can "hold your own" on most bodies of water...are the dredged areas any good? If you could find a "releaved" spring or "weep", any cooler water...


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## Salmonid

Thanks for the encouragement Lowell, this year has been a bust no matter where I go and Im blaming it on the spawn, ( thats my story and Im sticking to it) we always do better once fish get into the summer and fall pattern but we just cant seem to crack the spawn code. Thanks

Tourney starts at 6 pm till midnight

Salmonid


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## Salmonid

ok, 35 teams for last nights cat tourney and overall the weights were downa nd the numbers of fish were also down, but several items came into play, a really high barometer ( 30.10-30.19) the full moon, the super moon and also the fact fish were about done spawning and the guys who did well over the last two tourneys beat on the same area but there wasnt the number of fish to be found there this time. We did ok, finished 5th with 33.85 Lbs with 3 nice fish and 3 dinks, just couldnt find that 4th nice fish which would have given us 3rd and money. Oh well, but the highlight was getting the Tourneys BIG FISH, a 10.85 lber and worth $100, last year we had second big fish 3 times so it was nice to actually get something for this one. LOL
Not the best day for us but a lot better then we have been doing as each day more and more fish will start getting into the summer pattern where we seem to do a lot better. Looking forward to the next tourney!

Water actually looked a bit better then last week, was between 78-80 degrees and slight wind from the west, sw most of the evening. Lots of boating activity and the water Patrol was busy lighting folks up all night long. 

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

My confidence is confirmed; it`s simply a matter of time sir!


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......nice work, money-man! Sounds like momentum has changed for you and partner. I agree that water seemed somewhat better than prior weeks. I fished Brookville Lake Saturday morning. Going north from Hanna Creek ramp we ran into a long swath of surface scum. It's a filmy algae kind of stuff and looked worse than anything I've seen at GLSM this year. It covered an area 50-60 yards wide for 3-400 yards. If that stuff made it intact to any of the beaches at Brookville where they do testing, I'd bet there would be some kind of advisory out. 

Got the chance to fish GLSM for 90 minutes Sunday morning. A neighbor who is a crappie tournament kind of guy, told me I was wasting my time. I caught 5 after his words of wisdom. 3 keepers with largest just short of 11". I'll admit their wasn't much of a bite and I think I caught everything that was a crappie bite. Water temp was 80 in my channel according to a bass boat fishing there. Water is green and cloudy, but I didn't see any surface scum/film.


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## zaraspook

A Lima New article at the link below reports about improved fishing results at GLSM. Some comments go as far as stating best fishing in 20+ years. I also noticed EPA testing for toxins(microcystins) shows levels falling from the tests a month ago. Plenty of pleasure boaters were on the water last weekend with a steady stream of watercraft at the the boater beaches on the lake. The Lima News article is here http://www.limaohio.com/news/local_news/article_a2ebb4ec-db0b-11e2-90f1-001a4bcf6878.html


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, THAT alone says it`s working ! Now, if they would get it to "work' a little FASTER...get those wetlands restored, will begin to see a "power of Mother Nature" event occur very RAPIDLY.


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## zaraspook

LHT.....even though I have no explanation for the moderation in microcystin levels, I remain skeptical. Greatful that numbers haven't continued to rise, but it's early and a long way to go during this season of prime conditions for growing algae. I'll be content if we maintain recent test levels. Anywhere else in Ohio people would go ballistic if their lake showed current GLSM numbers. At least these baby steps are in the right direction.


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## EnonEye

Anyone see the channel7 report last eve about the young girl who caught a crappie "reportedly" 8lbs there? Pic on the TV was hard to tell what type of fish it was but IF it was a crappie (coulda been a white bass) it looked somewhere between 3 and 4 lbs to me. Pretty HUGE!


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## fishguy 888

I don't think it was a three or four pound crappie, and I highly doubt it was a white bass because I have never caught one and I fish it regularly and have never heard of anybody catching any white bass here. Could have been a sheephead lots of those of the lake.


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## Fishslayer9

The state record is 4.5 there Is no way they got one that's doubled. Must of been a white bass or an exaggerated size


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## zaraspook

You can view the fish in the video at the link below from WHIO Channel 7. The video was a report about the great fishing at GLSM and run on bait at area bait shops. You can pause the video to take a better look for yourself. Looks to me like Fishguy888 has it right. Link is http://www.whiotv.com/videos/news/mercer-co-fishing-is-good-bait-sales-up-on-grand/v5HBr/.


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## Slab assassin 55

The picture clearly shows a sheepshead not a crappie. You would think a bait store owner would know the difference.......


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## EnonEye

Slab assassin 55 said:


> The picture clearly shows a sheepshead not a crappie. You would think a bait store owner would know the difference.......
> 
> 
> Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


Sheepshead huh? Darn... here I thought we had braggin rights over the southern boys on crappies


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## zaraspook

The GLSM Lake Improvement Assoc (LIA) has some competition. A new organization is called GOL, Guardians of the Lake, and founded by the former secretary of LIA. As I read it, GOL appears to be more aggressive about going after polluters, soil testing, etc. 

A quote from the Celina Daily Standard article ...._"One of the guardians' missions is to push for heavy fines for polluters, such as culpable farmers, in the same manner the state goes after manufacturing corporations that violate regulations" _

I expect the new organization will find more than a few sympathizers. Article is at the link http://dailystandard.com/archive/2013-06-22/stories/21402/new-group-formed-to-help-grand-lake .


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## Lowell H Turner

Knew THIS was overdue. Am 1,000+% in favor of their mission, tactics; watch for the civil lawsuit...unless the farmers can PROVE they personally aren`t adding to the pollution (GOOD LUCK with THAT) a lawyer from outside of the local area will be CLIMBING all over this 1...


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## zaraspook

LHT.......the noose may be further tightening. With Lake Erie concerns adding pressure on legislators, a new bill has been introduced to add controls/authority to the DNR to regulate fertilizers. Agriculture guys would have to apply for certification to apply fertilizer, same as they do to apply pesticides. Hard to believe those controls and authority do not already exist. Article is here http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/06/26/state-seeks-runoff-rules-to-curb-algae.html .


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Saturday morning for a bit over an hour. Targeted crappies but found none/zero/nada. Only thing going on was a bluegill bite, about a dozen but no size to them.

One of my neighbors knows a guy working on the State's rough fish netting crew. Neighbor said the guy was raving over the size of some of the catfish they've netted (but released) this year. Several this year have been nearly 4' in length and guessed at 45-50#'s or more. Not a fisherman, the netting crew member couldn't venture a guess to the specific species.

No need to speculate anymore about big cats in GLSM. The cats are there. Flatties maybe?


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## Lowell H Turner

Can easily believe that there are some HUGE cats, flatheads in the lake...


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## Salmonid

Scuttlebutt says its been such a while since anyone has ever caught a flathead in the lake but in the 90's and early 2000's, there were several bigger flatheads caught, it appears there just isnt enough of them them to find one another to successfully spawn. therefore the ones left are good sized. 

Salmonid


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## hawgseeker

So is this lake safe to fish I live about a half hour away and wouldn't mind giving it a try. I won't be eating anything just catch and release. This algae stuff you guys are talking about wont ruin my equipment that's kinda what I'm worried about. I don't want my reels and lures to be ruined from one fishing trip


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## Lowell H Turner

Was tempted to say the water would corrode your boat hull, but in reality BOTH the EPA and ODNR have very extensively tested both the water AND fish. According to them, the fish are perfectly SAFE to eat, regardless of popular opinion. The water is still under a swimming/ contact advisory, but that is to be expected...enjoy!


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## zaraspook

hawgseeker.........no problems presented to your fishing gear. Only issue for fishing gear is dang cottonwood fluff on the surface mid-May to mid-June. Cottonwood balls up on your line and lure knots. You should give GLSM a try but keep in mind spring and fall are more productive for most species. I've found more surface algae scum issues at other lakes this year than at GLSM. Water is green. My kids will be swimming, tubing, and doing the jet ski stuff for the next 5 days. Here is the official EPA advisory which is the lowest advisory the EPA issues:
_ The Recreational Public Health Advisory - A Recreational Public Health Advisory sign will be posted at beaches when toxin levels exceed the recommended threshold, warning individuals who are elderly or very young and people with compromised immune systems that swimming or wading is not recommended. _

Go to link below to see the "fish consumption advisory" for all water bodies in Ohio. I doubt you can find more than a handful of lakes/rivers without an advisory or warning. The only GLSM advisory is "no more than 2 meals a week of largemouth bass", very common advisory throughout the state. How many people catch enough bass for 2 meals a week? Most bass guys are catch and release practitioners. The GLSM advisory is tame compared to many. Some waters have a long list of fish eating advisories. http://www.epa.ohio.gov/dsw/fishadvisory/LimitYourMeals.aspx

When you go, please post how you did.


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## hawgseeker

Alright will do thanks for the good info


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## zaraspook

Was at GLSM from the evening Weds 3rd thru Sunday 7th afternoon. With a lot of guests for the 5-day holiday, fishing took a back seat to entertaining the visitors. Most mornings I usually got in an hour of crappie fishing before people started rolling out of bed. Two times I got in 45 minutes to an hour in the evening. Always caught a few bluegills, most were small but a few were very nice ones. Managed a 12-13" bass, a channel cat of about 2 pounds, and by far the longest catch was at least 24". Unfortunately, the 24 incher wasn't a fish, but a water snake. Fortunately, the snake wasn't hooked but grabbed my plastic bait and and refused to let go. After dropping the snake on pavement a dozen times, it cooperated, released my bait, and slithered off in another direction. Zero crappies!

One of my nephews fished for cats from the West Bank Friday night. He and his brother reported getting shutout after fishing from 10pm until 3 am. That was surprising.......he's a decent cat fisherman and GLSM is more than a decent lake for channel cats.


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## fishwhacker

Wow no cats that is suprising... as far as the crappies go you need a boat this time of year and to find suspended crappies hardly any up close to shore only had about 5 close to shore other than a the spillway which is full of 4 to 5 inch crappies. That time of year to try new tactics and cover lots of water to find anything consistent.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker........hard to explain "no cats" for nephew other than he does like his beer. Maybe he and and his brother passed out, slept thru it all.

Thanks for the suggestions regarding summer crappies. I usually just give GLSM crappie fishing a rest during the summer. Let the fish grow up and I'll go at them in the fall.

Latest EPA toxin test data for GLSM again shows a drop in bad stuff. Nice to hear. We've been fortunate so far. Lack of sun and moderate temps will do that. Rather than typical lake temps in the 80's which is prime for growing algae, water temps last weekend were only 73-77 range.


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## Lowell H Turner

Some "good" news ! Hope it continues to drop, but guess that`s not being "realistic"...and yes, strange about them not catching ANY cats !


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## zaraspook

The Prairie Creek treatment train received an EPA grant to expand the littoral wetlands and pay for 2 alum dosing basins. The grant pays for about 60% of the costs. Also, Coldwater Creek gets the go ahead from the State for a 2-year development of a treatment train. Plans include a "skimmer dredge" to skim phosphorus from the water surface. Link to Celina Daily Standard new article is below.

_"Experts say wetlands act as filters to reduce harmful nutrients such as phosphorous, which is the main nutrient feeding the lake's toxic blue-green algae. Littoral wetlands lined 4,000 acres of Grand Lake's south shoreline more than 80 years ago but disappeared when new housing and other development increased." _

Work on the Prairie Creek treatment train began more than a year ago. No start date given for new Coldwater Creek project. Slow process and slow progress but the operative word is PROGRESS!

New article is here http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...state-to-fund-coldwater-creek-treatment-train


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## Lowell H Turner

Agreed with him: "Progress IS progress !"


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## zaraspook

Spent 1/2 day at GLSM Saturday. Instead of fishing time was invested in cleaning up after the Weds storm. Had 2 large limbs down. A 10" diameter limb, actually the top third of a maple, just missed my son's new SeaDoo. The other barely caught a gutter with minimal damage. Chain saw got a good workout.

Heard a report that lake water level is approx 2" above summer pool. Last year at this time I'll bet it was 12" below pool. Dredges are dredging with 100,000 cubic yards removed but behind schedule. One dredge was out of commission for a good amount of time. Rough fish removal is done for 2013. Apparently the crew shuts down after carp have spawned.


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## Lowell H Turner

Saw on WHIO that the Governor`s Cup boat races will likely be cancelled; an economic lost opportunity when the local businesses could REALLY use the revenue...


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## zaraspook

LHT.....read somewhere it has been canceled. A number of sponsors pulled out over the last year and replacement funds/sponsors haven't surfaced. Those hydroplanes won't be running for 3rd time in last 4 years. Cancellation in 2010 was due to the major algae blowup. Race was back on in 2011 and a big success. The drought and low water levels nipped last year's race. Definitely a loss of economic activity.

Most lake merchants say they are doing "OK" this year. Great fishing this past spring got things off to a good start. Boat sales in spring were better than recent years. State Park camping at GLSM is up with good occupancy levels. Weather is number one nemesis this year. The holidays and most weekends so far have been cool and/or wet. Depresses the recreational activities of the lake. Boats don't get used as much......parts, service, accessory sales suffer. People cut short their weekend or holiday stays with foul weather. 

One marina owner told me revenues plummet after the 4th of July. County fairs and other activities compete for the consumer's recreational time and dollars. Celina Lake Festival goes on next week 22nd thru 28th which is a decent draw. The biggie event for August is (was) the hydroplane races, Governors Cup.


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## zaraspook

Columbus Dispatch has an article today about "red algae" as a threat to Ohio waterways. This stuff's first Ohio appearance was last summer at Dillon Lake in Muskingum County and a different red algae appeared last November in Williams Reservoir in Lima. It is NOT in Grand Lake St Marys, knock on wood. Let's repeat that......this red algae is NOT in GLSM. You will be amazed at the picture if you go to the Columbus Dispatch link here http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/07/18/new-toxin-to-avoid-red-algae.html .


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## zaraspook

Governor's Cup hydroplane race is back on! Lake Improvement Assoc generously stepped up with $20k to make up for sponsorship deficit. Nicely done LIA!
Come on up in Aug. These boats fly.


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## Salmonid

That's great news Rande!!, me and Ryan coming up for tomorrow nights Catmasters Tourney, ( 6pm -Midnight) will post any results on Sunday.. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

How did the tourney go? I was at GLSM a couple hours Saturday evening. Lot of people fishing from shore of East Bank. I noticed water color in channels was odd brown-green rather than pea green. Neighbor said it changed mid-week.....no rain activity involved. I think it's one of the lake's algae strains going thru a life-cycle change where a high percentage of algae all dies at same time. Wish I could say algae dies from diminishing supply of food/phosphorus but highly doubtful. Cycle occurs 1-2 times a year and visible evidence gone within a week.


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## Salmonid

tourney went well as usual, 35 teams but unfortunately our prefished honey hole was only so so, finished 6th or 7th with 37.80 lbs ( 6 fish) we were culling 5 lbers which usually is a good thing but without a kicker fish, youll never place up there and our biggest was only 7 lbs, 5 of the teams in front of us all had a kicker between 10-13 lbs. Water in the channels was pea green and 88 degrees but main lake looked pretty good and was around 82-83 degrees. Lots of boat activity as the evening was beautiful for fishing, 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Wow......an average of 6+ pounds per fish and no $. From the website I saw you guys were less than two pounds out of the money. 1st place team tipped the scales at over 52 pounds. That's a lot of meat for 6 fish. Like you say...great weather and the moon looked pretty full. How many cats did you/Ryan catch total for the night?


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## Lowell H Turner

Salmonid, it is a case of you did well compared to many other of the teams, but just not well enough...YET. You`re day IS coming...


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## Salmonid

we probably caught 20-24 fish total.. where we were fishing the fish were bigger but fewer bites. Bet we only caught 5-6 that were less then 3 lbs. I agree we did ok, just couldn't buy that 1 good fish we needed...

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Dude, most people couldn`t catch that many fish in 24 hours even at a pay lake if they were the only person there !


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## Salmonid

LOL what most people don't realize is just how many channel cats a lake will hold with enough shad to feed them all. Im sure the density/biomass up at GLSM, Loramie, CJB and Indian are as high as anywhere in the state.

With all the shad up there, GLSM is still producing many large fish, like I said 5 fish over 10 lbs in tourney, biggest around 13 lbs. 


Salmonid


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## fishguy 888

Salamonid I heard big fish was 15.1 pounds


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## Salmonid

the listed weights include the 2 lb basket. still a great fish anyway you look at it!!
Salmonid


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## fishguy 888

Okay forgot about the basket. I heard that a lot of the catfish died after they were released in the marina channel too bad.


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## zaraspook

On Monday I mentioned my channel and others were brown-green in color rather than just green, and suggested it was related to algae dying off in mass. In a Celina Daily Standard article yesterday the State Park Manager confirms the algae dying off, creating a drop in oxygen, and some subsequent small fish kills in a number of the channels. 

This is not abnormal for this time of year. I did not notice any dead fish in my channel but haven't seen it since Saturday. Shad are pretty fragile and fish kills including shad are common. The article about the fish kills and algae is at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/2013-07-22/stories/21588/dead-fish-reported-in-lake


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## Salmonid

Actually the majority of the fish are handled really well at the tourneys with no problems but we see folks with live fish in dry buckets all the time and throw in some heat and low oxygen, and youll have probs, I know the majority of the boat guys who are regulars have massive livewells that are heavily oxygenated and when we bring fish to the weigh-in from the boat ( 100 ft maybe) we fill a big Tupperware tub up with as much livewell water as we can carry and put fish right into that, trust me, when they come out, they are spitting mad and feistier then when we put them in...

I know at 1:00 am when weigh in was over, I only saw 1 fish struggling so that's pretty darn good. It seems there are always new people who just haven't learned what it takes to keep fish alive, so education is the key...and this goes for all tourneys, not just catfish ones. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

With low oxygen levels reported in many GLSM channels, I don't know how struggling fish released from the cat tourney can be blamed on poor handling of the cats. Going from high oxygen levels in livewells to low levels in the channel has to be a shock to the critters. I might think otherwise if low oxygen levels had not been previously confirmed.


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## fishwhacker

Hey Salmonid I'm not an avid catfisherman but my wife loves catching them(she thinks there cute and loves there growl) We have done alright tightlining in some of the bays and sand bars but was wondering if you had any suggestions on how to catch more not neccesarily size wise just wanted action. I recently read an article suggesting bobber fishing with depths just above the bottom is a good way to catch them during this time of year. Any truth to that? Any other suggestions would be appreciated? Not gonna keep them just trying to keep the wife interested in fishing.


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## Salmonid

smaller fish should always be around the shorelines and the best advice to give you would be to cast out, wait 15 minutes, if nothing, move 50 feet down the bank, also when you cast out, if your both using 2 rods, set one each on floats and 1 each on the bottom, then cast 1 shallow and one farther out, that way you can grid them trying to locate a few, If bobbering, Id suggest figuring out how deep water is then set float to hold baits 1 ft off bottom. he key here is to keep moving around because once you find some fish, there should be enough to keep you busy. 

Salmonid


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## Fishslayer9

Any channels or shallower water usually hold more fish if size dosent matter. When I'm there I get tired of dealing with the yellow bellys / bullheads


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## Salmonid

bullheads are usually found in the channels but rarely do we catch them out on the main lake. Try that and see if that helps

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Minster Evening Leader provided below report on low oxygen levels at GLSM. At the East Bank Marina on 7-22 at 8am dissolved oxygen tested ZERO. I think the Catmasters weigh-in was at that location early Sunday morning, right?
_
"ST. MARYS  Low dissolved oxygen levels have caused fish to die in Grand Lake St. Marys.

Grand Lake St. Marys Park Manager Brian Miller said low dissolved oxygen levels are robbing fish of oxygen. Last week's heat wave also caused the water temperatures to top 80 degrees in some locations.

"We checked the dissolved oxygen levels this morning in the East Bank Marina and fishing ponds, and at 8 a.m. we had levels of zero," Miller said. "In the lake proper, we have 0.4 so with those types of levels, the fish will be stressed."

When algae in the lake dies, it causes the dissolved oxygen levels in the lake to drop. Miller said the majority of the dead fish are shad.

"There are some small amounts of game fish," Miller said. "We are seeing it widespread through the lake in different areas."

Cooler temperatures this week may help matters. However, Miller said sunlight is needed in order to kick start photosynthesis.

"Last week, we had the dog days of summer  this is historic," Miller said. "We always have algae in the lake and when it dies off, it takes the dissolved oxygen, which in turn starves the aquatic life. The shad are a soft fish and cannot handle stress and they are usually the first to go. We have seen some game fish, but not at the numbers of the shad."_


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## fishwhacker

Thanks for the tips i'll try them out not a big fan of bullheads think I had 20 of them bluegill fishing yesterday so i'll try to stick to the main lake. Didn't know if I should be looking for bays or points.... rocks or weed shorelines. I would assume since they have soft stomachs that muddy bottoms is the way to go but like I said I know little about catfishing. I plan on using the grid method like salmonid suggested guess it's like any other fishing try different things until you can find a pattern.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid........not surprised that your cat approach is about the same as my crappie recipe. Fish in and out, change depths, and keep moving to find your prey. Great advice! Fishing is fishing.........


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## zaraspook

GLSM must be Ohio's capital for testing algae removal systems. A few of the ideas are gonna be refined and turn into big winners.......some day. Hopefully Lake Erie and other Ohio algae prone waters will benefit. 

Algaeventure Systems, by no means a newcomer among the field of companies in the mix, rolled out their latest technology for trial at GLSM. _"What it does is help access and pull microalgae and algae out of the water," Coho said of the technology. "We're pumping water out one side, running it through almost a filter system, and giving back cleaner water out the other side."_ The goal is to harvest algae into tomato paste consistency. More info at the Celina Daily Standard link http://dailystandard.com/archive/2013-07-18/stories/21567/algae-removal .


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## Lowell H Turner

Apparently, several companies are attempting to turn the algae into diesel fuel, which ironically is what it was largely made up of millions of yrs ago when the petroleum 1st formed; basically they are looking for ways to artificially "speed up" the process...the only thing is, it has to be done on a MASSIVE scale, and still requires a refinery nearby to "crack" it down into the useable products...


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## zaraspook

Cooler summer seems to be a positive for GLSM water quality. Most recent test results (last week) from the EPA show toxin levels at lowest point since early May. In fact compared to last summer for the same timer period, toxins are modestly lower this year. You might ask, so what's the big deal? Last year GLSM had an alum treatment......no treatment this year. 

Lots of other factors in play, but none the less current data is better than same time in 2012. On the flip side, current test data isn't as good as 2011. Water is plenty green....low visibility.

During July I doubt I logged more than 3-4 hours fishing at GLSM. Caught a few gills and accidental cats, but no crappies.


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## Lowell H Turner

Some "good' news, sir !


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## Salmonid

Agreed about the good news.... Will be up this weekend prefishing for following weekends Catmasters Tourney. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Later the day I posted observations about improved toxin levels, the Celina Daily Standard ran an article very much related. It provides a broader perspective than my comments and is titled Lake officials report marked improvement in quality of water and is at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...report-marked-improvement-in-quality-of-water . Optimism abounds!


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## Lowell H Turner

Actually, having just read the article, would call that OUTSTANDING news, sir !


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......from your pre-fishing how's the bite looking for Saturday Catmaster tourney?


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## Salmonid

fishing tomorrow will be my pre-fishing since tourney is the 17th, will post some vague results with no detail tomorrow for you ,LOL

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Ooooops. Mistakenly thought tourney was this weekend. All those cats you'll catch next week have another week to fatten up.


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## Salmonid

Well partner bailed on me for today so i ended up hammering the cats up at CJ Brown with Tin Guppy and Curtis937. Took 6 between 4-5 lbs so thats a great day up there in dinkville. Probably landed 3 dozen. Kept moving around till we found em. Hopefully ill make it up this week
Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Nice haul, sir !


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......you turned a lemon into lemonade.

For the first time in a while I got to wet a line at GLSM to test the channel crappie bite. Was there Saturday evening thru Sunday morning.....gone by noon when my chores were done. Total time fishing may have been 3 hours. Caught 4 crappies.......the first ones since late June. Only one was legal at 9.5". Counting dorsal fin splines one was a white crappie, the remaining black. Also, caught 8 gills, 2 keeper size.

Catch of the day was by by nephew. His catch was 16". Not 16" length, but diameter. That's measuring the shell diameter of an angry and nasty snapping turtle he snagged in the leg with his crappie jig. When hooked it buried itself under some limbs. Nephew finally eased the snapper out from the limbs, coaxed it to the seawall and I slipped a net under it. It was not happy to be on dry land.

My channel was pea green, with little to no visibility. Channel water temp was 80 on my probe. Lots of shad activity. Saw 2 bass in my channel Sunday morning.......they were working the shoreline with soft plastics.


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## keepinitreel

I was there camping and I could not believe how green that water is. I had my kayak in search of deep water and could only find 11-12ft. Zara, how deep was the channel you were fishing? Some of the channels I was working were only 3-4 ft.


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## Fishslayer9

Most of the channels run 3-4 ft deep. You get some that run a little deeper but I'd say 80% are under 5 ft


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## fishwhacker

Newer channels can run a little deeper but i'd have to agree 90% of channels are 3 to 4 feets. p.s. newer channels gets you some dirty looks by rich people living on them. They tend to think they own the fish and get a little annoyed by people catching them. I tend to take the dirty looks by some owners for big fish. Nothing like pulling a big pig crappie from under someones pool thats next to the channel lol.


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## Lowell H Turner

It IS a "public" lake...they`ll get over it.


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## zaraspook

keepinitreel..........the comments you're getting are right on the money. Most channels are under 5' this time of year. Deeper water in newer channels, but not all. My channel is 5' max right now and the few crappies I caught were in 3.5' water or less (I was pleasantly surprised to find crappies there). The only keeper crappie I caught was under a large wooden dock.....fully shaded and 2' max water depth. Other three crappies were places shaded in the evening with submerged cover. Caught the keeper size bluegills in/near vegetation and no more than a foot of water.

You saw how murky the water is with all the green matter. I figure the fish can't see very far. I trend toward twister tail style plastics where tail movement displaces water as it moves. In theory the bait should be easier for fish to sense and find. My nephew was using a standard crappie tube, little water displacement, fished more than me, fished the same spots, only caught one crappie. Salmonid once suggested trying rattle type baits with poor water clarity. It's a good idea I've forgotten about, but need to find a a "low cost" option.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.........just checked the online GLSM lake sensor. Water temp is 71.26 at 7am Friday and down 4 degrees since Monday. Kitties should like it. Good luck at Saturday Catmaster tourney.


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## Salmonid

Thanks Rande, the cooler water temps will certainly help livewells for the tourney as a burst of fresh cooler water is always a good thing halfway through the tourney but not a good idea when water temps are near 90 LOL


I was hoping to prefish this week but this stupid job keeps getting in the way of more serious things like fishing. Got a fill in newbie partner since Ryan is out of town and hope he can adjust to the way we fish and bring some beginners luck!

Also cant wait for fall crappies to start up.. keep me in the loop!


Salmonid


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## Salmonid

Catfish tourney update, my year has went from bad to worse as far as tourneys are going. sure, founds tons of nice fish but just like the last tourney, without a "big" fish, youll never plae and I mimicked last months tourney almost exactly with 6 fish between 4.5 and 6.25 lbs, but no big fish and ended up with 34.6 lbs which put us in 8th place out of 38 teams. Im about to sell all my fishing stuff and take up knitting or something like that. 

Water is getting lower every time out and was 74-5 degrees all over the lake, still a green color to the water even in the middle of the lake. A nice breeze and a great evening to be on the water but VERY frustrating to say the least as almost every team in front of us had a fish over 10 lbs. If memory serves me right 49lbs to win, then 42 then 41 and change, paid 3 places. If we replace a 4.5 with a 10 lber, Im right on the money edge, just like last month...

should still have qualified for the classic but will have to wait until points are tallied up. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Another teaser tourney, Salmonid.......one-fish away from the dough! But very good to hear you stand good chance to make the Classic (series finale). Is it possible you're saving all the big ones for the Classic on Sept 7th?

You're spot on about water levels falling. Without rain my guess is we lose 2" a week.


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## Lowell H Turner

Again, a simple matter of finding that 1 "golden" fish, sir!


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## zaraspook

If any one plans to fish the NW corner of GLSM this weekend, don't. You'll encounter rough waters and competition for space with hydroplane races. The Governors Cup Regatta runs both Saturday and Sunday from 10am-6pm. Races are 5-lap heats and admission is FREE. Bring your sunscreen. Events also include a free Saturday evening country concert. The Lake Improvement Association saved the races from cancellation with an 11th hour generation. More details at the following link on the Lake Improvement Association's website http://www.lakeimprovement.com/governors-cup-regatta .


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## zaraspook

Was at GLSM last Saturday doing some painting. From shore managed to wet a line only briefly....maybe an hour. Caught just a single crappie but it was keeper size 10.5" and a white crappie (5 dorsal splines). Came from my favorite honey hole and unfortunately it's the last fish I'll pull from that spot as it has been configured for a several decades. In my channel its one of the few remaining "natural bank" areas. Most places have seawalls, this one is a wooden deck and partial wood retaining wall. New owners decided to rip out the wood, replacing with concrete seawall. I'm guessing that "honey hole" typically produced 40%, maybe more, of my annual GLSM crappie haul.

Demolition and sea wall construction began Monday this week. :crying: Have some work to do to find new locations.


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## Lowell H Turner

There are "ways" to `enhance` almost any spot...PM me in the "wee" hrs of the AM...(evil laughter sound effect here...)


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## zaraspook

LHT......definitely need to get busy with enhancement. Admire the work you CJ guys have done over there. There are some unique challenges to enhancing water only 2-4' deep, in narrow channels, and with high boater traffic. Even short enhancements present obstacles for props and lower units.


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## Lowell H Turner

Correct Zaraspook. When are they scheduled to dredge said channel? BTW if there is a nearby mulberry tree remaining in need of pruning/ cut back...(did I hear a "splash" in the "wee" hours on a dark and moonless night?)


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## zaraspook

I'll try a bit of fishing this holiday weekend but expectations aren't great. Water temp is rising, almost 78 this morning according to sensor in middle of lake that's available online. Water levels are down falling about 2" a week without meaningful precipitation. With sun, heat, and low winds algae is feasting and toxin levels considerably higher than 3-4 weeks ago. 

The EPA advisory at GLSM continues but GLSM toxin sampling is lower than it was for Memorial Day while higher than July 4th holiday. Buckeye Lake beaches have been at toxin advisory levels for several weeks and the Lake Erie Maumee State Park/Beach areas also under EPA advisory. East Fork also has an advisory but the most recent test data for microcystins is below advisory levels.


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## fishguy 888

Zaraspook: A little over a month and those slabs will be biting almost as good as they were in the spring


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## Salmonid

Zara, me and Ryan going out Sat to prefish for Classic,( Sept 7) yeah I qualified but it was ugly...LOL

What is the weblink for that info your referring to? 

Good luck on the crappies, we will talk soon about making some plans to do some work in your channel


Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......link to GLSM water monitoring station is here http://www.ysieconet.com/public/WebUI/ . At that page at the top left you can see a listing for Buckeye Lake and GLSM. Click the plus sign (+) next to GLSM to expand the GLSM category. Then click the plus sign next to the new GLSM sub-category that comes up. A new GLSM subcategory comes up....click on it(click on the word GLSM) to get to the sensor data. You'll see a series of red graphs for current readings of temperature, ph, dissolved oxygen, and others. Temp was 78 degrees at about 7am Friday.

There were 2 stations the last several years, one located in west part of lake and the other one east. I think just one station now in central location, but maybe it has 2 sensors and takes data a 2 different depths. Not sure. Let me know if you have any problems getting to the graphs.

Hey, fella, you can't win the Classic finals if you aren't in it. You qualified, you're IN! Good luck a week from tomorrow on the 7th.


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## zaraspook

fishguy 888.....You're right. Slabs will be chomping soon. Spring time is good but fall bite is my preference. Fish are 6 months longer in size and fattened up for the winter.


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## Lowell H Turner

Salmonid, yeah, what he just said ! You stand as good a chance as anyone else !


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## zaraspook

LHT.......Salmonid is overdue for a kicker or two, right?


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## Lowell H Turner

Yup. He`s got the skill, and the gear. It`s simply a matter of crossing paths with that fish...and if it bites, very likely, it`s coming in with him !


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## Salmonid

better yet I like the sound of 3 kickers...LOL

Thanks for the encouragement guys!! Im up and ready for it as I know the good fish are where I m fishing...tomorrow were on a search for more areas to hit. Will post lake conditions and the sort late tomorrow


Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Guessing that water temp in my channel is 82 range this morning(Sat). Worst film or light scum of the year. 2 hours produced only 1 crappie, 2 gills, 1 sheep head, all small.


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## fishguy 888

I too will be hitting the lake up tmr. for some catfish in the boat


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## Salmonid

Yup water was around 82-83 all over the main lake, the color was good all over too so that was encouraging. only back in Montezuma was it a little skunky, we caught at least 30 cats today in about 5 hrs as we bailed just minutes before the big storm hit so good timing. castnetted a thousand 2" shad today to get a dozen 8" fish. LOL 

Salmonid


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## fishguy 888

Ya both at loramie and St. Marys I've been castnetting those baby shad.


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## zaraspook

A bit embarrassed to say catching 3 crappies is encouraging, but I'm saying it any way. Though I haven't fished much, it's been tough during hot months to pull 1 papermouth from channel, occasionally I'll get 2, but managed 3 Saturday afternoon. Even better all 3 were keeper size. First one was 10.5", second was a hair over 11", and the last 12" + a tick. All were pulled from under a pontoon on twister tails. Sunday produced a repeat, 3 crappies from the same pontoon, but all of these were short. Crappies were all whites, 5-6 dorsal splines.

Didn't get to fish Monday........too much time spent to clean-up after a weekend of guests and salvaging my son's SeaDoo. Thankful to have neighbors who pitched in with the SeaDoo rescue operation. It was 1/2 way submerged Monday morning. One of drain plugs in rear was "out".

By Monday evening the scum/algae in our channel was heaviest of the year and not pretty. Main lake showed no real evidence of floating mass. Plenty of boater traffic all weekend, probably more traffic than any other holiday this summer. Cooler night time temperatures this week will cool the lake temp slightly, slow down the algae growth in stagnant flow areas (channels). As others posted, schools of midget shad are abundant.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, if you`re catching fish at all, well done ! It was HOT this weekend down here !


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## Salmonid

Good job Zara, I been thinking about some structures for your place, have some good ideas, will talk you soon after this next weekend. 


Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....Is the Catmaster Classic on Saturday a night or day time event? Interesting that the mid-lake water monitoring station has water temp at 73.7 this morning. 7+ degree decline in 36 hours sounds funky.


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## Salmonid

Noon to 6 pm for this one, 

Salmonid


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## Salmonid

Well I called this one...got 3 kickers for todays catfish classic up at GLSM today!! ( see post 807) those included a 13.5, 10.4 and 8.4 lb channels plus 3 others all above 6 lbs for a total of 51.5 lbs and VICTORY as well as Big Fish ( Ryan caught the big fish) Back to back Classic champions, Whoo-hooo, LOL

Also found the motherload of crappies.. big ones and lots of them.. Rande if your headed up let me know Ill give you the 411, we castnetted them 3-6 at time and many were honest 12"ers!! Probably got a couple dozen of them before we moved , there were shad right in there with them though, kinda cool!










Salmonid


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## Curtis937

Nice fish congrats on the win 


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## Lowell H Turner

Forgive me for saying `I told ya so`, but "I told ya so !" Very WELL done, sirs, and congratulations !


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## fishwhacker

Nice fish congrats


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## zaraspook

Salmonid........Congrants to you and Ryan as repeat Classic Champs! Next year is a shot at a 3-peat. I'm not surprised. You guys were overdue for a few biguns'. Stopped in at the Outdoorsman at 1pm Saturday and saw the Catmaster board they had setup to record results later at weighin. 1st place prize was a nice chunk of change and glad you and Ryan pocketed it, plus big fish, too.

Let me know where you were castnetting and found the crappies. 11-12" crappies should be prevalent this fall. I fished an hour before the Buckeye game, then again during half-time of the game. Managed to catch 8 crappies during the two stints which included a 12", two were 11"+, and two were 10"+. Also pulled a 13" largemouth out from under a deck....great fun on my 9.5' crappie rig. It was the best crappie session for me since June. Hard to tell what quantities will be like but looks like the fall crappie bite will be very high quality. A few inches of rain would be nice......lake is dropping about 2" a week but still better than this time last year.


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## zaraspook

Meant to mention this earlier in the summer, at GLSM we're seeing bryozoa in the water. Most are attached to submerged sticks, limbs, and wood. Kind of gross looking........very soft and jelly-like. Most are about the size of a volleyball and colors vary from dark brown to golden brown. They may have been around but I never noticed them before last summer. Encountered maybe a dozen of them last year and easily double that number this summer. Word has it they eat algae among other things, and act as a filter for the water. A pic is posted below after the description I copied from the internet. This is your science lesson for the day.....there will be a pop quiz after you read it. 

_
Most species of Bryozoan live in marine environments. There are about 50 species which inhabit freshwater. In their aquatic habitats, bryozoans live on all types of hard substrates: sand grains, rocks, shells, wood, blades of kelp, pipes and ships may be heavily encrusted with bryozoans. Some bryozoan colonies, however, do not grow on solid substrates, but form colonies on sediment. While some species live at depths of 8,200 m, most bryozoans live in much shallower water. Most bryozoans are sessile and immobile, but a few colonies are able to creep about, and a few species of non-colonial bryozoans live and move about in the spaces between sand grains. One remarkable species makes its living while floating in the Southern Ocean. Several bryozoan species live in the Midwestern United States, especially in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky which was once a part of a large ocean, the Western Interior Seaway. Their diet consists of small microorganisms, including diatoms and other unicellular algae. _


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## CHOPIQ

Nice post zara. Always wondered what those things were. We always called them monkey brains. I've seen them at St Marys before but have seen them at Alum lately.


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## zaraspook

Chopiq......they really do have the look of brain matter. Monkey brains is a fitting description.


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## fishwhacker

I couldn't remember what those were called I have been seeing them all over this summer I just remembered they were called good for the enviorment in the daily standard.


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## zaraspook

Fished Saturday 14th at GLSM for an hour early morning, an hour just after lunch, then a final 30 minutes at 4pm before heading home. Fished my channel and from the bank. The morning session produced no crappies, 2 gills, and a feisty 12" largemouth. 2nd session yielded 2 crappies and 2 gills. During the final and shortest session I managed 3 crappies and a gill. Three crappies were keepers. Gills were all small.

Fish were warm to the touch.........I later checked water temp which was 69.6 in my channel. Crappie bite is still a lot of work to produce very few crappies but should modestly improve each week as water temp drops off. Since I'm running into bass the last few outings I suspect the bass bite is on the rise. Most of crappies came from under pontoons. Though I didn't venture very far, saw no one else fishing. That's the way I like it.


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## Lowell H Turner

It`s NOT too late to spread the rumor that even touching GLSM fish is deadly to the touch...(HINT ! HINT!)


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## zaraspook

LHT.......plan was to save that "rumor" until the crappie bite really gets going. Shouldn't be too long.


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## Lowell H Turner

(ooops ! )


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## zaraspook

Hmmmm. The online water sensor station in middle of GLSM shows 64 degrees this morning (Tues). Water temp might crack into the upper 50's next week. Probably a good time for the casual crappie fishermen to put the rods away.


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## fishwhacker

Hunting season is coming get into the fields lol love this time of year fishing without so many people finding ur honey holes except a few duck hunters


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## SPAZ

Any reports?? Water temps maybe ?? Any activity ??


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## zaraspook

SPAZ..........haven't been up there to fish since last Saturday so nothing new from me. Checked online for the current water temp at GLSM. It's 67.7 at 9:30 pm Thursday. Temp is down a couple degrees from last weekend. Warm nights we've had lately slow down the temp descent. If you fish let us know the latest and greatest.


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## SPAZ

Well I went at them last night got on the water and it was still spiting rain a little. I had six rods pre rigged with some of the most popular. Headed strait to coldwater creek in the deep no marks but fished it anyhow focused on the ledges of the dredge line also fished some shallow up along the little Island there at the mouth skunked!! Then I headed east past windy to my favorite channel. There is a great variety of enviroment here sea walls fallen timber man made habitat pontoon boats covered docks wood docks aluminum docks shallows deep runs I think this one has it all. Skunked!!! The only thing I didnt throw at them was a anchor. The Fish Are there be willing to pay good money for someone to show me how to find and catch the mysterious warm water crappie that seems to keep eluding me.. Water temps really fluctuated from 68-73


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## zaraspook

Saturday 9-21 fished early 8AM for an hour bank fishing. Kept moving but found no crappie bite, only a couple small gills. Finally picked up one crappie along a seawall where there are a couple small submerged tree limbs. It was legal size, barely, but first of the day. Ran some errands, then got in another 1/2 hour of fishing just before Buckeye kickoff.....nothing going on. With the Buckeyes rolling I skipped out a little before half time to fish a neighbor's wooden dock/deck. Nothing happening there until I switched to skipping my bait under his pontoon. Over the next 30 minutes I pulled 6 crappies from between the toons of his boat or under sections of his dock/deck adjacent to his pontoon. The best of those was 11.75" and a white crappie. Went back to my place to watch the rest of the Buckeye blow-out and to cleanup my place before leaving for home. Before putting away my rod I returned to that same pontoon and dock area for a few casts. Caught one more crappie.

Overall it took about 3 hours of fishing to catch 8 crappies, 5 whites and 3 blacks (according to the splines). 3 were keepers but none were really small. All but one were caught under the pontoon or from under the wooden deck near the boat. Crappie bite is slow, not widespread, but you can get into some action. For the last 3 weeks most of my fish were taken 2-5pm and in shaded areas. We need some cooler water temps to get things going. The mid-lake water sensor that's online says water temp is 64.9 degrees this morning.


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## zaraspook

Water temp this morning 63.5, down 1.5 degrees from Monday morning. Comparing the sensor for Buckeye Lake with GLSM sensor, I'm surprised that oxygen levels run higher at GLSM than Buckeye. As expected the turbidity levels at GLSM are higher. Better oxygenation level at GLSM is not intuitive to me.


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## zaraspook

I was in the area of GLSM late Tuesday. Son and I stopped at our place and fished for an hour and a half before dark. Result was zero, nada, nary a single crappie. A few gills were pecking at our baits, and my son caught a small bass, but crappies were not to be found. We moved frequently and tested a variety of cover.

Water temp at the center of lake monitoring station is 63.5 this morning at 7am.......no change from Monday at same time. Water temps are not likely to degrade much under the current recipe......lots of daily sun, highs temps in 70's, and lows around 50.


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## SMOKERCRAFT56

Where is the link/site for this water temp?


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## zaraspook

SMOKERCRAFT56.......link to GLSM water monitoring station is here http://www.ysieconet.com/public/WebUI/ . At that page at the top left you can see a listing for Buckeye Lake and GLSM. Click the plus sign (+) next to GLSM to expand the GLSM category. Then click the plus sign next to the new GLSM sub-category that comes up. A new GLSM subcategory comes up....click on it(click on the word GLSM) to get to the sensor data. You'll see a series of red graphs for current readings of temperature, ph, dissolved oxygen, and others. Temp was 63.7 degrees at about 7am Thursday.

Water monitoring station is in the center of lake. It's live 24 hours a day until they remove it for the winter in October or November. Buckeye and GLSM oxygen readings are about the same this morning. Buckeye is 2 degrees warmer than GLSM.

Let me know if link doesn't work for you and maybe I can help.


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## SPAZ

When I click that link it says customer ID required ?? Any help Zara


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## SPAZ

After searching that home page I came up with this http://www.ysieconet.com/public/WebUI/Default.aspx?hidCustomerID=248


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## SMOKERCRAFT56

Thanks guys...got it


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## zaraspook

Good work, Spaz! Bookmark I have for that page automatically adds in the ID info (Default.aspx?hidCustomerID=248).


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## briney dave

zaraspook said:


> Meant to mention this earlier in the summer, at GLSM we're seeing bryozoa in the water. Most are attached to submerged sticks, limbs, and wood. Kind of gross looking........very soft and jelly-like. Most are about the size of a volleyball and colors vary from dark brown to golden brown. They may have been around but I never noticed them before last summer. Encountered maybe a dozen of them last year and easily double that number this summer. Word has it they eat algae among other things, and act as a filter for the water. A pic is posted below after the description I copied from the internet. This is your science lesson for the day.....there will be a pop quiz after you read it.
> 
> _
> Most species of Bryozoan live in marine environments. There are about 50 species which inhabit freshwater. In their aquatic habitats, bryozoans live on all types of hard substrates: sand grains, rocks, shells, wood, blades of kelp, pipes and ships may be heavily encrusted with bryozoans. Some bryozoan colonies, however, do not grow on solid substrates, but form colonies on sediment. While some species live at depths of 8,200 m, most bryozoans live in much shallower water. Most bryozoans are sessile and immobile, but a few colonies are able to creep about, and a few species of non-colonial bryozoans live and move about in the spaces between sand grains. One remarkable species makes its living while floating in the Southern Ocean. Several bryozoan species live in the Midwestern United States, especially in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky which was once a part of a large ocean, the Western Interior Seaway. Their diet consists of small microorganisms, including diatoms and other unicellular algae. _


Pectinala Magnifica (likely spelled way wrong lol) is the species name of the most common one found in Oho. They are filter feeders 
if you are worried about what their presence may indicate you should contact Dr. Tim Wood from Wright State: He litterally wrote the book on them 

I did not read the rest of the postings due to time but would guess that it means that there is modest increase in nutrients in the water with a good amount of rain this summer


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## zaraspook

briney dave.......appreciate info. We're not worried about bryozoa. We see presence as a positive factor and filter.


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## briney dave

that is my thoughts too, I raised a few for my students a few years back: pretty gross to look at and handle but neat too

I will have to get over that way some time: its a long drive for sure from Fremont

I did crappie fish there once during that crappie-thon sat in the rain for six hours before a guy from shore pointed me toward a few brush piles in a channel ended up with two or three really nice fish that I did not even consider taking to the weigh-in. I wanted dry underware and a crappie sandwich LOL


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## SPAZ

just checked the temps again and at two feet the temp has come up 4.36 degrees since I looked at it this morn. IF anything it is interesting. Wish It would help me catch fish


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## zaraspook

briney dave.........a few weeks from now crappies will be going good, plus you can see bryozoa in the same trip. I don't know enough about bryozoa to know if they die or just go dormant with cooler water temps.


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## briney dave

maybe we can meet up, that place drove me crazy on the one and only trip over. I have a 10' bass tendor boat but powered by electric only so it will be pretty slow going 

The weirdest part of that trip was getting a phone call a few hours after returning. The guy I went with's wife called: asked if he had hit his head or something: I had noticed nothing wrong, she said he came in and told her he was leaving her for good, packed his stuff and left. Had never given her any warning that anything was wrong or that he was unhappy.

He never did talk with me about it, never asked either: that was a really rainy day though 

I never went back mostly for the above two reasons. I think after 20 years or so its safe to go back (at least I hope so)


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## zaraspook

SPAZ.....GLSM temps can jump quickly with sun beating down on all that acreage. If night time air temps drop into 40's, water loses all or most of temperature rise from the day. When we get cloudy days, almost no temp gain during the day followed by 3-4 degree drop at night. Several cloudy days in a row can push water temp down 6-8 degrees. I think we need to get water temp into mid-50's before you can count on catching decent numbers almost every time out.

Last year on this date water temp was 58 degrees, then it got warmer, and GLSM fell to 55 degrees on Oct 7th. Nothing in our current 10-day weather forecast suggests 55 degree water by Oct. 7th this year. 7 of next 10 days are forecast with lots of sun moderate low temps. Hope weather guys are wrong.


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## fishwhacker

I agree cant wait for cooler temps crappies can be caught in this current temp but it takes awhile and lots of time on the trolling motor I suggest trolling small crankbaits until you find some trying to note depth than I would use minnows once u find some. I understand its not very sporting and feels more like commercial fishing but its the easiest way I know to find them and they are most likely not going to be in channels with the warm water... deeper is most of the time better with warm temps they are suspended now and mostly scattered but u can find groups of 12 or so in single areas


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## zaraspook

Arrived at GLSM at 10:30am Saturday morning, unloaded the car, then headed to my shed to get my crappie rig. As I'm unlocking the shed, a pickup pulls up at the house where my #1 honey hole is located, a large wooden deck with a pontoon at the dock. I recognize the guy in the pickup, as the handyman who used up 4 weeks of prime time, late spring crappie fishing while replacing the deck boards on this homeowner's dock/deck. What's he doing there? Turns out the homeowner wasn't happy with the job, the deck boards were uneven and sagging in a large area. Oh well, on a Saturday how long is a repair guy going to hang around? 

Fishing other places in between cutting grass and other chores, I manage zero crappies, maybe 1/2 dozen bluegills, and a 5-6 pound channel cat that was great fun on my flyrod. The repair guy finally leaves at 6PM......7.5 hours later! Finally hustling over to wet a line at the #1 target, a quick glance makes it clear this nightmare isn't over. About a quarter of the deck remains torn up, deck boards not down.......the job isn't done. Determined to find a crappie or two I work around the construction zone, fish maybe 1/2 the area I'd normally fish, and managed 2 crappies, one a solid 10.5", and a handful of gills.

Sunday morning I'm on the spot early. It's the Sabbath and no need to worry about any interruptions today, just a bit of light rain to contend with. I pull 3 crappies from deck/dock, all three keepers and largest just over 11", plus a few gills again. Time for breakfast, take care a few chores, then I'll come back and hit the spot again before heading home at noon. About 11am I grab my rod for another trip to the construction zone. Oooops, I hear pounding and the pickup is back. What's with this guy......a repairman on the job on Sunday? Doesn't this guy at least go to church? Working in the rain?......no way that can last long. At 1pm I give up, start packing the car and closing down my lake place, but haven't put the rod away. I'm hoping the guy packs it in. At 1:45 I concede, and head out to put my rod in the shed. Lo and behold, the repair guy is loading up. Hooray, he's leaving! I'm late for my return home but no way I'm leaving without one last attempt at the only place where I found crappies. After 15 minutes and two keeper crappies plus a few gills, I hook into a super-sized fish! Definitely some weight to this one and I'm changing my mind......the way this is digging it's at least a 2-pound bass. Finally breaking the surface I see it's a crappie and a BIG one. Damn......no net! No choice but to hope it's hooked in the roof of the mouth as I lift it 3 feet from the water surface to the deck. Before getting the full weight of the fish out of water, my jig tears free, fish is gone. 10 more minutes of casting was fruitless, no more crappies. I was late, put the rod away and headed home.


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## briney dave

wow that is a big fish 
worth the wait


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## zaraspook

Weather guys have some promising predictions that should shift the fall crappie bite into gear. About 10 days out high temps are forecast 15-20 degrees cooler and low temps in the 40's, event the 30's. Water temps should descend to 50's. As a comparison, water temp this morning is just under 66 degrees which is 1.5 degrees higher than Monday. Bank fishing and action in channels should get interesting. I'm expecting the size of fish to be very good with the typical fish 10+". Time will tell.

Switching directions...... a resort style project is in development for the West Bank of GLSM. It's being called "The Boardwalk", to include 150 condo units, restaurant, bar, and conference facilities. Condos to go for $100k-200k. I'm undecided if it would be a good or bad thing, but any discussion of investment at the lake is encouraging. It shows some confidence in the direction of the lake's health. Celina Daily Standard's article is at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/2013-09-30/stories/22150/new-development-for-west-bank-road .


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## SPAZ

You know all those tiny houses on that strip of west bank needed to be torn down a long time ago. I dont know if individuals own them or ?? But I see It as a improvement. West Bank Is like the welcome center for the lake.


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## Lowell H Turner

Someone long ago wrote "The Ode To The 1 That Got Away..." He had no witnesses either, although in this poetic masterpiece he supposedly barely gets his finger to touch the lip of this certainly record breaking fish before it in a last desperate act flops, pops the hook free, and escapes...look on the "bright side", unlike him, you didn`t end up with a mouthful of muddy water while the fish is furiously beating you in the face with it`s tail revving up to be elsewhere...come to think about it, have read it like 5 or 6 times and seriously bust up laughing each time; he never actually says what kind of fish it was...


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## fishwhacker

Not sure how long it will be till The Boardwalk will break ground I know Bruns construction has owned the current Dockside Grill and most of those rental houses I guess they are finally ready to sell to Richard Cushman who is going to be building the boardwalk. I hope he has luck selling all the condos he is going to put up I know many of the last ones put up on West bank are still for sale.


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## zaraspook

LHT......."the big one that got away" is a staple of fishing. Nice to know there are trophy-level crappies in the lake. Crappie fishing there is definitely in a positive cycle. Knock on wood!


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker......I read somewhere that first phase of The Boardwalk development should be operational next summer. That's an aggressive timeline although the magnitude of "first phase" wasn't defined. Project is to include retail and business space. Might be able to get a bait store functional in that time frame. :bulgy-eyes:

WLIO-TV in Lima did a short piece on the GLSM Prairie Creek Treatment Train. As open house is available this weekend for anyone who wants to view the setup. The installation pumps 30 million gallons of water monthly to be treated before it exits back into lake inflow. Video from WLIO is at this link http://www.hometownstations.com/story/23582973/grand-lake-st-marys-improvement-put-on-display .


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## zaraspook

Water temp Friday AM is 67.55. It's been going up all week, 1.5 degree rise every two days. Finally will start the seasonal descent with the arrival of more seasonal air temperatures for next couple weeks. Lake sensor also suggests turbidity levels are edging down. If you look at the Buckeye water sensor available at the same link, again oxygen levels at GLSM are higher than Buckeye. That goes against the grain of expectations.


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## Salmonid

Zara, lets plan on a midweek trip up to your place the week of the 14-18th to place said structure, I got the parts but haven't made it yet. It will be a good test to see if it will hold any fish.

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Forgive my being nosey, but what have you in mind as far as types of cover? Mulberry branches stuffed thru blocks ("BB"s) in a very fertile lake should last 6-8 yrs...


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## Salmonid

Waaay too much bass traffic there and too snagproof, Im working up a stake bed type of platform that can be vertically jigged , made with pvc so snagproof and can be put out a rods length from the shore and no one will ever know its there, , any trees will soon be camped on by a dozen folks 24 x 7. Its small simple test really and then we may add more if it proves to hold some fish. 

Salmonid


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## Curtis937

Salmonid said:


> Waaay too much bass traffic there and too snagproof, Im working up a stake bed type of platform that can be vertically jigged , made with pvc so snagproof and can be put out a rods length from the shore and no one will ever know its there, , any trees will soon be camped on by a dozen folks 24 x 7. Its small simple test really and then we may add more if it proves to hold some fish.
> 
> Salmonid


Lol we need something like that at alum for crappies 


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## Salmonid

Stopped today for an hour or so at the Sailboat docks to castnet shad for my trip tomorrow. Interesting that in that time the Park ranger stopped to talk to me, the watercraft guy stopped to talk to me and the new Game warden stopped to check my bucket for anything other then shad and a license check. Funny how as soon as I got there, 3 locals bailed pretty quick and one was doing his best to not let me see what he had in the bucket but I guess some short crappies.. Game warden said that's about the biggest violation he has seen so far and its always the same type of person he said, older, retired, park and walk with a bucket, never more then 50 ft from the car and they are always "leaving" when he pulls in. LOL

Anyways I can tell you that with many throws of the net that I managed 1 nice 12+" crappie, 2 short crappies, a handful of bullheads, a small carp, about 10 bluegills in the 2-4" range and about 5-6 nicer gills in the almost keeper size ( 7-8" probably) and so the answer is NO, the crappies are not in yet..... 

Oh yeah, found 3 different Christmas trees that I pulled in with the net...

That's the story...

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

It should hold fish...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Zara, lets plan on a midweek trip up to your place the week of the 14-18th to place said structure, I got the parts but haven't made it yet. It will be a good test to see if it will hold any fish.
> 
> Salmonid


I'm ready when you are. Week of 14th should be ok most days if we make in the afternoon.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM about noon Saturday 5th. For various reasons couldn't fish my main target. Caught 6 crappies but was a lot of work and extremely slow channel bite from the bank. 3 of those were legal, biggest 11", both black and white crappies among the 6. Three crappies came from under the same pontoon, the other 3 came from a submerged limb that was 8-10' from the bank. I didn't count but also caught 8-10 gills though I wasn't trying to. Size is improving on the gills although I wouldn't call any of them keepers. Fished again Sunday morning for maybe an hour in the rain. No crappies.....one bluegill.

Need some cooler water temps before the bite improves in channels. Pontoons have been the best target, however, each week there are fewer pontoons remaining in the water as boat owners remove them for the winter.

I didn't check the water temp while at GLSM but online water monitoring station has it at 65.2 Monday morning (today).


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## zaraspook

Water temp this morning at monitoring station in center of the lake indicates water temp is 62, lowest temp so far this fall. That's down 3 degrees from yesterday morning.

Channel 7 WHIO has a video from the open house and dedication of the Prairie Creek treatment train. The system cleans 30 million gallons monthly with a 75%+ phosphorus reduction. Channel 7 video is at this link http://www.whiotv.com/videos/news/grand-lake-st-marys-still-working-to-improve-lake/vCDpgm/ .


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## Lowell H Turner

Another step in the right direction. BTW, apparently the "eye in the sky" will be available again this no manure spreading season with funding once again made by a private source...any idea how many local farmers were seen/ fined last winter?


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## zaraspook

LHT.....very good question. I remember only one instance of "alleged" unlawful application of poop during closed season. Never heard the outcome of that one and unsure who has jurisdiction, where recorded, and if available for public consumption. We need help of pooper snoopers to sniff the crap out of this one.


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## zaraspook

Water temp 61.9 Thursday morning which is actually higher than yesterday. Despite cool nights, all this sun heats lake right back up during the day. We need a couple 1000 tons of ice cubes to cool it off.

Ohio EPA, DNR, and AG departments are pushing a State bill to increase authority to control fertilizer /phosphorus runoff into Ohio waters. Current law gives authority to control manure, not fertilizers. Agriculture community isn't going to like this. Bill would require farmers to be licensed to apply fertilizers, similar to current licensing requirements to apply insecticides. 

In general I'm against new rules and regulations, but we obviously have a problem at Lake Erie, GLSM, and Buckeye just to name a few water bodies with chronic algae issues. Lack of rules isn't working and something has to be done. State spends a ton of tax payer money to treat symptoms without fixing root cause. Insane to treat problems and not stop it at source. Columbus Dispatch article about the bill is at this link http://www.dispatch.com/content/sto...agency-leaders-push-bill-to-thwart-algae.html .


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## Lowell H Turner

Agree 1000% with you on this 1...


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## zaraspook

Saturday at GLSM is my day of doing chores and fishing. If the crappies are hitting in my channel, fewer chores get done. When the bite from the bank is puny, chores get most the bulk of my time. It was 90% doing chores this time around (12th). Lot of time spent on leaves, cutting grass, painting, cleaning.......ugh!

Caught but 2 crappies, one 10"+, the other a runt, plus a couple of bluegills and a sheephead. Left early, home before dark. Water temp in my channel was 62.7 at about 3pm. With all this sun algae/green matter continues to grow and at the expense of water clarity. Water temp this morning is 61.8 at 7am.


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## fishwhacker

It's getting closer I always was told that 55 degrees was the magic number to hit, but that was always spring time might have to be 50 degrees for fall.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......I've heard same numbers. Slow process this year. Temp this morning is 60.8. We've got a ways to go.


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## SPAZ

And dropping


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## fishwhacker

I have noticed certain areas are much colder than others judging by the fish I have been catching within a couple hrs of each other id go as far as 5 to 10 degreesdifference trying to take depth that I caught them into consideration.


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## Lowell H Turner

Possible there is a submerged spring near by? If so MARK IT !


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## zaraspook

Got together Thurs afternoon with Salmonid and his buddy, Scott. Salmonid's been hard at work applying his engineering skills to building some crappie cover. Recently his first 3 units came off the production line. It was time to refine a process for sinking the "stake beds" and to test them off my sea wall. These are specifically built with shallow water locations in mind. Salmonid and Scott donned their waders, somewhat apprehensive about the water depths they were about to explore. On blind faith first Salmonid and then Scott eased into the waters, step by step hoping to avoid surprise. While they tested the water, "not too stupid me" is safely on the sea wall, staging the stake beds to be lowered into the water. The explorers confirmed no surprises, as advertised water was 30" depth at the seawall and 3.5 to 4' out about rod's length from the seawall. Good thing water levels are down a foot and a half at this time of year.

Making modifications on the run, like a pair of synchronized swimmers Salmonid and Scott refined a coordinated process to successfully sink the first and second stake beds. Out of the water they moved to a 2nd location. Repeating the process and adding a new tweak to their "system", the 3rd bed was placed and sunk with precision. These guys are artists! Nothing but first rate execution!

By the way we did fish a bit, maybe for 60-90 minutes prior to disturbing the water with the stake bed project. Expectations were not high and bite was maybe a bit of a surprise. Almost immediately Salmonid hooked into the biggest crappie in a pile of brush but came unzipped. Gills provided most of the action to follow with maybe 5-6 keepers. We managed 4-5 crappies but only one keeper at a tad over 10".

Thanks Salmonid and Scott for the work to produce and place the stake beds! I'm confident we'll pull many fish from the added cover. It should make up for some of the losses of cover (demise this summer of my #1 honey hole). Hope to get together with you guys again as the fall bite kicks into gear. We'll test the stake beds for sure.

Water temp Thurs in my channel was 57.4, a positive surprise and well below the previous weekend. The online sensor at mid-lake showed 55 degrees this morning. Good news!


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## Lowell H Turner

The 2 are certainly TOP notch, in more than 1 way. Enjoy the results !


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## zaraspook

LHT......now that I'm a leg up on getting the fish to my place, next step is for Salmonid and Scott to teach me to catch the fish. Shhhhh! Don't tell them Step 3 is to clean 'em followed by Step #4 cook the fish.


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## fishwhacker

Salmonid have u sunken pvc construction before? I was wondering how the plankton growth is on smooth surfaces since that is what brings in the baitfish and eventually crappies. I know it takes about 6 months to a year for them to grow on branches...wondered if it would take longer or shorter on pvc. Please keep me posted


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## Salmonid

whacker, wood is the preferred substance according to several studies I read, but the PVC is easier and cheaper to get so we went this route this time around, Ne3xt ones will be a different structure altogether. Yeah, the algae will grow but Im not sure how long it will take, probably too late for this year so by next year mid summer I expect it will be great. Was surprised how buoyant the structures were and we had to use 2 heavy cinder blocks to hold them down until they get waterlogged ( PVC on top of a pine pallet. ) we are learning and next time around make a few changes. Gears turning now to see what e can come up with, also note the PVC is much less snagproof then wood... that was the main focus to use it.

here is a good article to read regarding structures and crappies...
http://magnoliacrappieclub.com/articles.asp?ID=4


Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

fishwhacker does have a point; if you consider it, PVC is used in plumbing and it surfaces are specifically designed to limit algae/ mold/ mildew growth...I always lightly sand mine...just a thought. And Salmonid, you are correct. Because submerged wood is basically a slow release food for lower organism, it is actually more biologically diverse than PVC. Wood is ideal for cover for juvenile and young fish. PVC is better for larger fish. ADD THE 2 TOGETHER, in rows shallow to deep with the PVC anchoring the deeper end usually produces excellent `results`...BTW, as shallow as they are, you still did well. The pallet will help ...


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## fishwhacker

Sanding it was kind of what I was thinking also if only just the inside pvc pipes to keep it stang proof but still have great algea growth. Of course we are talking about GLSM no shortage of algae around for sure.


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## zaraspook

A high school buddy and I fished GLSM Saturday. Arrived Friday night at my place and put in my fishing boat so we'd have more options available than just bank fishing. Good idea until my electric trolling motor decided to go on the fritz after 10 minutes Friday night just before dark. Made an attempt to get the trolling motor fixed early Saturday......no luck there. Fishing from bank in cold and rain light rain wasn't bad. When you found them, crappies were in an eating mood. They were inhaling the bait and plenty of spunk. The problem was finding them. We really only fished about 2.5 hours Saturday, taking frequent breaks to warm up and grab a cup a coffee. Quit at 3:30pm when the Buckeye game started and never got back to fishing. Got in another hour Sunday morning before my friend had to head back to Athens, Oh.

I caught only 9 crappies, 4 were keepers, nothing over 10.5". Only one crappie for my friend but it was a keeper. Gill bite was crazy although gills weren't our target. I'm guessing we caught 25-30 gills......a quarter of the gills would have been keepers. Could have caught twice that many if we targeted them.

Water temp this morning according to the mid-lake sensor was 51. Sunday morning water temp was 49.1 according to my boat electronics. Those are great temps for crappie fishing and I have no doubt they will bite.......if you find them.


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## Lowell H Turner

Very well done. Sounds like it`s getting time for this yr`s `last hurrah`...


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## zaraspook

LHT.....normally I'll catch crappies until hard water comes. Hope this isn't last hurrah.

Salmonid.....we caught some gills off stake beds #1 and #2. More from #2 which was put in 2nd and closer to seawall. No crappies. I nicked a few pipes of bed #3 with the prop on my fishing boat when departing from sea wall. When docking it wasn't an issue. I'll have to be careful. Pontoon is now gone, no longer docked at seawall.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, was actually referring to the crappie coming in shallow before heading back deeper...


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Zaraspook, was actually referring to the crappie coming in shallow before heading back deeper...


Yes.......schooled crappies, assume they are chasing bait fish, will be found in channels. If you locate a school it's not uncommon to pick off 20 or more per hour. Fish won't be relating to any definable structure as much as roaming open water and I think gorging. Hit or miss proposition to find them. If you catch a couple in near bank they may just be on the fringe of a school. Cast out 20-30 feet into channel open water and you may hit a bonanza that can last couple of hours.


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## Lowell H Turner

Yes, THAT `last hurrah`...


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## zaraspook

Mid-lake water sensor says 49.2 degree water temp this morning. Weird......it took forever to finally break into the 50's and only a week to crash into 40's. Hopefully we can sit at this level for a while, allow the fish to stabilize, and enjoy a decent crappie bite for several weeks.


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## Speck'nManiac

Amen to that! Hopefully we'll have that luxury...hopefully by this weekend!


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Weds evening from 4:30-6:30pm. Action has definitely improved and catching fish from places that are traditionally producers but have been barren since spring. Caught 7 crappies, all were blacks, 4 keepers that included 3 fish between 10.5" and 13". Had to keep moving......never pulled more than a single from any spot. Production came from brush/wood but it didn't take much wood to hold a fish. Shad activity is up, bluegills still biting, and according to water sensor mid-lake temp of GLSM is 47.2. I feel bite is on and should be fun for next 4-5 weeks.

The 13" Fish Ohio pic is below.


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## zaraspook

Mid-lake water sensor says GLSM is 45.3 this morning(Fri). I like it and hope to test the crappie bite Saturday or Sunday. As a comparison Buckeye Lake is 49-50 degree range. Unexplainable to me is data that shows oxygen concentration levels at GLSM are consistently higher than at Buckeye. The differential is as much as 9 times higher oxygen concentration. That runs counter to expectations.

Maybe Buckeye is turning over? Deeper water with low oxygen mixing with the upper levels of water to bring levels down? I could buy turnover as a the explanation but higher oxygen levels at GLSM has been the case for several months. Maybe higher levels of green stuff/algae/chlorophyll in GLSM produces more oxygen? After all, oxygen is a byproduct of photosynthesis. Does that mean algae can have a positive environmental impact along with the bad stuff?

Water sensors will be removed soon. Web link to Buckeye/GLSM sensors is here http://www.ysieconet.com/public/WebUI/Default.aspx?hidCustomerID=248 .


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## Lowell H Turner

You are likely correct; keep in mind that as shallow as GLSM is there is no real "turn over". Also that the toxic "blooms" only occur at higher temperatures when the micro food chain `runs away` and massive die offs occur...


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## zaraspook

LHT.......right, no turnover at GLSM.


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## zaraspook

Bank fishing today at GLSM. Started at 2pm. Caught 5 crappies in first 30 minutes with first 3 short and then bite slowed. Final tally was 11....last 8 all keepers with 2 at 11"+. Noticed something busting minnows in a very shallow end of a channel. Tossed my jig in the area and it was immediately picked up with the fish streaking towards Toledo. It was a 14.5" largemouth that clearly hadn't missed a meal in a month. Pretty fish, almost bronze like a smallie, and it's beer belly bordered on bizarre. Most crappies were singles.....only once caught multiples from same area. It paid to keep moving.


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## fishforlife

fishing is ok on lake water alittle low so watch out for things you should be ok. here they are catching them on brush but dont think its no secret. good luck


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## zaraspook

Managed one more hour of crappie fishing at GLSM on Sunday early morning before leaving. Not much going on but managed 2 between 10.5 and 11.5". Those two were both on brush, but sluggish. They sucked in the bait and moved off slowly...wasn't sure I had a bite. Although quantity is disappointing, the size is nice. 10 of the 13 I caught Sat-Sunday were keepers.


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## zaraspook

44.63 degrees is water temp at the mid-lake water sensor Tues morning. That's less than a degree lower than Friday. After a 15-20 degree drop in 3 weeks maybe the temp will sit in mid-40's for a while. On Oct 7th temp was 65.


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## zaraspook

The GLSM water monitoring station must have been pulled out Tuesday morning. It shows last readings at 10:45 am on 10-29. Temp was 44.59 . Sensor at Buckeye Lake remains active.


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## zaraspook

Got in 2 hours crappie fishing from the bank just before dark Weds evening. Still catching singles, rarely multiples from any spot. Caught 5, all black crappies, one a dink but other 4 were keepers at 10" or better. Biggest was a tad over 11".

Bite was not aggressive and I probably should have downsized lure and slowed presentation. The few fish I found inhaled lure but moved off slowly and didn't move far, were usually 6-8' from bank. Places next to bank with heavy cover didn't produce a bite.


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## zaraspook

Got to GLSM at noon Saturday 2nd. With Buckeyes on an early roll I took a break from the game, hoping the crappies would start to show up in decent numbers. Results had been encouraging the last time out.....not a lot of fish but found a few from spots that hadn't produced since spring.

Pulled a 10" from the first spot, but only one bite there. Lost one at the next spot then no more bites there. Next 3 spots were dry holes and moved to another. Quickly caught a short one that was followed by 4 goodies between 10" and 11.25". Not a bad first hour and it was break time for lunch and to get an update on the Buckeye game.

Restarted an hour later fishing my seawall at the stake beds crafted by Salmonid a couple weeks ago. From the stake beds pulled 2 quick crappies, both keepers, and a small bass. Encouraged by the action I decided to change colors and upsize baits. Great move. Over the next 2 hours I caught 21 more crappies. The most impressive statistic.......24 of the 28 crappies caught for the day were legal and 20 of those were between 10" and 12". It was slab-after-slab action and without a doubt the best mix of quality and quantity I've experienced at GLSM. From results in the spring, we knew we had something good going on......fish size was impressive and could produce an outstanding fall! At least for one day I got a taste of it.

Sunday morning bite was ok. Caught 7 with 4 keepers but I couldn't find action that resembled a day earlier. I couldn't stick around to see if the afternoon bite warmed up like Saturday.


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## Lowell H Turner

VERY well thought out tactics and results, sir ! And count on Salmonid and Co. to again do a bang up job ! (Kinda hope he may have a few hrs this yr to "assist" the "Friends" at CJ...he is like a `force multiplier`) And yes, I would be remiss not to say it- GO BUCKS !


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## Salmonid

Great report Rande and Lowell, if the schedule allows for it Im in, just quit scheduling days on my tourney days..LOL

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Will gladly schedule at your convienance, sir ! Your efforts and knowledge are highly useful...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......how was your catfish tourney at Rocky Fork?

My report from last Saturday may have suggested I took all the last 21 fish from the new attractors. I kept moving throughout the afternoon/evening, taking fish from a variety of spots. Probably 10 were pulled from the attractors, more than any other location. The stake bed we located at the front of my pontoon is probably the best "test" of how well the stake beds work. That one is essentially an oasis......nothing else around it, no cover to hold fish. Any fish I caught there were within 1-2' of the stake bed. Any further away......no bites.

If you recall we located 2 stake beds at the back end of the pontoon. The one in deeper water produced more fish and bigger ones than the bed closer to the seawall. More crappies came from the stake beds than the nearby brush.


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## Salmonid

Thats awesome they are holding some fish. Lets face it anything is better then nothing as far as structures go. Hope i can get up there for some specks in the next 10 days

Tourney was typical of my whole year. 1 fish out of the money and me and Ryan each had it hooked and halfway in before coming unglued. Depressing. Im eager to start next year with better luck

Salmonid


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## Lowell H Turner

You both read of Sir Intimidator`s experience upon the rubble/ block/ 10 hole brick "experiment" ("CC" for `crayfish condo` #1) at CJ ? Sad to say he was rudely and suddenly all but over powered and he and said fish swiftly parted ways...minus his lure...likely a big cat? Snapped 20 pd test..


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## zaraspook

LHT........yes, I caught that discussion on the CJ thread, Humorous.


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## fishwhacker

Thats amazing they are holding fish so soon I thought it would at least take till spring. Figured zoopkankton would have to form apparently they are just looking to ambusch prey or hide from predator fish


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.....I'm with you. Very doubtful stake beds have any kind of growth/ecosytem going on after a few weeks. My place is in a southside channel, therefore my channel opens to the north. Winds were out of the NNW last Saturday and pretty robust. I'm guessing winds/waves drove baitfish/shad into my channel. Crappies followed the baitfish and were in the channel in greater numbers than normal. Stake beds offered good ambush points. 

By Sunday morning winds were down and out of east. Bite was back to normal (a lot less action). A neighbor who is a longtime crappie fisherman frequently mentions he feels his best days in our channel are when winds are roaring from the northwest. Some of my best days support his statement. I'm just guessing as to why it happens. If the theory holds water it would suggest if wind is from the south fish northern locations. Winds from the east, go west to fish.


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## Lowell H Turner

At CJ we have dropped cover in late March just after ice out and saw fish on them while making a pass to drop the next ones, like they appeared out of no where...literally, 45 minutes later. Terry Judy was so amazed he had me go on the next drop; I was estatic, telling him "We found the "Mother Lode !" My jaw likely was hanging open when he matter of fact told me "You don`t understand, before those 1st 8 trees went in there wasn`t (deleted) showing...we just MADE a "mother lode !" That is when "the light" came on, and we haven`t looked back...


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## zaraspook

Good info, LHT. As it was said in a great baseball flick "Build it. They will come.".


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## fishwhacker

Well yes most times you want wind blowing in your face thats the way it is blowing baitfish, most of the time.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM Weds at 4:15 pm. Dang, the switch back to eastern standard time from daylight savings sure cut my fishing short! Dark by 5:30. Crappies weren't exactly going nuts, but action from the bank was good enough to keep your attention. I hit a lot of spots in an hour and 15 minutes. No more than 5-6 minutes at an area unless it produced action. Most were dry holes. Two places provided single fish and two places cooperated with 3. Ended the trip catching 8 with 6 keepers between 10" and 11.75". First time around at the new stake beds there was no action. Hit the stake beds again just as I was quitting and caught 3. One dink crappie was a white, all others were black crappies.

GLSM is holding true to form......very high percentage of 10"+ fish.


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## zaraspook

A buddy and I fished GLSM Saturday getting in maybe 3.5 hours fishing while also watching some football. Plus we got in another 1.5 hours Sunday morning before departure. From the bank we cycled thru 4-5 different locations, I stuck with my big bait strategy (plastics) that worked well the last two weeks, while my buddy used smaller ones. Otherwise, we fished the same type of cover. With my first crappie coming within 5 minutes, a fat 10" fish, I was confident I'd win our crappie fishing competition. But an hour and a half later I'm still looking for fish #2, while my buddy is hoisting his 5th to land, a chunky 12.5" specimen.

We break to run a couple errands and go back at it after lunch. In an attempt to regain my lost mojo, it's time to downsize the bait plus switch to a 1/32 jighead for a slower presentation. My buddy sticks to his 1/16 oz jighead - we both use the same size plastic. Despite a slow bite I come on strong. Saturday closes with my partner at 8 and with 2 late fish I nudge ahead with a total of 9.

Our short Sunday morning stint shows signs of a better bite coming on. Only one crappie for my buddy but I add 7 more. Final score was the challenger - 9 crappies and 7 keepers and the defending champion (me) 16 crappies with 10 keepers. Among our keepers there were multiple 12" fish but my buddy's 12.5" fish the largest. We also caught 8-10 gills and I caught a small bass. Wish we could have stayed to try fish later Sunday......wind switched to a northerly flow, usually a good thing when fishing my channel.

My temperature probe measured water temp in my channel at 43.8, however that probe runs 3 degrees low when measuring air temp. Water temp was more likely 46-47 degree range. Water clarity is improving. We didn't find a lot of fish but 17 keepers from 25 fish is a great percentage. We had fun and hope to get in one more outing before signs of ice.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, an excellent report from a bit later in the season...do you ice fish? Would bet if your place is close to where they dredged, a sharp drop off with the odd "C" tree properly prepared and placed in even short 3-4 tree lines before ice up might be possibly PRODUCTIVE next spring at the latest...(HINT ! HINT! and evil laughter sound effect here...) Being denser yes it`s a snag. But if you fished a certain Japanese soft lure SNAGLESS directly into them like someone we both know of; well look what happened on that `experimental` rubble pile...


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner.......I'm not in proximity to any of the dredged areas, but I get your drift. Have to admit the early successes of the Salmonid stake beds has me thinking about new cover all the time. Most of GLSM's bottom is as smooth as a baby's butt. Any kind of cover becomes an irregularity with fish-holding potential. We're amateurs at doing this stuff when compared to the task forces you guys pull off at CJ.

I'm not a hard water guy, at least not yet. I most appreciate ice when it's floating in an extra-dry Tanqueray martini.


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## Lowell H Turner

"If you only KNEW the POWER of the COLD side of the Force"...eh, uh I meant the cold side of fishing...at that time of yr, that cover is in fact a MAGNET for just about EVERYTHING in the lake...


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## fishwhacker

Hard water fishing would be awesome too bad at glsm were lucky to get two weeks of decent ice..... I couldnt fish open water only about 4 weeks last year and I probably could have busted ice for two of those weeks.


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## Lowell H Turner

Hopefully this yr will bring SAFE ice...


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## zaraspook

LHT........speaking of new cover.......although dredges are out for the season, a dredge had been active about 3/4 miles from my place. They ran a pipe from the dredge, out into the lake for at least 1/2 mile, down my channel to the very end, then up on land for 75 yards into a sludge holding area. That pipe at least a foot diameter. The holding area is bigger than a football field with 10'+ earthen walls. The pipe runs in the water as close as 3-4 feet from seawalls in my channel. Where you can locate the pipe under water, it's holding fish. We pick up a good number of crappies lying along the pipe, some gills, and I pulled a small bass from the pipe last weekend. The pipe is probably in the lake and down my channel for the winter. Nice addition for fishing.

Regardless of whether we call it "cold side of the force" or "dark side", ice fishing isn't my cup of tea.


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## Lowell H Turner

Sir, since they were nice enough to leave it, would certainly "take advantage of it" !


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## AndOne

How bad did the storm turn up the water? A buddy and I were going to have the day off Wednesday to just try and catch a few fish. Obviously with the storms, things may or may not change. 

Any updates would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!


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## zaraspook

AndOne.....can't comment on lake conditions since the storm. I fished from shore Friday early evening for only an hour and 15 minutes before dark. Caught 6 with 4 keepers that were between 10-11". Bite was really timid. Crappies would suck it in and hardly move at all. 

Came back Sunday fishing from 2-4 pm. In the first 4-5 spots I hit in my channel, no crappies but gills were crazy. Next spot produced 7 crappies, all keepers, and the first 4 were between 11-12.5 inches. They were really nice fish and not shy at all about smacking the bait and moving off with determination. Took a 20-30 minute break then worked my way back to the same spot that produced 7 earlier. With the aggressive fish I upsized my plastic, thinking an even bigger bait might work some additional magic. Bite disappeared, nothing doing, even though I quickly shifted back to the earlier bait and color. The earlier hotspot only produced one more fish, a keeper at 10.5". Off my lakehouse seawall, I caught 3 more but only 1 a keeper. Hooked one more fish that I thought would be at least a 14-15" slab, but realized the fight was way too strong for a crappie. Turned out to be a bass of 12-13".
After I took that break, crappies were never the same, but gills were crazy the entire time. Probably caught a dozen but no real size to the gills. By 4pm the skies were getting extremely ugly and of course the wind was roaring all day. My neighbor mentioned the tornado warning for the area. I got out of there by 4:30. By 6pm I saw a photo of the tornado that was on the ground at Maria Stein, maybe 2 miles from my place.

If you fish GLSM and locate crappies, you should expect 2 keepers for every dink you catch. Unlike most lakes in the area, size will not be a problem....most will be 10.5 to 11.5". Between the short stint Friday and 2nd trip on Sunday (3 hours total), 13 of the 17 crappies I caught were keepers. That's an amazing ratio.


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## AndOne

Thanks for all the information Zaraspook. Have a buddy who fished Friday on the North side of the lake and they did OK, in just a few short hours. Most were all in channels.

If anyone can just give me a water/lake update, please let me know.


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## Lowell H Turner

We could spread a rumor about a previously unknown dumping of radioactive waste to keep everyone away this spring...LAST CHANCE...


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## fishwhacker

Lake looked good today I would go to channels lined with rocks like the one ur buddy fished along with me and 30 other guys. I would say they will be clear enough. Good luck


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## zaraspook

LHT.........not a rumor. Radioactive thing is real deal. Crappies now glow in dark. At night you can see them without a light.....easy pickings. Once cleaned and flesh exposed to air it activates radioactive heat. The fish cooks itself. Add a bit of lemon and filets are ready to eat. Not all crappies are nuclear......yet. If you don't carry a geiger counter drop the fish back into lake. If you see steam as it swims away then was probably contaminated.


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## zaraspook

Thursday 11-21 Salmonid, his friend Scott, and I met at my GLSM place to add a couple more stake beds to locations in my channel. These units were version 2.0, specifically designed for shallower water applications like my seawall. Basic design is the same, a pallet with pvc pipe stakes, but pallet and pipes were downsized. Launch was a snap......took less time to put them in the water than it did to carry them to the locations. Nicely done Salmonid and Scott! The improved fishing is yet to come and to be enjoyed for a long time.

We did fish for a couple hours before getting to the main business of stake bed placement. Crappies were the main target but gills were more cooperative. I'm not sure but think we caught 10-12 crappies. Unlike my boasting for several weeks, only 2 keeper crappies. That was disappointing. Only little guys were holding on the cover we fished. We kept maybe 8 gills but caught about 2 dozen between us. Salmonid's 11" crappie was the biggest of the specks. We'll do better the next time, aided by the pair of new stake beds.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, you`ve caught the fish attractor "bug"; full blown `addiction` is next...but wait until you see what they can REALLY do ! As Bachman Turner Overdrive said in a song: "Oh, you AIN`T seen nothing` yet..."


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## zaraspook

LHT.....love your reference to my favorite BTO song. I still play my air guitar to that I one.


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## zaraspook

Managed to fish 3 hours Saturday morning.at GLSM. Welcomed the westerly winds at about 10 mph when I started that shifted due north at 20+ by quitting time. Crappies always seem more cooperative with wind. Crappies must not have gotten the memo. First 4 spots produced just 1 dink crappie but it came from one of Salmonid's latest stakebeds planted last Thurs. Heck, it was only 9:30 am and still some time to find fish. Action warmed considerably at next stop and made me forget the cold. First pulled a dink then lost back to back keepers too heavy to survive just beimg lip-hooked by a fisherman who forgot his net. Next 4 were fat slabs between 10.5" and 11.5". An hour at that spot ended when I broke off in a snag and had no replacement jigs with me. The walk back to my lakehouse was pleasant realizing the latest spot produced 9 crappies in an hour of which 6 were keepers. Plus I still had another 1.5 hours to fish before departure.
Last session wasn't as productive. Caught just 5 and only 1 a keeper. Headed home to watch the Buckeyes. Final tally was 15 crappies, 7 keepers, half a dozen gills and an 11" bass. That was 3rd bass this month while crappie fishing.


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## Lowell H Turner

Understatement is supposed to be a strictly British `art`, but I will say "They may do well this Spring..."


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......are GLSM channels icing over? Like to fish this weekend if no ice on channels. Thanks.


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## fishforlife

hey some are iced but guys have been breaking its just a thin layer.its hit and miss but drive around you can see were people are catching.. good luck and to all have a great thanksgiving.


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## zaraspook

fishforlife........good info. Thanks, and a safe and hearty Thanksgiving to you and yours.


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## fishwhacker

Ice is forming especially in channels. We need some wind or some good sun and might be broken up for some thanksgiving fishing. I sure hope we can get open water for a little while longer..... Not ready to spend time on the vise tying jigs for spring and not on the water putting them to good use.


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## zaraspook

Sounds like my Friday plans are toast. And no real breaks in the weather forecast, 2013 may be toast at GLSM for open water guys. That's crappy.


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## Salmonid

zara with breezy weekend and warmer temps, Id bet youll be fishing over the weekend at some point... hang in there, the 10 day forecast has highs in the mid to low 40's for the last half of it with barely freezing lows. just in time for me to come back up next week one aft. got two bases ready for round 3. 

Salmonid


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## fishwhacker

There is still open water on the main lake so I agree a little wind or some sun could have it open for business by Friday


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## zaraspook

Spent 2 hours Fri afternoon breaking ice in my channel where there is not a drop of open water. Neighbor told me last open water disappeared Tues from my channel. At dusk took a quick drive around main lake. At low light can't be sure my eyes got it right but saw zero open water.....main lake locked up.
We broke ice anticipating fishing Sat sometime but may not happen. Broken ice would reform within a couple hours.


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## zaraspook

By the way ice we were breaking was an inch to inch and a half thick. If current weather pattern holds you hard water guys may soon be in business.


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## zaraspook

Went to GLSM Saturday. Open areas we created Fri were again frozen but easier to break ice and suitably open for fishing between ice chunks. We mostly watched football (Buckeyes and Alabama/Auburn gift). Didn't find much of a bite in the few areas we had open. We caught just 2 crappies and 3 gills. Only keeper was a super fat white crappie that measured 12" and was caught by my nephew. Sudden improvement in weather forecast to remove freezing temps should do a number on the ice this week. Woohoo!


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## zaraspook

Here is the photo from Saturday of my nephew's 12" crappie. According to spline count it's a white crappie. Caught on a Southern Pro "Hot Grub" with a dark body(a deep purple) and chartreuse twister tail.


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## Lowell H Turner

Nice fish ! Near the attractors?


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## zaraspook

LHT........yes, that crappie came from one of the first batch of 3 stake beds built by Salmonid. That particular attractor is out a bit deeper than others and has been most productive stake bed. Lake water level is down close to foot and a half. We think when water level rises to normal levels productivity at other attractors will improve. Time will tell.

We're going to GLSM this afternoon (Weds) to test the water. Hopefully fishing gods will smile upon us. Salmonid was in the area of my lakehouse Tues. He reported in general the channels are still frozen in the middle. Along the bank/seawalls we have 3-5' of ice-free water, enough to fish. Could be last opportunity this year to fish channels before it turns into hard water zone......have to seize the opportunity.

Is CJ producing catches these days?


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## zaraspook

We got to squeeze in another GLSM session on Weds afternoon. Unlike the main lake that still held perimeter ice, my channel was free and clear of hard water. We managed maybe 2.5 hours................"we" being Salmonid, his sidekick Scott, my son, and me. 

Water clarity was terrific, probably 16-18", not witnessed since March this year. Gill bites were frequent but timid.....Salmonid and Scott easily caught 30+ gills and kept 8-9. My son fared best with crappies, landing 6 including the day's best of 10.5". We kept 3 crappies. Shame on us for not picking up on the crappie pattern sooner. Though the gills were abundant within 4-5 feet from the bank, the crappies wanted nothing to do with it. Nearly all 10 crappies were caught 8-12 feet out, usually around cover. Wax worms on ice jigs were very productive for the gills, and some on small minnows. Most of crappies succumbed to 2" plastic grubs on jigs. Most fish came under bobbers at 2' depths or less. We would have fared better with crappies if we'd skipped over all the great cover within 5 feet of bank.

We also launched another stake bed......should be productive for the ice guys before I get to test latest addition. Ice will be prevalent once this cold front rides in and may not see open water past this weekend. It was a good time for all and enough of a bite to pacify. Thanks, guys!


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## Lowell H Turner

Yes, although haven`t been out myself recently; working too many (deleted) hrs...but SOON !


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## zaraspook

Since my channel was ice free last Weds, figured despite the cold weather there was a good chance my channel might still be fishable Saturday. Hunch was correct......channel was iced over south of my property but wide open from my property out to lake. Now if I could just find a few fish.

40 minutes into it not a single nibble off my seawall, nor at the next 3 stops, and faith is fading. Fishing out or in, nothing happening, not a bite. Bah Humbug! Moved on to next spot but was running out of options. Used to be a nice sized limb off this portion of the seawall, but it disappeared 6 weeks ago and little productivity since then. Thought about down-sizing my plastic but instead just changed to a color that produced decent results a few weeks ago. Within 2-3 minutes had a slight tap, but it dropped the bait. Probably just a gill, but good reason to work the area more carefully. Another pickup and this time a slow run. Lifted my rod to a solid fish.....nice 10.5" black crappie. Not bad for first of the day......hoped it wouldn't be the last. Action wasn't great but continued to get an occasional bite producing 2 more crappies (both dinks) and an 8" gill. Cold and my bladder about to explode from coffee, took a break to warm up, eat a late lunch, and look in on a few of the early Sat football games.

Returned to the same spot an hour and half later, thankfully finding the same occasional bite. Had the feeling I really wasn't on the sweet spot....maybe that limb is still in the area and not far away. Casting out and with some good fortune got an unexpected snag. Bingo! The snag is the long lost limb. It's about 15-18' off the bank and 20-25' from its old location. Over the next 75 minutes pulled 7 more crappies from the offshore limb, 2 of those 11"+, and one at 12"+. A slow learner, failure to bring my landing net cost me another crappie that would have been the biggest of the day.

After several weeks with an absence of bigger fish, finally a day of some good slabs. Caught 10 crappies total, 5 keepers between 10-12", and the very good gill. Happy I got in one more session for 2013!


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## Intimidator

Mark...we all agree wood is better because as it decays it becomes a food source etc. That's why we have started using wood with plastic or putting wood cover among the plastic cover. We figured out that we could have the best of both worlds while actually building the fish holding capacity of CJ. Those Milk crate condos are loaded with 10 hole bricks on the first tier, the second, third, are loaded with hardwood, the fourth is loaded with hardwood or plasctic tubing. The boys dropped alot of Cedar this year and we also have a source of bamboo and now several of those are in. 

From that article they also have to take a look at how long are people going to be willing to help keep putting Christmas trees in year after year...I know as I age, that I'm getting tired of putting alot of time in building and dropping cover...If we get a good one next year, that may be my last for awhile.
We also learned the biggest lesson of all...if you want to deplete cover, just let the State have GPS coordinates to pass out!  That was the most counter-productive thing we ever did!

This year we have a GOOD source of osage orange/hedge apple and it looks like Alot of our cover is going to be lasting a lifetime!
We also have an unlimited source of Christmas trees, that will be put in the lane for us, to be built and dropped shallow. We had ALOT of Great ideas expressed at the Meet and Greet...Hopefully we can finish things off nicely this year...I know I only have one area left that will receive permanent cover and long lasting wood and I will be satisfied with what we've done! Lowell will not rest until he has transformed the entire lake into a "Freshwater Lobster Reef"!LOL






Salmonid said:


> whacker, wood is the preferred substance according to several studies I read, but the PVC is easier and cheaper to get so we went this route this time around, Ne3xt ones will be a different structure altogether. Yeah, the algae will grow but Im not sure how long it will take, probably too late for this year so by next year mid summer I expect it will be great. Was surprised how buoyant the structures were and we had to use 2 heavy cinder blocks to hold them down until they get waterlogged ( PVC on top of a pine pallet. ) we are learning and next time around make a few changes. Gears turning now to see what e can come up with, also note the PVC is much less snagproof then wood... that was the main focus to use it.
> 
> here is a good article to read regarding structures and crappies...
> http://magnoliacrappieclub.com/articles.asp?ID=4
> 
> 
> Salmonid


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## Salmonid

Nice report Rande. Glad you were able to find them. Im guessing the clear water has pushed them to the deeper water. Hopefully ill be able to score a few more fish in your area once hard water gets here later in the week

Intimadator. Yeah we know wood is the better gig but we are limited to shallow water structures that boats will be going over and us being limited to structures within 8 ft of the shore so Rande can walk and swim his jigs without getting snagged is why we went with pvc. It is holding some fish and each structure cost less then 5$ And takes about 10 min to build so that also is s good factor
Next year with boat will be dropping some stretegicly placed woody structures

Salmonid


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## Intimidator

Listen, I much prefer Plastic and to be honest, with all the pictures that Doc, Shaggy, and a few other have taken, I really don't see that much difference in fish holding. We have dropped plastic and Doc has went out 30 minutes later and it was holding fish...weeks later and without algae and it's still holding fish. Two years later with algae and it's the same!
Now if you want more, then yes you need to have places for small fish and the basic food chain but for Rande's personal use, the PVC will serve him well and he won't have to keep replacing it...if you want to add wood around then as you know, you have the best of both!

So Mark, will you be setting up some spots with us, at CJ this year??






Salmonid said:


> Nice report Rande. Glad you were able to find them. Im guessing the clear water has pushed them to the deeper water. Hopefully ill be able to score a few more fish in your area once hard water gets here later in the week
> 
> Intimadator. Yeah we know wood is the better gig but we are limited to shallow water structures that boats will be going over and us being limited to structures within 8 ft of the shore so Rande can walk and swim his jigs without getting snagged is why we went with pvc. It is holding some fish and each structure cost less then 5$ And takes about 10 min to build so that also is s good factor
> Next year with boat will be dropping some stretegicly placed woody structures
> 
> Salmonid
> 
> 
> Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


----------



## zaraspook

Salmonid......when you guys get into the hardwater season, I'll have to show you the limb I located. I like the way it was holding bigger fish, fewer dinks.


----------



## zaraspook

Intimidator........tell me I'm not crazy. Believe we've found a benefit of high algae content at GLSM. After less than 2 months algae was growing on the PVC stakes on our attractors.


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## Intimidator

zaraspook said:


> Intimidator........tell me I'm not crazy. Believe we've found a benefit of high algae content at GLSM. After less than 2 months algae was growing on the PVC stakes on our attractors.


That WOULD be good...especially if you could just keep the algae at winter levels! 

Your LIMB speculation is kinda what we've been seeing at CJ...bushy/dense material is a FRY/Minnow factory. More Open cover like stake beds, smaller PVC, 2-3" branches, are holding 7-10+ inch Crappie...and the BIG Slabs seem to like BIG Vertical cover like 4-6 inch PVC, 2x4's, Big Limbs, and Milk Crates....I think they are using the big stuff more as ambush points instead of actual cover for protection!


----------



## fishwhacker

The good thing about early cold weather is it usually means a big fish kill off.... fewer shad equals hungry crappies come spring.


----------



## zaraspook

Intimidator.....Agree with you that bigger stuff is probably ambush point. Kind of spooky to know GLSM accumulated algae on pvc during cooler temps and low sun.


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## Lowell H Turner

SEE, there ARE nice things about excessive algae ! (Sort of...)


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## Intimidator

fishwhacker said:


> The good thing about early cold weather is it usually means a big fish kill off.... fewer shad equals hungry crappies come spring.


A BIG kill is only good for the fisherman for 1 year...the trade-off is...on a lake where fish are stressed anyway, it can lead to other problems with disease and die-offs...and if the remaining shad have a bad spawn that spring, then fish are in trouble going into the heat of the summer!

I'm sure you and others have few problems and do fine catching Spring Crappie...IMHO, a BIG shad kill will not benefit the lake, or you, in the long run!


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## Intimidator

Zaraspook

Please update us on the condition of the lake...at our Meet and Greet last weekend, a couple of the guys were talking about GLSM and said the State came out in the news and made some dire predictions and said they were losing ground in the battle???

I have not been up since the early 80's, does the lake still have alot of vegetation? Or have the owners cleaned it out!... Alot of cover still, or has it been cleaned out for boaters?


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## Salmonid

While Zara has the best latest info on the lake, I can tell you that there are sooo many shad in the lake its crazy unreal...unlike any other lake Ive ever had to catch shad for bait. Im sure a huge shad kill would only tak ethe lake down to a still above normal amount of shad.

Not much vegetation at all except a few weed beds but all lily pads are gone and the majority of open water is rip rapped and house front lots are almost all sea walled, but ther eis still many miles of open shoreline with lots of wood and always lots of docks to fish as well as rip rap so yes, lots of structures in the lake but mostly created to slow down erosion. 

I believe the state was trying to reintroduce lily pads again or maybe I read that, not sure but it would be good in the right areas. 

Ill be up Sat late morning at this point trying my luck on the ice...Rande, ill let you know my schedule before then. 

Salmonid


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## Intimidator

Well, there are now 2 good things caused by the excess algae....add "shad buffet" to the list.

Ok...just thinking out of the box....wonder how fast zebra mussels could clean it up...or could they...Erie is loaded with them, but gets flooded with phosphates and is still blooming, but maybe they could save GLSM..???
Alum cleared up alot.



Salmonid said:


> While Zara has the best latest info on the lake, I can tell you that there are sooo many shad in the lake its crazy unreal...unlike any other lake Ive ever had to catch shad for bait. Im sure a huge shad kill would only tak ethe lake down to a still above normal amount of shad.
> 
> Not much vegetation at all except a few weed beds but all lily pads are gone and the majority of open water is rip rapped and house front lots are almost all sea walled, but ther eis still many miles of open shoreline with lots of wood and always lots of docks to fish as well as rip rap so yes, lots of structures in the lake but mostly created to slow down erosion.
> 
> I believe the state was trying to reintroduce lily pads again or maybe I read that, not sure but it would be good in the right areas.
> 
> Ill be up Sat late morning at this point trying my luck on the ice...Rande, ill let you know my schedule before then.
> 
> Salmonid


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## Salmonid

I know state looked at Zebra muscles as an option but believe they opted against it since they still don't know the whole story with long term effects from them. They are already in GLSM but not in huge numbers, perhaps the shallow water or high phosphates hinder them...or it just could take more time to establish since its such a large body of water.

When I fish the Ohio river and have a livewell half full of channels or smaller blues, ( half a limit is always a great day down there BTW) after I get home the whole bottom is full of barfed up Zebra muscles and we often fish the muscle beds and catch a lot of fish off them. It would be nice to do that at GLSM. 

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

The major problem is both sedimentation (run off) from 150+ yrs of clear cut and full field plowing and the accumulation of phosphates from household septic tank waste water, farm fertilizer, and live stock manure run off. Until the main lake has some depth(6-8+ fow, EVERY storm simply churns the shallow sedimentary bottom back up especially in the NE corner of the lake and puts many more TONS of phosphate right back into suspension for the blue- green algae to further feast upon, recreating the same situation in a never ending cycle. The dredges ARE making progress but it is slow going; it is a HUGE lake !


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## zaraspook

Intimidator......hard to know what State guys say behind closed doors regarding lake status. Public stuff we hear rarely has a negative flavor. Lily pads and vegetation are flourishing in/around the Prairie Creek treatment train where they treat inflow into the lake. Phophorus reduction at Prairie Creek claimed to be 80%.......they treat 30 million gallons a month. Frogs, turtles, muskrats are abundant in that area and water clarity is amazing compared to elsewhere. 

However, Prairie Creek is just one of the significant tributaries from watershed. Engineering plans for the worst offender, Coldwater Creek, are underway and something like $2.1 mil funded for a treatment system there. The theory is to dredge like hell to remove existing phosphorus loading, plus diminish new loading from the tributaries. Somewhere along the line, phosphorus levels will diminish to the point where algae growth declines. Phosphorus is the fuel/food that sustains algae. The more you dredge and the more you reduce new inflow, the sooner we see visible results. No one knows what that tipping point is and when it will come.

Algae/toxin levels for this year were similar to 2012. That doesn't sound like progress. However, no alum treatment this year and a big alum treatment in 2012. Everyone feared the lake might blow up without alum. It didn't happen.......perhaps a sign of progress? Hard to judge since Mother Nature doesn't give same conditions every year. Algae flourishes with sun and hot temps. Past year was cooler and seemingly less sunshine than 2012. Hard to draw conclusions on a year to year basis.

Personally I felt there was somewhat less green matter in the water this year. Very little surface scum at GLSM compared to past years. I saw more visible surface scum at other lakes than at GLSM. Water clarity right now is better than same time last year.

Not much cover out on main lake. To appease boaters, for the most part stumps are long gone in areas that have boat traffic. Lots of shoreline rip/rap and fishing piers constructed by State.


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## Intimidator

Thanks....I can still remember fishing GLSM when I was little and my GrandMother use to tell me, "Son, don't you fall out of this boat...the water is so deep here, that we'd have to go on the opposite side of the earth to find your body!" Good Times....think I'll just stay at CJ and keep the good memories of THE GRAND LAKE or THE CRAPPIE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!




zaraspook said:


> Intimidator......hard to know what State guys say behind closed doors regarding lake status. Public stuff we hear rarely has a negative flavor. Lily pads and vegetation are flourishing in/around the Prairie Creek treatment train where they treat inflow into the lake. Phophorus reduction at Prairie Creek claimed to be 80%.......they treat 30 million gallons a month. Frogs, turtles, muskrats are abundant in that area and water clarity is amazing compared to elsewhere.
> 
> However, Prairie Creek is just one of the significant tributaries from watershed. Engineering plans for the worst offender, Coldwater Creek, are underway and something like $2.1 mil funded for a treatment system there. The theory is to dredge like hell to remove existing phosphorus loading, plus diminish new loading from the tributaries. Somewhere along the line, phosphorus levels will diminish to the point where algae growth declines. Phosphorus is the fuel/food that sustains algae. The more you dredge and the more you reduce new inflow, the sooner we see visible results. No one knows what that tipping point is and when it will come.
> 
> Algae/toxin levels for this year were similar to 2012. That doesn't sound like progress. However, no alum treatment this year and a big alum treatment in 2012. Everyone feared the lake might blow up without alum. It didn't happen.......perhaps a sign of progress? Hard to judge since Mother Nature doesn't give same conditions every year. Algae flourishes with sun and hot temps. Past year was cooler and seemingly less sunshine than 2012. Hard to draw conclusions on a year to year basis.
> 
> Personally I felt there was somewhat less green matter in the water this year. Very little surface scum at GLSM compared to past years. I saw more visible surface scum at other lakes than at GLSM. Water clarity right now is better than same time last year.
> 
> Not much cover out on main lake. To appease boaters, for the most part stumps are long gone in areas that have boat traffic. Lots of shoreline rip/rap and fishing piers constructed by State.


----------



## zaraspook

Salmonid........good luck Saturday. Hope you find the ice ready. Haven't heard any reports but guys at Outdoorsman might have info on ice. Supposed to be snowing Saturday. If I didn't have so much Christmas stuff to do I might have come up (to watch).

Would be great if you ran into a couple saugeyes, or a bucket of perch. Fingerling perch stocked couple years ago should be catchable size if not yet table-fare.


----------



## Salmonid

Zara looks like were gonna try Kiser tomorrow but one afternoon next week has your name on it.. will let you know once we get closer to then with better ice conditions although I imagine you canal is in better shape then Kiser's open water is...

And yeah, would love to find even some smaller perch, if there around, we will get them ice fishing...

Salmonid
PS bummer my new float suit from Striker didn't make todays mail...I should have it by Monday latest


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## fishwhacker

I have only heard of I guy who caught more than 2 perch this year and didnt see them so could be rumor. Waiting for the ice to get a little thicker before attempting to make the long walk to the perch grounds.


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## Salmonid

Fishwhacker, whats the lake look like today??? In Dayton we got an inch of rain, everything down here is shot ice wise but Im hoping to try GLSM on the ice tomorrow? Please give an uplifting report where you got snow vs rain....I know Indian was fishable today 4" in some spots and they had snow.

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......sent you text msg that my neighbor said it was all snow at GLSM, no rain today. He had no info on ice thickness other than channel is locked up and no open water.


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## Salmonid

Thanks looks like Indian tomorrow early, GLSM in a few days, Ill get ahold of you Rande before then. 
Thanks for the updates!

Salmonid


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## fishwhacker

Sorry havent been on in a few days. Ice is good in most spots saw plenty of holes drilled all over. All snow no rain but according to the forecast might be short lived. Looks like we got till thursday before a warm up and rain. Emergency rescue did a practice over the weekend.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......if rescue guys did a practice run, ice must be thick enough to play out there. I'm guessing my channel is 4"+ based on absolutely no facts, just pulling a number out of my backside. Weekend forecast varies from temps in mid 40's to mid-50's. Sometimes weather guys get a little over anxious and forget that snow cover will hold temps down.


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## Sappy

I caught some gills on the ice over at the boat club in St. Marys on Friday, there was close to 4" of good clear Ice there.


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## zaraspook

Sappy.......thanks for the report. Things get a little slow this time of year so keep the posts coming when you fish. Any size to the gills?


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## Salmonid

Fished Zaras channel yesterday with my buddy Scott yesterday from 2:30-5:30pm in the SE corner of the lake, ice was a solid 4", drilled probably 25 holes and just kept moving till we found em, and finally in one hole landed about 26-27 gills and 21 were keepers, 6.5-7.5" so it worked out ok, but crappies were not to be found anywhere? our honey hole was the deepest spot in the channel, just at 5 FOW, fished wood, deeper wood, and 5-6 PVC structures , not a bite.... fish were on the bottom in the deepest part, right in the center of the channel. all fish on spikes and waxies on all sorts of colors of rocker and teardrop jigs. bite was good too. 

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Salmonid, just guessing, but would look for THE deepest water with a sharp 1st break...likely a dredged channel. Have no doubt that once you DO find them, it`ll all be `over` other than the filleting...


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## Sappy

No giants, just "eaters"


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## zaraspook

Salmonid........from your most productive hole on Tues, did you drill any holes further back into that channel, like off the long deck or back where that channel splits?

I believe the slightly deeper water you found as a productive spot, continues along most of the long deck and in front of the next property, too. Not sure about it, but I think if I recall readings from my boat's depth finder, you were on or near the northern edge of a depression (only 12-16" deeper than most of the channel) that runs back(south) for maybe 75-100'. It's amazing that only a subtle change in depth can make that much difference.

As I've mentioned before, when I have a decent day for winter fish in my channel, it's always "out" toward middle of channel, almost random with no relationship to known cover. You're confirming that theory, plus supplying a new factor.......slightly deeper water could be the key for locating schooled fish.


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## fishwhacker

Dont trust sappys post he could catch fish in the desert lol.


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## zaraspook

At GLSM today 12/22 for couple hours. My Southside channel about 90% ice but with 2-3' open water along most sea walls. Any channel fed by a creek is chocolate milk muddy. Non-creek channels are coffee with cream color.

I spent an hour breaking ice so my nephew could fish later with more open water options. This morning the nephew caught 2 short crappies from the few available open areas. Ice we were breaking was inch to inch and half thick.at 3-4 feet from bank.
Salmonid......I could see many of the holes you and Scott drilled.. Saw the 2 that were the productive holes. A couple holes back where that channel splits were within 15-20' of the new limb I mentioned. One of the crappies my nephew caught today was from one of your holes you cut near the first round of stake beds. Also saw a couple dozen freshly dead shad......all were big ones in the 9-14" range.


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## Lowell H Turner

fishwhacker, I knew a guy others told me could catch legal walleye from a dry toilet bowl sitting in the middle of the Sahara Desert...I don`t know that he was THAT good, but he was GOOD at least in Buck Creek ! If we we getting nothing, he was catching cigars; if we were getting cigars he was catching keepers or better. Kermit Wilson was GOOD...he actually said once that he could feel them breathing on his jig before they bit it..


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## fishwhacker

Yep some guys just have it.... it makes it fun when you can catch more or better fish than them even if it only happens once in a hundred times. A little friendly competition is always good. It drives ya to try different things and makes everyone better. When you throw all your catch together and split the fillets its great to fish with those guys. Merry christmas team goob great 2013 fishing and cant wait for 2014


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## zaraspook

My nephew fished GLSM again that afternoon of Sunday 12/22. He caught one additional crappie from the areas that I busted up ice.....it was a dink. By Sunday morning everything had re-frozen. No fishing since then. Nephew wasn't on the ice but he guessed ice was 2 inches and clear along the bank. Ice is thicker as you go out, but thicker ice is questionable quality.


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## Salmonid

One of my ice buddies said there was a shanty on the main lake today and he is hitting a North side channel tomorrow, will give me a report..

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

SAFE ice is solid 4" or better...


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## zaraspook

My nephew said my southside GLSM channel is locked up with ice too thin for ice fishing. He said he found one 12' by 12' open water area. Caught 2 crappies and 2 gills in an hour, no crappie keepers. He does not fish small baits like many do at this time of year and doesn't tip with meat. Plastics he uses are usually 2-2.5" baits, fished under a bobber and 1-2' off the bottom. To clear areas for fishing later he's been breaking ice near shore...........1.5-2" is typical ice thickness immediately off the seawall. Problem isn't finding fish to eat, but finding water you can fish.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, IF that spot is the ONLY open water in sight carefully note exactly where it is, it`s shape, depth ect. Only 1 thing will cause open water when every other part of the lake has 4" of ice on it...if you have access to GOOGLE earth in real actual time, NOW would be the time to be finding EVERY open water on the lake for future reference and marking them...


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## zaraspook

LHT......Not to get too excited. If you are thinking perhaps.a spring? It's a spring all right, but not the natural kind. My neighbor has a basement. Basement takes on water. Sump pump pumps water which discharges 56 degree water into channel. Fishies like the warmer water. The spot does ice over but thaws days before surrounding ice. Could be a hazard for unaware ice fishermen but a treasure chest when other spots are hard water. Dang.....I just gave away another of my secrets! I know you won't tell anyone.


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## Lowell H Turner

Oh...my bad. But it`s STILL warm water...


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## fishwhacker

Even if it isnt a natural spring it may still be a hot spot. I have a few places that are awesome in the spring because of run off water from the roads the asphalt heats the water before it dumps into the lake


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## zaraspook

Fishwhacker......to your point, I said the spot isn't a spring, but never said it wasn't productive. Shhhhh.......it's our secret.


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## fishwhacker

Ice is pretty thin... mostly 2 inches thick with some open water spots. Most water looked muddy still from the rain the weekend before christmas. Ice should get thicker with colder weather coming....hopefully no more rain to muddy it up more.


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## zaraspook

Sunday my channel was 95% ice with a little open water along edges. Occasionally you'd find a slightly larger 5x7 opening, usually right off the bank, you could fish for 10-12 minutes. I found 5 of those larger areas.....2 of them were out 10-20 feet from the bank. This time of year I'm more likely to find crappies well off the bank and only gills near shore. If we get a crappie close to the bank, it will be a dink.

Spent more time walking to/from the 5 open areas than fishing. Fishing from shore for 2 hours caught 3 crappies and 3 gills. All crappies came from the 2 holes out from the bank. All gills were from open areas near the bank. One keeper crappie and one gill was a keeper.

Ice near the bank was very thin. Out in the channel ice appeared to be under 2" and poor quality. Water was dirty brown with 6" clarity. In spots water seemed to have a reddish hue to the brown.....suspect the red tone is dead algae.


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## zaraspook

Had a couple people ask me about condition of GLSM ice and if any one is having results thru ice. I think both people remember the hot saugeye action last ice season. Any one have info to report?


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## Salmonid

a buddy fished a northside channel on 4-5" on New Years Day, bite was slow though he stated

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......thanks for info. I'll pass it on. By the way, the 3 crappies I caught last Sunday were all from a 5x7' open area almost directly over the "rediscovered limb" I talked about before. If you do any hardwater stuff at GLSM, I'd definitely park my butt on and around that limb. It's out 15-20' from seawall and in the channel where dredge pipe is located.


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## fishwhacker

Ice has been pretty good. Cant say on saugeye have heard some rumours but havent seen any. I know if u find the right spot gills are being caught.


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## carp

Cleaned 55 bluegills from St. Marys last night, 6-8" .

Tried Saugeye the last hour with 10 other guys, no fish hit the ice.

Plenty of marks and loookers on the electronics but no biters!

Most ice was 4 to 7 " thick.


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## zaraspook

Carp........nice haul and good report. Sounds like you were out evening of the 4th? Please keep us updated on results and ice conditions when you fish GLSM.


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## carp

zaraspook said:


> Carp........nice haul and good report. Sounds like you were out evening of the 4th? Please keep us updated on results and ice conditions when you fish GLSM.


Yes St. Marys was afternoon and evening of Jan. 4th. My buddy pounded them again yesterday. 

Another friend and I hit Indian Lake for saugeyes yesterdaY, caught 4, only 1 keeper. Caught about 8 or 10 white bass, some nice ones in 1 to 1/2 lb range. 1, 12 inch perch.


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## Lowell H Turner

Nice job of it, sir !


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## zaraspook

carp......you guys are kicking some tail, fish tail that is. With 2 years stocking under our belt, are any perch making there way into your bucket?


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## fishwhacker

How long were u out? Did you have to move much or did u stay on the same hole?


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## zaraspook

Discounted camping and boat dock fees again on the menu at GLSM. The discount is 25% for 2014. I could be wrong but the discount last year may have been 50%. The discount does not apply for dates around the major summer holidays. Revenues collected last year were up reflecting the general rise in the number of visitors to GLSM . The article also mentions EPA testing of fish flesh again shows no evidence of toxins. More info at the following link to the article in the Celina Daily Standard. 
http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...ials-hope-discounts-will-keep-visitors-coming


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## Lowell H Turner

Hopefully they will set a new dredging record this yr...


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## zaraspook

LHT........... Imperative that we stay focused on the "Prime Directive"! Dredge baby, dredge!

The frigid weather for last several weeks has stirred behind the scenes whispering. It's low level, nothing very loud, not yet widespread and rarely in public. The winter of 2009-2010 brought similar cold and lengthy ice cover to lake. Seems we were still dinking with ice as late as March in 2010, but when the ice cleared water clarity was unbelievable! Everyone talked about the 2-3 feet of clarity. Fishermen were ecstatic. Euphoria erupted among residents. No one expected what would follow.

The summer of 2010 brought the algae outbreak of the century.  Stench and a psychedelic film of swirling colors dominated water surface. GLSM's disaster populated the news nationwide as it became the poster child for agricultural pollution.

Anxieties are bubbling to the surface in the neighborhood. We're apprehensive, but optimistic that conditions aren't the same today. Ice is nice but hopefully it won't be long. Could we see a repeat of 2010 algae?


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## Lowell H Turner

Let`s HOPE NOT...


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## zaraspook

Scientific final assessment of the 2010 GLSM blowup was that summer a normally recessive algae strain became dominant. Specifically, reports claimed long ice during 2009-10 winter trapped ammonium gases that normally escape. The gas occurs naturally from bacteria, commonly in sediment, when it decays. The trapped gas changed the lake chemistry. New chemistry cocktail favored the more toxic algae. 

I'm sure lake is susceptible to same outcome if right mix of conditions occur. Doubt anyone knows the exact formula/conditions. Logic suggests hardwater is a piece of the formula, however, if we have long ice season outcome could be entirely different. Mother Nature will let us know sooner or later. In the meantime, keep on fishing!


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## fishwhacker

I wonder if the clear water let photosynthesis to happen all the way through the water column making the algae bloom so bad. Maybe the normal dirty water only allows the top portion of the water column bloom because that is the only part to receive enough sunlight for photosynthesis to occur.


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## Lowell H Turner

Very possible...


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......photosynthesis is always a factor with algae so it had to play a role in the 2010 GLSM water cocktail. For one, the long ice that winter would dim light penetration into the water column for several months. And as you say, clearer water should allow light to further penetrate through the water column. Light would have to be a factor in the conditions that resulted.

The scientists claim ammonia gas was detrimental to the lake's normal dominant algae. The normal algae takes off fast, competes better for nutrients, keeps the other algae/algaes at bay. Don't know if the "normal" algae was significantly killed by effects of whatever the gas did to the water that winter, but it's growth and expansion definitely was retarded. With the normal algae absent and not available to compete, the usually recessive algae filled the void. With plenty of phosphorus to consume the recessive algae went nuts and we experienced the toxic results.

Who would have thought there is a benefit from the "normal" pervasive algae at GLSM? Ironic that GLSM's standard algae is a defense against a worse option. Hopefully this spring/summer won't produce a 2010 repeat. I'm hoping the current ice doesn't hang around too long. If we see unusually clear water this spring, some people are going to be very nervous about June/July lake conditions.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, you ACTUALLY paid attention back in high school Biology class...bet you got an A+ ! Very well explained...can see exactly how a `repeat` of 2010 IS very possible. But NOT where the lake has been dredged... DEEPEN that mud hole !


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## zaraspook

LHT......yes, did well in high school sciences and like stuff. Teacher wasn't happy I wanted to eat the frog's legs rather than dissecting. How'd you guys do at CJ on the ice last weekend?


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## Lowell H Turner

Saw more than a couple caught ! Only got 7 myself, 1 keeper...next time am going "big fish" hunting...


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## zaraspook

LHT......that's one more keeper and 7 more fish than I've tallied in 2014. Haven't been out yet this year. Not an ice fan.

When you say "big fish" hunting, do you mean bigger fish of same species you caught on the weekend, or are you suggesting targeting another species (like gators maybe)?


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## Lowell H Turner

BOTH would be just FINE by me...


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## zaraspook

LHT......to hunt bigger fish, do you upsize your bait or do you use another strategy?


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## Lowell H Turner

Prefer large (3-4") shiners but apparently at the moment they are in `short supply` !


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## zaraspook

LHT.......just wondered if your bigger fish strategy was bigger baits or a change in cover/location. You've answered the question. I'm a bigger bait proponent but am not walking proof that it works. I get my share of dinks.


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## Lowell H Turner

Figure #!: Fish a spot NO ONE has hit since before Christmas and #2: use baits big enough the dinks won`t literally be able to choke them down...a small treble hook in the nose and 1 at the base of the tail and just enough weight to hold it semi still...see whom comes a-knocking...


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## zaraspook

Anyone been on GLSM ice lately? Anyone have first hand knowledge of the ice and include a fishing report if you've fished GLSM lately. Thanks.


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## zaraspook

Don't know what impact this will have on ice......a drawdown began last Weds. Before Christmas GLSM was right at 9" below normal pool exactly as recommended for this time of year. Lake level since then rose by 15" from heavy rains and recent snows. The report I heard wasn't clear but it sounds like tubes won't be closed until level drops 15". Gonna be a lot of snapping and popping going on. Be safe out there! I hate it when they do massive drawdowns all at once rather than in several stages.


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## Sappy

Fished two different spot on the west side of the lake yesterday. 8" at the first stop near the boat ramp, and about 4" in coldwater creek....did not catch any fish.


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## Salmonid

Thanks Sappy, I plan on hitting an area I been wanting to hit on the SouthWest side and Im hoping for Thursday or Friday...this week. My buddys always want to go to Indian or Kiser and now that I have seceded to them, with minimal results, now they want to try somewhere else...

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......the SW area you want to try wouldn't happen to be where a certain channel takes a sharp left and you found dredging created a significant ledge/dropoff, would it? I think it was in the spring you mentioned it with lots of shad and crappies there. That one?


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## Lowell H Turner

Sounds like a `winner` to me !


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## Salmonid

Zara yes. Its at a channel mouth where surrounding area is 2.5-3 ft deep and a dredge has made a bathtub like impression 8 ft deep fir about 75 yards long and about 50 ft wide. We found shad and crappies there early spring and fall. When a cold front came through the shad would fall back out of the channels and stack up in this hole. 
Now time to see if crappies are still there. Lol
Salmonid


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## zaraspook

Agree with LHT.........that sounds like a winner.  Salmonid.....when you mentioned the spot earlier, now that I think about it it may have been fall, I made a mental note to check it out in the spring when I my boat is up there. I think I know the general area to look. Sounds like an area you could get into a smorgasbord (saugeye and perch, too!). Let's hope you get on them!


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## Lowell H Turner

PUNCH them in the mouth Salmonid ! Chances are, being THE deepest water for how many feet in ANY direction, imagine a big `trench ` with fish in it....too BAD you can`t get a "C" tree down into it for next time...


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## zaraspook

GLSM drawdown was supposed to start last Weds.......I'm not up there so don't know status of drawdown. However, at the time I griped that State always did this in a single phase. Apparently the State has a project approved to automate the process. At a cost of $165,000, equipment to automate the system should be in place by mid-May. Hope that means there will be more frequent drawdowns but lesser water volumes. All of this is tied into lawsuits from property owners downstream of spillway in which the State was found negligent.


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## SPAZ

The Beaver was running full tilt mon when I was thru there. From what I have heard it put a stop to alot of the hard water fishing on the west end of the lake


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## fishwhacker

I can confirm that went from awesome to dead quickly


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker........so ice fishing was really good then went to pot when drawdown got going? What were you and others catching?


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## fishwhacker

Had a good gill bite going heard good reports of eyes and crappies and everyone that I have talked to cannot get a single fish to bite since they started the drawdown. See if it improves this weekend.


----------



## zaraspook

fishwhacker......That's too bad fish shutdown. I've heard the fish think the lake is gonna go dry and react accordingly. But nice to hear we still have eyes in GLSM to provide entertainment. I heard the plan was a drawdown of 15-16". Must be getting close to ending since this is about 10th day. Is it over yet?

Good luck dude and give us a report when you can. Thanks.


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## jmk112

Thinking about going to St. Mary's this weekend. Any updates on the ice fishing. I've heard the gill fishing has been great, but I would like to get a few crappie going..

Thanks!


----------



## jmenchhofer

I fished a couple of channels today, mostly near brush in 4-8' of water and didn't catch a thing. Talked to a couple other guys who were doing just as well as I was. :S The water level was still being drawn down as of this morning.


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## zaraspook

jmenchhofer said:


> I fished a couple of channels today, mostly near brush in 4-8' of water and didn't catch a thing. Talked to a couple other guys who were doing just as well as I was. :S The water level was still being drawn down as of this morning.


In my opinion the State blew the timing of this drawdown. Other than ice fishing what other lake recreational activity is going on? This is peak season for ice guys. No boating, swimming, tubing. Why mess with one of the only remaining lake activities? Hard to believe a major drawdown couldn't wait 3-4 weeks. Sudden water level changes aren't a positive for fishing not the integrity of the ice. Hope its ignorance, they didn't know out think about it and not arrogance that they didn't care.


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## Salmonid

agree 100%with you Zara, its why I didn't go there this past week, and will still hold off a while till flows and ice return to safe levels. 

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, did someone go thru the ice on a ski mobile that you heard of ? Saw something on Channel 7, but didn`t catch it all...


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## Baba Ganoush

Unfortunately LHT,yes.Details are still sketchy at this point.Dayton Daily news online has a photo of the accident area and an article.I don't fish GLSM so I can't identify the spot. My condolences to the family.


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## zaraspook

I've only heard the published info on the accident. A St. Henry guy was pulled from the waters Saturday morning. Reports say he left Shocker's, a bar on the southside in Montezuma, after midnight and was later reported missing. Shockers is in the general area of Windy Point, specifically in a developed area called Park Grand if I remember correctly. ODNR employees spotted a helmet floating in open water about 500 yards off shore in open water. Body was recovered soon afterward from open water. Nothing I could find about recovery of the snowmobile.

If body was found 500 yards from shore in open water, the guy must have headed out toward the main lake. That's dangerous during daylight let alone at night. Sounds like some unwise choices came together at wrong place and time. Condolences to the family.

I'm stunned there was open water at GLSM after a month of frigid weather. Wonder if the lowering of lake level contributed to ice breaking, creating opportunity for open water? But, for all I know there may have been a constant state of open water over the last month. I haven't been to GLSM for several weeks.


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## SPAZ

The thousands of resident geese have been keeping water open on the lake.


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## Lowell H Turner

Am sorry to hear about the guy dying. BTW, CJ has a similar spot the geese stay in until it finally freezes over. Guess `why` that particular spot is ALWAYS the last spot to ice over? (HINT ! HINT !)


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## fishwhacker

Very sad to hear about dale prayers go out to him and his family


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## zaraspook

Here's a link to the Celina Daily Standard article yesterday about the tragic snowmobile accident. It provides a little more detail......condolences to friends and family. http://dailystandard.com/archive/2014-01-27/stories/23079/snowmobilers-body-recovered-from-lake


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## zaraspook

Any one have a report on GLSM ice fishing from this week, or the status of lake drawdown? I would think drawdown was completed but?


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## fishwhacker

Dont know how thick the ice is with warming temps, the drawdown, and rain in the forecast think I am staying off this weekend. Saw a couple guys fishing the spillway this morning water seems to be flowing but not as fast as the last couple weeks.


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## T04DF15H

I tried fishing below the spillway Friday but had no luck. There were other people having the same luck. The one gate dumping water has finally been turned back to 1/2 flow. They need to close it all together in my opinion as the water is several inches below the notch in the spillway.


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## zaraspook

Thanks for reports guys. Like I said before it ticks me off when State guys do drawdowns of massive dimensions like this. 15 inches or more is nearly a third of average lake depth if 4 feet is considered average for GLSM. Maybe when the tubes are automated instead of manual they can do it in smaller increments.


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## zaraspook

What effect will this prolonged ice and frigid water temps have on the shad population? Shad seem to be a bit fragile. At GLSM we seem to have an abundance of the really big ones. When the ice disappears will shad carcasses pile up along the bank?


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## Hillbilly910

Yep, id figure on shoveling the dead shad out of the boat ramps.
Last time we had big ice, there was a massive adult shad kill, and it was there for months afterwards.

There should have been ***** the size of german shepherds after that.

Oh and did i mention the smell?


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## fishwhacker

Oh I imagine the banks will be covered...seagulls will be happy


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## Lowell H Turner

CJ had a massive shad kill about 8 yrs ago, it STUNK to HIGH Heaven for about 3 wks...


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## zaraspook

Wouldn't bother me to put up with stench in exchange for a reduction of population of the bigger shad. Not enough predators in the lake to trim population of jumbo shad. I think the guys who castnet for bait would verify GLSM ranks high on their list for netting bait.

Hillbilly910......the last "big ice" at GLSM was winter of 2009-2010. It set off a chain of ecosystem changes which produced the Mother of All Algae Blooms. Each day the ice lingers anxiety levels ratchet up. That was a movie that we'd prefer not to see the sequel of.


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## Hillbilly910

it was 2010. Came up to fish the lake for a tournament, and hadnt been there since i was a kid. Pulled into east bank and the smell hit...
then we got the pleasure of chop-suey shad in propwash idling out.
then trying to fish with a float with a mat of dead shad everywhere, and snagging them trying to reel back in...

I still wake up screaming some nights because of it...


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## Lowell H Turner

A smell to gag a maggot...and unfortunately you could smell it 5 miles down wind from the NE corner of the lake. It was seemingly never ending and after a while just made you sick to your stomach...


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## fishwhacker

Ah yes nothing like fishing with a close pin on your nose....learned a lot of different lakes that year....even though I remember indian and loramie had problems also that year just not as bad.


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## Sappy

I think the shad kill improves the crappie and gill fishing...less shad means they is less for them to eat which means they are more likely to hit a lure..... just my $0.02


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## Lowell H Turner

Absolutely CORRECT. The spring following was amazing; the fish hit almost anything suicidally...they were like kamikaze fish


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## zaraspook

Makes good sense that reduction of shad should make other species more cooperative. Hope that holds true for spring fishing (maybe get spring fishing in July this year when ice is finally gone?). But, don't underestimate the shad population at GLSM.....gotta think it will take an extremely large kill to significantly impact the shad population there.


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## Lowell H Turner

Their survival `strategy` is that individually they are almost `fragile`, dying very easily. BUT their sheer NUMBERS are just so GREAT that it all but `guarantees` some of them WILL survive and they are swimming mating machines, almost constantly spawning and spewing eggs and newly hatched fry right up to the fall cold water...even in the WORST winter freeze or summer algae kill, SOME shad WILL somehow survive...


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## zaraspook

At the risk of being labeled as prejudiced, I'll settle for the demise of only the biguns! Forage size ones are welcome.


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## fishwhacker

Me and a few fishermen were standing on the ice not catching anything and dreaming about spring when the question arose. Can you float tube grandlake st marys? float tubing can bring a whole new opportunity on any body of water, just hard to find lakes that allow it with motorized watercraft. Anyone know for sure either way if you can or cannot on glsm?


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker........float tubing looks like a great idea. If you can't find where any regulation prohibits float tubing on GLSM, I wouldn't ask the government for permission. State guys have their tentacles reaching into every nook and cranny as it is. Don't need any more rules if we can avoid them. Secondly, as shallow as GLSM is, your feet may be on the bottom 1/2 the time! Sounds like fun.


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## T04DF15H

For whatever its worth, the gate at the spillway has been closed to about the 10% position and the water in the Beaver has dropped about 4 feet. I sure hope it makes a difference!


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## fishwhacker

I agree zara but dont want to spend the day kicking around and get a ticket...hard to hide float tubing. You kind of dead in the water so to speak.


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## zaraspook

Fishwhacker.......if you stick to tubing in the channels your safe. Conservation officers in boats never come down the channels. Conservation officers on land won't wade in after you. They can't give you a ticket if you stay in water, make them come in after you! Worst case scenario a warning. If you get a warning you'll know State says it's a no-no. Low risk, right?


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## Lowell H Turner

You can always shoot it out with them and make a run for Canada...


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## fishwhacker

I have done it in ohio before....dont want a shoot out in an intertube they have a target advantage, I would go flying like a balloon.


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## zaraspook

Both you guys are hilarious!


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## zaraspook

Tough to find anyone who doesn't know that phosphorus runoff from agricultural fields is the top culprit for phosphorous loading of GLSM, Lake Erie, and water bodies worldwide. Of course high phosphorous feeds algae growth and resulting cyanobacteria toxins. 

Lots of recent studies show that gypsum when spread on fields reduces phosphorus runoff by 50-90%. Seems the gypsum binds with the phosphorus and holds it in the field. It's the same gypsum used to produce wall board. Great news, huh? Hold on a minute. Guess where the wallboard guys like to get 95% pure gypsum. Gypsum is a by product of coal fired power plants, the same coal fired power plants on the "soon to be extinct" agenda of current EPA regulations put in place by federal executive order. The scrubbers at the coal fired plants produce enough gypsum to supply wallboard places and still send plenty to landfills. Crazy, huh?

By the way 2-3 years ago when the Battelle scientists in Columbus studied GLSM's problems, they reported phosphorus inflow to the lake from the watershed needed to be reduced by 85% for dredging to successfully reduce existing phosphorus levels in the lake. Gypsum usage and a 50-90% P reduction could accomplish a huge portion of the required 85% reduction.

If you Google it, there are lots of studies and articles available on gypsum's potential to control phosphorus runoff. Here's a link to today's article in the Columbus Dispatch http://www.dispatch.com/content/sto...m-on-fields-may-cut-runoff-of-phosphorus.html


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## Lowell H Turner

Won`t say that after regaining enough depth that adding the gypsum would be a `bad` idea; it IS biologically `inert` to a greater extent than almost anything else. Upon getting and staying submerged gypsum board swells and softens, and quickly contours to cover what ever it lands upon...adding the gypsum on the fields would be the "ideal" solution along with continued dredging...


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## backlashed

zaraspook said:


> Tough to find anyone who doesn't know that phosphorus runoff from agricultural fields is the top culprit for phosphorous loading of GLSM, Lake Erie, and water bodies worldwide. Of course high phosphorous feeds algae growth and resulting cyanobacteria toxins.[/url]


Yup! If you are old enough you might remember when they removed phosphates from laundry detergent in the 60's (?) for the same reason. It was supporting algae blooms all over the country and killing off everything else.

I have a cousin who grew up on a farm and when ever the topic comes up he'll tell you that agriculture puts too much 'stuff' on their crops.


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## zaraspook

Any GLSM ice fishing reports out there? Last report was 16 days ago on 2/1 by jmaury. Is it because of no fishing or no catching?


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## zaraspook

Received one PM from the 8th that reported fishing was pathetic and blamed it on the drawdown. He claimed at that time drawdown was still going and State planned to continue drawdown for another 7 days! Areas he fished before drawdown started that were 7' depths now measured 5'. He wasn't a happy camper. 

If his info is correct, drawdown should have ended by 15th. That would put us 4 days into letting the fish settle down. Maybe bite will start to improve if you can find any water deep enough to fish! At least ice guys have had great season elsewhere and plenty of other options to take advantage of long and hard period of cold.


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## Lowell H Turner

If this warming trend continues there won`t be much time left with SAFE ice remaining...


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## zaraspook

LHT......glad you said "if" the warming trend continues. After tomorrow we'll be lucky to climb above freezing for next 10 days. Lots of low temps in the teens and below for the period. Although surface ice may reconstitute itself, ice cover isn't going any where. The hardwater guys have the Ice Gods in their corner for some time to come.....

When ice does yield to open water, it will be interesting to see extent of shad kill, and specifically at GLSM, which algae strain takes off first.


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## zaraspook

Here's an aerial view of GLSM. Plane is moving from west to east along the north side of lake. Lake is 9 miles long and 3 miles wide. 37 second YouTube video is at this link


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## Lowell H Turner

Almost hard to believe that not only is it 90% man made but that being pre internal combustion engine era, it was 90% hand built and dug...it also literally powered Ohio`s western canal system for almost 20 yrs


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## zaraspook

LHT........great points you make. Without the raw strength of engine powered equipment, perhaps it further explains why GLSM is so shallow. They needed a massive holding tank to supply a volume of water for canals. Less work to excavate horizontally than to add a vertical element to the job. By the way GLSM is still the largest artificially made body of water in the world made entirely without machinery!

Crazy to think that the world's first off-shore oil platform was constructed on GLSM. It launched a huge advancement for the oil industry. Too bad we don't collect a royalty on every barrel pumped from world wide water-bodies. What a treasure chest to bankroll efforts to clean it up! Coors would be on site to use the pristine waters for brewing.

After playing such a gracious role in the development of the Northwest Territory, shameful to see it humbled 165 years later by something as lowly as poop.


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## fishwhacker

Its amazing of 165 years of people putting poop into it we just realize its a problem the last 10


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## Lowell H Turner

Actually, when 1st built, parts of the lake were 12` deep, and it averaged 6-8 fow. However, due to clearing the surrounding forests and many decades of constant annual full field plowing the erosion has severely sedimentated the lake...in the early 1970s a Lima University professor made DIRE predictions about the future of the lake and tried to garner support from local people and the Ohio Dept of Parks and Dept of Wildlife to gradually dredge the entire lake over several decades and to install a mandatory sewer system completely around the lake; he stated the potential of the lake to become a swampy cess pool within 100 yrs with very hazardous algae blooms becoming an annual event, he went so far as recommending allowing oil and gas drilling to pay for the dredging...he was basically IGNORED and was considered a `quack`...kinda ironic.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.........explosion of the animal population in watershed was final straw. Just what the heck were we thinking? Since we have a problem with agricultural nutrients leaching into creeks that feed the lake, lets expand the animal population 5-10 fold. Let's add to the contamination potential. Duh!

Since the blowup of 2010 what are the chances that animal population in GLSM watershed is lower today than in 2010? I'd like to think we're smart enough to avoid repeating history, to change the thinking that more animals will magically improve the situation. However, if you drive through the watershed area there are lots of new structures for holding/housing livestock. These are new/additional buildings, not replacement structures.


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## Lowell H Turner

Let us not forget that with well manicured lawns almost completely around the lake now needing fertilization 3X a yr plus previously more watercraft with high efficiency high thrust propellers at least during the spring, summer and fall daily leaving muddy wakes behind them churning the somewhat dorment phosphates back into solution to be consumed by the hungry algae along with wave actions from storms and there exists the recipe for a perfect environmental disaster...just as the `quack` Lima University professor predicted 40 some yrs ago. Admittedly his timing WAS `off`...as far as his warnings: ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. And the larger # of livestock has to do with flat out GREED, and the loss of any sense of being actual stewards of the land that was the creed of the older farmers. Now, it`s simply the cult of "Profit+++++" the fools are teaching in economics schools with ruthless abandon; ie, no matter what you do that making as much money as possible with utterly NO regard for the long term consequences is the `way to go`.


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## Lowell H Turner

With the current `leadership` at local state and national levels only willing to put economic `band aids` (ie, not piss off their BIG $$$$$ political donors) on the problem and barely dredge to keep up with the yearly increasing inflow of cow poop things will take a long time to improve ASSUMING the dredging CONTINUES...if not; expect a ecological disaster with possible epidemics with massive fatalities sooner rather than later...the ironic thing is if the lake was filled in, the run off in the remaining watershed would be SO polluted the State and possibly Federal government would have SHUT them DOWN yrs ago...


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## fishwhacker

I love to fish glsm and yes it has been full of mistakes in the past and I am sure there are still idiots out there, but I wouldnt call them greedy. I am not a farmer and do not over fertilize my lawn but I also am not pointing fingers at others claiming they are the problem. It is easy for us the wildlife enthusiasts to point the fingers cause we dont have to sacrifice our time or money changing our way of life. If they said that all sewer lines have been connected to the algae blooms in glsm...and it would cost you 100,000 dollars a year to get rid of your waste or u can just keep flushing and risk getting caught how many would honestly pay and how many would flush and go fish indian lake. Not trying to make anyone mad just think offering up solutions is better than pointing fingers.


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## zaraspook

LHT.........hadn't previously heard about the Lima professor. He certainly nailed the impending events and was a visionary. Yes his time table missed by 50-60 years. No way he would have foreseen any one stupid enough to expand the livestock herd in an area already at critical mass. Fortunately the Army Corp of Eng must have listened to the wacky professor and completed the sewer system around the lake.....early '80s if not earlier. 
Uncommon in the academic world, the wacky professor must have been a conservative. Brilliant of him to totally fund the cost to dredge by continuing to pump oil from wells at/near GLSM. The wacky professor should be enshrined.


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## Lowell H Turner

fishwacker, we could look at it as just inevitable, or completely a natural occurance, but that is kind of burying our head in the ever increasing cow poop. If the lake were filled in, the `Powers that Be" would STRONG ARM the live stock operations into complying simply because of the level of poop matter pollution in the remaining stream. But so long as their decades old toilet is still barely alive, they are collecting the cash for the cattle, and honestly feel the run off is FREE, so what`s the problem ? SO WHAT if it costs EVERY single Ohio TAXPAYER so things can stay exactly the same, paying to attempt to fix THEIR problem that comes to rest in GLSM ? (And if a little or a whole lot of cash quietly changes hands around election time, better yet...) Same with Lake Erie. Many of those regional farmers are currently claiming "Why, there is NO `problem` at ALL ! WE don`t fish..." Ironically, if there were a chemical company just up stream from them doing the EXACT same thing and polluting the water shed 1/10th as much those same exact farmers would be screaming bloody MURDER and would be DEMANDING immediate action to shut that plant down, RIGHT NOW ! It would `unfairly` impact their livelihood...


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## zaraspook

I believe about 20% of agriculture guys in GLSM watershed are very good stewards, they get it, they meet and exceed every regulation, go beyond requirements, embrace change and actively try out new ideas. They will go the extra mile and act to be part of the solution. They will be the ones to refine execution of new stuff to make it better.

20% are at the other end of the spectrum. They are bare minimum guys. They meet most regulations but wait until the 11th hour, last day. They only accept change if it's forced on them......if you don't inspect for violations they will violate. Voluntary compliance doesn't work. They might enlist in something new, but only if the state pays them to do it. If the punishment for cheating cost less than compliance, they will cheat.

The remaining 60% of ag guys are somewhere in the middle. They are better stewards than the bottom 20%, not as good as the top 20%, and trying to figure out which camp they want to be part of. They won't be the first to try something new.......let someone else risk the investment. But they won't cheat either, unless they see the bottom 20% getting away with cheating. If you don't inspect for compliance the bottom 20% may become 50% of the Ag population.

Per my math, 80% are already good guys.


----------



## crappiedude

fishwhacker said:


> .... *how many would honestly pay and how many would flush and go fish indian lake*. Not trying to make anyone mad just think offering up solutions is better than pointing fingers.


yep....just sayin


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## Salmonid

Hey Whacker, Crappie dude, any fishing reports?? I cant get a good word from any of my contacts, they all but abandoned fishing their once the pulldown started, there all at Indian or Loramie...LOL

I hate to drive 1:20 up there to not find any fishes...

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Guys, am aware this is a problem that has literally been 150+ yrs in the making, and am NOT saying every live stock farmer is part of the problem, nor that there has been no progress. If there was no effort on the farmers` part, even dredging would be of little use, the lake by now would be a largely stinking cess pool 9 months of the year and a continuous severe health hazard; for that part, am grateful. And am not saying either that this problem was or is completely this generation`s or even the last generation`s doing, although they certainly if unknowingly worsened it by then current farming practices. Lastly am not saying that persons in positions of responsibility in the past were fully aware of the potential for the algae blooms, but can bet that due to "conventional thinking" ie "We don`t want to alarm anyone or SPEND MONEY to fix something that ain`t broke." mentality we have arrived where we currently are. For what it`s worth, that Professor in the 1970s was ridiculed and laughed at and called a `quack`; his predictions were too far ahead of it`s time. As far as his ACCURACY...he was literally DEAD ON. We know what will benefit the recovery of the lake; as far as the live stock farmers go hopefully either by morale reasoning (I`ll do what`s best for EVERYONE, even if it costs me some dollars) or the "blunter` method (I got fined HOW much !?! DELETED DELETED !!!) the tide has turned and combined with the soon to be restored wetland efforts will continue to help the lake recover...


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## fishwhacker

I would agree with those percentages.... and as far as the political heads if it doesnt make the green with presidents faces on it they dont care about it....im sure the fact they had to spend millions on the land owners below the spillway happened shortly before they suspended the alum treatment had no correlation lol. As far as reports...little action except the occasional walleye/saugeye being snagged in the spillway. I would say if you could find open water...it wont be long till the little known northerns will run. Zara you ever hook into the toothy critters...I think I have an idea about where your located... I have many stories around that area. As far as ice...nothing great...havent seen many trying either.


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## zaraspook

LHT..........maybe my reading comprehension is a little low, but I think you, fishwhacker, and I agree on 90% or more of this stuff. You're a little more "direct" at times, but I love your posts and the way you can add a historical perspective to the discussion.

Tomorrow is March 1 and a big day for the farmers in GLSM watershed. Since Dec 15 manure handling regulations have prohibited manure spreading. Tomorrow they can resume. Since fields are still frozen, I don't know if they can legally spread or not. I'll bet the 20% of farmers who are great stewards of the environment, won't spread manure because, legal or not, they know it's the wrong thing to do. The other 80% have an opportunity to prove they get it and want to be part of the solution to reduce manure/phosphorus flow into the lake.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.........yep, should be pike time soon. Last spring was the first time me or people fishing with me didn't stumble into at least one pike. We caught 5 one year. They've always been small, usually around 15", but caught a 25" in 2011 or 2012. Those pike are like rockets and great fun on a crappie rig. I really don't expect to catch big ones on dinky little crappie baits. At GLSM I've never caught one later than April. Did you get into any pike last year?

How about perch? Do you get them with any regularity? I caught 2 between Feb 1 and March 1, I think it was 2012. None since.


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## crappiedude

Salmonid said:


> Hey Whacker, Crappie dude, any fishing reports?? I cant get a good word from any of my contacts, they all but abandoned fishing their once the pulldown started, there all at Indian or Loramie...LOL
> 
> I hate to drive 1:20 up there to not find any fishes...
> 
> Salmonid



Salmonid

I haven't been up that way in years. I mostly fish at East Fork & Cowan. EF is 10 minutes from home and I would be more than happy to check if you need lake conditions for EF. I hope to stop by tonight and check it out after work. There was maybe 200 yards of open water at (EF) the dam last weekend but the lake was up 13'. They've been dropping the water level all week so I'm not sure if that open water still exists still or not. 
Water coming out of the lake has a little color to it now and that should help with the warming even on these colder days as long as it stays sunny during the day.
Also feel free to send me a pm if I can help in any way.


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## zaraspook

If by chance you are driving in the GLSM watershed after midnight tonight thru the next several days, keep your eyes peeled for any farmers spreading manure on fields. Despite the March 1 date, farmers still can't spread manure anytime fields are frozen. Clarification I found in the "distressed watershed rules" says _"The ban will last from Dec. 15 to March 1, or when the ground is frozen outside of those dates, unless the farmers first get approval from the agency."_

Basically if you're driving within 4-5 miles south of the lake, high probability you are within the watershed. Get some nearby road coordinates, time of day/night, and report it. A camera shot from your cell phone or a short video would be icing on the cake. If you don't want to report it, post the info on this thread........


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## Lowell H Turner

No idea if the "eye in the sky" is still on duty, but know it was the last 2 yrs...hopefully so.


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## fishwhacker

Saw a lot of farmers moving food supplies around and equipment for the annual young farmers auctions coming up but no manure. I got a few perch last year right after ice came off while i was crappie fishing but that was it. Only tried for them once this last fall and conditions were bad and ended up wet and skunked. I know there are pike over 3 ft long in the lake....talk to bass fisherman who throw big spinners or buzzbaits early in the spring. Sounds like were in for another big storm, but something tells me ice out isnt too far away. Put together my new rod and reel tonight.


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## zaraspook

Manure report..........spent about an hour driving thru watershed today. Thrilled to say no evidence of poop spreading!
Ice report.........lots of ice as far as you can see. On eastern half of lake I witnessed no open water. Saw three ice fishermen sitting on holes at sail boat club. Ice cover is weird looking........higher at the banks then sloping down as you move out due to the 15" draw down. The Outdoorsman reported bait sales were almost non-existent since draw down started. I didn't venture over to the west half of lake to see status.
I'm ready for open water. Love to see no snow and all rain for this storm but no chance.


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## Lowell H Turner

Welcome news, sir ! Am glad that whether fearing the possible continued leasing of "the eye in the sky", persons more than willing to report them, or just a heart felt desire to "DO the `right thing" that they are holding off...a very encouraging sign !


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## zaraspook

Fishwhacker.......my perch have always come when crappie fishing. What do you do differently when targeting perch?


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Welcome news, sir ! Am glad that whether fearing the possible continued leasing of "the eye in the sky", persons more than willing to report them, or just a heart felt desire to "DO the `right thing" that they are holding off...a very encouraging sign !


Lowell.....I know a few were caught in last couple years, could have been by aerial surveillance, but I've never heard any results. I reported one but found out later the incident was reported by someone else before me. Didn't hear the results of that one either. You'd think it would be public info somewhere. Any ideas where to look?


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## Lowell H Turner

Promised the person who contacted me on line that would simply "let it be known"; it was privately funded by a `concerned` group. I have never (to my knowledge) met him (them). They were simply willing to put up the money to provide funding for the photo recon capability 5 minutes during certain hrs every day between certain dates in various detection capabilities. He did say they were paying in excess of $2500 a month...have not heard from him (them) since last yr...He did say `a couple` of offenders were detected the 1st yr within 30 minutes of beginning to put the crap on frozen fields with recorded air and ground temperatures and exact coordinates. The "Powers that Be" apparently followed up swiftly and confirmed the offenses and documentated it from the ground also. Apparently they were flat out TOLD and SHOWN that they were 1st detected by the unblinking "eye in the sky" capability. Would guess the information of this quietly but quickly `got around`...between that and KNOWING too there are persons making a point of leasurely driving the back county roads actively LOOKING for offenders would discourage illegally spreading crap on frozen ground. Wonder what the fines were ?


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## zaraspook

I haven't a clue on fines or punishment and not heard a murmur on the topic. Strikes me as odd nothing publicized. It suggests perhaps no punishment was levied other than a warning?


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## Lowell H Turner

Do not know for certain. Will say that the technology DOES exist, and IS available. Using it even for limited high probability time frames makes sense, full time usage would cost a fortune. Do not know exactly how many times it was successfully used, but having an offending farmer look at photos of what he just did from way up high would be discouraging to say the least. It would be impossible to deny, especially if it was also easily confirmed from the ground...and it watches a very LARGE area instantly, multiple times a day. Good luck hiding from it. Give you an idea how well `tuned` some types of modern sensors are. During the 1st Gulf War, apparently the Coalition air forces used a aerial version that somehow could tell if an Iraqi tanker truck was carrying fuel or water. They went after water tankers with a vengeance, blasting and bombing every one of them they could find and target. Supposedly, it was to prevent the enemy from having water for their vehicles out in the desert. As soon as the ground war started 42 days later, the Iraqis surrendered in droves, and most just wanted WATER to drink...how that was possible, do not know, but the Iraqis cursed they had plenty of fuel, but almost no water after the 1st week of the air war. Several thousands died of thirst...sadistically ironic, invading Kuwait, to gain control of all those oil wells, having all the fuel they could use, but almost no water to drink in a desert ! Poetic justice perhaps...


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## zaraspook

So my local newspaper in Richmond, IN is called the Palladiem-Item. Almost 2 weeks ago the paper ran an article I normally wouldn't read, but with all the manure problems at GLSM, the article about manure handling in my county caught my eye. The State of Indiana has rules in place to regulate manure storage sites of more than 5000 cubic yards, but no regulations for smaller sites. Some residents in my county weren't thrilled with one of those smaller storage sites they heard was planned across the road from some residents, and within a mile of 3000 residents. Without regulations, the residents were asking county planning commissioners to put regulations in place. They asked for setbacks, a public hearing for each facility and soil testing to establish a baseline prior to the manure storage. Turns out it's chicken manure that would be stored and the source of the manure out of state. The article reported some of the manure was coming from Ohio, specifically from _chicken operations in the Grand Lake St. Marys watershed._

Article is here http://www.pal-item.com/article/201.../County-might-add-manure-rules?nclick_check=1


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## T04DF15H

Zaraspook, thanks for taking our ****.


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## T04DF15H

You might want to hit the ice while it lasts.
Also send requests to the ODNR to restart a stocking program for the lake. If enough people ask, maybe they will renew a program.
These were caught thru the ice last Friday evening in 20 minutes!

No I can't tell you where I caught them, my friends would kill me.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, we all like you, so will spare you the jokes. In fact, it SHOWS what a `grass roots" level concerned citizens` request to local and/ or State government can do ! DO keep in mind, it is an ELECTION year. (Wonder what it costs to haul the bird poop that far? Also if any interstate PERMITS are required? Just curious...)


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## Lowell H Turner

jmaury, you can PM me where they came from ! I solemnly PROMISE won`t breath a word...might fish the heck outta that spot, but won`t tell ANYONE else, I honestly pledge...longitude and latitude, and what you got them on, ok ? Seriously, that is a NICE haul of fish ! And you are right: IF enough fisherman ASK, what`s the worst they can do? Say "No" ? Might have 1 of the State Fish Hatchery people send a copy of that photo to District #5 to Debra Walters, the "Gator Queen"...


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## Salmonid

Jmaury, no real secrets where those fish are coming from to those who have done a little homework, I heard the bite picked up drastically over the last 4 days when I was driving around the lake today doing more homework, LOL Nice job, that's a great catch, for 1 person, most guys I know only getting 1-2 max per outing now, not like it was earlier. and lots of skunks as well... 

Most guys get eyes on cleos, pimples or vibes, some tipped with minnows, some do not, depends how aggressive the bite is on that day, no different from Indian, Buckeye, Loramie, Acton etc, pattern is fairly consistant. 
I am hoping to get up there this week if Ice holds, I know here in Dayton we lost an inch a day over the last 3 days so its short lived...Eastwood down to 4-5" so its done, CJ has a ton of open water and Acton has more open water every day. The high sun this week will rally do some damage and this weekend will be sketchy anywhere in the SW area.

Talked to Dan at the Outdoorsman today for a while and he told me he only heard of like 2 perch caught through the ice this year.. that sucks...also not many small eyes so once there gone there gone...

Be careful and be smart!

Salmonid


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## fishwhacker

Dang u jmaury they were all caught in the spillway. Right jmaury wink wink


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## T04DF15H

OK, here we go. 
LHT, a couple of the guys at the hatchery already have the some pictures, I'll ask them to forward then to Debra.
Salmonid, I was using chrome and blue prism pimples tipped with a minnow head (or tail!). Vibes haven't worked for awhile.
Fishwacker, there have been a ton caught below the spillway if that's the way you prefer to fish. I'd rather try to turn their heads and pull them thru a hole.

We did see one rather small one in the last couple days. Hopefully it will make it to Columbus for some DNA testing to see if it might be a walleye.


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## Lowell H Turner

UH, I didn`t get that PM yet...


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## zaraspook

jmaury.....fantastic catch! 4 of those look 20+, and biggest pushing 25". When you find out if identification is walleye or saugeye please let us know. All look like they could be either to me, but I suspect saugeye. A shame DNR won't resume saugeye stocking for fear of messing up the Lake Erie gene pool. Saugeye clearly have been successful at GLSM and proven to be more catchable than their walleye brethren. 

By the way, jmaury, thanks for toning down the poop remarks. Whether I'm at the lake or at home, can't get away from the GLSM watershed crap!


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## Lowell H Turner

A public petition for a restocking with ENOUGH signatures will very likely be at least considered...just a `suggestion'.


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## fishwhacker

Jmaury you must have misunderstood I know those arent from the spillway I bet I know exactly where there from...im sure most locals do.... my question is where did u get minnow tails...take the drive to st marys... cannot get them this side of the lake.


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## T04DF15H

I get them from the back end of the minnow head. Seriously yes, I take the drive to St Marys. Outdoorsman's and Grand Lake Tackle have them.
Too bad Celina doesn't carry them anymore.


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## Jrock1085

I have heard of the success of crappie up there. I live in Cincinnati and never been there I was wanting to bring the family up for camping and fishing from a canoe. what is the best time of year and where at on the lake.


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## fishwhacker

Campgrounds are close to some prime early spring crappie fishing... late april to emay is usually good timing depending on the weather. Faster the warm up earlier you will want to come.


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## zaraspook

Jrock1085 said:


> I have heard of the success of crappie up there. I live in Cincinnati and never been there I was wanting to bring the family up for camping and fishing from a canoe. what is the best time of year and where at on the lake.


You'll get a pile of crappies plus State campground has 25% camping discount except on the major holiday weekends.


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## zaraspook

Didn't fish but was at GLSM today. Very little open water.saw only 2 ice fisherman and 3 anglers at spillway. My neighbor opened a hole in m my channel just to check thickness. Was 8" but not great looking.

Considering that lake levels are low for this time of year, I found it incredible that the draw down that started in Jan is still going on! Turns out, according to my neighbor that the tube that remains open is broken or jammed.....can't be closed!! If true.......will the bathtub get fully drained? Can't believe I just paid my dock fee.....may not be enough water to float a bobber.


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## Lowell H Turner

How close is the nearest dredged channel ?


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## Salmonid

3 of us fished today at 3 places at GLSM, main lake had 14" clear ice with 2" of grey on top. fished dredge holes and shallow we had 9 rods out the whole time, 3 active jiggers and tip ups, also had 3 flashers going all day, weirdest thing ever, we never even "Marked" a fish????? saw 1 other on the ice who said they were on fire till 3 days ago and that he hadn't caught a fish the since??? rumor he stated was that they started drawdawn again on March 1st, crossed spillway, maybe 25 guys there hammering it. 

left and went to Loramie on the way home, picked up a few bluegills

Salmonid


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## T04DF15H

zaraspook, the state cranked the gate from full open to half open about 2 days ago. When they do achieve their desired lake level they crank it down to the 2" open position to keep a small flow going down the beaver.
By the way, each of the 2 parallel tubes has 2 valves in series.
I wish the state would put a huge chain link fence in the water 100 feet or so away from the draw down tubes. That would help to keep debris and fish out of the tubes. Does that make any sense to anyone?


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## fishwhacker

I can attest ice fishing sucked yesterday no fish at all...too many people in the spillway for me to stop. Ready for open water.


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## zaraspook

jmaury............makes great sense to have something to screen debris from entering tubes drawing water. I think it's crazy that draw down is still going. Began mid-Jan and they stated 15" target. By my "eyeball" test we were there couple weeks ago.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> 3 of us fished today at 3 places at GLSM, main lake had 14" clear ice with 2" of grey on top. fished dredge holes and shallow we had 9 rods out the whole time, 3 active jiggers and tip ups, also had 3 flashers going all day, weirdest thing ever, we never even "Marked" a fish????? saw 1 other on the ice who said they were on fire till 3 days ago and that he hadn't caught a fish the since??? rumor he stated was that they started drawdawn again on March 1st, crossed spillway, maybe 25 guys there hammering it.
> 
> left and went to Loramie on the way home, picked up a few bluegills
> 
> Salmonid


 Sounds like your trio invested plenty of effort. You know what they say......"you shoulda been here last week". Amazing to hear main lake still has 14" of clear ice beneath 2" of gray. I've got a high school buddy coming to my place on 21-22nd for open water crappie fishing. Is it likely we can melt 14"+ in 12 days?


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## fishwhacker

Im hoping open water by next weekend. It will be muddy awhile until everything thaws


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## Salmonid

Keep hoping Whacker but with single digit low temps later in the week, lake will be lucky to be open for season opener catfish tourney on the 22nd, at this point im steering towards fishing the Rocky Fork tourney that day as it will open long before GLSM. This weekend Im at a warmwater power plant lake tourney about 4 hrs west of here in SW Indiana. Lake never freezes with a huge warmwater discharge into it. We could use one of those around here....LOL

Salmonid
PS Ice fished Alum Creek today, actually marked 1 fish today with Marcum so a huge improvement over yesterday...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.........you can't be serious. No way you'd skip the opener of the GLSM Catmaster series. You and Ryan are reigning champs of the Catmaster, winning the year ending Classic last year! And the year before you guys blew everyone out of the water in the March opener. Now how can the Catmaster Kings skip the first tourney? On the other hand, if we still have ice will Dan just move the opener back one week?

This ice is really mucking things up........enough!


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......screw the 14" of ice on the main lake. Maybe by the weekend we can get some creek fed channels and sun exposed channels partially open. If we can get some open water started then some wind, it will open up faster than people think.


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## Salmonid

Zara, yeah if its open we will be there, and already spoke with Dan at Outdoorsman, if locked up will postpone 1 week. 

Your right, 1 good warm rain or /and some serious wind will eat it up pretty quick

Salmonid


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## fishwhacker

I have a couple early spring spots already opened up today hopefully the sun will warm them up enough for some fish to move in.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.........that's great news. Catch a nice 14" crappie and post photo. Weather forecast is a crazy one up there. 1/4 inch of rain tonight which could do some damage on the ice, but followed by 4-6 inches of snow?!?! Down to single digits for a low and return to 50's by weekend? This is nuts. Down here in Richmond forecast is 1/2 inch of soaking rain, then 1-2" snow. Might be better if the system moves a bit north and dumps more rain, less snow at Lake.


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## fishwhacker

Id be alright with a 14incher hope the rain breaks the ice up and the warm up gets the bite going by the weekend


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## zaraspook

This might be a sign it will get tougher for livestock operators to move manure. A couple weeks ago I posted that some residents of my Indiana county didn't take kindly to a new manure storage facility. Rumors were chicken poop from GLSM watershed farmers was on the way to the county. The storage site was to be small enough to skirt existing State regulations for manure storage sites. Oooops! Our State Rep sent a new bill/amendment to the State House. If passed, new storage sites of any size or expansion of existing sites will require plans to be filed, approved, and all landowners within a specified radius to be notified. 

Chicken, hog, or any livestock manure may be on a path similar to nuclear waste, prisons, and landfills. Nobody wants the manure in their neighborhood and costs will rise.


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## SPAZ

I dont know about this conversation on Farmers and there manure. Maybe there should be a different thread for those who want to throw stones. Maybe one that says I have nothing better to do than drive around and look for Manure spreaders in the fields thread.


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## Lowell H Turner

SPAZ, kindly put, what EXACTLY do you think caused the recent algae blooms that have made GLSM so toxic the State and EPA shut down the beaches, recommended having absolutely NO contact with the water in the lake OR in the tributary streams feeding directly INTO the lake ? Any time you have spring and summer fish kills AND can SMELL a lake 15 miles down wind something is HORRIBLY WRONG. These blooms have cost the local economy 10s of MILLIONS of dollars in just the very 1st bloom year, not counting following yrs. Am certain that the mega large industrial scale live stock operations are not responsible for all 150 yrs of phosphate and sediment run off, but 25% of that total ? Easily. 30% ? Yup. 40 % ? Probably. Not certain if you farm or not, am not saying every farmer is an uncaring money grubber, but there are certainly a few whom just DO NOT care where their live stock waste goes, so long as it LEAVES their property, preferably at NO cost to themselves. But the days of GLSM being their close handy cheap toilet are OVER...the economy of a HEALTHY GLSM benefits FAR more many people both economically and recreationally than allowing that super abundant live stock waste and crap to keep flowing unrestricted into the lake helps the farm owners. It is currently ILLEGAL to put crap on frozen fields, while it is perfectly LEGAL to actively seek out any offenders and REPORT them IMMEDIATELY before they even get their 2cnd load in the spreader ! IT`S FUN to see the Sherriff show up and immediately STOP them, hopefully writing them a BIG FINE for ILLEGALLY doing so ! YOU do not have to CARE about GLSM, and are free to curse the efforts to try to prevent an ecological and economic disaster, but pardon the majority of us for literally giving a crap about GLSM, OK ?


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## T04DF15H

Thanks LHT!


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## fishwhacker

Not taking sides but isnt low oxygen levels from the lake being covered in ice and from the lack of rain in the summer the cause of the fish kills in the spring and fall? I know algae takes some oxygen out of the water but thought lack of moving water was the big factor in the kills? Just wondering.


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## SPAZ

I would love to have breakfast with you guys Iam not going to type away being a keyboard warrior when the spring crappie bite is on or ice out we should get together had sit down enjoy a meal and have a civil conversation about this we could probaly come up with some ideas and have a better understanding from both sides of the "fence". Iam not a farmer but I have my theories as to way the lake is in the shape it is in. Be more than willing to share them and listen to everybody else. If you don't like that Idea my simple suggestion was to start a separate thread on why Grand lake is in the slumps that's all. Living right next door to it listening to the finger pointing the bickering the bitching gets old. The farmers are no more or less to blame than many other people or enitys. I wasn't looking to stir the pot sorry if. I offended anybody my mind runs faster than my fingers no doubt


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## Lowell H Turner

SPAZ, was wrong to respond quite the way I did, and no am NOT `solely` blaming the farmers. This situations has been coming for 150+ yrs. Deforestation, the switch to industrial live stock operations, the old farming practices of annual fall field plowing, putting that live stock waste on frozen fields (partially so it would wash down stream ), decades of over use of cheap phosphate fertilizers, the practice of farming former field wooded and grass buffer strips to gain a few more usable acres of yield, the development and urbanizing the area around the lake resulting in the loss of almost ALL of the former wetlands and marshes along with fertilizing the lawns, removal of aquatic weeds and plant life, the old septic systems where the `grey` water leached into the lake, the development and increasing use of high thrust propellers that churn the now shallow lake bottom...and lastly the refusal of various state and government agencies to begin dredging the lake decades ago have all put the lake in the shape it is now in. Luckily the very REAL threat of having the largest inland lake in Ohio literally become an enormous dead cess pool is now irrefutably recognized and the "Powers that Be " are NOT willing to let things 'stay the same" any more...forget the loss of 1 of Ohio`s former best fishing and recreational lakes, the plain threat of out breaks of various illnesses both around and down stream from the lake make FIXING it a critical priority. Part of that `solution` involves ensuring farmers DO NOT ILLEGALLY put live stock waste on frozen field where almost ALL of it eventually washes into the lake...as soon as the ground thaws and the majority of the waste will actually be asorbed and help fertilize their crops, it is LEGAL, FAR better for the lake and ALL the farmers by now KNOW that...btw, they also know the FINES for spreading waste on still frozen fields will be HEAVY...and there are people who will VIDEO TAPE them and REPORT them in the act...


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## TeamCGO

Anyone catching any crappie?

I will agree. The algae is a very important topic and it is something we all care about but let's keep on topic for this thread. 

Can we just start a GLSM Algae Report thread?


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## SPAZ

The on and off with the drain pipe has left all fish mostly with lock jaw from what I have heard I know locals can get on the eyes but nothing good being said at all about crappie or gills for that matter. Its the best I can tell you right now. Was at Indian lake today Alot of open water we are planning for the 29th for there this wind today will help with the ice removal


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## fishwhacker

Looking to do some whackin and stackin today....ice off is almost here.


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## Salmonid

Fishwhacker, looking for open water reports from any day this week as the first catfish tourney is up there this Sat, they will hold if lake is more then 50% open.l Let us know.. Thanks!

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid............didn't get to fish but was at my place for a couple hours Saturday evening. My channel was 3-4" of slush on top of 2.5-3" of clear ice. Some open water at backends of channels. First couple feet away from seawalls, if in an area of of good sun, could be broken through. I could clear ice at only one of the stake beds, one from the 2nd batch (shorter ones). Water was about 3' deep and very clear all the way down to the pallet. Kind of cool to see GLSM water that clear. Not happy that water level is at least 2 feet under normal for mid-March.

East Bank looked like it had grey ice cover for several 100 yards west. Then you could see a transition to something else. Don't know if the something else was open water or ice that wasn't grey. The channel for East Bank ramp is not open, has the same grey ice cover as most of lake.

Main lake might progress to that 50/50 minimum by Saturday, but will be close. One forecast I saw showed good sun most of week, 60 on Friday.


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## fishwhacker

Not much open water on the main lake except spots on southside. Should be open next weekend


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## zaraspook

Had to make an unexpected trip to the lake Sunday evening. The one spot I opened up by breaking ice and the other couple spots that were already open Saturday were all again iced over. Boo! Forecast has temps reaching 60 by Friday and low temps for the week are forecast to stay above freezing. It will be nip and tuck for main lake to be open by the Saturday Catmaster, but maybe.

I haven't read the article but Celina Daily Standard reported last Friday that 2 farms have been cited for pollution violations. I have no knowledge if the farms are in the watershed nor what the violations are. The article isn't available online but someone who gets the print version would have access and could clarify. May be totally unrelated to water and lake.


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## T04DF15H

Zaraspook, FYI, the 4 fish sent in for identification were all reported as saugeye. I think that is what everyone was expecting but it would have been nice to see a resident walleye population.


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## zaraspook

jmaury......thanks for followup info. Since walleye stocking ceased after 2006, any walleyes caught should be biguns. Amazing how those saugeye in 4 years are as big as a 6-7 year old walleye. Would be nice to see an annual stocking of Saugeye. GLSM might push Indian Lake as the capital of down state saugeye fisheries.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid..........take a look at the West Bank lake cam. Lots of open water in the camera view but you can see light ice out to the east, beyond the rip-rap piers. When we get winds from the west that ice will start clearing rapidly. Lake cam is http://webcam.wabash.com/westbank2.html .


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## SPAZ

Ice really never got mad there the floating dock water pumps the drain pipe to the spillway and the waterfowl have kept water flowing and warm


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Not taking sides but isnt low oxygen levels from the lake being covered in ice and from the lack of rain in the summer the cause of the fish kills in the spring and fall? I know algae takes some oxygen out of the water but thought lack of moving water was the big factor in the kills? Just wondering.


Gotta admit I find the algae and low dissolved oxygen levels somewhat confusing. A by-product of photosynthesis, like in plants and algae, is oxygen. Through photosynthesis algae *produces* oxygen into the water. Algae actually gets big time credit for changing the earth into an oxygen rich environment millions of years ago. So why the heck is it considered so nasty and linked to oxygen depletion? When it blooms, algae concentrations go ballistic with a short life cycle. It dies off in huge numbers. The dead remnants/organic matter of algae require oxygen to decompose. The process sucks up dissolved oxygen from the water. Reduced oxygen levels stress the fish..........we get lots of floaters as a result.

While living algae is a positive contributor, I think, to lake dissolved oxygen levels. When it dies off, it reduces levels. Of course, when cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) dies off, it also produces toxins, which is another story. Lots of other factors contribute to the whole lake ecosystem.


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## fishwhacker

Salmonid judging by the way the lake looked today it will be open for cat whackin this weekend....got a great ice out spot that I like to take a break from bluegills and catch a few kittys myself. Spring is great for the cats...I can even catch them and I rarely target them.


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## Salmonid

thanks for the report, Ill be up there this morning for work and will take a bit of a look and see, I hate fishing tourney without prefishing...LOL of course nobody will have been able to prefish so thats a plus, LOL

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....at GLSM just before dark last night. Eastern half of the lake is open for as far as you can see, except for 0-50 yards from banks where still some ice but diminishing. Western 1/2 of lake is the opposite......main lake remains mostly frozen but growing open water along shoreline. Real problem is finding a ramp open that has open water out to main lake. West Bank ramp still locked up. East Bank ramp locked up but good chance it could be open by Saturday. All channels still have significant ice. In my estimation 50% or more of main lake is open. By Saturday a ramp somewhere should be open with an open path to main lake.


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## bonifas9017

Any more ice reports hoping to fish Saturday for some crappie


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## Salmonid

as of noon today when I called the Outdoorsman, they are still in limbo and will make a decision tomorrow late afternoon about holding or postponing tourney. I just cant wait that long so Ive committed to fish the Rocky Fork tourney instead... Hopefully postponed till next week when there are no other local tourneys except one on the ohio River on Saturday. 

Salmonid


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## fishwhacker

Lake was pretty open this afternoon except for a few spots


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## T04DF15H

Did someone say crappie???
They're back!


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## Redfox09

Salmonid there is a crappie tourney at GLSM next weekend... Hoping the cold air moving in doesn't freeze up the water anymore


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## Lowell H Turner

jmaury, NICE fish, sir !


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## T04DF15H

LHT, todays catch was a little smaller,24 pounds and it took about 3 times as long to catch. Yesterday it was 26 pounds in 2 hours. Nicest crappies that I have ever caught. 
Largest was 1 pound 4.5 oz.


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## bonifas9017

jmaury said:


> LHT, todays catch was a little smaller,24 pounds and it took about 3 times as long to catch. Yesterday it was 26 pounds in 2 hours. Nicest crappies that I have ever caught.
> Largest was 1 pound 4.5 oz.



Where did you catch them at


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## bonifas9017

jmaury. Where did you catch them at


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## T04DF15H

bonifas9017 said:


> jmaury. Where did you catch them at


South side in open channels.


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## fishwhacker

Pretty awesome bite this weekend cant wait for the spawn bite. Jmaury I seemed to have about the same 1lb average. Only threw 1 back on sat but threw 8 back on sunday. Seems like the size decreased a little with the colder weather moving in.....did u get any gill or perch? I didnt get any but wife had a 2lb bass.


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## zaraspook

Didn't get to my place until about 5pm Friday. Unfortunately, my southside channel was still 90% ice. Only open areas were next to bank and not more than 4-5 out into channel. I knew it would thaw fast if I gave it some help so spent the next 2 hours breaking ice. By Saturday morning those areas where I broke ice were fishable out to 12 feet and it improved all day. Occasionally Saturday we had to fight floating ice cover the wind was pushing into our fishing area.

A high school buddy and I fished 6 hours total on Saturday, usually about 2 hours at a time then we'd eat and watch basketball before the next fishing session. Because of the ice cover our expectations were low.....boy did we have it wrong. We finished the day catching 168 crappies (105 for me and 63 for my buddy). 5 of mine were 12-12.5" and at least 10 more were 11", but not 12". My friend easily had a dozen that were 11" but none cracked the 12" mark. Before this I've never caught that many 12"+ fish in a single day from GLSM. Don't get me wrong we caught a higher percentage of 5-7" fish than I'm accustomed to at GLSM over the last couple years. That's ok and just shows we've had good spawns for several years and bodes well for the future.

Here's the weird thing......all the crappies were caught from one 75' stretch of a relatively narrow channel. We tried other areas but were skunked. That's a 168 crappies and one keeper sized blue-gill, moving only when floating ice from elsewhere encroached and prevented casting. If and when the bite slowed, I changed colors of plastic and it would again go crazy. 

We used 3 different colors of shad styled plastics, 1/32 oz jig heads under bobber, in general fishing 12-18" off the bottom in water 3-4' deep. It was a blast. By the way water clarity was 16-20". 

We stuck around to try again Sunday morning but the area was re-frozen between new ice and old ice that moved into the area. Rest of the channel was pretty much wide open, but ZERO bites so we left for home. That's OK, Saturday was spectacular.


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## TeamCGO

Is Windy Point ramp open?


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## zaraspook

TeamCGO said:


> Is Windy Point ramp open?


Sorry........didn't make it over to Windy Point area. Someone will know and respond.


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## TeamCGO

Made it over today.
Windy point ramp and channels are still froze up. 
Some crappie are moving into the channels. Lots of shad skimming the top. Decent bite this evening in channels on south side. 




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## zaraspook

_Dredge, baby,dredge!_ A perpetual problem is what do you do with 300,000 cubic yards of sediment that is dredged annually at GLSM. Officials of the Lake Restoration Commission are looking for help and better coordination with the EPA and Army Corp of Engineers. Some regulations are counter-productive such as one which impacts the creation of more islands in GLSM. If you create a 1-acre island, regulations require 3-acres of land be mitigated into wetlands. When it's already a struggle to find land to store dredged sediment nearby, adding a condition to find an additional 3-acres of land for wetlands is nearly impossible. The Celina Daily Standard's article is at the link below, which also discusses other issues. 
http://www.dailystandard.com/archive/2014-03-17/stories/23474/officials-seek-land-for-lake-sediment


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## Lowell H Turner

Read where another state was dredging a lake; they dug a hole down to solid subsoil and used commandeered sidewalk slabs placed smooth to smooth surface, rough to rough in stacks inclined slightly inward and placed riprap on the outside and filled them with dredged materials several were deliberately left low as marshy/ wetland islands and became fantastic fishing spots...others were higher and were eventually planted with native trees...think it was in Penn. The public response was overwhelmingly positive...


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## zaraspook

LHT.......sounds like effective and relatively low cost construction. Interpretation of regulation here is still requires wetlands creation of multiple times the acreage of island. Land isn't available so local officials want relief from the regulation.


----------



## Lowell H Turner

Can understand that, on the other hand the lake DESPERATELY needs those wetlands, particularly where the tributaries come into the lake...there has to be an effective economic answer...


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## zaraspook

Catfish tournament last Saturday at GLSM took 43.2# to win. About 70 anglers in the first of the Catmaster series for 2014. Next one is April 19th.


----------



## Salmonid

Zara, yeah we went to Rocky Fork and fished there instead, did , Ok... 
I know they had the lowest team count in over 10 years, with 35 teams, and I heard the bite was extremely tough for all but a couple teams, same results we had at Rocky Fork. 

On my way out the door to fish GLSM Northside channels for crappies now, will post results later. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......While the kitty tournament was going on last Saturday, I was crappie fishing. Bite was fantastic and don't know how it could have been any better. Too bad I haven't been able to get back up there since. If you're crappie fishing at GLSM, don't leave home without a net. Lots a biguns this year and you'll regret it if you don't have the net.


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## Hillbilly910

Zara, theres a crappie tournament up there this weekend, new circuit, same guy used to run the buckeye crappie challenge. Anyhow, its open to shore anglers, dont know all the details, i think you can find a link at the old buckeyecrappiechallenge.com site.

no mega-nasty shad kill?


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## fishwhacker

No mega shad kills crappie tournament should suck to be in.....places 1 through 20 will be decided by less than a lb.


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## Salmonid

short report, yes, forgot net and it cost us 4-5 big fish, ( funny you said that as it was on my list to bring but forgot it...) we kept 15 between 9.5 and 11.5" all super fattys, plus the 5 we lost at the bank and threw back only 5 that were close to 9" but they seemed tiny compared to al the others, LOL Sparkle Pink and then Red then sparkle chartreuse seemed to work the best or me and Scott. 
So for Zaras account out of 25 fish taken, only 5 were sublegal, that's a 80% keeper rate!! Impressive, a few others caught fish near us and everyone was talking about all the other access places all having at least some fish there. Had a great time once we figured out where they were holding...

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

You did well then ! And with the lack of significant fishing pressure for several years the fishing has rebounded with a vengeance !


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## zaraspook

Hillbilly 910.....thanks for advising of tourney this weekend. I'm under house arrest. Have company in town until Sunday. Sheriff of my house (wife) locked up my rods and hid my car keys. No fishing for me until visitors vacate Sunday.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......glad to hear you busted them. If you locate them you can fill a creel fast with chunks. Got your vm...good luck on the river.


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## zaraspook

Squeezed in about 2.5 hours crappie fishing from 9:30-noon. Caught 11 in 1st 2 hours then it died. Biggest was 12.5". Big letdown after 105 a weekend ago.


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## fishwhacker

It was slow everywhere.....cold fronts this time of year can be killers. Heard water temp was 39. Long way from the desired 55 degrees for the spawn. Couple days of warm weather should turn the prespawners back on again.


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## zaraspook

For almost 20 years the Ohio DNR opposed stocking saugeye in GLSM, with the rationale that GLSM is in the Lake Erie watershed. Saugeye could enter Lake Erie from GLSM and though seemingly sterile, mess up the Lake Erie walleye gene pool. In 2009 and 2010 the ODNR reversed it's long standing policy to stock saugeye in GLSM. The results have been fantastic - the limited saugeye stocking in those 2 years produced a saugeye frenzy the last 2 years. 

But, no more stocking of saugeye since 2010 as the ODNR reverted to the previous position of saugeye messing with the Lake Erie gene pool. When it comes to the Asian carp the US Army Corp, officially states they aren't worried about Asian Carp invading Lake Erie via the watershed of which GLSM is part. So what's the deal? If Asian carp won't make it to Lake Erie via GLSM, then why is a sterile, or nearly sterile saugeye breed like saugeye such a threat for Lake Erie walleye? Am I missing something? Maybe if Asian carp were sterile they'd be a greater threat? Duh.

Link below to Cleveland Plain Dealer article about Asian carp and Ohio threats and plans by the Army corp. http://www.cleveland.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2014/02/post_18.html


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## Lowell H Turner

For the same reason you cannot use a poorly regulated 1980`s technology "brick" mobile phone in an 1980`s technology airliner; it MIGHT interfere with it`s 1970`s electronics ! btw, if you find yourself on a 1980`s era jet airliner, you should be fine using your 2000`s technology cell phone...


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## zaraspook

Thanks LHT......I'll sleep better tonight since you cleared that up for me.


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## Salmonid

Zara, me and Scott fished for almost 4 hrs today at a popular access poin looking for crappies, key here ithe word Looking.... didn't find much, in 4 hrs we had 5 bites, landing 2 keepers and 2 short, lost another halfway in, the two keepers and lost fish on minnows under a float 2 short on red and white tubes. saw at least 35 ish people come and go, all coming from or leaving for other acces spots but I can tell you the bite was the same at Harmons, Bass landing, Coldwater, Montezuma, Andersons and several other access's I never heard of, GW confirmed no one on entire lake catching any.. 
waiting for fish to show back up, a buddy told me the Saturday tourney with 10 fish limit only took 9 lbs to win. Apparently al the boats went to where all the fish were the day before and with cold weather the fish were gone...

We will be waiting until Spring gets here in a few more weeks before we come back up to poach Zaras place, LOL

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Poachers are welcome. Anyone notice water clarity is about 1/2 of what it was 2 weeks ago and water color of clover is rising quickly at GLSM?


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## zaraspook

Arrived at GLSM at 5:30 Tuesday evening and fished 'til 8pm from shore. By 7pm I'd caught a small bass, a gill, and zero crappies. I'd tried a number of different baits, colors, out, in close, a variety of structure, but nothing that resembled a crappie bite. I'll admit the gills were pecking at the bait just about everywhere and had I been inclined to downsize my jig, might have caught 40-50 gills.

Decided to return to my seawall, try for another 15 minutes then head home though I hate taking a crappie skunk. Among the next couple dozen gill bites, I was shocked when I actually pulled in my the first crappie of the day. Two minutes later it was crappie #2. In 40 minutes I'd caught 7 crappies plus added 5 gills. In the next 20 minutes the crappie bite slowed considerably, gills were still crazy. I gave in to darkness. The biggest crappie was 12"+ and three were 11"+. 7 crappies, 6 gills, a 9" bass....Slow start. Good ending.

My assessment is the crappie bite remains spotty, but you can run into a mess of them. Bluegill bite is crazy and will provide entertainment.


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## Lowell H Turner

All`s well that ends well...patience pays off !


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## zaraspook

LHT......you never know when lightning will strike and the switch goes to "on".


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## fishwhacker

Found the same thing sunday when I was out gave up on crappies and moved to gills caught 3 crappies in the next 20 min...must be done gorging and are being a little more timid


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## Lowell H Turner

Agreed....


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## triton_owner

We fished Sundays tournament and finished 3rd with out 10 fish going 9.65. 2nd was 9.79 and 1st was 10.16. We caught well over 100 keepers in the 5.5 hrs we fished. 


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## zaraspook

triton_owner.......thanks for your report and congrats for the finish (1/2 pound out of first place). Clearly if you know what you're doing, you can slay them when everyone else is fighting the skunk. For a late March tournament in this area, how would you rate the results you experienced Sunday? Was it a really good day, pretty average, poor, or whatever description you'd like to provide? I'm looking for a fair comparison of GLSM as a crappie fishery. Thanks.


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## fishwhacker

20 an hr is a great pace I havent caught any fish at 1 per 3 min....thats awesome.


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## Lowell H Turner

imagine it`s not very often you actually get TIRED of catching fish...


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## harrison08

What do you think the water will look like this weekend? (in particular Sunday)


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## Salmonid

Harrison, I can let you know later tomorrow since me and Partner Ryan will be catfishing all day prefishing for next tourney up there on the 19th. We will probably put in at West End Ramp or maybe Montezuma and probably stay on the West half of the lake. Will be in my big white sea nymph if anyone else is out and about, say HI!

Salmonid


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## harrison08

Thank you. I would be driving 1 1/2 hrs to come up. I would hate to make the trip to unfishable water.....getting skunked is one thing, not be able to fish is another!


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## zaraspook

harrison08........lot of rain up there. My niece sent me a photo of my pontoon. Water all around the pontoon looked pretty clear. However, my pontoon isn't in the water yet. It's sitting on blocks on my lake property about 75 feet from the channel in my driveway. If it wasn't for my house sitting a few feet from the pontoon, I would of thought it was on the water. Lot of standing water on land. Here's a link to the lake webcam on the West Bank. You can take a look for yourself at how it looks. 

Any channel that is fed by a creek will probably be chocolate milk. If you target a channel that isn't creek-fed, water should be less muddy. If you view the camera feed when sun is out you can tell more. http://webcam.wabash.com/westbank2.html


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......actually he said over 100 "keepers" in 5.5 hours. Assuming every fish wasn't a keeper, overall catch rate must have exceeded 20/hour. However, don't forget triton_owner had a partner, so his numbers were for a pair of anglers. Still awesome any way you slice it.


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## harrison08

Thanks Zaraspook. I appreciate the advice. I have a few ideas of channels not creek fed. any suggestions? What about the spillway? How does it looks. 

Thanks,

Harrison


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## fishwhacker

I have heard any new channels on the southside of the lake with any kind of structure has been holding a ton of fish this week but that was before the down pour.


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## zaraspook

Went up today to pay my dock fee and to fish a bit if water wasn't choco milk. My channel was choco milk but might as well try since I'm already there, right? Low expectations but dang,3 fish in 10 minutes including a pair at 11"! After an hour have 9 and only 1 is below 9" but bite here is losing stream. Change locations to another channel nearby where water clarity is still stained but easily 50% better. 90 minutes later this channel produces 12 fish, 5 that measure 11" and first one to crack the 12" mark. Despite muddy water in 2.5 hours I've caught 21 crappies, feeling good and break for lunch. 

Should be leaving but decide to stay another half hour and go for 25. First one after lunch is a white at 13" and first Fish Ohio for year.....Woohoo! Catch 7 more to end at 29 caught, 22 keepers, 10 fish between 11-13". Almost forgot caught another small bass. All fish were taken in 3-4 fow on or near submerged structure. Great fun and 76% keeper rate. Don't worry about muddy water........go fishing.


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## harrison08

Thanks for the report and nice going on the crappie! I will be heading up in the morning (was going to even if the report wasnt good). But now, I will be excited to make the move!


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## zaraspook

All mine today were on brush or even a single limb , stuff I know is there and may not be viewable from surface. Any underwater snags you get fish the area hard around it. Hope you get into some but keep moving until you find a bite. Water is up a foot from the rain.


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## baerdon

thinking about making the trip up there tomm morning. I don't have a boat. are they biting on the spillway. anyone else wanna make the trip? Looking for some help finding a good spot.


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## Salmonid

Good report Rande!! we got on the water at Montezuma today around noon, water choco milk all over the west end of the lake, castnetted about an 11" crappie on the 2nd throw, first throw had 20 shad in it so we were set!! Talked to a guy who was fishing at far end of Montezuma parking lot said he had a half dozen keepers from the area in the last hr or so and was packing up to leave so yeah, they are there. 

Water was 43 in the morning on the lake but slowly warmed up to 47, shallows we found some 49 degree water as we were leaving around 7:000 pm.

Catfishing report was decent, first time up there this year with partner Ryan, skunked on first 2 area we fished, third gave us each a matching 3-4 lbers, decent fish, moved again and found a better batch, we got a 6.5 lber, a 6 lber and a pair of 5 lbers here, no dinks, try a nearby place about 75 yards away and I get the best fish of the day,a tubby 7.5 lber and Ryan gets a 4 lber, move again and pick up 4 more medium fish from 3-4 lb range with another at 5.5 lbs, move again and nothing and then move to one last spot and picked up 3 dinks all under 2 lbs. so not a bad day considering we were trying some new spots and some tweaks to our rigs and techniques. Always good to find new places and ways to catch some decent fish, nothing great and not enough to place but a decent start of the year, next tourney is on the 19th, we will be back up this weekend to prefish again, saw at least 4 other catfish boats out today but no one else out??? Not sure why, other then it was windy early, 3 ft rollers, that was fun... but it slowly settled down all day and by 5-6 pm was very nice out!

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Mark.....you guys did well. Lotta big shad in one of our channels today. First shad activity I've noticed. Really catching impressive specks. Almost no bite today from gills.


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## zaraspook

Went backup to GLSM Sunday morning for a couple hours of fishing and chores. Didn't do as well, either in numbers or size. Couldn't catch more than 2-3 crappie from any single spot and ones I found, though still around wood, were out a few more feet than Saturday. Finished catching 17, 11 keepers, 3 at 11"+. Rarely any bluegills pecking at my bait. No improvement in my judgment in the muddy water clarity. Two of my neighbors fished for crappie, too, but both were skunked while I was there.


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## harrison08

It was a very slow Sunday for us as well. We tried everywhere and used everything. We could only manage a few crappies. The ones that were caught were very healthy specimens. It was a classic case of "you shoulda been here last night for us". 
It was still a great day to be out!

Harrison


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## zaraspook

Dredge, baby, dredge! A new dredge will arrive in June, stump removal program renewed after a 3-year hiatus, and the rock pile in center of lake that we call the oil derrick will soon look like an oil derrick. I'm fine with the dredge, oil derrick thing is OK, but no way I'm going to tell them where any stumps are. For the most part the bottom of the lake is smooth as a baby's butt. Almost no structure and they want to remove the few stumps that remain? All the items above are discussed in the Celina Daily Standard article at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/2014-04-07/stories/23634/new-dredge-coming-soon .


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## AEFISHING

yeah, why remove the stumps unless they are on the main lake where they ski? It sounds like they are on the right track to keep the lake improving. Good to hear. Thanks for the updates.


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## Lowell H Turner

zaraspook, probably so as to not clog the dredge. With the `good` comes the `bad`. HOWEVER there are ways to `amend` things, even if it must be done in the `wee hours` of the night...(HINT ! HINT!). But try the `polite` route 1st...


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## zaraspook

LHT.......Have a feeling there's been a spike in complaints about lower units being wrecked. Sure.......stumps can play a role in that but that isn't the root cause. Bigger issue the last several years were drought conditions (no rain) and some poorly timed drawdowns. Drawdowns were never done until last couple years. The lake's average depth is 4'. Drawdowns typically last weeks and lower the water level 16-18", that's 38% and yields an average depth of 2.5 feet. If you run your boat all day in water averaging 2.5 feet deep, stuff is gonna happen. How about drawing water down in smaller increments than a foot and a half at a whack? How about 4-6" at a time like most drawdowns across the state? Wait a few weeks and depending on precipitation or the lack of it, decide whether another iteration makes sense. Duh! And I should mention the fish go thru a couple weeks of panic, no bite, with every drawdown. Am I nuts or what?


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## Lowell H Turner

zaraspook, NO, as far as I can tell you seem perfectly rational to me (keeping in mind this is from a guy who helps throw dozens of used Christmas trees in a lake every year...); just between me and you, Bigfoot, Nessie and the tooth fairy, I AGREE with you entirely...but what do I know ? If the only `good` news is that this new dredge promises to SERIOUSLY start moving sediment, restoring some depth and getting RID of at least some of the built up phosphates, another page is turned...


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## Salmonid

Id love to see them remove the stumps and yeah there are still a fair amount of them out in the main lake, but instead of heaving them up on dry ground, Id rather see them move them to isolated bays and just dump them in the water, even if its only 18" deep, the fish and other wildlife will all use it as a viable habitat. Heck Id be good if they even posted those bays as Stump fields on maps. 

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Salmonid, actually that is a GOOD idea !


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## TeamCGO

Any crappie reports this week?


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## zaraspook

I'm ok with dumping the stumps at my place.


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## zaraspook

TeamCGO........I fished a GLSM south side channel from 5-7pm Weds. Water level up 4-5" from prior weekend. Still muddy to very stained where I was. Crappie bite was s l o w. Only caught 6 of which 2 were 11"+. I have a temp probe that I'm skeptical of it's accuracy. Just before dark probe showed 50.2. I expected something like 47-48 degrees.


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## zaraspook

Another example of the great character of fishermen.......this one heroic! I don't know Jay Bergman who was fishing Doss Landing at the time and decided to jump into 46 degree water to save an 82-year old man. Actions speak louder than words and on Monday this week Jay Bergman proved his character. He can play on my team any time! Maybe Jay is an OGF member or is known by other OGF guys? Regardless, my salute to Jay and his unselfish act! Article from the Celina Daily Standard is here http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...ls-elderly-man-from-cold-waters-of-grand-lake .


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## AEFISHING

Great job Jay! I am sure the good Lord was with both of you. Love to hear good stories. Thanks for sharing.


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## Lowell H Turner

That was an extremely brave thing to do. Many persons even in `good` shape end up having heart attacks going into cold water. Heck, it comes out of your shower at 56...


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## Jrock1085

I have about talked the wife in lettimg brave the 2 hr trip for Saterday. Where is a good area to get my canoe in the water and catch crappie, and a bait shop thanks


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## fishwhacker

All bait shops I know of are in st marys and one by shockers bar and grill...I would put in on the south side of the lake and fish private channels with a lot of houses.... club island, maple grove, might get some looks for fishing private areas if that bothers you I would go back to bass landing and access the areas boats and bank fisherman find it tough to get to...islands arent bad too just pick the right side according to the wind. The bite is awesome if you can find them....seen hundreds pulled from small areas.


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## Salmonid

Im headed back up here in an hr or so, looking for more of those whiskered kitties.. will post lake condition report later

Salmonid


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## Salmonid

Ok, lake report, got in around 11:20 was on the West end of the lake and Coldwater Creek, Montezuma creek and Chickasaw mouths and channels were choco milk but main lake had decent visability 12" maybe. when we got in water was 52-53 and warmed up through the day, main lake around 57-58 by 6:30 PM and we found several places around 62-63 degrees. but the most important thing to know from today is that the lake had white caps and 4 ft rollers that just beat the crap out of us..LOL We had a pair of 25 lb anchors out at one point and the wind has us going over 1.0 MPH crazy.. saw a ton of bass boats out today all hiding along South shore since wind from the SSW we found a dozen channel cats and two HUGE bullheads but nothing over 4 lbs, still cant find any bigger cats, may just skip tourney this weekend...
Coolest part of the day was I saw what I thought was a big seagull come down and grab a shad but then realized it was a Osprey , did this about 75 ft from us, pretty cool!! also found at least two more Heron Rookeries that makes 4 I know of on the lake but Im sure there are more which makes sense why there are thousands of these big bird at GLSM LOL

Asked several crappie guys in the chock colored channels if they were doing any good and they all said, "Not a Bite" so perhaps the hard south winds and water color shut down the bite...

Oh yeah water depth up another couple of inches over last week. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Great report, Mark. I'm amazed with those water temps. My temp probe had 50 degrees last Weds and I doubted it. I got to GLSM at 10:30. Two crappie boats in my channel and one crappie boat in the branch behind my place. Boats were in and out most of the day. Most caught just a few except one boat that sat on one of my spots for over an hour and were catching pretty steady. Water clarity was 6"......much improved from choco last week. I fished off and on all day between chores, probably 3.5 hours. Caught 18 with 10 keepers. Bigger ones came later in the day. Gills were more active than crappies. My seawall was very quiet but with these water temps things could take off soon.


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## Lowell H Turner

Being as shallow as it is (for now) the lake heats up pretty fast...


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## fishwhacker

I agree the wind slowed them down. Friday evening it felt like I could have thrown a boat anchor and caught fish saturday was way slower. If you get a pocket of fish it was quick then quickly slowed lots of moving.


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## bonifas9017

Did any one hear how the crappie tournament did today.


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## ggdog11

Most teams had around 10 pounds for 10 fish


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## bonifas9017

I just couldn't get them to bite today


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Sunday morning for 2 hours from shore. Bite wasn't crazy good but still better than Saturday. Caught 13 in an hour and a half, took a coffee break, then back at it for half hour and 4 more crappies. 11 keepers Sunday, biggest just made it to 12" but several others were 11"+. It took 1/2 as long Sunday to catch about the same number of fish as Saturday (3.5 hours to catch 18 with 10 keepers). 

This cold front should slow down the rise in water temp. If you fish GLSM, don't forget your net. Crappies are really good size. 11-11.5" fish are pretty typical.


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## fishwhacker

I actually had my first one netted this year on saturday. Before then they didnt put up much of a fight even weighing a bunch. The ones this weekend actually made the drag go. Cranks and roadrunners might be worth a shot soon.


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## zaraspook

Fishwhacker........had a big smile on my face this weekend from the hefty fight the crappie were giving. Couple times thought I had a bass on. Cranks are a great idea. I might have to put my boat in, too.. All my fish so far are from bank fishing.

Like you I've only netted one, it was a Fish Ohio at 13"+, but usually take my net now.


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## zaraspook

I was fishing but not doing much catching Weds evening. Bite was sparse. Caught one crappie right away and lost another 2 minutes later. Despite hitting lots of spots could only manage 3 more, all short, the rest of the 2 hours. First fish was the only one of keeper size. I expected the cold snap would mess things up for a while but you never know until you try........


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## Salmonid

fished catmaster tourney today with an old Friend neil and he knows the lake pretty well so I let him lead today in my boat. caught a lot of nice fish today and ended up with our best 6 channels at 41.25 lbs, a decent bag but not good enough, 44 teams ( low turnout) and we took 7th, 54 to win, 48, 46, 44 , 
Curtis 937 and his partner Sandy beat us by 2/10 of a lbs, ( great finish for them as newcomers on the lake) water was anywhere from 53 this morning to over 60 at 6pm, water clarity is really good all over the lake, a few guys were getting some crappies around the docks, overall a great day to catch fish, my face is sunburned really bad so ill be paying for the nice day all week I think...LOL

Salmonid.


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## Lowell H Turner

Nice effort, Salmonid...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......kinda tough to beat a 50# bag isn't it? 41# result for you and your partner is impressive in my book!

I didn't get much fishing time this weekend........limited by family in town. No fishing on Sunday, 2 hours on Saturday, but about 4 hours to fish Friday. Unfortunately, the bite was elusive Friday and managed only 4 crappies, a small bass, and a sheephead. Saturday bite was way better and caught 13 with 8 keepers in my 2 hours of fishing. Also caught another small bass. Locating fish is still touch and go. I fished a lot of areas but caught all but 2 of my crappies from a single spot.

Like Salmonid reported, water clarity has been pretty darn good. Water temp was 57 Saturday as reported by a steady stream of crappie boats working my channel Saturday. With current water temps and water levels seemingly stable the bite could go crazy at any time.


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## zaraspook

New threat to GLSM waters and waterfowl? Cormorant population is on the rise......State may start shooting a few. Article from the Celina Daily Standard says cormorants can be a threat to other species of birds including the great egrets and snowy egrets, plus black-crowned night herons that are rare and considered a threatened species in Ohio. In addition the article says cormorants are prolific poopers.......droppings are extremely potent with ammonia. There goes the water quality! 

Article is here http://dailystandard.com/archive/2014-04-22/stories/23747/cormorants-increasing-at-grand-lake .


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## Lowell H Turner

If it ain`t 1 thing...


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## zaraspook

LHT......wonder how roasted cormorant tastes?


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## rutty

zaraspook said:


> LHT......wonder how roasted cormorant tastes?


not good at all!


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## Lowell H Turner

zaraspook, I read that post and blew coffee all over the computer keyboard...I recover and come back and read rutty`s gem and damn near do it again ! Will have to try roasted cormorant. (wonder how they are fried ? )


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## Hillbilly910

all Gods critters are good if you slather them with bacon.
for a cormorant, you might need alot of bacon

"water turkey" is a rather elegant name for a shad-crapping machine


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## zaraspook

OK.......so if roast cormorant isn't viable, I'll switch to plan B. Plan B is to offer the critters to our local Chinese restaurant. I can see it on the menu now "Peking Duck a la GLSM". Maybe Stir Fried Water Turkey?


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## zaraspook

The trio of Salmonid, friend Scott, and I tried our luck Wednesday afternoon for some GLSM crappie. Bank fishing from about 3 'til 7:30 pm, we didn't exactly light 'em up. Started slow and remained that way for the first 3 hours. Scott(a.k.a "Pinky") led the early action, catching at least a few which seemed to keep Salmonid and I motivated. Gills were pecking at our plastics all day to keep our attention, too. We moved early and often, picking up a crappie here and another there, but it was a grind other than one spot where Scott and Salmonid picked up 3 toads in about 15 minutes. By 6pm we'd pretty well run the circuit of my spots with only 6-7 keepers in the bucket. We committed to one more run of the circuit, hoping a lower sun in the horizon would kick things up a notch. It did.

In the last hour and a half we added at least 10 more keepers. When we packed it in we had 18 keeper crappies. The toad of the day was a Fish Ohio 13" crappie for "Pinky". We kept a single gill, about 8". Most awesome statistic....we managed the 18 keepers while catching only 23 total crappies. That's an amazing 78% keepers, all thick and chunky!

Great day!


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, your culinary imaginations are worrying me...your obvious fishing skills impress me and your company is in good taste !


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## zaraspook

LHT........no need for concern. Normally I can control my flashbacks to my days of survivalist training. This flashback was relatively tame. Did I ever tell you about the time......never mind. I wouldn't want you to lose your breakfast on your keyboard!


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, not to "top" yours, but when was in the Navy, actually volunteered to go thru a course called JEST (Jungle Evasion and Survival Training ) in the Phillipine Islands. You helicopter in with 4 MREs, a knife, mosquito netting, 2 canteens, a poncho, 60 water purification tablets and the clothes on your back for a wonderful 10 day stay in a triple canopy tropical jungle setting while doing a forced 75 mile romp and then a 3 day -5 star stay in a replica POW camp...if you ever get the chance DO NOT do it ! BAD, WORSE, and then it REALLY S U C K E D !!! On a scale of 0- 10 it registered at an overall -31...


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## zaraspook

LHT.......can't imagine rating anything lower than -31. If ever offered opportunity to experience JEST, I'll know to run the other direction.


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## zaraspook

2 hours Saturday morning caught 15 crappies with 9 keepers. None over 11". Picking up some large males, very dark ones with war paint, in very shallow water. Lower fins are very beat up, clearly prepping beds for the ladies.


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## Lowell H Turner

It`s coming ! Can`t wait ! Are the dredges operating yet ?


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## zaraspook

LHT........don't know if dredges are on line yet.


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## Lowell H Turner

Hopefully soon !


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## zaraspook

Managed to fish about 3 hours Sunday before noon from the bank at GLSM. Bite was absent for the first hour with just 2 dink crappie. I moved frequently but results were the same. Next hour was different at a new spot where last Weds Salmonid, Scott, and I had some luck. First cast and bingo! Watched a bass streak from the bank and slam my crappie grub 3 feet away. Nice battle ensued to keep the bass out of a nearby stump. On my crappie rig it felt like a 5 pounder. On shore it measured 15.5", hardly 5 pounds but at least 2+ some change. When the action slowed at the spot and I took a breakfast break, I'd caught 9 more crappies with 7 of them just under or over 11". After putting breakfast in my belly I went at it again for another hour or so, catching 8 more at various locations. Final tally was 19 caught and 13 keepers. Some of the big males were almost solid black with war paint. The best spot of the day was in the backend of a channel, very shallow, the only natural bank (no seawalls) in the area, with decent but not heavy wood/brush. I had on another bass after the first one, but it came unzipped on my little crappie jig. 

Lots of crappie and bass boats in my area over the weekend. Not a lot of fish taken that I witnessed. Crappie pattern has been consistent....decent bite in the morning and evening with very little action in between once the sun gets high. Water clarity remains pretty good but I'm sure it will take a hit with the rain forecast all this week. One of the bass boats told me water temp was 60.7 at about 3pm Saturday. It's great fun with so many of the crappies running around 11".


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## zaraspook

Positive news for the GLSM State Park in the way of facilities upgrades and a strong return of campers. After 59% occupancy during the 2013 Memorial Day holiday, all 176 electric camp sites are booked for this year! And to keep those campers squeaky clean and in good temperament, upgrades are coming to bathrooms and shower houses........part of $88.5 million the State has committed to upgrade all Ohio State Parks. For the more adventurous visitors, a "splash pad" is announced. Most improvements are due for completion by mid-summer. Your State legislators claim the $88.5 million coming to a State park near you, is the result of the end to deficit spending in Columbus and the return to a surplus in Ohio's financial status.

More details on this link to the Celina Daily Standard article http://dailystandard.com/archive/2014-04-24/stories/23768/grand-lake-state-park-to-get-splash-pad


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## Lowell H Turner

Congratulations, Zaraspook ! Good news all around ! NOW, if those dredges would just get `fired up ` (literally !)...


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## zaraspook

LHT........about 150 yards from my lake place is a sludge holding pit. The pit is the size of at least 2-3 football fields with 10-12" temporary earthen walls constructed around the perimeter. A section of pipe/tubing runs from the pit into part of my channel. When they start dredging that pipe will be joined by more pipe that runs out the channel to the lake, then turns east 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile to hook up to a dredge at a dredge site. As of this time the piping out the channel and to the dredge site is not in place. I should know when this dredge site goes live. It's amazing that the sludge gets pumped as far as it does.

I'm told the same location was previously used for holding sludge before I arrived in 2008. Eventually the location was put back into use for farming for a couple years...crops on the site looked fantastic but would glow at night. I'm kidding about the night time glowing...


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## Lowell H Turner

At least the fish are safe to eat !


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## Recneck

For those fishing grubs for crappie ehat is the presentations? Under a cork? How do you fish that?


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## Salmonid

swim it, jiggle it, under a cork, twitch it, a little of everything is all in play every time we go out ,it seems if you can find them, they will hit it about any way you present it and then sometimes one color may be better then another, just depends as everyday is different.
typically fishing the jigs about 15-30" deep depending on how deep the water is where your at. Crappies will move up for a bait but will not move down so always tinge on the too shallow vs too deep

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Weds evening fished 5-8pm from the shore for crappie. In the first hour and a half managed only 5, bites were few despite trying 1/2 dozen of my best spots. Took a 30 minute break to help a neighbor load a fridge, stove, washer, and dryer into his truck. With the heavy lifting over with I went back to the entertainment......fishing. Hit all the same spots as before but action was totally different, like I'd been transported to another lake though fishing same spots, same bait, same presentation. In less than an hour caught 10 including 2 between 12-12.5". A consistent pattern for several weeks is decent morning bite, dead from about 11am to 5-6pm, then a closing rush for the last hour of daylight. 10 of the crappies were keepers.

Water level was up 2-3", maybe even 4" since last weekend. Main lake appeared stained. Channels that are creek fed looked like choco milk. My channel (no creek) looked great......just a slight brown tinge to it and clarity still good.


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## Lowell H Turner

Fickle little beasts, eh ? Whom truely knows the mind of a fish ?


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## zaraspook

Recneck........grubs are great crappie baits. How I fish them is largely dependent on the grub tail. Some grubs are twister tails, some are stinger tails, split tails, and many other versions out there. More often than not I like the twister tail versions. Their greatest attribute is that tail fluttering thru the water as it moves along.......if it's not moving you are not taking advantage of it's primary attribute. The movement can be vertical or horizontal, faster or slower, and changing directions. I don't suggest that stopping won't trigger bites, or a dead stop/pause won't do the same, but in my opinion it's a bait that cries out to swim it.

At GLSM probably 98% of the crappie fishing is in shallow water.......lake averages only about 4', therefore we're usually fishing with the bait at a depth of 2' or less. I use a fixed float, usually pegged between 20-30". I don't use the float as a strike indicator, but instead as a depth indicator. When I swim the grub my float never touches the water and I'm keeping a tight line to the jighead/grub. As I swim it along the bait may be at 10" depth some of the time, then 18", then 12". And, I use a long rod (9' or more) to allow me to reach farther out to swim the bait. You can feel every tick of a limb or brush below as well as every bump or bite long before a floating cork might indicate a bite. Fishing the grub tight line will increase hook ups substantially, although decent sized crappies don't mess around much with the bait. They just grab it and go.

Swimming the bait with a long rod is more like trolling/dragging it along with no more line out than the length of the rod, while the bobber does not touch or rest on the water. A steady motion isn't required.....variation of speed and depth is a positive. Drag the bait around limbs, change directions, raise the bait up and down into pockets of cover. To fish out farther than you can reach, cast out and use the bobber as a strike indicator. Drag the jig and pause reeling in slack, drag and pause, but when it's within 8-10' of you lift the bobber off the water and go back to swimming the grub.

If the fish are holding tight to cover, not moving much, and you need to fish much slower, grubs with a twister tail may not be as productive. Under those circumstances other grubs, tubes, plastics may be a better choice. Others fish twister tails differently than my method, but I can cover more ground, locate fish faster, and maximize that great tail action of twister tails by swimming them.


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## zaraspook

Sunday made it to GLSM by 9 for some morning fishing, then another 1-2 hours in the afternoon. Totaled 21 for the day with 17 keepers(>10"). Caught most of the 21 and biggest ones with grubs off my seawall from wood and stake beds submerged there. I caught more females than males, biggest a 12" male. All fish were returned to the water to hopefully complete the spawn.

Sunday was day 2 of a regional bass tournament....there were 3-5 bass boats in my channel all day. Don't know how the tournament ended, but first day leaders had 12 pounds. One boat pulled 2 bass from my crappie cover as we were talking.......both bass were kept (>12") but weren't big ones.


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## Lowell H Turner

The cover you and Co. placed is doing well !


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## zaraspook

LHT......yes, the cover and stake beds have been productive additions. For some odd reason I feel the new cover should be effective every time out. Crappies don't subscribe to my logic. They torment me......play hide and seek from one day to next. It may take me a while but I usually find them.


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## zaraspook

For those into the dredging game (LHT, aka "Dredge baby, dredge"?).....One dredge is fired up and that would be Brutus with 3400 cubic yards in 2 weeks. He's sucking sediment around the boat club on the NE side of lake. Dredges 2 & 3, Eagle and Pump-A-Little, get into the game this week. The new dredge, Hoedag, is still being built and expected to come on line in June. The State expects to surpass last year's record of 302,000 cubic yards! Locations of dredge deployment and bunches of other dredge info can be found at this link/article provided by the Celina Daily Standard http://dailystandard.com/archive/2014-05-05/stories/23867/state-sets-ambitious-dredging-schedule .

The stump removal crew pulled 30 stumps from the depths (from the "shallows" might be a better description) including one 72' long? I assume that stump was an entire tree and would have been a lovely addition along my sea wall. Dang! The same news story includes the stump report.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, more good new, sir ! As capable as the dredge is wonder if 500,000 yds is out of reason this season...


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## zaraspook

LHT......1/2 million cubic yards would be 67% increase. Last year they managed +4% and pumped 100,000 cubic yards per dredge. 4th dredge doesn't come on line until sometime in June. 500,000 is probably a bridge too far. 400k is probably the target for next year if they keep all 4 dredges in the stable. I've heard one of the current 3 dredges is likely to be retired soon.

Not sure when the dredging season ends, maybe mid-Oct. Assuming 400k is the bogey using 4 dredges for the entire season, getting another 25% isn't impossible. Dredging 6 days a week rather than just Mon-Fri would add 20%. Dredging for 10 hours a day rather than 8 would be +25%. Maybe an additional 10% if you they start earlier in the season and run later. And maybe the new dredge has a greater capacity than others? That 400k bogey with 4 dredges could be expanded another 60-70% if they run balls to the walls (and manage to keep the equipment running). In theory 640-680k might be capacity? Nice thought........a decade like that could really accelerate the lake's recovery.


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## Lowell H Turner

Okay, okay ! Forgive my optimism...


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## Fishslayer9

Was just wondering I saw some people throwing up in the spillway a couple days ago and dropping a casting net off of the bridge. Is this legal?


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## Salmonid

Fishslayer, yes its legal as long as they are only keeping shad, carp or other rough fish, can not keep any panfish or gamefish, I castnetted a whole cooler full of shad yesterday afternoon for my upcoming catfish tourney this Sat along the south shore yesterday before meeting up with Zara for a great afternoon of catching slab crappies, Ill let him post on that. 
Salmonid


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## zaraspook

As Salmonid mentioned, he, Scott, and I did have a good time crappie fishing Thurs at GLSM. A minor correction, however, afternoon bite was spotty whereas the evening bite was exciting. In the late afternoon most holes were dry but if we located fish we'd pull multiples from the spot. The last hour plus when we switched from a land based attack to using my boat, many more targets opened up for us and I felt like almost every cast could produce a slab. Lack of great cover wasn't an issue but the wind kept us from fishing any single spot thoroughly. Our late-afternoon session from land produced 9 keepers. The hour or so in the boat produced 12 keepers for a total of 21. Even though a 9" fish is "legal" at GLSM, our 21 keepers were 10" or better.

By the way water temp was 67 degrees.

Scott has a 2-game winning streak......for the 2nd time in a row he caught the biggest fish of the day. As a reward Salmonid and I allowed Scott to prepare a crappie feast for us (we're generous losers). We had a yummy feast of crappie filets that were deep fried to a perfect level of crispiness, complemented by terrific homemade tartar sauce. We pigged out! Hopefully we do it all again while the GLSM bite is going strong.


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## zaraspook

GLSM crappie bite remains hot. Fish are in very close to bank though the carp are now getting active along the bank. Fished an hour before dark Fri and got 7. Tried to fish another hour Sat morning, got 8 but gave up. Way too much competition on the water and bank. 70-boat bass tourney going on and I think all of them hit my channel at least once. Saw a 4# bass taken at my neighbors and a couple running 2-3#. Word is out about the hot crappie bite.....Windy Point was packed with those trying their luck.


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## zaraspook

Hey all you bugle-mouth bass fans.........how about catching some carp this weekend (5/16-5/18) with the chance for more $5000 in cash and prizes? The annual GLSM "Get the Carp Out of Here" tournament will cost a measly $10 entry fee for adults, $5 for the little ones. The "flyer" of tournament rules is at this link http://www.lakeimprovement.com/sites/default/files/2014-carp-derby.pdf . There are separate divisions and payouts for rod/reel guys and those who do it with a bow.


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## AEFISHING

Love your updates and post zaraspook. Keep up the great updates.


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## zaraspook

AEFISHING........appreciate your kind words.


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## Lowell H Turner

2X Zaraspook !


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## zaraspook

Gracias, Senor Turner. Going up to GLSM Weds mid-afternoon to see what's going on with the crappie. With rain forecast at 80-90% and likely thunderstorms, may skip putting the boat in. At least I don't need to worry about getting a sunburn.


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## SPAZ

Searching for some else That might have witnessed this with me in CI Tues NIght send me a pm if you read this


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## zaraspook

With nothing but rain in the forecast Weds afternoon/evening, I met up with Salmonid and side-kick Scott to check out the GLSM crappie bite. Radar showed rain in every direction but somehow the lake sat in a sweet spot, dry the entire time until we packed up to leave. Bank fishing steady from 4-7 pm, our first 30 minutes produced fishing holes similar to the weather.......dry! Then Salmonid picked up a good speck and a clue for more......15 keepers in the bucket at our half-time break. Second 90 minutes we kept moving, getting a fish here and there, then a better spot produced 6-8 good ones. 

Our final tally was 31 keepers, most of them 10.5-11"+. After back to back trips for Scott to claim "big fish" bragging rights, Salmonid came out on top with a near Fish Ohio crappie. It was a 12.75" slab. Once again the odds for catching a short crappie at GLSM are worse than catching a keeper. 31 keepers out of maybe 40-42 total fish has to make GLSM one of the best at producing meat for the table. Of our keepers most looked to be males, 2/3 or more were sporting black war paint. We landed a few gills, none worthy of the bucket, and a small cat. Crappies were definitely relating to wood, but not all. We were using plastics of various colors, 1/16th oz jigs, no meat added. Crappies we caught were in 1-3' of water. We didn't check water temp, probably upper 60's but lack of sun and nightly lows coming in 37-42 range will force water temp to back off a bit. The bite is excellent and improving. If you go, be prepared to move around until you find fish. When the bite slows move again, but revisit the spots that were productive a couple hours later.


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## zaraspook

Made it to lake at 7:30 Friday evening. Fished for an hour and 15 minutes before dark. Crappie bite was slow with 6 crappies before I quit. Already 3 bass boats in my channel Saturday morning when I got up. Found out later there was a 133 boat bass tourney going on......steady stream of boats the rest of the day. Crappie bite was weird.......rarely found a fish in close where they've been for at least 3 weeks but picked up a few 5-10 feet from the bank. Managed 11 in about 3 hours of fishing. Only fished for 30 minutes Sunday but same routine.....close cover produced zero bites while catching two well off the bank where I knew of submerged cover. The other weird part.......none of the fish had that dark coloring, males wearing war paint as I call it, even though they weren't bulging with eggs like females.

Previous weekend water temp was 67-68 degrees. Sunday morning it was 58 degrees. The local crappie gurus all agreed with colder water the fish moved the fish off the banks. Of the 19 I caught for the weekend, they were big. Only 2 were short, most at 11" and one just over 12". Thought I was into a a huge crappie, but after 2 minutes of fight on my flyrod, changed my mind to thinking it was a bass or channel cat, maybe a saugeye? Finally got it to the surface.......none of the above but it measured 18.5 inches. Picture below if I can get the photo off my cell phone. 

Baaaaahhh!


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## Lowell H Turner

So how did the annual "Carp-a-Thon" go ?


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## zaraspook

LHT........good question. Haven't heard yet but suspect carp haul will be low when announced. Guys with bows do most of damage and carp all but disappeared from shallows. Should be plenty of carp left for you to show us how to catch them.


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## zaraspook

Carp tourney was way off from last year's 15,000 pounds. Only 6000 pounds. Cold snap really messed things up. You can still win $ for "tagged" fish!

Details here courtesy of the Lake Improvement Association website http://www.lakeimprovement.com/6000-pounds-carp-removed-during-tournament


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, I prefer to use depth charges and a VERY fast boat while carp fishing. A single well placed charge will not only blow the carp out of the water and into the collection barrel, but will `tenderize` them also while in flight...


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## fishwhacker

They missed the prime season by a few days....the carp are in spawning now....could have got 6000 lbs by lunch yesterday.


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## Lowell H Turner

Timing is everything...


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## AEFISHING

I heard St. Mary's had a no swim warning again with the algae. That doesn't sound good. It is not even that hot yet.


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## zaraspook

LHT......I got a bang out of your post, specifically the "tenderizer" commentary.


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## zaraspook

AEFISHING........I also saw the "advisory" for GLSM. Thought it said it was the first level advisory, which is something like "recreational" advisory. First level is ok to boat, ski, swim but advise against swimming for elderly or kids, especially if they have compromised immune systems. There were a ton of boaters, fishing, tubers, jet ski traffic all weekend. Since I started paying closer attention in 2010, GLSM's had the same "advisory" every Memorial Day weekend.

Having said that, it is a serious issue and the test levels for microcystins will only go higher from here. Couple weeks ago water clarity was more than a foot, even 2' in some areas, but degraded now to 3-4 inches due to chlorophyll particles suspended in the water column. That chlorophyll is predominantly algae. When algae dies (a good thing) it produces the toxin microcystins (a bad thing). Water temp was 58 degrees during the cold snap couple weeks ago. Skyrocketed to 75 degrees Sunday afternoon. 

As long as GLSM has elevated levels of phosphorus to grow algae, same cycle will happen every year. Next advisory level is "no contact" and State/EPA have to be nervous GLSM could get to "no contact" level by 4th of July holiday weekend.


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## AEFISHING

Thanks for the update.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, am grateful to entertain you in return for your reports, sir...


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## Salmonid

Zara, where is the fishing report from the weekend, I know you managed to sneak off away from the family for a little while...eagerly awaiting...
Salmonid


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## SPAZ

Send them somewhere that has clean water that just needs sediment removal of minor channels etc. Divide the lake drain the lake there is plenty of heavy machinery LOCAL to start the process. And actually dig dig dig dig untill you cant dig no more. The dredge no matter what the fancy name is a over powered trash pump with a stir stick on a boom worthless for the amount of work that is required on this body of water. Complete waste of time and money. If I was Mr Miller I would walk away now. In my opinion get the Gov out of the process to much ball scratching to get any real work done. This spring had from ice up untill a week ago this lake had some serious fishing the was many times you couldnt get bait at the few remaining stores that sell it. Now the stars align and it goes to ****. No Matter how many hours those dredges run they cannot catch up to the problem.Sure blah blah blah tons sounds great when they want soak up a little glory __llsh_t thats what I say. It was made to hold water to feed a canal no more than a lagoon on a farm to hold manure. it is what it is.


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## Lowell H Turner

Spaz, respectfully, this is a problem 150+ YEARS in the making. Brand new, Grand Lake Saint Marys averaged between 4 to 9` deep with a maximum of 14` according to historical records. As it was completed the local area (the Great Dismal Swamp) was drained, filled in and the watersheds were altered to increase the inflow into the lake and the land cleared for farming. After the Civil War, phosphates were used extensively as field fertilizer, as well as the shores of the lake were developed for recreation with no public sewer systems, the waste water ran off into the lake. If you mean that this will require several decades of annual dredging to deepen and remove enough phosphate enriched sediment to tip the balance back to a `safe` level, you are certainly CORRECT. But as it stands right now NO ONE has the capability to actually DO this except for the COE and the State. Otherwise, to remove the potential health hazard, the ONLY other `realistic` option is simply FILL in the ENTIRE lake, which will also take decades...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......sorry, couldn't get back to OGF site to post fishing report. I was puzzled the whole weekend as crappie bite was consistently inconsistent. Couldn't fish my normal walking circuit......all of property owners were at the lake and I try not to bug them and their guests. Fished from my boat Fri, Sat, and Sunday early mornings. Tried to fish the evenings but with my 25 guests coming/going was lucky to get in 30-45 minutes before dark. Best morning session was 25 crappies in 90 minutes between me and one of my guests. 3 of those came from the island and remainder from the "bay". The dock in the bay produced a few fish but most were from other new areas in the bay we could access with my boat. Most fish were 6-10' off the bank, not in real close. I think very active carp mating pushed the fish off bank. 

Evening excursions produced 3-4 fish per person in boat, but again we didn't fish long. 75-80% of catch are those typical 10-11.5 inch fish. Water temps were upper 68-69 in the morning and 75 degrees early evening, main lake water temps ran 2 degrees cooler. Purely a guess I think 1/2 the fish have spawned. Water clarity is 3-4"......really degraded quickly with rising water temps and sun blazing down on the 13,000 plus acres of GLSM. Bottom-line is we still catch crappies but pace is slowing. During daylight have to look for shade....under docks and pontoons will soon be only productive option during daylight.


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## zaraspook

SPAZ......I'm confident most will feel your solution to drain and dig is radical. It may surprise you that I don't dismiss it as an option. It could be the quickest approach to solve the problem and might be the least cost in long run.

The current strategy is 1) reduce the loading of new phosphorus coming into the lake, and 2) reducing the lake's existing phosphorus levels via dredging phosphorus loaded sediment. The theory assumes by reducing new phosphorus coming in plus reducing phosphorus already in the lake, eventually you reach a phosphorus level which won't feed/support nuclear levels of algae growth.

I understand the logic behind the solution. Where are the metrics to tell us where we are in the process, how long will it take, and at what cost? Why are we not measuring and reporting phosphorus levels of the lake water monthly, quarterly, annually or whatever? Why don't we measure and report the effectiveness of removing phosphorous thru dredging........who cares how many cubic yards of sediment were removed when the objective is to remove phosphorous? What is the current level of phosphorous entering GLSM at each creek in the watershed, and how does it compare today vs last year and previous year, etc, before we asked farmers to comply with new manure/fertilizer rules? Where are we going, or what's the phosphorus content we have to get to for an acceptable level of algae?

This is like driving your car on a trip but you don't have a destination. How do you make intelligent decisions and predict costs or an arrival date if you don't know how fast you're getting there? Are we moving forward at all? The Battelle report a few years ago reported the need reduce to phosphorous entering the lake by 85% for dredging to work in a reasonable time frame........do you believe anyone can provide data to tell us where we are today? Are we removing phosphorus faster than it comes in? Are we at the break-even point or still losing ground? Do we need 50 dredges instead of 4?

I accepted and supported the project on faith that the concept is sound. SPAZ isn't in that camp. No successful business would run a project without specific measurables, goals, and a time table. If we don't have data, let's start. If data exists, let's see it. What results are we getting for the $ invested? Maybe the current path is more radical (unworkable) than SPAZs suggestion to drain and dig?


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## Lowell H Turner

The most "radical' idea have informally heard of was to invite the big oil companies back and allow renewed oil/ natural gas production (keep in mind GLSM was the original `home` of `off shore oil drilling`); at 1 time 1,100 wells dotted the lake...use the revenue to deepen the lake and there by #1 remove the built up sediment and phosphate and #2 by deepening the lake put most of the remaining phosphate out of reach of wave action, storms and modern high thrust boat propellers as well as providing an over all cooling effect and helping improve the health of the lake in general...and if ALL the generated revenue indeed went ONLY for this purpose, they could EASILY afford to put 50 dredges on the lake ! Just a thought...


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## zaraspook

LHT.....when we hear "oil drilling" automatically we assume "oil spills". In these days of horizontal drilling, the drilling doesn't have to be done on the water. At one time the entire NW quadrant of Ohio was an oil mecca. Certainly attractive oil deposits aren't limited to locations only directly beneath GLSM's 13,000+ acres. I'm not against the concept of harvesting oil to pay for corrective actions of the lake. Dismissing the idea because it includes the word "oil", now that would be radical. Hey, Lowell, maybe it was the wacky Lima professor, the one who predicted GLSM was heading for a water quality disaster, who floated the idea of harvesting oil for lake improvement?


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## zaraspook

Friday night was at GLSM around 7:30. Fished from bank until dark and didn't locate the bite. Caught only 2 crappies, one short, and lost third at the bank. I had no idea it would go down hill from there. In 2 hours early Saturday morning zero fish, zero bites, not even a peck from the gills. 

As normal there was a crappie tourney going on Saturday morning. Usually I'll see a parade of boats in and out of my channel and 1-2 will camp there for 3-4 hours. Not this time. Fisherman came but none stayed.....lot of griping from the anglers that they couldn't muster a nibble. May have been an oxygen issue going on in my channel but nothing I can offer as proof. I did chores the rest of the day. With no confidence the evening bite would improve, left for home by 3pm. 

Water temp was 74 at 10am Saturday and may have nudged 80 by the end of the weekend.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, don`t know. BUT you have to admit that "big oil" was once no stranger to Grand Lake Saint Marys. Too you have a very valid point, especially about the newer horizontal drilling. Also, the State REQUIRING that any companies drilling already have the oil spill containment equipment already IN PLACE and ready to IMMEDIATELY deploy would make any drilling a lot more `attractive` from a point of both the general public and government . They have VERY DEEP "pockets " and have already agreed to several far `stranger` deals than dredging a lake in return for oil or gas rights...once the cash started rolling in it would not take long for the lake to get dredged, wet lands restored, islands built and planted, ect.


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## zaraspook

LHT.......you and I can suggest "options" until the cows come home (oops, guess the cows, pigs, chickens are already there). My single biggest gripe is GLSM has a phosphorus problem. Focus is to reduce phosphorus already in the water and reduce new phosphorus coming into lake. Great! What was phosphorus content when we started the journey? What's phosphorus level now? What level of phosphorus is the acceptable target? Without data (publicized data) how do we know if we're winning or losing?

For all we know, we're still losing. In the absence of data for phosphorus content, the EPA/DNR give us the measurement of toxins (microcystins). The toxins are measured when 100% of the algae in a water sample die instantaneously. Higher toxins must indicate higher algae concentration? Higher algae concentration must mean more phosphorus available to grow algae? Why not measure and report phosphorus level instead of byproducts of the food chain?

Looking at the the published water testing data since 2011, I don't see a trend that supports toxin level reduction. Deductively, I guess that means algae levels have not fallen. Deductively, it follows that phosphorus levels in the lake have not fallen. That must mean the current strategy isn't working. Remember the definition of insanity?.......continue doing what you're doing but expecting a different outcome.

I'd settle for any data the State can offer that suggests the current phosphorus reduction plan is working. If the data exists, I can't think of any reason to keep it a secret. Am I missing something?


----------



## Intimidator

zaraspook said:


> LHT.......you and I can suggest "options" until the cows come home (oops, guess the cows, pigs, chickens are already there). My single biggest gripe is GLSM has a phosphorus problem. Focus is to reduce phosphorus already in the water and reduce new phosphorus coming into lake. Great! What was phosphorus content when we started the journey? What's phosphorus level now? What level of phosphorus is the acceptable target? Without data (publicized data) how do we know if we're winning or losing?
> 
> For all we know, we're still losing. In the absence of data for phosphorus content, the EPA/DNR give us the measurement of toxins (microcystins). The toxins are measured when 100% of the algae in a water sample die instantaneously. Higher toxins must indicate higher algae concentration? Higher algae concentration must mean more phosphorus available to grow algae? Why not measure and report phosphorus level instead of byproducts of the food chain?
> 
> Looking at the the published water testing data since 2011, I don't see a trend that supports toxin level reduction. Deductively, I guess that means algae levels have not fallen. Deductively, it follows that phosphorus levels in the lake have not fallen. That must mean the current strategy isn't working. Remember the definition of insanity?.......continue doing what you're doing but expecting a different outcome.
> 
> I'd settle for any data the State can offer that suggests the current phosphorus reduction plan is working. If the data exists, I can't think of any reason to keep it a secret. Am I missing something?


No you're not missing anything....they have exactly no idea what they are doing, except that they are trying to avoid a total PR nightmare!
We probably don't want to know what the ugly truth is to this, but SPAZ may be closer to solving the problem more than anyone realizes!
This is like darts, they are hoping to throw something cheap and it sticks...when they probably should just go ahead and do the unpopular option!
If they have another MAJOR bloom and the lake is closed, people will realize that this propaganda that has been going on to make them feel better, was a brutal lie and they had no idea what they were doing...some may never return!
You can't just Band-Aid a Mersa infected wound and hope it goes away...trash fish tourneys make people feel good but the reality is that it is accomplishing nothing except allowing politicians to look foolish!
We all know the local economy is going to suffer but I think they are just putting off the inevitable and should just start major de-struction of the lake bottom....OR FILL IT IN and use it as VERY fertile farmland!


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## Lowell H Turner

Agreed, this is a MAJOR `problem 150+ yrs in the making. it didn`t happen over night and it sure as heck ain`t going to get `fixed` overnight or perhaps even in a decade. HOWEVER, deepening the lake by itself puts any phosperous low enough that except for something like IKE it can`t really get it back into suspension where the algae can use it as food readily. Currently boat propellers are doing that...btw, the Panama Canal was started and abandoned 3 different times before us Yankees and Teddy Roosevelt took it on. Well before they completed the 1st 10 miles they realized their MOST difficult danger was NOT the excavating and blasting or engineering, it was the rampant yellow fever that had previously killed 60,000+ workers of the previous 3 attempts. SO...they went to WAR with the mosquitos with an absolute VENGANCE. EVERY body of stagnant water was sprayed with vegetable oil repeatedly. Native killie fish, voracious mosquito larvae eaters were bought and released by the millions into EVERY stream and swamp. Quinine was issued and usage was MANDATORY as were mosquito netting. By the beginning of the 11th mile yellow fever rates had fallen to less than 2% of the work force per month. EXPERT medical care by Army Medical Col. Walter Reed saw a 98% recovery rate. The rate of construction progress quadroupled...am not being overly optimistic. This CAN be done. The `alternative` is just as expensive...


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## Salmonid

This is actually already happening to a certain degree, the state has rip rapped walls of chunk rock across vast 1-2 ft deep bays and is using this area to catch and fill with dredged sediment from close areas, this is helpful in three ways, fist filling in vast areas of non usable lake, deepening areas and finally the rip rap will hold the sediment back and kep it from melting back into the lake like all the Indian lake dredge mounds do. 

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Will agree the State should put together a explainationary chart/ graph so REAL progress can be measured in a easily understood format...it is a multi faceted attack (dredging, wet lands restoration, island creation, reduction of rough fish, vigilant and continuous monitoring of fertilizing of fields, water sampling from the feeder streams, ect) that all add to further improvements in the overall water quality. btw, simply filling in the lake will simply create a slow moving sluggish stream that will be so heavily polluted with livestock waste it would not be fit for any recreational use...plus even partially filling in the lake would take decades also.


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## zaraspook

Intimidator.......I don't really sense a propaganda campaign or conspiracy is going on. Officials just need to keep their eye on the ball. If phosphorus is the boogeyman, than tell us about what's going on with phosphorus. If you require farmers to jump thru all these hoops to reduce phosphorus inflow, then let's measure and report the improvement.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......so that's what's going on with the rip-rap enclosed areas on the northside of lake and the long expanse of rip-rap coming out of Bayview at west exit/entrance? I wondered what the plan was......didn't understand why those areas were totally sealed off with rip-rap. I see said the blind man. Interesting.


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## zaraspook

LHT........as the historian you are, how many years and men did it take to hand dig GLSM?


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## Intimidator

zaraspook said:


> Intimidator.......I don't really sense a propaganda campaign or conspiracy is going on. Officials just need to keep their eye on the ball. If phosphorus is the boogeyman, than tell us about what's going on with phosphorus. If you require farmers to jump thru all these hoops to reduce phosphorus inflow, then let's measure and report the improvement.


Every time they have a story on WHIO 7 about GLSM, you have an area Politician on air telling how much progress has been made and "how much better things are", "come enjoy the water" "that is cleaner than ever", "The Elimination of the Trash/rough/bottom fish is making the lake better after each Tournament", "We have crossed a threshold"...that is Propaganda to make people think it is better, SO THEY COME AND SPEND MONEY!....and then it blooms and warnings go up!
Everyone knows there is an Issue, and they are THROWING money at it...for once I would like to hear someone just say, "we are doing the best we can, but we really don't know how this is all going to work yet"..."and these will be the next steps, if it doesn't work!" I WOULD VOTE FOR THAT PERSON!


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, according to various websites work began in 1837 to dredge the Great Dismal Swamp which is largely now under the current lake. The timber on and around the lake was cut down and used to create pile shorings back filled with dredged material to help fill in several lower spots along the then reservoir`s shores. Each year from March until November approximately 1,500 to 1,700 Irish and German immigrants and convicts labored on the project, the immigrants receiving 30 CENTS a day and a large jigger (about 2 shots ) of whiskey. The convicts were used for the hardest tasks. Both groups suffered in the beginning from `swamp fevers` (likely malaria) with many deaths in the beginning from the unhealthy conditions. The completed reservoir was 17,000+ acres, averaged between 7 to 12 fow and had 52 miles of shoreline. It was completed officially in 1845, cost $600,000 and over 3,000 lives mostly due to illnesses in the beginning phase of draining the Dismal Swamp. During the heyday of the oil boom there were approximately 150 oil wells on the lake at any given time; in 1894 an accidental fire that started during a strong wind storm burnt up 25 wells and resulted in a fairly large oil spill which was luckily quickly shut off. The last well was capped off in 1970.


----------



## Intimidator

Lowell H Turner said:


> Zaraspook, according to various websites work began in 1837 to dredge the Great Dismal Swamp which is largely now under the current lake. The timber on and around the lake was cut down and used to create pile shorings back filled with dredged material to help fill in several lower spots along the then reservoir`s shores. Each year from March until November approximately 1,500 to 1,700 Irish and German immigrants and convicts labored on the project, the immigrants receiving 30 CENTS a day and a large jigger (about 2 shots ) of whiskey. The convicts were used for the hardest tasks. Both groups suffered in the beginning from `swamp fevers` (likely malaria) with many deaths in the beginning from the unhealthy conditions. The completed reservoir was 17,000+ acres, averaged between 7 to 12 fow and had 52 miles of shoreline. It was completed officially in 1845, cost $600,000 and over 3,000 lives mostly due to illnesses in the beginning phase of draining the Dismal Swamp. During the heyday of the oil boom there were approximately 150 oil wells on the lake at any given time; in 1894 an accidental fire that started during a strong wind storm burnt up 25 wells and resulted in a fairly large oil spill which was luckily quickly shut off. The last well was capped off in 1970.


Dang Lowell...
Maybe we should put some illegals and convicts to work for a REDO!


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## Lowell H Turner

Personally, I DO NOT believe in an `easy ride` for convicted felons. Education? Sure. But think anyone legally convicted should ACTUALLY `pay` their debt to society...


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## Intimidator

Lowell H Turner said:


> Personally, I DO NOT believe in an `easy ride` for convicted felons. Education? Sure. But think anyone legally convicted should ACTUALLY `pay` their debt to society...


Come-on Lowell, this is why that could never happen.....

"That is a outdated way of thinking...too radical...What the heck's wrong with you...you can't treat people like that...you're not a nice person...these people are people, they deserve to be treated with respect and taken care of....they CAN BE rehabilitated....WE ARE A LOVING AND CARING SOCIETY"!

Oh, I can hear it now...makes me wanna puke!lol


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## Intimidator

ZARA
One thing I was thinking about???
If they dredge or dig out the entire lake or most of the main lake, are they taking out ALL of the structure, vegetation, and cover also????

If so, that is going to be a major task to rebuild that for the fish! 
Hey, it's only taken the "Friends" 8 years to do CJ, which is a little over 2200 acres...guess it would ONLY take us about 48 years to do GLSM!


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## Lowell H Turner

Have been told I an "old fashioned", `out dated`, `old school` and `draconian`...or most accurately `all of the above`.


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## zaraspook

Intimidator said:


> ZARA
> One thing I was thinking about???
> If they dredge or dig out the entire lake or most of the main lake, are they taking out ALL of the structure, vegetation, and cover also????
> 
> If so, that is going to be a major task to rebuild that for the fish!
> Hey, it's only taken the "Friends" 8 years to do CJ, which is a little over 2200 acres...guess it would ONLY take us about 48 years to do GLSM!


Remember, we're the only ones talking about draining the lake. Before any nasty rumors start floating around and for purposes of clarity, the State and Army corp ARE NOT planning to drain the lake. SPAZ threw it out there and a few of us crazies are beating it around. We'd shut up if we saw data that indicated current strategy was winning. Tell us X (Phosphorus level three yrs ago). Tell us Y (Phosphorus level now). We can calculate Z ( X minus Y = Z (Phosphorus reduction in 3 years). Divide Z by 3 for the annual phosphorus reduction.

Tell us W (how much more phosphorus reduction is needed to get to target). Divide W by current annual reduction rate to equal # of years until victory. If it's more than 20 years let's adjust current strategy, or put other strategies on the table. Other strategies could include "Drain, baby, drain". 

I'd hate to see a great crappie and channel cat fishery forced to start over! It would be way easier to get the carp out. With no water in the lake, vegetation might go crazy! Structure? Main lake has surprising little structure but what an opportunity to add structure if no water there. Lots of trade-offs. If it took 8 years to dig the lake totally by hand, no power equipment, why couldn't all the sludge be moved out of there in 1-2 years with modern power equipment? A potential problem......refilling the hole with water. The lake flow is so slow the water volume takes 1.6 years (maybe it's 2.6 years) to turnover. Without help, might take several years to refill and even longer if depth of lake is increased. Lots of big issues and questions, the kinds of things government doesn't handle well, not to mention businesses that would be ruined for at least several years.

If all this sounds nuts it's the byproduct of not knowing where we started, where we're going, and rate of progress on phosphorus reduction.


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## Lowell H Turner

There was thoughts about diking off sections of the lake and using construction equipment but keep in mind in places there is 5- 10+` of MUCK and mud under the water; not saying it could not be done, but getting the equipment stuck constantly might get old really FAST...plus there would be the cost of placing and then removing and moving the dikes multiple times.


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## Salmonid

Me and partner Ryan fished for cats today from noon till 9 pm, water had decent clarity in the main lake, around 8-10" even with high algae particles in the lake. water was 82-84 up the creeks and 77 on the main lake. had a tough time finding shad but finally mustered up enough to get through the day, will tell you if you want nice gills, they are on the banks, we castnetted over a hundred keeper gills today and only 3 keeper crappies so the crappies are out but the gills are in. LOL 

fished several of out post spawn catfish spots and found the fish just not any kickers as the big males are still guarding the nests and the bigger females are in recovery mode but we managed about 35 fish today and a decent mix of males and females with 7-8 biggest between 5-6.5 lbs so we didn't even bother taking fish to weigh in, ( This was a 1 fish tourney, not the big point event) so 2 weeks ago it took an 9 lber to place and we had no kicker so just left at end of tourney time, 9 pm, a great day on the water thats for sure!!

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

You both did well overall, Salmonid...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid........ When I saw sign for big cat tourney I wondered if you were competing. You and partner clearly had no problems catching plenty of nice cats. Nice haul and excellent report! My channel was 84 and though not creek fed, water was muddiest I've seen this year. Mud wasn't from rain rather from a gazillion carp doing that mating game nonstop chase and swirl dance. Virtually no bite.....even gills didn't hang around all the carp craziness. Should mention I got into one big one Saturday. Not a fish but 18" diameter snapping turtle! My flyrod was severely overmatched by the armored tank I'd snagged and I was thrilled to avoid handling that bad boy when my jig hook straightened at the bank.


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## zaraspook

LHT......If the Army Corp decided to drain and dig ,I'm confident they'd have a great plan and technology to pull it off.............maybe to include some form of temporary bridges/floating bridges over the mud and muck for equipment. No need to drain and dig if we get some numbers to show we're making progress. What's current phosphorus level of lake? What was phosphorus concentration 3 years ago? What phosphorus concentration is victory? Yep........I'm a broken record.


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## Salmonid

Zara, two things of note, first is that Shad have been tough to come by all spring so far, it took us 90 minutes with two guys castnetting to get about 20 shad, my shoulder is feeling it today, LOL

Second is that we noticed that there are no floating sensor s out on the lake like last two years>> you know the little pontoon with the solar panels on them that were scattered all over the lake in the past????

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....diminished shad population is interesting. When ice disappeared there was no evidence of significant shad kill although everyone expected it. Do you think there is a link to overbearing ice the past winter?

Those numerous small, floating pontoons last year were probably the "killer bees" or whatever they were called. Some kind of solar oxygenator and if I recall correctly they were installed by the manufacturer on a free trial for a season. I never saw a report on effectiveness but assume State decided to pass.

I fished Friday evening for 1/2 hour, sun was already down. Caught one gill, not a keeper, and had a few other gill bites. No evidence of crappie anywhere which coincides with your report of no crappie while cast netting. Tried again early Saturday morning and was skunked other than the snapper. Worked my butt off doing chores and repair stuff the rest of the day. Never tried my luck after that morning session of fishing and headed home about 4:30. Carp were a real nuisance but that should end real soon. 

The "YSI Live" lake sensor is in middle of lake and online. Oxygen levels in morning are very low, climb throughout the day and peak about 6pm daily, then fall slowly all night. You remember that aerator that runs 24/7 in the channel adjacent to mine? Aerator was in the water for a few weeks starting in May but now gone. During the summer that area near the aerator I could always count on to produce a few fish. Homeowner had a problem with the aerator, removed it.....may not go back online. I'm screwed.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, FULLY understand your thoughts. A goal of `ZERO` phosphate inflow is unrealistic as well as in the lake but establishing some scientifically sustainable level as a bench mark is very likely needed. ; but can definitely see your idea as a `start` vs `progress` comparision marker, along with overall adding depth back into the majority of the lake...


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## zaraspook

LHT.....correct, I think the public needs to see progress (that assumes progress is being made). Secondly, if the goal is to reduce phosphorus, let's measure phosphorus. At GLSM the State and EPA measure a crazy number of things, none of which are phosphorus content. Maybe I should say I can't find any publicized data source for phosphorus. If you want to measure miles per gallon for your vehicle, it isn't done by measuring carbon monoxide emissions of the car. There is likely a correlation between carbon monoxide and mileage, but measuring a byproduct doesn't lead to accurate data for MPG. At GLSM they measure chlorophyll levels, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, PH, microcystins, the number of blue-green algae cells, and plenty more........not phosphorus. Duh!


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## Lowell H Turner

Which when stopping and thinking about it IS rather strange...agree with you about that.


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## zaraspook

Unfortunately, Buckeye Lake recently joined GLSM with Recreational Public Health advisories at its 3 beaches. Sorry to hear that. Test data for elevated microcystins was a week ago. 

Both Buckeye and GLSM are monitored by sensors which can be viewed online. Dissolved oxygen levels at Buckeye are actually lower than GLSM. Water temp at GLSM is 71.72 at this moment (7:40am Weds) and 72.75 at Buckeye. If you're interested, link to the monitored reporting stations is here http://www.ysieconet.com/public/WebUI/Default.aspx?hidCustomerID=248 .

Link to EPA State advisories is here http://wwwapp.epa.ohio.gov/gis/mapportal/hab.html


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## Lowell H Turner

Believe Salt Fork and at least 2 other lakes in State Parks have had the same `advisories` in the last 3 yrs...


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## Salmonid

Time for a bit of Good news regarding GLSM....
From the ODNR media page: 
Enjoy, Salmonid
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yellow Perch Released at Grand Lake St. Marys

6/10/2014 Ohio DNR in Wildlife 



ST. MARYS, OH  The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) continues its efforts to provide anglers across the state with new and better opportunities by recently stocking Grand Lake St. Marys with approximately 100,000 yellow perch.

The stocked perch are approximately 1.5 to 2 inches long and are considered fingerlings. They are expected to take about three years to reach a size large enough for anglers to keep. This is the third year Grand Lake St. Marys has received yellow perch, meaning some perch are likely nearing the appropriate size. More than 208,000 yellow perch have been released in the previous two years, including 108,113 in 2013.

The latest perch stocking will help boost future fishing opportunities currently being provided by the existing population. The long-term goal of this program is to establish a self-sustaining yellow perch fishery at Grand Lake St. Marys, Ohios largest inland lake, by creating a naturally-reproducing population. This would eliminate the need for stockings in the future.


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## AEFISHING

It would be nice if they took off and did well but I think the lake has a lot to do with that. We used to catch them pretty good years ago through the ice. Thanks for the article.


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## Lowell H Turner

I certainly remember coming up to GLSM 3 times during the late 1980`s in the winter and ice fishing near but not right next to the outlet and taking home 20- 35+ NICE perch about 9-11" long. It took all day to cull thru them but it was WORTH the effort and drive. Also saw and personally caught a smorgas board of crappie, bluegill, bass and at least 1 walleye/ saugeye...


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## zaraspook

We know GLSM has a native perch population and now boosted by 3rd consecutive year of stocking, but excitement won't start until someone starts catching the tasty critters. Maybe this winter? When it starts we could see another frenzy like when the saugeye bite took off 2 years ago. Here's a photo of one of 2 perch I caught at GLSM in 2012. None since. Sorry for the lousy pic but phone had a poor camera and it was cold (Feb-2012).


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## zaraspook

For an hour from the bank fished Friday late evening and another hour Saturday morning. Bite was elusive, very few nibbles and suspect all were gills. Caught one respectable gill, no crappies to be found in my channel. Water clarity is unusually good for GLSM, but unlikely that will hold with this week's heat. Water level is slowly falling and lake temp is 72.4 this morning. Carp mating dance is pretty well over with.

Dredge report.....2 dredges running, one dredge down for repairs. New dredge is still under construction with arrival 2-3 weeks away.


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## zaraspook

I've been griping that the focus for improving GLSM water quality is phosphorus reduction........yet, no one measures and reports phosphorus levels. Turns out Heidelberg College has a program to monitor phosphorus levels at many Ohio Rivers and tributaries, particularly ones that feed Lake Erie. Heidelberg's been collecting data on Grand Lake feeder streams since 2008, 2 years before the 2010 blow-up at GLSM, and recently did a presentation for the Lake Improvement Association. Although the program doesn't measure phosphorus level in the lake itself, it monitors incoming levels for Coldwater Creek and Chickasaw Creek plus they monitor P-levels being discharged in Beaver Creek. Trying to get a copy of that presentation to see what's in it.

Yesterday the EPA posted results of the latest round of toxin testing. GLSM toxin levels are about 1/3 of what they were at the beginning of the month. That's good but still elevated. Buckeye Lake toxins are down 75% but a bit higher than the 6 ppb level that triggers an advisory.


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## Salmonid

Great stuff zara!! Im interested in seeing what it shows also. Fishing Cat masters tourney tomorrow from 6 pm- midnight. Will post some hopefully positive results Sunday

Salmonid


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## Salmonid

ok, results from Catmasters was 1st place, 55 lbs, 2nd place 48 lbs and we took 3rd place with 42 lbs, 39 teams total so it was nice to win some cash and more importantly automatically qualify for the Classic which we have won the last to years!
water was 80.5-81.5 on the main lake and back near Windy Point where we put in was 84 late in the afternoon. 

Main lake is green but still 4-6 inches of visibility but channels are pea soup. 
Beatiful night on the water except for the major bug hatch that was all over the lake and it made it so you couldnt turn on a light or else you were swallowing and breathing in thousands of the buggers..LOL

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......way to go! We were cruising the lake Saturday evening on my pontoon and saw a good number of your competitors. Most looked like they were anchored, not drifting. A couple were at the oil derrick, and recall a two more anchored near the mouth at Harmon's Landing. Despite the light wind you guys were probably rocking with the waves created by all the boater traffic Saturday evening. What was weight of biggest fish Saturday?

Sunday morning I caught my first (and only) crappie since May 30. I'd almost forgotten what a crappie bite feels like. It was on one of the short stake beds you, Scott, and I inserted near a seawall.


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## Lowell H Turner

Well done Salmonid !


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## Salmonid

Big fish was 13.5 I think, my partner Ryan had a 9.5 and it was the 7th biggest fish, I tell ya, always some toads up there...LOL

Zara, you guys find any of those bazillion bugs when cruising?? 

HAD A REALLY HARD TIME AGAIN FINDING SHAD AGAIN, WE SPENT 60 MINUTES WITH BOTH OF US THROWING ONLY GETTING 21 MEDIUM SIZED SHAD...
Also lost another net in the process....

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.........I didn't notice abnormal bug level while cruising. Was mostly in the eastern 1/2 of lake and back to dock before dark. Were they those juicy buggers that look like flying ants?

Regarding shad, those toad channel cats might be fewer and farther between if shad population is off that much. For the first time in 3-4 weeks I noticed significant shad activity in my channels. Saw 1-2 groups of really small shad, but most were bigger 6-8" size breaking surface. Prior weeks there was no shad action.....recall I mentioned my suspicion my channels were going thru a low oxygen thing.

Another net casualty? You need to read the instructions.......supposed to hang onto the end of the net rope.


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## zaraspook

Another Ohio water body popped up on the EPA's list of lakes with toxin issues. East Fork joins Buckeye and GLSM as of 6/23/14. Two East Fork beaches breached the microscystin 6 ppb level for an advisory. One beach was barely above 6 ppb, but the campground beach is way high (2-3 times higher than the average level at GLSM's 5 test locations). I'm sure those levels will come down at East Fork, but it demonstrates this isn't an issue unique to GLSM.

Got my hands on the Heidelberg presentation about phosphorus monitoring at Ohio tributaries. Need to dig into it a bit before any commentary. More later. 

GLSM is 77 degrees this morning.


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## Lowell H Turner

Let us know what you find..(and you really crack me up=`hang onto the rope !`)


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## Intimidator

zaraspook said:


> Another Ohio water body popped up on the EPA's list of lakes with toxin issues. East Fork joins Buckeye and GLSM as of 6/23/14. Two East Fork beaches breached the microscystin 6 ppb level for an advisory. One beach was barely above 6 ppb, but the campground beach is way high (2-3 times higher than the average level at GLSM's 5 test locations). I'm sure those levels will come down at East Fork, but it demonstrates this isn't an issue unique to GLSM.
> 
> Got my hands on the Heidelberg presentation about phosphorus monitoring at Ohio tributaries. Need to dig into it a bit before any commentary. More later.
> 
> GLSM is 77 degrees this morning.


CC now has warnings. ..but it is from poop entering the lake!
What a mess we have in ohio


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## Salmonid

I also read that there are a handful of Indiana lakes on the same list for BG Algae

FYI..
Salmonid


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## Hoover 4 Me

It seems like this algae problem is growing. I fish Hoover a lot, I don't think it has a BG algae problem get but the last two years I've noticed a lot more algae than before. I was out Monday and in the areas that were were out of the wind the water was green with little floating chunks of algae. This place is a city water supply lake. I know they treated it for algae issues last fall/early winter because folks were complaining about a weird smell in the tap water and are supposed to be actively "closely" monitoring it now for any problems. 

Something definitely needs to be done to curb the issue at all the waterways with these problems.


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## Lowell H Turner

Apparently many Southern lakes are also having this problem recently...


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## zaraspook

Intimidator........hadn't heard about any CC advisories. What's the advisory for, if not toxins maybe e-coli at a beach? That happens at GLSM, usually from ducks/geese invading a beach. Odd that you say "problem is from poop entering lake".........GLSM problem is also from poop entering lake, mostly but not limited to pig poop.


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## zaraspook

Hoover 4 Me........The little chunks of green you mention at Hoover, are they little, individual green "dots" on the surface, maybe 1/8 inch diameter? Although there could be 100's of them in a small area, they aren't linked together like a mat on the surface, but appear to exist as separate from each other?


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> I also read that there are a handful of Indiana lakes on the same list for BG Algae
> 
> FYI..
> Salmonid


You're on target......
_Mississinewa Lake is under an advisory for blue-green algae, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources has announced. This means that swimming and boating is still permitted but visitors should avoid direct contact with algae. _

The report goes on to say this is the only Indiana lake currently under advisory. Brookville usually gets an advisory sooner or later at the Mounds beach area and probably won't escape this year. Algae's been on the planet long before humans.........it's usually credited with turning the planet into an Oxygen rich environment eons ago. Guess we better get used to it.


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## Hoover 4 Me

zaraspook said:


> Hoover 4 Me........The little chunks of green you mention at Hoover, are they little, individual green "dots" on the surface, maybe 1/8 inch diameter? Although there could be 100's of them in a small area, they aren't linked together like a mat on the surface, but appear to exist as separate from each other?


Yep, sounds about right.

I was out today and came around a some places with it. I did see in a few wind blown pockets that it looked to be one big blob. The lake is 4' out of its banks right now so it's all a huge mess. Here's a pic of a pocket of it near one of the boat ramps.


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## Intimidator

zaraspook said:


> Intimidator........hadn't heard about any CC advisories. What's the advisory for, if not toxins maybe e-coli at a beach? That happens at GLSM, usually from ducks/geese invading a beach. Odd that you say "problem is from poop entering lake".........GLSM problem is also from poop entering lake, mostly but not limited to pig poop.


E-coli...everyone believes it is raw sewage!


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## zaraspook

Hoover 4 Me.....I don't have a clue what the green dots are, but I've seen them too.


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## Flannel_Carp

Are the green dots not Duckweed?


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## zaraspook

Flannel_Carp said:


> Are the green dots not Duckweed?


Good call. Dots look very much like duckweed pics I found online. Although sparse in my channel backends of some channels are thick with duckweed. Thanks,.......I learned something today. Impact of duckweed over the long haul isn't much different than algae. Boo!


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## zaraspook

Caught a walleye last Friday morning. It wasn't caught at GLSM. My son and I fished Brookville that morning. Only 15" but still good to catch one.


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## Lowell H Turner

Tasty things, aren`t they ?


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## zaraspook

LHT........walleye is my favorite freshwater eater, with perch a very close 2nd. This one was returned to feed and be caught another day. If we'd caught multiple legal walleyes I would keep them. Also caught a smallmouth but I always release bass. My son caught a decent channel cat, and lost a 17-18" smallie during an aerial display (he actually lost 2 during jumps). 

What's your #1 eating fish?


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## fishwhacker

Perch, gills, walleye, crappie depends how im cooking....be trying for the walleye friday at the erie.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Perch, gills, walleye, crappie depends how im cooking....be trying for the walleye friday at the erie.


Can't argue your list. Memorial Day weekend served up crappie tacos to a group of 20-25 people. Crappies were 20 gorgeous filets caught 2-3 weeks earlier at GLSM. It was a trial run for crappie tacos and the hit of the weekend. Guests wolfed them down.

Been a while since I've done the Erie walleye thing. Used to live south of Detroit.......we'd drift mouth of Detroit River with bottom bouncers. Yummy walleyes. Good luck! Post some pics.


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## fishwhacker

Well I got a dumb phone, so i couldnt post pics but did get a limit at the big lake up north. Nothing more american than walleye on the grill. Luckily my wonderful wife asked me to go bluegill fishing as soon as I got home. I got to fish about 12 hrs friday and 3 on saturday.


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## Lowell H Turner

Lucky fellows ! I was shoveling clay out of my "BIG Dig" project all weekend, then setting up our pool she just bought...


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.....when you mentioned you were going to Erie for walleye, I got the crazy urge to try to pull a walleye or saugeye from GLSM. Friday morning my son and I hit the lake without a clue......neither of us are trollers, no planer boards and we wouldn't know squat to hook boards up or use them, never caught nor targeted saugeye before, and hadn't intentionally caught a GLSM walleye since 2009. Are you laughing yet? Expectations were low, but what the heck? At worst case we figured we'd at least run into a one of the gazillion channel cats that roam the lake. Would you believe we were off the lake in 4 hours and had our limit? True.....after 4 hours we reached the limit of time we'd invest in no fish, no hits after 3+ hours of trolling and casting for "eyes". Though not productive it was a noble cause.....I guess. Glad to hear your big lake experience was productive.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, the walleye (`tooth fairy`) seems to be a particularly fickle finned quarry, isn`t it ? What is MADDENING is going with someone else (my cousin) whom can simply seemingly just put his bucket on the edge of the water and get walleye after walleye to obediently DIVE INTO it just by yelling "Come out with your fins up !" In they go. He is good enough at creek fishing for walleye I once told him he could probably catch a legal limit out of a dry toilet in the middle of the Sahara Desert at high noon...


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## fishwhacker

I have often wanted to take about half a day and try some spots I think would hold some....I have heard enough stories that I would think at least 1 spot would produce a fish....of course then I quickly think I wouldnt want to waste a half day searching for walleye when I can go whack some gills or crappies


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## zaraspook

LHT.........I was hoping lightning would strike twice. In 2009 I'd just picked up my brand new boat. June 14, 2009 my son and I decided to target walleye.....we'd show the world you could catch walleye from GLSM from the main lake and at a time other than winter at the spillway. We headed to one of the few obvious points of structure in our lake of little deep water. It was 35 minutes WOT from my lake place. Arrived at our our spot and turned on the electronics. Duh.........how effective are electronics (no down imaging or side imaging) in 4 foot of water? No trolling for us......we were gonna cast for those toothy critters. Holy crap! Within 20 minutes I have a 16-17" walleye in the boat. It happened to be the only one we caught that day, but 2 novice walleye guys pull a walleye from GLSM in mid-June? The odds of it happening were astronomical.

Walleyes were stocked from mid-90's to 2006, but none since. DNR said reproduction hasn't been successful for GLSM walleye. If you do catch one now it's at least 8 years old. The saugeye were stocked 2009 and 2010 and an obvious success........but again other than winter you don't hear reports of saugeye catches. Son and I thought we'd catch lightning in a bottle, repeat the 2009 experience and luck into an old walleye or 4-year old saugeye. It didn't happen this time........


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker........if you were gonna try for summer "eyes" in GLSM, what would your strategy be? Where would you try? I might be goofy enough to try it again but don't have a hunch where the critters would likely be found.


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## Lowell H Turner

Lacking any other information, edges of the DEEPEST water, especially if there was a nearby spring...BINGO !


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## fishwhacker

I dont have boards so I would start by doing long drifts over deep holes casting crawler harnesses...if I got nothing would try jigging some up from deep pockets in incoming or outgoing creeks....if I still got nothing probably slow troll using worm harnesses or three way swivel....often thought about casting jigging raps, vibees, or husky jerks....as far as locations......keeping that to myself...id be afraid that if I told people spots the people who tell me would stop giving me their reports. I would start early like 5 a.m. early before boat traffic picked up.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......at GLSM what depth do you consider to be a "deep hole"?


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## fishwhacker

Anything over 10 feet deep is very deep.....drop offs would be more important I would think...go from 3ft deep to 8 ft would be a great spot to try....the deeper the better.


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## zaraspook

Previously mentioned that Heidelberg Univ presented a study to the Lake Improvement Association regarding phosphorus loading at Grand Lake and other Ohio water bodies. The National Center for Water Quality Research is at Heidelberg. The project monitors 15 tributaries that feed Lake Erie, the Ohio River, and Grand Lake St Marys. Chickasaw Creek and Coldwater Creek are monitored as the two that feed GLSM.

If this works click the picture below with a page of the Heidelberg presentation that compares phosphorus loading of the 15 tributaries in Ohio. You get a star by your name if you can read which 2 tributaries are the worst in the state for loading Total Phosphorus and for Dissolved Residual Phosphorus loading. Any comments on the findings?


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## Salmonid

Very interesting Zara! great info, Im curious if there were year by year data points vs a 5 year average? even though we know each year is different, still would be interesting to see if watershed protocols are helping or not. also, if your interested, me and Scott could come up and show you in your boat so you can mark them, some good gravel areas, I know of several of them and we could give the saugeyes a half arsed effort for an late afternoon, just let me know

I also have a new structure plan for the specks, easier and I believe much more effective based on what we saw this last year, More details later, LOL but involves us "implementing" late one evening this fall so I can test it out while Ice fishing....

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

YES. Would love to know if the newer regulations are having a positive effect ! IF SO, then there is definite HOPE the lake may start to rebound as more and more dredging is done. If not, it will be a MUCH harder longer term fight. But short of filling in the lake (and just having 1 VERY polluted stream running thru it) it HAS to be fought. AND WON...and then rigorously ENFORCED !


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## Recneck

How arw the cats biting right now?


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## Salmonid

been 2 weeks since I was out but they were hitting good then, was at Indian today, we caught about 30 channels, they were biting everywhere we went on the lake mostly smaller fish but fun none the less. 

Salmonid


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## Recneck

Dang! I was at indian on 4th ans didnt catch anything on minners cut shad or liver...granted i was on the bank ..


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....there is some single year data in Heidelberg's study. I'll post some info when I find it. Not exactly conclusive on if/how well the State's new regs are having impact.

I'll look forward to your new concepts for crappie cover and maybe I can have my boat up there for a gravel/saugeye-walleye expedition. Also, the owner of the place that screwed up the #1 crappie honeyhole is talking like he's open to re-populating his bank with cover. More later.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM just before dark Friday 11th. During 30-40 minutes of bank fishing before dark I caught 3 crappies. I know, that sounds pretty puny, but it's an uptick. Haven't caught anymore than 1 most times during last 6 weeks. One was 11" and the other 2 weren't legal. The big one looked very healthy whereas the 2 dinks appeared to be somewhat stressed. Saturday morning in about an hour caught 2 more including another at 11". Both were legal and looked fine. Also caught a 3 lb channel cat casting under a pontoon.

Water in channel is definitely chlorophyll heavy......that means murky green. When wind is down you can definitely see some pockets of surface scum. Some channels have more expansive scum. We're lucky sun and temperatures have been moderate so far this summer. It could be a lot worse. Latest testing for toxins/microcystins is down 50-70% compared to data for Memorial Day weekend. Water temps were 79-82 range.


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## zaraspook

Local Celina farmer says he has the solution to GLSM and Ohio water problems, but his opinions aren't popular with some area farmers. "He has gained notoriety for his clean water discharge from his farm." so says the Lima News article at http://www.limaohio.com/news/news/1487628/Local-farmer-says-ecology-will-solve-water-problems . Congrats to Jeff Rasawehr who is clearly on a positive path with his no till and microbiology methodologies.


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## Lowell H Turner

THIS guy should be LISTENED TO and become a ROLE MODEL for the entire country ! Anyone achieving that level of pollution free farming should be given a "pay no taxes for an entire year" award ! THAT would get the other farmers aboard REAL quick !


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## zaraspook

Lowell.......I like your thinking, a reward for pushing the envelope! It sounds like he's a grain farmer, probably not so heavy into the livestock side of things, but I don't know. If livestock isn't an issue, he doesn't have to worry about disposing of tons of manure like all the CAFO's in the watershed. Clearly he's using gates, attempting to control water flow when weather conditions can produce runoff, rather than allowing his soil and nutrients to flush into tributaries. Controlling runoff is a significant key......whether you spread a little bit of nutrients or an overdose of nutrients, if the farmer can keep it on his field it doesn't become a problem for the lake. Simple cover crops and buffers can work magic (both are parts of this guys recipe for success). 

On every trip to/from GLSM I drive through a significant portion of the GLSM watershed. On my driving route and since the great GLSM blow up of 2010, not a single field has expanded the buffer between the field and creeks that they butt against. Very disappointing. I'd like to think some buffers are expanded, but just haven't seen it on the routes I take.


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## Salmonid

Report from yesterdays Catmasters Tourney from 6pm to midnight, 34 teams, water had cooled off and was around 74 in the main lake, clarity was better then last time up there as far as the main lake went. calm, very little wind. a slight bug hatch at dust made us worry it was gonna be a bad bug night but a slight breeze showed up after dark keeping them moving so that worked out ok. hardly any pleasure boaters out all night, not sure why that was?? it was a gorgeous night!
Since everyone has been having trouble finding shad, even at St Marys, we brought our own I managed Thursday afternoon from secret spot 125, 

Bite was slower then normal, we only landed maybe 25 cats but we were on a good spot and kept working it and ended up in 2nd place with 48.5 lbs, ( 6 channels between 7-8.5 lbs all real nice fish) but we didn't have a honest Kicker fish and without a 10 lber we knew winning was a long shot, sure enough 1st place had beat us by 12oz (49.25 lbs) but they had a 16lb channel as their kicker fish, hard to beat that...... . 

Last tourney was 3 rd place, 2nd in this one, looks like Im due for a win at the last tourney and then try to win again at the classic like we did the last two years!

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, obviously the financial `incentive` (more crops to sell) needs to be offset by making preserving or better yet widening those buffer strips far more VALUABLE to the farmers involved. A tax credit/ incentive for the farmers whom do so could be part of the answer...cheap, easy and low teck. Satilite photo confirmation will swiftly and easily show whom is complying and thus qualifying and whom is not...keep in mind modern spy space platforms in the late 1980s supposedly read and photographed most of a Soviet Army Headquarters manual of war plans to be used against NATO that a newly appointed officer was foolish enough to take outside and read while eating his lunch in a very secure base. The operators waited for this hapless newly promoted officer to flip the next page and...CLICK. He inadvertently gave away more than 60% of the contents and when the Soviets found out he was 1 of the last Soviet era officers summarily tried and immediately shot for GROSS INCOMPETENCE. Checking buffer strips along fields should be relatively `easy`...


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## Lowell H Turner

You guys did pretty good Salmonid !


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Zaraspook, obviously the financial `incentive` (more crops to sell) needs to be offset by making preserving or better yet widening those buffer strips far more VALUABLE to the farmers involved. A tax credit/ incentive for the farmers whom do so could be part of the answer...cheap, easy and low teck. Satilite photo confirmation will swiftly and easily show whom is complying and thus qualifying and whom is not...keep in mind modern spy space platforms in the late 1980s supposedly read and photographed most of a Soviet Army Headquarters manual of war plans to be used against NATO that a newly appointed officer was foolish enough to take outside and read while eating his lunch in a very secure base. The operators waited for this hapless newly promoted officer to flip the next page and...CLICK. He inadvertently gave away more than 60% of the contents and when the Soviets found out he was 1 of the last Soviet era officers summarily tried and immediately shot for GROSS INCOMPETENCE. Checking buffer strips along fields should be relatively `easy`...


LHT......as it is we have the agricultural community hooked on incentives already. It's a form of welfare. The farmers know handouts are there for the taking......nothing illegal about it, but the culture of not changing without being paid for it is already in place. Here's a recent example from a Celina Daily Standard article earlier this month _"In other business, Grand Lake/Wabash Watershed Alliance Coordinator Abbey Tobe said she plans to apply for $2 million from the USDA's Environmental Quality Incentives program to help farmers install conservation practices in the 193,500-acre Wabash River Watershed in Mercer, Auglaize and Darke counties. The Grand Lake Watershed is located in the Wabash River Watershed.
If approved, the funds would be used to help pay landowners to plant grassed waterways and cover crops, complete nutrient management plans and install feed lot and manure storage covers, waste staging facilities and silage leachate collection systems, she said.
Tobe said she would learn in mid-October if the funds will be awarded for the watershed. If approved, the dollars would need to be used over three years."_

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting the farmer doesn't incur costs. These grants/handouts normally don't pay for the entire cost to the farmer to use environmentally friendly practices. Farmers can find "assistance" if they buy into the program.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......congrats to you and partner! Darn close. You caught your fish too soon. If each of your 6 fish had eaten one more shad before jumping in your boat, you would of had that miniscule 12 ounces  .

The absence of boater traffic is likely due to the weather. I was at GLSM Friday night and part of Saturday. My area was a ghost town. No one around other than those who live there year round. Little sun, cool temps, water chilly for recreation like swimming and tubing.......not a good recipe for lake activities in July.

Hard to believe your team almost made 50 pounds without a 10 pound fish. Impressive performance and it confirms the channel cat population at GLSM is darn good shape. Next tourney is yours.


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## Lowell H Turner

Guess am saying the means od compliance verification already exist and are available.


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## Salmonid

Zara, thanks, found remnants of a 10" shad half dissolved in the livewell, it wasn't 12oz but probably a good half pound, LOL all our big fish always puke up the nastiest things when were fishing... Halve a few good places in mind for you to do some trolling up at GLSM, we will talk soon about a plan!

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid........I'm all ears for "The Plan". I fished my channel from the bank Friday night trying to catch a crappie or two. 5 minutes into it I pulled a 10" crappie from Frankenstein. Hit some other spots w/nothing going on until I made it to woodcarvers. Caught 2 more crappies there, one legal and one short. Both those fish looked "stressed" to me whereas the earlier one, larger fish, looked pristine. Other than 3-4 gills didn't catch anything else Friday.

Saturday morning I didn't make it fishing until after 9. Nothing going on with the crappies, caught a few gills, a channel cat of about 3 lbs, and pulled a fat 12" LMB from under a boat dock. The LMB jumped twice.


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## zaraspook

Back to Heidelberg's study of nitrate and phosphorus loading of GLSM.....Heidelberg's been measuring phosphorus in Chickasaw Creek since 2008. Their study now includes Coldwater Creek, but it wasn't added to the study in 2013. With only 1 year of data, it's too early to run a year to year comparison for Coldwater. Most of the annual runoff occurs in the Spring which Heidelberg defined as March - July. The presentation compared loading only for the Spring time frame of each year.

The graphic below compares annual March-July phosphorus loading from Chickasaw from 2008 up to early June of 2014. When you view it you should keep in mind a few historical events such as GLSM's nasty blow up for toxins/algae was in 2010. 2011 included heavy flooding, therefore significantly more runoff from fields feeding Chickasaw. 2012 was a drought year therefore less precipation to produce field runoff. New manure management regulations were "voluntary" for about 2 years and only became mandatory December of 2013. Since the presentation was put together in early June, rainfall later in June could have produced significant runoff/loading.

Make your own judgment. What's your analysis? What's the trajectory for annual phosphorus loading into GLSM from Chickasaw? Is it possible to draw any conclusions?


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## Lowell H Turner

With the wide variations in spring and early summer weather plus the beginning of mandated run off restrictions being so new would have to say that will need at least a couple of yrs to begin to see any recognizable patterns. That in mind any improvements should start to stand out early on...


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## zaraspook

LHT......the top left chart called "Discharge" is essentially the cumulative volume of water carried by Chickasaw Creek into Grand Lake. The other 3 charts show how many metric tons of "dissolved reactive phosphorus", metric tons of total phosphorus, and metric tons of nitrate are flowing into Grand Lake from just this single creek. In any year(like 2011 or 2013) when the discharge/rain/runoff is high, phosphorus and nitrate loading into GLSM follows the same proportional increase. 

Conclusion #1 - The more it rains and floods in the spring, the more GLSM gets sh*t on.  Duh!


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## Lowell H Turner

Then guess where is most probably going to benefit from some new wetlands, hopefully pronto...


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## Salmonid

Zara, have they reinstalled the dredge pipe in your channel yet?? I noticed on the North side of the lake, they just built two large retaining ponds about 3-4 acres each it looked like from the road, even has nice signs saying its for dredge holdings. Not sure where they are dredging and how far they are running sludge, but these ponds appears to be at least 30 ft higher then the lake and about 1/4 mile away, seems long ways to move it. You know anything about that ??

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....funny you should ask about the dredge pipe in my channel. They pulled in a mile and a 1/2 of dredge pipe that had been located at Harmons, connected it to the existing piece in the backend of the channel that that ran under the road to the holding pit constructed almost 2 years ago. It was connected to a dredge at mouth of Little Chickasaw. 3-4 weeks later state disconnected the pipe 1/2 way down my channel and said the dredge was on the blink, caught on fire. Two weeks later hooked it all back up again. Can't tell if they've pumped anything thru it but a lot of man-hours have been invested in moving pipe around.

I think it was earlier this year State announced an agreement to construct a couple of retention areas on North side. Don't recall which areas would use those pits. A neighbor who lives at lake full time said he hasn't heard a peep about the new dredge being put into service. That dredge was due late June and usually it's a big deal, lots of PR, when a new one is launched. Wonder if it's slurping sludge yet? Wonder if the dredge arrived yet?


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## zaraspook

Hey, Lowell.........it's a minor point, but farmers are not accountable for manure/phosphorus runoff. Farmers have modest controls on how much or when they apply manure, but no mandates/limits on how much flows from their land into water ways. It's not like industry where strict limits are imposed on industrial contaminants that a business discharges. It would be a game changer if ag guys had to adhere to phosphorus/nitrate rules based on discharge. Regardless of how much manure farmers apply to fields, if the manure stayed on their land we wouldn't have a problem. If it were up to me I'd let the farmers make all the decisions on what, when, how much nutrients to apply. However, whatever they apply must remain on their land. Managing runoff is their problem. Measure runoff/discharge for each operation and set limits. If the limits are exceeded, they are responsible for fines and clean-up costs. What are the odds the state and agriculture community would agree to adopt my philosophy?


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## Lowell H Turner

It`s a GOOD idea, certainly...


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## Salmonid

pretty sure at some point in the future, the EPA and other environmental groups will start to shift from a proactive stance to a Reactive one to include more policing and enforcement and using that as a way to fund there own groups. You will see more of this mentality in the future as we have already seen the effects as funding drops and it wont be long until groups will have to "fund" themselves to stay alive, this is when the rules will definitely change. That's when you will start seeing regulations like those of what you speak of where once it leaves your property, your responsible for it. 

Salmonid


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## fishwhacker

Salmonid.....I saw the dredge pond by wsu where was the other one?


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## Salmonid

yes, if you look at the ones by WSU there are two of them side by side, those were the two I was referring to, or at least it looks like 2 separate ponds... 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......here's a link on the Lake Improvement Association's website that mentions the WSU/SR703 pits. They call the storage areas "DMRA's". WSU area has capacity of 370,000 cubic yards. The DMRA adjacent to my place is actually larger with capacity for 440,000 cubic yards. Link is http://www.lakeimprovement.com/new-dredging-record . Had my dates off.......thought these DMRA's were announced earlier this year but it was April of last year.


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## zaraspook

Assume many readers know a Toledo area water treatment plant tested above the safe drinking limit of 1.0 ppb microcystins in finished/treated water. 400,000 users have a no-drink advisory. It's the same toxin causing recreational advisories at Lake Erie, GLSM, and Buckeye Lake.

EPA hasn't posted the official test numbers......they probably didn't find the problem. One report I saw said samples tested were 2.5 times the limit suggesting 2.5 ppb was the number found in water finished for public consumption. It's a problem of some sort in the water treatment plant. Maybe they could use the expertise of Celina water dept that successfully treats water drawn from a source with many times more concentrated toxin levels than Erie. Thank you Celina water folks for your fine work and diligence!


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## zaraspook

Took a high school buddy to GLSM to fish from the bank Saturday morning. The night before both of us did the high school reunion thing and had a great time. Fishing Saturday AM I'm sure we spent more time drinking coffee than catching fish. After 3 hours didn't have much to show for it. I caught 4 crappies/2 keeper size and 3 gills. My buddy was stuck on the skunk line, still waiting for the first fish. We took a long lunch break, got back into fishing for a bit, but I could tell my friend was struggling to be on his feet. He'd had knee replacement surgery 3 months ago, was on the mend, but not ready for this much time on his feet. 

He asked if I had any night-crawlers........he would be content to park his butt on a bench along my seawall, cast a crawler under a bobber into the channel and see what came along. Remembering I purchased a box of crawlers a month ago I was hoping they were in the frig. Luckily the night crawlers were there and not in bad shape after 4-weeks of aging.

Less than minute after his bobber splashed down on the first cast, the bite was on. An hour later he'd used the entire dozen requiring a quick trip to the bait store. Might as well restock the adult beverages while we were out. And, why not hit the local BBQ joint for ribs and brisket? 

With our bellies full and brew to keep our mouths moist, my friend got back to fishing. 2 hours later the sole survivor of his additional 2 dozen crawlers was threaded on the hook. When the final worm was gone, he'd tallied at least 15 cats (yellow bellies, bull heads, and channel cats), 5-6 bluegills, a sheephead (drum), and a very fat 13" plus LMB. Other than casting for bass the last 30 minutes, I didn't fish, choosing instead to watch my friend have fun. My treat was listening to his frequent recollections/stories about our teen-age years. Amazing to me that that anyone remembers names and details like my friend does. 

He told me afterward that despite limited mobility he'd "had an awesome day and weekend"! Catching fish is only a small part of fishing. 

By the way I did pick up a single 13" LMB while casting......


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## Salmonid

Great report Rande. Any size to any of the channels? Ill give you a call one evening this week to get caught up. 
Salmonid


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## Lowell H Turner

The Toledo situation SHOULD serve as a MAJOR `wake up` call...this `problem` is NOT going to just `go away` if we ignore it really hard...


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## zaraspook

LHT....yes, sir! If you aren't in the game for the long haul, you will lose. Look at us at GLSM, 4-years after the 2010 algae blow-up we don't know if the lake phosphorus content is lower, higher, or about the same. Very possible GLSM is still losing but not as fast as before. No way to know since it isn't measured. Puzzling, wouldn't you say?


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## Lowell H Turner

Definitely AGREE...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....one channel cat was about 2#'s and another probably 3.5, maybe 4#. Nothing of the caliber you tourney guys look for.

I heard the new dredge will arrive this week. It's named Hoedag, the moniker of a mythical creature said to prowl the waters of Grand Lake St. Marys.

Water temp is 76.4 this morning after breaking into the 80's Monday afternoon. That's the first time to crack 80 in quite a while. Lake has been holding it's own, plenty green, but cool temps and reduced sunshine this summer keep it from going ballistic.


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## zaraspook

GLSM now has three years of perch stocking to kick-start the native population. The guys who do the netting of GLSM rough fish claim to net perch in good numbers. The 2012 stocked class should be eating size by now. Anyone been catching perch? Do you plan to target them? How about sharing your strategy for the fall/winter perch bite?

I caught 2 GLSM perch in Feb/March time frame of 2012, clearly members of the native population, and easily eating size. My only other perch conquests were in Indian Lake, a long time ago, at a time when perch were so abundant even Tommy-The Pinball Wizard could have filled the livewell with Indian Lake perch.


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## Lowell H Turner

We haven`t hit 100 degrees anywhere in the Miami Valley yet this yr- perhaps as well for the lake. Hopefully the grace period will help the local businesses that depend on the lake for income...but likely all the rain earlier DID NOT help !


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## fishwhacker

I love to go perchin...havent done it except from the bank a few times when I was little. I keep hoping to take the boat out and try to use some spreaders with minnows to find some in the fall....I also have heard red worms fished near the bottom work....I have been going up to erie the last couple seasons so would love to save the drive if I could catch some at GLSM. It is tough because usually the gill and crappie bite is on about the time the water starts cooling for perch.


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## zaraspook

LHT ...... Local proprietors griping a bit about weather too cool for water recreation. Boater traffic has been off. Not as much use of Lake homes on weekends. Eerily quiet at night. Tough to satisfy all. Kind of normal for activity to slacken after 4th.


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## Lowell H Turner

Once upon a time I decided toi try redworms hooked thru the collar on a TEENY orange "glo" floating head jig (forget where I got them) on a light 1/8th oz slip sinker rig for walleye. I did not catch a single `eye on them because had 12 floating head jigs and was done within an hour with all 12 jigs swallowed by PERCH...and I mean INHALED.


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## zaraspook

I know a guy at GLSM who talks about loading the boat with perch back in the '80's. If I can locate him, he might be a knowledge source for what used to work for perch. And of course if I find the method to produce, I'll tell the world!

I was crappie fishing from the bank when I caught the 2 perch in 2012. Jighead was small(February water temps) and so was the plastic......just fishing normal crappie cover under a float and a couple feet down. No meat on the hook. The other thing I remember was both took the bait and moved off extremely sluggishly.....almost in slow motion.


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## Intimidator

zaraspook said:


> I know a guy at GLSM who talks about loading the boat with perch back in the '80's. If I can locate him, he might be a knowledge source for what used to work for perch. And of course if I find the method to produce, I'll tell the world!
> 
> I was crappie fishing from the bank when I caught the 2 perch in 2012. Jighead was small(February water temps) and so was the plastic......just fishing normal crappie cover under a float and a couple feet down. No meat on the hook. The other thing I remember was both took the bait and moved off extremely sluggishly.....almost in slow motion.


Zara...put some perch info on the CJ thread...if your interested!


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## Curtis937

Anybody going to be out I the lake tomorow? I'll be out there trying for some channels I'll be In a aluminum/brown boat feel free to say hey 


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## zaraspook

Got in about 2 hours fishing at GLSM Friday evening before dark........4 crappies/3 keepers with biggest at 11". Saturday morning in 2 hours got skunked on crappies, 1 bass, 3 gills. The few crappies I caught were on wood (dock and submerged limbs). Water temps 76-78 main lake and channels are 2-3 degrees warmer.


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## Curtis937

Went out Saturday for a bit water temp around 76 shad were no where to be found caught about 12 catfish the biggest at 7 lbs. the fish I caught were in 4-5fow slow fishing 


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## zaraspook

Curtis937.......over the last 4-6 weeks I've noticed an increase of shad in the channels. Neighbor of mine at GLSM was cast-netting Saturday afternoon for a Saturday night cat junket on the main lake. They got enough to do the trick, but shad were smaller than ideal.


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## Curtis937

zaraspook said:


> Curtis937.......over the last 4-6 weeks I've noticed an increase of shad in the channels. Neighbor of mine at GLSM was cast-netting Saturday afternoon for a Saturday night cat junket on the main lake. They got enough to do the trick, but shad were smaller than ideal.


Yea that's where I got the few big ones was in one of the channels it's been slow fishing lately I hope it picks up before winter 


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## Recneck

Any structure curtis or just randomm fishing?


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## Curtis937

Recneck said:


> Any structure curtis or just randomm fishing?


I just covered a lot of the lake catfishing not much cover in the main lake 


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## Recneck

I guess it works lol


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## Salmonid

Recnec. This time of year the cats will cruise around a lot looking for food. We do catch a bunch of fish just randomly moving around but if you can find the right areas, the cats can be stacked pretty heavy in an area. 
Hopefully i can find such an area Sat at the Outdoorsman Catmasters tourney. 
Salmonid


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## Recneck

Yeah i know..lakes are just daunting to me lol..once i get a boat is like to tey some tourneys myself.


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## Curtis937

Recneck said:


> Yeah i know..lakes are just daunting to me lol..once i get a boat is like to tey some tourneys myself.



Me too....especially that lake it's always changing...and You can fish the outdoorsman without a boat they have nice turnouts 


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## Recneck

Oh really? I might have to try that. out!!


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## Curtis937

Recneck said:


> Oh really? I might have to try that. out!!



Www.theoutdoorsman.biz



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## Recneck

Thanks for the link!


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## Recneck

I think the big problem for me would be keeping them alive...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......your team is "overdue" for Saturday Cat tourney. After 3rd place in the June event, followed by 2nd place in July event.....I like your trend line. And, if I recall the difference last time was only 12 ounces. Winners had a 16 pound kicker and just edged past your team. 

The fishing gods will be smiling on you this time. However, a 12# kicker might bring more "luck" than smiles from the fishing gods. Good luck!


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## Salmonid

Zara, report from last night, ended up with a tough bite, only caught 13 fish total vs the 30 or so we usually put in the boat, water temps were 72.4 at 6 pm. Still a very hard time getting shad. 
went to one of the honey holes and it didn't take long to realize it was gonna be a tough night for us. ended up with right at 39 lbs which I knew was just outside the bubble for placing and it was, we ended up in 7th place, ( 35 teams) I did have 1 nice 9.5 lber. Big fish was a 4 way tie for exactly 12 lbs. 
Winners had 47, then 46 and then 44 lbs to place, 

Coming back in to channel to load boat, we were spooking a lot of shad, looked like mini Asian carp jumping everywhere, LOL

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Persistance pays off in the end...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......good effort, Mark. When I'm out in the boat at night, frequently encounter that same crazy shad "dance". Shad flip and fly all over the place, particularly near the mouth of my channel, and almost a dull drum beat of the critters smacking up against the side of the boat.

I didn't make it to GLSM until about the time you guys were heading to weigh-in Saturday night. Bunch of family stuff Saturday. Fished Sunday morning for 90 minutes. Almost no bite. Managed one short crappie and 3 gills. Stayed around long enough to cut grass and do a couple other chores then back home for my granddaughter's #1 birthday party.

Friday morning I fished for 4 hours but it was at Brookville. Did better there.......4 smallmouth and 2 walleyes. None of fish were bragging size but one walleye within 1/2 inch of legal length.


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## zaraspook

Hey, fellas.......the brand new dredge, delivered in the last 10 days, isn't dredging. Water pump problem and it won't pump crap.


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## zaraspook

Fished 2 hours before darkness Weds evening at GLSM. It's been a struggle to catch any more than 2-3 crappies at a time while bank fishing in my channel. A nice surprise last night to find the specks a little more cooperative......maybe a sneak-peek that better action isn't far away. Managed 7 crappies, 5 of which were keeper class. Largest didn't make it to the 11" mark. Also caught a couple dink gills.

The fish were solid chunks.......have been eating well, probably feasting on masses of 2-3" shad that proliferate the channels right now. All fish were taken within 6-8' of the bank, around wood, and water no more than 2-4' deep. 2 were caught 6" off a seawall. Looked at my GLSM fishing log.....hadn't caught 7 crappies in one session since very early June.


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## Lowell H Turner

Glad to hear the fishing`s improving ...sorry as all get up to hear the new dredge is down ! Hopefully it`s still under warrenty !


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## zaraspook

LHT.......Good point about warranty on the dredge. Car warranties are based on time or usage(miles). Wonder if dredge builders follow same warranty philosophy of time or usage (gallons of poop pumped?).


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## Salmonid

Good report Zara, of the few crappies your getting, are any coming from plastic structures?? again I have a whole new structure concept we need to utilize before fall bite starts up. LOL I believe it will be a goldmine during the spawn itself and also a good pre and post Ice structure as well.

Salmonid
PS still need to show you some gravel bars...


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## fished-out

Plastic ain't near as good as wood. Reason: takes longer for the algae to build on it, attracting shad, which attract the crappie. Depending on what else is there, it may attact them just because it's cover, but St Mary's has alot of cover already. Best bet, use wood, thicker the better, in an area you already know holds crappie, so that your cover will concentrate them. Don't use Christmas trees, use tree branches, particularly the ends of the branch where there are lots of divided stuff. Christmas trees break down too fast, and they don't have enough space for crappie to get between the branches, or under them. If you have to use plastic, take some rough sand paper to it so that the algae will stick to it better.


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## Salmonid

fished out, we know the wood is better but we were trying some cheap simple stake beds and they did work to a point but not as good as we all had hoped for and i do believe that it was merely the fact it was some cover vs no cover in an area. I will tell you they were covered in algae within days of putting them in, LOL

Phase 2 will be more along exactly what you wrote, I have the materials and the plans already worked up, just have to implement. 
I agree that there is a ton of nice natural cover out there if your in a boat but along sea walls and behind a house, were trying to make it easier for the passing fish to hold in the area we can reach from shore. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....not catching anything off my seawall, regardless of whether cover is plastic or wood. My theory......assuming my channel is holding fish, crappies prefer the natural bank on other side over the option of sporadic cover we place along seawalls. It's a whole different ecosystem going on with the natural bank only 30-35 feet away. Having said that, our stake beds on seawalls produce more fish than without stake beds............it's a fact! 

And like you said, the plastic stakes may not be optimal for growing algae to attract baitfish, but those stakes were covered with algae within days, and at a time of year when algae wasn't prolific and waters were cooling fast.


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## Lowell H Turner

While "C" trees do decompose somewhat quickly (in CJ about 4-6 yrs depending on the type ) cutting a clear spot around the lower 1/3rd of the tree TENDS to hold LOTS of different types of fish through out the year. TRY a couple, I DARE you...you will LIKE them ! btw, the "C" trees will hold far more biological diversity than anything else you might put in.


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## fished-out

I'm just basing my thoughts on doing alot of crappie fishing at alot of different lakes, including St Mary's and CJ. CJ's different-not alot of natural cover there and basically a white crappie fishery. ANY kind of cover will hold some fish there.

St Mary's has both, but I catch primarily black crappie. They've got very different habits. When they're in the channels, the whites will bury themselves in the thickest cover they can find and will be a bit deeper (relative term in St Mary's. In the summer, they're mostly in the main lake chasing shad. The blacks are more home bodies. I find them in the channels year round, but more toward the mouths and the main lake, and they're oriented toward docks and pontoons when it's sunny--think shade and cooler. That's why stakebeds aren't as effective--they want more overhead cover. If they're near a sea wall, the beds will attract fish as a stopping point along the wall when the wall is creating shade with the angle of the sun.

Anyway, that's what I've found catching crappie in the summer. Picked up 30 nice ones at Indian a week ago using these principles. Buddy and I picked up over a 100 on East Fork 2 weeks ago (all released)--completely different style of lake and completely different principles apply to summer time fishing.

I like fishing for crappie.


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## Intimidator

zaraspook said:


> Salmonid.....not catching anything off my seawall, regardless of whether cover is plastic or wood. My theory......assuming my channel is holding fish, crappies prefer the natural bank on other side over the option of sporadic cover we place along seawalls. It's a whole different ecosystem going on with the natural bank only 30-35 feet away. Having said that, our stake beds on seawalls produce more fish than without stake beds............it's a fact!
> 
> And like you said, the plastic stakes may not be optimal for growing algae to attract baitfish, but those stakes were covered with algae within days, and at a time of year when algae wasn't prolific and waters were cooling fast.


Zara/Salmonid
Since you guys are just building honey holes and not trying to do what we did, here are a few more things to consider.
Just by adding a few pieces of wood to your PVC stake beds, adds an entire new dimension to it. Use a long lasting hardwood.
Adding osage Orange/hedge apple, takes things to a whole new level...part of the charm of using PVC is that it lasts forever...people forget though, that you need more than 5 one inch pieces in a bucket, you have to design a piece of cover than offers the fish what they are looking for, PROTECTION/SAFETY, SHADE, AMBUSH, ETC. 
You can make dense PVC "trees" and they work just as well as Natural.

The main thing to consider is a dense cover is more for smaller Crappie...Larger Crappie start looking for LARGER branches, stumps, Posts, etc....this is where you could use 3 inch, 4 inch, 5 inch, PVC beds or buckets...create you own "Stump" field along your wall and sprinkle in Orange wood to attract baitfish, zooplankton, other small organisms, etc. NORMALLY Big Fish will not associate with smaller ones...you guys are like me...I want BIG SLABS!

I found a source of "Orange" Wood, and have been building "out of the way areas" to bank fish, when I want to be alone!
The Bad thing about "Orange" wood is that it is a PITA to cut, I never really dealt with it before, but I heard how hard it is to work with....and it's true...BUT WELL WORTH IT! I went out with a buddy and took pics of all the areas we put "Orange" Wood in, and this stuff is a Magnet...plus it will dang near last forever!
I made areas of dense "Orange" wood cover for smaller Crappie, and then down where I can reach, put some Big Orange Cover for the Slabs...that way it will continue to refresh and provide big fish as they grow!
Fish have locked in memories...if you provide what they are looking for EACH PATTERN, they will stay in your area their entire life....but you also have to draw new fish in, so you have to make them a path to your FISHING AREA!
Let the smaller ones stay across the Canal....pull the SLABS to you!


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## Lowell H Turner

Assuming you use the osage orange, use the finer branches too. And a 1" dia branch will last 20+ YEARS underwater...oh yeah, use a brand new chain saw chain when you cut it, and get plenty of rest the day before.


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## Intimidator

Lowell H Turner said:


> Assuming you use the osage orange, use the finer branches too. And a 1" dia branch will last 20+ YEARS underwater...oh yeah, use a brand new chain saw chain when you cut it, and get plenty of rest the day before.


Luckily, I had 2 spare chains and plenty of oil, I went through the chain that was on it and then another, luckily I was done so I put the last sharp one on, and sent the Dull ones out...That stuff is just dense and solid...smells great...then I had to rest for 2 days afterwards!
Another note to learn from me...you will dull the crap out of LOPERS, and wear out your chest and arm muscles, cutting the smaller branches to size...use the chain saw...or work yourself to death with a hand saw!lol


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## zaraspook

fished-out......enjoyed your post and can tell your passionate about crappie fishing. With sunny conditions I always head for pontoons and docks, about 1/2 my catch right now under toons and docks. Despite knowing the crappies like that overhead cover, it hadn't dawned on me that lack of horizontal cover in stake beds was a weakness, but it makes sense. Sometimes you can't see something that's right in front of you. I'm grateful for any cover but realize we can mix it up and probably improve effectiveness. Thanks for sharing your ideas, tactics, and wisdom.


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## zaraspook

Intimidator and LHT...........really appreciate your tips and sharing your successes. One request......think shallow. Water off my seawall is 24-30" deep right now and headed shallower. I have boat traffic at the seawall, motor props that churn thru that area. Cover can't stick up more than 16-18" without interfering with boat props above. What's a good strategy for building cover and deployment for these shallow conditions? In the spring water depth is 18-24" deeper so no problems in the spring. Do you understand the challenge?


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## Lowell H Turner

Understand now. A bit of a sticky wicket, but here goes: osage orange or other LONG lasting "BB"s (brush blocks). Carefully stack several 8"- 10" cement blocks or cheat and work off of a pick up tail gate. Take 6` long osage orange limb sand put the cut ends thru 1 side, all cut ends together. Solidly wedge the limbs in and use finer branches to fill in any large gaps. Carefully build it so the limbs do not stick up any more than you want them to. Do the other side. Take a piece of VHD weed eater line about 40" long and tie a loop on 1 end. Secure the loop to a bottom limb and loop the line over that quarter (all the cut ends on 1 side. Tie it off securely. Take the line diagonally opposite quarter and tie it off securely. Jump to the other corner on the same end and securely tie it off, then the last corner. The other option is to take pieces of PVC and round cut the ends so 1 end of each piece is fish mouthed to securely fit the pipe. Glue them to pipe. Drill holes in the pipe to allow rebar to be inserted on at least the ends. Drill several holes vertically to allow water to escape. And of course there are Sir Intimidator`s milk crate specials...could put them in laid over on their side.


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## Intimidator

Lowell H Turner said:


> Understand now. A bit of a sticky wicket, but here goes: osage orange or other LONG lasting "BB"s (brush blocks). Carefully stack several 8"- 10" cement blocks or cheat and work off of a pick up tail gate. Take 6` long osage orange limb sand put the cut ends thru 1 side, all cut ends together. Solidly wedge the limbs in and use finer branches to fill in any large gaps. Carefully build it so the limbs do not stick up any more than you want them to. Do the other side. Take a piece of VHD weed eater line about 40" long and tie a loop on 1 end. Secure the loop to a bottom limb and loop the line over that quarter (all the cut ends on 1 side. Tie it off securely. Take the line diagonally opposite quarter and tie it off securely. Jump to the other corner on the same end and securely tie it off, then the last corner. The other option is to take pieces of PVC and round cut the ends so 1 end of each piece is fish mouthed to securely fit the pipe. Glue them to pipe. Drill holes in the pipe to allow rebar to be inserted on at least the ends. Drill several holes vertically to allow water to escape. And of course there are Sir Intimidator`s milk crate specials...could put them in laid over on their side.


One other good idea, would be just to mix it up....like Lowell said, you can stick hardwood branches into the holes of the concrete blocks so the cover is horizontal instead of vertical, I'll post a pick of the milk crates...you can also lay down a couple bags of gravel in a few areas (so the blocks won't sink in the muck) and just put concrete blocks in, so fish will go in and out of the holes....what you really need is something that floats that you can tie to your part of the seaway to create shade (like Fished-out said) overhead cover just lowers the temp of the shaded water....so you either have to create shade on the surface or shade halfway down in your water column (think stake beds with a roof) If you can do all of this in your area, I think you would put yourself in the best possible condition for your situation!
Good Fishing!
Brent


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## Intimidator

Intimidator said:


> One other good idea, would be just to mix it up....like Lowell said, you can stick hardwood branches into the holes of the concrete blocks so the cover is horizontal instead of vertical, I'll post a pick of the milk crates...you can also lay down a couple bags of gravel in a few areas (so the blocks won't sink in the muck) and just put concrete blocks in, so fish will go in and out of the holes....what you really need is something that floats that you can tie to your part of the seaway to create shade (like Fished-out said) overhead cover just lowers the temp of the shaded water....so you either have to create shade on the surface or shade halfway down in your water column (think stake beds with a roof) If you can do all of this in your area, I think you would put yourself in the best possible condition for your situation!
> Good Fishing!
> Brent


You can put 1 crate in with just a few rocks or bricks...or you can put multiples together and lay them horizontal....wood is fantastic on the inside, I use hardwood and fruit wood...and 10 hole bricks on the bottom of the crates for crawdads, etc....this creates a feeding station for all organisms and baitfish, this attracts the predators. At CJ the Walleye love these things....they provide all the requirements of predator fish.


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## Lowell H Turner

Sir Intimidator`s milk crates are becoming the stuff of legend...


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## fished-out

And lay it parallel to the sea wall--less chance of a boat prop catching it. Honestly, some of the best cover you can put down is a 10-15' long 3-4" diameter "log" with 2-3" side branches 18-20" long. The branches on the bottom keep it off the lake floor so the fish can get under it and the branches on the side provide some more of what they want. To make it, get some 4" PVC and use a holesaw to cut 2" holes in it, insert 20" 2" PVC halfway thru and pin them by driving a galvanized nail thru both sides (pre-drill to make it easier) at 8-10" intervals, weight both ends with concrete blocks, and lay the whole thing parallel to the sea wall. 

Or you can just find a suitable wood log.... . 

The shade of the sea wall will also help and you can tie it to make double sure it doesn't get away, although that's a dead give away (I look for ropes on sea walls on the shallow lakes....) of what's there. At 10-15' long, that'll be the biggest piece of cover on the sea wall, great stopping point for travellers. By the way, if you can put it near lights, all the better. Crappies gravitate toward lights because of the bugs which attract bait fish, etc. and they tend to hang around in the morning, and they may not go far in the day.


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## Lowell H Turner

Sounds good to me. Not to keep pushing natural wood but adding even a few osage orange branches CANNOT `hurt`. Am a FIRM believer that PVC used WITH wood is about as `good` as you can get...


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## Intimidator

Heck Zara
Why don't you just have a buddy come out with a backhoe and open up your area around the wall...THEN PLANT "TREES"!lol
I bet that would really produce year round then!


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## zaraspook

Will osage orange trees grow in water???? 

Lot of good ideas from you guys. It's a "process" and won't happen overnight.


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## Lowell H Turner

I`ll better Sir Intimidator`s idea...have a friend show up with a excavation shovel (and a couple dump trucks ) and make your channel THE deepest part of the lake at no cost to the State, then add a forest. You`ll be able to host 1/2 of every tournament on the lake...put in a bait shop and burger joint and retire in 5 yrs.


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## Salmonid

Here is several hr of good reading about structures with pics, , from one of my favorite websites, pondboss.com

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92463#Post92463

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

LHT....would love to increase depth of channel. Ironic......State is dredging next channel west from me. They pump the muck thru a pipe down my channel to holding pit on land at the end of my channel. Pump it down my channel? Store the muck for 3+ years at the end of my channel?......so how about dredging my channel? Nope. Not on the agenda.


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## Lowell H Turner

(if you had it done in the `wee hours` of the morning...)


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......there's a ton of info in those links you posted about cover. Definitely requires some time to peruse and digest. Good post, Mark.


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## Intimidator

zaraspook said:


> Salmonid......there's a ton of info in those links you posted about cover. Definitely requires some time to peruse and digest. Good post, Mark.


I actually used that site also....
What it all boils down to is....what kind of water are you dealing with and what kind of time and effort do you want to put into it!

Wood is ALMOST always better than PVC for organisms and the bottom of the food chain, But PVC will last forever, is harder to detect, and does not hang up as much. 
As Lowell always states, put both together somehow, and you'll have the best of both worlds...except for a few more chances to hangup!

If you have skinny water you have to think horizontal or short....deep water allow a wide range of options, etc, etc.

Smaller fish like denser cover, larger fish don't always need the protection and prefer larger ambush or resting spots that give more shadows/shade!

You especially, can experiment...put in a couple brush blocks, and a couple crates and plain blocks and see what works best for you!
ALWAYS Remeber...ANY cover is better than none!


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## Spence88

Any report of the bite, especially crappie, going on at the lake? Was there back in late July and sniffed out a few bluegills and some cats. Logic says days are too hot and not cool enough at night yet for any action - but one can hope, right??


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## fishguy 888

Spence your best bet if you want to catch a few crappies is to shoot under docks and pontoons in the deeper channels; even though Grand lake is fairly shallow.


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## zaraspook

Friday evening found a few crappies but gills more aggressive. Caught 5 crappies and 9 gills. Almost all fish came from under docks or pontoons. Size of gills is improving.


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## zaraspook

Saturday......... 6 crappies, biggest 12.5". Only 3 gills. August crappie bite had been better than normal. Lots of shad action.


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## Salmonid

Nice job Rande...

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Struggled to get 4 crappies Sunday. One was 11". Gills were more active...... Caught 9-10.


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## fishwhacker

Anyone hear anything on perch? Anyone trying?


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker......perch? What are those? When a bird is sitting on a tree limb, don't they call it a perch? I saw a few of those.

Monday crappie fishing was the same as Fri-Sunday. Caught 5.....all from under docks/pontoons......clearly not the pattern for perch. Guess I should mention 1/2 dozen gills found their way to my jig, not keepers.


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## fishwhacker

I know right...I keep thinking I need to spend a day searching for them...just hard to get a whole day....usually only get a couple hrs to get out and use that for gills and crappies


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## zaraspook

whacker......same for me. I usually get 2-3 hours to fish, not enough time to start from scratch for a new species. We need to pool efforts.....see if we can get a few guys to put in some time, share the tactics, baits, cover they've tried and see if we can't come up with a system to produce some perch. Instead of each of us trying to re-invent the wheel, as a group if we share we can eliminate stuff, find out where to look, what to use and get to positive result faster. What do you think?


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## zaraspook

From the Columbus Dispatch, at the link below is a "letter to the editor" from a former Ohio EPA Director of Surface Water Quality. He's on the right track suggesting politics are in the way of state lawmakers fixing the phosphorus problems that feed blue-green algae in state waters. He says agriculture guys *must* be required to test fields for nutrient content before adding more fertilizers/manure which contain phosphorus. 

What? Is this guy a whacko? Proposing to test soil to determine if nutrients are needed before you can add more fertilizer? Sounds pretty radical to me. I'll bet most OGF guys think since the GLSM watershed is labeled "distressed", farmers have to test fields for nutrient levels. Nope! Never been the case. No such law nor regulation exists, not even in the GLSM "distressed" watershed. Instead of pouring Ohio tax payer dollars to clean up the mess, how about a little "prevention"? 

Before I get whacked for slurring farmers, let me say the ag guys are not breaking the law. Almost all are well within written laws. However, if you want to claim to be a good steward of the environment, you shouldn't oppose soil testing to analyze the content and needs of your land. What am I missing here?

link is http://www.dispatch.com/content/sto...ont-let-politics-get-in-way-of-algae-fix.html


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## Lowell H Turner

The tried and true saying `An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure` would certainly be appropriate here...


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## AEFISHING

Makes sense to me. To much political BS to get through.


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## fishwhacker

Gonna try putting some minnows down deep this coming week for some perch will let you know how I do.


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## zaraspook

Hooray and good luck, fishwhacker! Hope you run into a few.


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## Salmonid

Id like to get into some perch this winter,,, yummy!!

Im fishing the Catmaster Championship tourney tomorrow ( noon to 6 pm) with Tin Guppy, ( trying to convert him to the dark side, LOL) since regular partner Ryan has bad ear infection and dr has him on bed rest since his equilibrium is all out of whack, don't want him getting dizzy and falling out of boat, LOL
Anyways this will wrap up the catfishin season up there for the year then its time to get busy Zara with some more plantings... and start thinking crappies....

Salmonid


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## Salmonid

well the good news is we had 42.8 lbs today and that would have won the Catmasters tourney along with $750 ( for the third year in a row) except there was 1 tiny problem, Tin Guppy hadn't fished a qualifying tourney and was ineligible, I got called an hour into the tourney and was informed of that, Oh well, its only money... my regular Partner had medical issues and was on bedrest this weekend and couldn't fish and I was scrambling to find someone, I even tried calling he shop but they were already closed. anyways I leave my house at 9 am this morning and get 10 miles up the road and my tow vehicle dies and wife has to bring me the backup farm pickup but by the time I run her home and get back to registration, it was right at noon and we had a 25 minute boat run to get to our spot so we started late, what a day....I know its only money but when your counting on that to keep fishing, its the world to me, depression has set in and Im ready to give up on all tourneys, I just cant afford them... the stress is killing me, ( Rusty did great today and had several of the bigger fish today) Ill post some pics here later...Sorry for the rant....as my wife would say, "just let it go" 


Salmonid


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## Intimidator

Salmonid said:


> well the good news is we had 42.8 lbs today and that would have won the Catmasters tourney along with $750 ( for the third year in a row) except there was 1 tiny problem, Tin Guppy hadn't fished a qualifying tourney and was ineligible, I got called an hour into the tourney and was informed of that, Oh well, its only money... my regular Partner had medical issues and was on bedrest this weekend and couldn't fish and I was scrambling to find someone, I even tried calling he shop but they were already closed. anyways I leave my house at 9 am this morning and get 10 miles up the road and my tow vehicle dies and wife has to bring me the backup farm pickup but by the time I run her home and get back to registration, it was right at noon and we had a 25 minute boat run to get to our spot so we started late, what a day....I know its only money but when your counting on that to keep fishing, its the world to me, depression has set in and Im ready to give up on all tourneys, I just cant afford them...and my partner has become more and more unreliable, the stress is killing me, I tell ya, folks just don't know how hard it is to find someone as dedicated as I am to pair up with when fishing tourneys, ( Rusty did great today and had several of the bigger fish today) Ill post some pics here later...Sorry for the rant....as my wife would say, "just let it go"
> 
> 
> Salmonid


Rusty called me on his way home...Congrats to both of you!
I know "Moral Victories" don't pay the bills, but you both have one...you should feel good knowing you beat some of the best catfish guys around, WITH A WALLEYE AND CRAPPIE FISHERMAN!


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## Salmonid

Brent, I m pretty sure he is giving up on the walleyes as now he is a bonified catman!! LOL I know this because like the rest of us serious guys he was eating potato chips with shad guts on his hands, he has passed the test plus got several of our biggest fish today. Been trying to post pics but my email keeps choking when I open it to get the pics. stay tuned

Salmonid


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## Salmonid

Here is Rusty ( Tin Guppy) with our biggest today, an 8.5 lber, 










and with a 7.75 lber. Nice job today!!











Salmonid


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## Salmonid

also of note, water looked decent and was 77.4 degrees, winds from the N-NW at 5-10 MPH, hardly any boats out all day, had the place to ourselves... Curtis937 and his GF Sandy placed 6th or 7th today so a great first year for them in the series!! 
Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.........very proud of you and Tin Guppy's first place performance! Unfortunate you and partner don't get to enjoy the rewards of that first place bag of fish. But no one can take away your 3-peat.........#1 bag three years running!!!!

Actually, your team's performance this year could well become legendary. Next year no one will remember the names of the team that took the money, but they will remember the team that had to forfeit the trophy.....the team that almost didn't arrive because of a vehicle breakdown......the team that arrived late, started late, and with a catfishing newbie as a partner smoked some of the craftiest catfish pros around. And they will remember, despite tall odds the team of Mark and Rusty weighed in the #1 basket. And they will remember it was Mark's 3rd straight year with the top basket in the Catmaster. The story will be passed down to generations and the story will grow as its repeated....."when their tow vehicle broke down, Mark and Rusty hitched the trailer to team of horses", "the boat motor ran out of gas but they rowed 9 miles to the other side of the lake", rather than a winning basket of 42 pounds they will tell of "Mark and Rusty's incredible win by more than 42 pounds!". 
Yes, the first place money is gone, but the legend of Mark and Rusty's 2014 Catmaster has only just started. The story will grow. You and Tin Guppy traded the prize money for IMMORTALITY!


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## Intimidator

zaraspook said:


> Salmonid.........very proud of you and Tin Guppy's first place performance! Unfortunate you and partner don't get to enjoy the rewards of that first place bag of fish. But no one can take away your 3-peat.........#1 bag three years running!!!!
> 
> Actually, your team's performance this year could well become legendary. Next year no one will remember the names of the team that took the money, but they will remember the team that had to forfeit the trophy.....the team that almost didn't arrive because of a vehicle breakdown......the team that arrived late, started late, and with a catfishing newbie as a partner smoked some of the craftiest catfish pros around. And they will remember, despite tall odds the team of Mark and Rusty weighed in the #1 basket. And they will remember it was Mark's 3rd straight year with the top basket in the Catmaster. The story will be passed down to generations and the story will grow as its repeated....."when their tow vehicle broke down, Mark and Rusty hitched the trailer to team of horses", "the boat motor ran out of gas but they rowed 9 miles to the other side of the lake", rather than a winning basket of 42 pounds they will tell of "Mark and Rusty's incredible win by more than 42 pounds!".
> Yes, the first place money is gone, but the legend of Mark and Rusty's 2014 Catmaster has only just started. The story will grow. You and Tin Guppy traded the prize money for IMMORTALITY!


I like that Zara...I might start adding and spreading the Legend of Mark "Darth Salmonid", The Dark Side Kitty Hunter, and The "White Light" Gator Hunter, Sir Rusty of the Tin Guppy!
This stuff is what Legends of Lore are made from! lol


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## Lowell H Turner

It`s NOT the `easy wins` that inspire others, it is the "There we were, surrounded by and (deleted) deep in adversity; we didn`t stand a chance...but did we give up ? (DELETED) NO we DID NOT !" THAT sirs, is how LEGENDS are born...remember that Fate favors the bold and the diehards !


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## zaraspook

Since this is a crappie thread, I'll throw in my not so great crappie report. Saturday evening from shore caught 6 crappies in about 90 minutes. That's actually a pretty decent catch rate with waters still mid and upper 70's. Cooler weather beginning Thursday should start the descent of water temps. October and November are usually two of the best months of the year for crappies at GLSM. Water level is holding pretty good for this time of year.....probably 3 ft off my seawall now whereas depth was only 16" at this time in 2012.

On Sunday I fished off and on......total of about 2 hours, to catch just 4 crappies. Probably caught 15 gills between the 2 days. Gills are more active than crappies and size is improving. All crappies and most of gills were taken under pontoons or under decks/docks.

Pleasure boaters were active Sunday. Traffic of fishing boats is climbing after almost no fishing boats in July-August. A bass angler in my channel Sunday morning claims he'd caught 13 bass by 10am. A cat fisherman 2 houses away from mine held up what he said was a blue cat, probably 10 pounder, caught in the main lake late Sunday morning. Fishing will start to rock when the temperature drops 10-15 degrees.


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## zaraspook

Two items to note......Water level of GLSM is currently 2.5 inches above "pool level". At least that was the report before Weds rains. Beginning Oct.1 a drawdown will begin and not stop until 9" below the top of the spillway. Last year the State did a big drawdown in Feb-March time frame. Ice was 10" then. As water level fell the ice came with it......the weight of sagging ice created all kinds of damage to fixed docks/decks lake wide. It cost something like $175,000 to fix only the state owned docks. The toll on private docks probably several times higher. It sounds like 9" below spillway will be maintained until March 15. If you do Oct-Nov boat fishing this fall, be on alert for shallow water. 

Hard to say at this point how fishing from the bank will be effected. In the past crappies seem to shut down when water level falls quickly. Then it takes a week or two after the level stabilizes. It may require 3-4 weeks for the drawdown.....might be Thanksgiving before crappie bite settles down. October and November are normally prime time for fall crappie bite.....this year could be tough. At least the ice fishing guys won't suffer through falling water issues like last year which shutdown the saugeye bite just when it got hot.

Second issue is the dredge report......The best forecast suggests final tally will be 1/2 of last year which was 300,000 cubic yards of silt removed. 2 dredges experienced chronic repairs all season. The new dredge arrived late (July) and inoperable since. Last Friday the new dredge survived a 1/2 day of dredging and this week to start a full dredging schedule(4 days). I doubt the state dredges after Oct 1.


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## fished-out

Don't worry too much about the drawdown. I fish flood control lakes a lot, and the fish will get used to it once it's on a regular schedule. Normally, I catch fish in rising water (albeit new areas) and have problems in falling water. In deeper lakes, they tend to pull back and suspend. In a lake like St Mary's, I'd tend to look in deeper water--I'm sure you'd know where  -- and fish closer to the bottom.


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## fishwhacker

Sorry for the late report on the search for perch....only tried from shore with minnows on the bottom...had about 12 cats no perch...gonna wait until the temps really go down before trying again....let me know if anyone stumbles into any.


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## zaraspook

Fished-out....... Deepest water in my channel is 5' right now. Will be about 3.5' after draw down. What do you consider to be "deep"?


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Sorry for the late report on the search for perch....only tried from shore with minnows on the bottom...had about 12 cats no perch...gonna wait until the temps really go down before trying again....let me know if anyone stumbles into any.


Good effort fw! How deep was water you fished in the search for perch ?


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## zaraspook

Curious to see how much GLSM water temps drop with cooler weather we have on hand. 71 degrees this morning(Friday). Like to see those crappies put the feed bag on.......


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## zaraspook

Got to fish an hour before dark Fri night. 6 crappies and 5 gills in an hour is pretty good action. Only one keeper crappie but as I've been saying size of gills is decent.


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## fishwhacker

I didnt have slip corks so only could get down 9 ft or so....I obviously went to the deep holes that I know....I tried to work the dropping edges of the holes...maybe this cooler weather will get them and the crappies moving. The fast action I was getting from the cats make me wonder if everytime I caught the cats in the hole if they scared the perch out. Might have to look for drop offs by shallow weed lines next....used to using spreaders off shore at erie...if I can get a half a day to take the boat out would like to try that also.


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## zaraspook

Surprised by the crappie bite today at GLSM. Caught 23, almost all from docks and pontoons. Maybe only 8-10 gills but most were keepers. Haven't caught 23 crappies in an outing since May.


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## Salmonid

Nice work Rande, we need to hook up later this week possibly, how you look for Thursday aft? 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid....... I'll check my work calendar when I get to office tomorrow and let you know. Don't have high confidence in bite yet. One good day isn't a great sample size. Was still at lake this morning and couldn't buy a crappie bite. Left before 11 am. Would be nice to see water temps 60.


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## zaraspook

Water temp at GLSM Tues morning is 65......won't be long for crappies.


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## fished-out

In St Mary's, 5-7 feet. Only a few channels with that kind of depth.....but there are holes for those who know them, and some deeper open areas off the channels. To be honest, I haven't been on the water after the drawdown since they started it. However, isn't that more towards fall, when they start to come shallow again anyway?



zaraspook said:


> Fished-out....... Deepest water in my channel is 5' right now. Will be about 3.5' after draw down. What do you consider to be "deep"?


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## zaraspook

fished-out.......I'm thinking the draw downs are a relatively new phenomenon, only done 2-3 times before, started in 2012(?). Seems the first couple were spring time events, then this year executed during the winter around Feb. By fall the water is usually really low, not much need for a drawdown. With precipitation we've had this year, including the summer, water is considerably higher. State probably fears 1)a big problem in spring if they don't do something now and 2) drawdowns during a cold winter with ice cover creates havoc on docks and other water structure (and creates more property damage claims). 

Therefore, I think this is the first drawdown executed in the fall, at least in recent times. My concern is it seems prolonged falling water messes up the fish. It usually takes 3-5 weeks to complete a drawdown. Just hope it doesn't mess up the fall crappie bite, my favorite time to catch specks. Many of the old-timers feel it won't be a big factor.


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## zaraspook

Had to meet a guy Tues night at my lake place regarding a concrete job. Got to fish an hour and 45 minutes with decent results. Last year and in spring this year two-thirds of the catch would be "legal" (greater than 9"). Crappies we've been catching lately have been disproportionately short ones, majority 7-8". Starting now to see a return of better fish. 4 of the 8 I caught were keepers, two of them past 11.5 inches. Biggest was a white crappie. Also, starting to catch some crappies at places other than under docks and pontoons. Not suggesting the fish were widespread and found in lots of different cover, but a little bit more variety to their location than the last few weeks. Water temp at 2:15pm Weds is 63.5, continuing the slide. 

Fishwhacker, are you seeing similar pattern?


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## fishwhacker

I was fishing a spot down from the top of the spillway and was doing great until the cooler temps then I couldnt get a bite last time....I am assuming they are making the move to up the channels to get feeding....I will know more when I get out next time....should be getting better daily as long as weather stays steady...colder weather usually gets them closer especially when a seawall gets hit by the sun all day..let me know if their noses are getting red then you know they are rubbing against the seawalls and rocks and they wont be strictly under docks and wood


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......that's an interesting observation about red noses from sea wall/rock contact. Hadn't noticed reddening in the past but will look for what I'm dubbing as the Rudolph the Red Nosed Crappie syndrome.  Lake water temp is 65 degrees this morning as compared to 63.5 yesterday. That's not what I'm looking for but crazy what a full day of sunshine can do. Last year at this time water temps were bouncing between 63-68, about the same.


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## zaraspook

Whether or not GLSM water quality is improving is debatable. Some say it is and others don't buy it. Looks like the general public is voting yes to improving, and they are doing it with their pocketbooks. Mercer-Auglaize County Convention and Visitors Bureau says 2014 tourism at GLSM is up 10-12%. Tourism this year is for the first time above levels prior to the mother of all algae blooms in 2010. Baby steps.......

Water temp 64 at noon on Fri 19th.


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## zaraspook

Arrived Sat 9-20 at GLSM about 1pm. Bite wasn't great but caught 4 crappies by 2pm including the 12" specimen below. Stopped fishing to get chores done and didn't get back to fishing until about 5pm. Expected the bite to pick up with the approaching storm front. Boy did I have it pegged incorrectly.....got shut out over the next 2.5 hours. Despite fishing all kinds of cover and switching up baits regularly, rarely got a bite let alone a fish. Even the gills quit.

Pattern didn't change Sunday morning.....everything tight lipped, but finally caught 2 short crappies around noon. Sooner or later those fish were going to eat so the 2 short fish was a positive sign. Finished cutting grass before grabbing my pole again at 1:30. It took less than 90 minutes to catch the next 13 fish. More than 1/2 were short. Biggest of the keeper sized fish was 11". Also caught 1/2 dozen gills.

Wooden docks and under pontoons was the only tactic that worked for me. Photos are 2 views of the same 12" black crappie. Water temp was 66.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, am glad more people are using the Park and helping to support the local businesses. Wish the dredges were running better. Restoring depth and removing the massive phosphate build up WILL pay off in the long run... And congratulations on sticking out a tough bite !


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## zaraspook

LHT......one of my lake neighbors has a huge oak tree. He's taking it down, mostly dead and a threat to house, boat house, and a neighbor's garage. How long lasting is oak for crappie cover?


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## zaraspook

Just looking at the real-time water sensors that YSI monitors for both Buckeye and Grand Lake. Water temp at GLSM is 64.9 at 7:15 am and Buckeye is 2 degrees warmer. Been keeping my eye on the oxygen sensors at both lakes. I would expect higher oxygen levels at Buckeye than GLSM, but in fact oxygen levels at GLSM run consistently higher than Buckeye. It's been the trend for the last couple of months.

At this moment the ODO% at GLSM is 118.9%.........Buckeye is 31.8% .
GLSM ODO concentration (mg/l) is 11.18.................Buckeye is 2.94 mg/liter

Other readings suggest under 4 mg/l dissolved oxygen is not good. 4-10 is good. Greater than 10 represents excellent oxygen levels. Both lakes show high turbidity, about the same levels (very green).

This probably way too technical for 8am in the morning, but is anyone else surprised that water oxygen levels at GLSM are higher than Buckeye? That's crazy! Any chemists out there to explain? Anyone have a theory? Are we ready for trout stocking at GLSM?


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## Big Eye

Zaraspook; 
Do you think that the amount of rain for each area may make a difference in the levels, since most rain we were to get lately seemed to go closer to Grand lake than Buckeye ?


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## Salmonid

I think Bigeye is dead on. Id agree that the heavy rainfalls glsm got all summer would really help shake up the lake. Another would be the placement of the sensors. Could make a huge difference

Looking forward to wetting a line with you Rande tomorrow!

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, it depends on #1 the type of oak, #2 the fertility of the water it`s going into and #3 how deep. Scrub oak (which usually keeps it`s dead leaves until spring) last the longest of all under water. Best `guesstimation" in GLSM, perhaps 15 yrs..."BB"s might be ideal but secure the branches on top of the block if placing them on soft or mud bottoms...


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## zaraspook

Big Eye..... for sure I don't know. Certainly incoming water/rain should impact dissolved oxygen. Plant life contributes oxygen. Decaying matter and bacteria impacts it. Most people overlook algae which is a big contributer of oxygen thru photosynthesis. Yes, folks algae does some really good stuff.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid....... Depth of sensor plays a big role. Buckeye has 2 sensors, one shallow and one deeper. If I used oxygen readings from the upper sensor you would gag. Almost no oxygen in Buckeye upper level at sensor location. 

Ooops........I had it backwards on the Buckeye sensors. The upper temp sensor is at 1.5 feet and it shows decent dissolved oxygen levels (but lower than GLSM). The lower temp sensor at Buckeye is at 7 feet depth and it shows extremely low oxygen levels. Makes more sense to have better oxygen levels higher in the water column.

Hope we locate fish tomorrow!


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## zaraspook

LHT.....it's white oak if it means anything. Will be seeding 3-5' of water along seawalls and bank with structure laying horizontal. Muck is probably 6" in most of these areas which makes it tough to sink and leave room under the branches for fish to occupy. Hoping to keep tops of structure 10-12" below surface of water so as not to interfere with boat traffic...doesn't leave much room to operate. If it lasts 15 years I'll be tickled pink.

Question(s).....are hardwoods more or less buoyant than softwood? Trying to figure how much weight needed to sink this stuff. BB's? Building blocks?

Thanks for your input, Lowell.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid and I braved the terrible weather conditions yesterday for several hours of GLSM crappie fishing. I should clarify, weather conditions were wonderful for humans......low 70 ambient air, not a cloud to be found in that bluebird sky, rarely more than a whiff of wind. Of course I'm setting up an excuse for our results. Those weather conditions aren't normally conducive to slaying the fish. Needless to say it was far from slaying them........we struggled to find a bite let alone catch fish. Between the two of us we managed only 4 crappies, 2 keepers, and a single lone wolf gill. Gill wasn't bad sized and the biggest crappie measured 11". It was a white crappie......most we catch are normally black crappie. 

Good thing Salmonid brought along some goodies for us to eat. We would have starved if we'd planned a shore lunch from our catch. Thanks for the feast, Mark! It was the highlight of the day.

Water temp for the lake was 67-68 range when we were fishing. It's 64.8 this morning. Pontoons and docks were not the formula this time, although 2 crappies came from under one pontoon. Catching only 5 fish, we clearly didn't find the formula. By the way we were bank fishing.

We'll get 'em next time, Mark! Next 9-10 days look like 78-80 for high temps and low temps well into the 50's. Cooler water temps are not coming soon.


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## Salmonid

Rande was being kind. He forgot to mention he caught all 4 crappies behind me. Lol
Dont let him kid you, he is the crappie whisperer. We get to the water and he calls them in with a Bobo- ish squatch howl then does some sort of hillbilly dance jig and the fish just start lining up for him
Always a good time fishing weather i am catching or not

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, try this: stack 3 8" (standard) or 10" blocks on top of each other. Get piece of plastic coated light steel cable and make a 3" to 4" loop and secure a clamp on it. Take a 6` to 8` limb and place the cable onto it; tighten it by standing on the limb and giving it a couple hard pulls. Add a piece of VHD (very STRONG and THICK) weed eater line about 6" from the cable and tighten it the same way. Place the limb on top of the block and positioning the limb so it`s curve (if any) is down and the ends are up. TIGHTLY secure the VHD weed eater line going thru the block and tie back to the loop in the weed eater line. Place the steel cable thru the other hole in the block and completely around the limb, then thru the loop in the steel cable and pull a TIGHT knot in it using Vice Grips; it may take 2 knots for it to stay in place and TIGHT. Lift the cut end of the limb. There should be very little slack. If there is retie it. Add the next limb but reverse the cut ends. Again tie the weed eater line 1st going completely around the limb, thru the block and securing it TIGHTLY, then repeat with the steel cable. (Would imagine you should be able to have 3-4 limbs per "BB", depending on how thick the cut ends of each limb is. If using thicker limbs go with bigger heavier blocks.) Once the limbs are all secure and TIGHT, tie off the weed eater line back to the original loop. Finish tieing off the steel cable, again, back to the original loop in the steel cable. Ideally each "BB" will be between 24" to 36" tall. Allow for draw down when building them...When placing I personally put them with the limbs towards the shore. Add water and soak for 15 yrs...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid........agree we had a "crappie whisperer" there, not me but my neighbor, Bill. Between the 2 of us we'd probably put 80 casts under that pontoon. Absolutely, zero hits. Bill arrived, said he'd call the fish in for us. Next cast, boom and the 11 incher was on land. Next cast another crappie but short. We all have a nice laugh, Bill goes into his house and what happened? Not another bite after that. Wonder how much Bill would charge me to sit on his deck, call the fish, while I reel them in?

Actually, pretty sure our luck at the deck/pontoon would have been better in the middle of the day with the sun beating down. I'll be up there Saturday morning borrowing limbs from the neighbor's oak tree that's due for demolition. Need to replenish the cover at 4-5 areas that regularly produced fish for us last year/this spring before the cover disappeared. The limbs you mentioned from your trimming project will provide other options/variation. 

If you get the urge, feel free to come up to dunk a line, catch a few. I should be around all day Saturday 'til noon Sunday.


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner.........like your concept and you're right, that construction should last a good 15 yrs. Sounds like a unit that would require 2 people for placement/drop. The BB tower portion, are you saying one column of 3 blocks in the middle of the construction?


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, no, that is simply to make assembling them without kneeling down easier. Of course, you could assemble them on a picnic table or tail gate; 1 block per "BB"...and while a bit awkward to handle compared to "normal` "BB"s with the limbs inside the holes 1 person can easily handle the weight...and DO keep in mind naturals shallower and pvc deeper SEEMS to work very well togetherat least in deeper water. Am wondering about at 5 fow...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid...... that honey Chipotle jerky is addictive. Nice little kick to it. My son Rick couldn't keep his hand out of the bag. Muchas gracias!


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## zaraspook

GLSM crappie fishing was s l o w for me Saturday and Sunday morning. Didn't get to fish as much as I would have liked. Spent good part of the day helping a neighbor take down a a big old white oak. In exchange got some limbs, enough to assemble maybe 6-8 piles of crappie cover. Have to figure out now how to assemble and where to deploy to yield some future fishing rewards.

Caught 10 crappies Saturday fishing when I could. Biggest was 11.75" among the 4 which were keeper size. A usually productive wooden dock/deck produced nothing......unsure what was going on there. Half of fish were taken from under pontoons. Sunday activity was similar, slow action, 6 fish and 4 keepers. Pulled one just short of 12.5" from submerged wood along a seawall. Under a pontoon was again the most productive tactic on Sunday.

I only recall catching a single bluegill both days......few bites from gills. Water temps were disappointing at 67-68. Temps were as low as 63 less than 10 days ago. I'm ready for Indian Summer to take a hike.

I did hear a report of perch fishing success.....


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## fishwhacker

Did someone say perch?? Any details you can share...even just type of locations. I have heard of one area recently, but the source is less than unreliable.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker........ reliable source says he knows pair who KEPT 31 perch 8-10". Released several times more than they kept of small fish. This was main lake fishing from boat using minnows. Does any of this parallel story you heard?


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## T04DF15H

A question about the perch. If the state is putting 100,000 per year into the lake to try to reestablish a self sustaining population, why wouldn't they keep perch on a catch and release program for a couple more years?


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## Salmonid

unofficially the state is putting 100K of fingerlings into GLSM for a 5 year run to jump star the fishery, in reality, 100K of fingerlings is not enough to barely make a dent in a huge lake full of predators like GLSM. My thought is they are doing it for several reasons, will keep the locals happy they are doing it, will be good press for the state as they are restocking YP into the lake and for political reasons it looks good. 
IMHO if the state was serious about it, they would really be putting the fish in by the millions and protecting them and also growing them out at a greater costs, but that's just my opinion. 

Its obvious that until the weeds make a comeback, that the lake will not support as good of reproduction that it once had. Again, that's my opinion, your mileage may vary..LOL Id still love to see that fishery pick up as an ice fisherman. 

Salmonid


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## fishwhacker

That is what I would expect to hear for a perch bite. It is a different report than I got, but like I said I didnt really trust the source. I heard of a spot they recently dredged that was a mouth of a channel on the north side of the lake. If things work out I would like to go out on the main lake and try before ice comes on.


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## zaraspook

jmaury ....... State doesn't need catch and release. Almost nobody catching perch to release. 
On a more serious note, the rough fish netting crews operated by the State frequently report good numbers of nice perch caught in nets. There appears to be a respectable native perch population, just not in the numbers to make them relatively susceptible to most fishermen. Maybe if GLSM was starting from zero population the program would include catch and release. It's a big lake to enforce C&R policy. More cost effective to increase stocking numbers than to add manpower and associated costs.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid....... a lot of truth in your comments. The State already knows how to boost GLSM as a fishery. The obvious answer is SAUGEYE. Lake was producing 24-25"saugeye in 3 years indicating how fertile the lake is for saug hogs. But state fears screwing with Lake Erie walleye gene pool. Therefore, perch are Plan B, like getting the runner up prize. I'd prefer saugeye, but appreciate anything to add to options of crappie, catfish, and carp. Actually bass population is impressive but requires skills average fisherman don't have time or money to develop.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker......report I heard was a SW location, not Coldwater Creek although I was told the guys started there. Claimed it was an area of 8' water and sounded like they were drifting thru it, maintaining bait at 6-12" off the bottom. If they drifted more than 30 yards in any direction off the sweet spot, zero bites. An area 60 yards diameter sounds relatively big to me. I have a little bit more info on location, but not anxious to compromise my source. I'd like to ask him a few more questions.

As a general tactic, your idea of hitting recently dredged areas makes good sense to me. Those places are usually 2-4' deeper than before being dredged and contain a decent drop-off.


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## fishwhacker

If i had to guess it is probably where the bite used to be good years ago....bluegills were odd this evening they were attacking my bobber and were really active on the surface, wonder if an eye was around that made them that aggressive. ... anyone else experience such a thing when the bulls arent creating nests?


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker........ about the gills with frequency attacking bobbers, I've noticed same thing several times over last 3-4 weeks. Don't have a clue why but they smack bobber more than the jig. Never considered it might be a predator below and I can't offer a reasonable alternative. Whatever the cause, it's weird.

How was the crappie bite when you were fishing?


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## fishwhacker

Strange. ...be fun with a fly rod and some dry flies...crappie bite has had no consistency mix of small and medium had no keepers last night, but wasnt really trying the crappie bite...i was using small jigs for gills....need some wind been very flat lately and so too has the bite been. I have really good luxk when it has been extremely windy. The harder the wind the better the bite has been for me


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker....... your comments about lack of wind mirror my statements last weekend. Talking to the guy who gave me the perch report I said we need some wind for crappie bite. No consistency with calm conditions. The more wind the better. Good to hear confirmation of the theories we develop. Keep thinking out loud. 

I'm thinking weekend weather should get things moving in right direction. Cool air temps to assist falling water temps, decent wind, and a front going thru. May not produce great results this weekend but advances the cause.


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## AndOne

Any new updates from this weekend? Was thinking about trying tomorrow. Not looking for the extra spot, just updates.


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## zaraspook

Friday evening at GLSM - tough crappie bite produced 6 crappies, only 2 keepers but included the 12" fish in photo below.

Saturday morning in about 2 hours caught another 6, again two keepers. Most of those came in the last hour when I figured out fish were sitting on the bottom and wouldn't chase. Had to hit them in the nose and slow down presentation. Still caught them in 3-5' of water but on the bottom and forget about a bite if you didn't give them the jig on a platter.

Saturday evening was same slow and on the bottom pattern. I really got into some awesome fish in a very short time frame. Caught 6 keepers in 25 minutes. Four consecutive fish were 11.25", 12 & 7/8", 11.75", and 12.25". Then got snagged badly and messed up the hole I was fishing. Next 40 minutes produced just one short crappie.

Sunday mid-day fished again and deep pattern was gone. Caught 7, 6 keepers, in about 90 minutes. Most of those came from under pontoons. Several nice 11-11.5" fish in the group, but none breaking the 12" mark.

That's the first time I recall catching 3 GLSM 12" crappies in a 24-hour period. Typical might be a couple in a month. Hope it's a sign of what's to come this fall. I tried to stretch the 12 & 7/8 fish into a 13" Fish Ohio. Didn't make it.

Total of 26 fish for about 6.5 - 7 hours of fishing with 16 keepers. All my fishing was from the bank. Definitely some toads moving into channels. Fish are heavy, thick, broad, and still eating. A 12" black crappie is a load on light gear.


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## Salmonid

Good work Zara, we still on for Wednesday afternoon? 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Weds still a go for me, Salmonid. Scott going to tag along?

Sunday I dropped one unit of crappie cover into the "other" channel. Fished the new cover about 2 hours after its launch. Had a good number of gill bites but didn't catch any. Maybe it will be productive Weds for specks. Put it in one of the locations near the boat ramp. Used to be a limb near that stake bed, but limb disappeared. Without the limb, no crappies. It has limbs now.


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## AndOne

Thanks for the updates. We ended up fishing IL. Very slow tough day out there.


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## zaraspook

If any of you use the YSI water monitoring website/sensor for GLSM "live" temperature data, be skeptical of accuracy. Despite the weekend cold temps causing other lakes to plummet like a rock, GLSM water temp stayed at about 65. No way. I was convinced the sensor had been removed from lake on 10/3 and just continuing to report last reading. For some reason data changed yesterday.......now reporting 54, so I guess it's back and functional. 54 is believable although last year we didn't nudge into 50's until 10/17. 

55 is my magic temp for big crappies to start moving into channels. We're there now. It explains why I started catching toad crappies over the weekend (despite the YSI reporting station readings of 65 degree water temps). Fall crappie bite is on, fellas......a couple weeks earlier than last year. YSI sensor was removed from lake end of October last year. 

You're gonna find a bonanza of big crappies if you get out there. Average fish is so big you should consider upsizing your baits......


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## zaraspook

Met up with Salmonid and his sidekick, Scott, yesterday at GLSM. With cooler water temps we aimed to determine if the fall crappie bite has heated up. Last weekend it looked like bigger ones were showing up in the channels although you had to work to get them. At least Wednesday the results were inconclusive.......bite isn't easy, gotta keep moving, but the percentage of keepers is solid. We weren't sure if our crappie tally was 14 or 16 for the late afternoon/evening effort. Let's call it 15. We kept 8, although a few more were legal (>9"), but they looked so puny in comparison to the other slabs we returned them to grow up for next year. Also, we caught 6 gills, a yellow-belly, and a small sheephead. 

Biggest crappie honors went to Scott with a jumbo 12" black crappie. Another 3-4 were 11", with all keepers 10" or better. Fish were healthy, thick, and broad shouldered......some nice filets for the frying pan. I give the "most fish" award to Salmonid. I won't mention he spent a good part of his fishing time netting shad and I'm sure he netted at least a dozen to help his fish count. 

Water temp in my channel was 55. Talking with a pair of crappie fishermen in a boat in my channel, they said main lake was 53 degree range. The pair were practicing for a tourney this weekend, said the bite was really tough Weds, but last week they got into some good action and jumbo fish in my channel.

Fish were all caught on wood other than one keeper I pulled from under a pontoon and Scott managed one out in the middle of the channel. Most fish were in 3-4' of water though Scott pulled one from area of less than 2'. Interesting that a unit of new crappie cover I sank last weekend produced 5 crappies, the most we pulled from any single spot.

Salmonid graciously brought a load of new limbs I'll use for additional fish attractors. Thanks guys for a good evening of camaraderie.......the fish catching is a bonus.


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## Greyduck

I hit GLSM yester afternoon. I think Salmoniod was in front of me with a small trailer load of brush. I left the boat at home and hit a few docks. Caught 4 keeps a few gills and a nice flathead. 3 of the 4 was caught when I first arrived around 3:30. Then it tapered off. 2 were 12" and one was 13.5. I have never fished the fall bite at GLSM before. But hope to get up there a bit more this fall.


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## Greyduck

One more post and I can put up a photo.


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## Greyduck




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## zaraspook

Greyduck.......nice fish. GLSM crappie fishing will keep getting better into about mid-November, but there will be great days and poor ones, too. However, poor days might still mean catching 15-20. Yep, that would be Salmonid you saw pulling the brush trailer. 

Those GLSM black crappies are chunks, aren't they?


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## zaraspook

Oooops.......correction on the length of the crappies caught by Salmonid, Scott and me Weds evening. The fish were too broad to fit into my Frabill green holster style crappie measurer. I flipped it over and tried to measure on the flat backside. Turns out he the largest 3 crappies were 11.75", 12.5", and 13.5". The latter is Fish Ohio grade.

Gee, fishermen get accused of exaggerating the size of fish. I'm guilty of under measurement.


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## Greyduck

Thanks for all the info zara. I knew i should of followed that trailer of brush. I am going to drag the boat up on Saturday and try some of the main lake stickups. I have fished GLSM sense the late 60's . Just never done the fall bite. If that class of crappies is what's in store. The lake will see a lot more of me this fall


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## zaraspook

Greyduck........we should be in for great fall of good ones. Spring was incredible, percentage of keepers you catch has been building for 3 years. Sooner or later bubble will burst but I think it still has legs. You'll find bigger crappies at other lakes, but I would be surprised if other Ohio lakes can match percentage of keepers you pull from GLSM. These black crappies are stout.

Keep posting your results!


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## Lowell H Turner

zaraspook said:


> Oooops.......correction on the length of the crappies caught by Salmonid, Scott and me Weds evening. The fish were too broad to fit into my Frabill green holster style crappie measurer. I flipped it over and tried to measure on the flat backside. Turns out he the largest 3 crappies were 11.75", 12.5", and 13.5". The latter is Fish Ohio grade.
> 
> Gee, fishermen get accused of exaggerating the size of fish. I'm guilty of under measurement.


Sir, that you would understate the size of a fish speaks very well of you as a human being ! HOWEVER, as a fisherman, it actually "goes against the grain"; ie, `when in Rome`, ect, ect. It might set a dangerous and disturbing trend in motion that may have further profound `ripple effects` including up to but not necessarily stopping at the higher offices of business, and local, state and Federal government, including Congress. Where might it end ? So, to save society as it currently is, please feel free to `over guesstimate` a little (or a lot) or even tell a `terminological inexactitude`; it goes with the territory, ok ? Great report though...


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## zaraspook

LHT........ Hilarious! How selfish of me to not consider the unintended consequences. Where might we be without our social order's honed art of justifiable deception? Actually I guess I can't claim to have spoken the truth. Instead of fisherman's exaggeration I'm guilty of understatement......... an entirely new art of deception. Devious, huh? While others are stuck on exaggeration I've moved to the next level "winning thru understatement".


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## zaraspook

Didn't make it to GLSM until 2 pm Saturday. Water temp 52 degrees from 55 Weds. First cast a fat 11" crappie. Uh oh.......will that be it for the day? No more action at first spot. Spot 2......nada. Spot 3 got into a real pig but unzips at the bank. Cursed? Only bite at spot 4 produces another 11" catch. Curse removed! Spot 5 is cover installed 6 days ago and gives up 4 fish including 2 more keepers. Now we're rolling. Initial 90 minutes totals only 6 fish, 4 keepers but heating up. Time to cut some grass and take in some college football plus food before the next round. Back to wetting a line at 6 pm for at best 90 minutes. Bite isn't crazy but decent action yields 3 keepers and a dink at first stop then keep moving to cover ground before light fades. As darkness arrives I quit with tally of 13 keepers out of 19 crappies. All keepers are 10" or better but no pigs today. 11.5" is biggest. Slow start, strong finish and decent day.


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## Greyduck

Sounds like a pretty good day Zara. I hit the lake early afternoon. The bite was slow in my spots. The good thing was most were pigs. We could of moved on but wanted to stay on the bigger fish. Lost a moose at the boat.. 15 inch plus fish. I got to get a net.... brought 4 home over 12 inches. Two at 13.5. It was a nice day on the water. Spoke with another boat that. 17 keepers
...was that you?


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## zaraspook

Greyduck........Haven't had my boat at GLSM since July 4th weekend, so it wasn't me. All my fishing from shore. There was a crappie tourney going on Saturday so might have been a tourney boat. You're doing a great job at packing in the piggies. Sounds like you're getting the GLSM habit. 

We should have another 4-6 weeks of this action unless Mother Nature decides to bring winter ice early. Action will improve....this is just a preview. Last year November was my best month other than April and easily the #1 month for size.


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## zaraspook

Before fishing Sunday 10/12 put together a unit of crappie cover from limbs Salmonid donated last week. Had to run to Menards first for some supplies to build the cover which cut into my Sunday fishing time. Sank it near some other new cover added prior week (Salmonid- put it at place across the road from my house. Strategy was to expand that spot so 3 people could fish it at the same time). 

Caught 16 crappies total during 2 one hour sessions and quit by 2pm. Only 9 keepers Sunday. My average took a hit as the last 3 fish pulled from under a pontoon were all dinks. Keepers were all 10.5-11.5" fish. None made it to the 12" mark. Probably 1/2 the fish came from under toons and docks on Sunday. Highlight was pulling an 11" fish from the new cover I sank 1.5 hours earlier that day. All fish were caught from shaded areas. Didn't check water temp Sunday.

During the 24 hours I was at GLSM Saturday/Sunday the catch totaled 36 with 22 keepers. That's a nice percentage if you're fishing for the dinner table. All mine released to catch again next weekend.


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## zaraspook

Dredge, baby, dredge. 3 dredges are going to run up thru the Monday before Thanksgiving. Trying to make up lost ground. New dredge is out there but not without problems. Eagle was not flying most of the season. Pumps-a-Little is the EverReady Bunny, and Brutus has a shot a breaking the single-season record. Brutus is doing a number over at Little Chickasaw.


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## zaraspook

According to the mid-lake sensor, GLSM water temp this morning is 58.5 F. Can't be sure the probe hasn't been removed from the lake.......no new data since last night 6pm Tuesday 10/14. If 58.5 is correct, temp has risen 6 degrees since last Saturday when it was 52.1 . Prefer that temp stay low 50's or lower to fuel the fall bite. Haven't been there to fish since Sunday so I don't have firsthand knowledge regarding impact to crappie bite.

Anyone fished GLSM since Sunday to provide info on action?


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## Lowell H Turner

GOOD news about the dredges, sir !


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## zaraspook

LHT.......... thanks for chiming in. Agree good news State is supporting extension to dredging season to get the crap out of glsm. Don't be a stranger, Lowell.


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## zaraspook

Tried the GLSM crappie bite 10/16 for 90 minutes before dark. Not much of a bite to be found for me. Very few hits. Caught only 3 and they were all short. Hi t a lot of great cover to generate only 3. Disappointing to find water temp was 56.6, more than 4 degrees warmer than last Saturday. I'll have another go at it this weekend. Fish will eat sooner or later.


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## oldroller

where would be a good place to fish out of a two man bass hunter boat at celina?
trolling motor only.
thanks


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## zaraspook

oldroller.....I don't know that side of the lake well at all. Without an outboard, especially if the wind is up, you don't want any part of the main lake. I think I'd go to Montezuma and believe there is a state/public ramp on State Route 703 where route 703 bends sharply on NW corner of Montezuma. You'd have a lot of options, docks, natural bank to fish as that water goes out to the main lake. Doubtful you'd have any boating traffic to compete with. I'm pretty sure that area was a dredging target in last few years....should have respectable variation in water depths. 

If others see you post, you should get other options, including ones closer to Celina, but Montezuma can't be more than 8 minutes from Celina. If you go please post how it goes for you.


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## oldroller

Thanks,just waiting for the right day


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## fishwhacker

I agree you can even launch outta west bank boat ramp and head south....there is construction going on on west bank so might be better off launching at windy point ramp in montezuma....they dunked about 30 xmas tree back there also....i would say with the drawdown you want to head east towards st marys and stay away from the main lake as much as possible... fish shouldn't be as affected the further you go away from the spillway....at home wih a newborn currently so havent been out, just giving advice from past experiences...i would also assume crappies are going to start heading back in channels soon looking for food before the real cold comes....colder the weather the better it will be.


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## zaraspook

Bank fished at GLSM over the weekend. Buddy and I started Friday evening, catching 13 before dark. 7 keepers greater than 10". His biggest at 11.25" nudged my biggest of 11". We didn't find fish in too many places and biggest ones came from under a sizable wooden dock. 

Saturday was a raw day. It wouldn't have been that cold but for rain and crazy wind. Fish were AWOL, very few bites, takers were usually dinks, and we caught virtually nothing from the spots that worked Friday. We probably spent more time watching football than fishing. Late in the day I finally found a pattern that produced 9 fish in the last hour. For the day I caught 17 and my partner just 4. Only 4 keepers among the 21 with biggest at 11.5". 

Sunday morning my friend fished for only 30 minutes catching 2, then headed home. I hung around until 1pm and managed to find 14, only 4 keepers, biggest was 11".

The fishing was tough but camaraderie worth it. Water temp Saturday was 55.2 degrees. Water level appears to be down 3-4" in the last week from the current draw down. Low percentage of keepers won't change until water temps drop. In addition to the crappies we caught about 20 gills.


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## zaraspook

8-10 months ago I mentioned gypsum looked like the next miracle for helping the agricultural guys to keep phosphorus on their fields and out of the waterways. Since then gypsum talk seemed to disappear.

Ohio State is 2-years into a 3-year study of gypsum for phosphorus reduction. _"So far farm fields in the study treated with gypsum are seeing an average reduction of 55% in soluble phosphorus runoff, based on tests of water samples collected from the fields drainage tiles."_ There are other side benefits. Apparently gypsum use dates back to the Greeks, Romans, and thrifty Ben Franklin was an advocate.

If you're interested article is here courtesy of the Ohio Farm Journal http://ocj.com/2014/10/gypsum-could-offer-water-quality-benefits/ .


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## oldroller

Is the bait store open up from windy point?
thanks


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## zaraspook

oldroller ........ Windy Point bait shop closed about 3 years ago and don't think it's reopened. Must be other full-line bait shops but I'm only aware of 2.......both near East Bank. One of those is The Outdoorsman. Lots of other retail places, like gas stations with convenience stores, sell wax worms and night crawlers, but not minnows if that's what your after.


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## fishwhacker

One by shockers bar and grill also kozy kampground store has minnows in montezuma


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## Lowell H Turner

Ground up gypsum indeed has nutritional value for many plants. If it also helps control the run off, BETTER YET !


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## zaraspook

LHT.........gypsum is one of those rare double wins for the environment. It's a waste product from electrical power plants (actually at coal fired plants I think). Wall board/dry wall manufacturers grab it up, virtually for free from the power plants. What wallboard guys don't use ends up in land fills. If farmers use it for fertilizer or a soil conditioner, less gypsum to go to landfills or whatever. Essentially, gypsum makes the farmers soil more absorbent, to retain nutrients rather than flushing fertilizer into ditches, creeks, rivers, and lakes. 

When the soil retains nutrients, guess what happens? Less new nitrates/phosphorus are required for next round of crop planting. If the farmers are large animal operations, they aren't exactly happy about needing fewer nutrients for crops. They need places to dispose/spread manure. Cheaper to spread manure than to haul it away. You'd think farmers would love any product that reduced needs/expense to fertilize. Not necessarily so to the farmers with herds.


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## Salmonid

Fished the south side yesterday afternoon for about 3.5 hrs with my buddy Scott, yes water is lowering and starting to clear up a bit too. worked a few docks and wood and pontoons with some decent success, here are the details. 

we landed 22 crappies I believe ( give or take ) with each of us getting 3 nice fat keepers each but each had another 1-2 in the 9" range that just look puny compared to the bigger heavier fish so we only kept the bigger ones. of the 6 keepers, 3 blacks ( 10, 10.75 and 11") and 3 whites (10.5, 10.75 and 11.75") a large majority of the non keepers were in the 8-8.75" range so still fun to catch.

fish came from a mix of structures including a bunch from under a toon, but no keepers there, fond keepers still around some woody limbs but it seemed like if you got a keeper, there were no smaller fish around and only 1 keeper per structure, if we got smaller fish on a structure, if you worked it you might get 2-3 more.jigs were pink, yellow, chartreuse and white all seemed to work.

Had a north wind and it was chilly as it was overcast, wish I had a water temp for you Rande but forgot my thermometer

Salmonid


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## fishforlife

the lower the water is ok but if your a boater its not good . its low enough now that myself and about 4 of my friends will only bank fish. I cant see why so low is a good idea. but bank fishing is well. think we will stick with indian lake. good luck to all be careful. that's my 2 cents.


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## zaraspook

fishforlife......GLSM draw down is a result of $50 mil lawsuit against the State. Property owners downstream from spillway sued for flooding damages, lack of flood control since new spillway was constructed, and land owners won the litigation. State is forced to make an effort to control water levels. 

2012 draw down removed 16-18" of water in one fell swoop (too much), was in the spring and followed by a drought that summer, so lake didn't recover water level. It was down 2' all year and navigation was dangerous. Bad luck timing for the State. 

I don't remember what happened with 2013 draw down. In 2014 State did draw down in February when lake had 10+ inches of ice. As water went down, ice sagged and pulled docks down with it. Damage to State docks was $175000 and private property owners are still seeking damages. So we're getting a drawdown now, before the winter and still in advance of next spring rains. Probably down 7" now with another 5-6" to go.


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## zaraspook

Some challenging personal stuff this week, so when I got the chance thurs evening for some attitude adjustment time, I jumped on it. If I hustled to GLSM at somewhat elevated speeds, I might get in 90 minutes of fishing. A couple of school buses cut into that 90, but not nearly as much as farm equipment inching along the state road. At best 70 minutes before dark was my time of arrival.

Almost made it completely around my bank fishing circuit in the 70 minutes left. Didn't take long to get into the first couple of crappies and a gill. About 35 minutes into it managed 8 crappies but only 1 keeper. Just where are all these dinks coming from? That's OK.......just fishing period is doing wonders for my attitude. Final 35 minutes ends with a lower catch rate, but 2 of the 4 are keeper size.

Man am I blessed to have fishing as an outlet and a wife who allows me to pursue it! Mission accomplished, head is screwed on straight again, challenges are still there but mind is refreshed to address them. Photo below is biggest crappie of the 70 minutes......a 12.5" pacifier.


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## Lowell H Turner

Agree and understand the farmers concerns if gypsum is widely used, but there`s an old time honored saying: "WAAAH ! Just (deleted) WAAH..."


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## zaraspook

No discernible pattern on Sat 10/25. Didn't start until 11 am and bite was tougher as day went on. Caught 15 but nothing in evening when it normally picks up. Percentage of dinks continues high like most of last 6-8 weeks except when water temp fell to 52. Temp Sat was 55.1 about the same as last several weeks. Probably won't see bigger crappies in good numbers until water temps make a decent move down. 
Draw down is still going and nearing 10" drop. Biggest crappie was 11.5".


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## zaraspook

The finicky crappie bite from Saturday carried over to Sunday morning. Found a few once the sun reached its zenith for the day. Caught 9, only 2 keepers, but one of those keepers was a slab 12.5" in length. In advance of heading home completed a few chores and packed the car. Grabbed my crappie rod to put it away, it's always the last item to go into storage, and decided to wet the line for a few more minutes. Good decision. Caught 7 more over the next hour, 5 keepers between 10.5 and 11.5 inches. That was the best action and return of bigger fish than I've seen for a couple weeks. All five of the late keepers were taken from a single spot which hadn't produced a single crappie Saturday or earlier Sunday. With the lively bite it would have been nice to hit other spots but I was way past my promised time of departure. 

16 crappies, 7 keepers was the Sunday tally. It was a nice ride home.


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## fishforlife

its down low enough that your not safe boating. all is a no win thing. and I no about the flooding thing I live on that side of lake. the thing is water is to come over the spillway to control water .. is alittle nuts going so low in a shallow lake. grand lake will never stay up with indain lake they seam go have things down there. good luck fishing to all and be safe out there.


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## zaraspook

fishforlife.......totally agree with you. Most people don't understand what the big deal is with lowering the water level. When the average lake depth is 4', draining 12" (which is about the target with this draw down), that's lowering GLSM by 25%. To get the right perspective, on a lake with average of 10' depth, you'd need to lower it by 2.5' to be equivalent. But in lakes like that, it doesn't impact navigating a boat like it does in a shallow waterbody like GLSM.

Most Ohio lakes that do draw downs are 4-6". At GLSM the State did as much as 16-18" in one whack. Maybe some day GLSM will have an automatic system to draw down more frequently but in smaller increments.

Don't blame you for fishing Indian Lake. Would love to have Indian's saugeye possibilities at GLSM.


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## fishforlife

very true. this is why I like this sight very informative and good. thanks and good luck to all.


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## tracker_80

Fished the spillway from 6-8:30 this morning. From 6 - 8 missed two, things picked up from 8 - 8:30. Ended up keeping about 7 from 9"-11". Threw a few smaller ones back. Had to leave for work, but a lot of action in that half hour period. 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Ohub Campfire mobile app


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## zaraspook

tracker_80.........good post! That's the first spillway post I've read for a long time. Don't be a stranger tracker_80, keep the reports coming.

Weather forecast I saw this morning calls for 1-3" of snow at lake Friday night. Is that nuts or what?


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## zaraspook

Fished my channel with a buddy Weds 10/29 from 3:30-6:30pm. The crappie bite wasn't great but relatively consistent. We caught 13 each with the percentage of keepers still running low, not like it was the first 10 days of Oct during the last cold snap. I had 4 keepers (10-11.5") while my partner in crime caught the biggest at 12.25". Four white crappies among the keepers. He also caught 4-5 gills.

Water temp at 6pm was 51.4 degrees. Wintry weather this weekend should knock temp down a few degrees and maybe kick-start another round of bigger fish. All fish we caught were around wood.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Saturday 11/1 for 2.5 hours. Dang that north wind is cold! Fishing was cold, too. 4 keepers among the 10 caught. Biggest was 11.5. Don't know water temp but fish less prone to favor shade. Weird that 8 of 10 crappies were white ones. GLSM crappie population generally weighted black majority. 

Regrettably lost a real toad. Fishing line broke lifting fish from water, must have been line nicked. 6# test was freshly loaded on reel 3 weeks ago. Should have been using a net anyway. Any one else fish GLSM Saturday?


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## Salmonid

Good Report Rande, I fished Alum Creek today ( dock tourney) where we use ice rods and graphs and only allowed to vertically fish off the deep water at Alum marina, anyways I landed about 15 crappies, had 6 keepers and my biggest 5 were 2.89 lbs, not huge but enough to win the tourney today, fish not aggressive, hardly chasing, most 5 ft off the bottom, switched up lures and meat choices for 3 hrs until I found something that worked at least a little bit, a pink Ratso ice jig, glow head and tipped with waxies with the slowest of jiggling right in their noses, bite barely moved spring bobbers, tough to connect in the heavy winds, brrrrr, Im still thawing out now...
We still good for Wed?

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......... Way to go Trophy Man! You're ambidextrous.......... crappies and kitties. Of course we're good for Weds. I think we should aim for 2/2:30.

I bailed out early today/Sunday at GLSM............ left before noon. I detest dead calm conditions. Not a ripple to found. No shad action. Plenty of bites from gills to prevent boredom but crappies were few. Caught 7, only 1 a keeper. Once again more whites than black crappies. Haven't figured that out. 

Water temp at noon Sunday was 47.3. That could be the best news of the weekend. Give the fish a couple days to acclimate to new conditions and bite should heat up...... I hope.


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## Lowell H Turner

VERY well done Salmonid ! And Zaraspook, if you caught anything you did better than 90+% of anyone else out today !


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## zaraspook

LHT.......bittersweet! Thanks. As Pepe Le Pew once said "'You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!'


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## zaraspook

GLSM draw down should be done or close to it. It began Oct 14th with water level 1/2 inch above spillway. A report on the 22nd indicated level was 3" below and heading to 9" below top of spillway. State intends to maintain 9" under mark through winter per Brian Miller, State Park Mgr.


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## Salmonid

Zara, I predict fishing picks up after lake stabilizes from pulldown. Over the last few years i can really tell how much a pulldown affects the fish. Not just crappies but every thing. We will see... Lol

Salmonid


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......... others have chimed in that draw downs at other lakes don't impact crappies. My personal experience runs counter that opinion at least at GLSM. People forget how shallow glsm is. 9.5 inches for this draw down is almost 20% of average lake depth. Other lakes don't come close with draw downs. Also, first 10 days of Oct my catch numbers were up and keepers running 60-70%. Rest of Oct total catch fell and keepers shrank to 20-25%. Duh! The draw down started 10-13 or 10-14. Coincidence? I think the crappies thought the lake was going dry and headed out to deeper and safer water! 

Hope you are right and bite returns. No guarantee. The water level they abandoned hasn't gone up. As long as the baitfish come crappies should too. They have to pig out.


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## zaraspook

Three of us to test the GLSM fishing gods Weds/today in afternoon. Even if nothing worth posting, we'll find something to write.


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## Salmonid

Well Zara, myself and a buddy (Scott) fished wednesday from 2:30-5:15 and had a tough bite. Fishing the usual circuit from dock to dock hitting brush wherever we could find it, Scott and Zara ended up with 2 short fish each and I had the hot hand today with 4 fish landed and lost areal nice fish under a dock. My fish included a short fish, another around 9", a 10" and a whopper at 12.75 but really tall and fat, a true trophy anywhere!! Hmmm cant figure out how to post pics on the phone app so will have to post later from home base

salmonid


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


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## zaraspook

Mark,
That 12.75" white crappie was a toad! Hope you get the photo uploaded or if you text it to me I might be able to upload. We also caught a few gills but none to brag about.

Really perplexing that the bite is so wimpy when last 2 years Nov was 2nd best month of the year. Guess we still have a bit of time for Nov to come alive.

I still suspect the draw down as a big factor. Areas of cover we fish are now in 2' of water, or less, instead of 3' before draw down. If I get to fish this weekend, I may mix in some flavored baits, salt infused, to see if it helps. You weren't slaying fish but at least most were legal.......might have been the added taste factor in your grubs. Plus, I still say it's weird that we're catching white crappies mainly, black crappies are absent. Maybe fishwhacker has a theory for us.

My apology for baling out early on you guys, but glad I went to the "viewing".


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## fishwhacker

No theories here or updates. I have a newborn son at home so attention has been turned toward him....reports i have been hearing have been the bite has slowed since the drawdown...hopefully can get the baby on a sleep schedule enough to hit it hard from thanksgiving to ice on.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker........ wow! Newborn son is catch of the year. Congratulations.


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## Lowell H Turner

Congratulations sir !


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## tracker_80

Hit the lake today from 2-5, pulled 6 keepers between two of us. Threw a few dinks back, keepers were between 10"- 12.5". 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Ohub Campfire mobile app


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM at noon Saturday 8th. Caught 3 dink crappies in the first 20-25 minutes, then nada until I quit at 1:30pm. Didn't get back to fishing until 4:30 with not much time before sunset. It was a crazy hour catching 9 with 7 keepers. First of the 9 was a 12" slab which put a smile on my face. Soon after, that earlier smile became a full ear-to-ear grin when I measured a toad 13.25" Fish Ohio.
 

In between chores on Sunday I worked in another couple hours of fishing. Bite was similar to Saturday during daylight hours. Caught an occasional fish, 6 total, but all dinks so started to pack up to head home. But I wondered, if I hang around until 4 or 4:30, might I get into another frenzy of fun? The allure was too much to pass up. Screwed around until 4 and grabbed my pole. Soon had my first keeper of the day, a fat 10" black crappie. 6 more fish followed, biggest a bit over 12". The 45 minute session at dusk was worth the wait......7 fish with 5 keepers. 

12 crappies with 7 keepers Saturday. 13 fish and 5 keepers on Sunday. All fish returned to catch again another day.

Water temp was 46.3 Sunday morning.


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## Lowell H Turner

Patience has it`s `rewards`...nice report, sir !


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## zaraspook

LHT......... Thanks for kudos, Lowell. By the way all 12 keepers Sat/Sun came from the cover off my seawall, much of it new in last 12 months . What's biting at CJ?


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## zaraspook

Fishing buddy Scott and I did some bank fishing Weds at GLSM. Got in 2 hours 3:30-5:30 pm. Bite was pretty good from the onset.......at least for Scott. Pretty sure he'd caught 8 crappies before I managed my first, only after I switched to a plastic color to resemble Scott's bait. First cast on the copycat color and bingo! At the end of the first hour Scott tallied 14 crappies and 3 keepers. My tally was zero in the bucket from my 5 dinks.

We were really just killing time, waiting until 4:30 to hit my seawall. Last weekend's pattern had been a few fish here and there, usually dinks, until the last hour before dark at my seawall. Then the bite would light up, good action and a good percentage of piggies. This time the action was a bit subdued, but the bigger fish part stayed true to form. Scott added 4 more fish and good keeper of 11"+. 7 more fish for me, 3 keepers, and 12.5" toad that was biggest of our 2 hour session.

30 crappies total, 7 keepers in 2 hours is a nice catch rate. Scott's total of 18 trounced my 12, and this was on my home turf. Instead of catching singles from any spot, if you found one usually multiples followed.

Didn't get water temp this trip. Having problems uploading the photo of the 12.5" crappie but I'll try again later. Enjoyable session. Salmonid couldn't make it but his ears may have been burning.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, several persons are having success with reports of just massive schools of shad along the dam, but none of them post on OGF anymore...as far as know there hasn`t been a single post from CJ in several months.


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## Salmonid

yes, my ears were burning, as mostly from the cursing that ensues a "should be a simple plumbing fix" job but turned into 3 full days and 4 trips to lowes..I got it done late last nite and only to find out that there is still a leak somewhere else in the system... will require another trenching job in the next few days, I love winter....

Nice job, I figured if I wasn't there the bite would be ON. 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

LHT.......bet your CJ walleyes are pounding those shad schools. Easy pickings result in big bellies.


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## Lowell H Turner

Apparently so are the crappie and bass if the posts on the other website are to be believed. Personally knowing the individuals posting them, I do...we repeatedly tried to convince the COE to allow us to place attractors on the submerged face of the dam`s retaining wall but unfortunately they refused. Think it would have made for some interesting ice fishing opportunities...


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## zaraspook

Of our 7 crappies last Weds, 3 were black Ave and 4 whites. Biggest was a black with actual measurement 12.75" and 1.25 lbs.


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## zaraspook

Was shocked to see 70% ice cover when I made it to GLSM Sat 15th. Only one of the half dozen spots I fish had open water. Spent some time breaking 3/8 inch hard water to open a couple additional spots. Lucky for me the one open spot produced fish from the outset. In an hour and a half before the Buckeye game and during half time caught 11 crappies, mostly dinks but 2 keepers. 
Hoping the late day pattern would hold true and yield bigger fish I went out at 4 for another round after the game. By that time 6 of the spots had a decent amount of fishable water. Most spots were dry holes but it only takes one spot with a run of piggies to save the day. In an hour hot action gave up 10 crappies, 6 keepers including 2 at 11", a 12" bruiser, and my 2nd Fish Ohio this month at 13". Those toads are so much fun! Despite the ice cover and cold it was a great Nov day to fish. 21 total caught with 8 keepers mostly 11"or better. 
Water temp was a tepid 41.7 degrees. Air temp well under the water temp. Note; Ice cover was in my channel and not main lake.


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## Salmonid

Nice report Rande, Im headed out with Backupbait here in a few to hit crappies on the GMR, will post any results later, with weather, I imagine were on a holding pattern for Wednesday??. 
\
Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.........with low temps 8-13 degrees this week, ice in my channels will prevent fishing from bank. No expectations ice will be thick enough for ice fishing either. I don't plan to fish Weds.

Sunday morning I was still at lake until 8:30 am. All areas I freed of ice on Saturday had refrozen overnight. Found one area of open water around the boat ramp in other channel. Caught 2 crappies, both keepers over 11", in 20 minutes. Had to head home but it may have been a day to find a school of fish out in the center of that channel.


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## zaraspook

This is the 11/12(last Weds) crappie I couldn't upload before. Photo isn't the best, but it was dark.


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## Lowell H Turner

Nice fish, sir !


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## zaraspook

Thanks for kudos, LHT.


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## zaraspook

To check out current ice at GLSM go to link below. It's a live webcam from the West Bank. Tough to see anything at night since it's "LIVE".
http://webcam.wabash.com/westbank2.html


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## zaraspook

With the clan coming in for Thanksgiving this week, my wife had me overdosed with chores all weekend. At 2pm Sunday just finished steam cleaning the carpet, she asked me to run to the lake house to retrieve a crock pot and a few other items required for our Thursday feast. Duh! She didn't have to ask twice.

My neighbor at GLSM told me Friday our channel was locked up with ice, no open water. Still I was hopeful. Maybe the warm weather Sat/Sunday opened a few spots where I could try dunking a jig for crappie? Arrived at 3:30pm, not much time to fish. Good news off my seawall.....definitely a couple spots to try if I could be content to fish no further out than 4'. 20 minutes, no bites, but then my line slowly moved away taking my jig under the ice at 4' out. Dang! Surprised myself to catch a crappie even if it was only a 5" dink. Walked my normal circuit, rarely finding open water at my spots, and never more than 3-4' of open water from the bank. No more bites.

What I wanted was some open water in the middle of the channel to cast out to.........looking for a school of crappies feeding on shad. Unfortunately, no such option available but did find a 3-5' wide strip of open water angled 45 degrees out into the channel for 25-30 feet. Beneath that strip lays a length of dredge pipe the State hasn't yet removed from the water. 6-7 casts along the pipe produced a crappie. Maybe 10 casts later another crappie. Two more followed. All 4 were out 10-12' feet from the bank, nothing closer. No keepers although a couple were close to keeper size.

Water clarity was surprisingly good for GLSM, otherwise I wouldn't have known that dredge pipe was laying where it was. Hope the State guys leave it where it is!


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## Lowell H Turner

If you fish, they will bite...(or something like that)


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## zaraspook

LHT........... Conversely if you don't fish, forget about bites.


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## Salmonid

fished with buddy Scott yesterday afternoon, walking the usual mail route hitting docks and some brush from 2:30-5:30 ( dark) between us managed 19 crappies, a 8+" gill and snagged a 12' shad...LOL
of those 19 had 4 keepers from 10.5-11.5" all really nice fat fish and the vast majority of the short fish were in the 8.5" range so there should be a good year class coming in the next few years. 
Started out with jigs and hit it hard for almost an hr with only 1 short fish being caught so I broke out the minnows and stated working deeper water towards the center of the channels and that seemed to help the bite out but it was never on fire anywhere, 1 here, 1 there, it was cold, hovering around 29-30 degrees ( far from the forecasted 41 degrees) with a slight wind but it was the cut right through ya kind. crappies would barely tick the float and slowly and I mean slowly move left or right about a foot and that was the hit, hit them then or they would stop and never come back, they were very soft bites which is why the jigs were not working.. anyways a nice day catching a few fish, hope everyone on hear has a great Thanksgiving and if you can get out in the next week with warmer weather better do so, long term forecast will bring ice back later next week

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......doubt anyone did better than you guys did. Nice report and good job. According to my neighbor, this morning (fri) both channels you fished are locked up with with new ice so I aborted a planned trip to GLSM. Maybe try it tomorrow.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM at 4:20pm Sat. Almost got in an hour and half of fishing. My channel was 90% ice covered but adjacent channel mostly ice free. Caught 10 crappies and a gill by the time I quit at 5:45 (very dark). 4 keepers. Bite was very subtle. Fish didn't go very far or fast when they hit. Only fished with plastics. No minnows.


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## zaraspook

Fishing 8-10 am Sunday caught 11 crappies, only 2 keepers but they were 12" and 11" respectively. I was satisfied with quantity while disappointed with few keepers. Water temp was 43.7, warmer than last few weeks. Like yesterday bite is very light...... you have to pay attention. Both keepers were taken close to bank in brush. About 1/3 of fish taken 10-12' out and off a dredge pipe that hasn't been removed by State dredging crew......seems to regularly hold fish.

Using 16th oz jig and plastics (usually twister tail grubs). No minnows. No meat.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....if you go to GLSM Weds I have a few "tips" to pass along. You already know the basic one......slow. Usually when the water hits low 40's, I switch from 1/16 oz jighead to 1/32 oz. Rather than the bait dropping quickly as it falls, the lighter jighead flutters down, almost a glide. Fish don't have to work so hard to locate and inhale the bait when it moves/falls slower. Plus, if you feel the fish are dropping the bait, my theory is they are more apt to hang on longer if it's lighter/closer to the weight of a minnow of similar size.

As you know I'm a proponent of keeping the bait moving/swimming. Biggest reason is most small jigheads don't hang horizontally on the end of your line. When you stop the movement, the jig/bait hangs vertically (not horizontally)....therefore the head of the jig is upward and tail much lower and almost vertical. Some jigheads are better balanced than others to keep the bait horizontal. Drop your bait in the water a few inches and keep it stationary, no horizontal movement. If you observe the bait hanging mostly vertical, tail significantly lower than head, that's a bait you don't want to remain stationary. It needs help (horizontal movement). Fortunately, very little horizontal movement required to keep it relatively horizontal. It sounds petty, but how many swimming minnows stop and assume a vertical position in the water column? If my jigs would hold the bait horizontal when at rest, I wouldn't be reluctant to come to a dead stop. The big reason I haven't switched back to 1/32 oz jig heads is the lighter jig is tougher to unsnag when fishing heavy brush.......they don't fall off those twigs we frequently snag as easy as 1/16th oz versions.

Those crappies are really hanging around the dredge pipe that remains in the other channel. Anywhere you can locate the pipe at least 7' from seawalls, if you catch one you'll catch multiple fish. The catch rate may be only 5-6 fish per hour, but if you can find the pipe out in the channel, the bite will be steady. On the other hand, fishing along the pipe where it's within a few feet of the seawall, hasn't been worthwhile. That pipe runs the entire length of the channel. I'm sure there are better spots on it than I've located so far, but the only place more productive for me is the new brush I added at the gray house across from my driveway. That new brush seems to yield lots of very small fish, but it also gave up the 11" and 12" slabs I caught last weekend. I'll be more specific about dredge pipe locations if you want.


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## zaraspook

As of 4 pm Fri main lake is ice free. Most channels are iced over with under 1/2 inch ice but may be open water the closer you get to mouth of channel. My guess is ice in channels will disappear by Sunday and many will be fishable Saturday. I hope to try my channel Sunday.


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## Hillbilly910

zara, you want round ball barbless jigs.
they hang level with a loop knot


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## zaraspook

Good tip HB. I use barbless for larger plastics when fishing other species. Just got into habit of using barbed jighead with grubs for crappies.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM at 9am Sunday 14th. Exactly 2 hours to test the waters before I had to be on the road to Indianapolis. Last time out was 11/30......caught all my fish from two spots so planned to hit those areas first. Unfortunately, though most of the channel was ice free, both those areas were hard water. Switched to plan B, then C, then D. An hour into it and nary a bite. At Plan E a couple of pecks at my jig, but no takers. On to F and 3-4 light bites, more like a crappie bite than others so I worked this area slow and hard. Lo and behold pulled a crappie from the spot. Two more followed in the next 10-15 minutes, then the bell went off! No......it wasn't the bell for a feeding frenzy, but the alarm on my phone going off. I had 5 minutes to hit the road.

2 hours, 3 crappies, no keepers. Water was much more stained than expected. Didn't have time to check water temp.


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## Lowell H Turner

You DID catch fish, which for this time of year IS something many persons would not be able to do at all...well done !


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## Hillbilly910

zaraspook said:


> Good tip HB. I use barbless for larger plastics when fishing other species. Just got into habit of using barbed jighead with grubs for crappies.


get into the habit of using said jigheads, loop knot and super glue. And stop fishing so fast...LOL


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## zaraspook

Made a late decision yesterday to head to GLSM yesterday (17th). Got there at 3:25pm, fishing by 3:30pm...quit at 5:30pm to complete a 2 hour session from the bank. Bite was good from the onset. Caught crappie #12 by 4:00 (1/2 hour). Despite the fast action, other than one nice slab of 11", the rest of those 12 were only 7-8" fish. Made the decision to leave the action and hit 3 other spots looking for larger fish. Two fish out of four fish at the next spot were keepers, including a 12" black. Invested 30 minutes in the next 2 spots without a nibble. Retraced my steps back to the 2nd spot to catch 4 more and again 2 keepers. With no more than 30 minutes remaining before I'd need night vision goggles it was time to hustle back to spot #1 hoping the action was still there. It was. Final 30 minutes was crazy......19 crappies. Great fun even if only 3 of those exceeded my 10" minimum for keepers.

Final score was 39 crappies in 2 hours. 8 keepers with the 12" fish the biggest. 3 more broke the 11" hash mark and 4 were over 10". A single plastic bait caught all 39 with most fish located in 3-4' of water and 7-12' from the bank. All 8 keepers were broad shouldered black crappies. Pretty sure that was my most productive session of this fall/early winter. Great way to enjoy a mid-December afternoon.


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## AEFISHING

Wow, nice job. Love reading your fishing outings to my old stomping grounds.


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## slowtroller

Very good info.


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## Greyduck

Spent the afternoon on GLSM. The crappie bite was very good. 7 fish over 12". Not sure of the number of dinks. But i would say in the thirtys. All our bigger fish was off docks. We stopped in one channel and watched a gentleman and his 2 boys cranking them in as fast as they could get back out. All from the middle of the channel. Mostly dinks. For 4 hours on the lake not to shabby.... going to hit it again first thing in the morning.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck.......agree with your observation about the crappie bite being out and away from the bank. I got in my last session for the year on Sunday 28th. Started at 12:30pm and quit at 4pm. Took 5 minutes to catch the first crappie, only 7", but it brought a big grin to be catching any size open-water crappie this late in December. I'm not an ice guy.

Most of the 35 I caught were short, only 6 keepers with my biggest at 11.5". I changed plastics frequently and moved a lot looking for bigger fish. Can't say I really found the recipe for bigger fish other than most of them came after 3pm. The fish are schooled up, most of mine were caught 8-12' from the bank, a few feet beyond submerged cover. Bite was extremely light/timid....they'd suck in the bait, hardly move at all. If you weren't paying close attention you'd miss 75% of your bites. An ultra-slow presentation was the name of the game. 

Fishwhacker.....you said to let you know when the crappies started to show "red-noses". 11 days ago when I last fished, maybe 1 in 5 fish were showing red/pinkish areas around the mouth and undersides. Yesterday it was more like 70%. You never did tell my what the reddish coloration indicated.......fill me in what it means and how you adjust your tactics.


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## Greyduck

We hit the lake at day break to see if the morning bite was any better. Fished 1 hour before the first hit. It seems evening is the time to be there. Fished till noon trying out a few new spots. Maybe 15 short fish before hitting a few of the regular holes. Ended with 4 in the bucket at 12.5 inches and one at 14 i nches. All the bigger fish came off docks. But the bite was light missing over half of the bites.. i am hoping to get my chores done early so i can hit it again today.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck........sounds like same timid/light bite I witnessed yesterday. I'm still using grub style twister tails even though the pros say to go small with baits this time of year. Also, I'm still using 1/16 oz jigheads, but I should switch to 1/32nd oz so bait moves slower, falls slower. Just too lazy to re-tie.

Don't know what water temp is but fish aren't moving fast......more apt to hit slow falling or moving bait. What are you using for bait lately?


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## Greyduck

I was using my favorite jig until i broke off on a giant crappie saturday. Solid hot pink feather 1/64 ounce. I knew i should of retied before i started that day. So i switched to a popeye. That did not produce. I agree with you on the way the jig hangs in the water. The popeye jig hangs to vertical. So went to a 64th plastic swim tail. I did not get as good of results as i did with the feather style jig. Those feather jigs are hard to find in the solid hot pink. My boys bought me the first one a few years ago. Gave it to me for a gag gift. I tied it on and caught so many crappie on it the feathers fell off. I think i might just have to tie a few up.


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## zaraspook

The Dredge Report.....official tally for 2014 is 232,000 cubic yards of sediment removed. That's 77% of the record 302,000 cubic yards removed in 2013. Brand new dredge, the Hoedag, wasn't delivered until August and encountered numerous problems for several weeks. Hoedag contributed little to the sum. The trio of existing dredges was reduced to only 2 in service. Third one functioned for just a week of the dredging season (ended in Oct when GLSM had early ice). Assuming equipment downtime is reasonable during 2015, the 2013 record of 302,000 should be breached.....Brutus and Hoedag should be capable of 300,000 without other help.


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## Lowell H Turner

Happy New Year and hopefully many tons of muck and "barn door" crappies will get "got"...


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## zaraspook

LHT.....probably better odds to achieve the "muck" part of your wishes than the barn door crappie part. And to you, here's wishing your creel overflows for 2015.


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## zaraspook

Was in the area Thursday afternoon so stopped by my place looking for open water in my channel. No way, Jose! Busted up a bit of ice near my seawall and found it about 1.5" and about 2" thickness a couple feet from seawall. Main lake appeared 90%+ ice covered. I checked out a few other channels......no open water. At Windy Point the long rip-rap extension out into the lake was locked up on the west side, very open and fishable on the east side.

Rain and warmth (50 degrees) coming in tonight and Saturday will do some damage on the existing ice. Colder forecast on Sunday and next week (single digits) should restart the ice-building process.

Kind of weird that ice on my channel was not laying directly on top of the water below. There was maybe 1/2" gap from bottom side of ice to top of water. Previously heard the fall draw down reached 8.5" below spillway and was stopped, but restarted in mid-December when lake levels rose 3-5 inches. The current draw down may be reason for the gap between water and ice. If draw down continues it might make ice a little unstable so be careful out there.


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## fishwhacker

Man i love fall fishing....i havent had a chance to post in a while. Been getting mainly gills the last 2 to 3 weeks along with dink crappies. Been using 1/64 ounce swimtail jigs and hand tied split tails. Zara i always heard that when crappies are getting red noses that is from bumping cover. I tend to fish real close to cover. If there is a channel with no shore access i cast across to it and try to bump the other side and slowly drag it back. Usually they will follow it awhile and hit it when you stop in the middle.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......if red nose is from bumping into cover, does red belly and lower fins meed some kind of bumping of bellies on the bottom? Lot of my crappies have reddened bellies and I'm finding them very near bottom of 3-4 ft of water with no known cover around.


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## fishwhacker

I would say so....the red noses i was told is from cover or from the seawall that gets the most sun...cement warms and heats the water touching it by a couple degrees..bunches them up when the water gets cold a degree or two makes a big difference. It usually is the north side of a channel. There are always exceptions such as a pipe that releases water melted off asphalt roads that would cause a warm flow.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker....... when you mentioned red noses I suspected relationship to sea walls/sun/temp. I've found cold-water crappies hanging on seawalls facing sun but previously didn't look for the reddened abrasions. Will pay better attention to it in future. 

My neighbor's basement sump pump cycles about every 30 min and water flows directly into channel. Water from it is probably 50 degrees. The warmer flow will hold fish but have noticed more gills than crappies there. The area of sump pump flow is always last area of channel to freeze and first to clear ice. Like you said small temp variations matter and can impact results if you figure them out.


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## Lowell H Turner

Submerged springs and weeps can be absolute fish drawing MAGNETS during the summer (56F water is coolest in the lake) and winter (56F water is warmest water in the lake) IF the water is well oxygenated...


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## zaraspook

Went to my lake place today/Sat trying to find some open water. Didn't find it in my channel. Busted thru some ice off my seawall. No easy task to break thru. Surprised to find crystal clear and 3-3.5" of dreaded ice. Boo for me but good news for the hardwater guys.


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## Lowell H Turner

Perhaps too late now but if you have access to Google Earth in "real time" viewing, as the ice is forming on the main lake is EXACTLY the right time to look for springs and weeps. Simply look at various parts of the lake and detect any tear drop shaped last areas to freeze over. The "pointy" end of those `teardrop ` shaped holes are pointing straight back to the exact locations of the springs/ weeps. Mark them with a GPS and get out there and drill a hole thru the ice; a thermometer will confirm the warmer water temps. btw WARNING ! the ice over a spring can be MUCH thinner due to warmer water ! Have your safety gear ON your person with company a have a rope tied on to yourself ! BE SAFE !


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## zaraspook

LHT............that's a cool tip but your probably right, too late for this round of ice formation.


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## zaraspook

This is a bit strange. Remember last summer when Toledo and a few other cities experienced algae problems with municipal water supplies? Those cities were contacting Celina water officials for advice. The Celina system which draws its water from Grand Lake was considered the model for others to emulate. Ironic that Celina is looking at a potential alternate water site according to the Celina Daily Standard. Article at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...ity-looking-at-site-as-potential-water-source 

Celina is considering a 1-year lease for a 16-acre plot on which to drill test wells. The city now treats 1.4 million gallons daily from the lake, with capacity for up to 3 million gallons. Any alternate water supply would need to supply 1200 gallons per minute to be viable and sustainable. If the alternate source is viable, Grand Lake would be shifted to status as the backup water source.

1.4 to 3 million gallons daily seems like a lot of water. Under the category of "unintended consequences", makes you wonder what happens to GLSM when the city stops drawing water. Those west bank tubes now used for draw down purposes, weren't initially designed for flood control. The lake will need to dispose of 0.5 to 1 billion additional gallons per year. Will Celina's move require the State to invest/construct a new or additional flood control concepts? Remember, the State is already liable for a $50+ mil judgment because of flooding to downstream property owners. Undoubtedly, there are likely other consequences, potentially good and bad, if/when the city would cease it's current water consumption from GLSM. Not that our fed/state/local officials ever do anything to create new problems, but why does this make me nervous? Maybe .5-1.0 billion gallons per year is just a drop in the bucket, not that big a deal.


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## zaraspook

Heard one ice report from north side of GLSM. Ice was 5" and decent crappie/gill bite. If ice was 5" Weds it could be 8" or more by weekend. I'm guessing hard water guys are already out in force at some of the popular saugeye areas.


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## zaraspook

Haven't been to GLSM for about 2 weeks. I've had a couple people ask about ice thickness and ice quality. Any one with any input on GLSM ice?


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## Salmonid

I need to get up there as the lake should be good to go in most places but my schedule is killing me, been staying close to home lately, Eastwood 2 times now and Acton tomorrow and then CJ Brown on Saturday.. ahhh so much water, so little time, money...

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid....I viewed your Eastwood report. Didn't sound too secure for the feint of heart. Last time I trekked around GLSM, didn't see any open water. Gotta think ice is 6" or more but no way to know that or to know quality. If decent ice around GLMS's CC area, I'd bet plenty of hardwater guys are there. Those saugfish that ran 22-23" last year should be piggies now. And, sooner or later those perch will have to show up for the party.


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## T04DF15H

All I can tell you is that there is no party of any kind at CC this year. Not yet anyway!


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## mercercrappie

Good 8 inches at windy pt but no fish 


Sent from my iPhone using Ohub Campfire mobile app


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## fishwhacker

5 inches last saturday took awhile but found some gills.... saw a guy ice fishing the spillway yesterday...braver than me


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## zaraspook

I didn't fish but drove around the lake yesterday (Sat 17th). Saw a pair of ice guys fishing north side docks close to State Park offices. When I went by the spillway there were about 6 guys fishing on the ice. Also saw 4-5 guys out on the ice at the very south end of West Bank state park area. They were so far out I couldn't really tell if they were fishing.

Zero open water anywhere at GLSM other than the aerators at West Bank docks. In my channel the top 1-2 inches looked like re-frozen slush. Someone had cut 5-6 holes for fishing, but the holes frozen over. Air temp was 40 degrees.


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## Salmonid

my buddy was at Andersons and Harmons today said bite was really slow... just some gills, more details if I get a chance to talk to him, 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

GLSM ice rescue mission called off........per the Celina Daily Standard article/link below. Three children were feared to have fallen thru ice on Monday. Amazing the effort expended by rescue teams!
http://dailystandard.com/archive/2015-01-20/stories/25877/lake-rescue-mission-called-off


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## glasseyes

I didn't read the whole article but in the first part of it said 911 was called at 8:53 and the rescue people did not show up till 9:23. I'm not up to date on this stuff but half an hour seems long time if you are in ice water.


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## zaraspook

glasseyes........I didn't read the article close enough to notice the response time. Agree, 30 minutes sounds excessive. Thankfully, no harm-no foul in this case. Whatever the response time, sounds like rescue team spent some time in the water. Admire those guys for what do, even for a false alarm.


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## zaraspook

Saturday 24th was at my GLSM lake place for a couple hours. Took a quick drive around the lake to see if any ice guys were out and checking for open water. Not that I hit every possible access road, but didn't see a single ice fisherman. Found a couple small areas of open water such as the aerators at the docks on West Bank. At the East Bank there was a 15' X 15' open area between the south end of State Park area and Otterbein.

Ice in my channel didn't look inviting.......mostly frosty white ice on the surface where slush refroze. There was evidence of a few older ice fishing holes and footprints frozen in slush near the holes. Where ice clarity would allow you to see thru the ice, it looked at least 5-6" thick. My neighbor had an ice free spot perhaps 3'X5' at the bank where his basement sump pump empties water into the channel. I grabbed a rod and fished the small area for 15 minutes. Nothing going on. 

Any ice fishing reports out there?


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## fishwhacker

I was out last sunday had about 10 gills....saw about 5 others on the ice.i was out about 2hrs no electronics....not a bad bite


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......good to hear you're getting out and picking up gills. Ice thickness last Sunday?


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## fishwhacker

5 to 6 inches....packed in snow 3 to 4


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## zaraspook

From the Celina Daily Standard last week, a lengthy article based on statements from Ohio Director of the ODNR, Jim Zehringer, is linked below. It amounts to a "state of the lake" address, covers a lot of topics from dredging, agricultural compliance for nutrient handling, draw downs, new ecological treatment trains, fishing, improvements to facilities, and to lifting the distressed watershed designation......(some day). 

Cannot say I've ever heard a State official mention the concept of "someday lifting the distressed watershed status" at GLSM. Hope springs eternal!

Article is here http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...chief-lifting-distressed-designation-possible


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## zaraspook

Mercer County picked up a $415,000 state grant that will complete funding for GLSM's next tributary treatment train. The ODNR already committed remaining funds for the $2.5 mil project to cleanup incoming waters from Coldwater Creek. If you don't know, Coldwater Creek earns the title of "most polluted" GLSM tributary. Other than a few permits, the path is cleared for bidding the project this spring for construction to begin this summer.

A switchgrass, vegetation bio-filter at the Beaver Creek is also on this year's schedule. Prairie Creek was the first treatment train project and doing it's thing already. By the end of the year, Big Chickasaw Creek and Little Chickasaw Creek should be the only tribs without some form of treatment process. Plans are on the table for both. 

If you own any land around GLSM, hang onto it. When treatment plans are completed for all tribs and with dredging accelerating, GLSM's water will soon compete with the sparkling clear waters of the Rocky Mountains. It won't be long until Coors is looking for it's next brewery......GLSM will be high on the target list with unrivaled water quality.   

Celina Daily Standard article about the treatment trains, funding, and execution are at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...ounty-accepts-state-grant-for-treatment-train


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## Lowell H Turner

The "tide" IS slowly but certainly turning...with these newly restored and hopefully oversized wetland areas (relative to the amount of both incoming water and "waste` product it carries) back in their needed and rightful place at the mouths of all the watersheds the future phosphate loading of the lake should be DRASTICALLY reduced; as well too the wealth of many different life forms that will quickly inhabit these areas will greatly enhance the overall biodiversity of the lake, being home for frogs, turtles, insects, birds, deer, foxes, martin, mink, muskrat, skunk, raccoon, and a wide variety of plants, trees and shrubs as well as being both spawning and nursery areas for more than a few types of fish...Once the last area is fully restored only 1 thing will remain and forgive me if hope the State of Ohio seriously redoubles their efforts and goes after the dredging with an absolutely RUTHLESS abandon. DREDGE baby, DREDGE ! Let there be DEPTH !


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## zaraspook

LHT.......as normal you are right on target, Lowell. Should be basic math. If we deposit less phosphorus/nitrates into the lake from its incoming tributaries and if enhanced dredging removes higher levels of phosphorus/nitrates from existing loading in the lake, it should equate to slow/steady reduction of algae feeding nutrients. Water quality can be expected to improve at an unknown pace.

It doesn't have to be an "unknown" pace. How tough can it be to predict the rate of improvement? It doesn't require a Doctorate degree to estimate where we're heading and how fast we're getting there. If you know how many dollars you have in your bank account, how many new dollars are coming in, and how many dollars you remove/spend in a time period, most of us can figure out if we are losing or gaining ground. Duh!

Do we know how much existing phosphorus or nitrogen is removed by dredging? *Nope.* Are you suggesting we're spending tons of money to buy dredges, operate dredges, but we don't know what we're getting for the investment? *Yes.*

Do we know how much new phosphorus/nitrogen comes into the lake? *Kind of.* Between the ODNR and Heidelberg Univ's National Center for Water Quality Research data is collected on a regular schedule for 2 of GLSM's tributaries. The loading from Chickasaw Creek and Coldwater Creek are monitored and reported.

But at least we know current P and N levels for GLSM, otherwise known as existing load levels, right? *Nope.* Existing levels of phosphorus/nitrogen in GLSM are not monitored, at least not publicly measured, tracked, or reported. Lots of Ohio and federal tax dollars go to improving GLSM's water quality, construction of treatment trains, past alum treatments, dredging, and more, to reduce Phosphorus and Nitrogen as algae nutrients but existing levels of P and N are not known or monitored? *Thats correct.*

Going back to the bank account thing, in this case the bank knows only part of the money coming into your account. The bank doesn't know at all the number of dollars being removed. In addition the bank doesn't know your starting balance nor can the bank tell you your balance today. As stake-holders and tax-payers we should be outraged! When you dont know where you started or the destination, nor can you compute where we stand today, chances are good you dont know how fast youre getting there. Zero accountability. Why?


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## Lowell H Turner

Best guess is the general theory is the "Powers that Be" are doing a generalized overall approach while there should be someone somewhere with a more detailed idea of exactly how much `run off` is annually entering the lake, ie number of dwellings in the entire watershed that are still on septic systems, rough amount of lawn fertilizer sold locally as well as X# of cattle and livestock on Y# of farms multiplied by # of weeks that the farmers have to hold the `run off over the winter months and subtracting the rough estimated amount that actually stays on the fields after application. Also to be taken into account are mitigating influences such as presence of or absence of grass strips bordering the fields, gradients of the fields themselves AND the surrounding drainages, distance from the lake, and the weather during application among other things. Dredging is would imagine a multi pronged approach by actually physically removing the phosphorous sediment down to a given depth and that by deepening the lake keeping much of the remaining phosphate low enough that strong winds cannot easily churn the for now shallow lake and put it back into suspension...someone has these numbers am certain. It`s simply a question of whom and how to contact them. Still, Zaraspook, ANY improvement is far and away `better` than the situation that existed several years ago, agreed ?


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## zaraspook

LHT.......absolutely agree any removal of P is a positive. Worst case scenario is the lake is still dying but at a slower pace. Maybe that's a pessimistic view, but State has no data to prove otherwise.

It really isn't a big deal to measure/calculate the volume of P entering the lake. It's already being done at Chickasaw Creek and Coldwater Creek by the Heidelberg National Center for Water Quality. They measure phosphorus concentration levels and they measure the flow rates at both creeks. Phosphorus concentration multiplied by flow rate (volume of water flowing into the lake) provides a reasonable calculation of incoming phosphorus at both creeks. They could do the same for the other tributaries that feed the lake if paid to do it. You don't have to worry about livestock numbers if the actual phosphorus levels in creeks is measured/monitored. Incoming P-levels can be calculated and monitored if the data is wanted.

And measuring dredging effectiveness for phosphorus removal is not a big deal to do. Sediment being pumped thru pipes and into retaining pits can be measured as it comes thru pipe. Calculate the concentration of phosphorus in the pumped solution. We know or can calculate the water volume being pumped. The phosphorus concentration per volume multiplied times volume pumped will give phosphorus removed. It's not a big deal to calculate how much phosphorus is removed, if the State wants to know.

It's weird that no one measures and monitors daily, weekly, or monthly main lake phosphorus level. The main lake P level is the #1 target of all this........get that number down and algae issues diminish. Makes no sense that it is neither measured nor monitored. Clearly the P number will jump all over the place and surge after major rain events in the spring and summer. But looking at the data over the long haul, maybe year to year comparisons would provide a view of the trend.......is the P level up/down or no change? If P isn't going down, then current tactics aren't working and course correction is required.

I think claims about residential septics/sewer as a GLSM pollution factor is a red-herring. My Dad had a place on GLSM for 20+ years in the 60's to 80's. Somewhere in that time frame the Army Corp of Engineers completed a lake-wide sewer system and residents were required to hook-up. After the sewer system was completed, residential expansion took-off. Contrary to public opinion, people who live on or adjacent to lake aren't dumping into the lake. I could be wrong on this, don't think so, however.

My opinion......the State doesn't want to see the numbers. The might get barbecued by tax-payers if data indicates no improvement. The farmers don't want to see the numbers either. Farmers claim they are doing better but if the numbers come out farmers might see more fire to their feet. 
To justify expenditures State should be required to report at least quarterly:
1- Main Lake average Phosphorus level
2- Volume of Phosphorus removed from lake via dredging
3- Volume of Phosphorus that entered lake from watershed


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## Lowell H Turner

Agree with you 95%+. Was more thinking of housing not necessarily on the COE sewage system but still in the watershed further out. And of course today there are a few more of them than there was in the 1960`s and 70`s. The LAWN fertilizer is actually a fairly significant factor as on average only about 1/4th of it used is asorbed by the lawns it`s put on...luckily the majority of the area is agricultural, not residential use.


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## zaraspook

LHT.......you're on target with lawn fertilizer issue. Water frontage homes on GLSM is very high. Fortunately lots are minimal sizes, houses packed in, and property owners don't want to spend weekends cutting grass. Consensus thinking is that more concrete for driveways, boat pads, walkways, and patios means less grass to attend. Some can mow lawns with a weed whacker. Good numbers have abandoned fertilizers. My street has 11 houses on it, all water front, with only two landowners using fertilizers. One guy is fanatic for thick, green carpet and fertilizes like crazy. To his credit he says he switched to a non-phosphorus fertilizer. I've never observed the other guy fertilizing but clearly he must.....great looking lawn. From my viewpoint if you pump water from the lake to water lawn it probably contains enough phosphorus and nitrates to satisfy the grass.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, your observation about applying lawn fertilizer is accurate if slightly ironic...it would actually be more long term beneficial to spray watered down muck sediment on a lawn mixed with sweet lime (to significantly reduce the `aroma`) in the fall than to just add more fertilizer and probably much CHEAPER too...those lawns would quickly look like tropical triple canopy jungle if not vigorously kept mowed down because most underwater sediments are so rich in nutrients ! The same is true of regularly inundated flood plains...


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## zaraspook

LHT........to your point I conducted a "test" 2 summers ago. On my deck were 2 large pots with flowering bushes (identical bushes, don't recall the variety). Pots were in open area, 20 feet apart, to receive about same amount of rain, sun and exposure to the elements. For additional moisture needs one bush received tap water only, no fertilizer. 2nd bush received lake water only (no fertilizer). Guess which bush generated 30-40% more foliage, flowers, and was taller? Duh!


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## Lowell H Turner

Find the results you observed are EASILY believable...imagine the `results` if 1 pot had plain topsoil and the other had muck straight from the bottom of the lake from an undredged area. The resulting muck grown plant would easily have been 2-3X larger with bigger folage and flowers. Try it this spring...you will likely be shocked at the difference.


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## zaraspook

Great idea, LHT, but thinking maybe to plant tomatoes if I get chance. Lake muck may produce pumpkin sized maters!


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## Lowell H Turner

That would NOT surprise me at all, sir ! Actually, several southern and Midwestern states in the recent past would give advanced notice of dredging operations and on given dates would allow and encourage local farmers to bring dump trucks to be loaded with the muck that was further liquefied and then immediately placed on their crop fields and orchards with pheneonimal crop yields for the next few years. The amazingly bountiful annual cotton crops of the pre-Civil War South were extensively fertilized by muck dug and dredged from local swamps. The semi annual application of this rancid but fertile and potent very cheap fertilizer allowed annual and very bountiful cotton, grain and other types of crop harvests year after year for several hundred years on marginal or poor quality fields even though cotton plants themselves particularly are very demanding of nutrients and would otherwise have almost completely depleted the soil in only 2 or 3 years. This back breaking foul nasty work was almost exclusively done by slaves and convicts who surprisingly were usually very well fed and tended to at least while doing this grueling but vital task to maximize their productivity that was ultimately the #1 reason for the incredible amount of cotton production that was fully 1/3rd of the Old Deep South`s pre-Civil War economy...


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## zaraspook

LHT.......about once a year we hear of a proposed commercial enterprise to process muck/sediment from GLSM. Last one I recall used tank storage to settle gunk to the bottom tanks, eventually process into high content phosphorus/nitrate solids, bag and sell it. Perhaps one or more of the proposals made it to construction in the area, but I don't think so.

I can testify that the number of "dredge materials retention areas" are definitely on the rise. Within 150 yards of my place is a huge one that earthen walls were constructed less than 2 years ago. This same location was used 10 years earlier. Pumping muck into it began in 2014. And 1/2 mile away another massive one is under construction, probably twice the size. It will be ready by May/June this year.

Now if we can keep the dredges running this year we can "dredge baby, dredge" to a new record!


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## Lowell H Turner

The potential for very REAL $$$$$$$ long term IS there; it simply will take 2 things to realize it: #1 someone who sees the potential and can come up with an economical way to put it into operation and#2 a relatively cheap way to de-water the muck to make it cost effective to haul profitable on a commercial basis at least to local farms where ironically most of it origionally came from. So long as those farmers receiving it have solid soil conservation practices in place this muck WILL boost the productivity of the fields it is applied to by would conservatively guess by 20- 30% with absolutely no other fertilizer needed for several years at least if strategically placed with slightly heavier applications on the higher parts of those fields and just allowing gravity and rain/ snow melt to gradually spread it out to replenish it for a while to come...it is just incredibly LOADED with nutrients ! As those muck piles gradually dry out (relatively speaking) would not be surprised to see local farmers begin to haul it off and put it on their fields !


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## zaraspook

LHT.....some day muck harvesting will come, but there is irony in it all. If measures are working to reduce GLSM phosphorus/nitrates, as time goes on sediment will contain less and less of nutrients. The longer it takes, the less potent the product (sediment) becomes.

I have a bit of a problem with farmers using the muck. Dredging investment is huge to suck that nutrient laden sediment from the lake and into holding pits. If farmers haul it off to use in fields, spring/summer rains wash it away into the creeks. Then it goes into the lake to begin a new cycle of pollution, and a new round of dredging to remove it. Where's the progress? Kind of like digging a hole and all the dirt thrown up and out then trickles back into the hole. Am I missing something?


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## Lowell H Turner

Agreed; sedimentation is a completely natural process that over great periods of time will fill in even the largest bodies of water (other than oceans). It is a constant process of running water, erosion and gravity. However often clearing forests (trees store incredible amounts of water), plowing topsoil under for farming particularly of marginal acreage, not leaving grass and brush field buffers to help catch topsoil erosion and run off as well as over fertilization under less than ideal conditions ALL contribute tremendously to the problem. Luckily most if not all can at least be reduced if not eliminated with modern solid soil conservation management practices...very few farmers anymore annually till (plow) their fields; most will VERY sparingly do so every 5-7 years at most. THAT 1 thing helps reduce run off by 90+% annually. Consider that up to the mid 1980s almost all crop farmers plowed their fields ANNUALLY which led to just MASSIVE run off...times are a-changing, but the effects of 150+ years will still need to be reversed. There is a GOOD solid start underway...


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## Lowell H Turner

Btw, as strange as it may seem, the deposits of annual run off are almost like the growth rings of a tree; where the lake was formerly deeper and there was less current and wave action am certain these deposits are like pages of a book, literally, each thin layer deposited annually in turn. In many sedimentary bottomed lakes this can quite clearly be seen by careful coring with glass lined sleeves in the coring tubes...


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## Jrock1085

is the ice thick enough for ice fishing I was thinking about comming up in the AM any decent sports ?


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## zaraspook

Jrock1085.....unfortunately I haven't personally been in the ice, therefore consider my info accordingly. My conservative guess is ice is 12-14". Saw snow mobiles on East side of main lake almost 2 weeks ago. Weather conditions since then have not been ice destructive. 

I'd be shocked if ice isn't suitable for fishing........very low chances, however ice is never uniform. Be careful and practice safe rules of ice engagement. Please report your findings if you go.

If any doubts you can call The Outdoorsman (bait/marina)in St. Marys and located on the East Bank (419) 394-5769.


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## Lowell H Turner

DO please take the ice claws AND 50` of light rope WITH you regardless. They are both like a seat belt, the average person will actually only need to have it on 1 time for 2- 3 seconds at some point in their driving; the trick is accurately guessing exactly WHEN...it`s far better to just to develop the habit of always having your safety gear WITH you when venturing out. Remember, there is no such thing as completely `SAFE` ice, and AVOID heaves (expansion ridges) like they`re the bulbonic plague ! Good luck and look forward to your report, sir !


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## zaraspook

Word is out that a commercial firm expressed interest in "helping" with the removal of rough fish from GLSM. If you don't know the State funds a crew to net and remove carp and other rough fish species in the spring and early summer. Any additional resources in funding or with manpower/equipment can't hurt the annual effort. The commercial firm hasn't been identified. Likely that the commercial enterprise could be a producer of pet/animal food.

Every little bit helps.......


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## Lowell H Turner

German or `common` carp were introduced in the early 1840`s to `supplement` the depleted and/ or habitat of native species and being at least partially tolerant of shallow but modestly wide cannal systems were used to control algae and vegetation in them which otherwise tended to choke them in the summer months. They were also raised as table fare by German and Scandinavian cultures as delicasies on Sundays and holidays. They escaped due to spring floods and rapidly could be found in the entire Mississippi River watershed and soon after the Great Lakes and into Canada...the (then) largely untamed Rio Grand and Colorado Rivers were supporting schools by the end of the Civil War...alas the Columbia River had large schools of this largest member of the common minnow family thrashing along it`s shore by the late 1870`s...a remarkably adaptive fish, and known to find that weak spot in your rig.


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## zaraspook

LHT......ironic to hear German carp introduced to help control vegetation and _*algae*_. In a reversal of fortunes, carp now being hunted, netted, bow-fished at GLSM partly due to their contribution to algae mess. Civilization has racked up a few unknown and unintended consequences, no?


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## zaraspook

Latest draw-down report for GLSM.....drawdown strategy is to maintain GLSM water level at 9" below spillway level to control excessive spring flooding downstream. Past October draw down settled at 8.5" below spillway. Was 6" below in early December. Precipitation since then raised levels to only 0.5" below. Therefore, State is looking for an early opportunity to draw down current water level by 8.5". 

Last year State did a Feb draw down, while lake carried 10-16" ice cover. Resulted in a disaster for private and public property damage as the heavy ice cover was pulled down with falling water levels. Docks and decks everywhere were dragged down by ice, twisted, mangled, and tilted into channels. 

Assuming State learned a lesson about the power of heavy ice on top of falling water levels, this draw down will be delayed until current ice is nearly gone. Current ice thickness is estimated >14" and it is likely to be around past mid-March. This year the ice fishing guys should not fear falling water level beneath the ice on which they sit.


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## zaraspook

2015 dredging goal announced.......State proclaimed 300,000 cubic feet of sediment is the dredging goal for this year. Considering last year's production was 232,000 cubic yards and 2013 an all time record of 302,000, a goal of 300,000 would seem lofty. Not so fast, fellas....why so timid a target?

Last year the new monster dredge, Hoedag, was delivered late, only partially functional even as late as Sept.........last year's 232,000 came with little contribution from Hoedag. Of the two older dredges, one was out of service for all but a couple weeks. Brutus, new a couple years ago, accounted for 60-70% of the 2014 total.

And, consider the change announced to this year's dredging schedule. Rather than a schedule of 4 days a week and 10 hours daily, for 2015 the State bellied up to the bar and announced 10 hours daily and 5 days a week. That's great news and clearly a quantum leap toward removing legacy phosphorus/nitrates accumulated in GLSM over decades. With a 20% increment in hours, Hoedag and Brutus should meet and exceed the 300,000 cubic yard goal. Any contribution from Eagle and Pumps a Little, the aging dredges in the stable, will be icing on the cake. 400,000 is within reach.

State also announced dredges will mostly be concentrated on the SE area of GLSM. Dredge Baby, Dredge!!!!


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, would imagine that being `conservative` and likely `under-guesstimating` the 2015 dredging goals is understandable at this time. However, ASSUMING that all 4 dredges are `up` and operating on the start date, can be kept fully manned, that they all stay operating with no serious `down time`(other than the required routine maintainance) and are cunningly utilized this could easily be a 400,000 yard year. If so, it will be well used in the SE corner of the lake, adding the much needed depth and removing literally at least several thousands of tons of the phosphates...DREDGE AWAY ! And as per your previous post about the carp, yes for a fish that is still considered a highly sought after GAME fish in Europe it is `ironic` to say the least. Think what you will but it is still 1 of THE hardest fighting fish in North America with stamina in spades ! Bass are wimps by comparison...


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## zaraspook

LHT.....I hope the puny forecast is not a sign that State lacks confidence with Hoedag, new dredge last year. Perhaps at the end of 2014 dredging season Hoedag still had bugs to iron out.

True, those carp are impressive on both power and stamina.


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## catfish chaser

Thanks Zara for the dredge report! Hopefully all the big cats that are in the SE end swim up to the West side and meet my bait!


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## zaraspook

Catfish chaser.......... any chance those big kitties relate to structure? Those dredge pipes that carry sediment from dredge to holding pits can run half mile under water. Pipes are 20" diameter or more. Can you imagine a 1/2 mile long tree trunk, 20" diameter, laying on bottom of lake and channels? Can't vouch for catfish but many other species are attracted to the pipes. Just something to think about...........good luck and hope you pull some big ones from West side if we ever get rid of ice!


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## catfish chaser

Zara, they would hang around the pipes if the dredges are not running but I would think they would get scared away as sediment passed through making noise


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## zaraspook

Catfish chaser...... I can buy that. At least dredges don't run on weekends.


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## catfish chaser

Very true, might be worth a shot if the ice ever melts!! Might get snags on the pipe it's too


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## zaraspook

If you ice fish GLSM, extra-precautions are in order. Ice thickness is not the issue. Pressure cracks are developing, expansion pressure causing ice to crack and overlap adjacent ice. A net result is also open water near the pressure cracks. At least one major pressure cracks runs for miles from Celina to St. Marys. Be safe! 

Details at this link from the Celina Daily Standard http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...pressure-causes-large-ice-crack-on-grand-lake


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## jmk112

Zara. Have you heard of any crappie catches lately through the ice? I know with the low water early it didn't help a lot for ice fishing. I was thinking this weekend could be good fishing with the warmer weather and slow melting ice.


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## catfish chaser

I hope all that ice melts by the 21st for the first tourney


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## zaraspook

jmk112 said:


> Zara. Have you heard of any crappie catches lately through the ice? I know with the low water early it didn't help a lot for ice fishing. I was thinking this weekend could be good fishing with the warmer weather and slow melting ice.


jmk112.......haven't heard a peep about ice fishing results for at least a month. Whoops....I take that back. Outdoorsman on East Bank said ice bite for crappies was decent, but they are in the business of selling bait. Last couple times I was up there the only ice guys I saw were at spillway.


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## fished-out

Doesn't matter if they're biting or not, everyone knows JMK112 can't catch crappie!


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## fishwhacker

Was fishing for gills last sunday and caught 3 crappies....guessing if i was targeting could have got something going... was out about an hr and half missed some bites with my bluegill jigs i would assume those could of been crappies that i couldnt stick


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## zaraspook

catfish chaser said:


> I hope all that ice melts by the 21st for the first tourney


I know what you mean. If you recall for the first Catmaster last year it was touch and go. They didn't know if tourney was on or off until day before tourney. Last year that tourney was on 3/22, lake was maybe 50% open water. Current ice thickness must be about same or thicker than last year. Starting next week, lots of 50's predicted. Should do some damage to the ice.

Patience, Grasshopper.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker......assume your good fortune last Sunday was thru the ice? I have seen a rare spot or two of open water.


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## fishwhacker

Yes, ice was about 12 inches last week....open water coming soon


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## zaraspook

I'm ready. 12" won't go fast. Since last fall I've been hoping for early open water just to chase some perch. Never have caught a GLSM perch after March 1. Not optimistic but will try anyway.


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## catfish chaser

Zara maybe warmer weather, soon rain Tuesday and a little wind, next weekend could open up


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## zaraspook

catfish chaser........with 12" of ice I initially felt "no chance" for open water this weekend. But, on 2nd glance, weather guys have bumped some of those 40-degree highs into the 50's. And now calling for significant rain Fri-Sat time frame. No night time lows expected below freezing which is really good. Chances are a lot better for sure. As you point out, wind will accelerate the process. Not much wind in this week's forecast.

When it does open, main lake will open first. Channels will lag behind. Channels that are creek feed will clear before dead-end channels. I'm trying to be patient, but it isn't working very well.......


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## Salmonid

Zara, good things come to those who wait, be patient Grasshopper. Crappies are waiting for you!!! Scott and me will be coming up in a week or two to try to hunt down some specks!!

Ice was good to us this winter and I never made it to GLSM but did well elsewhere

Will be in contact soon.

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

To accommodate spring precipitation, latest lake draw down began last Weds, March 4th. After 5 days level fell only an inch.......incoming water from melt is almost as fast as volume of water released. Lake level up 11" from last fall draw down......may require opening more tubes since this draw down by plan must end March 15. Brian Miller said ice thickness was 14-16", and they are trying to avoid problems experienced due to heavy ice during draw down last spring.


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## zaraspook

Hard water guys......stick around a while. Soft water guys........long way to go, fellas. Tuesday afternoon ran up to GLSM, not to fish but to check out the ice melt in my channel. My thinking was if ice had begun to edge away from the seawalls, maybe I'd bust up some ice and help the melt along. Perhaps by the weekend have enough open water to bank fish? No way, Jose. 

Couple of crazy ice fishermen were sitting on buckets when I arrived at my channel. Nice guys, actually likable guys, and they sure talked like this wasn't their first hard water rodeo. Yep, they had electronics and sleds filled with all the gear. They worked at least a dozen, maybe 16-18 freshly cut holes. The only thing missing was a cooperative bite. Bites were few and far between, an occasional fish marked, but none pulled through the ice.

Since it didn't seem I would interrupt the action, I joined them on the ice, not to fish but for closer observation of a couple of hardwater pros. Thought about it later, I think it was my first time to actually be on GLSM ice. They drilled a couple of fresh holes for me to inspect the ice. Maybe 1-2 inches of frosty white ice on top, then maybe 2" of gray ice, then clear ice. Thickness of all ice was a depressing 14". 

Hardwater guys, don't give up yet. Open water guys, go back to watching TV fishing shows. So far not much progress made in channels from warmer temps and rain.

Good to see you on the ice, Salmonid. You and Scott have some good looking hardwater gear. Thanks for the quickie instructions on ice fishing and equipment. Next time hope to witness the advanced level of instruction.....something that includes actually catching a fish would be nice.


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## Clementsdiesel

Went to the spillway everyday this week only to catch one non keeper crappie, probably two dozen gills, a carp, and a 10in large mouth. Caught everything on hand tied jigs... 

Haven't seen or heard anyone catching anything good yet hopefully with this warmer weather coming in they will start to turn on


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## Salmonid

Thanks Diesel, keep us in the loop this week if any open water is showing up big enough to get a boat in... Thanks 
Salmonid


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## fishwhacker

Ice was 9 inches think at west bank boat ramp


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......Sunday saw some open water big enough to get a boat in. It's about 40-50' diameter. Problem is it's 200 yards off shore, near Otterbein, no way to get a boat to it.  I think the cat tourney this Saturday is in trouble. No open water as far as you can see from East Bank other than that one hole of 40-50' diameter. Even if the lake opens up later this week, an ice-free ramp will be hard to come by.

Was at GLSM 1)hoping to find some open water in my channel to fish, 2) hoping to find thin ice near the bank to bust up, accelerate thawing, so maybe I can fish later this week. Struck out on both objectives. Zero open water and found only a few places I could break thru ice adjacent to bank/seawalls. White ice/slush on top for 1-2", an inch of gray ice, then 4-5" of clear ice. If that's the composition on the edges where it thins first, then the clear ice is at least 2-3" thicker further out in channel. Bummer.


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## Greyduck

Thank you for the update Zara. Come on open water.


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## zaraspook

greyduck........Glad to see the whipping winds today. It will do a good job of pushing around what little open water we have. Waves will be like pac-man, chomping away at bordering ice. 3-4 days of decent wind would be a blessing.

Just looked at wind forecast, not much there Weds thru Friday to boost ice reduction.


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## zaraspook

Looks like substantial open water at the West Bank, view at the GLSM Web Cam at this link. http://webcam.wabash.com/westbank2.html


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## catfish chaser

Not bad, I'd like to take the boat up Thursday, just not sure if it would be worth it


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## fishwhacker

That is deceptive..there is a thick ice pack from the pier to the boathouse...cant get a boat through yet. I drove by this evening


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## Clementsdiesel

Id say from what I saw tonight most if not all of the West Bank is ice free
The wind is putting a hurting to the ice 

I caught this 12in beauty yesterday on the west side with a hand tied jig the bite was on yesterday but slowed way down today didn't even get a fish


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## zaraspook

Clementsdiesel........very nice and agree that's a beauty. Did you get it in the main lake, channel/creek, or spillway? Keep the photos coming.........


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## Clementsdiesel

There's been three places i have been going everyday after work...That's cold water creek the spillway and the channel in montezuma those are the only places that I know of that are open but I haven't looked to hard for other places but I caught that one at cold water creek channel.... But it has been packed everyone has cabin fever and because of that it has been shoulder to shoulder fishing


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## Greyduck

Nice. Crappie diesel...... any word on the r st of the lake open? Thinking about a trip up tomorrow.


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## zaraspook

Was at GLSM mid-afternoon Weds 3-18-15 this week. My channel remained locked up. Spent 90 minutes attempting to break ice, accelerate slow melt, hoping it would help for this weekend. With no open water in my channel, decided late to find something open on main lake. Found some modest open water on east side of lake lined by south-facing rip rap. That was at 4:45pm and never moved more than 25' left or right of that spot.

This was my first fishing of the year. Took about 8 minutes to land first fish, first crappie, first 12 incher of 2015. That was enough to make it worthwhile, wouldn't have been necessary to catch anything else in the 90 minutes I fished. I was happy. But, more happiness was to come.

Considering cold water temps, the steady action that lasted until 6pm and aggressiveness of the bite was totally surprising. Ended up catching 13 crappie, 6 dinks between 7-10", but 7 were well over 10". 5 of the keepers were 11.5-13.5". I'll admit fish were slim compared to same length fish last fall. They were hungry, feeding hard, and all hooked solidly in roof of the mouth. About 1/2 way into the session got into a heavier fish and was sure this crappie was 15" or more. Turned out it was only 14", not a crappie, but a LM bass.

Most crappies came within 3-5 feet of the rip rap bank. Nothing further out than 8-9' and I'm guessing water depth of 2.5-4'. Witnessed good numbers of shad with some 8-10" slow swimmers among them. I used 32nd oz jighead with plastic (think they are called sassy shad, 1.5", shad body with a stinger type tail, in an opaque white color that's speckled with black).

Tried to post a photo of the first one I caught. Site returned a bunch of error statements. I'll try it again later.


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## Clementsdiesel

two more pigs 12 and 12 1/2


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## Greyduck

Thank you for the update... i don't think i can wait till tomorrow. Going to pack it up at work early and give the Grand Lady a try this evening


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## CHOPIQ

Any word on the catfish tourney Sat? They still having it? Good job on the crappies diesel, I'm sure your Dad will fry them up for you.


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## Salmonid

Yup catfish tourney is ON, I spoke with Dan around noon and 98% of main lake is open but many channels are still iced in, FYI, WEst end wide open, sailboat dock open east dock should be open by tomorrow at noon Im guessing . Good luck folks I was really hoping they were gonna postpone so I could fish it next week, as it turns out ill be fishing a tourney at Rocky Fork instead... I hate that, 3 good tourneys this weekend and NONE next weekend.. frustrating....

I found some SERIOUS shad up there today but I had to hunt before I found them then in one throw I had 100 lbs plus in the net....

Salmonid


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## catfish chaser

The lake we a very steaming 39 degrees today, took awhile to find some fish but ended up with 34.7 and right outside the top 10. Not to bad with not being able to prefish


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## zaraspook

catfish chaser.....pretty impressive bag. That NW wind was darn cold at GLSM and I don't think air temps got close to predicted upper 50's. What was winning weight and big fish?

My channel was 90% ice covered. I broke up a lot of ice along banks, variable thickness but lots still 5"+. Crappie bite wasn't good for me and a buddy. I caught 11 but only a single keeper that was 10". Couldn't locate a school.


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## catfish chaser

1st place had 50lbs and 2nd had 48lbs, big fish I believe was 13.85! Really nice to be back on the water


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## Greyduck

Hit the lake friday evening and this morning. Friday ended up with 9 crappie but only a few over 9. Fished the east bank and all fish was caught the last half hour before dark. Today my son and i hit it early. Ended up catching 29 crappie. Only 4 keepers though. We fished south east side. Tryed to put the boat in but the impeller gave up the ghost... hope to get a new one in and get back up on Wednesday. .


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## Salmonid

Good reports guys, Ill be up probably not until Next week as this week I have to get a new starter put into my boat, ahhh the joys of boat ownership...
Zara, you get any along your wall? or did they come elsewhere? 


Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid......fishing in my channel and the adjacent channel was very limited by ice. At best open only 3-4' from seawalls and required breaking the ice first early in morning and waiting until 2pm or later for broken ice to melt. Anything thawed Saturday was refrozen Sunday morning. Frustrating.

Of my 11 crappies Saturday, 6 came from channel across the road. Those 6 came in about 15 minutes. If ice had been thawed beyond 3' from seawall, I might have caught 25 from that spot. I figure the 6 came from a school largely located under the ice. The other 5 Saturday and 4 more caught Sunday morning were at East Bank. Only 1 keeper among the lot. Didn't get a bite from my seawall.


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## zaraspook

Earlier this month three Grand Lake Watershed farmers received violation notices from the State for applying manure to frozen or snow-covered ground, a violation of the distressed watershed rules meant to curb toxic algae in Grand Lake. The article in the Celina Daily Standard is at the link below and gives names/locations of the violations. The investigation was the result of a complaint by a caller and involved application of liquid manure from heifers. All 3 farmers have manure handling plans completed and on file with the State as required, therefore can't claim ignorance. Tough to argue the fields weren't frozen.....when investigated the State found fields were frozen to a depth of 20-22".

Lots of Ohio taxpayer dollars are spent to reduce phosphorus already in the lake and to cut new phosphorus coming into the lake. Violations like these ensure our tax dollars can't be moved to other constructive uses. A positive note, however......other potential violations have been reported by callers and investigated without finding violations. 

http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...-receive-manure-application-violation-notices


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## Lowell H Turner

The `tide` of public opinion, awareness AND concern over this subject HAS definately `turned`. Offenders BEWARE- there certainly IS someone watching and chances are they have a cell phone with them capable of both GPS positioning AND taking video...and as was said claiming you just `didn`t know` ain`t gonna fly any more. Enjoy the hopefully large FINE...


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## zaraspook

LHT......no guarantee there will be a fine and size of fine up to judiciary. In the past chances of getting caught were infinitesimal, and fines were rare or small. Fines were less than the cost to haul away liquid manure. If a fine comes down the pike, it will be a local judge to determine magnitude. Regardless, he'll be sending a message to future violators, setting a precedent. Big fine says "don't do this in my jurisdiction". Small fine signifies "no harm, no foul. Go ahead and dump."

On the fishing front, fished with a guy Sunday morning who said he'd caught 2 walleye at the spillway since beginning of March. He said he witnessed the catch of a 7+ pound walleye at same location by a guy who reportedly bagged his 20th walleye of the season. Since no walleye stocked since 2006, and walleye reproduction thought to be unsuccessful in GLSM, fish being caught today would be at least 9 years old. Biguns!


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## Lowell H Turner

I can HOPE the local judge shows them both a nice huge white Jurassic Park smile and shreds their wallets and sends a CLEAR and UNMISTAKABLE `message` to any other `tempted` parties...


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## zaraspook

LHT..........you must be mellowing as you age. Seems like you "held back" in stating your position.


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## zaraspook

Made a run to my lake place Thursday afternoon arriving at 3pm. Finally, no ice on my channel and the opportunity for a little bank fishing. First wetting a line at my seawall yielded not a nibble. After 10 minutes it was time to move on. Good decision as 2nd spot quickly erased any doubts about catching fish that day. Looked at my watch as I caught the 20th crappie.....I was 1 hour into fishing. The problem was only 4 keepers among the bunch. What's that old adage........"never leave a bite looking for a better bite, or is it looking for bigger fish"?

Yep......ventured away from a very good bite to find bigger fish. Not a good decision, at least this time around. An hour later and 1/2 dozen spots produced 1 bite, 1 fish, and zero keepers. That sucks. Quickly trotted back to the scene of the good bite with fingers crossed the fish were still around. Good decision. At times the bite would taper off, but lure changes worked to get back on track. During the 90 minutes before quitting at 6:30, I beached 37 more crappies! Percentage of keeper sized didn't really improve, just 8 more from this batch. None bigger than 11.25". 

Clearly sitting on a school of fish that wasn't moving much, it was a great opportunity to play with different baits, sizes, and colors. Fish were caught on everything I tried, but the pace of bites and hookups showed substantial differences. Had I started with the plastic I ended with, easily would have hooked up on 20-30 more fish. Regardless, a dozen keepers in 3.5 hours isn't bad. 58 crappies in the same period is a fun catch rate. Actually, 57 of them were caught in 2.5 hours.....a tremendous catch rate.

Fun day, weather nicer than expected, and wind was light.


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## Salmonid

Great report Rande, wish we could have made it... I instead hit my pond for about 30 minutes, about went numb from the cold cutting wind and managed 2 small LMB and 1 nice 12" black crappie on a jig,, Just now thawing out LOL Still planning on coming up next Wed

Salmonid


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## Lowell H Turner

Again, very well done sir...


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## zaraspook

LHT.......... Your kudos appreciated. 

Mark......little wind where I was. Hardly a ripple on water surface. Plan to try again Saturday. I'll be in business if I can locate a school.


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## fishwhacker

Zara, i havent been able to fish open water yet...what kind of location did u find your school? Cover? Depth? I am assuming 3 to 4 ft deep in the middle on the backside of cover. Gonna try to finally get out for a limited time today and want to narrow my search... i have about 10 locations i want to try but trying to reduce to about 3... also is there any water entering your channel through a covert or tube?


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......... same area that produced 57 Thurs only gave up 2 today. Only got 20 Saturday with 4 keepers, 11" biggest, backside of cover. Not really any flow into my channel. Lots of his today they would drop bait after 2 seconds. Didn't fish until about 2:30 Saturday cause new ice overnight on some of my spots. How did you do?


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## fishwhacker

Took 2 spots to finally found some fish...almost all gills, which is what i was targeting. Saw some crappies being caught but most were short. Nephew did catch 2 nice ones. I guy did get written up for a short fish. I know they lose about 1/2 inch when they feather their tail in a bucket so it was probably right on the line when he caught it....just a warning if they are close put them back. Couldnt tell u how many gills i caught, action was fast. Keeper rate has fallen dramatically talking to a bunch of guys...guess that means we have a sustainable crappie fishery and the population wont get depleted again...there was about 10yrs where catching more than 10 crappies in an outing didnt happen but a couple times a year. Maybe they need to add more walleye to keep the small ones in check...anyone accidentally get any perch?


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## fishguy 888

Caught 30 yesterday during the afternoon; brought home 9 eaters.


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## zaraspook

My GLSM fishing Sunday was off and on between Noon and 3:30pm. Results were similar to Saturday, slightly better Sunday with 22 crappies and 5 keepers. Regrettably, I haven't developed the habit of taking my net along. Lost at least 4 biguns, 12-13" range due to that lapse. My hookups weren't solid either Sat or Sunday. 80% fish were lip hooked, big ones usually tear-off due to the weight. Biggest I landed Sunday was 11.25" and I'd bet it would have unzipped if I didn't have and use the net.


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## zaraspook

We're going to hit GLSM for crappies Weds afternoon. Anyone have a crappie report from this week?


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## Greyduck

zara...was on the lake yesterday. fished from 10 to 3 without the first hit. they started after 3. fished till 630. 11 caught...9 over 10 inches. two biggest was 13.5. strong hits only lost one fish.


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## Clementsdiesel

Putting the boat in the water after work today going to see if I can't find some pigs to bring home got a new fish finder to try out to


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## zaraspook

From shore 3 of us fished my channel Weds 4/1 at GLSM. Slow as molasses would be appropriate description! Between 3:30-6:30 pm we managed to catch only 13 crappies. Not sure of the count for legal sized fish, we kept none, but I think 6 were legal. Largest barely made 11", another 10"+, rest would have been under the 10" mark. Few bites, gills weren't active either.

Very surprising, particularly considering the bite was so cold, were the water temps. Temps varied from 48-58F, way above expectations. Backend of channels were well into 50's......one backend was barren of a bite, another produced a couple fish, and a 3rd gave up 7 of our fish including the bigger ones. Water clarity wasn't as good as last weekend.

With air temperatures in 60's it was a gorgeous day to fish, plenty of bantering from the 3 participants, only the catching was in short supply! Thanks Mark and Scott. We'll do it again soon and change the results.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Friday 4/3 from 4-6pm. Rained most of the time with plenty of wind. For me bite was scarce, 8 crappies, 2 legal. Didn't feel results were that bad until I watched 3 guys crappie fishing my channel from a boat. They caught at least 30 in the 1/2 hour they were in my line of sight, pulling them from the bank directly opposite of where I didn't get a nibble. 

Saturday was much more active, catching 16 in under 2 hours (only 3 keepers). However, treat of the day was a 16.75" crappie I saw in a friend's bucket. Monster of a fish, it was one of 11 keepers he had that morning from an area of GLSM. Smallest in his bucket was 11" and he said the 16.75" toad was his new personal best by a half inch.

Lots of fisherman out Saturday morning.


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## Lowell H Turner

It`s that time of year again sir !


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## zaraspook

LHT.........and I count my blessings "that time of the year" has finally arrived! Are you getting out, Lowell?


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## catfish chaser

Fished the lake this afternoon 12-630, did a lot of scouting for new spots. Landed 13 channels with the biggest around 6lbs. Water temp was 48 degrees. Didn't see too many boats on main lake but it was breezy


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## zaraspook

catfish chaser........good report! Sounds like you should be ready for the next Catmaster tourney. Water temp at 48 on main lake seems to be inline with what I'd expect if the channels are low 50's.


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## Greyduck

Fished the Grand lake Saturday afternoon and sunday morning with my son. 35 crappie Saturday over 11 inches. Quite a few fish in the 14" range. Sunday morning the school had moved some but it didnt take long to loçate. 60 fishall in the 12 to 14 inch range. Males weteclose to the bank and females were 20 feet out.


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## Lowell H Turner

Yes sir, this weekend (assuming it`s not raining by the bucket full !)


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## Greyduck

A few pictures from the weekend..


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## Greyduck




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## zaraspook

Grey duck..........very impressive. You may have fished in the same general area as my friend with the 16"+ fish.


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## zaraspook

salmonid.......got your voicemail this morning but can't call you back. Lost my phone which is only place I have you cell number. I'm good to go for Thursday, maybe you will see this or someone with your number will get a message to you. I'll also send a PM, but only good if you see it. Sorry.


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## Greyduck

Hit the lake monday evening after work. The bite was on until the wind laid down. 17 over 11 inches. 2 nice bonus channel cats also. Maybe 50 crappie over all. More whites than blacks today. The last 2 days at this spot was mostly blacks.


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## Salmonid

Zara yup saw it and were good for tomorrow 2:30 ish


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Tuesday from shore. Bite was crazy good. 34 caught with 12 keepers between 10-12". Fish were on wood and pretty aggressive. Before putting my rod away, went for one last 15 minute session at a good spot. Couldn't get a crappie bite, but got into a nice surprise. I normally catch 1-2 of these, only in the spring and rarely later than April 1. It was a 22" pike and a great tug of war on my crappie rig with 4 lb test. Landing the pike cost me my phone into the lake, but that's another story. You guessed it, no net with me.

Fished again yesterday/Weds with a buddy, starting about 2:30 pm. Beautiful day and bite was good as long as sun was out. About 4:30 clouds rolled in and fish went into hiding, lock-jaw, or both. Friend and I both tallied 20 crappies. I won the keeper contest with 7 to his 4. Biggest was 12.25". 

Water temp varied from 53-57 degrees in the channels. Water clarity varied from chocolate milk to very good depending upon whether or not the channel was fed by a creek. Main lake temp was 51-52. Crappies were again on wood and with 15 degree rise in temps the last 2 weeks, it's amazing how much stronger they fight.


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## hawgseeker

Wow I can't believe the water temperature is that high already looks like I might be making a trip down there this weekend.


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## zaraspook

Had 5 guys coming in Friday evening for a weekend of crappie fishing, beer, and poker. I'll leave out the extraneous craziness, just report on fishing, and will add none of the 5 would call themselves an angler. One had never fished, the others last fished 2-20 years ago.

Friday fishing at GLSM was in step with prior week, a few crappies here and there, nothing fast and furious, had to work to get them, at best 15-20% keepers at 10"+. In a couple hours we probably caught 25 fish, 1/2 caught by me as these guys were in a learning mode. Saturday it was more of the same in the morning, by noon the bite was noticeably improving. By 1 pm one of the guys decided he wanted to keep enough fish for a meal, so I put my boat in to attack some natural bank areas. Good decision.

Don't know how many we caught but we kept 22. Quality of fish was definitely better, 6 of them between 12.75" and 13.25". The others all 10" or above. Lake was muddy, most channels the same, my channel just lightly stained. Water temp in my channel was 53.7 at 1pm but bloated to almost 60 by 8pm. 3 of the biggest crappies were caught after dark. Interesting that among the 22 fish cleaned, only 4 carried eggs.

Great time, good bite, but better bite still to come.


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## zaraspook

Perch, saugeye, walleye, and a new addition of blue cats could soon be coming to your lake from the Grand Lake St. Marys fish hatchery. The 25 ponds at the GLSM hatchery are busy producing fertilized eggs, fry, and fingerlings that could make it to your live-well in a few years. Among those species, only perch will be stocked into GLSM....boo! Read the Celina Daily Standard article here http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...9/grand-lake-hatchery-fishing-for-a-good-crop .


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## Lynxis

Sunday 4/12/2015 - Tried the south side channels with minnows on hooks or jigs under a bobber. Fished wood and rocks but never got a bite. Water temp went from 59 around noon to 62 around 5. 
We ended up heading to the north side rocks around the campgrounds and got into some channels with the same crappie setup. Glad of it too, they were fun to catch on crappie gear.


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## Redman1776

zaraspook said:


> Perch, saugeye, walleye, and a new addition of blue cats could soon be coming to your lake from the Grand Lake St. Marys fish hatchery. The 25 ponds at the GLSM hatchery are busy producing fertilized eggs, fry, and fingerlings that could make it to your live-well in a few years. Among those species, only perch will be stocked into GLSM....boo! Read the Celina Daily Standard article here http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...9/grand-lake-hatchery-fishing-for-a-good-crop .



Good read, I wish they would state which two Lima Reservoirs are getting stocked with perch, I'm assuming Williams and Ferguson.


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## harrison08

How did the water look? Coming up tomorrow and was just wondering if it had cleared up at all from the weekend?


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## Salmonid

Harrison, good luck, me and buddy Scott going up tomorrow to fish in the afternoon. will be on the south side most likely

as far as Blue cats, they will NEVER go into GLSM since they are not native to the Lake Erie Watershed. Only lakes getting them next fall ( 2016) will be Rocky Fork, CJ Brown, Seneca and Clendening along with Hoover again. 

Also a reminder the 2nd Catmasters tourney held by the Outdoorsman s this Saturday, noon-6 pm, should be a great turnout and more big slobs of pork should be weighed in at the East Bank docks/ramp area at 6 pm. ..

Salmonid


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## catfish chaser

I hope those big slobs come from our livewell!!!!


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## harrison08

Thanks Salmonid. And good luck to you as well.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....I wondered why no blues scheduled for stocking into GLSM. Now I know......wasn't aware blues not native to the watershed. Nice educational tid-bit, Mark.

For the guys pursuing crappies at GLSM, or likely any lake, invest more of your time fishing natural banks, less of your time fishing off seawalls. Seawalls are good spots if you can see cover, or know where submerged cover lies. Not saying you won't ever find crappies off the seawalls, just fewer of the critters. Natural bank areas will attract and hold more fish, bigger fish. One channel I fish routinely is 90% seawall, 10% natural bank. Rarely catch crappies off the seawalls unless it's a spot where I inserted crappie cover or know it's there.


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## AEFISHING

Should be a packed lake on Saturday. I think they have a crappie tournament on Saturday as well. Good Luck in the cat tournament!


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## Lowell H Turner

Good luck Salmonid, get up there and KICK some tales...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid, Scott, and I fished GLSM for crappies Weds afternoon. We did better than last couple weeks, but didn't light it up. My original plan was to hit an area only accessible by boat. Plan was shelved when there were already 2 boats stacked up in that area. Instead of by sea, we fished by land. 

Within 5 minutes Salmonid and Scott were quickly on the board with a double header, both keepers. Hmmm.....that happened last week, too, and we only caught 11 or 13 total for the day. Pulled a few more there then it quieted down......we moved on to other targets. Though I was catching fish, no keepers for me until my 10th crappie, followed quickly by another keeper. Another couple of holes were dry and before wetting a line in "no-name bay". A few fish there, mostly dinks but anther keeper added to Salmonid's tally. Woodcarver's was the next spot, definitely the best action for the day. It started with the best fish of the day, 12" slab for Salmonid (photo below), and another for him at 11". Scott and I were busy catching fish, but short ones. I did get a couple keepers at Woodcarvers, nice fish, but no comparison to Salmonid's 12" slab. Action dried up after that. Just before ending our day, Salmonid and Scott each pulled a pair of fish casting from my seawall.

Results.....Scott managed 9 fish - 2 keepers. Salmonid won the big fish derby and amazingly caught only 4 fish, but all 4 keepers. I caught 20 crappies but with only 4 keepers. 

I believe the boat would have produced better results, but we'll never know. 33 total and 10 keepers between 10"-12" is a decent showing.

Thanks for the camaraderie and "eats", fellas!


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## Salmonid

Fished the Outdoorsman catfish series event on Saturday with Catfish Chaser , Beautiful day even got sunburnt. Water was smooth as glass all afternoon and decent clarity and water was between 68-72 degrees in the main lake
45 teams and we never do worth a hoot in prespawn so we were happy to manage 8 th place with 6 channels at 38.44 lbs. we also had a 11 lb 10 oz channel which was the 4 th biggest if the tourney. Highlight was the winning team had a real monster at just over 18 lbs! Their winning weight was almost 62 lbs. some real nice fish weighed in. We fished 3.5 hr in one area searching for better fish but only had 3 in the 5 lb range out of about 18 fish caught so we did a major move and in the next 2.5 hrs only caught 4 fish but 3 if them went 11.10, 6.8 and almost 5 lbs so that really helped us. Just wished we would have moved earlier. Lol
Doc and Cyberfox also fished and started with a 10 lber but couldn't find any more real big ones and finished in the middle of the field. Spawn is starting so i expect the crappie guys to start getting channels as they move into the banks this and next week

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.........nice showing for you and catfish chaser! You're usually looking for a kicker to put your team into the $.......this time you had the kicker! 11lb 10 oz is a good one. Winning basket at almost 62# is incredible.....hard to compete with that and an 18 pounder. Is 62# the heaviest weight since you've been fishing GLSM Catmaster series?


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## Salmonid

Thanks Rande. Yeah we are usually looking for a kicker but this time we had one but not enough in the rest if the sack to get the job done. Lol
The 18 lber was a tourney record but each spring thee is always s winning weight around 60 lbs give or take so not uncommon. I think we needed 49lb to place in money (4 places). We were a long ways out of it lol.
You look good for Thursday? 
Salmonid


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## rutty

Fished Grand on Friday with another guy by boat and we ended with 50 really nice crappie. All fish were caught shallow in the brush. Big females were in there ready to do their business.


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## CHOPIQ

Anyone know results of the crappie tourney Sat?


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## Greyduck

Sounds like it might be time to hit some spring cats... sounds fun guys. My son and i hit the lake Saturday morning. Started off looking for the biggins we have been in all spring. Not much there so we launched the boat and hit the usual spots. It turned out pretty productive. 19 crappie..... all keepers. Not the first throw back all day. Most in the 12 to 14 inch range. The bite was pretty light all day. It was a keep moving kinda day. A fish here and there.


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## zaraspook

Started fishing last Friday from shore at 4:30 pm and it was obvious the fish were active. Caught 9 real fast from my seawall, 5 keepers (10"+) so decided to put my boat in and seek out some bigger ones. Bite was not as active as I expected. Fishing from boat 6-8pm, caught only 8 but all 8 were keepers including a pair of 12.75" fish. Finished up from shore fishing another spot until dark. 8 more fish, just 2 keepers to end with 25 total and 15 keepers.

Expecting a crappie tournament invasion Saturday morning, I was up early in the morning to hit a few spots I knew the tournament guys would pound. Clearly the bite was slower than night before. Only caught 2, both keepers, then docked the boat to watch the parade of tourney guys while I did chores. By my estimate about a dozen crappie boats hit my channel. Each boat seemed to catch a fish or two but rarely added any to the live well. I fished for 20-30 minutes several times from bank during the day between chores. Just before dark tried from the boat, too, but wind picked up significantly and couldn't hold position. Ended the day with 24 caught, 11 keepers but nothing over 11.5".

Sunday used the boat early but still windy. Retreated to bank fishing. In 2-3 hours before rain moved in I managed 18 crappies, only 4 keepers, the best a very dark 12" male. Friday evening was the best action and bite softened as weekend progressed. Final tally was 30 keepers, 67 crappies total, 3 small bass, 3 gills. If you read this, Salmonid, I never touched Woodcarvers, aerator corner, or No Name Bay. And, my seawall was the most productive spot of the weekend.

Forgot to mention water temps in my channel were 67-69 Friday night and 64 Sunday morning. Water clarity was off Saturday....probably due to heavy boat traffic from crappie tourney plus 4-5 bass boats that ventured in.


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## rutty

CHOPIQ said:


> Anyone know results of the crappie tourney Sat?


8 fish, 9.82 pounds won I think it was. It took over 8 to get in the money.


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## zaraspook

Is 8 fish and 9.82 pounds a respectable weight for crappie tourneys in Ohio? Don't have a clue if that's a big number, about average, or a small bag.


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## Fishbaughzach

Check out shelby county crappie club on facebook, the results are psted there. 9.51 lbs won.


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## Rooster

Recent crappie activity? Are they on the bank, or deep? Ive never fished GLSM, but Im taking the kayak up there on Saturday.


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## fished-out

zaraspook said:


> Is 8 fish and 9.82 pounds a respectable weight for crappie tourneys in Ohio? Don't have a clue if that's a big number, about average, or a small bag.


Anything over 9 is a very good weight in Ohio for 8 fish. I've heard that many years ago, an 8 fish limit from St Mary's came in at over 12 pounds. However, I've fished circuits that included many lakes, including St. Mary's, since 2008 and have only seen 3 weights over 9 pounds. One was from Salt Fork, can't remember the 2nd, and the 3rd was from Indian, which went over 10 pounds (I remember that one because my partner and I were the ones who turned it in  ). A lot of lakes have the potential, but they just don't seem to happen in tournaments, probably because the competitors "rob" each other with each team catching a few big fish, but no one team able to put together 8 averaging over 1.1 pounds.


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## zaraspook

fished-out......... that's great info and tremendous performance at Indian. I suspected the GLSM poundage was pretty good and not a surprise at all. That 9" minimum put in a few years deserves a lot of credit for steady increases in fish quality. Best I've witnessed at GLSM.


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## Lowell H Turner

some decent crappies came out of the lake while the "Crappie-thons" were active, believe several in 1 year went close to 2 pds..


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## zaraspook

Rooster.......shallows/bank. You will catch fish!


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## zaraspook

LHT.......the 16.75" crappie I saw couple weeks ago, not my catch, wasn't weighed but I'd bet might have pushed 2 lb mark.


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## rutty

fished-out said:


> Anything over 9 is a very good weight in Ohio for 8 fish. I've heard that many years ago, an 8 fish limit from St Mary's came in at over 12 pounds. However, I've fished circuits that included many lakes, including St. Mary's, since 2008 and have only seen 3 weights over 9 pounds. One was from Salt Fork, can't remember the 2nd, and the 3rd was from Indian, which went over 10 pounds (I remember that one because my partner and I were the ones who turned it in  ). A lot of lakes have the potential, but they just don't seem to happen in tournaments, probably because the competitors "rob" each other with each team catching a few big fish, but no one team able to put together 8 averaging over 1.1 pounds.


Yeah I think you are right about stealing each others fish. We fished it Friday before the tournament (wasn't fishing in the tournament) and our best 8 fish went 11.02lbs.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid, Scott, and I did our weekly therapy session at GLSM on Thursday. Started crappie fishing at 2:30 pm without Salmonid. He was occupied cast-netting for a supply of shad for a Saturday catfish tourney. 

From the get-go it looked like Mother Nature dealt us another bad hand. Yeah we were catching a few fish, but this wasn't the action expected with the spawn so close. First 3 spots on our bank-fishing circuit all yielded a few fish....bite was kind of wimpy, lots of misses as fish really weren't eating the bait for a good hookup. Next 2 spots gave up only a single fish, but finally we arrived at what is typically a best location. Other than a few pecks by gills, this high potential site was totally void of a crappie bite......something just isn't right. 

Time to go into "lockdown" mode. When you know you're on great cover and getting nothing or wimpy short bites, stay where you are, slow down and go deeper. My theory is the fish aren't chasing and you have to hit them in the nose. Adjusting depth for our jigs to fish on or just off the bottom, the action warmed up. Previously catching zero fish at this location, Scott and my change in tactics produced 14 crappies over the next 1/2 hour.

With a comfortable lead over Scott, my 20 crappies to his 16, I took a break to put together our evening meal. It was a good move to satisfy the hunger building in our bellies, bad move for the fishing competition. Scott added 6 more crappies to total 22 and slip past me. Salmonid finally reappeared, worn out from throwing his net, fished for a bit, catching just 2 but both keepers around 11" . Scott was first also with the most keepers, 6 or might have been 7. Biggest fish was my 12 incher.

The most-telling statistic for the day was 54. Last Saturday's water temp was 67-69 in my channel. 54 degrees on Thursday, just 5 days later. Mother Nature did her best to screw with the bite but we adjusted and did OK.


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## zaraspook

Not able to get in much fishing this weekend but had an opening Fri evening for 2.5 hours so jumped on it. Fished from 4:30 to almost 7. Caught 26, only 6 keepers. Don't know water temp but fish were cold to the touch and suspect water temps fell further from Thursday (54 degrees). Males are getting very dark.......not really seeing females, at least where I'm fishing.

Also water level is down approx 4" in last week....heard the State had tubes open at spillway to lower.


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## zaraspook

Ohio Mega Bass circuit moves a Buckeye Lake tourney from Buckeye to Grand Lake St. Marys. With the Mega Bass recent addition, that's 22 tournaments on the GLSM schedule, most are compressed into mid-April to mid-June time frame. Celina Daily Standard report is at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...s-up-tournament-from-beleaguered-buckeye-lake


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## zaraspook

Found an excuse to run to GLSM Monday evening.....conveniently left a pair of my shoes there last visit. Needed a fishing fix since didn't get a chance to crappie fish Saturday or Sunday. Started with a different bait, a bigger plastic, hoping it would be the cure to my recent run on dinks. After hitting 2 spots in 45 minutes and nothing to show for it, discovered the fear of getting skunked outweighed my desire to catch bigger fish. Downsized to a normally productive profile and color. Hadn't left 2nd spot yet and first cast with smaller bait got me on the board. Added 40 more between 5:15 and 7:30 pm. 

Most GLSM fishermen almost always fish 12-18" under a float. Like last week that tactic wasn't productive. Add another 1-2 feet and you'd get into them. I didn't catch a keeper (defined as 10" or better) until the 15th fish. It was at a different spot, shallow backend of a channel, where 5 of 7 fish I caught were between 10-12". Only 2 of 34 fish caught anywhere else broke the 10" mark. Once I shifted to a normal sized bait, I caught fish, albeit short ones, about anywhere I tried.

Talked with another fisherman who agreed the cold spell that began 2 weekends ago has us back into the crappie pattern of late March and early April. Lots of dinks and few biguns, but it shouldn't take much warmth to get things going again. When you catch a big male, they are very dark with war paint. The are ready to go if warmer temps coax the ladies back into the shallows. Didn't measure it but I'd guess water temps are 50-52 range.


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## Tom 513

yes, I think the weather is the only thing holding them back now, I caught 2 males last weekend, the front third of the fish were totally black, actually I first thought they were bluegills.


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## zaraspook

Tom 513.......did you fish GLSM last weekend?


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## Wilson33

I went to GLSM today from 8 am - 2 pm. Fish were biting about 3 feet down on plastics on jig heads. I was shown around by another member of this forum. He helped me out a great deal.

I brought home 7 keepers, but we totaled about 25 keepers and another 10 or so smaller fish. I only wanted to keep dinner for tonight.


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## Tom 513

zaraspook said:


> Tom 513.......did you fish GLSM last weekend?


No, I just cant get time to make it up there yet, been doing 12hr days mon-fri and 8hrs on one of the weekend days, saving for a Lowrance HDS, lol. The Crappie were in a 6 acre pond in SE Indiana, was using Bobby Garland minnow like jigs tipped with Crappie nibbles 18" under a bobber, My Buddy was using minnows the same way.


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## zaraspook

Wilson33........nice report and 12" slabs. Thanks for posting photo. Good to have a mentor to show you the ropes and admire your sportsman attitude to keep only what you'll eat.


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## zaraspook

Tom 513........started using some of the Bobby Garland plastics last year and expanded my inventory and use this spring. Great baits and GLSM crappies like to eat them.


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## Wilson33

Thanks, Zara. The slabs were hitting before noon. From noon until 2 pm there were only small fish. You need to go down about 1" deeper to get the big ones.


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## zaraspook

Wilson33 said:


> Thanks, Zara. The slabs were hitting before noon. From noon until 2 pm there were only small fish. You need to go down about 1" deeper to get the big ones.


How was your dinner of crappie filets?


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## Wilson33

zaraspook said:


> How was your dinner of crappie filets?


They were very tasty. I fried them with a cajun style breading.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid, Scott, and I did a Thursday afternoon crappie session at GLSM. Been catching enough fish lately, but keeper sized ones in short supply lately. We abandoned the bank, opted to put in my boat and hit known spots of bigger fish. In about 3 hours from boat we totaled only about 22-23 crappies, but 12 keepers. Salmonid took honors for biggest, 2nd week in a row, with a male of 12.75 inches.. We may have had one keeper in the 10.5" class, but rest 11-12.75". We targeted bigger fish, got bigger fish, on a day where bite was off..........it doesn't always work out to plan but plan was good this time.


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## fished-out

zaraspook said:


> LHT.......the 16.75" crappie I saw couple weeks ago, not my catch, wasn't weighed but I'd bet might have pushed 2 lb mark.


Closer to 2.5 pounds. A 14" black will go about 1.5. Had a white less than 16" go 1.75. 'Specially if it was female this time of year, gonna go heavy.


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## Lowell H Turner

A VERY nice fish !


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## zaraspook

Can't recall a better weekend of catching toad crappies at GLSM. It started Friday evening for about 3.5 hours, mostly from my boat but but my buddy and I did some fishing from shore. 57 crappies between us Friday evening and an amazing 35 "keepers" (defined as 10" or better). However, very few of the keepers were less than 11". Typical fish was 11.5-12.5" with four breaking the 13" mark. Largest was my buddy's 13 and 7/8 fish. No matter how many times we measured and pinched the tail, it didn't make it to 14". Measurements are all with mouth closed 
........you can easily get another quarter inch with mouth open, but I think official method calls for mouth closed. (?) By the way all fish were released.....we want the fish to have a successful spawn.

Bulk of big ones were shallow, 2' of water on jigs and plastics, usually laydowns and under logs. Water temp was 64 degrees. Spawn is clearly "on". Whereas in the past week and a half the fish were 80-90% males, the ladies are now in town. At least 40% are egg-laden females. It was crazy good and we couldn't wait to get at it again Saturday morning. More later........


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## Wilson33

Great report Zaraspook. By releasing all of your fish, the population will only get better. When I fished St. Mary's last week, the average crappie size was very good. I probably will not make it back to GLSM for the spawn, but I do enjoy all of your informative posts.


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## CHOPIQ

Zaraspook, I'm getting reports that the lake has its annual smell to it already. Has the algae bloom started?


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## zaraspook

CHOPIQ.........I'm not a good one to ask about "annual smell". I fish there so often I don't notice anything different. You have the normal smell of a lake competing with the heavy odor of manure on farm fields. As far as the presence of algae, you'll find scum in back end of channels when no wind is present. Elsewhere water is greener than a few weeks ago.......chlorophyll levels climbing with sun and rising water temps. My fishing buddy from last weekend remarked GLSM water clarity is much better than Buckeye Lake where he lives.


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## zaraspook

Saturday morning we fished about 2.5 hours.....started early before the onslaught of any crappie or bass tourney boats. Bite was slow....we moved more. We only caught 14 crappies but size was still there. My buddy fished on and off during the day but I had to leave for about 5 hours......didn't get to fish again until the evening. Ended up with 43 crappies between us, 25 keepers, 3 of which were 13" toads. Plenty of 12" to go along with the 13's.

We got a late start Sunday morning, boats fishing all over the place, and missed out on our number 1 spot. My buddy was leaving at 11am which meant 2 hours max. When we quit my buddy caught 9 with 4 keepers and I managed only 8 but 6 keepers. 

Handled some chores and packed up to depart, deciding to do one last 15 minute session from shore. Casting under a large deck I'd made at least 15 casts with only one bump which I missed. Finally made a cast deep under the deck and almost immediately the line began to straighten. Setting the hook It was clear this was certainly not a crappie, probably a decent bass or maybe a channel cat. First had to maneuver it out from under the deck without getting wrapped around numerous deck pilings. Soon after I got my first glimpse, a quick silvery green flash of the still submerged fish about 20' away, now almost certain to be a LM. A couple more shorter runs and the fish was nearly spent. Reeling the fish towards me and now surfaced at 12-15' away, it was close enough to finally make an ID. What? It's a monster crappie and crap only lip-hooked! Unfortunately......no net. Fortunately, it's only 8-10' to some bank to land by hand. 

Wish I had the sense to count splines to ID it as either a black or white crappie. It dwarfed my Frable crappie measurer that only goes to 13". Pics below of my new personal best 15" crappie. It was released to spawn and catch another day. Saved the best for last, packed up the rod, and headed home with a big grin.




  








IMG_20150503_124657214_HDR




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zaraspook


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May 5, 2015




cGLSM 15 inch 5-3-15










  








IMG_20150503_124318289




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zaraspook


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May 5, 2015




bGLSM 15 inch 5-3-15









  








IMG_20150503_124130780




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zaraspook


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May 5, 2015




aGLSM 15 inch 5-3-15


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## fished-out

THAT is a nice fish!!


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## zaraspook

Appreciate kudos, fished-out. Great fun to catch and send back to do battle another day.


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## Hillbilly910

its a black Randy, and am guessing a female.
nice fish!


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## zaraspook

Hillbilly910 said:


> its a black Randy, and am guessing a female.
> nice fish!


Agree black crappie and female. Most of males we've been catching have been much darker and this one wasn't.


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## Tom 513

Wow, thats a beauty, the Black crappie males I caught a couple weeks ago out in Sunman Indiana where the blackest crappie I've ever seen, there heads where totally black, spawning colors I believe.


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## zaraspook

Tom 513 said:


> Wow, thats a beauty, the Black crappie males I caught a couple weeks ago out in Sunman Indiana where the blackest crappie I've ever seen, there heads where totally black, spawning colors I believe.


I like to call the black pigmentation "war paint".


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## zaraspook

This week Salmonid, Scott, and I did a Thursday GLSM crappie junket. Conditions were nice if not too warm, lots of blue skies but literally "out of the blue" came a few raindrops, water temps 72-73, variable water clarity from 1-6", and plenty of smack-talk from the players involved.

Used the boat this day, hoping for some lightning in the bottle, a repeat of the piggies last weekend, from lay-downs we can't access from the bank. That was the script anyway......crappies apparently weren't on the same page. We're not complaining, caught a good number of fish, but the big females from last weekend were few and far between. Males outnumbered the ladies at least 2:1. From our first area the pattern was "no real pattern" other than fish were generally around wood. No news there. Also, lots of short strikes...baits being dropped prematurely. 

We moved one channel over and found better action, again no concentration of females but good numbers of aggressive males wearing war paint for the spawn. At the first channel I probably had the lead for number of fish caught and number of keepers. Both Scott and Salmonid closed fast in both categories in this 2nd channel.

Uncharacteristically, our score keeping was lax for the 2.5 hours of fishing. Total crappies caught was probably 35-40. We kept 14, 11 of them males......releasing 3-4 others keepers, usually good sized females about to explode with eggs. We didn't want to interfere with their maternal opportunity. Pretty sure biggest fish was 12.5 to 12.75" and caught by Salmonid. Best bait was whatever plastic you tied on.....color and profile wasn't a significant factor. Scott wins the weirdest catch award. One of his crappies was physically normal from head on back to dorsal fin. Past the dorsal fin, rather than a gradual taper for a couple on inches to the tail section, the taper was absent, shape became tail immediately. Looked like a blue gill wearing a crappie costume. Nearly 50% keeper rate is nothing to scoff at....maybe I'm spoiled but expected a couple Fish Ohio 13-inchers. 

Thanks for good dining, Salmonid! Previously might have been a secret, but cat is out of the bag now.......you can cook, buddy!


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## Lowell H Turner

Am certain you both ENJOYED that outing ! As the lake is dredged and deepened it`ll only get BETTER ! Btw, any progress, are they dredging yet ?


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Am certain you both ENJOYED that outing ! As the lake is dredged and deepened it`ll only get BETTER ! Btw, any progress, are they dredging yet ?


The dredges are dredging, LHT. Haven't seen where others are deployed but one is going gung ho in a channel that is creek fed. That creek is among the 7 creeks that wind thru the heavily animal populated main watershed. I believe that dredge is the Hoedag, the newest in the fleet.

Thank you for asking.


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## zaraspook

Birthdays and Mothers Day prevented any weekend fishing until Sunday evening. Made it to GLSM at 6:30 pm. Fished from shore for close to 2 hours. Few bites at most of my spots. Ended up catching 11 of which only 2 were keepers (biggest a 12" very dark male). 7 of the fish came from a single spot (Woodcarvers). 8 of fish were males, the few females didn't appear to have dropped their eggs. Water temp was 73 degrees.......at those temps I'm thinking we are well into the spawn.


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## zaraspook

From PM's I'm getting from others, last Saturday was a banner day for crappie at GLSM. Heavy fishing and heavy creels. 12-13" fish commonplace. Sorry I missed the action......


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## hawgseeker

zaraspook said:


> From PM's I'm getting from others, last Saturday was a banner day for crappie at GLSM. Heavy fishing and heavy creels. 12-13" fish commonplace. Sorry I missed the action......


 How much longer do you think the crappie spawn will last?


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## zaraspook

hawgseeker said:


> How much longer do you think the crappie spawn will last?


Million dollar question, hawgseeker, and I'm far from an expert on crappie spawning. I've read 62-65 degrees is perfect. GLSM was above that several weeks ago, fell back to 54-55 which would put spawning on hold, and temps returned to 68-74 range for almost 2 weeks. Ignoring the temps, until May 2 80-90% of fish we caught were males. That weekend females were 40-50% of catch. In the last week for me it's been 70% males, not many females again. However, I don't think I've caught a single female that looked like her eggs were dumped (but maybe ladies don't bite for a period after dumping eggs?).

My opinion.....eggs are being dumped and fertilized now. Males will stick around to protect beds for a little while. Temps down to low 40's next 2 nights might cool water temps enough to slow the spawn of those females still with eggs. Maybe 2 more weekends of good action.......diminishing before end of May?


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## hawgseeker

Ya these roller coaster Temps probably have them a little confused I say. Thanks for the reply. Hope your right lol its in the back of my mind that these Temps might hurt the spawn some


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## zaraspook

Salmonid, Scott, and I met up at GLSM Weds afternoon for our mid-week fishing therapy session. Actually, I arrived there Tuesday evening.....guys were coming at 8am Weds morning to put my pontoon in the water. Got there in time for a couple hours crappie fishing before dark Tues, but back to the report on our Weds group therapy. It was 3:15 by the time my boat was in the water and we were on one of our most productive spots over the last few weeks. 30 minutes or so later we were moving on, a few dinks and although we all lost good fish, only one keeper made it into the boat. Then it was into the back-end of my channel which offered different types of cover. The different cover produced same results, a handful of fish caught, a few keepers, no real piggies. 

We're scratching our heads but still optimistic....within 10 minutes we're on our next destination, No Name Bay and a host of new cover options to fish. The new options produced the same script. We never found a concentration of fish. We'd catch one or two at a spot. Fish were just as likely to be nowhere near cover as they were on any kind of cover. Very few females. The only pattern was the absence of a pattern.

End results were 14 keepers and 33 crappies caught (though disappointing results were about the same as our excursion previous week). Salmonid caught the most fish (12). Scott boated the most keepers (7) and the biggest fish at 12+". No 13" toads on this day. Most keepers were solid 11" fish.

Water temps ranged from 66-70 degrees.....well below the 73-74 temps during the previous week. Water clarity in my channel was unusually good, a foot or more. At No Name Bay water clarity diminished to no more than a couple inches. 

From our Weds evening results, plus my fishing Tuesday night (24 keepers of 39 crappies) and early Weds morning waiting on the boat guys (6 keepers of 14 caught), I suggest we are on the backside of this spawn. Drop in water temps was probably part of the sparse bite, however males you catch are oozing with fertilizer. The few females you find appear to have dropped their loads, too. Males are hanging around scattered beds for now. At least in the areas we fished, you can still find fish but the easy picking opportunities are declining.


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## zaraspook

Catmaster tourney Saturday at GLSM. Good luck to Salmonid's team!


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## Salmonid

Thanks Zara. Hopefully see you at weigh in. We got a plan. If it actually works. We will be fine. If not due to the catfish spawn, then we will leave with our tails between our legs. Lol

Sakmonid


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM about 7 pm Fri. Bite for crappies was almost non-existent. 3 bites in 90 min. Even gills were snoozing. Caught only 2, both 11.5" keepers, a male and one female. After earlier pronouncing the spawn on its last legs, wouldn't you know the female hadn't yet dropped her eggs. Go figure.


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## catfish chaser

Zara, nice to meet you at the weigh in. Glad you could stop down


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## zaraspook

catfish chaser said:


> Zara, nice to meet you at the weigh in. Glad you could stop down


Likewise catfish chaser....good to meet you! Congrats to you and Salmonid for another top 10 finish. Maybe it didn't pad your wallet this time but puts you on track to qualify for the Catmaster finale.

Weigh in was interesting and some big ones among the day's haul.


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## zaraspook

Two things were consistent this past weekend......consistent rain and consistent lack of a decent crappie bite. I never figured it out.

Saturday's tally was only 14 caught with 4 keepers in at least 3 hours of fishing. In two hours Sunday managed just 11 with 2 keepers. On the bright side only one of the keepers failed to make at least 11". Two were 12", the biggest 12.5" and like 3 other large females all 4 were still packing eggs. Obviously, though the bite acts like spawn is over, some females didn't get the message. Water temps were 67+ and clarity in my channel, which was darn good as late as Thursday, took a big hit. Fishing was all from the bank.....all fish were released to catch another day.

In addition to the Catmaster tourney event Saturday, the same day GLSM hosted a 106-boat bass tourney. Lots of traffic!


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## Lowell H Turner

Who knows the mind of a fish ? BUT, the fish are always `right`...


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## zaraspook

LHT......the fish always have home field advantage, the fish write the rules, they change the rules daily (sometimes hour to hour), fish get to play underwater while fishermen are restricted to above the water, fish are fish 100% of time, fishermen are fishermen only some of the time. I agree with you.......the fish are always "right".


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## zaraspook

Good news that GLSM spawn bite for crappies is hanging in there. 39 caught over 3 hours Weds evening with 85% war-painted males. 4 were 12" and one a Fish Ohio 13 inches among 15 keepers. Few fish and no keepers were taken from normal brush or wood. Majority of fish and all big ones came in 2-3' of water, away from cover, 4-7' from bank. My thinking is fish were on beds either making babies or guarding fertilized eggs. In my channel it was a waste of time to fish cover.......weird to say that . If you were fortunate to find beds action was fast with impressive slabs.


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## zaraspook

Crappies are still holding up pretty good at GLSM. Managed to fish a little Thursday morning before heading to Indy airport to pickup some relatives. Caught 9 from shore, 8 of which were over 11" including a 12.5" and another Fish Ohio 13" (pics below).
Got thinking about the transformation of GLSM as a crappie fishery over the last few years. Since acquiring a place there in 2008, the only Fish Ohio crappie (>13") for me at GLSM was in 2012. Next one was in 2013 followed by 2 more in 2014. For 2015 the number is already at 8 with 5 this month including the 15" monster I posted a couple weeks ago. I've witnessed at least another 8-10 FO's from my fishing buddies. Hard to believe there are better crappie lakes than GLSM right now anywhere in the State of Ohio. The 9" minimum imposed a few years ago by the State worked magic.

Fishing time was limited the rest of the weekend by the crowd of visitors. Got in early morning sessions from the boat Sunday and Monday. Two of us caught 20 Sunday morning, 8 keepers and 16 yesterday with 7 keepers. Neither day produced anything bigger than 12.5". Morning water temps were 65-66, significantly lower than the low-mid 70" a couple weeks ago. Water clarity ranged from 2" to 12" depending on the channel you were in and amount of carp/shad mating activity.

The crappie measuring device is 13" but won't accommodate the height of GLSM black crappies larger than about 10.5".
View media item 77642View media item 77641


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## zaraspook

When I left my lake place at GLSM Monday I left behind a business item I use daily. That forgetfulness provided a convenient excuse to got to the lake Tues night, retrieve the item, and fish from 7-8:30pm. Light rain when I arrived so donned rain gear before wetting a line. First 2 spots were total blanks, no bites, so on to a floating log that hadn't produced a single crappie in a month. First pass along the log, a weighty tug and bobber disappears in a blink under the log and out the other side but not before wrapping around a post that anchors the log. The fish and I were both in a standoff, neither of us able to advance line more than a foot. With light line, #4 test, odds weren't in my favor to win the tug of war as my line sawed back and forth around the post. Defying the odds 2 minutes later line unwraps from the pole and fish, yet unseen, is back on my side of the log. He's stripping off line but now in open water without visible obstacles.....odds are shifting my way. Got my first peak at him a couple minutes later as his runs became shorter and power was fading, a decent sized channel cat he was. Of course I'm without a net, not much backbone in my 7 wt flyrod converted to a crappie rig, but fortunately I'm in an area to beach the tiring combatant as long as my 1/16 oz jig, hook, line and knot hold up. 3' up the sloping bank my Palomar unzips............too late, the fish and battle are mine!

So it really was no trophy, a 22" channel cat, probably 3.5 - 4# range. Yes, size matters but sometimes it's about winning the battle.

By the way, that was my first fish of the day. Went on to catch 15 crappies, 8 keepers, 4 of which were 12". Water temp was 72 degrees according to a couple of bass guys who went by as I was shore fishing. Of the 7 spots I tried, only No Name Bay and Woodcarvers produced crappies. Very enjoyable 90 minutes.


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## Salmonid

Nicecreport. Sounds like they are drifting from beds back to the summer pattern near wood?


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Nicecreport. Sounds like they are drifting from beds back to the summer pattern near wood?


Yes..... First signs back to wood. Still finding biggest ones hanging on beds. What was your boating adventure last weekend?


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## zaraspook

Interesting.......EPA's website did not have a swimming/toxin advisory posted for GLSM for Memorial Day weekend. Don't remember last time GLSM didn't make the list by Memorial Day. Only water body in Ohio with warning is Buckeye. Just a matter of time, but perhaps progress?


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## Lowell H Turner

Do keep in mind winning WW2 took a minute and the `issue` was `in doubt` for a couple of months. With the State solidly committed to at very least keeping the lake from becoming a regional health hazard think things will continue to `improve`, it`s just going to take time to do it...


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## zaraspook

LHT......very true that it's a long term endeavor. For any specific year, new loading of manure phosphorus depends on runoff from spring and early summer rain. Plus the timing of the rainfall is big issue. When heavy rain comes immediately after manure spreading on bare fields, runoff is high and incoming phosphorus goes ballistic. Frozen fields this year prevented early manure application. Once first rounds of manure were down, it was immediately followed by periods of heavy rain. I suspect lake took on a big dose of phosphorus. But, water clarity so far at GLSM has been pretty good. Cooler temps for much of May likely postponed faster development of chlorophyll in water column. If/when we see sustained heat and sunshine, microcystin levels are gonna pop. We'll see warnings sooner rather than later. 

State has aggressive 2015 schedule for treatment train creation......3 of tributaries in water shed will have construction going on. Only one treatment train today. In next 3-5 years when all treatment trains are online, might start to see visible evidence of improvement. Removing existing phosphorus from lake always comes down to "Dredge baby, dredge!". Dredges are out there doing their thing.


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## zaraspook

Fishing time took a hit this weekend. Between the rain and other weekend events had to settle each day for just a short stint wetting a line for crappies. No time in the boat........walking the shoreline only. Friday late, 7:30 to almost 9, caught 6 with 3 keepers. Saturday was a mirror image......same time frame, and same result of 6 caught with 3 keepers. Sunday fished from 11am to 12:30pm with only 3 caught and 2 keepers. Tough to find a bite anywhere. Good news......5 of the 8 keepers were 12-12.5".

Water seemed to be down 1-2 inches Friday but back up by Sunday. Clarity is worse.......not stained from rainfall. Suspended chlorophyll is definitely on the rise to cloud water column.


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## zaraspook

Weds evening 6/3 managed nearly 2 hours of crappie fishing. Bite continues to trend down and away from the hot spawn action we saw most of April and May. Only caught 9 crappies, with 5 keepers in the lot. Biggest was a 12" female that appeared to still be packing eggs (pic below). Maybe the see-saw water temps messed with the spawn.....we've been bouncing around with water temps from low 60's to mid-70's. Majority of other crappies were males still wearing dark black war-paint. Crappies were in wood.....at the bottom of it....unlikely to rise up to chase a bait 8" above. Had I been fishing from a boat last night, would have had more opportunity to find similar cover and may have done better on the crappies.
View media item 77732
Also pulled another channel cat from under a floating log. That's the 4th channel cat in the few weeks while crappie fishing. This one was 18", 4" shorter than the last one pulled from same spot.

Best fun and fish of the evening was a largemouth that decided my 2.25" crappie plastic was a worthy target . Certainly not a behemoth (pic below) but a 16" bass creates interesting challenges on my fly rod crappie rig, especially when you get wrapped around crappie cover multiple times.
View media item 77731


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## zaraspook

Friday night fished GLSM. Labored for an hour and a half at all my best wood spots for 1 dinky 6" crappie. Last 30 minutes moved away from wood and out from the bank. Caught 6, 3 keepers with 12.5" the best of the group. Go figure. Lots of carp everywhere. Carp are like ISIS to crappies and they get out of town, don't want anywhere near ISIS. If you fish GLSM for crappies this weekend don't expect to find them where they should be, especially if bugle - mouthed ISIS is in the neighborhood.


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## zaraspook

Hey, Salmonid. My walking crappie circuit is broken. When it takes only an hour to complete the tour, you know the bite is vacant. Saturday morning 1 hour produced just 2 crappies. Saturday evening, 1 hour, 3 crappies. Two keepers among the 5....biggest just short of 12.5". Sunday morning was slightly better.....90 minutes, 7 fish, 4 keepers with a big male just under 13". 

Quantity is absent but quality is fine. 9 keepers from 19 caught Friday evening thru Sunday morning. The gill fishermen are having a good time of it, so I hear.


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## zaraspook

Quick trip to GLSM Weds afternoon-evening to do some chores and sneak in some fishing. First 30 minutes at 3 spots produced 2 dink crappies and one 10" keeper. Time to pressure wash the deck. Two hours later I've spent 30 minutes power washing after 90 minutes trying to start the dang thing. Shut it down for a potty break.......pressure washer wouldn't even hit trying to restart it. Frustrated I need a major dose of attitude adjustment and grabbed my crappie rig. Amazing what an hour of fishing can do to put your mindset (and blood pressure) back on track. Two spots yield only one bite and no fish. Next spot gets my attention with an 11.75" crappie. Next one is a dink, then 3 straight 12-12.75". Sixth and final crappie from that spot was a respectable 11".

9 total with 6 keepers. Action at the last spot during 45 minutes wasn't fast, but steady. Size is clearly holding up. Not that long ago I'd be lucky to catch one or two 12" crappies in a year at GLSM. Water level is up 2-3", clarity poor, and biggest challenge where I caught most fish was heavy cottonwood on the water surface. With my mind at peace again, I loaded up the %&#*@! pressure washer and headed home.


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## Salmonid

Good report Zara. Sounds like the fish gods threw you a bone. Lol. 
Me and Catfish chaser are up sat night 6 pm to mid fir the Outdoorsman series catfish tourney. Then back again next Friday and Sat for the 3 day catfish tourney at West end ramp. Hope some others will come out and fish it. Only $15 entry

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Good luck Saturday and hope you run into a couple of 10+ lb kitties.


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## Salmonid

Well didnt find any big fish and got a dozen fish on the first drift including a 5.5 and a 5 lber and a pair of 3-3.5 lbers so a great first 45 minutes but then the storms rolled all around us and you could feel the wind and air temps change drastically and cats all but shut down for the night so we kept at it and over the next 5 hrs managed maybe 4 more fish including another 5 lber and another 3 lber yo bring in a miserable 25 lbs with our worst ever weights in 4 years so we go to weigh in with our tails between our legs and lo and behold. Everyone gad the same problem and we took 2 nd place missing winning by only .03 lb. go figure. Lol not bad for 43 teams but only 19 teams even weighed in


Dont forget the glsm 3 day catfish tourney runs this Thursday from noon through Sunday at noon at the west bank ramp. Cost is $15 per person with already $4000 guaranteed prize money and lots of kid prizes so a great opportunity to get everyone in the family out to fish and then hit the festival at Montezuma for Zuma Days

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Very cool, Mark and Ryan! You just never know. Second place by a whisker, a kitty whisker!


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## zaraspook

Weds evening surveyed the water threat at my lake place. On the way there and within a few miles of the lake I passed a county road crew but couldn't figure out what they were doing. 300 yards later as I was planing through a 100 foot stretch of high water over the road, it was obvious the road crew was setting up "Road Closed - High Water" signs. No worry, water was no more than a foot and a half deep. Doubtful I was floating for more than 20 feet. That was the 1st and worst of 3 county roads flooded by high water.

Yeah, water is high and pooling everywhere, but the good news is it's been worse a couple times in the last 7 years. May have to eat my words if the downpours don't slow soon. The State reported lake water level is 22 inches above the target, but didn't indicate the rise from this week's parade of storms. My best guess would be a 12" rise this week. One of my neighbors estimated +18". At the time he was chasing a good size carp out of his yard covered by 5-6" of water on his grass. 

My seawall's been breached twice on the past by high water........has 2-3" to go. If that happens my pontoon may be riding on the seawall rather than adjacent. 

Donned my rain gear and fished for an hour. Should have worn flip-flops.....wearing tennis shoes and long pants I couldn't get within distance to fish a couple of my best spots, despite my 9' crappie rod. Water there was 6" above that neighbor's seawall and generally encroached 10-20 feet into his yard.

Water clarity in my channel was surprisingly good.....8-9". That won't last long as incoming flows from the watershed are chocolate milk and well out of the banks. Normal 4' wide creeks are 40" wide and turbulent rapids.

Gills were biting like crazy. Hook size on my jigs is way too big to catch gills. Ran into 4 crappies, 3 keepers. That was ok.......expectations weren't high considering the conditions. 

If water level is similar this weekend, when shore fishing I'll change to flip-flops and shorts. Areas that are normally too shallow to fish are now in play and present new targets and opportunities. Important to remember cover previously 3' below the surface is now 4' down.


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## zaraspook

Anyone hear how the GLSM 3-day catfish event turned out? I was in the Outdoorsman Saturday about 3pm. They said 12+ pounds was the big fish leader at that time.


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## catfish chaser

A 12lber was the winner with 11.55 for 2nd and I believe 10.85 was 3rd. I thought the weights would be better but I believe the weather played a major part


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## zaraspook

catfish chaser.......in a normal, multi-fish tournament when they weigh a "basket" of fish, what's the normal weight of the basket? For the Catmaster series at GLSM, doesn't the basket weight 3#, maybe only 2#? Since this was a single fish, big fish only tourney, maybe they used a hanging scale. We might be conditioned to hearing about 13-16 pounders, but those weights include the basket weight. If you add 2-3 pounds to the winning weights of last weekend, it's about the range we're conditioned to expect. Just a thought and I could be all wet. Are you buying into my speculation at all?


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## zaraspook

Delighted to get my 5-year old grandson fishing last Sunday on Father's Day. Caught his first fish ever, as well as fish #2. Hope he gets the fishing bug....would be a thrill to have him as a avid fishing sidekick, but just as an occasional fishing partner is alright by me.


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## fished-out

zaraspook said:


> Delighted to get my 5-year old grandson fishing last Sunday on Father's Day. Caught his first fish ever, as well as fish #2. Hope he gets the fishing bug....would be a thrill to have him as a avid fishing sidekick, but just as an occasional fishing partner is alright by me.
> 
> View attachment 188673


Very cool! I've got 5 granddaughters and love taking them. I tend toward farm ponds--no lake in my backyard!


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## zaraspook

fished-out said:


> Very cool! I've got 5 granddaughters and love taking them. I tend toward farm ponds--no lake in my backyard!


fished-out........gotta enjoy these little ones while we can, right? If you get all 5 fishing at the same time, that can keep a guy very busy.


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## zaraspook

Noticed I hadn't posted any GLSM results in the last week. Ran into the the "summertime blues" when crappie bite at glsm goes someplace other than where I fish. Caught 7 last Friday evening, 2 keepers, and a decent showing particularly with water up nearly 2' on a lake that averages a puny 4' depth. Didn't get to fish Saturday though a nephew caught 7 off my seawall. Among those were a Fish Ohio 13" crappie and a very nice 12-incher. The big ones were within a foot of seawall. Sunday morning I could only find 3, one of those a keeper.

Went up Weds evening this week......flooding in yard subsided to the point where grass could be cut. Caught 2 Weds evening and 3 more Thursday(25th) morning before resuming power washing the deck. Most were caught moving the the bait 2-3 times faster than normal and within a foot of seawalls. Water levels are still high but down about 4" from last weekend. The bite from gills is good, few keepers though. Lots of carp everywhere including some brutes.


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## zaraspook

With the lake blown up by rain, can't talk about catching crappies recently but good time look back on GLSM fishing for the first half of this year. I'm not an hardwater guy, so my first GLSM crappie fishing was March 18 (ice mostly gone). Data below shows total crappies I caught and number of keepers by month. With the 9" legal size limit imposed for GLSM, keepers in March and April were defined as 9" or better. 

By early April some people were suggesting the run up in quality fish from GLSM must have peaked in the fall of 2014. We were catching lots of crappies but size was disappointing compared to 2014. My response was to be patient. It's common for catching little ones early and bigger ones would follow in a few weeks. I raised the definition of keeper to 10" beginning in May. It was becoming rare to catch anything that wasn't 9". Info is from my daily logs.

March 128 total 33 keepers
April 358 total 102 keepers
May 320 total 158 keepers
June 58 total 28 keepers

In March approximately 1 in 4 was a keeper. April improved but not yet 1 in 3 was keeper class. May and June it's been almost 50% keepers even though my personal bar was raised to 10" for a keeper. 12"+ fish started to show up regularly by late April and became common May. Zero 13" Fish Ohio's in March or April, but some close calls. In May the Fish Ohio's started to roll! Having caught only 2 FO's in 2014, and one FO in previous years, I landed 5 in May and witnessed at least another 8-10 FO's from fishing companions. My personal best this year was 15" and I saw a 16.75" beast caught by a friend.

Lots of variables can come into play, but in my opinion rumors are premature that big crappies having peaked at GLSM. We have great 11-12" classes of fish that should bode well this fall and for 2016. If anything GLSM may have a deficiency of 9.5-10.5" fish, and could impact keeper class specimens in 2-3 years. 

If catching a Fish Ohio crappie is on your bucket list, probabilities should be working for you this fall and all of 2016.


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## fishwhacker

Zara, i havent posted in a long while....crappie bite is still great just not in the channels this time of year. Gotta leave the comforts of home base sometimes to find some truly awesome fishing this time of year.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, i havent posted in a long while....crappie bite is still great just not in the channels this time of year. Gotta leave the comforts of home base sometimes to find some truly awesome fishing this time of year.


I hear you Master Yoda. Teach me.


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## fishwhacker

Not close to being a master would say salmonid would be closer than i. I have been able to figure out the summer bite at glsm after many years of catching dinks in channels.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Not close to being a master would say salmonid would be closer than i. I have been able to figure out the summer bite at glsm after many years of catching dinks in channels.


I have spring and fall bite figured out but almost anyone can catch pile of crappies spring/fall at glsm. Total novice at summer bite once they move out. Assume you are talking about using boat in main Lake? Can you suggest a few main principles/tactics you use? You can PM me if you prefer fishwhacker.


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## zaraspook

Celina Daily Standard news article reported last week average June rainfall is 3.86". The all time record for June is 8.48". Add those numbers together and it's still short of June's official rainfall total of 12.48", leaping past the old record by almost 50%.

Impact? Lake level at that time was 27" above ideal/targeted level but dropping. At my seawall water level dropped about 6" since early last week. 

High water had little or no impact on dredging with 123,000 cubic yards of material removed. In 2014 232,000 were removed for the entire season which can stretch into October.

Impact on phosphorus is a guessing game. Some sources in the article suggested runoff would flush phosphorus from the lake, while others stated inflow of new phosphorus into the lake would create problems in the future. My guess is both are somewhat right. Past studies show low water turnover in the lake is a huge contributor to phosphorus build-up. But, past studies also show the worst contributor to rising phosphorus levels is runoff from heavy rains during April-June periods. The article reports 2 week old microcystin toxin levels, but mentions new tests scheduled. The latest test now show higher toxin levels at 3 of 4 test sites than in mid-June, but toxin levels lower than mid-May. Both sides can claim they are right.....depending on how they spin it.

Full article is at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...8/high-lake-level-not-affecting-dredging-much

Over the holiday weekend boater traffic was crazy........Saturday at a boater beach we frequent the count was 30 boats, and it wasn't really a hot day. Water temps in main lake Saturday were 79-82 range. Sunday morning main lake temps were 73-74. My channel peaked at 76 degrees Saturday late. There were a gazillion boats on the lake for Celina's Saturday Freedom Days fireworks....... as usual, an awesome display for a town the size of Celina!


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## fishwhacker

Zara,sorry for the delayed response i was at erie over the weekend. As far as tips for the summer crappie bite i have found you dont have to fish from a boat but drop offs are key. Think walking the point at windy point and finding an area that drops off halfway out. If attached to a bay it is even better. The crappies seem to come shallower in the morning and evening and move down the drop as the sun rises. If in a bay they will move from the middle to the closest shallows. Wind has big impact along with current...takes awhile to figure out the movement but once you find it, stays steady till fall


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker....I think I get the general idea......makes sense and will have to work on the strategy. In last few summers majority of my fish come from under toons and docks. With high water level and fixed docks, no space to cast under the docks. Toons are most productive when sun is high and bright. During that recent monsoon season, sun didn't shine very often, tactic hasn't produced much.

Appreciate you sharing a productive strategy. Hey, how'd you do at Erie?


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## fishwhacker

Erie was terrible...they got hit hard by the storms and mayfly hatch. Went on a headboat that had about 20 people and only 6 walleye were caught i was lucky i got 1. Did scout out some potential ice fishing spots for some gills...makes me excited about winter. Caught a couple while scouting. Always wanted to try crappie fishing up there in the spring...here 13 inch average is possible but everyone goes walleye fishing instead


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......24 other people on that boat would gladly have traded you places. One eye is disappointing but way better than a skunk.


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## Salmonid

Zara Im stopping at the lake tomorrow for a bait run after work, do you need to know any kind of report before the weekend? Let me know before 11 am tomorrow if you do.

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Zara Im stopping at the lake tomorrow for a bait run after work, do you need to know any kind of report before the weekend? Let me know before 11 am tomorrow if you do.
> 
> Salmonid


Thanks for asking, Salmonid. Was at GLSM Thurs evening 6:30-9pm to do some stuff. Water levels haven't fallen much, less than 1-2" since last weekend. No rain on my drive up. Got within 5 minutes of my place and a steady light to medium mist started and continued almost the entire time there. Fished for almost hour and a half. Caught one gill, had maybe 10 gill bites, no scent of a crappie. As a point of reference, water level at Woodcarvers was 2" over his seawall. Only other seawall breached is my neighbor's (formerly "Bob") place.

Saw 2 boats from a local Thurs night bass league. Anglers on first boat said bite was really tough, had 1 small bass in livewell, were pitching creature baits to bank, and working in a spinner bait where appropriate. They were fishing at a quick pace. Second boat claimed bite was surprisingly good, had 3 in livewell under 2.5 lbs and I saw them catch 4th, maybe 15 incher. They were really finessing, ultra slow fishing smaller plastics like 5" worm. They said bass weren't moving far or fast with bait, not aggressive and required close attention to detect a pick-up. Great example of 2 tales at opposite ends of spectrum....somebody will always figure it out.

Been seeing a lot of 1-2" shad schools, occasionally some bigger shad. Little surface action last night and not enough light to see anything in pretty turbid water. When is next GLSM Catmaster event?


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara,sorry for the delayed response i was at erie over the weekend. As far as tips for the summer crappie bite i have found you dont have to fish from a boat but drop offs are key. Think walking the point at windy point and finding an area that drops off halfway out. If attached to a bay it is even better. The crappies seem to come shallower in the morning and evening and move down the drop as the sun rises. If in a bay they will move from the middle to the closest shallows. Wind has big impact along with current...takes awhile to figure out the movement but once you find it, stays steady till fall


Took your suggestion very literally. Put in an hour and half at Windy Point Saturday evening (8-9:30 pm). Walked the rip-rap, fishing both the east and west sides, from mid-point to almost the end of Windy Point. Concentrated my efforts between bank and 10' out, with occasional casts out 25-30' from bank. Didn't run into any crappies but gill bite was decent in close to the rip-rap.

Other than at the most northern tip of Windy Point, I'm not aware of any real drop-off. Between the northern tip of WP and the bird sanctuary island, water depth is typically 10-15'. That bay on the east side of WP is really shallow, 2-3' depth from my recollection. West side of WP runs 4-5' but a bit deeper as you approach northern tip. However, one of the State's dredges is sitting off the east side of WP, within 75 yards of where the WP rip-rap begins on south end. Couldn't really tell which direction the dredge is dredging. Quite a few people fishing the WP State Park area, but none of them fishing the long rip-rap point.


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## fishwhacker

Zara sorry the technique didnt pan out for you....yesterday i didnt have much luck with crappies either had all small gills, had no wind though either. One of the best places for this technique is the bay side of east bank at the spillway before otterbein especially on the road side....once you find them u got it made just finding that sweet spot...west wind is the best days to try.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara sorry the technique didnt pan out for you....yesterday i didnt have much luck with crappies either had all small gills, had no wind though either. One of the best places for this technique is the bay side of east bank at the spillway before otterbein especially on the road side....once you find them u got it made just finding that sweet spot...west wind is the best days to try.


Fishwhacker...... it's a learning process and nothing works all the time. I'll keep working at it. Ironically, area you mentioned was next on my target list. Had some successes there in early spring before crappies made it into channels in numbers. Appreciate you nudging me out of my comfort zone.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid........Catmaster event this Saturday?


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## Salmonid

yup, Saturday from 6 pm - Midnight, hoping for decent weather ( LOL ) more importantly just stable weather, these fronts, cold, warm, high lows etc have been killing the catfish bite all spring, hot for an hour cold, etc. not only have cats been off, the shad have been all over the freaking place. been real hard to pattern and find.

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

I'm with you that a stable weather pattern is high on wish list. Fish might act normal with couple days of relatively stable conditions. Good luck with the cats (and shad, too).


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## zaraspook

Fished from shore at GLSM Weds evening 7:30-9 pm. Water levels up again, probably +2" from last weekend. Crappie bite was slow but at least there was a crappie bite. First hour fished an area of the main lake I hadn't been to since late March. Caught 3 there from 5-6' of water and lost a better fish but never got it to surface for an ID. Last 1/2 our I quickly hit two spots in my channel. Pulled 2 from one spot, then a decent 10" crappie from under a pontoon. Of the 6 total, only the last one was a keeper.

A week ago one of my neighbors put a 100' line aerator/bubbler into the channel along his place. Amazing how the system attracts schools of small 2" shad! Hmmmm. Where there are small bait fish, gotta be some bigger fish?


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## Greyduck

Has anyone tried night fishing for crappie at the oil derrick? Years ago that was really good in the dead of summer. I remember burning though 10 dozen minnows pretty fast. We would tie up to one of the old pilings. Back off about 20 feet and hang a few lanterns out and let the fun begin.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck....... Pretty common to hear people say "get a bucket of minnows and had to oil derrick". I haven't done it. Don't know anyone who did it in last few years. Not much competition....... More likely to see cat guys out there than crappie guys. If it worked in past probably still a winning recipe. Same tactic might find some of those elusive perch none of us can find elsewhere!


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## Greyduck

I might have to give it a shot. We use to catch a lot of the perch while channel catfishing. But never any jumbos. I don't ever remember catching any at the derrick though. One night while idling in there was a huge school of perch right on the top. They were everywhere in the pontoon headlights. 
I am thinking after the sheep head appeared the perch disappeared. Now when we cat fish we catch sheep head instead of perch.like we use to.


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## Salmonid

Zara, who put out the aerator? Floating log guy? I thought I heard the state was offering the systems for free if you paid the electric or something like that a few years ago, not sure,


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> I might have to give it a shot. We use to catch a lot of the perch while channel catfishing. But never any jumbos. I don't ever remember catching any at the derrick though. One night while idling in there was a huge school of perch right on the top. They were everywhere in the pontoon headlights.
> I am thinking after the sheep head appeared the perch disappeared. Now when we cat fish we catch sheep head instead of perch.like we use to.


About what year was it when sheepshead appeared and perch declined?


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Zara, who put out the aerator? Floating log guy? I thought I heard the state was offering the systems for free if you paid the electric or something like that a few years ago, not sure,


Not floating log guy. The one who ripped out his honeyhole deck and put in seawall couple years ago. Broke my heart. For the 100' length of bubbler midget shad everywhere. Gotta be a way to pull some predators from the dense concentration of shad, wouldn't you think? Good luck with kitties....hope your boat's air conditioning works.


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## zaraspook

Fished Sat evening just before series of storms rolled thru. In 40 minutes caught 6 crappies and 2 bass.......fastest action in a while at GLSM. One crappie was 11"+. Bass were 13" and 14.5" and respectable fighters on my crappie rig.
Revisited exact same main lake spot Sunday morning and using same curly tail grub could not entice a single bump. Returned to my place to try couple of spots in my channel. Finally managed 2 crappies from under pontoons, one 11.5". Off my seawall caught another bass..... 13".

Bass action was a surprise but a nice one. Not unusual to pick up bass while crappie fishing. Three bass in that little time and on smallish plastics is very weird.


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## Greyduck

Zara.. sheep head showed up when the dnr thought it would be a good idea to stock walleye fry from the Maumee River. The funny thing is that's about the same time that the algae bloom started.


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## Clementsdiesel

Went out tonight for 30min one blue gill and one sheepshead


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## zaraspook

Greyduck....here's my theory on why perch declined at Grand Lake, but I'll clarify I wasn't around GLSM to experience perch madness in '90's. Perch fishing at GLSM in the 90's was so good, people used to joke "the DNR should consider stocking Lake Erie with Grand Lake perch". In 1999 the DNR initiated walleye stocking at Grand Lake. Guess what is at the top or close to the top of the walleye favorite food menu? Yep.......it's the delectable perch. Walleye were stocked from '99 until 2006 or 2008 depending on your source. In 2003 the DNR stocked roughly 1 mil walleye fingerlings and according to one 2003 report _"Once this year's stocking is complete, the division will have stocked 52.8 million walleye in the lake since the program began." _

Regardless of the survival rate of all the walleyes stocked, the perch population had to take a hit. Doesn't require a PhD to see the relationship. Very likely as well GLSM's decline as a crappie fishery in 2000-2010 was a byproduct of the introduction of walleye.


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## zaraspook

Clementsdiesel said:


> Went out tonight for 30min one blue gill and one sheepshead


Not sure if I have this right, but if I recall correctly from your spring posts this year you like to fish the spillway. Did the gill and sheephead come from spillway. If so what's the flow look like there?


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## Greyduck

That's a pretty good theory. I think all the native fish suffered during this period. I stopped fishing there for a few years. You could not catch a crappie at all. Big or small. It was tough to catch cats at my usual spots. The drum was so thick. Like little gills in a farm pond. And no perch to be found.


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## Clementsdiesel

I did fish the spillway like everyday in the spring haha I was able to bacause I was working in celina close to the spillway and I had an hour lunch so I would go down there and cold water creek during lunch and fish and if they were biting I would go after I got off but now i work in lima....but I was on the southside of the lake


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## zaraspook

Since we got off on this perch thing, remember the DNR decided to "kick-start" GLSM's native perch population with modest stocking of fingerlings? In 2012, 2013, and 2014 GLSM received about 100,000-120,000 perch fingerlings each year. If you like perch (who doesn't?) you'll like the 2015 perch stocking report. With a banner year at the fish hatcheries the DNR released 600,000 perch fingerlings into GLSM! Sounds pretty good, huh? But wait, there's more. After the initial blast of 600,000 fingerlings, round #2 released another 111,000 perch fingerlings. Cool! That's more than 6 years worth of perch fingerlings released this year. 

Just about the time you think Christmas is done, all the packages are opened, someone finds one more present under the tree. The 2015 stocking included a few perch fry (not fingerlings). 16.9 million perch fry now claim GLSM as home. You can read the article by Jim Morris, long-time Dayton Daily New reporter at this link http://pressprosmagazine.com/huge-stocking-boosts-grand-lake-st-marys-perch-fishing/


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## Clementsdiesel

zaraspook said:


> Since we got off on this perch thing, remember the DNR decided to "kick-start" GLSM's native perch population with modest stocking of fingerlings? In 2012, 2013, and 2014 GLSM received about 100,000-120,000 perch fingerlings each year. If you like perch (who doesn't?) you'll like the 2015 perch stocking report. With a banner year at the fish hatcheries the DNR released 600,000 perch fingerlings into GLSM! Sounds pretty good, huh? But wait, there's more. After the initial blast of 600,000 fingerlings, round #2 released another 111,000 perch fingerlings. Cool! That's more than 6 years worth of perch fingerlings released this year.
> 
> Just about the time you think Christmas is done, all the packages are opened, someone finds one more present under the tree. The 2015 stocking included a few perch fry (not fingerlings). 16.9 million perch fry now claim GLSM as home. You can read the article by Jim Morris, long-time Dayton Daily New reporter at this link http://pressprosmagazine.com/huge-stocking-boosts-grand-lake-st-marys-perch-fishing/


Wow that's amazing I think I read that the fish from 2012 will be hitting legal size by the end of this year! Pretty exciting


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## Greyduck

I hope all the stocking pays off. I also hope the dnr has learned a lesson to leave well enough alone. A nice thought that the walleye would pay off. But I feel it really harmed the lake for many years.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck.......I have mixed emotions about the DNR's stocking efforts. Yeah, they probably overdid the walleye thing in late 90's early 2000's, but I applaud the effort. GLSM as a fishery needs a bigger game fish and I hope they don't give up trying. Having said that we have to keep in mind any species added to the mix will impact on species already there. This latest massive perch stocking will have consequences, too. Maybe perch could go ballistic. Won't rising perch numbers compete with the wonderful crappie population we have today? Those walleye/saugeye predators that remain are dwindling in numbers........they won't be there to control perch and crappie numbers. In five years does GLSM turn into a panfish lake, high numbers of stunted crappies, high numbers of stunted perch? Not a positive outcome in my book.

Love to have a modest population of saugeye as a predator. They are eating machines but not a reasonable option for DNR. However, if efforts to clean up lake (all the treatment trains on southside) start to provide a different environment for fish, maybe walleye again become an option. It's said the walleye didn't successfully reproduce last time around. With development of better habitat, maybe walleye work back into the future conversation?


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## zaraspook

Clementsdiesel.........agree, perch fishing could be cool. Just don't want an out of control perch population. I remember as a kid catching 4-5" nuisance perch at Indian Lake. It was rapid fire, one after another but those little guys swallowed hooks like crazy. Plus, don't want the perch to mess up the fine crappie thing GLSM has going on. Time will tell how this goes.


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## Greyduck

The good thing about perch is they are a very early spawner. It will give the crappie a earlier source of fry to feed on. 
Years ago they tried Strippers in the lake. They didn't work out either. But it would of been fun to tangle with one .


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## zaraspook

Greyduck......just a guess.....I think those stripers were hybrids and sterile, therefore, not expected to sustain a population. Educated guess is that the stripers were introduced at GLSM in mid-70's to early '80's. Someone told me GLSM produced state record catch of striper, but record was broken less than a year later.


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## zaraspook

Anyone have experience catching crappies that are busting a school of shad on the surface? A neighbor of mine installed a linear aerator in his channel. Aerator is a 100' tube, stationary on the bottom, in 5-6' of water, pumping a steady stream of air bubbles to surface. Bubbles are dense enough to create current and 18" wide path of constant bubbles breaking surface for the entire 100' foot of tubing. The oxygenated water and current attracts a dense school of shad. Predators are busting the shad schools, occasionally breaking surface, and were unknown predators until last weekend. I finally caught 3 fish from the bubble stream, all were crappies. Likely there are other predators, too. I hooked into something too large to be a crappie but it came unzipped and never saw it to identify (probably a channel cat, maybe bass).

Using the same jigs/small plastics I normally use for crappies elsewhere hasn't been very productive. Bites are infrequent......very frustrating when you can't get a bite but the crappies are clearly eating and busting the shad school. 

Ideas anyone? Jigs/plastics so far have been tubes, twister tail grubs, and shad body with twister tails. On my list to try are small crankbaits, maybe swim a small blade bait through the schools. 3 crappie I caught so far didn't really provide a pattern of how deep to fish within the shad school. The shad are small 1.5 to 2" size. Chime in if you've had success in a similar situation, or have an to promote. I'm all ears!


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## fished-out

zaraspook said:


> Anyone have experience catching crappies that are busting a school of shad on the surface? A neighbor of mine installed a linear aerator in his channel. Aerator is a 100' tube, stationary on the bottom, in 5-6' of water, pumping a steady stream of air bubbles to surface. Bubbles are dense enough to create current and 18" wide path of constant bubbles breaking surface for the entire 100' foot of tubing. The oxygenated water and current attracts a dense school of shad. Predators are busting the shad schools, occasionally breaking surface, and were unknown predators until last weekend. I finally caught 3 fish from the bubble stream, all were crappies. Likely there are other predators, too. I hooked into something too large to be a crappie but it came unzipped and never saw it to identify (probably a channel cat, maybe bass).
> 
> Using the same jigs/small plastics I normally use for crappies elsewhere hasn't been very productive. Bites are infrequent......very frustrating when you can't get a bite but the crappies are clearly eating and busting the shad school.
> 
> Ideas anyone? Jigs/plastics so far have been tubes, twister tail grubs, and shad body with twister tails. On my list to try are small crankbaits, maybe swim a small blade bait through the schools. 3 crappie I caught so far didn't really provide a pattern of how deep to fish within the shad school. The shad are small 1.5 to 2" size. Chime in if you've had success in a similar situation, or have an to promote. I'm all ears!


Try using a 1/80 oz jig (no float), casting to the trailing edge and just letting it fall. I'd use a split tail on this rig.


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## zaraspook

fished-out........thanks for input. In this situation you're saying you want the bait to fall through shad school as slow as possible? 1/80th oz is hardly anymore than the weight of a bare hook. Doubt I have jigheads lighter than 1/32nd. 1/80 oz won't be as easy to cast and reach bait school but long rod will help. I'll give it a try.

In the same channel with this new aerator, I have another 5-6 spots that frequently hold crappies. Since this aerator fired up, catching virtually nothing from the other spots. I fear all the crappies migrated to this aerator where shad schools are easy pickings for a meal. If I want to catch fish have to figure out how to pick them of at the aerator.


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## zaraspook

Fished glsm Friday 7:30pm till dark getting 5 crappies, 2 sheephead, and 1 gill. Only keeper was the gill. Fished Saturday (tonight) same time frame for 6 crappies and 3 gills........2 crappie keepers and 2 keeper gills. Gorgeous evenings to be out!


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## fished-out

zaraspook said:


> fished-out........thanks for input. In this situation you're saying you want the bait to fall through shad school as slow as possible? 1/80th oz is hardly anymore than the weight of a bare hook. Doubt I have jigheads lighter than 1/32nd. 1/80 oz won't be as easy to cast and reach bait school but long rod will help. I'll give it a try.
> 
> In the same channel with this new aerator, I have another 5-6 spots that frequently hold crappies. Since this aerator fired up, catching virtually nothing from the other spots. I fear all the crappies migrated to this aerator where shad schools are easy pickings for a meal. If I want to catch fish have to figure out how to pick them of at the aerator.


Yep, I use 1/64 and 1/80 alot on shallow lakes like st mary's and Indian. You want it to fall as slow as possible and swirl in that backwash. Think injured minnow. 1/32 is way too heavy in 5-6' of water. Hits bottom in 5 seconds or so, depending on the plastic and line you're using. These fish are full--you're going to have to tease them a bit.

Don't think it makes a difference? On Buckeye, I was throwing 1/64's to boat lifts--nary a nibble. Switched to 1/80 with same plastic, same lifts--over 30 in an hour.....


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## zaraspook

fished-out......usually the difference between fishing and catching is in the details of the presentation. The details are usually subtle factors overlooked by most. Appreciate your input. 

Didn't get in the fishing time I'd like last weekend and lacked both 1/64 and 1/80 jig inventory. Therefore, didn't get opportunity to try your recommendation. However, for maybe 1/2 hour I went weightless at the aerator. Nothing but a very small circle hook, split tail plastic hooked thru the nose. Casting was limited to 25-30', usually sufficient to reach the shad school. End result was definitely a slow descent but tough to manage slack in line and keep in touch with the bait. No takers during that session.

Liked your comment "these fish are full--have to tease them a bit". Exactly my thought as I try to develop tactics to pull predators from the buffet line (bait school)! It's a process.....trial and error.


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## zaraspook

Fished Weds evening for 90 minutes. Caught 4 crappies, 3 were legal 9.5 inchers. Noticed that a high percentage of crappies appear "distressed", pinkish coloring mostly around the lower jaw/mouth. Is that a sign of low oxygen levels, or maybe a result of a specific habitat they are rooting around in looking for a specific food item? 3 of the 4 crappies were pulled from under pontoons.

Still working on tactics to catch fish from the linear aerator (bubbler) I've spoken about before. Success level is stinky for the amount of time invested. Frustrating to watch predators bashing shad along this 100' line of tubing but not getting any bites on hook and line. Caught one fish Weds......it was a dang sheephead of 11"! 

I located 1/80 oz jig heads and gave them an initial trial. Need to fine tune the presentation as well as test multiple plastic baits. Time invested along the aerator takes away from fishing my normal spots. Some of my normal spots haven't seen me for 3+ weeks.


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## Cobe24

zaraspook said:


> Fished Weds evening for 90 minutes. Caught 4 crappies, 3 were legal 9.5 inchers. Noticed that a high percentage of crappies appear "distressed", pinkish coloring mostly around the lower jaw/mouth. Is that a sign of low oxygen levels, or maybe a result of a specific habitat they are rooting around in looking for a specific food item? 3 of the 4 crappies were pulled from under pontoons.
> 
> Still working on tactics to catch fish from the linear aerator (bubbler) I've spoken about before. Success level is stinky for the amount of time invested. Frustrating to watch predators bashing shad along this 100' line of tubing but not getting any bites on hook and line. Caught one fish Weds......it was a dang sheephead of 11"!
> 
> I located 1/80 oz jig heads and gave them an initial trial. Need to fine tune the presentation as well as test multiple plastic baits. Time invested along the aerator takes away from fishing my normal spots. Some of my normal spots haven't seen me for 3+ weeks.


Zaraspook,
I have caught fish in this situation by using a shad imitating 1.5" tube fished just inches below a float. Fishing very fast. Almost a steady retrieve while popping the rod tip. Try a silver with metal flake or black with metal flake tube.


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## zaraspook

Cobe24.........we will give it a try! Hadn't tried tubes yet but should have.


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## knuckleric

Kids, lady and I are headed to glsm later this week for some birthday camping and would love to be able to cook up some perch or crappie one of the evenings. Anyone have any tips on avoiding toxic algae or tips for bank fishing the glsm as the last time I was there was a good 20 years ago? Are there boat rentals anywhere along the bank? Any and all help is appreciated.


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## zaraspook

knuckleric said:


> Kids, lady and I are headed to glsm later this week for some birthday camping and would love to be able to cook up some perch or crappie one of the evenings. Anyone have any tips on avoiding toxic algae or tips for bank fishing the glsm as the last time I was there was a good 20 years ago? Are there boat rentals anywhere along the bank? Any and all help is appreciated.


Knuckleric, give me a general idea of where you plan to camp?


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## knuckleric

zaraspook said:


> Knuckleric, give me a general idea of where you plan to camp?


At the state park campgrounds, so the northeast shore.


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## zaraspook

I believe the 2 closest marinas are the Outdoorsman www.theoutdoorsman.biz/ and Freedom Outdoors http://www.freedomoutdoors.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12&Itemid=25 . Don't know if either does boat rental or not. There are other marinas, but farther away. Remember lake is shallow and wind can turn it nasty

State campground you are using has some significant renovations and improvements going on. Let us know your impressions afterward, please.

As for crappie, these are the proverbial "dog days". Bite will be tough. Expect to catch a few but filling a skillet is a challenge. Perch are even more elusive and no one "admits" catching more than an infrequent stray. Although a native perch population exists, perch stocking started new in 2012. Probably 2-3 years away for reasonable perch success. Channel cats might be most cooperative species. Serious channel cat guys insist on shad as cut bait. My neighbors swear by uncooked hot dog 2-3 feet under a bobber, after dark preferred.

Toxin avoidance? Only sure bet is to stay out of water. One reported incident of "sickness" from some time in June. Stagnant water will have higher algae concentrations and visible scum. Water you touch from handling fish isn't enough to get you trouble. You'll see plenty of boats on water and people in water......on the weekends. Lake traffic is almost non-existent during the week. I feel GLSM channels have more scum and organized algae than last year, but test data is about the same.

I'm a novice at fishing around the State Park area. Maybe someone with experience will chime in.


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## fishwhacker

Go bluegill fishing in the pond by marathon or the channel across from the sailboat club...20 to 30 nice gills make a great meal...probably get a couple bonus crappies while your at it


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## knuckleric

Woah, lots of good info there zara, thanks. Are there still a lot of lily pads in the lake? I remember trying to navigate around them to get anywhere when I was a kid. I figured the bite will probably not be aggressive, but hey, time off, a lake stretched out in front of me, my loved ones and nothing but time to wait for a good lazy bite is just what I need. 

Thanks to you to fishwhacker, we might just give that a go. I love the little ponds, the low expectations make for a great surprise every so often.


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## zaraspook

Dredge report.......at the end of July the State claimed 184,384 cubic yards of material removed. That's 79% of 232,000 cubic yards removed during the entire season last year. With Mother Nature's cooperation, dredging can run into mid-November and could approach the dredging record of 302,000 cubic yards removed in 2013. Dredge baby, dredge!

Lake water level is now only a half inch above target level.

Area lake officials aren't happy with the elevated "no contact" advisory placed on GLSM by the Ohio Dept of Health. A single incident led to the change _"According to ODH, a woman was riding a personal watercraft on the lake June 6 and later was treated for a rash. The doctor could not determine if the rash had been caused by lake water but told the state health agency it was "probable."_


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## zaraspook

Update on me chasing crappies from shad schools packed along a linear aerator in a channel......it's been a month since catching 3 crappies from this aerator shad school. Since then the only taker was a 10-11" sheephead and I've tried every suggestion offered by our wonderful OGF members. Two weekends ago Salmonid and Cat Chaser stopped by to sample the aerator school with castnets. First of all, rather than shad of 1-2" as I suggested then, the shad are 3-4" specimens . At that size it's less likely crappies are the critters busting the school. Despite at least 2-3 dozen throws of the nets and retrieving plenty of shad, no crappies were captured. A small gill and a single golden shiner were the only captures other than shad. Also, surface feeding action has slowed significantly. Leads me to conclude crappies may have been among predators feeding on the school several weeks ago, but likely not the case now. Targeting crappies along the aerator makes less sense now, but it doesn't rule out targeting other larger predators.

Thanks Mark and Ryan......as they say "the nets don't lie".


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## Salmonid

Keep at it Rande. Youll figure it out!! Btw did you see the big article in the Dayton Daily News re glsm 5 years later and no positive results yet in yesterdays edition?


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## zaraspook

Didn't see DDN article. Can't be a surprise that people are questioning "What are we getting for $'s being spent at GLSM?" Maybe it's time for my annual rant about lack of metrics, at least publicized metrics, on GLSM's health? Is the goal to reduce algae? Reduce phosphorus? Reduce toxins? How much reduction is needed? Where are we? Are we winning the battle, losing, or standing still? Do we need course corrections? Are the farmer's doing enough? If you don't have a destination, don't measure for progress or lack of it, how do you know if you will ever arrive?


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## catfish chaser

People think things like this can be fixed with a snap of a finger, it's going to take a long time to start noticing results and I think the water looks better than 4 years ago. I'd still rather fish GLSM than any other lake in Ohio


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## zaraspook

catfish chaser......very true that our society of instant gratitude is at odds with anything long-term, such as fixing GLSM. I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been much grumbling before this. As late as early May this year, I was stunned with water clarity.......could see my lure at 2-3 feet of depth. Great to see what's on your hook before you get it out of the water!

But I think State invites nay-sayers and critics when they don't measure and publicly report numbers for contaminants such as phosphorus or nitrates. It's not enough to say "Well, we haven't had another algae blowup like in 2010". 

Loved your statement _"I'd still rather fish GLSM than any other lake in Ohio." _Careful now........you don't want to let the cat out of the bag and turn everyone to our gem of a fishery.


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## zaraspook

No fishing in prior 10 days so jumped thru the window when it opened for maybe 2-2.5 hours Weds(yesterday) evening. Thought I'd pretend it was April and hit my channel's normal crappie spots that I've ignored for last 2 months. Now I remember why those spots have been ignored......zero crappies. 

Jumped in car and headed to a main lake spot I can count on for at least a crappie or two. Same empty bag results there.

Back to my channel to target fish under a few pontoons.......nada, zero. Next move was to a big deck, a reliable place to break a "skunk". Though water levels are down 3-4" since last fished, not down far enough to skip under the deck. It was a crappie skunk......no paper-mouths on this day.

I did catch a few fish so not a total skunk. That linear aerator with shad packed along it that I've been trying to figure out.......it gave up an 11" largemouth and 2 drum/sheephead. Other spots produced 2 not-quite-keeper gills and a 10" LMB. Not a great fishing evening but it did a great job of cleansing the clutter in my head.


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## zaraspook

Jim Morris, long time sports and outdoors columnist, authored a recent article "Politicians Should Stop Dancing, Start Solving Algae Bloom Problems". He specifically mentions GLSM, Buckeye, and Lake Erie. Link is below to the article published by Press Pros Magazine. Here's an excerpt "_The thing is, everybody knows what is causing the problem, but they are dancing around it. Just as Nero fiddled as Rome Burned, Ohio politicians are dancing while GLSM, Lake Erie and other lakes deteriorate at an alarming rate._


_The problem clearly is the runoff of phosphorus from farmers’ fields. If you stop the phosphorus from flowing into streams that feed the lakes, the harmful bacteria will not only die of starvation, they will never grow in the first place."_

Link to full article is _http://pressprosmagazine.com/politicians-should-stop-dancing-start-solving-algae-bloom-problems/ ._


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## zaraspook

Fished about 2 and a half hours from bank Saturday afternoon and evening. Only 1 crappie, a nice 10" fish pulled from under a toon. Couldn't find any others. Gill bite was more interesting, 4 all keeper size. Among other specimens to make land were a 16" and skinny channel cat, a yellow-belly, and 10" bass.

Governors Cup Regatta, the hydroplanes, were racing Saturday and Sunday at GLSM. I chose fishing over watching the hydros but heard there was a big crowd Saturday.


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## zaraspook

Congrats to Salmonid and Catfish Chaser for their Saturday night win at the Catmaster! The top 32 teams of the 6-event March August GLSM Catmaster series faced-off for the Catmaster Finale. Bye a whisker (maybe several whiskers) Mark and Ryan won the championship event for the 3rd time in 4 years. Second place was a "close but no cigar" two tenths less. 

Actually, it should be 4 in a row for Salmonid!!! Partner Catfish Chaser was a late scratch requiring an 11th hour replacement for last year's Finale. Though Salmonid's team had the heaviest basket that night, his pinch-hitter was declared "ineligible" for not having fished a previous series event.

A salute to Catfish Chaser, Salmonid, their victory, and the nice pile of first place cash! Creme de la creme in championships at the Catmaster.


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## catfish chaser

Thanks Zara!!! We had a pretty good year up there this year. I was able to finish 2nd in the points race for the year too. Extremely happy with that. Lots of great cat guys on that lake


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## zaraspook

catfish chaser..........kudos to you! #2 in only 4th year chasing the kitties during Catmaster series, that's outstanding! You're competing with some anglers with decades of GLSM experience. Only one spot higher you can shoot for!


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## zaraspook

Another note on the Catmaster tourney, one of anglers caught a 5.5# "walleye" on cut bait. I'd suggest the walleye could have been a saugeye. Those saugeye stocked in 2009-2010 could be around that weight now.


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## zaraspook

Long weekend doesn't equate to lots of fishing time. Spouse and 10 guests made sure I was plenty busy, especially in the morning and evenings. By Sunday night, fishing 10-15 minutes at a time, I'd managed maybe an hour and a half wetting a line. Result was ugly......one crappie that was barely legal (9"). My 5-year old grandson, Max, was having a blast though, catching decent size gills. I even got him to the point he'd bait his own hook, and normally would hold the gill while grandpop extracted the hook.

Finally, Monday morning, 8-10:30 am it was my turn to fish. Fishing in my channel hasn't been productive, so by boat I headed out on the main lake. Plan was to start no place in particular, drift with minnows under a bobber on two of my crappie poles, and hopefully stumble into some of those crappies that vacated the channels after the spawn or maybe find a rogue perch.

10 minutes into the plan, bingo! 1st bite and 1st crappie is in the boat, a Fish Ohio 13" specimen. Hadn't seen anything that size June or late May. Dang, I'm thinking the crappies are in schools and I forget to throw out a marker! 
View media item 77961
15 minutes passes without a bite, float disappears, and fish #2 is on. Clearly heavier than the 1st fish and clearly not a crappie, this one has the tug and feel of a channel cat. My guess is correct, about a 2-2.5 pound channel cat and good entertainment on my 9' crappie pole. Another crappie follows in 10 minutes, this one 12" and I drop anchor. No bites for 15 minutes, just as I'm contemplating pulling up anchor another fish is on and this is a toad! 8-10 minutes into the tug of war, I'm clueless......channel cat? An aging walleye? Saugeye maybe? But with certainty I'm worried about the 6# test line and puny crappie hook on the other end. I'm applying measured resistance and fumble around the boat to locate my net. By the way during this fight the bobber on my other pole disappears. 5 more minutes pass and for the first time I raise the adversary close enough to the surface to catch a glimpse of the tail before the next dive. It's a channel cat and bigger than any than I've ever caught. With plenty of fight still in its tank it takes 4 passes with the net before capture and lifting into the boat. Whew....that was fun! My first opportunity to use my new Cabela's digital scale reads 13# 6 oz. No tape measure long enough for the cat, I'm forced to use a shorter measure and estimate length while it's flopping around. 28" is my best guess but admit it could have been 2" longer or shorter. Definitely had a beer belly protruding down-under.
View media item 77960
I add another small channel cat and 11" crappie by 10:00. Bite stops except for another heavy fish, maybe 4-5 pounds that breaks me off after 3 minutes. It was a different type of pull, much faster runs than I associate with a channel cat.

3 really crappies including the Fish Ohio one. 3 channel cats including the Fish Ohio 28" and 13# 6 oz. 2 FO's of different species within 2+ hours. Sorry I couldn't provide a "selfie" to give better perspective of the big cat.......couldn't hold the fish and operate phone camera at same time. 

Water temp was 79-80 but reached 87 by afternoon the day before. I was fishing 6' of water and 4-5' down.


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## Greyduck

zaraspook said:


> Long weekend doesn't equate to lots of fishing time. Spouse and 10 guests made sure I was plenty busy, especially in the morning and evenings. By Sunday night, fishing 10-15 minutes at a time, I'd managed maybe an hour and a half wetting a line. Result was ugly......one crappie that was barely legal (9"). My 5-year old grandson, Max, was having a blast though, catching decent size gills. I even got him to the point he'd bait his own hook, and normally would hold the gill while grandpop extracted the hook.
> 
> Finally, Monday morning, 8-10:30 am it was my turn to fish. Fishing in my channel hasn't been productive, so by boat I headed out on the main lake. Plan was to start no place in particular, drift with minnows under a bobber on two of my crappie poles, and hopefully stumble into some of those crappies that vacated the channels after the spawn or maybe find a rogue perch.
> 
> 10 minutes into the plan, bingo! 1st bite and 1st crappie is in the boat, a Fish Ohio 13" specimen. Hadn't seen anything that size June or late May. Dang, I'm thinking the crappies are in schools and I forget to throw out a marker!
> View media item 77961
> 15 minutes passes without a bite, float disappears, and fish #2 is on. Clearly heavier than the 1st fish and clearly not a crappie, this one has the tug and feel of a channel cat. My guess is correct, about a 2-2.5 pound channel cat and good entertainment on my 9' crappie pole. Another crappie follows in 10 minutes, this one 12" and I drop anchor. No bites for 15 minutes, just as I'm contemplating pulling up anchor another fish is on and this is a toad! 8-10 minutes into the tug of war, I'm clueless......channel cat? An aging walleye? Saugeye maybe? But with certainty I'm worried about the 6# test line and puny crappie hook on the other end. I'm applying measured resistance and fumble around the boat to locate my net. By the way during this fight the bobber on my other pole disappears. 5 more minutes pass and for the first time I raise the adversary close enough to the surface to catch a glimpse of the tail before the next dive. It's a channel cat and bigger than any than I've ever caught. With plenty of fight still in its tank it takes 4 passes with the net before capture and lifting into the boat. Whew....that was fun! My first opportunity to use my new Cabela's digital scale reads 13# 6 oz. No tape measure long enough for the cat, I'm forced to use a shorter measure and estimate length while it's flopping around. 28" is my best guess but admit it could have been 2" longer or shorter. Definitely had a beer belly protruding down-under.
> View media item 77960
> I add another small channel cat and 11" crappie by 10:00. Bite stops except for another heavy fish, maybe 4-5 pounds that breaks me off after 3 minutes. It was a different type of pull, much faster runs than I associate with a channel cat.
> 
> 3 really crappies including the Fish Ohio one. 3 channel cats including the Fish Ohio 28" and 13# 6 oz. 2 FO's of different species within 2+ hours. Sorry I couldn't provide a "selfie" to give better perspective of the big cat.......couldn't hold the fish and operate phone camera at same time.
> 
> Water temp was 79-80 but reached 87 by afternoon the day before. I was fishing 6' of water and 4-5' down.





zaraspook said:


> Long weekend doesn't equate to lots of fishing time. Spouse and 10 guests made sure I was plenty busy, especially in the morning and evenings. By Sunday night, fishing 10-15 minutes at a time, I'd managed maybe an hour and a half wetting a line. Result was ugly......one crappie that was barely legal (9"). My 5-year old grandson, Max, was having a blast though, catching decent size gills. I even got him to the point he'd bait his own hook, and normally would hold the gill while grandpop extracted the hook.
> 
> Finally, Monday morning, 8-10:30 am it was my turn to fish. Fishing in my channel hasn't been productive, so by boat I headed out on the main lake. Plan was to start no place in particular, drift with minnows under a bobber on two of my crappie poles, and hopefully stumble into some of those crappies that vacated the channels after the spawn or maybe find a rogue perch.
> 
> 10 minutes into the plan, bingo! 1st bite and 1st crappie is in the boat, a Fish Ohio 13" specimen. Hadn't seen anything that size June or late May. Dang, I'm thinking the crappies are in schools and I forget to throw out a marker!
> View media item 77961
> 15 minutes passes without a bite, float disappears, and fish #2 is on. Clearly heavier than the 1st fish and clearly not a crappie, this one has the tug and feel of a channel cat. My guess is correct, about a 2-2.5 pound channel cat and good entertainment on my 9' crappie pole. Another crappie follows in 10 minutes, this one 12" and I drop anchor. No bites for 15 minutes, just as I'm contemplating pulling up anchor another fish is on and this is a toad! 8-10 minutes into the tug of war, I'm clueless......channel cat? An aging walleye? Saugeye maybe? But with certainty I'm worried about the 6# test line and puny crappie hook on the other end. I'm applying measured resistance and fumble around the boat to locate my net. By the way during this fight the bobber on my other pole disappears. 5 more minutes pass and for the first time I raise the adversary close enough to the surface to catch a glimpse of the tail before the next dive. It's a channel cat and bigger than any than I've ever caught. With plenty of fight still in its tank it takes 4 passes with the net before capture and lifting into the boat. Whew....that was fun! My first opportunity to use my new Cabela's digital scale reads 13# 6 oz. No tape measure long enough for the cat, I'm forced to use a shorter measure and estimate length while it's flopping around. 28" is my best guess but admit it could have been 2" longer or shorter. Definitely had a beer belly protruding down-under.
> View media item 77960
> I add another small channel cat and 11" crappie by 10:00. Bite stops except for another heavy fish, maybe 4-5 pounds that breaks me off after 3 minutes. It was a different type of pull, much faster runs than I associate with a channel cat.
> 
> 3 really crappies including the Fish Ohio one. 3 channel cats including the Fish Ohio 28" and 13# 6 oz. 2 FO's of different species within 2+ hours. Sorry I couldn't provide a "selfie" to give better perspective of the big cat.......couldn't hold the fish and operate phone camera at same time.
> 
> Water temp was 79-80 but reached 87 by afternoon the day before. I was fishing 6' of water and 4-5' down.


Good report Zara.... 


zaraspook said:


> Long weekend doesn't equate to lots of fishing time. Spouse and 10 guests made sure I was plenty busy, especially in the morning and evenings. By Sunday night, fishing 10-15 minutes at a time, I'd managed maybe an hour and a half wetting a line. Result was ugly......one crappie that was barely legal (9"). My 5-year old grandson, Max, was having a blast though, catching decent size gills. I even got him to the point he'd bait his own hook, and normally would hold the gill while grandpop extracted the hook.
> 
> Finally, Monday morning, 8-10:30 am it was my turn to fish. Fishing in my channel hasn't been productive, so by boat I headed out on the main lake. Plan was to start no place in particular, drift with minnows under a bobber on two of my crappie poles, and hopefully stumble into some of those crappies that vacated the channels after the spawn or maybe find a rogue perch.
> 
> 10 minutes into the plan, bingo! 1st bite and 1st crappie is in the boat, a Fish Ohio 13" specimen. Hadn't seen anything that size June or late May. Dang, I'm thinking the crappies are in schools and I forget to throw out a marker!
> View media item 77961
> 15 minutes passes without a bite, float disappears, and fish #2 is on. Clearly heavier than the 1st fish and clearly not a crappie, this one has the tug and feel of a channel cat. My guess is correct, about a 2-2.5 pound channel cat and good entertainment on my 9' crappie pole. Another crappie follows in 10 minutes, this one 12" and I drop anchor. No bites for 15 minutes, just as I'm contemplating pulling up anchor another fish is on and this is a toad! 8-10 minutes into the tug of war, I'm clueless......channel cat? An aging walleye? Saugeye maybe? But with certainty I'm worried about the 6# test line and puny crappie hook on the other end. I'm applying measured resistance and fumble around the boat to locate my net. By the way during this fight the bobber on my other pole disappears. 5 more minutes pass and for the first time I raise the adversary close enough to the surface to catch a glimpse of the tail before the next dive. It's a channel cat and bigger than any than I've ever caught. With plenty of fight still in its tank it takes 4 passes with the net before capture and lifting into the boat. Whew....that was fun! My first opportunity to use my new Cabela's digital scale reads 13# 6 oz. No tape measure long enough for the cat, I'm forced to use a shorter measure and estimate length while it's flopping around. 28" is my best guess but admit it could have been 2" longer or shorter. Definitely had a beer belly protruding down-under.
> View media item 77960
> I add another small channel cat and 11" crappie by 10:00. Bite stops except for another heavy fish, maybe 4-5 pounds that breaks me off after 3 minutes. It was a different type of pull, much faster runs than I associate with a channel cat.
> 
> 3 really crappies including the Fish Ohio one. 3 channel cats including the Fish Ohio 28" and 13# 6 oz. 2 FO's of different species within 2+ hours. Sorry I couldn't provide a "selfie" to give better perspective of the big cat.......couldn't hold the fish and operate phone camera at same time.
> 
> Water temp was 79-80 but reached 87 by afternoon the day before. I was fishing 6' of water and 4-5' down.


Great report Zara... I've been thinking that the crappie might be schooled up in the dredged out deeper water close to where we had success this spring. I might make a trip up Saturday and do some drifting.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck.......no doubt in my mind crappies are out there in main lake, including those big ones you were into last spring. While you're out there, try some smaller minnows just off the bottom and maybe you'll find where the perch are hiding, too. Sooner or later we'll figure out where/how to catch them. I tried it, but only 2 of my minnows were small and one caught a crappie, the other small minnow got sucked in by a small channel cat.
Look forward to your report!


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## zaraspook

Nothing but accolades to the Lou Brown family farm near New Bremen, a test ground for a promising system to recover phosphorus from manure. Definitely some amazing results for the system made by Quasar Energy. The Brown farm with 455 heifers and milk cows produces up to _8 tons of manure daily_. Can you imagine up to 2920 tons for the herd on an annual basis? That's 6.4 tons per cow per year. Holy cow!
Article from Ohio's Country Journal is at the link below and the rate of phosphorus reduction is incredible! http://ocj.com/2015/08/phosphorus-recovery-system-addresses-water-quality-challenges-with-manure/


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM Saturday about 1pm. Plan was to drift the main lake again, hoping to do a repeat of Labor Day and find a few bigger crappies again. One switch up, to save time decided not to use my fishing boat. Just uncovered my pontoon (not setup for fishing), loaded some fishing gear and 2 dozen minnows, and headed out my channel. Plan was 2 hours max and be back in time for the Buckeye kickoff. Got my first surprise when I hit the mouth of my channel to main lake.......where did all those white caps come from? Crap! 2-3 foot swells? Guess I'll skip the southern location I hit Labor Day, head to north side of lake and seek some calmer water. Yep.....waves were manageable there, but wind was the same. Ever try drifting in 10+ mph winds in a 24' pontoon? My minnows were set for 5' depth, but in reality had become top-water baits as the pontoon raced at about 8 mph. Dropped anchor, moved 3-4 times, but no detectable bites after 2 hours, so headed in.

After tying up at my seawall, since I still had a nice minnow on one crappie pole, I dropped the minnow into an area we call Frankenstein (lots of cover). Went back to unloading the pontoon and putting on the boat cover. Yep.....no more than 5 minutes later the bobber is doing a familiar dance. A quick dash off the boat to the pole results in a nice 10.5" crappie. 2.5 hours on the boat, more like a rocking chair in those swells, yields zero bites and zero fish. That skunk is reversed in 5 minutes, within 40' of my back door and all the comforts of home? I grab a beer, put some wings on the grill, and watch the game. Hawaii got skunked.....I didn't.

Before dark fished another hour and a half......never venturing more than 75 yards from my lake place and from the bank. Managed 4 more crappies, 3 of which were keepers. Most of those pulled out of Frankenstein off my seawall. Also, had a tug-of-war with this critter in photo below.









A neighbor was kind enough to snap the photo. 25" and 11# 8oz according to my digital scale. Like the 28" channel cat caught the previous Monday(Labor Day), it was a tussle on my crappie pole (fly rod) and 6# test. No net this time and had to hoist it over a seawall from water 2' below. Before leaving the lake at 10am the next morning, I caught one more crappie. Of the 6 crappies Saturday and Sunday only 2 were caught on plastics as were 3-4 gills. Minnows were the better bait.


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## Greyduck

You outdid me Saturday Zara. I got on the water at daybreak. Wind was kicking. Could not get to the spots I had targeted. So we stayed in a shallower bay out of the whitecaps. We picked up a dink in the channel but that was it. Fished for channels but they did not cooperate either. But I did get my favorite doughnut at the pacnsac that morning!


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## zaraspook

Greyduck........If you dig deep enough, always a bright spot when you're fishing! But, that donut was an awful early bright spot. And, the lake didn't hang a skunk on you! I plan to try the main lake again tomorrow. Wind forecast is south at 5-10 mph which should mean I can fish the area I hit on Labor Day. The crappies will still be there 10 days later, right?


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## Saugeyefisher

Way to redeam the trip! My buddy pulled in one a buckeye sunday 14/15" an thick as can be. But that was it other then cats...
But it was up shallow chaseing shad,soo,hopefully will ffind more soon!


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher.......we're gonna try again today for main lake crappie. Wind should be in our favor. A secondary objective of junket today is to prove there actually are perch in GLSM and you can catch them on line and hook. Perch thing may take multiple trips.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid, side-kick Scott, and I did venture to GLSM yesterday (Weds) to target crappie and in the process maybe find the elusive GLSM equivalent to the Loch Ness monster, the humble perch. Very rare for me to fish the main lake for crappie, it's only in the last few weeks I've begun a project to learn/refine main lake fishing crappie fishing. Salmonid brought his boat, fishes the main lake all the time, but for channel cats not crappie/perch. He had a few specific locations he wanted to try. 

First line is in the water at 3pm, maybe 3:15 pm. Basically we worked a few targets plus drifted. At our first target, roughly 7' of water, within 10 minutes Salmonid boated the first fish. It was a dink crappie, but skunk is off (at least for him). Next 40 minutes is pretty much dead, but we're still attacking the target. Finally, a bite and I boat the 2nd fish. At 12.25" it's definitely a keeper and thick weighing in at 1.25 pounds. Photo below, you might notice it is deformed, missing a part of its back including most of its first 3-4 dorsal splines. 
View media item 77979We hang on this spot for a while longer despite slow or no activity. Probably 20 minutes and fish #3 is netted. It's bigger than the last one, a chunky 13.5" and Fish Ohio crappie. Forgot to weigh it but definitely heavier than the 12"+ fish. Photo below.
View media item 77978Notice I haven't mentioned Scott's name yet. He's starting to feel the pressure and of course commentary is heating up with frequent use of the "s-word" (skunk). Bite, however, is not hot. We abandon this target area, deciding to drift instead. 30-45 minutes of drifting produces one more crappie. Keeping with the theme of slabs, it's another 13" Fish Ohio! Sorry, Scott.....it's my catch and 3rd keeper, but I think he's doing a great job handling the net!

It was back to the most successful target area. Nothing happening there so after 20 minutes it was time to head to the ramp. We headed to my place to eat dinner brought by Scott. Before eating we had a few minutes to wet a line nearby. I handed Scott one of my crappie poles and put on one of my favorite Acid Rain/June Bug plastic Hot Grubs. Within 10 minutes at one of my favorite spots, Scott was off the skunk! An 11" keeper crappie, pressure off, we could finally eat. Scott is quite the culinary artist and didn't disappoint. His shredded pulled pork, black bean, and dual types of rice bowl is easily a Fish Ohio equivalent! A little dessert, gourmet black raspberry from the finest ice creamery in Indiana, brought us to dark and departure.

By the way water temp on main lake was 71-72 range. Channel water temp was 73+ degrees. Salmonid supplied boat, the best spot for catching some slabs, and took great photos. Scott got off the skunk at the 11th hour and superbly handled both netting and the fine entree. I supplied the gourmet ice cream, bait, and 3 of the 4 keepers (dual Fish Ohio crappies). Great way to spend 5 hours!


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## fishwhacker

No perch.....what kind of rig? Spreaders? Dragging minnows/red worms on the bottom?bobber and jig? Were you by the islands or just the bays? I hear stories of perch being caught, but like the walleyes being caught very big secrets to the specific tactics/areas....anything you can provide on what isnt working provides 1 less thing/place to try.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> No perch.....what kind of rig? Spreaders? Dragging minnows/red worms on the bottom?bobber and jig? Were you by the islands or just the bays? I hear stories of perch being caught, but like the walleyes being caught very big secrets to the specific tactics/areas....anything you can provide on what isnt working provides 1 less thing/place to try.


fishwhacker......there really isn't a "plan", more of a random attack. This started 3 weeks ago on Labor Day. Finally had some personal time that morning to take my boat out on main lake. #1 target was to find some crappies on main lake, with secondary goal to stumble onto some perch. Only had 2.5 hours so couldn't stray far from my SE location. No bays, no islands, just 300 yards north into main lake and let a south wind drift me wherever. In 6-7 feet of water tried to keep a crappie minnow under bobber, targeting perch within a foot of bottom( a few unsuccessful perch fishermen suggested 6"off bottom. Other pole equipped with bass minnow under bobber, varying between 4-5' depth. In the 2+ hours caught 3 big crappies(one 13") and 3 channel cats. Crappies were best I'd seen in couple months, so it didn't bother that no perch.

In 2 more trips since then, recipe is about the same. Drifting, 2 poles per person, minnows under bobber, crappie minnow near bottom for perch. Results are a few crappies that are jumbos but not numerous, no perch. Because of decent success for crappies, haven't ventured far from main lake area in SE.......let's say Behm's to Harmon's. Wind direction and speed force one to be flexible. We tried yesterday (Saturday), but rain and wind forced us off main lake. In a bay of sorts, one 12" crappie, 4 channel cats, 1 sheephead, and no perch.

We thought we had a recipe to at least catch a few decent fish, but that ended Sunday morning (today)..............2+ hours and never a bite. We add in some different water each time out while tactics are about the same. Clearly neither our tactics nor locations are perch friendly. It's a work in process..........


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## zaraspook

By the way water temp Saturday afternoon was 70-71. Sunday morning water temp was 65-66.


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## fishwhacker

I could tell temps are dropping found some fish in my fall only spots it has been slowly getting better and sunday was the best yet.....keep those 40 degree nights coming....maybe the perch will start hitting


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> I could tell temps are dropping found some fish in my fall only spots it has been slowly getting better and sunday was the best yet.....keep those 40 degree nights coming....maybe the perch will start hitting


Have you tried anything lately on quest for perch?

The few crappies I've taken lately in channel have been bigger ones....good sign. For you, what's different about a "fall only" spot?


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## zaraspook

Crappie fished Weds late afternoon-evening from the bank. Pretty much ran my local circuit around my lake place for an hour and a half. Lots of gills taking something off the surface, but no crappie bite other than one toad of a crappie that came unzipped when, absent of my net (again), I attempted to lift it 2' over my seawall from the water surface. Changed plastics several times, even tried some minnows left over from last weekend, no crappies but 3 gills. Took a dinner break then went back at it about 6:45pm with another change of plastic. Right at 7pm I caught first crappie, 9.5" and 10 minutes later crappie #2, a fat 10.5". Thought maybe I was getting into something, but other than gills, I didn't get another hit. 

My August theme was few fish and mostly small ones. September theme, so far, remains few fish caught but big improvement in size. Very rare to catch one that isn't easily over the legal mark.

We need cooler water temps. Weather forecast over the next week works against falling temps......lots of sunshine to heat and night time temps well into 50's, even 60. Water temp may actually climb. I don't expect a significant improvement in crappie bite until this warm pattern switches gears. Fall bite will arrive sooner or later....patience required.


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## bigmexican

zaraspook said:


> Fished from shore Saturday 10/1 in the afternoon and evening in between doing chores and watching as much of the Buckeyes as I could swallow. In the first 90 minutes caught only 3 crappies and 1 bluegill, but 2 of the crappies were 10.5 and 11.25. Those fish were caught on triple tip grubs.
> 
> I figured the bite was slow so next session started to play with fishing depth and cycled thru 3 different baits and 6 different color combinations. Once locating depth and tube color, the bite was very active with both crappies and bluegills willing to play the game. By the end of the day Saturday, catch was 23 crappies, 18 bluegills, and one 10" bass. I don't tip with wax worms but many GLSM fishermen do.
> 
> GLSM has a very impressive class of crappies. 16 of the crappies were legal.....very few short fish. 11.25 was biggest, most 10.25-10.5". Bulk of fish were white crappies although just before dark I found some fast action for black crappies in the 9.5-10" range.
> 
> More than 1/2 the bluegills were keeper size, thick 7-8". When I arrived Saturday around noon my neighbor was just quitting.....in a bucket he had 13 great looking gills to clean. He said he kept 18 earlier in the week and he and a friend quit at 50 gills the prior weekend.
> 
> I fished for an hour and half Sunday morning. Bite was slower but caught 6 crappies, 4 bluegills, and another small bass. 4 of these crappies were 10+ including one 11.75. 70% of my crappies were legal......impressive and says something for the impact of the state's 9" size limit.
> 
> The real key to catching fish was depth. Fish were holding around brush/cover, but right off the bottom. They weren't aggressive and required you pretty much hit them in the nose fishing within a few inches of the bottom. Water temp was 57 degrees (earlier in the week I was at Brookville and water temp there 67 degrees......big difference).
> 
> Below is a pic of an 11.25 inch crappie caught Sunday by my nephew.
> [/QUOTE


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## bigmexican

I heard there was a crappie tournament 9/26 has anyone heard the results?


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## zaraspook

bigmexican said:


> I heard there was a crappie tournament 9/26 has anyone heard the results?


bigmexican.......I haven't heard results and nothing posted in Outdoorsman's website.

Personally, I'm still in the mode of slim results. Got to GLSM late Saturday after Buckeye game. Maybe 90 minutes of fishing from bank before dark. Managed only 2 crappies, one dink and 1 keeper at 12". Bite was no better for me on Sunday fishing off and on in between chores. An hour in the morning about 9am produced 2 gills. 45 minutes fishing about 1pm was another empty one for crappies and 1-2 gills. 3:30 - 5pm I fished hard, very slow, and pretty much on/near bottom. It produced 2 keeper crappies 10-11". Those 2 were on wood, at the bottom and under it. The few toons in my channel produced zero. 75% keeper rate is darn good but could stand to catch more fish.

When I say on or near bottom, it's not a dramatic shift. Water I'm fishing is 4.5' at deepest. Most of it is 3'. Water temp Sunday afternoon was 70.4 degrees, no change from prior weekend. It's a few days until Oct 1, but to add perspective, some years the water temp on Oct 1 has been mid-fifties. Less sunshine during the days and cooler nights would be appreciated, but _"be careful what you wish for"_. Here's a pretty lousy photo of the 12"...it was pretty dark.
View media item 77989


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## fishwhacker

Sorry for my late reply sick kid has me hopping....no trying for perch lately.by fall only spots i have about 5 spots where for some reason fish only bite during the fall, only common theme is they are close to the mouths of channels that empty into the lake, usually deeper than average 5 to 7 ft deep, and the bite is on the bottom. Usually cuts out a couple weeks before ice on. Taking a break to head to indiana this weekend to do some float tube panfishing.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker......appreciate your input. Have an area like you describe that I've been meaning to try. You give me a little more motivation to try it. Tested it previously in spring without success. Maybe a "fall only" location.


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## zaraspook

Still looking for that golden nugget.....the fall GLSM crappie bite. Late Weds got in 2+ hours of fishing in my channel. Caught first crappie within 10 minutes. It was nothing to shout about, a generous measure might have put it 6". It was on wood in no more than 3' of water. Pounded that spot to locate his cousins....no dice. Same story at other spots.....crappie brethren were not to be found. 

Headed to the mouth of my channel, recently dredged and deeper water, kind of like what Fishwhacker mentioned as a fall target. Dang.....wind wasn't that noticeable at my place but it was roaring 10-20 mph from the ENE on the lake. Despite wind right in my face and casting into it I played this area for an hour. No crappies but I did get into something sizable. Had it on for 1-2 minutes until it came unzipped...probably a channel cat. Had maybe 45 minutes till no light so headed back to my place and familiar targets. Caught another crappie, legal but not 10", from the same spot as first crappie. Last fish was caught off my seawall......a channel cat of about 2#'s.

At dusk the water temp was disappointingly high.....68.9 degrees, no more than 1.5 degrees less than last Sunday. Water level continues to recede from a very dry September....down at least 6-8".


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## zaraspook

Last Sunday's crappie tournament results go something like this:
1st Place - 7.6 pounds
2nd Place- 7.3 pounds
3rd Place - 6.8 pounds
Big fish was 1.75 pounds
All teams made the 8-fish limit, but only 8 teams were entered.

I didn't fish in the tournament but know firsthand the bite sucked last Sunday at least where I was. Those results say a lot about the entrants. Doubtful I could have caught 8 fish that day. If the same tourney was held a month from now, it would probably take 11-12# to win.


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## jmk112

zaraspook said:


> Last Sunday's crappie tournament results go something like this:
> 1st Place - 7.6 pounds
> 2nd Place- 7.3 pounds
> 3rd Place - 6.8 pounds
> Big fish was 1.75 pounds
> All teams made the 8-fish limit, but only 8 teams were entered.
> 
> I didn't fish in the tournament but know firsthand the bite sucked last Sunday at least where I was. Those results say a lot about the entrants. Doubtful I could have caught 8 fish that day. If the same tourney was held a month from now, it would probably take 11-12# to win.



When do they start pulling the lake this year? I thought they did it fairly early last year...
Thanks!


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## zaraspook

jmk112 said:


> When do they start pulling the lake this year? I thought they did it fairly early last year...
> Thanks!


Good question, jmk112. Haven't heard of a date to start drawdown. I don't remember when it started last year but was noticeably falling 10/15 thru 10/26. Fall fishing took a hit during the process, then we had ice in channels around 11/15 and still ice 11/29 according to my fishing log and crappie results took another hit.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......we started mid-week crappie junkets 9/24 last year. Bite was not fun,even though water temps were cooler last year at that time than this year. Then we had an early Oct cold blast and temps got into low to mid-50's real quick. Bite picked up then. 

Last Sunday temp 70-71. Weds temp 68.9. I'll go up sometime this weekend and test where bite and water temps are in my channel. We can start fall fishing whenever you/Scott want, but we'll probably struggle until water temps get into 55-57 range. Nothing new for us to "struggle"! Let me know.....


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## Greyduck

We had that cold snap in noverber. Then the lake reopened and we caught nice crappie till 12/30. That was the last day it was open.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> We had that cold snap in noverber. Then the lake reopened and we caught nice crappie till 12/30. That was the last day it was open.


I remember it well. My final outing last year was 12/28 and it was a good one. You never know.......


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## zaraspook

Friday evening got in 75 minutes fishing just before dark. Probably best action in couple months but doesn't take much to say that. Caught 5 crappies, 2 keepers, 11" the biggest and found action at places where hadn't caught anything in 3 months. 
No bite this morning 9-10 am other than hooked into something big that broke me off. It was probably a channel cat. Caught a lot of them lately. Going back out soon...... Try some different baits and colors. It's cold, 46 degrees and 15-25 mph wind.


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## zaraspook

Just checked water temp. Was 68.9 on Wed. Shocked to see 58.6 right now. 11 degree drop in less than 72 hours.


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## zaraspook

Bait change worked great or maybe I got lucky........ who knows. In hour and half caught 9 crappies with 5 keepers. First 5 crappies came in initial 12 minutes just bang - bang! Had to quit for a while......hungry and hands cold. I'll go back at it in couple hours. Best action of the fall so far and having fun!


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## jon84

Are the fish safe to eat? I haven't been up there fishing since before all the problems started. Thinking about making the trip up there in the morning. And any hints on where to go for crappie? Thanks for any help in advance.


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## zaraspook

Didn't get back out today except during half time of Buckeye game and again after game 20 minutes in the dark....... Long game. Caught 5 more with 3 keepers. Bite wasn't as energetic but 5 in less than an hour is good. Total for today was 14 with 8 keepers that were 10-11". Fish were all on wood and all but one pulled within 3 feet of bank. Despite heavy wind, rain most of the day, and high temp never rising above 48, it was a good fishing day!


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## zaraspook

jon84 said:


> Are the fish safe to eat? I haven't been up there fishing since before all the problems started. Thinking about making the trip up there in the morning. And any hints on where to go for crappie? Thanks for any help in advance.


 In the Southwest OGF forum there is already a thread about consumption of Grand Lake fish. Last post on the thread Sept 21. Where did you normally fish when you went to Grand Lake in the past?


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## jon84

I have fished all over the lake


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## zaraspook

Any area where you recall wood or brush cover would be good starting point. As an example Windy Point State Park area the State sunk Christmas trees which would be similar to cover I fished Saturday.


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## jon84

Thank you so much. I guess the lake hasn't changed at all. So I'm on my way up there.


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## zaraspook

jon84 said:


> Thank you so much. I guess the lake hasn't changed at all. So I'm on my way up there.


Good luck to you. Water temp in my channel is 57.2 at 10:45 am. In hour and half this morning I caught 8 with 5 keepers 10-11.25". That's a good sign. Morning bite has been non-existent last month.


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## Greyduck

Great reports Zara.....this weeks weather looks bad for the bite though.


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## jon84

I got up there about 10:30 and the only thing I cought at windy point was 2 channel cats. I heard that they were bitting at the spillway and cought 7 keepers in about 2 hours. And lost a big saugeye


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## zaraspook

jon84 said:


> I got up there about 10:30 and the only thing I cought at windy point was 2 channel cats. I heard that they were bitting at the spillway and cought 7 keepers in about 2 hours. And lost a big saugeye


Nice report! Good that you found some crappie and I'll bet the saugeye got your heart thumping! I've never caught a "saugeye" from GLSM....yet. What bait did the "eye" hit? 
If you do land an "eye" keep in mind it could be a walleye or saugeye. Last walleye stocked in GLSM was 2008 (I think). That class would be 7 years old, plus my guess is there may have been some limited but successful reproduction from the 50+ million fry/fingerlings stocked back then.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> Great reports Zara.....this weeks weather looks bad for the bite though.


I'm in agreement. Lots of sun forecast to heat the lake during the day and raise temps 3-4 degrees. Nightly lows in the 50's should reverse the temp gain, but isn't cold enough to make inroads for further cooling. This week should be "running in place", not much movement in either direction. Regardless, crappie bite with 57-60 degree temps should be better than 68-74 during the prior month.


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## jon84

zaraspook said:


> Nice report! Good that you found some crappie and I'll bet the saugeye got your heart thumping! I've never caught a "saugeye" from GLSM....yet. What bait did the "eye" hit?
> If you do land an "eye" keep in mind it could be a walleye or saugeye. Last walleye stocked in GLSM was 2008 (I think). That class would be 7 years old, plus my guess is there may have been some limited but successful reproduction from the 50+ million fry/fingerlings stocked back then.[/QUOTE
> Thank you for the info it probably was a walleye. It was about dark when I cought it and all I seen was the silhouette. I had it over the bank before it spit the hook and flipped into the water. I wasn't expecting to catch an eye crappie fishing and didn't set the hook hard enough. I did hook what I believe 2 or 3 more but never seen them.


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## jon84

I'm still trying to figure this site out lol


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## jon84




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## zaraspook

jon84 said:


>


What length are those swimbaits?


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## jon84

They are 2in


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## zaraspook

That's crazy that a decent size "eye" jumped on a 2" crappie paddle tail! Reason I asked is my only 2 walleyes landed at GLSM were on paddle tails, but they were 4" baits. That was before State stocked saugeye. I know from experience decent bass and channel cats eat 2" crappie plastics, too.

Next 2 months should be good ones for crappie, and maybe "eyes", too. Do you plan to come back......especially to try for eyes again?


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## jon84

Yes I'll be back up there every chance I get. Like I used too.


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## zaraspook

jon84......Great to hear GLSM has won an angler back! Hope quality of crappie bite keeps you coming back. As a bonus, the potential always exist to pull an eye from the waters below, and perch should be in our near term future. Please post your reports, good or bad, when you fish GLSM.

After catching 8 Sunday morning, I got back out for an hour at 1pm before heading home to keep my promise to wife. Only managed 2 more crappies. For the weekend final tally was 29 crappies, 16 keepers 10"-11.25" in 6- 7 hours of fishing. To illustrate the change in the bite from 10+ degree drop in water temp, the entire month of September I caught only 19 crappies........29 in the first weekend of Oct seemed like a bonanza.

A couple observations.....there was noticeably a lot more shad activity in my channel, bigger shad, than anytime lately. Although high percentage of keepers, I didn't get into any of the 12-13+" we were finding on main lake. Fish were not schooled up......did catch 5 from one spot in 20 minutes but 3 of those were 6" or less. Caught only 1 fish from under a pontoon.....rest were all on wood/brush. Only 2 caught farther out than 4 feet from bank, majority within 2' of bank/seawall. Slower presentation was better than fast. Bait near bottom worked better than "up" in water column. I didn't try any live bait, plastics only. Gill bite was pretty good.....caught about 8 gills with a few keeper size. Looking forward to 52-55 degree water. A few pics below.....
View media item 78006View media item 78005View media item 78004


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## Saugeyefisher

Nicley done! I dipped around buckeye for a bit yesterday,only 2 crappies,but got a dozen really big blue gills. Then targeting saugeye i caught 6 barely undersized on blade baits....
All my craps an gills were hugging wooden dock posts....
Last week why in obx mr.crappie savedmy trip big time on the fishing side of things...
All week sucked both sound and surf with only one decent blue an some pig fish an dink flounders. The last nite i hita harbor off a brackish sound an found the crappie an whiteperch chaseing minnows. It was a crappie bite u dream ofnothong under 12" all the way up to 15"... for two hours it was NON STOP ACTION!!!!
Thanks again for the reports u gave me confidence yesterday....


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Nicley done! I dipped around buckeye for a bit yesterday,only 2 crappies,but got a dozen really big blue gills. Then targeting saugeye i caught 6 barely undersized on blade baits....
> All my craps an gills were hugging wooden dock posts....
> Last week why in obx mr.crappie savedmy trip big time on the fishing side of things...
> All week sucked both sound and surf with only one decent blue an some pig fish an dink flounders. The last nite i hita harbor off a brackish sound an found the crappie an whiteperch chaseing minnows. It was a crappie bite u dream ofnothong under 12" all the way up to 15"... for two hours it was NON STOP ACTION!!!!
> Thanks again for the reports u gave me confidence yesterday....


 glad to be of help. Sounds like got into some hot action on your trip! Congrats.


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## harrison08

Any feelings about the cold front and the effects it might have on fishing tomorrow?


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## zaraspook

Buddy Scott and I pursued crappies at GLSM Weds afternoon. Started at 3pm, ended at 7:30pm with a 30-45 minute food break around 6pm. Before starting I did a quick check of water temp and was hoping for minimal temperature gain from last Sunday's 57.2 degrees. Gag! Back up to 64.4......daily sunshine all week and nightly low temps well above 50 will do that. 
Fishing from the bank at our first spot, in 2 minutes Scott broke the ice. Not a keeper but not far under the legal 9" minimum. Half hour later we're moving on to next location. 7 crappies in 30 minutes.......a damn good start and it suggests the 7 degree rise in water temps hadn't hurt the bite. At this point Scott's leading our unofficial competition 5 to my 2 and between us 5 keepers.

Next several spots are not so generous......more gill activity than crappies. Only 1 fish apiece for us, but both keepers. Next stop on our list has a great track record for production. However, it was barren all summer, not a fish for 3 months until last weekend's cold snap. About an hour here and we're not disappointed. The catch is 8 more fish, all keepers, including my 12" fish which took honors for biggest of the outing. Scott's lengthening his lead though, kicking my butt, leading at that point 11-6 (I think). Next spot is tough on us, an expansive wooden dock and a pontoon there. Just one fish there, another keeper. On to my sea wall and brush, 2 apiece there and action is slower.
After the food break we revisit the 2 hottest spots with mixed results. Final tally is 27 crappies caught, 22 legal keepers, Scott easily puts a whupping on me 15 to 12. Biggest fish 12". Majority of fish are within 3' of bank, a handful taken up to 8' out. 1 fish from under a toon and remaining from wood or brush. The biggie piggies aren't showing up yet in my channel. Great weather and company!


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> Any feelings about the cold front and the effects it might have on fishing tomorrow?


Personal opinion is anything that contributes to cooling water temps is a positive. That doesn't mean it won't screw up the short term bite for a day or two. Usually, if bite is tough, fishing closer to the bottom and slower, you won't get as many but you'll get some. Pretty much have to hit them in the nose to get a bite on those days and remember sooner or later they have to eat. AT least most of your catch will be legal size.
Good luck. I'll get in some fishing time some time on the weekend....hope I'm not whining about lack of fish!


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## harrison08

zaraspook said:


> Personal opinion is anything that contributes to cooling water temps is a positive. That doesn't mean it won't screw up the short term bite for a day or two. Usually, if bite is tough, fishing closer to the bottom and slower, you won't get as many but you'll get some. Pretty much have to hit them in the nose to get a bite on those days and remember sooner or later they have to eat. AT least most of your catch will be legal size.
> Good luck. I'll get in some fishing time some time on the weekend....hope I'm not whining about lack of fish!


Thanks Zara.....
I am coming up anyway......Just wanted to stir up some conversation ahead of time. I should be bouncing around the lake tomorrow morning.....hoping to catch a few.


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> Thanks Zara.....
> I am coming up anyway......Just wanted to stir up some conversation ahead of time. I should be bouncing around the lake tomorrow morning.....hoping to catch a few.


Bank or boat tomorrow? Live bait or plastics?


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## harrison08

zaraspook said:


> Bank or boat tomorrow? Live bait or plastics?


No boat this time...going to hit it from the shore with plastics.


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## zaraspook

I'm a plastics guy too. My buddy used both yesterday. He gave up on minnows cause plenty of activity on plastics and zero fish on minnows. Hope you get into them and remember to post regardless. Helps the rest of us.


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## Greyduck

Good report Zara.... I am hitting the lake Sunday. Hopefully this cold snap keeps the bite going in the right direction. Not sure if I will drag the boat up. It might be a good day to relax and it my bank spots. Good luck gentleman!


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## harrison08

zaraspook said:


> I'm a plastics guy too. My buddy used both yesterday. He gave up on minnows cause plenty of activity on plastics and zero fish on minnows. Hope you get into them and remember to post regardless. Helps the rest of us.


Will do, fine sir. Take care and thank you!


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## zaraspook

My Fri plans to fish GLSM were sidelined and my Sunday availability now commandeered elsewhere. Looks like Saturday is my only shot to fish this weekend. Hope to get up early and make GLSM by late morning to wet a line. Have fun fishing!


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## harrison08

Well, it was a multi-stop, multi-inspection, multi-species kinda day. I actually arrived at my destination earlier than I had expected, which doesnt happen much with a 3 year old at home. I arrived at the lake at 7:08, with the sun just starting to shine light low in the sky. I decided to take a ride around the lake to waste some time before stopping to fish. I decided to give Harmon's a try because it is where I caught my last fish in the spring. I parked my truck about 7:30 and at 7:35, Mr. ODNR officer pulled down the lane (I wish I had gotten his name because he was extremely polite and professional) He waved, as did I. He circled around and parked next to my truck as I was trying different spots. He starts small talk, eventually asking him for my license. I told him "absolutely" and grabbed my wallet. I fiddles through papers for a while, realizing that my 3 year old had been playing with my wallet and had removed some items. I explained to him that I had it on my phone and could verify it that way. He said that would be fine and allowed me to retrieve it from my truck. All is well. Except, not a single bite at Harmon's.
Second stop....Windy Point. I park the truck and dip at the Christmas Trees along the right channel. Nothing. I throw down the rocks with my jig and get the tell-tale crappie hit. The ice-float slowly moves under the water and I set the hook. Bluegill!! A nice one, but not what I was after. Another bluegill, and it was time to move on.
Third stop...spillway. I see some people fishing the spillway (although no water was moving through). I park in the lot up by the main lake. I walk down the side next to the condos. 1st cast...crappie! about 7". I move up and down the bank catching a few here and a few there--mostly small 7-8". I finally catch 2 keepers and toss them on the bank. At about that time...I look up and see another DNR officer standing at my side (didnt see him and scared the poop out if me). He asks to see my license. I explain that I had been checked already and it is on my phone. He said something to the effect of "Oh, Officer _____ checked you at Harmon's. You are good." It was nice that there was no hassle, although I would have shown him as well. (at least one was cited at the spillway, FYI).
The fishing picked up. I would say that I ended up catching 60-80 fish. Many small crappie but managed to wrangle up 2 dozen keepers or so, including this brute








of a crappie. I also caught several bluegill, drum (one of which was in the 8 lb range), a 6 lb channel cat, and a 15 inch largemouth. (all fish came on the same plastic bait)
All in all, a great day to be on the water.


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## zaraspook

Harrison08.........that's a great post and dandy crappie. My place is not far from Harmons. Didn't get there Saturday till about 9am and bite was pathetic..... all day. Saw 3 different boats from a crappie tournament. All commented crappies were tough to come by. Slowing down and fishing close to bottom I eventually caught 10. Kicking myself though........... after breaking off early in a snag decided to tie on a red jighead. Only ones in my inventory that were red were also smaller hooks than I normally use. Despite size tied it on anyway. Paid for it by losing at least 1/2 my hook ups the rest of the day.........way out of line for me. In each case they were nicer sized crappies. It wasn't until I lost a 2.5 - 3 lb largemouth later in the day that I suspected smaller hook and specifically hook gap as the likely cause. Live and learn, or maybe I should say "re-learn". I knew better but ignored past lessons.
An 8 lb drum can be a handful, harrison08! Glad you enjoyed your day. My biggest crappie that day was only 11" and atypical for GLSM crappie, only half my 10 fish were keepers. We expect 60-70% to be keepers.


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## zaraspook

Forgot to mention water temp Saturday. Thursday water temp was 64.4 and Saturday slipped to 61.4. Forecast suggest says good amount of sunshine this week to heat during the day, lows in 40's during the week, with 30's for the weekend. Water temps should be solidly in 50's next week and crappies more active.


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## Greyduck

Not much to report here. Left the boat at home. Fished from 8 to 12 .... Not even a bite at the first stop. On to the next spot. Second cast a nice 13" crappie. I thought this might be good. Not another crappie the rest of the morning. A few gills but that was it. Talked to a few folks and they were having the same luck. Gettem' next time!


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## zaraspook

Greyduck........I wondered if Sunday bite was any better than I found Saturday. Now I know since your Sunday report mirrors my Saturday experience. Crappie bites were few and far between. Gills were a little better. 

A motto of mine is regardless of conditions, weather, water temps the fish have to eat sooner or later. Sometime in a 36 hour period the bite will turn on. I suspect Sunday evening might have been the "right" window. 60-90 minutes before dark seems to be most consistent time frame right now, especially if it's been a sunny day. Disclaimer......."past results are not a guarantee of future performance.....".


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Greyduck........I wondered if Sunday bite was any better than I found Saturday. Now I know since your Sunday report mirrors my Saturday experience. Crappie bites were few and far between. Gills were a little better.
> 
> A motto of mine is regardless of conditions, weather, water temps the fish have to eat sooner or later. Sometime in a 36 hour period the bite will turn on. I suspect Sunday evening might have been the "right" window. 60-90 minutes before dark seems to be most consistent time frame right now, especially if it's been a sunny day. Disclaimer......."past results are not a guarantee of future performance.....".


A quick tip that usualy works for us late august-end of october why waiting on cooler days. Try dipping rocky/rip rap areas in the middle of the night with small baits like ratsos. Depending on the fish but usually we have the floats set really shallow to.
Dont usualy kill them,but always get a few nice fish.


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## zaraspook

Good tip, Saugeyefisher. What lake/lakes do you normally fish for crappie?


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## Saugeyefisher

Alum,hoover,buckeye,an just starting this year indian...
So far its proven itself on the shallower lakes. So figured it might hold tru for glsm. And usually there right in the rocks.an mainly black crappie


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## zaraspook

Makes sense to me. We do have rip/rap, shallow waters, and probably 85% or more of crappie population are black variety.


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## zaraspook

Fishing buddy Scott and I did a Weds afternoon session at GLSM. First line wet about 3pm.....fished until 7:15pm with a 1/2 hour dinner break. Water temp in my channel was 60.2, down a paltry 1.2 degrees from last Saturday. The bite continues slow.....you can catch a few, very scattered, and never more than 2 from any spot we hit. We fished from shore....not boat.

Most of our fish came off wood/brush in 3-4 feet of water......but that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not surprising if you spend majority of time fishing wood that most of your fish come from wood! In retrospect, under pontoons was a better time investment but we didn't catch on until late in the day.

At quitting time we'd caught 16 crappies with 10 keepers. All 3 of Scott's fish were keepers. Only 7 of my 13 fish were keepers......one spot surrendered a decent # of fish, but a high number of 5-6" dinks. Still no sign of bigger fish moving into the channel. Our keepers were clones, all 10"-10.25" except for biggest fish of the day, Scott's 11" chunk. Tried a number of different plastics, however, I think all fish were caught on 2" twister tails. We also caught 5-6 gills and a small bass (10") which helped fill in the lulls between crappie bites. On this day we took a step backward compared to our mid-week junket last week......27 caught with 22 keepers.

As usual.....the fishing was fun, dinner provided by Scott was scrumptious, and a great day though cool later.


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## zaraspook

57.4 degree water temp at 7pm Friday. Fishing 2 hours before dark caught 5 crappies in first hour and zippo final hour.


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## bigmexican

zaraspook said:


> 57.4 degree water temp at 7pm Friday. Fishing 2 hours before dark caught 5 crappies in first hour and zippo final hour.


Zaraspook how's the water look in the channels your fishing? I fished several channels around the lake this mourning and the water looked bad. Kind of reminds you of pea soup.The bite was pretty slow. The only fish I could catch were in channels with brush in deeper water 5-6 ft.


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## zaraspook

bigmexican said:


> Zaraspook how's the water look in the channels your fishing? I fished several channels around the lake this mourning and the water looked bad. Kind of reminds you of pea soup.The bite was pretty slow. The only fish I could catch were in channels with brush in deeper water 5-6 ft.


Water's been that hue of green since about mid-July. Unfortunately, pretty much the norm that comes on in summer, hangs around thru fall, fades at a snail's pace in winter, and with good sustained ice disappears at spring ice out.. Water clarity, now at best 2-3", was an incredible 3-4 feet last 2 years by mid-March. Cloudy green particles are suspended chlorophyll (I think they mean "algae"). Density of algae can rise with falling water levels and low rainfall. It's not unusual to see some of the year's worst algae numbers in fall.
Manure in runoff from heavy rains in April to June, a lot of it this season, dumped a mother load of phosphorus this year. It's the gift that keeps on giving through out the year, and the next year, and the next.....

Channels look worse than main lake, but not by much.


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## zaraspook

Water temp was 54.1 at 4pm Saturday.....down another 3+ degrees in less than 24 hours. I like that. Caught 12 in 2 sessions of about 2.5 hours total. Fish are more aggressive today, chasing the bait higher in the water column unlike yesterday when you had to hit them in the nose on the bottom. Good news too on size. 11 of 12 fish keepers, biggest 12" and several 11". Nothing from beneath pontoons so far today.......all in wood/brush. Air temp is 46 at 4:30 pm.
Decent day so far. Might go back out in a bit. Took a break to warm up and check out football games.


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## jon84

What are you catching yours on? I'm making the trip up there in the morning.


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## zaraspook

jon84 said:


> What are you catching yours on? I'm making the trip up there in the morning.


2" and 2.5" twister tail/curly tail grubs w/16th oz jighead. Body color didn't seem to matter as long as tail was chartreuse. Middle of day was best bite today. After 5 it shut down for me.......only 2 more with one 11". Good luck!

My favorites are Hot Grubs by Southern Pro like at this link https://grizzlyjig.com/p-141-2-hot-grubs.aspx


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## jon84

Thanks


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## zaraspook

Fished Sunday 11am for hour and a half then again 2:30 -3:30pm. Caught some nice crappies but darn, what a slow bite...........8 crappies from at most 10 hits. When they bit it was solid but one bite every 15-20 minutes, no more than 1 fish per spot.......no pattern to pick up. One white crappie among the 6 keepers that were 10-11"+. Water temp at 4pm Sunday was identical to temp Saturday - 54.1 degrees. Nice day of sunshine and bluebird skies! 

27 total crappies caught, but here's the good number, 22 were keeper class. Bite is OK, not great, and no jumbos yet.....biggest of the weekend was 12", photo below. Crappies were chasing Saturday (pretty aggressive), but had to be slowly wined and dined Friday evening and Sunday.
View media item 78043


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## BryanZg

I'm looking at coming up there and trying Grand Lake for the first time this week. I love reading all the reports. I'll be crappie fishing and in my boat and looking for just some places to start. Where to put in at and so on.


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## zaraspook

Hi Bryan. Coming from Dayton? Also, give me idea about how well your boat and stomach handle rougher water/waves. A 9 mile (East-West) long lake, shallow and few obstructions to break waves, can be a booger in wind. We'll try to put you in somewhere where you can avoid long runs.


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## BryanZg

I have a 17 ft deep v. Handles rough water very well. Same for me. I'm coming from close to Dayton. Enon. Which is in between Dayton and Springfield.


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## zaraspook

BryanZg said:


> I have a 17 ft deep v. Handles rough water very well. Same for me. I'm coming from close to Dayton. Enon. Which is in between Dayton and Springfield.


Bryan.....I'll start a private conversation with you with a couple ideas.


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## BryanZg

OK


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## zaraspook

BryanZg said:


> OK


Bryan,
Did you see the "conversation" message I sent you Tuesday?


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## Sappy

My nephew found this guy along the seawall on the Southside Saturday


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## zaraspook

Sappy said:


> My nephew found this guy along the seawall on the Southside Saturday


Absolutely very cool! First photo I've seen to prove the critters aren't another urban legend. Congrats to your nephew..... did he get any others?


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## Sappy

That was the only perch, did have a few gills


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## zaraspook

Best hopes are nephews perch is the first of many to follow. Only ones for me were in 2012, before stocking initiated. One caught on crappie tube and 2nd one jig with 1" gulp minnow. Ice guys this winter might really get into them!


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## zaraspook

An outing for just the guys at my lake place Saturday/Sunday. Actually arrived late Friday night but little time to fish before dark. That's OK, beer was flowing and poker kept us up well after midnight. We fished hard Saturday though 2 out of our group of 5 were late in getting out of bed......like I said, beer was flowing Friday night. Saturday rain finally came but not till 5:30 pm and crappie fishing was really lousy before weather front arrived which seems to be standard behavior for specks. Lots of fishing Saturday between football games, but we created empty beer bottles faster than the pace of adding crappies to the basket. We quit fishing about 11 am Sunday morning. Not sure how many crappies we caught during the outing.....some guys seemed to suffer from impaired ability to count past 3. We cleaned 14 keepers crappies...my guess is we caught 35-40 crappies. Along with the crappies we caught 10-12 gills, about the same number of yellow bellies, and 4-5 channel cats including a 5-pounder. 

Good time for us, all of which grew up in the same neighborhood, grade school thru high school. Fishing-wise we did much better at our spring outing. This round we had several 11" crappies but none bigger.


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## zaraspook

Forgot to mention water temp - a sultry 59 degrees Saturday and 57.3 Sunday. Pretty much running in place. Like to see a 5 point drop then sit there for 10 days.


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## zaraspook

GLSM water temp Weds evening......... 56.1 . Fished 2 hours with only 3 crappies caught, all dinks. Pattern was something other than what I was doing


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## zaraspook

Dark when I arrived at GLSM at 7:30 pm Saturday. Didn't get to fish but checked water temp....51.3 degrees. There's that 5 degree drop I ordered, since Weds. Might get them schooled up. Makes it harder to find them but if you do you can catch a pile of them really fast. You never know until you wet a line.


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## zaraspook

GLSM water temp Sunday/today the same as last night.......51. Fished 3 sessions, first one an hour and last two about 45 minutes each. Caught 11 crappies but the dink parade was on. No big ones invading my channel yet. Only 3 keepers, biggest 11". Interesting that 8 of the 11 came from some new cover....old stand-bys haven't been producing.

Might have been a crappie tournament this morning.........2 crappie boats down my channel, a rarity of late. Not much catching for either boat if you believe what they were saying. Crappies hammered the bait when they bit, just didn't do it very often. Gill bite was more active, caught a few of them. Again, decent amount of shad action today.


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## jon84

The bite was very slow I did manage to catch 4 keepers with the biggest being 12.5in.


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## jon84

I did manage to catch a 21in pike also. I didn't even realize they had pike in the lake.


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## zaraspook

jon84 said:


> I did manage to catch a 21in pike also. I didn't even realize they had pike in the lake.


Pike that size are so much fun on a crappie rig! I caught a 22 inch in the spring and it cost me my 3rd cell phone in 3 years. Saw a 27" caught the week before mine. I usually get 1-2 each spring but never in fall......... yet! Nice going.


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## zaraspook

Weds evening at GLSM:
Good.........it was a day that included fishing
Bad...........water temp was 53.6 , up by 2+ degrees from last Sunday
Ugly...........3 hours produced a mere 7 crappies, of which 3 were identical 10.5" keepers. One spot produced 4 crappies. Another spot produced 3. Not a single bite at 5 other spots. Tough bite Wednesday.


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## zaraspook

Saturday 7th at GLSM, bank fishing.....arrived Friday night at 6pm but too dark to fish. Took water temp.....up to 56.8. Dropped to 54.6 Saturday morning when I got to wet a line at 9am. Found a few fish but only 2 keepers among first 7 in 2 hours. That would change later but first a few chores and lunch.

Back to fishing at 1:30pm, starting at one of only 2 pontoons remaining in the water. That was a good move........4 crappies in about 20 minutes under the toon, including 2 keepers of 10 and 11 inches. Next few spots were barren so ventured to the other available pontoon. Wow.......this was the honey hole for the day! In 20 minutes 6 fish, all keepers, smallest 10" and largest 12.5" and very fat . Stayed on that spot another 30 minutes without a hit.

Did a few more chores, watched some football, nearly missed a final session before dark. Enough time to hit one spot before dark, made the hike to a spot I hadn't tested all day. 20 minutes, 5 quick crappies, 3 keepers including 2 at 11" or better.

Tally for the day...22 crappies with 12 keepers. 10 of the last 15 fish were keepers. Tubes were best bait today. Pontoons held the most and biggest fish. Photo below of the 12.5".

View media item 78155


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## zaraspook

9:30 - 11:30 am was my final session for Sunday 8th crappie fishing at GLSM. Water temp was 52.8, almost 2 degree drop overnight, but sun today probably gains the 2 degrees back during the day. In comparison to last year, water temps were 51 by mid-October. Were running 3-4 weeks behind last year. I hit 8 spots, firing nothing but blanks at 6 places. Pulled 6 crappies, 4 keepers, from one pontoon while the other pontoon was a dry hole. Also pulled 6 crappies from another spot, mostly new cover, but prone to produce a high percentage of dinks. Only 2 keepers from it. None today over 11 inches. Today's total of 12 with 6 keepers fills out a decent day and a half at GLSM of 34 crappies with 18 keepers.

Tubes were again the winning bait. All but 4 weekend fish succumbed to 1/16th oz jig with "Lil Hustler" yellow head/body and chartreuse tail. That pontoon bite turned off like a light switch about 11am. Also, pontoons produced bigger fish....two-thirds of my keepers.


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## Greyduck

Hit the lake Sunday afternoon around 1. First spot yielded 2 keeper crappie both came off rocks. On to my second choice which gave up 5 . Only 2 keepers. I hit 15 or so docks there and all was pulled from the same dock. Third stop was a bust. A few hits but no hookups. Rushed back to my starting spot and got there around 430. The bite was good. Picked up some very nice crappie with the biggest at 13". Lost a big pig from lack-o-net... 1/64 chartreuse marabou seemed to be the hot ticket. All in all a great day


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> Hit the lake Sunday afternoon around 1. First spot yielded 2 keeper crappie both came off rocks. On to my second choice which gave up 5 . Only 2 keepers. I hit 15 or so docks there and all was pulled from the same dock. Third stop was a bust. A few hits but no hookups. Rushed back to my starting spot and got there around 430. The bite was good. Picked up some very nice crappie with the biggest at 13". Lost a big pig from lack-o-net... 1/64 chartreuse marabou seemed to be the hot ticket. All in all a great day


Did you go to the place you asked me if I went to?

I think fish are schooling up. Last couple months I'd catch one at most spots, rarely 2, and never more. Now if I get 1, more will follow, with as many as 6. However, most spots are dry holes, lots of shutouts at spots. How do you feel about it?

Haven't tried any marabou jigs lately. Need to work those into my rotation. Do you tip with meat?


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## Greyduck

I did hit that spot... caught the 5 under the one dock. That place can be hot and worth trying. 
I think they are starting to school up. I always take minnows with me. I will usually start tipping then if the bite is good I try without tipping. The other day I really don't think it mattered. If they were there they nailed it.


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## zaraspook

Finally GLSM water temp cracked into the 40's! Have been anxiously awaiting temp to slip below the 50's and was thrilled to read 48.3 at about 10 am Weds. I dinked around getting my pontoon taken out most of the mid-day.....didn't get to fish until about 1:30 and quickly discovered lower temps isn't a guarantee of an active crappie bite. Fishing buddy Scott and I pushed every button we could think of to catch 13 crappies between us and 4-5 keepers. While I was pretty much done by 4:30, Scott persevered another 1/2 hour. We found few bites and those we ran into were timid. My seawall easily produced the most fish....very rare although plenty of cover there. No crappie bigger than 10.5" today.

We also managed 5-6 gills, Scott caught a 10-11" LMB, and I caught a good sized bullhead. The only 2 pontoons left on nearby water each gave up 1 crappie........nothing like the multiples last weekend. Fish didn't like what we were selling, where we were selling it, and the way we were selling......period. Within a day or two the crappies should acclimate to cooler water temps and put on the feed bags. Hope I can locate them when it happens. Should be some good days in the very near future. Somebody's gonna put up some big numbers soon.

High winds in the forecast Thurs - Friday night........20-35mph with gusts 45-55 mph. Good timing to get my pontoon out of the water today!


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## zaraspook

Dredge baby, dredge! All time dredging record at GLSM is 302,000 cubic yards and established in 2013. No more. 360,000 cubic yards removed this year.......roughly 20% above 2013 mark. I believe dredging is still going.....original plan was to pump sludge up to Thanksgiving, weather permitting. Way to go State dredging crews!
I have 2 questions. 1) How much sludge is enough to say we are winning? 2) Regardless of how much sludge is removed, the pertinent metric is removal of phosphorus. How much phosphorus was removed?


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## Salmonid

I believe there is more pressure on the state to dredge for depth issues more so then any other reason but removing of phosphorites is secondary and state may be using grant money to appease whining landowners. Otherwise id think dredging would be to remove 1 ft of sediment over a greater portion of the lake. Just my honest opinion though. Funny how dredging is at creek mouths and also at high usage areas


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## zaraspook

Yes, does appear dredging schedule can be influenced by whining homeowners. Actually, dredging channels fed by creeks makes sense. Bulk of incoming phosphorus is from those southside creeks that meander through the watershed farmland. According to studies of all tributaries in Ohio, the worst two streams statewide for phosphorus and nitrate levels are Coldwater Creek and Big Chickasaw.

Fished from 2:30 - 4:30pm Friday. Water temp is down another couple degrees to 46.5. Crappies acted like they were frozen. Little cooperation. No bites other than a few infrequent gill pecks for the first hour plus. Finally ran into a few in the Valley of the Medusas. Caught 3 crappies, all keepers but very sluggish fighters. I need to downsize baits and and slowdown. I'll check it out tomorrow.


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## zaraspook

Another water temp drop......down to 44.8 Saturday morning 14th. Switched to lighter jig-heads and smaller profile plastics. It worked (for a while anyway), fished 2 sessions today, 9am-11:30 before Buckeye game and round 2 from 4-5pm after Buckeye game. First 45 minutes covered 2 spots,,,,,,,not a single bite let alone a fish. Finally caught a dink at 2nd spot......moved on to next spot despite getting the board. Sat on spot #3 for next hour and 45 minutes as I got into a decent bite. Pulled 11 from that area with 8 keepers between 10,5 and 12.5"........that was a nice run of better quality fish. First 3 crappies came on a crappie tube, yellow body with chartreuse tail, a pattern which has worked the best over the last 2-3 weeks. Odd.....never used that color combination before though it's been in my tackle box for 4-5 years. After those first 3 fish, the bite stalled so I switched to another rod already rigged with a shad body with stinger type tail.....clear body with multi-colored flecks. The shad body got the fish going again. Caught the next 8 in about an hour including the 12.5" below
View media item 78200Hated to stop but Buckeyes on soon, was hungry, and needed a pit stop really bad. After the game went back at it again, especially returning to the morning hot spot, but how quickly things change. Bite was like Friday evening....almost nothing. Caught only 2, one a nice 11 incher, but a struggle to find a bite anywhere.

Downsizing and slowing presentation was productive in the morning, but didn't help my evening session. 14 total today, 9 keepers, better bite today while it lasted, better quality fish.


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## harrison08

Awesome report Zara....Thats a dandy looking fish. I went to Rocky Fork on Sunday. My report is on that thread.


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## zaraspook

GLSM water temp Sunday-15th at noon was 46. Morning bite wasn't there at 10am as previous day....but fired up a bit at 11:30am for about an hour. Had only 2 dink fish before 11:30am, but added 5 in the next hour with 3 keepers among the 5. In final spot had 4 bigger fish on in 20 minutes, 2 of which tied me up in some heavy wood and were lost. The 2 landed were 10.5 and 11" and bite disappeared as fast as it turned on. Assume they were part of a school of like sized fish, on the move and I may have hit that spot at the tail end of the school. Before that flurry, I never caught more than a single from any spot, and fish were all dinks except for one. 

Another observation........bulk of Saturday's 14 fish were around a sizable dock. Not a single bite at that spot Sunday. Fish caught Sunday were all on wood/brush. My impression is bigger fish are schooled up. If you're fortunate enough to find a school, you can have some fun. Otherwise you catch a dink here and there, and will struggle. Also caught half a dozen gills each day. Size of gills is improving but wouldn't call them "big".

Total for weekend.....24 crappies with 15 keepers, biggest 12.5". However, required about 8 hours fishing time to get the 24........that's what I'd call a "grind".


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## zaraspook

Think I'll try GLSM crappie bite on Weds. Supposed to rain all day. It may take all day to catch a 1/2 dozen as rain and GLSM crappies don't seem to mix well. At least I'll have the entire lake to myself. Sooner or later I'll get into a school of bigger ones and fishing days are quickly slipping away on 2015 calendar.


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## zaraspook

Weds was not the day for finding a school of slabs at GLSM. Rained from the time I got there till time I departed. Wind was blustery 25-35+ mph. Skimpy results in both quantity and quality. Only landed 6 crappies with one barely legal, in 2.5 - 3 hours of fishing. Forgot to check water temp. Fall crappie bite has been a real bummer......November usually a big month. I've heard crappie guys at other lakes complaining, too. In my opinion water temps have been 3-4 weeks behind the last few years. My fingers are crossed we still get in some "normal" action before the hard water guys take over.


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## zaraspook

A buddy and I fished GLSM Friday. From 1-2:30 pm we caught a few and started to make adjustments. 2:30 -4pm things heated up and we ended with 12 keepers among 20 crappies caught. Biggest crappie was 11.5". We also caught 6-8 gills and a small bass. Water temp was 46.4 We're going at it again Saturday until Buckeye game starts.


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## bigmexican

zaraspook said:


> A buddy and I fished GLSM Friday. From 1-2:30 pm we caught a few and started to make adjustments. 2:30 -4pm things heated up and we ended with 12 keepers among 20 crappies caught. Biggest crappie was 11.5". We also caught 6-8 gills and a small bass. Water temp was 46.4 We're going at it again Saturday until Buckeye game starts.


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## bigmexican

Fished GLSM Saturday afternoon caught 32 keepers 9 1/2 to close to 13 ins.1 in..pink/white jigs heavy brush in deeper channels.


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## zaraspook

Bigmexican.....great results!  Interesting that you were using one-inch baits. We also found smaller profile to be the bait of choice, but ours were likely 1.5 inch. Fishing from about 12:30pm Saturday until 3pm, and a bit during 1/2 time of the OSU/MSU game, we had 9 keepers among 21 we caught. Actually, I caught 17 of the 21. Biggest was 12.5". Most of ours were off wood, not really heavy brush. Water temp was 45.1......down a degree + from the day before.

Not sure of the exact name of plastic bait I was using......either sexy shad or shad assassin maybe? Regardless of name, the body is a shad profile and tail a single stinger-like. Tail is approx 1/2 inch long. Color I used was not clear, more opaque body almost white, with black specks/flecks. 

Of the 41 crappies we caught Friday and Saturday, my buddy caught only 10. My buddy was using almost an identical plastic, but tail was perhaps a 1/4 inch longer than my bait. Also, my presentation of the jig was slower and more deliberate than his. I'd work every inch of a piece of cover multiple times, from multiple directions, at multiple depths, bumping every nook and cranny multiple times. Then I'd move, work another area for 10-15 minutes, and come back to the original spot for another work-over. Where my buddy invested 5 minutes at a spot, I fished it thoroughly for 10-15 minutes. In my mind I'm thinking these fish aren't chasing in 45 degree water.....if I don't get the bait within 3-4" of his nose from the right direction, he won't expend energy to come after my bait. Move the bait too fast and he'll decide "Nope....gotta work too hard to eat that thing. I'm staying put." Our baits were so similar, I think his success was limited due to tactics/presentation rather than bait.

And, no matter how well you think you did, chances are very high others did better, like bigmexican!


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## zaraspook

Realized earlier today (Tues) my mid-week fishing habit wouldn't be on the docket with Wednesday preparations for the Thursday Thanksgiving feast. Therefore, after steam cleaning carpets early Tuesday, I took a break and headed to GLSM to wet a line. Arrived at 1:30pm and had a line in the water within 15 minutes. First 45 minutes end with only 3 timid bites producing 1 dink crappie and a decent gill. The bait used successfully last weekend is not doing the trick. To switch plastics I head back to my place and while there decided to check the water temp off my seawall. 45 degrees last Saturday and 39.5 degrees Tuesday afternoon only 3 days later? Dang.......no wonder the bite is sluggish. Already fishing slow it looks like slower yet might be the ticket. Didn't really change baits, just changed colors. Bingo! Next 2 hours were fun producing a total of 15 crappies and 16 gills. Only 3 keepers among the crappies with biggest only 10.5". On the other hand 7-8 of the gills were keeper size. Gills were really active, like it was their "last supper". Though crappie size was disappointing, 30+ fish in about 2 hours is great activity, particularly with 39 degree water. While the sun was up, sun facing seawalls with any kind of cover held most of the gills.


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## zaraspook

Needed some R&R after a houseful of Thanksgiving Day company. Don't get me wrong....it was a good Thanksgiving, just needed to get in a few hours of crappie fishing to top it all off. Made it to GLSM at 1:30 pm Friday, Line wet within 15 minutes and 3 hours later "mission accomplished". Fishing started slow requiring an adjustment of baits, but picked up after that. First hole produced 4 crappies on wood, 2 keepers including one that wouldn't quite stretch to the 12" mark. Next hole is a series of PVC crappie attractors........no action on the PVC nor at a wooden dock nearby. Quick break, another bait change, and then on to another spot with a bit of wood. Slow there but I persist, fishing it thoroughly and after 40 minutes finally coax 3 crappies out from their cover......2 more keepers. Almost 2 hours into it now.......only 7 crappies with 4 keepers. My seawall has some wood so test that area.....lose a good one there but it was the only bite. Decide to return to the first spot where I'd caught 4 earlier. This time around 4 more crappies, all keepers 10.5-11" fish. By now the low light is dimming fast. Time to return to my seawall and try to get 2 more keepers to end the day with 10. Fishing gods cooperate this day.........2 more keepers caught while 2 more come unzipped, including one which would have been the day's biggest. 

In 3 hours my total of 13 crappies (plus 2 gills) isn't great, but 10 keepers 10-12" is a good number and fantastic percentage. Checked the water temp at dark......was 46.4 degrees compared to 39.4 degrees on Tuesday. I'm at a loss to explain how water temp rose 7 degrees from earlier in the week. All fish caught on shad-like plastic bodies with short tail. Most fish caught on multi-colored plastics that included red. Fish put up a healthier fight than on Tuesday.....pretty spunky and all were black crappies getting mighty fat.

Despite rain the entire 3 hours, you could see a respectable level of shad activity. They were larger ones breaking surface. Also, water clarity is improving, green is fading.


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## bigmexican

zaraspook said:


> Needed some R&R after a houseful of Thanksgiving Day company. Don't get me wrong....it was a good Thanksgiving, just needed to get in a few hours of crappie fishing to top it all off. Made it to GLSM at 1:30 pm Friday, Line wet within 15 minutes and 3 hours later "mission accomplished". Fishing started slow requiring an adjustment of baits, but picked up after that. First hole produced 4 crappies on wood, 2 keepers including one that wouldn't quite stretch to the 12" mark. Next hole is a series of PVC crappie attractors........no action on the PVC nor at a wooden dock nearby. Quick break, another bait change, and then on to another spot with a bit of wood. Slow there but I persist, fishing it thoroughly and after 40 minutes finally coax 3 crappies out from their cover......2 more keepers. Almost 2 hours into it now.......only 7 crappies with 4 keepers. My seawall has some wood so test that area.....lose a good one there but it was the only bite. Decide to return to the first spot where I'd caught 4 earlier. This time around 4 more crappies, all keepers 10.5-11" fish. By now the low light is dimming fast. Time to return to my seawall and try to get 2 more keepers to end the day with 10. Fishing gods cooperate this day.........2 more keepers caught while 2 more come unzipped, including one which would have been the day's biggest.
> 
> In 3 hours my total of 13 crappies (plus 2 gills) isn't great, but 10 keepers 10-12" is a good number and fantastic percentage. Checked the water temp at dark......was 46.4 degrees compared to 39.4 degrees on Tuesday. I'm at a loss to explain how water temp rose 7 degrees from earlier in the week. All fish caught on shad-like plastic bodies with short tail. Most fish caught on multi-colored plastics that included red. Fish put up a healthier fight than on Tuesday.....pretty spunky and all were black crappies getting mighty fat.
> 
> Despite rain the entire 3 hours, you could see a respectable level of shad activity. They were larger ones breaking surface. Also, water clarity is improving, green is fading.


Fished GLSM Sat. Morning for around an hour caught 7 keepers 10- 11.5 inches.Went again Sat. Afternoon 3 to 4:30.Two of us caught around 20 to 25 keepers 9.5 -12.5 inches.Fished 16 inches deep around brush.Used 1in. Pink and white tubes and 1.5 in white split tails.Most of the bites seemed to be when the bait was not moving.


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## zaraspook

Bigmexican.......great report. Way to get 'em!


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## zaraspook

Coldwater Creek treatment train.......ahead of schedule. The whole idea behind the Coldwater Creek project is to return it to the original wetlands state......lots of cattails and lily pads and a great natural filter. If you fish GLSM, why should you care? Because of all "tributaries" in Ohio that feed into the water shed for Lake Erie or the Ohio River watershed, the number 1, nastiest polluter of nitrates and phosphorus is Coldwater Creek. That's 1st place on a list you don't want to be on at all.

Rather than flowing directly into GLSM and adding to contamination woes, 4 million gallons a day will be pumped into the new wetlands. From there Mother Nature works her magic, filters the yucky stuff and robs GLSM algae of nutrients. #2 on the State's list of worst nitrates/phosphorus tribs is also a GLSM tributary......Big Chickasaw Creek. Big Chickasaw is on the list for remediation in the not too distant future.

Celina Daily Standard newspaper article about Colwater Creek project is at this link http://dailystandard.com/archive/20...oldwater-creek-treatment-train-making-headway


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## zaraspook

Sunday from 2-30pm to 4:45pm. Caught 12 crappies but it was dink city! Not a single keeper until the 11th fish made it on bank. It was 11.75". Couldn't find decent fish though I tried lots of cover, depths, and baits. Also, 3 gills. About 1/2 of crappies caught on pink/white color combo. Others were on some variation of a red pattern.

Water temp was 42.2 degrees. The only keeper was caught "out" 15' into the channel, but couldn't replicate it. Others were within 3-4' of bank.


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## bigmexican

zaraspook said:


> Sunday from 2-30pm to 4:45pm. Caught 12 crappies but it was dink city! Not a single keeper until the 11th fish made it on bank. It was 11.75". Couldn't find decent fish though I tried lots of cover, depths, and baits. Also, 3 gills. About 1/2 of crappies caught on pink/white color combo. Others were on some variation of a red pattern.
> 
> Water temp was 42.2 degrees. The only keeper was caught "out" 15' into the channel, but couldn't replicate it. Others were within 3-4' of bank.


Zaraspook I had about the same results as you Sunday afternoon.Fished the same area that I've been doing well for the last couple weeks and only caught 6 or 7. The size was way down. Maybe 3 were keepers and the largest being only 9.5 inches. Hoping for better results later this week.


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## zaraspook

bigmexican said:


> Zaraspook I had about the same results as you Sunday afternoon.Fished the same area that I've been doing well for the last couple weeks and only caught 6 or 7. The size was way down. Maybe 3 were keepers and the largest being only 9.5 inches. Hoping for better results later this week.


bigmexican.... this time of year when fish are schooling you can find them away from bank and away from cover. My guess is they are chasing bait fish and don't care where they are. Trick is finding them. Every spot you fish near bank, invest some casts out in middle of channel. If you catch one throw several more times out in the same general area. If you are on a school you may catch at a rate of one every other cast for several hours without moving 10 feet on bank. Sometimes the school can stretch 75-80' wide. Fish are usually the bigger ones. Hard to find the schools but when it happens it's magical. I usually find them 2-3 times each fall but hasn't happened yet this season. Have to work out beyond the cover and hope you get lucky.


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## zaraspook

Caught 25 fish Weds at GLSM. Most proud of this one (photo below) despite only a 9 incher. Can you identify?
View media item 78221
Yes, Virginia, proof the critters actually exist and are catchable in GLSM. Hoping I was on a school of them I worked the area from which this one came for more than another hour. It didn't happen.....no others caught. Released him with instructions to bring family and friends with him the next time.


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## Greyduck

Nice catch zara.... was the bigger crappie participating yesterday? Saturday is looking good for a trip up.


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## zaraspook

So here's the scoop on Weds afternoon. Fishing partner Scott and I fished for a good 4 hours. Pretty much a slow bite although when you had a hit there was no doubt the crappies weren't shy about eating the bait. After 90 minutes we'd caught 11 crappies, among them 4-5 legal, biggest 11". We took a break to warm up, assessed that all fish were caught on wood and most fish caught on baits at least partially white. We both rigged 2nd rods with different baits........I went bigger and Scott went much smaller. Catch pace remained about the same as earlier, until Scott began using the small bait rig. Over the next 60-90 minutes, Scott easily caught 20 crappies and an equal number of gills (we'd both been catching gills regularly but not at the crazy rate he was into). While Scott's catch rate went out of site, my catch rate went backwards, fewer fish, until I downsized baits, too.

When we quit Scott said he caught 25 crappies, but lost count. I think he was closer to 30 but he didn't want to make me feel bad. He caught at least 20 gills to boot. In my case I had 17 crappies caught, 9-10 gills, and of course the single perch pictured in my previous post. I'd caught 7 legal crappies, Scott the same number and had the biggest 11". 42 crappies is a decent December day even if only 14 were legal. Add on the 30 gills and the action was pretty good. Easily could have kept at least 10 of the gills......some nice ones in the mix. And me, I was totally content after catching my first perch since 2012.
By the way Weds water temp was 41.1 degrees, down 1 from last Sunday.


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## zaraspook

Saturday was a sequel to last Weds. Caught same number of crappies...17. Fewer keepers today.....4. Other than the first 20 minutes today when the first 3 fish were keepers, the bite was tough to find. Also caught 10 gills and a small bass. Would have preferred to catch a perch again than the bass.

Water temp today was 39.3.....down 2 from Weds. Just a ho-hum kind of day...could have been worse, could have been better. I've seen more people fishing the last 2 weeks than than anytime in the last 5 months. Rumors have it that more anglers claim to be catching a few perch in channels, plus occasional reports of perch catches in numbers from main lake. Will be interesting to see perch results this winter from hardwater guys.


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## Greyduck

Good report Zara. I got up to the lake at 2. Hit my usual spot wgen bank fishing. Brought hone 8 nice keepers. The biggest was 13". The rest in the 11 to 12 range. Bait store was closed so it was straight jigs. Chartreuse 1/64 produced the best till i lost it on a pig. Funny thing was a few hours later i seen my float swim by the brush i was fishing. Bite was gone way before sun set though. Caught a few dinks, gills and 2 largemouths.


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## zaraspook

Different day (Sunday) but basically same report. Actually, I felt the crappie bite was better Sunday, but couldn't get a 3rd round at one of my better spots.......that homeowner had a gang of company. Best not to bug them when they are there in exchange for fishing privileges. An hour at the first spot produced 6 crappies, 4 of them keepers (10-11") and well-fed. Had 3 other keepers at this spot come unzipped, part of the price you pay when go to lighter jigheads and smaller hooks on them. Got 3 fish and 1 keeper at next spot ....bite wasn't the same here. Next spot was a skunk so returned to starting point to pickup 2 more fish, one keeper. First 2 hours produced 11 crappies with 6 keepers before lunch time.

After lunch I managed 2 more short fishing bursts between chores. No keepers and only 4 crappies. Bites were few and far between in the afternoon. Best bite was before 11am Sunday and water temp 39.2. Like Greyduck I was using 1/64 oz jig.....plastics with red on them caught more fish and bigger fish than other colors. No perch today.


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## boober54

Need some help fellas. What bait store at Grand Lake sells minnies. Thanks Ken


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## Greyduck

boober54 said:


> Need some help fellas. What bait store at Grand Lake sells minnies. Thanks Ken


if you are on the st marys side the outdoorsman does. thats about the only place i find that has regulat hours.


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## zaraspook

Like Greyduck said, the Outdoorsman which is on SR 364 just south of traffic light at SR364 and SR703. Also, on SR703 just west of that same traffic light, there is a bait place that sells minnows. Don't know the name.....white building on south side of SR703. 

Not sure of this but Outdoorsman hours this time of year are something like 8am to 4pm daily. Closed Sundays. The 2nd place seems to have better hours but don't know what they are. Google says 2nd place is called Grand Lake Bait & Tackle.


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## boober54

Thanks fellas I know where the Outdoorsman is at and thanks for the help...Ken


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## zaraspook

Plan to GLSM crappie fish later today - weds. Guessing water temps are heading up with recent weather. We'll see how temps ticking up effect the bite.


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## zaraspook

Weds 1-5pm GLSM fishing with buddy Scott today. Hit our first spot, and should add my hottest spot lately, to start. Wasn't productive but not a surprise as one of my neighbors sat on that single spot for a solid 2 hours before we got there. More on that topic later. No fish from first spot so Scott took a quick stop back to my house before hitting our next target. While waiting for him I dunked my jig/plastic in an area that rarely produces. I pulled 8 crappies from that unplanned stop and Scott 3 more, plus we got a few gills, before we moved to the original target. Original target turned out to be a bust.......hmmm, fish aren't where we expect and are where we don't expect? Before moving on, I drop a cast in another area rarely fished......nice keeper within 2 minutes, a few more bites, a couple gills. Again, fish aren't where we expect them to be!

That was our Weds pattern......rarely caught fish from any normal location. None of the productive baits/colors from last 2-3 weeks worked. Use smaller baits, work them s-l-o-w, keep your bait on or near the bottom, and forget about fishing anything within 8' of bank (totally non-productive). Pretty sure all our crappies came 10-13 feet out from a bank. Some were around cover, but only if fished 3- 4' out beyond the cover and 10-13' from bank. Crappies are schooled, out in the channels 10'+ from banks, and hard to find but if you locate one there are probably classmates roaming the same area. Make random casts into open water.......sooner or later you should find 'em.

We caught 30 crappies, 20+ gills, and Scott caught his first GLSM perch (9.5 inches). That was very cool and I was probably more excited than him! Only 6 crappies were keepers(10" or better by our definition). Scott took home the 6 keeper crappies, 2-3 gills (didn't decide to keep any gills until late in the excursion), and the GLSM perch he caught.

Back to my neighbor who fished one of my best holes for 2 hours.........the neighbor is a gill guy. He caught over 100 gills (2/3's of them from that hole). In his bucket he had 15-20 keeper gills and a 10.5" perch. While chatting with him, he landed another perch at 7.5". No crappies landed for him though he hooked into a couple crappies that unzipped while we spoke. Neighbor related that on Tuesday he kept 25 gills, caught and kept 6 perch, the biggest of which was 11.5".

Perch are hungry at GLSM! Don't expect perch numbers now to be as good as in future years, but the tasty critters are being caught. Since perch stocking began 3 years ago, this is the first class likely have grown to a catchable length. Bite should only get better in next few years for perch. Ones caught in my channel are coming from 3-4' of water. Ice guys are gonna have fun when it's their turn. Water temp today was 41.1 and up 2 degrees from last Sunday. We had a good time and managed to catch a few nice fish along the way.


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## Greyduck

good report Zara.. I am going to hit the lake early Saturday. thinking I will fish all day. going to start from the bank then put the boat in mid morning. i have a few drop offs i want to try. i am thinking those crappies might be schooled there.


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## Greyduck

zara if you got a perch bite going on in your spot. try a piece of nightcrawler on the bottom or just off the bottom. thats how we caught them years ago there.


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## zaraspook

Around my place I'm only aware of 10 perch caught so far, probably others I don't know about. 8 of those by one guy who is now fishing everyday since gills are feeding like crazy. He uses 1/64 oz jig, under bobber, tiny plastic no more than an inch long, and always tips with wax worms. He's fishing 3-6" off the bottom targeting gills but running into perch. My fishing buddy caught his single perch on minnow, under bobber, fished at a depth of about 3' in 3.5-4' of water. My single perch came while crappie fishing 1/32 oz jig, small twister tail that's maybe1.5" and fished within a couple inches of bottom in 3-3.5' of water. I think you're correct that the perch like some meat on the hook, at least that's what we're seeing.


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## zaraspook

Fished Friday afternoon with first line wet at 3:15 pm. Air temp was 57 and water temp up almost another 2 degrees from Weds at 42.8. I had 8 spots on my game plan, but if pattern of last 10-14 days holds true, fish aren't on cover and could be anywhere. It's a game of "hide and seek".

I have 2 rods baited with the best baits from last Weds as I tackle first target. Both are busts.......not a peck of a bite after a 25-minute session. 20 minutes into the next area yields one bump, one crappie that stretched the tape all the way to the 5" mark. Yuck. Despite an awful start, optimism is still high during tne hike to next area.....it produced 11 of the 20 crappies I got Weds and hope the school is still there or near by. Looked empty after 8 casts but finally a bump, short run, hook set and a 10" keeper is on the bank. Repeated that process 12 more times to pull 13 from that school that stretched over a 30' area. Hookup rate was terrible, I hooked no more than a third of the hits and most fish really weren't eating the bait. Halfway thru my hour at the single spot I changed to the other rod and bait. Crappies were inhaling the 2nd bait and hookup rate became 60-70% Most important with that bait......first cast I catch a 9" perch! That's GLSM perch #2 for 2015 and I know there will be more.....I'm thrilled! Spent a successful hour at this spot, but at best now have only 15 minutes of fishable light. Despite still getting bites I hustle to target area 4. Move didn't pan out.......not a nibble.

14 crappies of which 5 were keepers for the 2-hours. Bonus was the perch.. All but one fish came from one school. I guess it's a good sign when you don't make it to all the spots in your plan. All fish 8-15' out in the channel, small baits. light jigs,fish slow and just off the bottom. Nice to be fishing on December 11 the of any year.


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## harrison08

Another great report! Keep up the good work!


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## zaraspook

Saturday 12th at GLSM. A friend was supposed to join me by 9:30am, was 2 hours late. Rather than miss the morning bite I started without him. Hot spot from day before was barren......one short crappie caught, 2 bites. The other bite was a 8-9" perch that dropped off as it was lifted from the water. Next 2 spots that can be productive weren't............no fish, no bites that I remember. Moved to another area I didn't hit Friday. At least some fish were there and could be coaxed into biting. Managed 11 more crappies in an hour here but only 2 keepers. 
My fishing accomplice arrived at 11:30am. Didn't know then that the best catching of the day was already done. We fished at least more hours and for our labor caught only 5 crappies! Zero for him - 5 graced land from my jig. A sole bright spot, 3 of those 5 were keepers. Some of the time lapse was filled by 1/2 dozen gills, but even the gills were preoccupied, playing games other than cat and mouse with anglers. 
As much as I preached the last couple weeks about fish not really relating to cover, just out there in random areas, it wasn't the case Saturday. For the most part our catches were all near cover, still out 6 feet or more, not close in. 
Saturday water temp......47.6 degrees compared to 42.8 on Friday. Very probable +5 degrees played a role in absence of a bite. 17 crappies was the total Saturday.......5 keepers, plus 1/2 dozen gills. No perch Saturday other than the near-miss that plopped-off my jig before hitting shore.
Highlight of Saturday was meeting Bigmexican. Turns out we met previously, before duck season started. A friend and I were fishing from my boat, he passed by in his boat, we exchanged greetings but I didn't know then his identity as "bigmexican". As me/friend were getting skunked at a fishing spot Saturday, he stopped by and introduced himself. BigMex, a pleasure to meet you. Keep the posts coming! It's great to be able to exchange crappie tactics/results with others and you've had lots of good info to pass along! Don't be a stranger, fella.


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## Greyduck

I hit the lake early saturday morning. I left the boat at home and planned on targeting one area most of the day. Jig fish and float minnies out from the bank to search for schooling fish. I get to the spot at 7:10 only to find 3 fishing it already. 
Turned out to be a blessing. I stayed at the spot but targeted the rocks instead of brush. The morning bite was prety good. The hook up rate was not good though. Ended with 16 over 10". 13" was the best of the day. Only had about 10 dinks and a few of those were over 9. 
What amazed me the most was the bluegills. I didnt count. But the count had to be well over 150. Some was pushing keeper size. just a very enjoyable relaxing day. 
The talk of the day was ....you should of been here yesterday. I think thats why zara's report on friday was so good.


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## harrison08

Father and I headed to GLSM Sunday in search of some December crappie. We got to the lake about 7:45 and pulled up to our first spot. Following some of Zaraspooks advice, I cast my jig well beyond any bank structure. Almost instantly, float down! I wrangle up a nice 11-11 1/2" crappie. A few casts later in the general area...boom, down again. Another 11". Ended up fishing another 30 minutes or so in that spot only to manage one more fish (10"). Went to a spot down the road a bit and picked up five more keepers and a few dinks. We made the move to the north side of the lake.

We hit a public area with docks and saw one man fishing. He said that he had picked up a few, but they were small. Not the report we wanted to hear. We grab our respective rods and head to walk the docks. A hit here and there, catching a dink or two.....looked like we were in for the same scenario as the gentleman already fishing the docks. With an adventure to the last dock, things turned around quickly. Fishing just a foot to foot and a half deep, I proceeded to catch 12 or so keepers from a single dock. I can not count the number of hookups and unintentional releases that I had. My dad continued to walk the docks totaling about the same number of keepers. Action slowed and we decided to make a move. 

Harmons produced just one crappie, which was a nice keeper. We, then, decided to complete our lap around the lake and finish back at the second spot we hit. Dad and I hit a mini-honeyhole which produced 8 keepers and several dinks very quickly. This spot was 4-5 feet from the bank about 18" deep. Knowing that we had an 1:30 drive home, we called it quits about 3:00.

The total for the day was exactly 40 keepers. Crappies were very thick and healthy! All came on jigs under an ice float. He is a pic of a few before the filet knife!


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## zaraspook

Excellent, Harrison! Great results for you and your Dad. Photo shows some real chunks for the skillet. What was length of the biggest for the day? Any perch among your haul?


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## harrison08

zaraspook said:


> Excellent, Harrison! Great results for you and your Dad. Photo shows some real chunks for the skillet. What was length of the biggest for the day? Any perch among your haul?


No Perch for the day at all. Only caught 2-3 gills as well. We had a few that were right in the 11 3/4 to 12" range. The bite was funny. Some would hit and ease the float down. Some would inhale the jig and lay it on its side. Other times, I actually had to lift the float off the water and feel for the crappies to hit the jig, or see the line swimming away. Some of the spots, I thought I was getting bluegill bites. You know, the tap...tap...tap...and come up with a rubber tail pulled down off the jig. That is when I would raise the float out of the water and watch the line swim away. At first, I was expecting only small crappies to hit that way. But when I set the hook, I knew they were good fish. 

All fish we caught on 2" tails.


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## rutty

I fished Grand Lake on Sunday from a boat and ended with 25 keepers and a bunch of short fish and bluegill. Fish were caught on jigs 1.5-2 ft deep on Pink, purple, and white jigs. Almost all fish were caught on rocks.


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## Greyduck

Thats the same bite I had saturday harrison. They really liked the bait being pulled not jigged.


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## zaraspook

Both rutty and Greyduck did well with the crappies on rocks last Saturday. No rock or rip-rap in my neighborhood but I'll keep that in mind next time when I'm struggling. A change of cover might have been all it took. Were both/either of you using plastics Saturday or live bait?


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## harrison08

zaraspook said:


> Both rutty and Greyduck did well with the crappies on rocks last Saturday. No rock or rip-rap in my neighborhood but I'll keep that in mind next time when I'm struggling. A change of cover might have been all it took. Were both/either of you using plastics Saturday or live bait?










Bobby Garland in Electric Chicken 2"


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## Tom 513

harrison08 said:


> No Perch for the day at all. Only caught 2-3 gills as well. We had a few that were right in the 11 3/4 to 12" range. The bite was funny. Some would hit and ease the float down. Some would inhale the jig and lay it on its side. Other times, I actually had to lift the float off the water and feel for the crappies to hit the jig, or see the line swimming away. Some of the spots, I thought I was getting bluegill bites. You know, the tap...tap...tap...and come up with a rubber tail pulled down off the jig. That is when I would raise the float out of the water and watch the line swim away. At first, I was expecting only small crappies to hit that way. But when I set the hook, I knew they were good fish.
> 
> All fish we caught on 2" tails.


You mentioned how funny the bite was, I experianced the same thing yesterday spider rigging minnows at Acton, I use 14ft poles layed just about horizontally, I watch the tips of the poles, normally a Crappie will pull them down, then You lift the pole to set the hook, yesterday I was getting quick taps, at first I thought they were Bluegills and I did my best to set the hook but most of the time it resulted in no catch and this went on all day, I also thought it may be because the minnows were larger than I normally use, the Crappie I did catch were on the larger side for that lake, but the larger ones would commit to taking the bait. I am guessing December fish are just lathargic and wont use much energy to chase a meal.


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> View attachment 199140
> Bobby Garland in Electric Chicken 2"


I use Bobby Garland baits frequently in spring and fall. Love them and have 1/2 dozen color variations. Last couple weeks crappies seemed to bump them but not eat them. I bit off 1/2 the tail, made it stubby tailed, and bites picked up. I found some other baits with shad profile and shorter tail that worked better. Like Tom 513 said about his minnows being too large, I felt like crappies saw Garlands as too large. Part of it could be because I'm running into lots of dink crappies.


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## rutty

zaraspook said:


> Both rutty and Greyduck did well with the crappies on rocks last Saturday. No rock or rip-rap in my neighborhood but I'll keep that in mind next time when I'm struggling. A change of cover might have been all it took. Were both/either of you using plastics Saturday or live bait?


I used all plastics, as mentioned Pink, white, and purple were the hottest for me. I make my own, but they are similar to the southern pro stingers 2 inch. I could not get a bite on brush, dock poles, lifts or anything. they were all on rocks.


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## Tom 513

Ive had very good luck with most all of the Bobby Garand products, I can remember 2 days this past year when that electric chicken color was what worked best. Do any of You guys use Crappie nibbles? if not You should try them when the bite gets slow, I used them along with Minnows Sunday, but as Zaraspook had mentioned I think they really wanted a smaller profile bait. There is a science to Crappie fishing You know!


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## rutty

Tom 513 said:


> Ive had very good luck with most all of the Bobby Garand products, I can remember 2 days this past year when that electric chicken color was what worked best. Do any of You guys use Crappie nibbles? if not You should try them when the bite gets slow, I used them along with Minnows Sunday, but as Zaraspook had mentioned I think they really wanted a smaller profile bait. There is a science to Crappie fishing You know!


I also use the Bobby Garland Baby Shad, my favorite color and go to bait is Purple Mist........and yes crappie nibbles are a must!!!!! I have at least 1 pack of every color they make and absolutely love the product.


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## harrison08

rutty said:


> I also use the Bobby Garland Baby Shad, my favorite color and go to bait is Purple Mist........and yes crappie nibbles are a must!!!!! I have at least 1 pack of every color they make and absolutely love the product.


I do not use crappie nibbles. I have heard that in stained water they will draw more results. The only time that I used them, bullheads attacked my bait! I prefer light jigs, ice float, and Electric Chicken. We also use "stubby butts" from Bass Pro as well.


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## zaraspook

Great discussion, guys! Rare for me to tip, but here's a new one for you. I like Gulp minnow products when fishing for other species, not crappies. I cut a sliver off a 3" Gulp Alive minnow, cut it into cubes around the size of Crappie Nibbles. Tipped a cube on a plastic bait/jig. First cast I caught a perch! Just something I'm playing with........not enough data to draw any conclusions yet.


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## Salmonid

Rande. Perch are meat eaters so it would be rare yo take one on straight plastic. We get them all the time on ice jigs but always tipped with meat. Either minnows,heads,spikes or waxies


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## rutty

The trick to the crappie nibbles are to dry them out before use. You will catch 5 fish on 1 nibble then instead of losing it every cast because a bluegill sucked it off. I just bought 80 cans that will last me a year or 2. I put them on a cookie sheet with aluminum foil, then put a fan on them. I test them from time to time to get them right for me. I like them when I can barely get them on the hook because they are so hard. After dried you can fit 2-3 cans into 1 jar.


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## zaraspook

rutty said:


> The trick to the crappie nibbles are to dry them out before use. You will catch 5 fish on 1 nibble then instead of losing it every cast because a bluegill sucked it off. I just bought 80 cans that will last me a year or 2. I put them on a cookie sheet with aluminum foil, then put a fan on them. I test them from time to time to get them right for me. I like them when I can barely get them on the hook because they are so hard. After dried you can fit 2-3 cans into 1 jar.


Great tip, rutty!


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## killingtime

Hey spook go to M&K Baits on Facebook and look at the crappie baits this guy makes. He is from New Knoxville close to St. Mary's. I use them and do really good with them. He fishes grand lake all the time and he can fix you up with what you need.


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## zaraspook

Friend Scott and I tried our luck today(Weds). Started just before noon. After first hour and half we were scratching our heads, had only caught 4-5 crappies by then, and all dinks. Any cover we hit or open casting into the channel produced only infrequent bites and usually gills. We were running short of options and started talking about leaving my channel to find some rock/rip-rap, but persevered.....still had 2 options left in the bag. Scott attacked one of those areas and I took the other. No good results from Scott, but after 10-15 minutes I located 3-4 fish in quick succession, at least 2 of those decent keepers in 10"-11" range. Scott decided to join me. 
We stayed on that spot for 60 minutes of great action and another 30 minutes of dwindling returns. Of the 45+ crappies we caught 90% came from that single spot. All but one of our 22 keepers crappies were pulled from that same area. Scott took the biggest at 12.75" and had 12 keepers. I caught more crappies 24, but only 10 keepers plus the single gill in the photo. We never did go looking for rock to fish. 

View media item 78257
Amazing how a day can change from total frustration to a great outing in an hour or so. That's fall fishing for crappies......find a school and have fun. Don't find a school......empty bucket. We did have one rod with a minnow on it all day. No perch. No crappies on it either. Just a gill. Water temp was 45.6 today, down 2 degrees from Saturday. We had a good time.


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## zaraspook

killingtime said:


> Hey spook go to M&K Baits on Facebook and look at the crappie baits this guy makes. He is from New Knoxville close to St. Mary's. I use them and do really good with them. He fishes grand lake all the time and he can fix you up with what you need.


Those look sweet!


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## Tom 513

Congrats to a good day Zara, I found smaller minnows and was able to drive to the lake mid afternoon to find stiff winds and white caps, now I have 3 or 4 dozen minnows of different sizes and no place to go. I may try a local public lake I got info on today


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## rutty

zaraspook said:


> Friend Scott and I tried our luck today(Weds). Started just before noon. After first hour and half we were scratching our heads, had only caught 4-5 crappies by then, and all dinks. Any cover we hit or open casting into the channel produced only infrequent bites and usually gills. We were running short of options and started talking about leaving my channel to find some rock/rip-rap, but persevered.....still had 2 options left in the bag. Scott attacked one of those areas and I took the other. No good results from Scott, but after 10-15 minutes I located 3-4 fish in quick succession, at least 2 of those decent keepers in 10"-11" range. Scott decided to join me.
> We stayed on that spot for 60 minutes of great action and another 30 minutes of dwindling returns. Of the 45+ crappies we caught 90% came from that single spot. All but one of our 22 keepers crappies were pulled from that same area. Scott took the biggest at 12.75" and had 12 keepers. I caught more crappies 24, but only 10 keepers plus the single gill in the photo. We never did go looking for rock to fish.
> 
> View media item 78257
> Amazing how a day can change from total frustration to a great outing in an hour or so. That's fall fishing for crappies......find a school and have fun. Don't find a school......empty bucket. We did have one rod with a minnow on it all day. No perch. No crappies on it either. Just a gill. Water temp was 45.6 today, down 2 degrees from Saturday. We had a good time.


Great fishing! I will be down on Saturday to fight the cold again in search of those fall/winter crappie. Love this time of year. Few boats on the water and few shore anglers.


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## rutty

zaraspook said:


> Friend Scott and I tried our luck today(Weds). Started just before noon. After first hour and half we were scratching our heads, had only caught 4-5 crappies by then, and all dinks. Any cover we hit or open casting into the channel produced only infrequent bites and usually gills. We were running short of options and started talking about leaving my channel to find some rock/rip-rap, but persevered.....still had 2 options left in the bag. Scott attacked one of those areas and I took the other. No good results from Scott, but after 10-15 minutes I located 3-4 fish in quick succession, at least 2 of those decent keepers in 10"-11" range. Scott decided to join me.
> We stayed on that spot for 60 minutes of great action and another 30 minutes of dwindling returns. Of the 45+ crappies we caught 90% came from that single spot. All but one of our 22 keepers crappies were pulled from that same area. Scott took the biggest at 12.75" and had 12 keepers. I caught more crappies 24, but only 10 keepers plus the single gill in the photo. We never did go looking for rock to fish.
> 
> View media item 78257
> Amazing how a day can change from total frustration to a great outing in an hour or so. That's fall fishing for crappies......find a school and have fun. Don't find a school......empty bucket. We did have one rod with a minnow on it all day. No perch. No crappies on it either. Just a gill. Water temp was 45.6 today, down 2 degrees from Saturday. We had a good time.


What color were you using?


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## zaraspook

rutty said:


> What color were you using?


Partner was using red. For me it was a green(almost chartreuse)/white combo. These colors didn't work pink/white, red/white, opaque white with flecks. Should clarify that nothing worked until we found the school and it's possible anything would have worked once we were on fish. Good luck!


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## Greyduck

Great catch Zara.. I ate a mess last night from Saturdays catch... really good eats! 
Last Saturday I tried the gulp chartreuse and white minnows. Very good results on a slow day. Probably why I caught all those gills though. I try to keep my baits small. 1/32 is about c as big as I fish with. I usually tip with minnies. If you use a minnow he will let you know if something is eyeing him up. Kinda let's you know they are there but tight lipped.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> Great catch Zara.. I ate a mess last night from Saturdays catch... really good eats!
> Last Saturday I tried the gulp chartreuse and white minnows. Very good results on a slow day. Probably why I caught all those gills though. I try to keep my baits small. 1/32 is about c as big as I fish with. I usually tip with minnies. If you use a minnow he will let you know if something is eyeing him up. Kinda let's you know they are there but tight lipped.


Greyduck......did you catch all those fish last Saturday on the chartreuse/white Gulp minnows? Also, what size Gulp did you use? When I read you tried Gulp, it reminded me that the first perch I caught in GLSM, back in 2012 before they started this stocking thing, was on a Gulp minnow.


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## zaraspook

Fall draw down is apparently over with. Even though I never read anything about a draw down starting the water level seemed to be falling 2" every week. Must have started around Thanksgiving........7 inches was the target. Bigmexican said he was at spillway last Saturday, no flow at that time so tubes/pipes must have been closed. Now is an easy time to spot cover, old and new, for spring crappie fishing.


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## Greyduck

Yes Zara... chartreuse and white. They were 1" with no tip. I am convinced that the smaller the bait the bigger the fish at Grand lake. I catch very few dinks. I have no clue why. But it just seem to work for us. 
There was one thing for sure the gills loved them. I had bought that jar to perch fish when I went to the boundary waters last summer. But the walleye and smallmouth kept us to busy to try for perch.


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## harrison08

zaraspook said:


> Fall draw down is apparently over with. Even though I never read anything about a draw down starting the water level seemed to be falling 2" every week. Must have started around Thanksgiving........7 inches was the target. Bigmexican said he was at spillway last Saturday, no flow at that time so tubes/pipes must have been closed. Now is an easy time to spot cover, old and new, for spring crappie fishing.


The tubes were wide open Sunday! Tons of water flowing down the spillway!


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> The tubes were wide open Sunday! Tons of water flowing down the spillway!


Crap!!!! Water's less than 2' deep off my seawall now. Sorry to hear water still flowing. I'm ticked off.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> Yes Zara... chartreuse and white. They were 1" with no tip. I am convinced that the smaller the bait the bigger the fish at Grand lake. I catch very few dinks. I have no clue why. But it just seem to work for us.
> There was one thing for sure the gills loved them. I had bought that jar to perch fish when I went to the boundary waters last summer. But the walleye and smallmouth kept us to busy to try for perch.


Perch will eat those 1" Gulp, too, if around.


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## zaraspook

Got to fish GLSM at about 2 today/Friday. Dang cold, wind was nasty, snow flurries at times heavy enough I couldn't see bobber. 45 minutes into it needed to warm up, go inside, make some coffee. Might have felt colder than it was since I only caught 2 crappies and both were dinks. Next session lasted an hour.....easier to handle the cold when you're catching them. Caught 16 with 10 keepers in some very fast action. All of them at a single spot including the 12-incher below. Sorry I didn't "pose" it better but it was cold. My gloves are XL and the wrist extension goes past my watch.

View media item 78258
I wasn't as cold but needed to warm hands and change to dry gloves. Final session was invested into 2 different spots. 1st one produced gills only. 2nd spot was another hot one with a small difference. Mostly dinks, only 4 keepers but they were definitely eating. Caught 16 at this one.

All fish caught on chartreuse shad body with stubby tail, or same bait in a clear body with black flecks. I tried a pink/white jig at both the hot spots that produced 16 fish........didn't get a bite on it. They wanted that shad body. Water temp was 40.1, a 5.5 degree drop in 2 days. When you found the fish, they were certainly in a hurry to eat. 34 crappies, 14 keepers, also 6-8 gills is a great showing for 2.5 hours on December 18.


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## bigmexican

zaraspook said:


> Got to fish GLSM at about 2 today/Friday. Dang cold, wind was nasty, snow flurries at times heavy enough I couldn't see bobber. 45 minutes into it needed to warm up, go inside, make some coffee. Might have felt colder than it was since I only caught 2 crappies and both were dinks. Next session lasted an hour.....easier to handle the cold when you're catching them. Caught 16 with 10 keepers in some very fast action. All of them at a single spot including the 12-incher below. Sorry I didn't "pose" it better but it was cold. My gloves are XL and the wrist extension goes past my watch.
> 
> View media item 78258
> I wasn't as cold but needed to warm hands and change to dry gloves. Final session was invested into 2 different spots. 1st one produced gills only. 2nd spot was another hot one with a small difference. Mostly dinks, only 4 keepers but they were definitely eating. Caught 16 at this one.
> 
> All fish caught on chartreuse shad body with stubby tail, or same bait in a clear body with black flecks. I tried a pink/white jig at both the hot spots that produced 16 fish........didn't get a bite on it. They wanted that shad body. Water temp was 40.1, a 5.5 degree drop in 2 days. When you found the fish, they were certainly in a hurry to eat. 34 crappies, 14 keepers, also 6-8 gills is a great showing for 2.5 hours on December 18.


 s


zaraspook said:


> Crap!!!! Water's less than 2' deep off my seawall now. Sorry to hear water still flowing. I'm ticked off.





zaraspook said:


> Crap!!!! Water's less than 2' deep off my seawall now. Sorry to hear water still flowing. I'm ticked off.


i drove past the spillway sat. Afternoon and the the tube are closed.I fished from 1-3 sat. Afternoon and caught around 25 crappies only 12 to 15 would of been keepers.Started out fishing 16 in. deep in the brush.All throw backs but 1.Went deeper around 2 1/2 ft. And on the out side edge of the brush.started to catch bigger fish 9 -12.5 in. All fish were caught on white 1 in. Tubes.


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## zaraspook

Agree with bigmex.......outside/beyond cover is a correct approach, or next step is just out in middle of channel. Last hour Friday I was just casting out in middle of channel, no cover, no brush, no nothing except water. Bobber depth any where from 2.5-3.5 feet depending on depth of water. Would get bite on 90% of casts, but low hookup rate with slack in line from wind plus slack created between bobber to jig. Probably better hookups if eliminate the bobber and go tightline to jig, but 1/32 to 1/64 oz jigs don't cast great. Schools can be mostly big fish, mostly little ones, or a mix. The school I was one was a mix but mostly little fish. A lot of times gills are mixed in, too. That school was at least 60' wide.


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## zaraspook

Tom 513 said:


> Congrats to a good day Zara, I found smaller minnows and was able to drive to the lake mid afternoon to find stiff winds and white caps, now I have 3 or 4 dozen minnows of different sizes and no place to go. I may try a local public lake I got info on today


Did you drive to GLSM last Weds? First time I read your post, I didn't comprehend you tracked up there. Probably a few channels you could have put into, avoided those lake white caps, and still had enough water to spider rig. That's a shame since I was up there fishing with Scott. You could have fished with us from bank as a backup plan since lake was so rough. Next time you plan a GLSM excursion, holler at me.........at a minimum I can be a backup plan. You need to get into some of GLSM's broad-shouldered black crappies to break in your crappie poles.


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## Tom 513

zaraspook said:


> Did you drive to GLSM last Weds? First time I read your post, I didn't comprehend you tracked up there. Probably a few channels you could have put into, avoided those lake white caps, and still had enough water to spider rig. That's a shame since I was up there fishing with Scott. You could have fished with us from bank as a backup plan since lake was so rough. Next time you plan a GLSM excursion, holler at me.........at a minimum I can be a backup plan. You need to get into some of GLSM's broad-shouldered black crappies to break in your crappie poles.


Zara, actually I was speaking of Acton (what I consider My Home lake) it is 45 mins North of home GLSM is a lot further. Usually if I travel to fish I make it a camp/fish weekend, I actually got to Rocky Fork and Cave Run this Fall, but I sure do appreciate the hospitality. Someday if I ever retire I will be a traveling fisherman.


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## Greyduck

Hit the lake this morning. Thought i would start off with a white tube. Nothing was buying it. Went to the chartreuse gulp... bang right off the bat. Brought 17 good keepers home. Only one dink and two gills. 4 other fisherman was fishing the same area. Between the 4 of us we had over 100 keepers. The wind was brutal in my usual spot. I sure the bait was moving to fast for them. They were their. Just couldn't hold in the spot. Cold but fun day!


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## rutty

Fished Saturday, boy was it cold and windy. Water temps were down 11 degrees from last Sunday. They were at 35 Degrees. The wind was blowing 15-20, outside temp was 22 and feel like temp was 8. The fish acted the same way. We fished docks, rocks, brush, seawalls, and stickups and ended up with 10 good fish (all over 11). We caught probably another 20 dinks, 1 largemouth and 4 bluegill. Go figure, I didn't run into another boat! All fish were caught on blue/white or pearl with black flake. I will be down on Sunday to give it a go again. hopefully they stop pulling water, it is very low right now.


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## zaraspook

Fished Sunday at GLSM in the afternoon. First surprise was the 1/4" ice cover on my channel. The back-end was open for 75 yards, remainder of channel heading out to main lake was frozen for several hundred yards until almost the mouth of channel to main lake. Spent the first 45 minutes breaking ice along bank/seawalls. I knew wind from south would create wave action to melt large areas as the afternoon wore on. Still, ice removed some of my normal spots/options. Expected fish to be found in good numbers, schooled up just beyond brush, wood, cover. The question was.....which areas would hold them that day and how far beyond the cover?

First spot produced 8 fish, only 1 keeper. Had at least 2 larger fish come unzipped. Everything caught was pretty much "lip hooked", not good for paper-mouths. They were taking the bait, just not eating it the way they should. That turned out to be a problem the entire day, losing big fish 60-70% of the time. Experimented with colors at the first place, too, not that they wouldn't hit my starting chartreuse shad body/stubby tail plastic. They hit the same style bait, clear with black specks/flakes, with greater frequency. 

Bite slowed significantly, moved to spot #2 not far away. Again, fish were just beyond the cover. Though caught 9 crappies in 30-40 minutes it was time to move. These were all dinks, 6-7" clones. Could probably stand in that one spot and catch them all day without a keeper. At least I didn't lose keepers in that spot.....none were hooked.

3rd spot, first fish was 11" keeper, but that was my 18th fish of the day and only 2nd keeper. Things maybe looking up? Next fish is short but quickly followed by another 11". Next two look to both be at least 11", but both come unzipped. Time for potty break, more coffee, and to get my net! Returning with net when I leave the tally for this spot was 9 fish, 6 keepers. That's more like it but I'm still losing at least one keeper for each one landed. Bigger fish aren't eating the bait, only lip-hooked, and small hook of 1/64 oz jigs don't help.

Next 2 spots are dry holes to prove fish aren't just anywhere so I recycle back thru the 3 spots that were productive first round. I'm about done.......34 caught with 9 keepers. I'll try just a few more casts.....10 keepers would be nice. About 30 minutes left of light and I move on a hunch. Should have acted on that hunch earlier. 15 more crappies during crazy action, 4 more keepers to end at 49 caught, 13 keeper crappies. Best crappie landed was just over 12" and I know I lost several that were bigger. No perch today but at least 10 gill keepers....best size of the fall for the gills.

Water temp was 37.2, coldest yet. Fish were all 8-13' from bank in water no more than 3' deep, just beyond known cover (mostly wood/brush). Didn't catch any fish more than 3-5' beyond the cover. The last spot that was crazy.....water depth was mostly 2 feet or less. Action was best of the fall. Frustrating day to to land bigger fish though.


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## rutty

zaraspook said:


> Fished Sunday at GLSM in the afternoon. First surprise was the 1/4" ice cover on my channel. The back-end was open for 75 yards, remainder of channel heading out to main lake was frozen for several hundred yards until almost the mouth of channel to main lake. Spent the first 45 minutes breaking ice along bank/seawalls. I knew wind from south would create wave action to melt large areas as the afternoon wore on. Still, ice removed some of my normal spots/options. Expected fish to be found in good numbers, schooled up just beyond brush, wood, cover. The question was.....which areas would hold them that day and how far beyond the cover?
> 
> First spot produced 8 fish, only 1 keeper. Had at least 2 larger fish come unzipped. Everything caught was pretty much "lip hooked", not good for paper-mouths. They were taking the bait, just not eating it the way they should. That turned out to be a problem the entire day, losing big fish 60-70% of the time. Experimented with colors at the first place, too, not that they wouldn't hit my starting chartreuse shad body/stubby tail plastic. They hit the same style bait, clear with black specks/flakes, with greater frequency.
> 
> Bite slowed significantly, moved to spot #2 not far away. Again, fish were just beyond the cover. Though caught 9 crappies in 30-40 minutes it was time to move. These were all dinks, 6-7" clones. Could probably stand in that one spot and catch them all day without a keeper. At least I didn't lose keepers in that spot.....none were hooked.
> 
> 3rd spot, first fish was 11" keeper, but that was my 18th fish of the day and only 2nd keeper. Things maybe looking up? Next fish is short but quickly followed by another 11". Next two look to both be at least 11", but both come unzipped. Time for potty break, more coffee, and to get my net! Returning with net when I leave the tally for this spot was 9 fish, 6 keepers. That's more like it but I'm still losing at least one keeper for each one landed. Bigger fish aren't eating the bait, only lip-hooked, and small hook of 1/64 oz jigs don't help.
> 
> Next 2 spots are dry holes to prove fish aren't just anywhere so I recycle back thru the 3 spots that were productive first round. I'm about done.......34 caught with 9 keepers. I'll try just a few more casts.....10 keepers would be nice. About 30 minutes left of light and I move on a hunch. Should have acted on that hunch earlier. 15 more crappies during crazy action, 4 more keepers to end at 49 caught, 13 keeper crappies. Best crappie landed was just over 12" and I know I lost several that were bigger. No perch today but at least 10 gill keepers....best size of the fall for the gills.
> 
> Water temp was 37.2, coldest yet. Fish were all 8-13' from bank in water no more than 3' deep, just beyond known cover (mostly wood/brush). Didn't catch any fish more than 3-5' beyond the cover. The last spot that was crazy.....water depth was mostly 2 feet or less. Action was best of the fall. Frustrating day to to land bigger fish though.


Very nice report. Yeah, the ice was starting to form on Saturday back in the coves. I will give it a shot again on Sunday as long as weather holds out.


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## zaraspook

Little threat of ice building temps in the forecast for next 10 days.


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## harrison08

I am coming up Wednesday morning for a little action (hopefully). Can't believe it will be 60's on December 23rd!


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## zaraspook

I'm out of the fishing loop until we get past Christmas. A "Santa-party " at my place tonight, my birthday and traditional Christmas shopping with my daughters on 23rd, plus going to see Star Wars evening of 23rd with my only grandson and daughter's fiance. Hmmmm....writing this just noticed 24th might be a fishing opportunity. Just maybe.........


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## harrison08

Hit up the lake this morning with a buddy, looking for some crappie. Went to my first spot, which produced several crappie last Sunday (13th). Upon arrival (7:45), we caught 6 keepers within the first 5 minutes...Pictured. The action was so hot and heavy for that 5 minutes that we couldn't take time to get them in the bucket. After catching those, the dinks moved in. Moved to our second spot which produced only one keeper for my buddy. We had several "short-strikes", which we were unable to hookup. 

Went to the main spot from Sunday the 13th, which produced over 20 crappie......zip, zilch, nada.

We continued to move around the lake trying some of the usual spots. A few here, a few there, but nothing to write home about. Decided to hit the spillway. We were really glad we did. The action wasn't constant, but there was action spread out to many people fishing. We caught numerous crappie and dropped of several others. Didnt get an exact count for the day, as I let my buddy take them home to clean. I would guess we had 20-25 keepers between the two of us.


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## zaraspook

Nice report and results, Harrison. Even though I said I wouldn't get chance to fish, I got in 2 hours Tues and made it back in time for Santa party. Hit 4 places in an hour without a single bite. Since no action I tried a drastic maneuver and went shallow thinking crappies had to be somewhere. Made a few casts into backend of channel with deepest water 2' max. Got 2 fish on first 3 casts. Shallower the water the better the bite. Caught 20 crappies with 9 keepers in just over an hour. Caught fish in water as shallow as 12". If I hadn't been so frustrated very unlikely would have tried that tactic. Water temp was 41.2 degrees.


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## harrison08

Great report and great results in such limited time. Most of my fish were caught shallow 12-18" deep. Tried smaller soft plastics, only to end up with smaller fish. I went back to my 2" body and caught less fish but much better quality.


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## zaraspook

Had a small window to fish GLSM Saturday with a nephew. Arrived about noon, rain wasn't much more than a sprinkle at that time. Intermittent showers for the first hour, heavy downpours by 1:30pm. While I was gathering my fishing gear, nephew pulled a couple gills from my seawall.....no crappies. First three spots on our walking circuit, no bites, no fish. At a wooden dock I ran into a few bites but none of those significant.......changed colors, not bait. Nephew changed tactics, fishing out in the channel trying to locate a school, caught another gill but no hint of a crappie. Finally a fish comes my way, a nice 11" crappie. It was 25" out in the channel beyond the dock. We pound that area for 20 minutes to find the first crappie's traveling companions......none showed up. I work under the dock and quickly pull another 11" crappie and one at 10.75". Let my nephew take over my spot and I go scouting to locate another pod of active fish. Nephew changes baits to match my bait color, gets lots of bites under the dock, pulls several gills but still without a crappie. No bites for me while scouting other areas.

We break for a snack and to dry out before venturing out again. By now rain is steady with frequent downpours. Hitting about 4-5 spots over the next hour I catch one crappie, my nephew catches his first at another spot, but we fail to locate a school of active crappies. The combination of infrequent bites and very frequent rain/downpours becomes convincing. This won't be our day and we pack it in. Nephew tallied 1 short crappie and 5 gills, 4 crappies(3 keepers) for me. Rain was abundant.....water temp was 44.4 degrees, up 3+ degrees from Tuesday.


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## rutty

I fished it on Sunday, with all the rain we had on Saturday, it was very tough to find clean enough water to fish. We were the only boat on the lake. It was raining, cold, and very windy. We found a pod of crappie in a channel off of dock poles but had a hard time holding boat in this location. We fished a lot of different channels and coves, trying to find clean water and channels blocked by the 25mph winds, all fish were caught on either black/chartruese or dark purple jigs. Ended up with 9 keepers and lost count of short fish, but probably close to 20. Fishing about 2ft deep.


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## zaraspook

rutty.....good report. Definitely challenging conditions to fish and get great outcome. The fish you found, how far off the bank did they seem to be? Channel we fished day before was on southside, had only a slight stain to it, not creek fed.


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## rutty

zaraspook said:


> rutty.....good report. Definitely challenging conditions to fish and get great outcome. The fish you found, how far off the bank did they seem to be? Channel we fished day before was on southside, had only a slight stain to it, not creek fed.


We fished or tried to fish every channel on south side from otterbein to Behms. The channels with feeder creeks were not fishable because they were so dirty. The fish that were relating to the dock poles were on the outside poles so anywhere between 2-4 ft from bank, depending on the dock. The fish we found relating to brush were probably about the same distance from shore 2-4ft. They were on the outside of the brush.


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## zaraspook

Good info, rutty. In my experience for last several weeks, I doubt we've caught a fish closer than 6' of bank......10-12' from bank for most. Keep in mind my channel is normally very shallow anyway. With lower water levels this fall, you can't find 3' deep water until your out 8-12' in most places. 

Likely channels will see ice formation by this weekend....cold weather finally arriving with lots of nightly lows in 20's.


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## Salmonid

Zara, its looking like Ill be in the Boat on Wednesday afternoon looking for more jumbo shad up there for my Catfish tourney this weekend in Alabama.( wheeler Lake) Unlikely any time for crappies but will have a pole in the boat just in case Ill report water clarity, temp and any success late Wednesday.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....happy hunting for godzilla shad. Last week I saw one shad at least 18" doing a death spiral on the surface. Good luck to you, assume catfish chaser is your partner, in Bama Land tourney.


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## zaraspook

A Big Day for Crappie at GLSM..........planned to fish GLSM with friend Scott on Wednesday. It was shifted to today/Tuesday. That may have been a blessing. Driving down my lane immediately noticed water level was up a bunch in a channel that looked stained but not muddy. My channel however looked like chocolate milk. Scott and I gathered together our gear, walked to our first target area, and closer examination suggested water level was up at least 6-8", maybe 10-12". Our suspicions that stained water and fast rise in water level might negatively impact the bite were erased within 15 minutes. I caught a chunky 10"+ keeper really quick followed by 3 more that were short. Then Scott was quickly in the game with crappies. We were on that spot a long time, fish kept coming at a good pace but as I said it was a Big Day for Crappie.......I didn't say it was a Day for Big Crappie.....lots of short fish for every keeper but the action was steady and a lot of fun. We tried one other spot in first 2-2.5 hours and caught a few but pace wasn't the same as first area. 

Finishing off a break to eat and warm up at 3:30pm, we headed back out. We'd caught 59 crappies with 10 keepers and about 10 gills at that point. The goal in the final hour was to catch 16 more........push the total to 75 crappies. We hit a couple new places and 30 minutes into the search for 16 Scott had 2 crappies and I was without a bite. Finally got a bite and 6 quick crappies including a couple keepers at another spot. With only 15 minutes to go we return to the first spot, the most productive spot of the day. We knocked out 9 more, one more than needed in quick order. Lost track near the end.......keeper crappies were either 14 or 15. Close to 20 gills for the day of which 8-10 were easy keepers.
Almost all fish were caught 2-10' of bank, a lot closer than last few weeks, I think because water that was only 2' deep off the seawalls before the rain is now 3' deep after the deluge. Almost everything was in or very close to submerged cover. We caught fish on 4-5 different color plastics, but chartreuse was easily the winner. While they'd hit other colors they were inhaling chartreuse. Caught fish with a few different styles of plastics, but the bait I call a "shad body with short/stubby tail" kicked butt, 1/64 oz jig but 1/32nd was ok, and 24-30" under bobber. This bait is called Panfish Assassin, stocked at Walmart but I bought most of the inventory at Celina and my Walmart in Indiana. Scott will attest the chartreuse with specks is crazy good, lime green is good, and other colors with specks each have their days. It resembles a 1.5-2" baby shad. We don't tip with meat, but don't let that stop you.

On this day I caught the most crappies 45 and keepers at 10, but Scott took the crown for number of big fish that came unzipped. At least 5-6 of his big ones got away.

Food was good, company was good, and catching 76 crappies (nearly 100 fish counting the gills) on December 29th from open water makes a great afternoon! By the way water temp was 41.1 degrees, down 3 degrees since Saturday. Fish know colder water is coming and have the feedbag on! Good chance channels will be showing unusable ice by the weekend.


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## Saugeyefisher

Great job and post! i fell in live with chartruese sparkle shad tails last spring. The panfish assasins have a fatter belly then most of the other shad shaped straight tails out there. Im gonna have to add some to the arsenal!
Ive been buying bobby garlands and cabelas brand with good results. My three favorite color shd bodys are lemon/pearl,sparkle chartruese,and electric chicken... i did really well on those last year. If u havnt tried them yet another great bait is the bobby garland sent wigglers. There big but desighned so you can rip off sections to make the size u want. Or u can rip the sections of an combine with other colors, last year at buckeye i was useing a pink tail with the chartrues body(pcs i ripped off) to make electric chicken an did exremely well on this.
I dont use ratsos as much as i used to,except for in a couple river spots they like em alot.
And i got into the crappie game to late to expereince the screw grub:-( ... bummer to cause i tjink id of liked em lol....
Sorry sitting here bored an wanted to toss out some crappie baits/colors i like.
I havnt done to well on crappie this fall but have spent very little time chaseing them an alot of time on eyes,but a few nights the crappos have been mixed in chseing shad with the saugeye. An theyve been BIG.
Got one a couple weeks ago i mever measured but assuming it was 14+ an mega fat!
Ne ways go gettem before she freezes!


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## Salmonid

Water at Montezuma today was 51 degrees, chocolate and a fair amount of debris. in 3 hrs of castnettin I managed about 75 sumo shad for my tournament this Saturday and as a bonus about 8-9 crappies all pigs but 1, all released to grow a little more, Crappies were in 7-8 ft of water mostly and mixed in with the jumbo shad, I did castnet about a thousand 3" shad too in the shallower waters ( less then 5 ft) west wind was rough and cold!! and hard on the trolling motor 

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Great job and post! i fell in live with chartruese sparkle shad tails last spring. The panfish assasins have a fatter belly then most of the other shad shaped straight tails out there. Im gonna have to add some to the arsenal!
> Ive been buying bobby garlands and cabelas brand with good results. My three favorite color shd bodys are lemon/pearl,sparkle chartruese,and electric chicken... i did really well on those last year. If u havnt tried them yet another great bait is the bobby garland sent wigglers. There big but desighned so you can rip off sections to make the size u want. Or u can rip the sections of an combine with other colors, last year at buckeye i was useing a pink tail with the chartrues body(pcs i ripped off) to make electric chicken an did exremely well on this.
> I dont use ratsos as much as i used to,except for in a couple river spots they like em alot.
> And i got into the crappie game to late to expereince the screw grub:-( ... bummer to cause i tjink id of liked em lol....
> Sorry sitting here bored an wanted to toss out some crappie baits/colors i like.
> I havnt done to well on crappie this fall but have spent very little time chaseing them an alot of time on eyes,but a few nights the crappos have been mixed in chseing shad with the saugeye. An theyve been BIG.
> Got one a couple weeks ago i mever measured but assuming it was 14+ an mega fat!
> Ne ways go gettem before she freezes!


I like the Bobby Garland products a lot but haven't checked out wigglers yet.....sound interesting. If you bite off 1/2 the tail of Garland Swim'r, it's close to a Panfish Assassin size and length. Appreciate you chiming in with the info, SaugFish.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Water at Montezuma today was 51 degrees, chocolate and a fair amount of debris. in 3 hrs of castnettin I managed about 75 sumo shad for my tournament this Saturday and as a bonus about 8-9 crappies all pigs but 1, all released to grow a little more, Crappies were in 7-8 ft of water mostly and mixed in with the jumbo shad, I did castnet about a thousand 3" shad too in the shallower waters ( less then 5 ft) west wind was rough and cold!! and hard on the trolling motor
> 
> Salmonid


Interesting report, Mark. If Zuma was 51 degrees, clearly water coming in from creek there is significantly warmer than lake temps. That's a good tidbit of info to put to use. Scott and I were discussing that very topic on Tues (is incoming water warmer or colder?). Wish I had some 7-8' water in my channel, heck I'd take 5-6', and would probably find better population of bigger crappies in my catch. Fall/winter results have been unexpectedly void of crappies over 12.5", and very few of the 12's.

Best of luck with the sumos and remember where they came from. Hope the Bama kitties find GLSM shad a tasty delicacy.


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## Salmonid

Zara. Heres a pic. A whole big cooler full majority 15-18". The crappies we got were all 11-12+". All in deeper water. (Released)








Salmonid


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## rutty

Saugeyefisher said:


> Great job and post! i fell in live with chartruese sparkle shad tails last spring. The panfish assasins have a fatter belly then most of the other shad shaped straight tails out there. Im gonna have to add some to the arsenal!
> Ive been buying bobby garlands and cabelas brand with good results. My three favorite color shd bodys are lemon/pearl,sparkle chartruese,and electric chicken... i did really well on those last year. If u havnt tried them yet another great bait is the bobby garland sent wigglers. There big but desighned so you can rip off sections to make the size u want. Or u can rip the sections of an combine with other colors, last year at buckeye i was useing a pink tail with the chartrues body(pcs i ripped off) to make electric chicken an did exremely well on this.
> I dont use ratsos as much as i used to,except for in a couple river spots they like em alot.
> And i got into the crappie game to late to expereince the screw grub:-( ... bummer to cause i tjink id of liked em lol....
> Sorry sitting here bored an wanted to toss out some crappie baits/colors i like.
> I havnt done to well on crappie this fall but have spent very little time chaseing them an alot of time on eyes,but a few nights the crappos have been mixed in chseing shad with the saugeye. An theyve been BIG.
> Got one a couple weeks ago i mever measured but assuming it was 14+ an mega fat!
> Ne ways go gettem before she freezes!



My go to bait is the bobby garland baby shad in purple mist color! Love that bait. I also like the ones you mentioned as well as blue ice, vegas, and lights out.


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## zaraspook

What a haul! That's crazy, Mark. 
Going up to GLSM today to fish for a while. I've been occupied with crappie of late......haven't been doing anything toward catching perch. Have one plastic that caught most of the few perch I've bagged, usually have it tied on my secondary rig, but omitted that strategy lately. I'll play around with it today see if I can coax a perch or two on land. Low probabilities, however, can't win if you don't try.


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## Saugeyefisher

Rutty the blue ice was also money at times for me last year
At alum mainly...


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM at 1pm and fished till 3:30pm Thursday. Did plenty of fishing, not much catching. Water was up another 2-4" compared to Tuesday and significantly muddier. Forgot to check water temp but I'm guessing it was down to 38-39 degree range from 41 Tuesday. That usually makes the fish less active, at least for a few days until crappies acclimate. They were definitely lethargic. When I had a bite, they ate it, and hook up was solid in roof of mouth. Just couldn't find enough bites. 9 crappies caught with just 2 keepers. I fished hard the last 45 minutes, trying to get a 10th crappie........instead ran into gills and ended up catching 9 gills without getting another crappie. Changed plastic style and color 4-5 times.....didn't change anything with crappies but gills turned on after switching to red/green Panfish Assassin. 

Crappie bite will get better soon, next day or two........they will eat. Just hope nuisance ice doesn't come first. Still a lot of standing water in any low spot. Water should start clearing now but will be slow process. Catching 9 in 3+ hours was a huge disappointment after catching 76 two days earlier. That's fishing!


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## zaraspook

Fished at GLSM Friday, about an hour and half before Buckeye game and 30-45 minutes during half time. Water condition not quite as muddy as Thurs, but still very stained to choco milk depending on the channel and if it's creek fed. Water temp was 36.3, a drop of 5 degrees in 3 days, and apparently no longer rising. Looks like it peaked within 4" of the top of lower seawalls. Notice I haven't said much about the crappie fishing yet? 

Not a whiff of a crappie bite, zero crappies. On the bright side, no dinks to throw back. The only thing to break the silence/absence of a bite was an occasional gill bite, maybe 10 total nibbles, while catching 5 of them. I fished in cover, out beyond cover, shallow and deeper, wood/brush, plastic, docks, slower/faster, small baits/bigger baits, different colors and profiles. It wasn't happening that day.

Ice had formed on the the back-end of one channel, a section covering 30-40' of the entire width of channel. With continuing low temps in the 20's and maybe less, that ice will expand. By Monday-Tues my entire channel should be frozen over. Hard to believe we caught 76 crappies three days earlier.


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## zaraspook

Had an open window, jumped thru it Sunday morning to squeeze in a GLSM fishing session. Arriving at 9:30am it was good to see the channel mostly free of ice, only 2 significant ice patches. Bad news was biggest area of ice just happened to be the spot Scott and I pulled most of the 76 crappies last Tuesday. Spent 45 minutes busting 1/4 inch ice there......maybe it would be fishable later. 

Picked up my fishing gear then headed to first spot.......light brush and wood off the seawall here then another spot of light brush 40-50' farther down the seawall. Water clarity here is stained whereas everywhere else it's muddy to choco milk, but this is the backend of a channel which isn't creek fed and muddy water from the lake hasn't pushed all the way back here. First cast yields a keeper gill, then dead silence for the next 10 minutes. I switch to my other rod......same plastic bait but different color already tied on. Within a couple minutes, a bump and the line moves off. My hook-set pulls the fish up in the water column enough to see it's a nice slab, but it unzips almost immediately. Hmmmm.....not eating the bait immediately, I'll give the next one a little more time before setting hook. Within the next 10 minutes crappies #1, #2, and #3 of 2016 are on land, all fat 10.5-11" keepers. Fish #4 is a dink then no more action. The entire time at the 1st spot every 4th cast cast is not in the cover near bank, but 35-40' out in the channel.......trying to find a school of crappies on the move and chasing baitfish. However, all the first 4 crappies are taken on/near bank cover, 2-7' off the bank. No bites from my casts spread out in the channel.





  








IMG_20160103_102448742




__
zaraspook


__
Jan 4, 2016




GLSM crappie 1-3-16






I move 40' to next spot......light brush again. First fish once again is a keeper gill, followed by a nice slab that unzips (a 2nd reminder to give the fish a little more time before hook-set). 3 more 10-11" crappies from this spot, plus a dink crappie when the bite slows after 1/2 hour. These fish were definitely embedded in the cover and 2-7' off the seawall. No takers on any of casts "out" into channel. Time to move on. Tally for first hour is 8 crappies caught, 6 keepers 10" or better, 4 gills of which 2-3 were keeper size.

Next spot has only a little bit of cover, submerged wood, no brush. Usually not a spot to take crappies in numbers on cover, but it's a point and not a bad target to locate a school. Quickly take a pair of nice gills and a dink crappie from the wood. Casting out I catch a nice 11" crappie about 12-15' off the bank. To locate others in the schooI I concentrate on casting in a 20-30' radius around where that crappie was caught. 20 minutes of casting ends without a bite......time for a lunch break. 90 minutes produces 10 crappies, 7 keepers. After getting shut out by the crappies on Friday, I'm happy, particularly happy with the good rate for catching keepers. 

Warmed up and fed it's time to hit the large area where I busted up ice 3+ hours ago. If it's fishable it could be lucrative. If not fishable there aren't many options to keep me busy for more than an hour. Unfortunately, at best only 20% of the ice broken area can be fished nothing further than 3' off the seawall in choco milk water. I catch 2 dink crappies, a couple of decent gills then return to the first 2 spots where most fish were caught earlier. This time only a dink crappie and another decent gill. A final spot, choco milk clarity produces a dink crappie and another gill from wood. Bites have slowed to standstill. After taking a read on the water temp, I pack it in and head home.

Water temp was a tepid 34.3......brrr. It was 41.1 degrees 5 days before. 14 crappies total, 7 keepers and last 4 were all dinks. 6-7 gills I think. Fortunate to catch anything considering cold air temps, water temp, ice cover, and muddy water. Not bad for Jan 3rd and at least I'm on the board for 2016!


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## GOOSE48

Any open water?


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## bigmexican

GOOSE48 said:


> Any open water?


Below the spillway give me a call


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## zaraspook

bigmexican said:


> Below the spillway give me a call


If you get over by my channel. let me know how ice looks, please. Thinking combination of sun, warmer overnite temps in forecast, plus rain toward weekend might open it back up. Probably a pipe dream........thanks.


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## bigmexican

zaraspook said:


> If you get over by my channel. let me know how ice looks, please. Thinking combination of sun, warmer overnite temps in forecast, plus rain toward weekend might open it back up. Probably a pipe dream........thanks.


All the channels I seen this mourning from southmoor shores to the maples is frozen


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## zaraspook

bigmexican said:


> All the channels I seen this mourning from southmoor shores to the maples is frozen


Thanks big mex. Figured that would be the case. Warmer temps thru Saturday and rain should change ice. Then next week, lots of lows in the teen, will start the freeze process all over again.


----------



## zaraspook

Haven't been to GLSM since Sunday 1/3. Neighbor let me know today my channel is locked in with ice, poor prospect for open water but warmth and rain could combine for a bit of open water late in weekend. May go up to break some ice Friday, give the hard stuff a head start to melt, and try fishing a couple days later.


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## Salmonid

Zara its raining good now and ill be checking your channel as i drive through in about 2 hrs. Ill call you then.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Zara its raining good now and ill be checking your channel as i drive through in about 2 hrs. Ill call you then.


That's great! If I go up it won't be to fish, but help the ice along by breaking near seawalls at select locations.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid reported Friday my channel was locked up and while he was there broke up ice along my seawall. I headed up later that Friday and broke up more ice at selected spots, trying to help the melt along. Was thinking I might get a chance to fish later in the weekend, not Saturday but maybe Sunday morning. Actually, I was breaking ice as thick as 1.5 inches, and could only break ice out just 4' off bank. I really doubted if hard water would melt enough to fish before the next cold blast.

Didn't make it back from daughter's birthday party until 1:30am Sunday. Getting out of bed Sunday saw snow on the ground, reports that roads were lousy, and temps were only upper 20's and headed down all day, and to top it off winds were 25-30 mph and gusting to 40. Screw it......decided to pack it rather than risk an hour + drive to GLSM only to find channels still iced. 

At Noon Sunday, a neighbor at the lake calls to report my channel is wide open.....I'm tempted despite bad roads, falling temps and 40 mph winds. Temptation wins out....I'm on the road by12:30 pm......after all, I tell my wife, "this is probably last time to fish open water for at least 6-8 weeks".

I'll skip the boring details of the drive to GLSM....not fun. My neighbor was not pulling my leg....channel is 95% ice free. Snow is blowing, wind is nasty, but I'm fishing at 2pm. Takes me 15 minutes to get first bite, and 20 minutes to first crappie. Who cares if it was just a dink at 6"? Fishing till 4 with a 30 minute break to thaw fingers and eat, I never got another fish, nor another bite (unless you count frost-bite?).


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, you are truely 1 DEDICATED fisherman !


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Zaraspook, you are truely 1 DEDICATED fisherman !


LHT.............Good to hear from, fella! You're so kind to phrase my behavior as "DEDICATED". Others chose verbiage such as "wacko" or various and sundry synonyms. How's it going for you at CJ?


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## zaraspook

Tale of the tape - my crappie fishing at GLSM went like this last year (2015) by month.
Month Caught Keepers Fish Ohio 13"+
Jan 0 0 0
Feb 0 0 0
Mar 128 33 1 (13.5")
Apri 358 102 0
May 320 158 5 (biggest 15") 
June 58  28 0
July 24 3 0
Aug 15 4 0
Sept 19 15 2 (13.5") 
Oct 114 72 0
Nov 147 66 0
Dec  285 101 0
2015 1468 582 8

39.6 % of crappies caught were "keepers", which we defined in April to be >10" rather than the State's 9" "legal" size. If we counted 9" legal fish at least 45-50% would have been legal keepers. Biggest surprise was an 11# 8 oz channel cat caught crappie fishing on Sept 12.. Costliest fish was a 22" pike that helped me lose a cell phone into the lake (April 7). Other than the 15" jumbo crappie (May 3rd), the most thrilling catches were 2 perch, both eaters, caught in the first 11 days of December. Hopefully, a sign of more to come as stocked perch mature in next few years. Previously, my only 2 perch at GLSM since 2008 were in 2012, before the State's stocking program began. 

My best single day was catching 58 crappies on March 26. Best single day for keepers was 24 of 39 crappies caught May 19. 

It was my best year for Quantity (1468) by at least 300 and Quality (582) since getting my place at GLSM in 2008. 8 Fish Ohio's is crazy..........had only a total of 3 Fish Ohio's in prior 7 years. Haven't been thru all my annual logs yet........pretty certain that December results are 3 times better than any prior December. One disappointment........expected to collect a few more Fish Ohio's in the fall to add to 8 earlier in the year. Had several crappies go 12.75" but no 13's after Sept. 

Matching those 2015 numbers will take some luck! I caught a few this month, none in January of last year, so technically I'm ahead


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## Lowell H Turner

haven`t been able to get out much recently due to working excessive overtime, just finished 29 days straight...


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> haven`t been able to get out much recently due to working excessive overtime, just finished 29 days straight...


LHT......tough to fish anyway with little open water and immature ice most places. Good time to feed the bank account.


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## Salmonid

Zara my buddy been on the ice on some channels for the last 5 days. Some places have as much as 5" of ice. Lots of gills and only 1 nice crappie so far


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## zaraspook

Good info, Mark! No temps in forecast above freezing until Sun/Mon, then back into low numbers again. Great period of building ice is on us - ice guys should be smiling. When perch and/or saugs start showing up in creels, it will probably create a buzz. Might even pull in some hardwater newbies.......like me!


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## Salmonid

_My buddy got a small perch today, btw.. said it was like 6" along with a bunch of dink gills, North side channel_


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## zaraspook

Mark.....6" perch.......Would that be about a 2-year old, maybe stocking class of 2014? Of course it could be a native fish, too. What do you think?


----------



## GOOSE48

Has anyone been out on the ice yet?


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## Salmonid

I was on my pond today near Dayton, but not up there yet but my buddy Bryan has been on the ice up there for the last several days. mixed reports but mostly 4-5" in only the most secluded channels

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> I was on my pond today near Dayton, but not up there yet but my buddy Bryan has been on the ice up there for the last several days. mixed reports but mostly 4-5" in only the most secluded channels
> 
> Salmonid


Mark.....6" perch you mentioned.......Would that be about a 2-year old perch, maybe stocking class of 2014? Of course it could be a native fish, too. What do you think?


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## zaraspook

GOOSE48 said:


> Has anyone been out on the ice yet?


Other than Salmonid's reprt from his buddy, I haven't heard anything about GLSM ice. I heard yesterday ice at Indian Lake was 3-3.5". I'd expect ice at GLSM would be no worse, at least same ballpark, but of course "travel at your own risk". Be safe.


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## Lowell H Turner

Was curious how well the dredging went this year...


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## zaraspook

LHT............good year for the troops sucking sludge. Pasted below a post from Nov.13 last fall. Don't recall if I heard a final number.

_Dredge baby, dredge! All time dredging record at GLSM is 302,000 cubic yards and established in 2013. No more. 360,000 cubic yards removed this year.......roughly 20% above 2013 mark. I believe dredging is still going.....original plan was to pump sludge up to Thanksgiving, weather permitting. Way to go State dredging crews!
I have 2 questions. 1) How much sludge is enough to say we are winning? 2) Regardless of how much sludge is removed, the pertinent metric is removal of phosphorus. How much phosphorus was removed?_


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## zaraspook

I was at GLSM Thursday. Did not fish....was visiting a friend in hospital. Lake looked pristine. Untouched snow covered ice as far as you could see. Snow, quarter inch maybe, covered ice but easily brushed away. Ice under snow looked dark and clear. Didn't have tools to cut/break thru ice but used a metal t-bar (post for a stop sign) to bang on ice. Could not break ice nor chip enough to get to water. T-bar will usually break thru up to 4" ice. Only open water was a 21" diameter circle off my next door neighbor's dock where his basement sump pump discharges onto water. My wild-a$$ guess is 5"+ ice but don't hold me to it.


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## zaraspook

Ice probably will take a hit this week if weather guys have it right. Most daily hi-temps predicted above freezing and by weekend, even daily low temps above freezing. Ice quality and thickness is likely as good right now as it will be for a while. Go get 'em while you can! Still hoping to hear some good reports about the delectable and edible GLSM perch.


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## Salmonid

sorry Zara I was all set to come sample GLSM through the ice but my buddy wanted to stay closer to home so we did just that ( Kiser and a Private pond) )

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> sorry Zara I was all set to come sample GLSM through the ice but my buddy wanted to stay closer to home so we did just that ( Kiser and a Private pond) )
> 
> Salmonid


You tried GLSM ice bite a couple times in last few seasons......bite was never really a good one. Don't blame you to head where you've had better success plus shorter drive. At some time in next 2-3 years that perch bite may make the extra drive worthwhile. Still a little early to expect catching a bucket full. How'd you do at Kiser?


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## tracker_80

Seen a few guys out at Andersons today. Stopped and drilled a hole to check ice depth, roughly 5.5" in the middle. Couldn't find any minnows on Sunday @ 3, might give it a shot tom. Evening


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## zaraspook

tracker_80 said:


> Seen a few guys out at Andersons today. Stopped and drilled a hole to check ice depth, roughly 5.5" in the middle. Couldn't find any minnows on Sunday @ 3, might give it a shot tom. Evening


Tracker..... Good report on ice thickness. I figured it was in 5-6" range but you provided best/latest info by drilling a hole. Thanks for info. Since Outdoorsman is closed on Sunday, doesn't help find minnies, does it? Let us know if you get out and what you find!


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## tracker_80

I made it out last night but the ice was thawing pretty quick and getting a little slushy, a lot of dark ice. Still 4-6 inches in spots last night around 5:30. Pulled a few small gills, nothing special or to write home about. Interested to see how long this ice will last with the weather report.


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## bigmexican

tracker_80 said:


> I made it out last night but the ice was thawing pretty quick and getting a little slushy, a lot of dark ice. Still 4-6 inches in spots last night around 5:30. Pulled a few small gills, nothing special or to write home about. Interested to see how long this ice will last with the weather report.


OK guys what's the story on catching crappie through the ice at GLSM? Before the lake froze there were a 1/2 dozen channels around the lake that you could catch them in.Now that the channels are frozen you can't catch anything. I've been out several times and nothing. Anyone that I've talked to around the lake are having the same results.I am not asking for specific locations or what you are catching them on.I am just curious has anyone had any luck?


----------



## T04DF15H

bigmexican said:


> OK guys what's the story on catching crappie through the ice at GLSM? Before the lake froze there were a 1/2 dozen channels around the lake that you could catch them in.Now that the channels are frozen you can't catch anything. I've been out several times and nothing. Anyone that I've talked to around the lake are having the same results.I am not asking for specific locations or what you are catching them on.I am just curious has anyone had any luck?


Welcome to Grand Lake! It is like this every year. If anyone knows the secret to where they go, they must want to keep it to themselves. Normally you could catch a few at Coldwater Creek at first ice but this year they didn't even come in there before ice.
On the other hand, the bluegills have been cooperating quite well for me on the north side.


----------



## Salmonid

im looking at fishing some channels early Saturday, watching the weather closely, my buddies were at Kiser yesterday and this morning and said ice went from 6.5 to 4-5" on most of the lake overnight and edges were sketchy.


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## Fishbaughzach

bigmexican said:


> OK guys what's the story on catching crappie through the ice at GLSM? Before the lake froze there were a 1/2 dozen channels around the lake that you could catch them in.Now that the channels are frozen you can't catch anything. I've been out several times and nothing. Anyone that I've talked to around the lake are having the same results.I am not asking for specific locations or what you are catching them on.I am just curious has anyone had any luck?


With them dropping the lake consistently during the winter I believe it pulls the bait fish and crappie out of the channels in to the main lake. I bet if a guy could get out to the first main lake break they could find some crappie. Its ashamed they cant get the lake dropped before ice hits. It also bothers me seeing all those hog crappie going out the tunnel into the beaver. Lost the biggest fish of my life about 2 weeks ago at the spillway easily over two pounds just wish they could somehow keep those fish in the lake. Every time they drop the water level we are loosing more of the crappie and other fish.


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## Salmonid

sounds good in theory and I tried it 2 times last year, fishing first main lake breaks and never marked a fish.... frustrating.. That's for sure, I do know where I found some crappies Dec 29th on one of the last days lake was open, Im wanting to try there through the ice.. stay tuned...


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## tracker_80

Anyone have any word on how the ice was today? I wanna try tom. But I'm thinking it may be a little sketchy?


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## zaraspook

You guys are having a great discussion and maybe working together, trading theories and past experiences, you'll solve the puzzle. We all know the crappies are in there, but no one's found the recipe to locate and catch 'em with any consistency.
I'd bet 2 keys are water temp and food. In the summer crappies seem to vacate channels. Why? I know water temps are higher in channels. Consistently in summer channels run 2-4 degrees warmer than main lake. Neither bait fish nor crappies are crazy about those 80+ degree water temps and they migrate to cooler water. Main lake is cooler and some channels are blessed with deeper water which should be cooler, too. A degree or two difference in water temp is a big deal.

I think the same process occurs in winter, but the catalyst is about warmer water rather than cooler water. Channels heat-up quicker and are consistently warmer than main lake in summer, but channels cool faster than main lake in fall/winter. Food and fish migrate to cooler water in channels in the fall, but eventually the channels cool to the point bait fish and fish aren't comfortable. Main lake or water in deeper channels is now warmer by a few degrees and fish move that direction. Remember, channels freeze first.....water is clearly colder there.

My channel has no water deeper than 5', and that's very spotty and only 5' in spring when water is up. In summer I can still catch a few crappies there, rarely any decent ones. Late summer this year I tried a few junkets on main lake. Didn't catch them in great numbers numbers but almost every crapie was a pig. Water temp was 2-3 degrees cooler than my channel. I think it matters to the crappies, and pretty sure water temp matters to fragile shad. It's not proof but some evidence to support the theory......cooler water in summer will hold more fish. So, converse should true in winter.......find some slightly warmer water and chances are fish, and food they eat, are more likely to be there.

Without some deeper pockets with slightly warmer water temps, odds aren't good you can find congregated schools of crappies to catch. Most people ice fish in channels. Most people don't catch crappies thru ice. Warmer main lake should be better target though not as easy to get to. Mouth of channels, particularly ones dredged with several feet more depth, should be decent targets. I think Salmonid could be thinking about a channel with significant dredging the length of it, shallower near banks, then a ledge and decent depth in the middle of it. Sounds like the type of place where the deeper water could be slightly warmer. I think he could be on to something......hope so.

Mark......I'm sure you've seen forecast of temperatures in 50's this weekend. Ice may be a mess by then. Watch your step!


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## zaraspook

Here's a live view of GLSM ice from West Bank. http://webcam.wabash.com/westbank2.html


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## harrison08

Any word on the spillway fishing? Is there still water being pulled? I was thinking of taking advantage of this nice weather, but do not want to make the 1 1/2 hour drive to find it low. Thanks ahead of time.


----------



## T04DF15H

harrison08 said:


> Any word on the spillway fishing? Is there still water being pulled? I was thinking of taking advantage of this nice weather, but do not want to make the 1 1/2 hour drive to find it low. Thanks ahead of time.


----------



## bigmexican

harrison08 said:


> Any word on the spillway fishing? Is there still water being pulled? I was thinking of taking advantage of this nice weather, but do not want to make the 1 1/2 hour drive to find it low. Thanks ahead of time.


Fished there this mourning.They are letting water out of the lake.i did not see more than 10 crappies caught.


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## harrison08

bigmexican said:


> Fished there this mourning.They are letting water out of the lake.i did not see more than 10 crappies caught.


Thank you. I still may head up in the morning. Thank you.


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## T04DF15H

harrison08 said:


> Thank you. I still may head up in the morning. Thank you.


FYI, The spillway has been shut down again.


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## tracker_80

I was out that way yesterday, didn't see a whole lot of fish caught. A lot of small gills, I was only there from 3 till about 5 tho.


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## Salmonid

with diminishing ice I didn't make it up to try my crappie spot, sorry guys went to Buckeye Lake instead ( me and buddy got 7 saugeyes including a 22.5" ) now waiting for round 2 of the ice fishing to start up.

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> with diminishing ice I didn't make it up to try my crappie spot, sorry guys went to Buckeye Lake instead ( me and buddy got 7 saugeyes including a 22.5" ) now waiting for round 2 of the ice fishing to start up.
> 
> Salmonid


What was your bait of choice at B-eye for the saugfish?


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## GOOSE48

The spillway is running fished this morning only 2 small crappie but I did see a bid walleye caught.


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## Salmonid

swedish pimples and rapala jigging shad raps


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## harrison08

Headed up about daylight with my father to get in some on some crappies......didn't happen. We fished the spillway with no luck. We even tried some waxies in case they wanted small and light presentations. I think we caught 3 or 4 small crappie. We decided to tie on some jig/twister tails to entice some walleye onto the line. I ended up with 7 on my line, 3 of which I knew were legally hooked. The other 4, I assume, were all foul hooked. Of the 3 legally hooked, only one made it into the net (we had to borrow). It was a nice fat 26" walleye. It was a very positive experience with so many fishermen and women in a relatively small area. Lots of tangles and cross-ups, but with teamwork and patience, no one was worse for the wear.


----------



## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> Headed up about daylight with my father to get in some on some crappies......didn't happen. We fished the spillway with no luck. We even tried some waxies in case they wanted small and light presentations. I think we caught 3 or 4 small crappie. We decided to tie on some jig/twister tails to entice some walleye onto the line. I ended up with 7 on my line, 3 of which I knew were legally hooked. The other 4, I assume, were all foul hooked. Of the 3 legally hooked, only one made it into the net (we had to borrow). It was a nice fat 26" walleye. It was a very positive experience with so many fishermen and women in a relatively small area. Lots of tangles and cross-ups, but with teamwork and patience, no one was worse for the wear.
> View attachment 201586


Harrison,
Great catch and cool story! Apparently Goose48 (post #2214, back 2 posts from yours) was in your crowd at the spillway to witness your catch. You know the saugeyes they stocked back 4-5 years ago could now be 26". Your walleye very well could be a saugeye! Not easy to differentiate......both have the white tip on tail. Congrats fella.......love the beer belly on that eye!


----------



## Saugeyefisher

Guys..... theres no saugeyes left in buckeye lak;-) e...
An ya,zara,i was thinking same thing,could be a saugeye..... regardless awesome catch!


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## GOOSE48

Anyone fish the last couple days at the spillway?


----------



## Saugeye Tom

Saugeyefisher said:


> Guys..... theres no saugeyes left in buckeye lak;-) e...
> An ya,zara,i was thinking same thing,could be a saugeye..... regardless awesome catch!


Yes as I recall huge Fisk kill.....kill the lake is barren......


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## T04DF15H

GOOSE48 said:


> Anyone fish the last couple days at the spillway?


I tried yesterday afternoon. I saw one guy with 3 walleye/saugeye in a bucket. I foul hooked 2 but I couldn't get any to bite the hook. I saw one more get legally caught.When I left, there had to be at least 12-15 people still trying. Spillway gate was still closed. (I think they leave it open about an inch to keep from trapping fish. That is considered closed)


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## Greyduck

we hit the lake after work late yesterdsy afternoon... 1st stop .. not even a nibble.. 2nd stop was incrediblle! 2 man limit in 2 hours. most was in the 11 to 13 inch range. most was caught 10 feet out from the brush. color didnt seem to matter. horrible hook up ratio lol.... i bet it was 20% at best. every cast you would get a hit. all they would barley move the float. i will try to get a pic or two up.


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## Salmonid

greyduck, is that your post on the Ohio Fishing FB page? are you Brian C?


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## Greyduck

Salmonid said:


> greyduck, is that your post on the Ohio Fishing FB page? are you Brian C?


No... thats not me.


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## Greyduck

http://s195.photobucket.com/user/lb... Uploads/IMG_20160203_193251.jpg.html?filters[user]=47971520&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0


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## GOOSE48

South side opened up me and 4 friends limited out today biggest one was 14inches. You have to find a channel that is clean we found them on the end of a dead end channel.


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## zaraspook

Surprisingly, my channel was 100% ice-free Weds whereas on Tuesday it was locked up with ice. Only open water Tuesday were 4 places where I busted up ice from the seawall out 2--3 feet. Amazing all that ice disappeared in less than 24 hours. Buddy and I caught 35 gills and 14 crappies. Not a single keeper crappie though 1/3 the gills were decent keepers.

We moved a lot, hit a lot of spots, but kept returning to the only spot with action that produced all but 3 of the 49 total. It was the backend of a channel, shallow with max depth 3', and water was the most stained. Most of fish were in 2' of water or less. We had a great time, expectations were low, particularly with channel locked-in the day before. After invested 2 hours on Tuesday breaking ice along seawalls/bank, I'd like to think it helped clear the channel in less than 24 hours!

Should mention water temp was 38.8 degrees, up 4 degrees from last time I fished in January.


----------



## zaraspook

Hit GLSM Sunday morning.......hoping my channel was 1) ice free, or 2) some open areas that with a little ice-breaking could be open in a couple hours, and did not want 3) locked up channels requiring significant ice-breaking and hope like heck it clears before dark. Woe is me......it was #3. After 2 hours of ice-breaking I'd created a 2-3 foot wide lane of broken/floating ice along the seawalls at most places I fish. Now it was Mother Nature's turn......give me sun and wind, especially wind. Some of it will open sufficiently to fish.....eventually. 

With errands to run took off in my vehicle and threw in a crappie rig. Heading into St. Marys found the main lake wide open, channels mostly ice, mouths of channels I saw were "iffy", some open and others not. Nobody fishing along the East Bank. Docks at boat club had one guy fishing limited open areas. His bucket was empty. Ramp at Rustic Haven was wide open and 6-7 empty truck/trailer rigs parked there. Thinking maybe I'd fish Harman's, I pulled in to check it out. It was 90% open water with 5-6 fishermen. That's a little crowded for me so headed back to my channel. It had been 2 hours......maybe my ice-breaking paid dividends?

The 2-3' lanes of floating ice were now 5-6' open areas. Areas exposed to the wind were melting fast. It was worth a try. 90 minutes produced zero fish.......no more than 6-7 intermittent bites which were all light pecks and probably small gills. Took a lunch break. Open areas were now expanding rapidly, so planned to give it one more go after eating. Fished again from 4-5pm and amazingly my channel was now 80% open. Results didn't change.......just one bump, no fish, SKUNK!

Before heading home, checked water temp. 38.6 degrees, down only two-tenths from Weds. No fish Sunday but ice-breaking is good exercise. Next 10 days don't look positive for the open-water crowd.


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## Saugeyefisher

Lol u get an A for effort!!
I tried dipping some crappies for a few saterday at buckeye-nada. But was getting enough saugeye bites to keep me from trying crappie to long....
Before we know it,itll be less work an more catching! Its just around the corner!


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## GOOSE48

It was tough yesterday between 4 of us we only had about 10 keepers big ones moved out a lot of short ones. I might try this morning since it is going to get so cold it will be freezing up again.


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## zaraspook

Goose48.......suspect you are correct - today probably last opportunity on open water for a while. Wish I could test the waters but won't happen today. Good luck.


----------



## Greyduck

we hit glsm saturday very early. 1 hour before daylight. 5 trucks parked at what use to be my secrect spot. half iced in to boot. by nine it looked like a white bass run was under way...wow! ibet there was 30 or so fishing by then . i have fished this spot for 35 years and i bet i have not seen that many people fishing there over those years. wish i would of brought the boat at this point. ended up with 12 or so dinks from a few other spots. bayview yielded the most fish. but all small.. still good to get out in feb though. looks like i will have to bring the boat as back up from now on!


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## zaraspook

Greyduck.........very possible others of the 30 invaders in your "secret" spot thought it was their "secret" spot, too. Agree that any open water fishing at GLSM in Feb is a blessing!


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## Greyduck

lol....not hardly...i have fished this spot to many years with no company.


----------



## killingtime

Greyduck said:


> we hit glsm saturday very early. 1 hour before daylight. 5 trucks parked at what use to be my secrect spot. half iced in to boot. by nine it looked like a white bass run was under way...wow! ibet there was 30 or so fishing by then . i have fished this spot for 35 years and i bet i have not seen that many people fishing there over those years. wish i would of brought the boat at this point. ended up with 12 or so dinks from a few other spots. bayview yielded the most fish. but all small.. still good to get out in feb though. looks like i will have to bring the boat as back up from now on!


It's tough to have a secret spot anymore especially from the bank. When one person sees you catch fish all they have to do is get there phone out and post it on one of many fishing report forums that are out there or social media sites. Most of the time they just text there buddies and then they text there buddies and the next day there is 15-20 people fishing your spot when there wasn't another person there all year. It's the world we live in.


----------



## GOOSE48

Really slow today only a couple short one eyelets kept freezing up called it quits early.


----------



## Redhunter1012

A buddy and I fished the spillway Sunday morning from 8 til 1pm. We both landed 1 legal each (both around 26") and I snagged 2 others. I did lose one at the net that rolled in the rocks and cut my line. Sucked seeing him swim away with the jig in his mouth, haha. I did foul hook a big catfish and a 12" crappie as well. Seems when the water is rising, the bite slows a bit. I seen 2 other Eyes snagged the whole time I was there before I left at 1pm. Both our legals were caught on 1/4oz glow heads with 3 chartreuse/flake twister tails


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## zaraspook

Redhunter.......good report and catches! What's your thought.....were your 26" fish saugeye or walleye?


----------



## Redhunter1012

zaraspook said:


> Redhunter.......good report and catches! What's your thought.....were your 26" fish saugeye or walleye?


Walleye for sure. I catch pretty good numbers of both throughout the year around my area depending on body of water.


----------



## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> Walleye for sure. I catch pretty good numbers of both throughout the year around my area depending on body of water.


I'm a novice with both walleye and saugeye. Have caught a few walleye from Erie, maybe a dozen at Brookville Lake in Indiana, and 2 walleyes from GLSM (both before the State stocked saugeye). What feature(s) makes you confident the 2 last Sunday were walleye? I'll know what to look for next time around......thanks.


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## Redhunter1012

Usually saugeye have the dark blotches on their sides. Also the saugeye have black spots all over their dorsal fins.


----------



## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> Usually saugeye have the dark blotches on their sides. Also the saugeye have black spots all over their dorsal fins.


Thanks for your observations........good to know if/when next "eye" jumps into my boat. 

During winter of 2013-2014 when 20-23" saugeyes began showing up in numbers thru the ice, the State was asking for carcasses. They wanted to determine if fish were saugeyes stocked for just 2 years, or walleyes stocked from late 90's to about 2006-2007. Never saw an official report but heard those carcasses were mostly saugeye, but a few walleye. Assuming the walleye stocked for nearly a decade did not successfully reproduce, the youngest walleyes in the lake, like those you caught, are now at least 9 years old. 

Whatever walleye population remains at GLSM, the size you caught are probably the "babies". Population should be declining with each passing year, but any caught in the future should all be trophies. I guess that means if someone catches a "short" walleye, say 14", it could prove walleye did successfully reproduce at GLSM to some degree. And it might suggest if someone targets walleye at GLSM, only big ones remain, therefore big baits might be better!


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## Redhunter1012

The previous Sunday I did snag a walleye that was 17-18" and I seen 1 caught legally at the same size. They were both Walleye. Now I'm assuming these walleye go through a spawning ritual in the spring in Beaver Creek as well, although it's hard saying how successful it is. I'm new to the game at St. Mary's, so I don't know if the numbers caught at the spillway are dwindling year after year or if they are roughly the same? I was shocked at the average size of those fish. If I had to guess, those fished were pumped out when they were fry or fingerlings and grew in the river. I know I will be fishing down there quite a bit more from here on out. I have always fished the Walleye run almost daily in the spring on the Maumee my entire life. I stock my freezer with them and usually give a lot away to my farmers for my hunting permission. I developed a medical condition over the past year that will keep me from fishing the River this spring, and maybe longer. So the spillway fishing is something that I really enjoyed quite a bit. I do have plans to Bring my boat down in the spring and try to locate Crappie on the Lake. For me, Crappie fishing was always a minnow and bobber. But I have been trying to glean some info off the guys there at the spillway on tackle and presentations. And I'm not familiar with rules and etiquette as far as fishing peoples docks and around their property in the channels and marinas. Last thing I want to do is piss people off. I know people are tightlipped about good fishing holes, as am I, so I know It will be quite a bit of a searching mission the first year. I'm looking forward to it


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## zaraspook

Redhunter, 
Can't say I have a clue about the walleye spawning ritual at the spillway/Beaver, however, that's where most action seems to be. And you may have hit the nail on the head......walleye may be successfully spawning in the Beaver. Very rare to hear of catches in the main lake, although the 2 I caught were main lake fish........now 4 years ago. Plus main lake was producing good saugeye and walleye thru ice during previous two winters. Ask some of the graybeards at the spillway if walleye numbers are dwindling. If anything, I've heard more reports this year than last few years.

If you're crappie fishing from a boat, can always be an exception but I don't know how a property owner could gripe if you're fishing his dock/seawall. From land it's a different story. They can and will get testy, or it could be a neighbor of a property owner who nips in. Best to smile and go elsewhere.......too many other options to get into jawboning. Crappie fishing has been exceptional last 2-3 years. 9" size limit and very little harvesting from lake back in 2010-2012 (algae scares) helped get the crappie population back on track. Plus, when walleye stocking halted, it meant predator fish numbers began to fall. Very few people blame the walleye stockings for the reduced crappie numbers, but I think it may have been the #1 factor that crappie fell off for a decade.

Minnow under bobber will always be a good crappie tactic. Most guys these days just replace the minnow with small jig and small plastics (tubes, grubs, creature baits, etc.) and still use a bobber. You have to provide the movement for the plastic. How much movement depends on your technique and what the fish want that day.

Sometime in the next 2-3 years the perch are going to take off. State stocked for 3-4 years now, and last year put in a huge number of perch fingerlings and fry. I expect the growing perch population will put a dent into current crappie numbers.....hope State guys are aware of this. There are always unintended consequences when you play with fish population numbers within a water body. 

Whether at spillway, lake, or channels please continue to post your fishing results. And we talk about *all* GLSM species in this thread. Crappie, walleye, saugeye, bass, channel cats, perch, gills, pike and yes even carp and shad get thrown into the mix (not to mention algae and water quality stuff). Good luck and keep posting!


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## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> The previous Sunday I did snag a walleye that was 17-18" and I seen 1 caught legally at the same size. They were both Walleye. Now I'm assuming these walleye go through a spawning ritual in the spring in Beaver Creek as well, although it's hard saying how successful it is. I'm new to the game at St. Mary's, so I don't know if the numbers caught at the spillway are dwindling year after year or if they are roughly the same? I was shocked at the average size of those fish. If I had to guess, those fished were pumped out when they were fry or fingerlings and grew in the river. I know I will be fishing down there quite a bit more from here on out. I have always fished the Walleye run almost daily in the spring on the Maumee my entire life. I stock my freezer with them and usually give a lot away to my farmers for my hunting permission. I developed a medical condition over the past year that will keep me from fishing the River this spring, and maybe longer. So the spillway fishing is something that I really enjoyed quite a bit. I do have plans to Bring my boat down in the spring and try to locate Crappie on the Lake. For me, Crappie fishing was always a minnow and bobber. But I have been trying to glean some info off the guys there at the spillway on tackle and presentations. And I'm not familiar with rules and etiquette as far as fishing peoples docks and around their property in the channels and marinas. Last thing I want to do is piss people off. I know people are tightlipped about good fishing holes, as am I, so I know It will be quite a bit of a searching mission the first year. I'm looking forward to it


 Redhunter.......you are the recipient of outstanding advice from ml1187, JcJigs, Flathead76, fishermanmike21, and Tom 513 regarding crappie fishing and specifically at GLSM. Yes.......fishing the channels is the main strategy. That holds particularly true in spring and fall. But the main lake is another treasure chest of its own in the summer. I just started last year to explore main lake in the summer. Way too early in that topic for me to proclaim any expertise there, but I'm working on it. I'll throw out this tidbit....whereas in July, August, Sept I didn't catch a single Fish Ohio (13" or better) crappie from my channel, in 3 trips of 2 hours or less on the main lake I caught 3 Fish Ohio crappies. Had problems locating fish but rarely was a catch shorter than 11". There are toads out there!


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## Saugeyefisher

Zara,theres a sticky in the central ohio forum,titled how to determan a saugeye spot. There was several articles posted bye lewis by jim corey,several touch on walleye saugeye difference an identification. 
Good informative reads.checkem out


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher.........gracias, I'll check it out.


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## Saugeyefisher

How big is the glsm spillway? Can you compare it to any in central ohio? Just curious. Sounds like a great variety of fish in it. An decent numbers of larger "eyes".


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Zara,theres a sticky in the central ohio forum,titled how to determan a saugeye spot. There was several articles posted bye lewis by jim corey,several touch on walleye saugeye difference an identification.
> Good informative reads.checkem out


That thread is outstanding! I intended to casually peruse it, just scanning and looking for Saug/Walleye identification stuff. Ended up reading 90% of every post and spent a good hour and a half, totally sucked in by the "meat" shared within it. Great read!


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## zaraspook

Anyone have a read on ice thickness at GLSM? Trying to make an assessment on how much damage the coming warm temps will do to the ice. Maybe I can fish my channel Sunday or Monday if I do some ice-busting on Friday or Saturday. If ice is now 3" or less, ice-busting could help. If ice is 4" or more I'm probably screwed. Somebody "shout" if you know........


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## bigmexican

zaraspook said:


> Anyone have a read on ice thickness at GLSM? Trying to make an assessment on how much damage the coming warm temps will do to the ice. Maybe I can fish my channel Sunday or Monday if I do some ice-busting on Friday or Saturday. If ice is now 3" or less, ice-busting could help. If ice is 4" or more I'm probably screwed. Somebody "shout" if you know........


Zaraspook I was on the ice Sunday at Harmons the ice was 3-4 in.


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## firemanmike2127

I was out last weekend & found 3-4" ice on the north side channels. Mike


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## zaraspook

Thanks bigmexican and firemanmike2127. Hmmmmm, 3-4" is a "tweener". Tough to break up ice over 3" and 50's for 3 days probably not enough time to melt. But, I'm goofy enough to give a try......probably come up and play coast guard ice breaker on Friday.


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## Salmonid

Spillway is size of alum. But only 2-3 saugs caught in a good day with waaaaay more folks beating on it then at Alum. Loads of small crappies and drum. Only fishes decent after a heavy lake draining just like most tailwaters.


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## Saugeyefisher

Salmonid said:


> Spillway is size of alum. But only 2-3 saugs caught in a good day with waaaaay more folks beating on it then at Alum. Loads of small crappies and drum. Only fishes decent after a heavy lake draining just like most tailwaters.


Thanks man! I like putting a visual in my head as im reading the reports....
It amazes me the difference in the spillways in central ohio. Learn to fish them an one or another will give up some sort of fish on any given day of the year.


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## GOOSE48

Does anyone know if the spillway is open? Trying to decide to fish tomorrow or chase bunnies.


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## Redman1776

Spillway is open. I've watched 40 yards of skim ice melt while here the last half hour.


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## GOOSE48

Thanks for the report


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## JcJigs

I think I'm going to go down there tonight I'll be in a silver jeep!


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## GOOSE48

When you get back give a report if you do not mind


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## JcJigs

Had no luck at the spillway tonight there where 5 other guys...only saw a carp snagged...Fished for crappie and saugeye


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## zaraspook

JcJigs said:


> Had no luck at the spillway tonight there where 5 other guys...only saw a carp snagged...Fished for crappie and saugeye


Thanks for fishing report, JcJ!


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## Redhunter1012

A buddy and I should hit the spillway around 9 a.m. I think we will be driving my green jeep liberty or his silver ford taurus with a yellow mailman light on top


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## zaraspook

Put together a plan to assist thawing my channel......with intent to fish it by Sunday or early part of next week. Plan required me to go up Friday morning, do a couple hours of ice-breaking along seawalls, then let Mother Nature take over. Once some open water is established along the edges, it's a catalyst for wind and sun........melting goes faster. Plan was delayed with a mid-morning call from Salmonid who was in the area of my place. Standing on my seawall at the time of the phone call Salmonid chipped away at the ice. Yuck.......2.5 to 3" of good ice right off the seawall. That's too thick to effectively break ice. Salmonid saved me a trip.....thanks Mark. Plan B became to go to GLSM later Friday, hopefully to find ice reduced to 1.5-2", which I can handle with reasonable physical effort.

Made it to GLSM Friday about 5pm and in 2 hours had mixed success. Good portion of ice was down to 2-2.5". On the bright side ice is now broken for about 350' of seawall/bank. Most places ice is broken 2-3' out.....some places as far as 5' out. Unfortunately, 2 spots high on my list of favorites, I couldn't break through at all. By Saturday/today afternoon, broken ice areas should expand to 6-10' out and probably fishable. Areas that were too thick to break at all (over 2.5 inches), should be breakable Saturday afternoon. Won't be able to fish those Saturday, but those areas may be fishable by Sunday afternoon, which was the original goal. Plan to make it there by 2pm today/Sat, fish a bit and do Round #2 of playing ice-breaker.


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## ajcurly

Fished the spillway yesterday for about two hours during the hurricane winds and saw a couple of guys snagging some walleye. One was 6-7 pounds. Fished earlier today and snagged a 3 pound walleye and a sheephead. Put the walleye back. Heading there now to see what's going on.


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## Saugeyefisher

Im very impressed in the aveage size eyes im hearing from your guys spillway! Awesome...
Lol even more impressed with zaras dedication...
I fished for eyes a bit today,I got two my buddy got three.
Not enough open water to bounce around for crappos,but its comeing....
Ive been seriously thinking of commiting a day this spring to glsm crappie chaseing. Maybe in the yak or canoe,or just bounce around the bank..


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## Redhunter1012

Ended up being 4 of us that arrived around 9:30 a.m. My first cast I snagged an Eye. Thought we might be lucky and get some legals after that. Didnt happen. Never could get a legal eye. We did locate a good crapie bite the last hour we were there. Ended up leaving with 13 good crappie. One was around 9.5", the rest were 11"-12". Did catch a few dinks as well


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## JcJigs

Thanks for the reports guys 

I went to harmons landing and did not have any luck ran over to windy point and it was all froze up still. then I made my way to cold water creek and it was open but had no luck there either haha...I didn't fish the spots for that long might go out here this afternoon


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM about noon Saturday. Areas where I cleared ice Friday 2-3' along seawall were melted out to 6-10", about what I expected. Went to work busting ice busting ice at the couple of favorite spots that were too thick to crack the day before. Ice thickness at that point was 2-2.5", easier to handle but still required 90 minutes......maybe those areas would be fishable by Sunday. By 3pm, the areas I'd broken on Friday were wide open as sun/wind were doing the trick. No ice at all for 250' of channel! Time to fish.

Important note......."just because the water is open for fishing does not mean it's open to catching". I think Confucius may have said that about 2500 years ago. 90 minutes of fishing late Saturday afternoon......nary a bite. Maybe try again Sunday?

After mulling it over Sunday morning, wasn't convinced another trip to GLSM was a good time investment. Went to church instead, perhaps looking for divine inspiration to help me decide. Later at home, the wife asked "Why aren't you at the fishing?". That was all the inspiration I needed! Made it to the lake about 2:30pm. Unfortunately, the two spots with concentrated ice busting on Saturday were not really open to fish. After 2 hours I threw in the towel. Maybe 6 bites produced one small gill and a dink crappie.

Sunday water temp off my seawall was 39.3 degrees, slightly higher than 38.1 the day before. And, at the spot where I'd caught both the gill and dink crappie, the back-end of a channel, water temp was 41.3. Interesting.


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## Greyduck

looks like we might make it up to the lake for some crappie action this evening.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> looks like we might make it up to the lake for some crappie action this evening.


Greyduck.........spillway or channels today? Not that I saw many channels, but the few I passed had good amounts of open water.


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## Greyduck

A few main lake spots and a few channels today. i hope the wind picks up some by then.


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## GOOSE48

2 guys I work with kept 45 today I did not make it down had to take my mother to a Dr. apt he said early they were real aggressive but slowed up about 9:30 . I am hoping to get down Wednesday morning.


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## zaraspook

Good to know if you find them they are eating.


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## Greyduck

got to the lake around 3:30. Fished a main lake spot first with no luck. moved to a channel. The bite was good but mostly all dinks. Just before dark the bigger fish showed up. 15 keepers in all. I would say over a hundred dinks in all. hot pink plastics worked best. The water looked great. Very clear.. Even though the dinks are a pain when your hands are cold. it was great to see them. it looks like this fishery will at least continue for a few more years.


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## Redman1776

I had a great morning! First cast landed a 12" crappie. I limited out in just over an hour and then started culling out the smaller ones. Pink was the ticket. I was fishing a popular area and was out fishing everyone around me, I think the pink made the difference. 90% of my fish came less than 5 ft from the bank. 3 fish Ohio crappies for me today.


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## zaraspook

Not much chance for me to fish later in the week. When the window opened for fishing time Tues afternoon I jumped on it. Made it to GLSM at 2pm. Water temp was 40.3 in my channel, up a degree from Sunday, and clarity pretty good.......you can see the bottom but water is down so low bottom is 2' max. Fished my channel twice for 30 minutes.......not a bite. Fished 5 spots in an adjacent channel and 3 of those were without a bite. Another spot gave up 3 bites and zero fish.

Bite at the final spot was non-stop, probably never longer than 3-4 minutes between bites. I left the spot twice looking for better size and returned twice when I couldn't locate fish. In about 2.5 hours on this spot, I caught 23 gills and 21 crappies......quantity was fine. Probably 1/3 of the gills were good ones, easily keepers, but I didn't. Only 2 crappies were keepers, one at 11" and the other just passing the 10" tick.

Interesting that both Redman and Greyduck mentioned "pink". My fish were equally split between a pink/white plastic and a chartreuse with flecks plastic. Fish would slow down on pink/white so I'd switch to the chartreuse until bite slowed, alternating back and forth. Most of my crappies were well short, 5-7" fish. By the way, the water temp that produced 100% of my catch was 41.3 degrees, one degree warmer than at any other location. Hmmm. No more than 3 fish came 6-8' from bank. The rest were 12-20' out.

Hope GLSM receives every bit of the 1.6" of rain and 1-3" of snow in forecast next 2-3 days. I've only seen my channel this low once before...big time drought in 2012 (I think). Had I not located fish at the one spot, it would have been a skunk. Instead, it was action packed and a fun day. Sometimes you need a little luck........


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## zaraspook

Dealing with ice issues lately at GLSM got me thinking about pike. Ice out is usually when you hear of pike catches. Near where I was catching the crappies and gills yesterday, I heard and saw several swirls/surface activity that could well have been pike. Usually from ice out thru April is when I catch 1 or 2 a season. Anyone stumbled onto a GLSM pike yet this season? If you do take a pic and post it...........


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## Jim Stedke

No pike but I was probably at the same area as redman and handled easily 50 with all but a handful being legal and likely 8-10 over 12" . Released all but the dozen or so that I gave to guys near me. White pink and chartreuse were all working. The best crappie bite I've ever been in on. Since he didn't say where I will follow suit.


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## zaraspook

Jim Stedke said:


> No pike but I was probably at the same area as redman and handled easily 50 with all but a handful being legal and likely 8-10 over 12" . Released all but the dozen or so that I gave to guys near me. White pink and chartreuse were all working. The best crappie bite I've ever been in on. Since he didn't say where I will follow suit.


"Best crappie bite ever" is a heck of an endorsement! Last f
ew years at GLSM have been so good. What's your opinion on where GLSM ranks as an Ohio crappie fishery?


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## Fishslayer9

Could anyone tell me what the spillway looks like? Is it fishable or have the temperatures made the creek level go out of bank? Thanks guys


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## Redman1776

Slooowwwww morning. Very few small crappie caught. Skim ice in channels. Lot of guys fishing and a lot more driving around looking for the bite. I tried the same set up in the same spot as earlier this week and had no luck, I took a buddy along and made myself look like a liar. Water was a few shades muddier than earlier this week and wind shifted directions.


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## Jim Stedke

zaraspook said:


> "Best crappie bite ever" is a heck of an endorsement! Last f
> ew years at GLSM have been so good. What's your opinion on where GLSM ranks as an Ohio crappie fishery?


It's the best place I know of, but what the hey, I'm a walleye guy. Much tuffer since the rain only 2 today and one of them was about 6"s.

One hot bite does not a fishery make, but it was sure fun.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Saturday from 2:30 till almost 6pm. Didn't venture anywhere but my channel. Bite was extremely light........if you were tight-lining it you could feel fish suck it in and hardly move at all. Slower the presentation the better. Water was somewhat stained but clarity way better than just a normal day in summer.

Ended up catching 28 crappies, 7 keepers between 10-11". Much better than only getting 2 keepers last Tuesday. Only 3 gills today whereas Tuesday there were 23 gills. Most of crappies I caught were 9-15' off bank. Any fish inside of that were always very short fish. Pink/white didn't catch a single fish. Chartreuse was king. 

In my opinion the biggest contributor to slow bite Saturday was water temp. Tuesday water temp was as high as 41.3 degrees. Saturday it was 37.2-37.3 degrees everywhere. Not only did this week have plenty of cold night time lows, but lots of wind this week with northerly flows. That last warm spell was warming my channel nicely......up to 41+ degrees by Tuesday. Wind from North blows colder main lake water into my south side channel and contributed to the 4 degree drop in water temp.


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## zaraspook

Crappie fished almost 3 hours before and during Buckeye basketball game. Wind was difficult for feeling the light bite particularly for the dink crappies I've been into most of February. Pink/white produced the first 6 crappies in about an hour, but after that couldn't find any takers. Switching to chartreuse picked up the slack with 12 more over 2 hours, plus 3 really nice gills. The total of 18 crappies included just 2 keepers, biggest only 10.5". Most fish were again well off the bank, 10-20 feet out and 30-36" deep. However, the few you could find were much more aggressive taking the bait......much different than on Saturday. Water clarity improved from the somewhat stained condition and water temps rebounded ranging from 40 to 42 degrees. Found one area that was 42.5 but no bites there. In general the fish I found in my channel were around known submerged cover, easily 5-12' beyond the cover and much deeper than most GLSM guys fish.


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## harrison08

zaraspook said:


> Crappie fished almost 3 hours before and during Buckeye basketball game. Wind was difficult for feeling the light bite particularly for the dink crappies I've been into most of February. Pink/white produced the first 6 crappies in about an hour, but after that couldn't find any takers. Switching to chartreuse picked up the slack with 12 more over 2 hours, plus 3 really nice gills. The total of 18 crappies included just 2 keepers, biggest only 10.5". Most fish were again well off the bank, 10-20 feet out and 30-36" deep. However, the few you could find were much more aggressive taking the bait......much different than on Saturday. Water clarity improved from the somewhat stained condition and water temps rebounded ranging from 40 to 42 degrees. Found one area that was 42.5 but no bites there. In general the fish I found in my channel were around known submerged cover, easily 5-12' beyond the cover and much deeper than most GLSM guys fish.


Went up Sunday only to find the skunk! Been a while since I have one of those! But, with it being February and I was outside and fishing, I will take it!


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## GOOSE48

Fished this morning for about 3 hrs. a bunch of short ones but ended up keeping 12 between 10 and eleven inches.


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## zaraspook

harrison08......both days of the weekend were challenging. A very wise crappie guy once told me if the fish aren't where they should be, good chances they aren't far away. His advice has served me well. Fishing farther out did get me a few more bites but nothing spectacular. Bite really picked up when I went both out and deeper, like 3' or more in an area where it was probably on the bottom or very close.


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## zaraspook

Goose48......that's the best report I've heard for several days. Fish were due to be eating. Keep it up!


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## Greyduck

we hit the lake early sunday. fished from the bank due to starter going out on the boat. nothing happening at the usual places. tryed out deeper with still nothing wanting to play. alot of folks sitting on thier buckets.


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## zaraspook

When folks have their butts on the buckets it says it all, no questions needed. I bet fish are eating today.


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## Salmonid

I was hoping to come up today and look for shad but work pulled the rug out from under me which was ok since the heavy storms were much earlier then anticipated.. Maybe next week...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> I was hoping to come up today and look for shad but work pulled the rug out from under me which was ok since the heavy storms were much earlier then anticipated.. Maybe next week...


Yesterday/Tues my wife told me rain forecast was moved back, no rain until evening. I went to GLSM without checking weather forecast myself. Crap......ran into rain within 15 minutes of leaving house. It really never stopped the entire time I was up there from about 1-5pm. Fished anyway. From 1-3:30 had maybe 5 bites fishing in close and out, different structures, different depths, different baits. None of those 5 bites resembled a crappie. Caught 2 fish off the 5 bites, a 10-11" LMB with gorgeous coloring that was 3' off bank, and this little 8.5" guy in pic below.




  








IMG_20160301_Perch




__
zaraspook


__
Mar 2, 2016




GLSM 3-1-16 Perch






Took a coffee/munchie break then at 4pm went at it again for 45 minutes. Up to then those 25+ mph winds made it impossible to fish any west or southwest facing banks. At 4 pm the wind was occasionally backing off, giving the chance to fish banks facing W or SW. First dip of the bait produced one of those signature crappie bumps and 1st crappie (8.5"). Got 8 more in rapid fire from the same spot in the next 30 minutes, all of them clones or smaller of the first one. Tried for another 15 minutes to get 10th crappie but to no avail and called it a day.

9 crappies, 1 pretty LMB, and a sweet looking perch is an OK day, especially in yesterday's wind and driving rain. My channel had good clarity, wasn't stained/muddy but looking at the feeder creeks on the way home lake is probably muddy today. Water level is up.....guessing 6" from 2 weeks ago. Forgot to check water temp until I was out of my rain gear.....decided to skip it. The spot that gave up the 9 crappies had not yielded a single one this year before yesterday..


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## GOOSE48

Has anyone been out. I have to work tomorrow hoping to make it down sunday.


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## zaraspook

GOOSE48 said:


> Has anyone been out. I have to work tomorrow hoping to make it down sunday.


Haven't been there since Tuesday but might try about 1pm Saturday. If I go I'll let you know. Sunday weather should be good and rest of week spectacular temps if you don't mind a little rain.


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## ekriet9

I went yesterday fished from 11-2:30 and caught quite a few. 21 keepers. Bite was slow but steady and bites came from everywhere. The brush, as far out as I could cast and 3' from the bank


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## zaraspook

ekriet9 said:


> I went yesterday fished from 11-2:30 and caught quite a few. 21 keepers. Bite was slow but steady and bites came from everywhere. The brush, as far out as I could cast and 3' from the bank
> View attachment 203796


Great post and nice mess of slabs! Love your camera work.


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## bonifas9017

Thinking about trying for some crappie tomorrow. Just looking for some tips on color and retrieve thanks.


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## Redman1776

bonifas9017 said:


> Thinking about trying for some crappie tomorrow. Just looking for some tips on color and retrieve thanks.


Something with pink. No retrieve. 1/32 oz jig under as small of an ice bobber you can manage. Very small rod twitches should be all the action it takes if they're biting.


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## ekriet9

I started with pink but chartreuse produced a little quicker for me. Very little movement and the smaller the bobber the better IMO. Half of them lifted the cork up and a couple of them just took it under 1/2" and sat there


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## bonifas9017

Thanks. i will posts how it goes


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## zaraspook

fished 1/2 hour before Buckeye game today and 2 hours afterwards. If you can recall the number of bites you had, it wasn't a good day. Started with pink/white. Zero bites. Shifted to chartreuse, 4 bites produced one whiff, 1 keeper 10" crappie, a hookup on a fish that unzipped, and final bite was a dink crappie at various spots without a discernible pattern. Yeah, I caught two on chartreuse but they were not eating the bait......just lip hooked. Usually means they want something else. Two other colors in the last hour produced zero bites, clearly not what they wanted either. 1/32nd oz jig and small float (actually my float is smaller than required to support jig without sinking). Should have changed to 1/64 oz jig today for slower presentation, but I hate those tiny hooks.

Total of 4 bites.....that's it. Water was somewhat stained but much better condition than I expected. Checked water temp at 3 different locations.......all registered 38.3 degrees. I noticed 10-12 shad of 3-4" doing the slow motion death spiral. Previously haven't noticed that many shad dying. Next week should get the water temps near mid-40's and warm up the bite, too. It's coming..........


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## zaraspook

Water temp 38.8 degrees at GLSM in my channel and clarity is good. Solid cloud cover there until about 2pm and sun started t peak thru. Crappie bite continued to be tough. Caught 9 today, still only a single keeper. One fish came 4' from the bank.......rest were 10-15' out, 5-8' beyond cover, and fishing 30-36" deep. I fished 9 different spots, multiple times each. One of those spots gave me a nice gill, no crappies. 7 spots were without a bite. All 9 crappies from a single spot. 

Pink/white jig caught zero fish. Chartreuse also skunked. All 9 crappies and the gill caught on a lime green bait, actually called key lime. Probably try again on Tuesday.....give water a chance to tick up a few degrees.


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## Salmonid

Rande. Your reports are not helping my initiative to get up there this week with my boat. Lol. I heard they pulling the lake hard all weekend getting ready for this weeks rains. You know when they pulling hard the bite sucks. Lol. Keep me in the loop. I might go for shad anyways


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Rande. Your reports are not helping my initiative to get up there this week with my boat. Lol. I heard they pulling the lake hard all weekend getting ready for this weeks rains. You know when they pulling hard the bite sucks. Lol. Keep me in the loop. I might go for shad anyways


Salmonid.....wasn't aware tubes were open at spillway. Rare that I know that until water level drops several inches. I blame shitty bite on wrong-way water temps in my super shallow channel......might merit rethinking that falling water could be reason why crappies relocate to center of channel (deeper water?). My perspective is crappies have to eat sooner or later. If they aren't biting one day, better the odds for catching a pile the next day.

Guess what? My channel is officially on the schedule for 2016 dredging! Wondering now how far back into the channel they go? Tough to picture a dredge operating off my seawall.


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## Redman1776

I haven't heard any good reports as of late. I plan to try tomorrow, fighting wind with ultralight tackle and ten foot rod is always a chore but I dealt with it the day I got a fast limit. I'll report back tomorrow.


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## GOOSE48

The worst day that I have had this year so far. I fished 4 different places ended up with 2 keepers and a handful of throw backs. hoping to get down there in the morning.


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## zaraspook

What's your theory on poor bite.........draw down? Water temps? Both? Other? I'll be at GLSM sometime Tuesday.......they gotta eat sooner or later. Last group I caught were far from fat.


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## GOOSE48

I think with the draw down it moves them out of there normal area witch take them time to settle back down in there new place. It was a little better today ended up with 10 keepers and threw about 50 short ones back.


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## Redman1776

I did not have any luck today nor did anyone I talked to. A lot of people driving around searching.


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## zaraspook

Put me in the "tough luck" bucket. Started at 9am and in 15 minutes had first fish, first keeper at 11". That was the one and only bite at that spot. Blanked at the next spot so went to third. In an hour there caught 3 crappies, all short and when sun came out about 11am I didn't get another bite. No more bites at 3rd spot, 4th, 5th, 6th....... No more bites for the day (about 2 more hours of fishing). It was brutal!

Water temp at 9am was 41 degrees in my channel. Was up to 45 at 3pm. Didn't matter. Agree with Salmonid and others. I think pulling water is the main problem.....cold water temps are certainly being corrected this week.


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## GOOSE48

Me and Big Mexican tried today for a very short time. I think it is getting worse than better. We never caught a thing. there were some gils being taken on the north side that I saw on my way home, maybe time to switch gears.


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## Salmonid

Ok guys, here is the USGS Gauge below the lake, Be sure to Bookmark it on your smart phone so youll have the skinny within an hour or so of the updates

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/oh/nwis/uv/?site_no=03322485&PARAmeter_cd=00065,00060,00010

this gives a gauge height and also the CFS of the discharge, as you can see they were dropping the lake like crazy until Tuesday around mid day, they then held back water for the big rain and I would guess in the next day or two, will start pulling it down again after the creeks crest and start lowering.

Enjoy....


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....glad to see you located the link. Hope I can put it to use. Flow jumped way up again tonight (11th) around 9-10pm.

I got in 2.5 hours of fishing Friday in the afternoon. First of all water temp in my channel is 50.9 degrees! That's up like 6 degrees since Tuesday, without the aid of much sun, but inflow from creeks is obviously warm and kicking lake temp upward. Water was stained, not muddy, but no creek feeds my channel. Creek fed channels are muddy.

Last 2 trips I caught 9 crappies with just one keeper and 4 crappies and again 1 keeper. Quantity wasn't good today either, but quality a step in right direction. 7 crappies today, 5 keepers all 10.5 to 11". Nice to feel some weight again on the other end, and in 50+ degree water they showed more spunk.

The key today for me was warm water. Not one of my fish came further off the bank than 3'. Also, all came from water depth 2' or less. Didn't get a single bite today fishing out like I've done for last month. Also, had no bites in 3' or more of water. 6 of 7 fish related to wood/brush but not all wood/brush. Probably will change by tomorrow, but my suggestion is don't overlook hitting shallow areas. 50.9 degrees probably feels like a sauna to the fishies.

Pink/white caught zero. Key lime caught zero. Chartreuse caught 7.


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## zaraspook

Saturday was another tough day coincidentally State was pulling water hard at spillway again (restarted late Friday night according to the USGS web site Salmonid posted (lookback3-4 posts to find link). Water clarity worse than Friday, pretty muddy, and water temp 50.5 today vs 50.1 yesterday. Fished after noon and 2.5 hours. Lost a toad in the first 15 minutes, just lip hooked. Stopped fishing, walked back to my place, grabbed a net and hoped I wasn't jinxing myself. Lots of landowners at GLSM today which limited fishing to half my normal options. I doubt it would have changed anything. Bites were scarce and most were infrequent gill bites. After losing the piggy early did not catch first fish of the day for at least 90 minutes At 11" it wasn't my longest crappie of 2016 but probably the heaviest. Most this early in spring typically look thin/skinny. This one was broad and big bellied, more like a fall crappie, probably a female but eggs hadn't shifted down yet like they will closer to spawn. Photo below:




  








IMG_20160312_141314123




__
zaraspook


__
Mar 13, 2016








Caught no more until the final hour of fishing.......2 dink crappies. Rough outing. I'm sticking around Saturday night to try the morning bite on Sunday. My normal chartreuse, key lime colors were shut out. The few today were all caught on 2.25" Bobby Garland Baby Shad SwimR in electric chicken color.


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## Tom 513

I have done well before with that Electric chicken color


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## zaraspook

Tom 513.......Lots of guys at GLSM are high on pink and I do better on chartreuse/lime. I was thinking electric chicken is a combo of pink and green.....why not throw both colors at them? 

Sunday was all day rain at GLSM and a had a wake/viewing to do early afternoon, so I fished off and on. My morning 90 minute session wasn't bad, bite was slow, but all 6 crappies I caught were keepers. 10" or better (3 were 11"). Has been a while since my keeper rate was so good and not overrun with dinks. About 1pm got in another 45 minutes, 3 more crappies, but this time one of them was short. Needed one more fish to get to ten so made one last 30 minute stab at it around 6pm. Got only one bite but it was another 11" crappie to make 10 fish with 9 keepers for the day. 

Didn't get around to checking water temp. Water clarity was not as muddy as expected. One of my 10 crappies came on chartreuse plastic. Chalk up another 9 for electric chicken. Great size to the fish today, almost like the bigger ones kicked the little ones out. And 50+ degree water certain yields much better fight from the fish. Most of fish were taken within 3-4' from bank.


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## Saugeyefisher

Yesterday was a bad crappie day at buckeye. Took kayaks to a back water cove. From 1-5 two of us caught 10/12 crappies an a load of gills. Guess its a bit early for a rainy day to produce. Anothee cple weeks an days like yesterday canbe stellar,lol an of coarse im sitting here at wor now watching the warm sun shine. I bet there going nutz on the same docks i fished yesterday!
The day before with another friend we got into a short spurt of action in a much shallower cove. The fish we caught had very badly beat up tails an were in a foot of water.


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## Saugeyefisher

Oh ya no patterns on colors either caught fish on everything real speradic


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Oh ya no patterns on colors either caught fish on everything real speradic


Agree......I've said before, sooner or later every color/pattern has it's day. Plus, some day's it doesn't matter at all.


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## GOOSE48

Things are looking up today I caught about 40 today with 10 keepers 1 really nice 1 that was 13.5 inches long hoping it keeps going.


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## zaraspook

Goose48....water clarity you fished today?


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## GOOSE48

The water is real muddy


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## Lowell H Turner

hopefully they will get to moving a record haul of mud and sediment this year ! enjoy yourselves guys !


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> hopefully they will get to moving a record haul of mud and sediment this year ! enjoy yourselves guys !


 Dredge, baby, dredge! My channel is on the dredge list this year. Hope the dredging guys don't ruin my crappie attractors.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Dredge, baby, dredge! My channel is on the dredge list this year. Hope the dredging guys don't ruin my crappie attractors.


So how deep is your channel now and how deep will it be once they are done dredging? I would certainly think the dredging would improve fishing in your channel. (or where ever they do it)
Just curious.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> So how deep is your channel now and how deep will it be once they are done dredging? I would certainly think the dredging would improve fishing in your channel. (or where ever they do it)
> Just curious.


c-dude......as we speak max depth of channel probably 4.5'. I've been at GLSM since 2008 and was told my channel was last dredged 8 years before that. Purely a guess since I wasn't around for last round of muck sucking.........probably will gain 2-3' depth, in the shape of a trough down the middle. Might mess with fishing temporarily, but long term a positive for fishing and boating (nervous navigating channel in late summer or any drought period).


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## crappiedude

Wow....gaining 2'-3' is pretty good I would think especially making a trough which would create a quick break line/ drop-off/ ledge running down each side of the channel. Crappie rally seem to relate to that type of structure and if a few little pieces of brush would happen to fall into the water along that break it would be a real magnet to help hold fish.
BTW this is a great thread, I read it all the time even though I've never been there. It's just nice seeing such positive posts and comments on a regular basis. You don't see that happen much on the internet. Kudos to you guys who post on here.


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## Salmonid

I agree completely Crappiedude, I don't post much on there but read Rande's post religiously, always full of great info! Unfortunately my post always relate to shad and channel catfish, some would say "The Dark side" when it comes to popular species...LOL
Salmonid


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## harrison08

My buddy and I headed up on Wednesday in search of some early season crappie. Seeing as they were calling for heavy winds, I did not know what this day would bring. The first place we stopped, I chose with the thought of getting out of the wind. Instead, that spot was a virtual wind tunnel pushing everything so quickly, it was tough to fish. On to spot 2, a north side channel that is very popular. We walk up and down the banks fishing in the brush, outside the brush, in the middle of the channel with little results: 5 or 6 fish, one keeper right at 11". We dip and dap around some other spots around the lake mostly picking up short fish. We ended up at the spillway. The wind was brutal and they wanted small baits.....unfortunately, all I had were bigger, thicker baits. I ended up with only one other keeper---a big, healthy 12" crappie. Shorts, gills, a bullhead, and two largemouth rounded out the day. The season is just getting started. 

We did get to see them tag some carp at the Windy Point ramp. They were putting tags in, with the expectation of removing rough fish (obviously they can't get them all) from the lake. It was explained that carp will school together in April-May. At that time, commercial fishermen will net up the rough fish by using the tags to locate the schools. This is in response to some electro-fishing surveys done that showed about 90% rough fish and 10% game fish.

It is nice to see that they are attempting to solve the problem.


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## Redman1776

The local news had a story on the carp tagging. The idea is interesting and will work but the subsidizing money is a pork barrel waste IMO. Follow the splashes during the carp spawn, no need for costly time consuming tracking devices. Host carp tournaments, everyone wins if they do that. I'm just a taxpayer, what do I know.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Wow....gaining 2'-3' is pretty good I would think especially making a trough which would create a quick break line/ drop-off/ ledge running down each side of the channel. Crappie rally seem to relate to that type of structure and if a few little pieces of brush would happen to fall into the water along that break it would be a real magnet to help hold fish.
> BTW this is a great thread, I read it all the time even though I've never been there. It's just nice seeing such positive posts and comments on a regular basis. You don't see that happen much on the internet. Kudos to you guys who post on here.


crappiedude.........speaking of "positive posts", what a generous and positive post you authored! And you're right that "a few little pieces of brush" would be a great magnet. Maybe I know someone who could make sure Mother Nature contributes strategically placed brush/limbs. 

What I enjoy is that we have a solid/growing group of people posting/sharing good info. We're helping each other be more successful, talking baits, time of day, cover, presentation, and results on both the bad days as well as good days. Appreciate your contributions, c-dude.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> I agree completely Crappiedude, I don't post much on there but read Rande's post religiously, always full of great info! Unfortunately my post always relate to shad and channel catfish, some would say "The Dark side" when it comes to popular species...LOL
> Salmonid


Mark.....loved "The Dark side" comment! You're too humble, fella. Those shad comments help to decipher the puzzle on where fish are, particularly when you volunteer that your cast-nets are picking up 11-12" crappies "off the rocks at Windy Point" or "in 5-6 feet of water at Montezuma", or the discussion about pulling water shutting down the bite and posting the website for USGS monitoring spillway flow, or the B'n'M crappie videos, or.......convinced yet? Nothing dark about channel cats.....I love running into them when I'm fishing for crappies, bass, walleye. High appreciation in my book for sport fishing of channels. You and cat chaser are great spokesmen for GLSM as a fishery.


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> My buddy and I headed up on Wednesday in search of some early season crappie. Seeing as they were calling for heavy winds, I did not know what this day would bring. The first place we stopped, I chose with the thought of getting out of the wind. Instead, that spot was a virtual wind tunnel pushing everything so quickly, it was tough to fish. On to spot 2, a north side channel that is very popular. We walk up and down the banks fishing in the brush, outside the brush, in the middle of the channel with little results: 5 or 6 fish, one keeper right at 11". We dip and dap around some other spots around the lake mostly picking up short fish. We ended up at the spillway. The wind was brutal and they wanted small baits.....unfortunately, all I had were bigger, thicker baits. I ended up with only one other keeper---a big, healthy 12" crappie. Shorts, gills, a bullhead, and two largemouth rounded out the day. The season is just getting started.
> 
> We did get to see them tag some carp at the Windy Point ramp. They were putting tags in, with the expectation of removing rough fish (obviously they can't get them all) from the lake. It was explained that carp will school together in April-May. At that time, commercial fishermen will net up the rough fish by using the tags to locate the schools. This is in response to some electro-fishing surveys done that showed about 90% rough fish and 10% game fish.
> 
> It is nice to see that they are attempting to solve the problem.


harrison08......my results and observations today/Weds paralleled yours. Wind was brutal. Light line, small jigs/baits/bobbers don't mix well with gale force winds. Feeling a bite was almost impossible. 8 minutes into my first spot was amazed to pull an 11" chunk from water disguised as chocolate milk. That was the only fish I caught on the Bobby Garland electric chicken bait. Next spot was blank and 3rd spot, after 2-3 short hits, caught 2 10"+ keepers and a dink when I switched to rig with a smaller bait. Thinking maybe the West wind would be driving baitfish into a shallow backend of channel that opens west, I moved again. Not a nibble in the shallow backend or next spot.

Retreated back to my place to meet a couple visitors. After visitors departed I started at my seawall. Since it faces west, I'd avoided it earlier but was running short of other options. 2nd dip produced an 11.5" crappie. Amazing how much fight you get in warmer water. I would of sworn it was a 13-14" slab. Pounded my seawall for another 25 minutes with only 1 dink to show for it. Both fish were back to the larger bait (key lime Bobby Garland this time). 

Final 2 spots would be a seawall with a series of plastic crappie attractors and then a large wooden dock. I'd caught 6 fish, 4 keepers before getting to the final two spots. When I left tally was 16 crappies with 8 keepers. Both spots produced about the same number of fish, but more keepers from the dock. With water level up, the opening under the dock was much smaller than prior trips. Tough target to hit but when successful the bite was pretty active. 

Decent day though conditions were challenging.....can't say I ever understood any kind of pattern. Bobby Garland 2.25" caught 2/3 of fish and bigger fish. Electric chicken got one and rest on key lime for the Bpbby Garland baits. Interesting that the smaller bait (chartreuse sparkle) would catch fish where the Bobby Garland wouldn't, but crappies were usually smaller. Water temp was 56 degrees! It will head downward end of this week and next.


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## GOOSE48

A lot of dinks today and only 10 keepers . I think more fishermen than fish. I learned if you are not were you want to be by 630 you are not going to get a spot in the busy areas


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## zaraspook

goose48......as bite warms up sounds like competition for spots gets hotter/harder, too. Gonna be that way for next 8+ weeks. Still dark at 630 isn't it?


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## GOOSE48

Yea it was pitch black. One guy told me he got there at 530 and had a flashlight pointing out.to see his bobber.


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## bigmexican

GOOSE48 said:


> Yea it was pitch black. One guy told me he got there at 530 and had a flashlight pointing out.to see his bobber.


You can rest when your dead boys! Better get there early.


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## free67

you guys keep talking about the fishing on GL and you wonder why there are people fishing with flashlights standing elbow to elbow. Another few years this lake will be junk again. Bad enough how game fish get swept out from our wonderful spillway system, now you have many new people out fishing this lake because of the 117 page report for GL that you make sure stays at the top everyday. Wonder why you don't see posts like this on other watering holes........mmmm
just something to think about gentleman. have a good day


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## DLarrick

I think this thread is what OGF is all about. Helping out fellow fisherman. Thread has been going on since 2011 and you feel the need to stop it 18 post in. Good luck


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## Salmonid

Hmm, pretty sure your still reading all those reports and many of them are as bad as the number of good ones, best reports are Honest and show the good with the bad. Pretty sure most folks on here really appreciate that. Another point is that Rande fishes only a small section in his subdivision, he is not hopping all around the whole lake like so many of all the hundreds of others posts out there on the Ohio Facebook fishing page or the Crappie.com reports, those really are the bad press as you call it since those guys post ever specific access point. 

Funny how lurkers rear their heads every so often complaining about pressure but certainly enjoy reading others post without ever contributing. and just in case you didn't notice, this thread is in the "Fishing Reports" section which would assume that actual reports would be found. Not sure what I'm missing here. Perhaps your jealous that your not able to fish every 2-3 days like Rande does, ( I know I am) LOL

Rant over...
Salmonid


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## free67

I have lived here my whole life. just because i don't often post doesn't mean i don't know what i am talking about.
i have better things to do than post or play on face book like some people dlarrick.


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## GOOSE48

Yea we can tell with another post lol


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## Cobe24

I am just thankful that some of the meat hunters are leaving my beloved Indian Lake and returning to GLSM!


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## Salmonid

Dont worry with the ever present daily posts on here about Indian Saugeyes. They wont be gone for long. Lol


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## Saugeye Tom

free67 said:


> you guys keep talking about the fishing on GL and you wonder why there are people fishing with flashlights standing elbow to elbow. Another few years this lake will be junk again. Bad enough how game fish get swept out from our wonderful spillway system, now you have many new people out fishing this lake because of the 117 page report for GL that you make sure stays at the top everyday. Wonder why you don't see posts like this on other watering holes........mmmm
> just something to think about gentleman. have a good day


The lake is huge...people have known about it for years....no way will it be fished out


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## Saugeye Tom

free67 said:


> I have lived here my whole life. just because i don't often post doesn't mean i don't know what i am talking about.
> i have better things to do than post or play on face book like some people dlarrick.


Good by then


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## zaraspook

During the week I rarely get to fish the morning bite. Had the chance this morning (Fri) 8-11:30 am with a breakfast break in the middle. Tested at least 8 spots, 3 produced multiple fish and one spot gave up only a single. Best news.......all but one of the 16 I caught were keepers. Nothing jumbo but respectable 10-11" crappies. Again, I'm impressed with the fight they put up. Nothing timid about the bite today, if they hit there was no messing around.

All were around wood of some sort. A wooden dock was best.......1/2 my fish came from under it in a really fun 30-40 minutes until I snagged under the dock and broke off. Everything caught on bigger baits and heavier jigs than I've been using since last November. Bobby Garlland 2.25" swim'R caught 11(used key lime and electric chicken). Rest of fish came on grub/twister tails (Hot Grubs from Southern Pro in Acid Rain/June Bug pattern). It's one of my favorites but haven't them since November. All of fish were in pretty close, like within 5-6' of bank/seawall, and a few as close as 1' off seawall.

Water clarity hasn't improved much......muddy and down 3" from mid-week. Water temp today was 52.5, off from 56 degrees on Weds. Nice to fish in the morning for a change, among other aspects no wind! 15 keepers out of 16 fish puts a smile on your face.


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## zaraspook

free67 said:


> you guys keep talking about the fishing on GL and you wonder why there are people fishing with flashlights standing elbow to elbow. Another few years this lake will be junk again. Bad enough how game fish get swept out from our wonderful spillway system, now you have many new people out fishing this lake because of the 117 page report for GL that you make sure stays at the top everyday. Wonder why you don't see posts like this on other watering holes........mmmm
> just something to think about gentleman. have a good day


free67.........glad to see your post and hear your perspective. I learned long ago my perspective isn't necessarily shared by all, and some times may not be shared by anyone else. Frankly, it's flattering to hear this thread is responsible for bringing masses of new fisherman to enjoy the lake. I'm frequently contacted by thread readers considering a fishing day at GLSM and asking for advice. At best one in 20 might actually follow thru and visit. I wish the thread had the power to bring masses to area restaurants, bait shops, carry-outs, and marinas, but I'm not vain enough to believe it. Because GLSM is a public waterway, I get to use the lake and you do as well. Ohio residents are paying most of the bill, they should use and enjoy it, too. If this thread helps them catch a few fish, maybe they will come back, spend some money in the community. Even better, they may one day introduce others to the wonderful world of angling. 

I'll admit I'm a cheerleader for GLSM. Doubtful that's news to anyone. More people are fishing the lake because the catching is better. Not saying it isn't possible, but in my opinion the thread has little impact.


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## boober54

Zaraspook don"t you dare stop posting. I need my GLSM crappie fix...Drs. orders!!


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## crappiedude

It's a shame to see a negative post on a thread that has such a positive approach, If you're worried that someone will catch all your fish, quit worrying...it's not going to happen. I spent the last 40 years worrying about it and if anything the fishing got better.
Yes the internet is full of lurkers and is a powerful tool with the force helping to lure people to very specific locations. With that being said, just because they show up doesn't mean they do any good of even catch any fish. Most lurkers leave empty handed. I have to admit that in years past I would go to places where I heard there was a hot bite going on. I have to say that success was very, very limited often resulting in just a few small fish at best. More than likely I would have done better off just staying home fishing the waters I was most familiar with. Most people will only make that journey to the promise land only once and find out the lake isn't teaming with huge fish just hoping to be caught. Most of us will be like Zaraspook says and will only dream about making the trip, often planning but will not commit the time or money to actually make the trip.
One of the problems with the lurking is even though there are a few posts about fishing GLSM, Indian, East Fork or any of the other lakes, the truth is most of the lakes all have about the same quality of fish and most of those fish will be caught by people who take the time to learn that specific lake. Most lurkers are simply chasing the end of the rainbow. People chasing the hot bites are usually disappointed but people taking the time to learn a body of water are often rewarded. 
Just sayin....


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## TitanFreak9

Indian lake gets pounded every single year, and for a reason, it produces fish. GLSM has the same potential, if not more. 

Proper management will be the the long term deciding factor if GLSM can continue to produce 14" crappie. 

The ODNR has committed themselves to doing what's needed for the lake by dredging, reducing phosphorus run off, and removing rough fish. 

I personally would like to see winter pool raised by at least a foot, and a 10 inch size limit. They also need to find a way to stop all the fish being sucked down the spillway.


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## Saugeyefisher

Zara-your awesome! Love your replies an laidback ways
Free- i feel your pain man,honestly i do.but its going to happen. I cringe anytime i see a report from where i fish.now imo nameing a lake isnt going to hurt anything.but putting specific spots here will,at times. I dont think it willmake it a crappy lake but will put more pressure on the fish. Ive found in general,most people are lazy. Walkto the next harder to get to spot,go earlyier,go later,go in a boat,or kayak,or canoe. The rainand wind seemto keep the masses at home to,at a lake like glsm im sure what ever direction the wind is ,you can hide from it.

Withthat said,i LOVE this thread. Lmao,but i dont fish the lake. But its simaler to the lake i like to fish the most..so i compare patterns and try things i see on here.


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## zaraspook

Redman1776 said:


> The local news had a story on the carp tagging. The idea is interesting and will work but the subsidizing money is a pork barrel waste IMO. Follow the splashes during the carp spawn, no need for costly time consuming tracking devices. Host carp tournaments, everyone wins if they do that. I'm just a taxpayer, what do I know.


Redman.......I read about the carp harvesting "trial" several weeks ago. The commercial fishing guys tag some unknown number of carp and claim they run in large schools before spawn. Commercial guys track the tagged fish, come in with nets (I think) , harvest a crazy number, and get them out of there before carp have a chance to spawn. They claim big successes in cleaning up water bodies with higher carp populations than GLSM (if that's possible). Rather than just committing to it without proof, State guys are doing this trial, I believe at a really reduced cost. The concept has merit and the arrangement suggests State is actually looking out for our pocketbooks.

In addition to a 3-day carp tourney run every year (May this year), the State puts out 1 or 2 "netting" crews every spring/summer to net and haul away rough fish. That's labor for approximately 4 guys, boats, nets. In a few weeks commercial guys can probably do 10 times the volume of our netting crews. After the trial State should have data to determine if commercial is viable and cost effective as a tool. At this point we don't know if our netting crews are removing rough fish faster than new ones are reproduced.
I think the State deserves some credit on this one........."show me" before I buy. It's possible the professionals could be lower cost and more effective.


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## zaraspook

TitanFreak9 said:


> Indian lake gets pounded every single year, and for a reason, it produces fish. GLSM has the same potential, if not more.
> 
> Proper management will be the the long term deciding factor if GLSM can continue to produce 14" crappie.
> 
> The ODNR has committed themselves to doing what's needed for the lake by dredging, reducing phosphorus run off, and removing rough fish.
> 
> I personally would like to see winter pool raised by at least a foot, and a 10 inch size limit. They also need to find a way to stop all the fish being sucked down the spillway.


I'm hoping State is still refining the winter pool level. That one year they lowered it during winter with 10"+ ice on lake. It produced almost $300k damages to State docks and who knows the damages to private docks. The next year they switched to fall draw down, it froze early before draw down was complete and ice stayed late so levels were above where they wanted to be. I didn't mind it though. This year they just went nuts.....18" water depth off my seawall. Fish stayed away from me. Plus they pull water every other week. I'd rather have it too high than too low....I'm selfish but when my channel is 18" deep that's too low.

I'd be OK with 10" crappie minimum........you can still catch short ones, just can't keep them. I'm catch and release anyway, never keep any unless someone in my group wants a mess. That happens 3-4 times a year.


----------



## Redman1776

zaraspook said:


> Redman.......I read about the carp harvesting "trial" several weeks ago. The commercial fishing guys tag some unknown number of carp and claim they run in large schools before spawn. Commercial guys track the tagged fish, come in with nets (I think) , harvest a crazy number, and get them out of there before carp have a chance to spawn. They claim big successes in cleaning up water bodies with higher carp populations than GLSM (if that's possible). Rather than just committing to it without proof, State guys are doing this trial, I believe at a really reduced cost. The concept has merit and the arrangement suggests State is actually looking out for our pocketbooks.
> 
> In addition to a 3-day carp tourney run every year (May this year), the State puts out 1 or 2 "netting" crews every spring/summer to net and haul away rough fish. That's labor for approximately 4 guys, boats, nets. In a few weeks commercial guys can probably do 10 times the volume of our netting crews. After the trial State should have data to determine if commercial is viable and cost effective as a tool. At this point we don't know if our netting crews are removing rough fish faster than new ones are reproduced.
> I think the State deserves some credit on this one........."show me" before I buy. It's possible the professionals could be lower cost and more effective.


Thanks for the info. Being so fiscally conservative I tend to bash govt spending before I hear all information. I'm not a GLSM local and have only fished it a handful of times. The single greatest day ever of my fishing career at the end of February at GLSM has made it feel as much like home to me as Indian or the Lima reservoirs. I do hope the tracking and netting tactic works and is worth the money if completed.


----------



## fishwhacker

Gotta say the reports on the bite are usually very general...north side, shallow channel.....very rare anyone says an exact spot and everyone knows 80 percent of the fish are in 20 percent of the water. I dont think the population of fish are in danger from anyone far away who werent already fishing the lake. Think most people end up at the spillway who come up to try without a local person showing them where to go.


----------



## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Gotta say the reports on the bite are usually very general...north side, shallow channel.....very rare anyone says an exact spot and everyone knows 80 percent of the fish are in 20 percent of the water. I dont think the population of fish are in danger from anyone far away who werent already fishing the lake. Think most people end up at the spillway who come up to try without a local person showing them where to go.


Yeah, I really thought we were doing a good job of avoiding the naming of specific spots. The exception being "spillway" mentioned occasionally. We openly talk baits and tactics, not disguising anything there, but always assumed that the whole basis for OGF and the thread. Good to hear from you.


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## Lowell H Turner

speaking of fish attractor placement Zaraspook, remove the PVC if SAFELY possible and start collecting OSAGE ORANGE (hedge apple) limbs and cement blocks and 10 hole red bricks and we will find the answer to the eternal question: "If you drop a fish attractor into the water at 3AM will it make a "splash"?" not if you slowly and carefully lower it into the water...you WILL learn the POWER of the DARK SIDE of the fish attractors and would like you to think in terms of a B-52 "ARC LIGHT " strike...


----------



## zaraspook

Hilarious, LHT.


----------



## Saugeyefisher

Fished buckeye today from the kayak. Going after panfish,mainly. First we fish a very shallow bay surrounded by docks and a few lifts nada for an hour of dipping.
Moved to a set of mainlake docks/lifts setting in alot deeper water,atleast compared to what we just left. I got my first crappie in there but that was it for me a 9 incher on steel. Other two guys with me got 1 crappie an 2 big gills.
Off to lunch an are next spot. A cove,again surrounded bye docks,with depth inbetween the last two spots. I got two keeper crappie 8-10 dink crappies,40/50 gills bit only a couple keepers. 
Key for me today was back dock post mainly wood. Wich would be laying on rocks. Baitof the day wwre small plastic crickets i did good on purple and achartruese. Other guys got theres on a burnt orange. 1/2 my fish came with a waxie on.....
Fun times though not a good bite-but itll just get better


----------



## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher.........nice report. What was water temp at buckeye today?

I fished GLSM today 12:30 to 2:15pm then another round 3:30-5pm. Started slow rotating thru my first 5 spots with 4 crappies of which 3 were keepers. Next spot is actually 2 different opportunities. Casting to my left I'm throwing under a wooden dock. Without moving but casting to the right is a lot of cover along a 70' seawall. Bite was really good and steady for about an hour. Starting target was the dock. Since the lake water level was down another 2-3" from Friday, it was easier to cast under than a few days ago. Pulled 3-4 crappies 10.5-11.5" each from under the dock......dang they were pulling hard! When the pace slowed at dock I turned right for long casts the length of the seawall. Retrieve was slow pull 2 feet then pause, slow pull 2 feet - pause. About every 4-5 casts would produce a 10-11" fish. After 3-4 fish, I'd rotate back to dock. 2-3 later would turn a gain to the seawall. Pace was slowing down. Tally at that one spot was 16 crappies of which 14 were keepers over 10" while standing in one spot, never moving. Biggest was a 12" in photo below. Took a lunch break.




  








IMG_20160320_135108994 GLSM12




__
zaraspook


__
Mar 21, 2016




GLSM 12inch 3-20-16






Went back at it after feeding my face, fishing 3-4 other spots, but eventually made it back to dock-left and seawall right. Too bad it wasn't the same, rarely is. Caught 11 more crappies but a mere 6 of them keepers this time around. For the 2 sessions it was 31 crappies with 23 keepers. Also squeezed a bullhead and 2 crappies in between the crappies.

Water temp was 47.5 degrees today......52.5 last Friday.......56 last Weds. Clarity is improving. Water level is falling fast. 5--6 inches down since Weds. I wish someone would find the drain plug! Hot grub//twister tails took only 2 fish. Bobby Garland baby shad electric chicken caught 8-10 crappies including the 12" biggest. About 19-20 crappies on Bobby Garland key lime. That was fun!


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## Saugeyefisher

Zara. I beleive it was 51/52°. Down 10°.


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## Hortance

Just made my first trip to Grand Lake yesterday. Up at 4. On lake around 8. Lots of driving/scoping. Worked a couple of canal spots that looked good off Windy point. Cold. Not sure the lack of action was due to weather or me. One dink.....Minnows w/ slip bobber. Looked fishy as heck.

I did talk to one guy who caught a 7# walleye on Saturday, and another who showed me a pic of a 16" crappie he caught off some docks last week, but water temps were dropping all week.

Caught a crappie and a perch at the spillway in 3 hours, out of pure stubbornness. Some "experts" there were using a different rig, which I imitated, with what I had......Saw 3-4 keepers caught by over a dozen other fishermen, so the bite wasn't on....
Kinda difficult to gauge whether the work paid off at all....but I take days when I can get them, bad weather or not.....Anybody willing to tell me if I'm on the right track for finding some crappie up there? Normally I use a yak or pontoon, but it was just too cold to do that by myself. Thanks---


EDIT: I am going to use an old fly rod...8.5 ft long with a spinning reel for crappie next time I go......Does anybody else do that? I've flung it a few times and it feels pretty good....


----------



## zaraspook

Hortance said:


> Just made my first trip to Grand Lake yesterday. Up at 4. On lake around 8. Lots of driving/scoping. Worked a couple of canal spots that looked good off Windy point. Cold. Not sure the lack of action was due to weather or me. One dink.....Minnows w/ slip bobber. Looked fishy as heck.
> 
> I did talk to one guy who caught a 7# walleye on Saturday, and another who showed me a pic of a 16" crappie he caught off some docks last week, but water temps were dropping all week.
> 
> Caught a crappie and a perch at the spillway in 3 hours, out of pure stubbornness. Some "experts" there were using a different rig, which I imitated, with what I had......Saw 3-4 keepers caught by over a dozen other fishermen, so the bite wasn't on....
> Kinda difficult to gauge whether the work paid off at all....but I take days when I can get them, bad weather or not.....Anybody willing to tell me if I'm on the right track for finding some crappie up there? Normally I use a yak or pontoon, but it was just too cold to do that by myself. Thanks---
> 
> 
> EDIT: I am going to use an old fly rod...8.5 ft long with a spinning reel for crappie next time I go......Does anybody else do that? I've flung it a few times and it feels pretty good....


Hortance......highly recommend using fly rod and spinning reel. Long rods are great to reach out and fish into brush that crappie like, plus getting jigs/bobbers out of snags. I have 3 rigs like that, 2 of which are my favorite daily setups. Also have a couple rigs that are the long poles with spinning reels specific for crappie.. I let guests use those, keep the fly rods for my personal use. Flyrods were all purchased on clearance at Cabelas or Bass Pro.....first one cost $8.97 + tax. Problem is most spinning reels won't fit the reel seat of a flyrod, even very small spinning reels. I take a file to the mounting bar of the reel, shave some metal(some reels are plastic) until I get a reasonably secure fit. If I was fighting steelhead on it the reel might not handle it, would fall off. It loosens from time to time, but re-tightens easily with fingers. After all, these are just panfish, an occasional bass, a few pike at GLSM, and it did fine with at 12# channel cat. Also, small diameter spools on the reel are better than larger diameter spools. The guides on a fly rod are small.......seem to cast better with line being fed to guides from smaller diameter spool.

Another plus, reel mounts at the very end of the fly rod.........you can reach out the entire 8.5' of the rod. The rods they sell as crappie rods are realistically long spinning rods. The reel mount/seat is a foot or more from the butt therefore the rod is effectively a foot shorter. Does that make sense?

Congrats on the perch.....plenty of GLSM anglers can't make the same claim. Seems to me the State sunk 75-100 Christmas trees last spring in those Windy Point "canals". If you get into it you'll probably shift to small jigs with plastic baits. Most of the time you'll catch more fish on plastics, don't have to carry a minnow bucket, and a single plastic bait last for 25-30 fish. Rare for a minnow to last more than 2 fish. I thought the bite was OK today......gonna post below this.


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## zaraspook

Had refrigerator service guys coming to my lake place today. They arrived early.....since when are service people early? As a result I had 75 minutes to do some quick crappie fishing. This was hit and run, 5-10 minutes at a spot looking for fish, then on to the next. I should explain, I'm walking to specific spots of known cover. Spots are a few minutes apart, rarely more than 75-100 yards from my lake place. Most of these spots will produce a couple fish, even on a tough day, if I work them hard. No time for that today. First spot is barren and next 2 spots produce a fish apiece, but not enough bites to keep me there 10 minutes. Next spot is a dry hole. 40 minutes remain when I arrive at 5th spot. I t turns out to be the final spot for the day. 7 crappies make it to the bank here, one short. 

9 crappies total, 8 keepers 10" or better, biggest 11.5". Had only one bait with me.......Bobby Garland electric chicken color. I had a lot of bites upon first arrival at the last spot, almost every cast for 10-15 minutes, but a terrible hookup rate. I think many of those were gill bites. Then bite trailed off and made me work the area more thoroughly to pull last couple of fish. Water clarity is improving......still stained and water level still dropping. Didn't get to take water temp but I'm sure it was below Sunday's 47.5.


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## Saugeyefisher

Ive been considering a fly rod for a crappie rod as well. Good backbone.bit superfast upper part.


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## Hortance

Thanks, Zara, that was helpful. I didn't mention it before, but the spinning reel I used was a sturdy one I bought as part of an ice fishing combo....It fit the fly rod perfectly.

I did run down to the close-to-me Caesar Creek spillway last night...just to try out the new rig......cold and windy, but the new rig (I switched out to a 10-foot fly rod) was great. Very light "bite", my mini-bobber never went all the way under.....but several others were there, no bites, while I figured out that my minnow was being played with when the current and bobber direction weren't congruent...would rip it in the opposite direction. Ended up with 2 crappie and a 10" skinny LMB (plus 1 foul-hooked mini-crappie). Really fun fishing.

Thrilled with the new rig. Will probably use it when I'm wading creeks this Spring...would work for chubs, etc....

There's definitely some crossover between fly and spinning rig set-ups.....I'm going to be experimenting with that on the LMR, GMR and creeks --- floatant solutions on traditional spinning lures, etc....


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## fishmasterflex

Im interested in making a trip up to grand lake but i will be fishing from a kayak. Any advice on the best place to set in so that im not paddling forever to get into the channels?


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## TitanFreak9

fishmasterflex said:


> Im interested in making a trip up to grand lake but i will be fishing from a kayak. Any advice on the best place to set in so that im not paddling forever to get into the channels?


Rustic haven on the south east side of lake. Couple channels next to each other in that area should produce fish for you


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## GOOSE48

Took the day off from crappie fishing and me and the boy went to the Maumee river for a change. It started pretty slow but by 1230 we had are 8 and was headed home. Most of the guys walking out had 1 or none we felt pretty lucky.


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## fishmasterflex

TitanFreak9 said:


> Rustic haven on the south east side of lake. Couple channels next to each other in that area should produce fish for you


Thanks


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## zaraspook

TitanFreak9 said:


> Rustic haven on the south east side of lake. Couple channels next to each other in that area should produce fish for you


Good advice you provided, TitanFreak9.


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## zaraspook

Hortance said:


> Thanks, Zara, that was helpful. I didn't mention it before, but the spinning reel I used was a sturdy one I bought as part of an ice fishing combo....It fit the fly rod perfectly.
> 
> I did run down to the close-to-me Caesar Creek spillway last night...just to try out the new rig......cold and windy, but the new rig (I switched out to a 10-foot fly rod) was great. Very light "bite", my mini-bobber never went all the way under.....but several others were there, no bites, while I figured out that my minnow was being played with when the current and bobber direction weren't congruent...would rip it in the opposite direction. Ended up with 2 crappie and a 10" skinny LMB (plus 1 foul-hooked mini-crappie). Really fun fishing.
> 
> Thrilled with the new rig. Will probably use it when I'm wading creeks this Spring...would work for chubs, etc....
> 
> There's definitely some crossover between fly and spinning rig set-ups.....I'm going to be experimenting with that on the LMR, GMR and creeks --- floatant solutions on traditional spinning lures, etc....


Good to know the ice reels fit well.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Ive been considering a fly rod for a crappie rod as well. Good backbone.bit superfast upper part.


The 2 fly rods I like best are different "weights" but otherwise same manufacturer and look identical........one really struggles to lift a 12" or bigger crappie into boat. The other one has more backbone and works better. If I can remember to do it I'll look at rod specs and publish the info.


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## Salmonid

Would think for most crappie gill applications a 5 or 6 wt rod would be just fine. Very common in 2 piece rods for 8, 8.5 and 9 ft lengths


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## tandem

We use 5 wt, 9 and 8.5 ft. They great for crappies, gill. Even get into a bass or channel cat now and then.


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## Hortance

Salmonid said:


> Would think for most crappie gill applications a 5 or 6 wt rod would be just fine. Very common in 2 piece rods for 8, 8.5 and 9 ft lengths


My new rig is a 6--and 9 ft, not 10 as I claimed earlier---stopped at CJ dock area last night to play with it some more. Fishing was very slow, 1 dink crappie off the docks, but landed a 13-1/2" LMB off the corner of the marina. Lifted it all the way to the platform with no problem. It wasn't a pig, but real animated.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Would think for most crappie gill applications a 5 or 6 wt rod would be just fine. Very common in 2 piece rods for 8, 8.5 and 9 ft lengths


One of mine is a 6, other either a 5 or 7. Won't really know until I visit lake again.....probably Friday. Love to be crappie fishing today/Weds but doesn't look good for me.


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## Salmonid

Good link and video about the new Rough Fish tracking program at GLSM..
http://www.hometownstations.com/sto...-using-tracking-method-for-rough-fish-removal

Salmonid


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## Salmonid

also another good link regarding he Crappie USA Cabelas Super event at St Marys...




__ https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10154096305822664


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## zaraspook

Schedule got changed for the better about Noon Weds opening window for quick trip to GLSM. Was fishing by 2:30pm, first 10.5" crappie landed within 2 minutes followed by a 12.5" piggy 2 minutes later. That was my biggest of the year so took a photo......now I can't find on my phone. Also, both fish were on my 6 wt fly rod and plenty of backbone to lift the 12.5" from low water levels over the seawall. My other fly rod is a 7. Must be a crappie rig my son bought that has problems lifting bigger fish aboard.... both my 6 & 7 fly rods are good fits for crappie (9' 6" length for both).

Fishing didn't remain at that pace but all 4 fish in first 45 minutes were easy keepers. Most spots I hit were dry holes. Ran into better action the next hour and was 7 keepers in 8 caught at one point before the worm turned. Kept catching crappies, but 7 of the next 8 were dinks. Boo.....batting only .500 now with 8 dinks and 8 keepers. After a food break hit the water for one more 45 minute shift to catch 4 more keepers but 6 dinks. The dinks won this day 14 to 12. Quit at 5:30 pm.

Water level is way down again, about where it was 3 weeks ago before several rounds of heavy rain. Water temp up to 51 degrees today. Clarity depends on the channel you're in.......stained in one channel I fish, still pretty muddy in another. I used Bobby Garland 2.25 Baby Shad only today. Bite was good once you located fish. I'm guessing the Electric Chicken color caught 10 of the total 26 crappies and also a 10" LMB. Key lime color of same bait caught the other 16. Reflecting back, the electric chicken caught higher percentage of keeper crappies. 

Found fish on wood, not consistently, and also on plastic fish attractors. Caught some within a foot of the bank and also caught some 10-12' out. Male crappies are showing early signs of war-paint for the upcoming mating season......they are getting darker. It was fun and glad I was able to go.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> also another good link regarding he Crappie USA Cabelas Super event at St Marys...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __ https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10154096305822664


Cool, Mark. I've watched a good number of the Brush Pile Fishing episodes.


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## zaraspook

Was at GLSM 1-5pm today(Fri) and got in 2.5 hours of wimpy fishing. Bites were scarce, even gills had the "no-bite" disease. At one point I had same number of catfish as crappies.....2 each. Ended up catching 8 crappies, 6 keepers but no behemoths (1 at 11"). Shifted to a smaller bait to catch the final 2 after no bites for 40 minutes. It was chartreuse and maybe should have done that earlier. Didn't get enough bites to define a pattern, however, I think all crappies I caught were within 2-3' of bank and pretty tight to submerged wood. The have to eat sometime.......Saturday will probably be a good day but I have family in for Easter.

Water temp was 49.8 not far off Weds temp of 51.


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## tracker_80

I was out this evening for a little while with the same results. Using the typical popular baits and colors with no takers. I am far from an expert, but was hoping I could at least get a few keepers. Planing on getting the boat out Sunday and hitting some different spots.


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## zaraspook

tracker_80.....nice to know I wasn't alone finding a difficult bite. Heavy outflow/discharge at spillway ceased Tues/Weds time frame so I can't blame lack of bite on a draw down. Except, places I fished with success 1-2 weeks ago is now much shallower, again.


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## Salmonid

Cold front is the reason this time, LOL also I heard from others who fished the Outdoorsman catfish tourney thaty there were around 40 teams and somewhere around 45 lbs won it, didn't get too specific just a text from one of the entrants. We fished tourney at Rocky Fork today, hammered them..Ill leave it at that.

Salmonid
PS I'm predicting good solid active bite Sunday with warm temps today and active front moving in tomorrow night


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## Tom 513

Salmonid
PS I'm predicting good solid active bite Sunday with warm temps today and active front moving in tomorrow night

Mark Blauvelt
Dayton, Ohio

I will take that prediction and fish it, East Fork in the morning


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## Saugeyefisher

I was pleasently suprised with my results friday,bout 20 crappie an twice as many gils. 8 good keeper crappie(the rest 8/9"ers) bout 10 keeper gills but only kept 4/5.
Didnt get water temp.fish were on docks withsteel lifts at buckeye.bigger gills were alone in the rocks.
Got insome saugeye fishing as well.
A fun day in all.back at it for me monday
Forgot-crappies wanted shad bodys with chartruesein them. Gills toook smaller ratsos tipped with waxies


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## fishnmAster

Bite was non existent at harmons and Andersens this morning


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## zaraspook

fishnmAster said:


> Bite was non existent at harmons and Andersens this morning


That's not a good sign.......maybe later today worm will turn.


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## fishnmAster

Bite was dead at Andersens this evening only saw three crappie caught


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## bigmexican

fishnmAster said:


> Bite was dead at Andersens this evening only saw three crappie caught


I fished Sunday morning at the gun club had 15 keepers 9 1/2 to 11 in. Sunday evening only caught 3 keepers.In the evening I think the carp had moved in.Waters warming up to quick.


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## zaraspook

My Easter company departed at 4pm Sunday. I hustled to GLSM and was wetting a line at 5:30pm. When I arrived a crappie boat with 3 anglers was sitting off my seawall, fishing one of my spots we call Frankenstein. In under 5 minutes they pulled 4-5 fish, keeping 3. I was encouraged by their success but didn't get to fish that spot until 90 minutes later. Moving a lot I caught 12 with 6 keepers but bite degraded........the later it got the worse the bite. 3 of my keepers were 11-11.25", biggest one came out of Frankenstein.

Water clarity was best it's been in a couple of weeks. Water temp is 52.8. Electric chicken color had problems getting bites. Chartreuse sparkle was best. I switched back and forth between a smaller shad body and then 2.25" Bobby Garland Baby Shad (both chartreuse) sparkle). The bigger bait (Garland) caught more dink crappies today. Smaller shad body caught more keepers.....that was weird. Keepers were all on wood, not brush, and within 3' of bank.


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## Redhunter1012

I have a question as Im still learning the crappie game. Are you using a float above the baits you use or just cast and retrieve?


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## Rod&Reel-Bow&Arrow

Redhunter1012 said:


> I have a question as Im still learning the crappie game. Are you using a float above the baits you use or just cast and retrieve?


2 things you need Red,

1.) Private Lake
2.) Ghillie Suit


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## Saugeyefisher

This time of year an usualy when dipping docks or around shallow wood i personly use a float. At times the last two years ive got them as shallow as 4/5" under my float. Its really neat watching them come up an take a jig.


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## zaraspook

Floats, just big enough to hold up your jig or minnow depending on artificial or live bait. However, float isn't required....tight-lining directly to your bait has some great advantages. If/when you get into "shooting toons" it's cast and retrieve, no bobber.


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## Redhunter1012

Thanks fellas. Kind of what I figured


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## AEFISHING55

Pretty slow for us on Sunday afternoon. Lots of short fish but few with any size.


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## fishnmAster

How's the bite been?


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## fishnmAster

Andersens was dead tonight


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## zaraspook

Weds afternoon fished GLSM with friend Scott. He caught 10 with 2 keepers. I trailed, catching 8 with 4 keepers. Few spots produced any semblance of a bite.....very slow, although half our 18 fish came from 2 spots. When they bit, they inhaled the bait, no playing around and all solid hookups in the roof of the mouth. As we were struggling to find any bite, a neighbor joined us......he had a tiny 1/64 oz jig with a tiny 1/2 inch split tail plastic. He caught 2 crappies in 15 minutes from a spot I had just fished. Admittedly, both fish were dinks but it may have been they wanted slow-falling bait, fluttering thru water, and light to the mouth when they grabbed it. I've seen this with frequency......I struggle to find them, neighbor pulls out a midget bait/jig and lights it up.

Water temp was 50.1 degrees.


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## Salmonid

I just think Scott is bad luck. Lol


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## GOOSE48

Me and big Mexican gave it a shot for a couple hours this morning pretty slow though. We ended up with 6 keepers only and a couple throw backs. Water was a little muddy but not to bad. I had one in the air that got off the was really black should not be to long for them to move up on beds I think.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> I just think Scott is bad luck. Lol


Funny, Mark, but can't blame it on Scott.


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## zaraspook

GOOSE48 said:


> Me and big Mexican gave it a shot for a couple hours this morning pretty slow though. We ended up with 6 keepers only and a couple throw backs. Water was a little muddy but not to bad. I had one in the air that got off the was really black should not be to long for them to move up on beds I think.


Good thing you guys tried in the AM. The rest of the day Saturday was a train wreck! I caught 11 with 6 keepers and never tuned into the bite. Most of fish came in the AM , then last 4 came 20 minutes before dark. Wind was as tough as I've ever fished bulk of the day.


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## zaraspook

I had a group of 6 guys I grew up with at GLSM Friday evening thru Sunday AM. Fishing was b*tch to put it mildly. We saw water temp of 54.9 Friday evening, 50.4 Saturday, and 46.1 today (Sunday). Nine degrees in less than 72 hours! Fish acted like they were thrown into a freezer. I caught 15 Friday pm, 11 on Saturday, only 3 this morning. 16 were keepers. Four of our group were minnow junkies....wouldn't use plastics. I felt my total was pretty sour, but it easily outdistanced the total caught by the minnow guys. Tough conditions but we had a great time, drank too much beer, dined on delectable GLSM crappie tacos among other ordinary fare, and played poker into the wee hours.


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## zaraspook

Annual GLSM carp tournament scheduled for May 13-15. I haven't seen the official "flyer" for the event yet, but here's an announcement from the Lake Improvement Association website.....
_The St. Marys Rotary Club is spearheading efforts for a “Get the Carp Outta Here” Fishing Tournament, May 13-15, 2016. In the last tournament, over 6,000 pounds of carp were removed from Grand Lake St. Marys. The largest carp weighed in at 20 pounds._


_ Studies show that Grand Lake St. Marys is out of balance and the overabundance of rough fish (carp & shad) is detrimental to the health of the lake and the pan fish population. The goal of the tournament will be to get folks involved in helping rid the lake of as many carp as possible.
_


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## Salmonid

Hey Rande, scott had a good day on the crappies at my pond yesterday youll have to get the report from him. Lol. Good luck this weekend. Ill be at Wheeler Lake in Alabama


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......assume Wheeler is a kitty tournament with Ryan flying wing with you? Land some piggies......they should be at least several weeks further along down there compared to our yo-yo waters.


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## Saugeyefisher

3 of us dipped docks and lifts at indian on and off all day. We boated 11 keepers 4/5 dinks between all of us. All bit two were tite to metal docks/lifts. Shad bodys in purple/chartrues . And electric chicken caight fish. Mostly tipped with waxies. One on a crappiecrank


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## Saugeyefisher

Oh ya temps were low 40's for most part,crappie came in backs of coves with temps inhight 40's ankeepers were onthe small size. We herd from a tournament angler good weights were being turned in,they were fishing TITE to metal with shade. 
I wish i knew wich tournament to try and find results.


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## zaraspook

Planned to hit GLSM on Thursday, not today. Schedule for both days were blown up by mid-morning Weds. With Thursday no longer an option, I buzzed up to the lake for a brief encounter. Fishing by 11:30 am. Not a bite for first 30 minutes......was really looking too similar to too many other days of late, lockjaw and high wind, not to mention off and on rain (plus a bonus today of thunder and lightning). 

After an hour just 1 dink crappie to my credit. A neighbor friend showed about the time I was breaking for lunch. After lunch I checked with him before my next session.....maybe he found the magic for this day? Results for him in an hour were a dink crappie a a dink gill, but he said he had the answer. He was heading home.....find something to do other than fishing! Ignoring the advice of a very wise crappie guy, I pressed on. In 5 minutes I get my 2nd bite and 2nd fish, this one a chunky 10.5" keeper. Unfortunately, the next 30 minutes produced neither a 3rd fish nor a 3rd bite. The tea leaves were shouting out "go home and be productive!". Gave up after only 95 minutes, 2 bites, 2 crappies.

Water temp today was a tepid 46.2 degrees, virtually unchanged from Sunday (46.1). Good times are just around the corner, but forecast for next 3 days shows low temps in the 20's.


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## fishnmAster

Going to give it a try tonight, not expecting much


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM today(Fri) from 11:30-2 pm with short lunch break. Very little wind for first hour and a half..........almost forgot what it was like. In the first hour I hit 5 different spots with nothing but a few gill bites to show for it. After lunch I hit a large wooden dock, fishing around the edges first then under the dock. Finally some action.......in about 20 minutes work under the deck it started with a chunky 10" crappie, then an 11" that looked like an egg-laden female, before a 3rd of 10.5". The action stopped, I moved nearby and ran into another 10.5" but no others at that spot. Tried one of my favorite spots with submerged wood for the 2nd time and for the 2nd time no luck. Returned to the wooden dock, really the only place of respectable action and pulled 3 more 10-11" keepers in 30 minutes until action disappeared. When it started to snow, I packed up to head home......had to take my grandson to baseball practice anyway.

Water is up 2-3 inches since the last time they pulled water. Hoping they leave it where it is. Water temp was 46.1, about the same as Weds. I started out today using smaller baits, working extremely slow which I thought would be the trick. It wasn't.......didn't catch a crappie until I switched to larger plastics (Bobby Garland Baby Shad swim'r). The 7 keeper crappies were the only fish I caught today. No dink crappies. 6 were on the color called "Glo Boy", which is essentially chartreuse. One caught on Electric Chicken but no other bites on it.

Although quantity was disappointing, 100% keepers makes it more fun. If I hadn't stumbled into fish at the dock it would have been a lousy day. Prior 3 trips to GLSM the dock produced zero. You never know where they will be and a little luck is a big help. Water temp is relatively stable last 3-4 days and crappies have had time to adjust. Gotta think the bite will be better this week despite unsettled weather moving in, and assuming State guys don't go nuts pulling water again.


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## bigmexican

fishnmAster said:


> How's the bite been?





zaraspook said:


> Fished GLSM today(Fri) from 11:30-2 pm with short lunch break. Very little wind for first hour and a half..........almost forgot what it was like. In the first hour I hit 5 different spots with nothing but a few gill bites to show for it. After lunch I hit a large wooden dock, fishing around the edges first then under the dock. Finally some action.......in about 20 minutes work under the deck it started with a chunky 10" crappie, then an 11" that looked like an egg-laden female, before a 3rd of 10.5". The action stopped, I moved nearby and ran into another 10.5" but no others at that spot. Tried one of my favorite spots with submerged wood for the 2nd time and for the 2nd time no luck. Returned to the wooden dock, really the only place of respectable action and pulled 3 more 10-11" keepers in 30 minutes until action disappeared. When it started to snow, I packed up to head home......had to take my grandson to baseball practice anyway.
> 
> Water is up 2-3 inches since the last time they pulled water. Hoping they leave it where it is. Water temp was 46.1, about the same as Weds. I started out today using smaller baits, working extremely slow which I thought would be the trick. It wasn't.......didn't catch a crappie until I switched to larger plastics (Bobby Garland Baby Shad swim'r). The 7 keeper crappies were the only fish I caught today. No dink crappies. 6 were on the color called "Glo Boy", which is essentially chartreuse. One caught on Electric Chicken but no other bites on it.
> 
> Although quantity was disappointing, 100% keepers makes it more fun. If I hadn't stumbled into fish at the dock it would have been a lousy day. Prior 3 trips to GLSM the dock produced zero. You never know where they will be and a little luck is a big help. Water temp is relatively stable last 3-4 days and crappies have had time to adjust. Gotta think the bite will be better this week despite unsettled weather moving in, and assuming State guys don't go nuts pulling water againNoy





zaraspook said:


> Fished GLSM today(Fri) from 11:30-2 pm with short lunch break. Very little wind for first hour and a half..........almost forgot what it was like. In the first hour I hit 5 different spots with nothing but a few gill bites to show for it. After lunch I hit a large wooden dock, fishing around the edges first then under the dock. Finally some action.......in about 20 minutes work under the deck it started with a chunky 10" crappie, then an 11" that looked like an egg-laden female, before a 3rd of 10.5". The action stopped, I moved nearby and ran into another 10.5" but no others at that spot. Tried one of my favorite spots with submerged wood for the 2nd time and for the 2nd time no luck. Returned to the wooden dock, really the only place of respectable action and pulled 3 more 10-11" keepers in 30 minutes until action disappeared. When it started to snow, I packed up to head home......had to take my grandson to baseball practice anyway.
> 
> Water is up 2-3 inches since the last time they pulled water. Hoping they leave it where it is. Water temp was 46.1, about the same as Weds. I started out today using smaller baits, working extremely slow which I thought would be the trick. It wasn't.......didn't catch a crappie until I switched to larger plastics (Bobby Garland Baby Shad swim'r). The 7 keeper crappies were the only fish I caught today. No dink crappies. 6 were on the color called "Glo Boy", which is essentially chartreuse. One caught on Electric Chicken but no other bites on it.
> 
> Although quantity was disappointing, 100% keepers makes it more fun. If I hadn't stumbled into fish at the dock it would have been a lousy day. Prior 3 trips to GLSM the dock produced zero. You never know where they will be and a little luck is a big help. Water temp is relatively stable last 3-4 days and crappies have had time to adjust. Gotta think the bite will be better this week despite unsettled weather moving in, and assuming State guys don't go nuts pulling water again.


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## bigmexican

Not sure but was there a crappie tournament today at GLSM?If so does any one know the results?I fished 2 1/2 hours this afternoon caught 8 or 10 keepers at the mercer co. gun club.Then went to the maples and never had a bite.


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## zaraspook

bigmexican said:


> Not sure but was there a crappie tournament today at GLSM?If so does any one know the results?I fished 2 1/2 hours this afternoon caught 8 or 10 keepers at the mercer co. gun club.Then went to the maples and never had a bite.


Good to see you Sunday afternoon. One of my neighbors asked me if there was a crappie tourney also, after he saw all the trailer rigs at Rustic Haven. I don't know the answer, may or not have been a tourney, but the crowd may have been guys "practicing" for the big tourney later this week. 

When I saw you I think I was my tally was was 3 keepers out of 4 caught. I was there about another 2 hours that included a lunch break and watching a bit of The Masters. Ended the trip catching 9 total, 5 were keepers......all released to participate in the spawn when it comes. Last fish of the day was a 12" male. Bite was definitely tough although the few I caught were inhaling the bait. 

Alternating a small chartreuse shad body and the bigger chartreuse Bobby Garland Baby Shad, all 9 fish came on the bigger bait. I saw a lot of shad in the backend of that channel I was on.....shad were 3-4". Probably biggest issue in the slow bite is the water temp. Friday water temp was 46.1 and Sunday I was shocked to measure 42.4 degrees. That might be coldest water in the last 6 weeks. Last note.....6 of the nine spots I fished Sunday were biteless.


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## zaraspook

Did a late afternoon couple hours of fishing Tues. Bite is still very anemic. The March crappie bite at GLSM was the best I've witnessed. The April bite to date looks more like February and water temps are similar to Feb as well. 47.4 degrees today......5 weeks ago 56 degrees. Caught 10 in 2 hours with only 2 legal size but none to brag about. Plan to fish Weds and think I'll concentrate on shallow banks facing the sun. 

Water is well stained in south side channels and water level up couple inces from Sunday. Glad to see State is showing restraint and not pulling water at this time.

Gill bite is pretty crazy. Neighbor girl had 45 in her bucket after 90 minutes of fishing. Saw several crappie boats in my channel.....practicing for the Fri/Sat Crappie USA tourney this weekend. One of them told me only 37 entries in the tourney as of this morning.


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## fishnmAster

Slowww bite yesterday evening; expect it to pick up this weekend with the warmer temps


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## zaraspook

Fished with a buddy Weds afternoon. I can confirm fishnmAster's "slowww" comment.

Steady stream of crappie tourney guys the entire day in my channel and all were bitching about lack of a bite. We started out in my boat, but after 2 hours of few bites and no fish, we retreated to fishing from land. At least we caught a few fish from land, mostly dinks. Scott caught 8 crappies with 2 keepers and I stumbled into 6, just one keeper. Even gills were reluctant to play with our baits. A lot of the areas we fished were pounded all day by the tournament guys.

Water remains stained in my channel but improving. Other south side channels are very muddy if fed by creeks. I've heard some channels are very clear. Water temp started the day at 46.1 and was 50 degrees by 7pm when I pulled my boat out. Fish should follow the warming waters and start to show up in numbers (like it was 5-6 weeks ago). They will come.......question is when and how long will it last?


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## zaraspook

Final day Cabela's Crappie USA tournament at GLSM is Saturday. Weigh-in is 4pm at the East Bank. If you need something to do and are not entered in the event might be interesting to see winning fish and hear where and and how caught. Think I'll go over and watch......if I'm not in the middle of catching a pile of good specks. Those good days have been few and far between lately. Anyone going?


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## firemanmike2127

The shop schedule says I have a couple of boats to work on but I'm going to try & make it over. Mike


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## killingtime

Local guy named Mike Powell is in first place after day 1. He makes his own baits and has a Facebook page called M&K Baits. His baits are the only ones I use and they defenitely catch fish.


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## zaraspook

How great is that? Go, Mike! I've seen his baits before but not used. Need to correct that. Old habits die hard.....easy to keep going back to what you know.

Keep us posted. What is day 1 weight?


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## firemanmike2127

A couple of boats had 7 lbs. is what I heard. I started use Mike Powell Jr's 2 tone plastics & really like them. Big Mike (Campbell) from Spillway Bait. & Tackle @ Lake Loramie has some great stuff also....he molds jig heads w/ premium Matzuo sickle hooks that are top shelf gear IMO. Mike


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## Redman1776

What's the results of the tournament???


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## mercercrappie

Jason Koesters and Jake Hengstler won the pro division. They had 10lbs today and 7 yesterday.


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## zaraspook

I was at the weigh-in Saturday. Will comment on it when I get more time. Link to tournament results.......click on Grand lake st marys. It shows listing of all results, pro & amateur, etc.
http://www.crappieusa.com/Tournament_Results_Display.cfm?Tournament_ID=551


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## Redman1776

zaraspook said:


> I was at the weigh-in Saturday. Will comment on it when I get more time. Link to tournament results.......click on Grand lake st marys. It shows listing of all results, pro & amateur, etc.
> http://www.crappieusa.com/Tournament_Results_Display.cfm?Tournament_ID=551


Thanks. Looks like it was a good time.


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## fishnmAster

Bite is still slow.. saw many guys with only a few keepers this weekend


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## firemanmike2127

My wife fished some N side docks from shore last night & got 7 keepers.....one of them was a pig. She was fishing @ 18"..... milky chartreuse color plastic. Mike


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## zaraspook

I mentioned I attended the weigh-in which I thought started at 4pm. Arrived at 4, it obviously started sooner than 4 since I only saw the last 4-5 teams weigh in. I'm guessing there were 300-400 people at the weigh-in. Amateur or pro, the common theme from the $ winners was "fished southside of lake", "shallow water (1-2') brush", "bite was tough", and teams caught only "25-35 fish" for the 2 days.

One team I talked with said they caught their Saturday fish 8-9 am, and almost nothing after that. I asked them "if 50 teams was a low number of entries for the tournament?". They indicated it was but not for a first time event, expecting it would grow next year, especially since GLSM proved it produced quality fish for a northern lake.

I recognized 2 of the top 3 pro teams and 2 of the top 3 amateur teams as ones that hit my channel Saturday. Probably 20-22 different teams passed thru my channel that day. An interesting note.....there was a kayak division in the tournament. The winner said he caught only 2 fish Saturday, largest was only 10.5" but enough to win ( not sure of $ but think it was $150).

Weigh in was worthwhile and done well. Thought I heard that the tourney was streamed "live" by the Brush Pile Fishing group. Nothing short of remarkable that an event like this was pulled off. If you look at the list of renowned "crappie lakes" that host a tournament of this caliber, it's an honor for GLSM just to be mentioned among that group. Kudos to all local organizations and merchants who put up time, $, and resources in the effort.


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## firemanmike2127

Local teams from Mercer & Auglaize counties did extremely well. I'm pretty sure that they took 5 of the top 6 spots in the combined divisions if I heard the announcer correctly. A St. Mary's amateur team also had big fish. Mike


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## bigmexican

Fished Sunday evening from 6 to 9.The bite really picked up the last hour befor dark.12 in. deep right along the bank 15 to 20 keepers.Very few throw backs.Several 12in.or better.Black and chart.stinger tail.


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## zaraspook

bigmex........would you say spawn is on?


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## firemanmike2127

Just heard from a friend who is prefishing for the BFL tournament this weekend. Water is 62-65° everywhere. The fish should definitely be moving up. Mike


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## Saugeyefisher

Buckeye was on fire this weekend. Caught 40/45 good crappie dipping docks with shad bodies,color did not matter. Water temps low-mid 60's. 
Most males fully colored,most females eggs we 're pretty soft


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## Saugeyefisher

Lol first tine ever trying to put a picture on here,pretty easy.
Fish in pic 11-14"...


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## zaraspook

Didn't mention my fishing results for last weekend.....will take care of that now. Fished Saturday morning 9-11am. First fish I hooked was at least 12" and I lost it lifting onto seawall. Didn't have a net with me. Immediately walked back to my place, got a net before wetting a line again. Caught 9 with 5 keepers, most fish between 9-10am, keepers were solid 10.5-11.25" and much more aggressive than Weds earlier in the week. Didn't get back to fishing until 6-7 pm, catching 1 dink and almost no bites. Water temp Saturday was 57, quite shocking since Weds, 3 days earlier, water temp was 46.1 in the morning. Sunday morning fished 8-10 am with almost a repeat of Saturday morning. 10 caught, all but 2 keepers, and much more spunk with the fish in warmer water again. Bite shut down about 9:30am. Tried again at about 2pm just before I left for home. Couldn't get a nibble. Catching only 10 each day would have been disappointing until I heard how slow the bite was for the tourney guys.
Sunday water temp was a stunning 62.4! Crappies should be scrambling to get to beds soon. Folks we should be looking at some great fishing!


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> Just heard from a friend who is prefishing for the BFL tournament this weekend. Water is 62-65° everywhere. The fish should definitely be moving up. Mike


Agree totally! It's time! Warm water is coming on so fast I'm afraid spawn could start and end before we get to enjoy it.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Lol first tine ever trying to put a picture on here,pretty easy.
> Fish in pic 11-14"...


Very nice haul! Fire up the skillet......


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## bigmexican

zaraspook said:


> bigmex........would you say spawn is on?


Yes with the warm temps it won't belong and it will be all over at GLSM!


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## zaraspook

Posting #2380 in this GLSM thread was one by Salmonid. It was about carp tagging and removal, a trial by a private company to tag carp, track them, identify them in large schools, and harvest/net the buggers before they spawn. Carp were tagged in March. Company was scheduled last week to come in, find the fish and start the harvest. All of the went went as planned. School of carp located and I'm told estimated to be 100,000 pounds of the big lipped creatures. IMHO, that sounds huuuuuuge yet exciting at the same time! Nets were cast and retrieval process started. Oooops. Net became entangled on a stump. Harvest halted (didn't hear if net was damaged or not). Company packed up and went home. Said they'd return after state did some stump removal and general cleanup. Dang!

P.S. Hope that stump wasn't the single stump I have as a waypoint on main lake for crappie fishing! Hate to see it go......hard to come by.


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## polebender

Saugeyefisher said:


> Lol first tine ever trying to put a picture on here,pretty easy.
> Fish in pic 11-14"...


Great job! Really a nice mess of fish! I miss me Buckeye! Congrats!


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## Saugeyefisher

Thanks polebender


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## zaraspook

Fished glsm this evening (Tues) from 5:30-7:30 pm. Water temp 63.3 or up 1 degree from Sunday. Started with a couple quick ones off my seawall. 2nd fish was a 12" male, darker than the photo depicts, in 18" water. Obviously it's been working on a bed, kind of roughed up and red on the lower half of body, tail, and fins.




  








IMG_20160419_172854861_HDR




__
zaraspook


__
Apr 20, 2016




GLSM 12" - 4/19/16





Caught 8 total with 5 keepers that were 10-12". All keepers appeared to be males, and getting darker. They pretty much were inhaling the bait and running hard. All caught on 2.25" Bobby Garland Baby Shad in colors of "Glo Boy" or "Bluegrass" from submerged wood. Neighbor fisherman said he fished from 2-4pm today......a few gills, no crappies. Glad a a few woke up for me. Hoping to get a shot at some heavier brush targets sometime tomorrow.


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## Greyduck

The little lady and I hit GL yesterday evening. We hit a few bank spots without much luck. 4 total all was keepers. It was the first time I had been there for a while. Our boat has been down so we have been staying home. I did notice some newly placed stakes that should be good even in the summer months. Looking forward to getting my boat back.


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## zaraspook

Weds fished the GLSM morning bite (8-9:30 am) from bank. That 63.3 degree water temp Tuesday evening was down to 58.9 by Weds morning. Bite was decent and just a single crappie of the 8 caught was a short fish. 
Decided to put my boat in, go chasing more but attacking heavy brush. Between getting the boat ready and several interruptions, launching boat took forever. It was 2+ hours later before wetting a line again, almost noon and sun beating down. I focused on heavy brush and lay-downs, very shallow 1-2' water depth (it worked for the pro's in last weekend's crappie tournament, right?). 90 minutes later my belly is barking a human sensation.....hunger! Clearly during the same 90 minutes the crappies demonstrated no need for food. My hunger won out over their lack of it. Results for that session.......one 11" crappie and a bass shorter than the crappie.

Did another hour from the boat early evening....1 keeper male. Took boat out and parked it. Just before dark did a quick 30 minutes from the bank at 3 spots. Caught 5 quick crappies, 3 keepers. For the day the catch was 14 with 11 keepers. Water temp Weds evening was back up to 63 degrees.


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## zaraspook

More info regarding the "carp harvesting" effort follows or can be found at this Hometown Lima Station link http://www.hometownstations.com/story/31742990/carp-eradication-hits-snag-at-grand-lake-st-marys:
. 
_Efforts to reduce the number of carp at Grand Lake St. Marys has hit a snag._

_A commercial fishing company from Minnesota had tried to harvest the fish from the lake but ran into problems when their nets ripped on stumps in the lake._

_The carp are considered a nuisance and Milt Miller with the Lake Restoration Commission says he believes there are at least a million pounds of carp in four different areas they were hoping to harvest._

_Miller hopes the commercial harvesting of the fish could still happen yet this summer._


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## zaraspook

Didn't make it to GLSM this weekend till Sunday morning at 10am, apparently not early enough to get in on the morning bite if there was any. Caught one fish, a keeper in a little over an hour. Lost a bigger one lifting it over the seawall. You guessed right.....no net with me. Fished again about 2pm for 45 minutes. Almost no bites and when I'd run into one the hit was frequently short. That happened a high percentage of time, suggesting I wasn't throwing what they wanted. Changed baits and colors frequently. Didn't change lack of bites nor short bites. Put in another hour fishing just before dark and pattern was same of rare hits and mostly short. Ended up with just 4 crappies, all keepers, all males. Actually lost more fish than I caught.....poor hookups and lip-hooked.

Highlight of the day was an 18" channel cat. Lot of fun on a crappie rig and the first channel for me this year. Lots of crappie boats beating the bushes in my channel today. Anglers all scratching their heads wondering where the crappie bite/spawn is? They know we should be tearing them up this late in April. Patience, Grasshopper.


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## zaraspook

Hung around my place at GLSM overnight Sunday to try the Monday AM bite. Fished some of my best spots from land starting at 7:30 am. An hour and 15 minutes later, the skunk is on....2 weak little bites, probably gills, and not a whiff of a crappie. Not looking good so I limped back to my place with wounded ego......made some biscuits and gravy to change the attitude and set a good example for the fish.....Eat dammit! 

Two hours later the belly is full, dishes done, place cleaned up, and truck packed up. It's 10:45 am and I must be on the road by noon.....an hour and a 1/2 to remove the skunk. First spot, first minute, first dunk it's first fish and a good one. From the fight initially I thought it was a decent bass but it's first pass near the surface verified it was slab, and also verified it was lip-hooked. What, me worried? Not a chance......net was at my side, pole extended and fish secured onto dry land. Photo below....with mouth closed and tail pinched it's a legit Fish Ohio at 13.5" . My 1st Fish Ohio for 2016 and biggest from my channel this year.




  








IMG_20160425_GLSM FishOhio




__
zaraspook


__
Apr 25, 2016




GLSM Fish Ohio 13+ Black Crappie on 4-25-16





Hit 2 other spots catching two more keepers at 11". Just 3 crappies total, but all good ones before heading home on time. Man I like those biscuits and gravy!


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## AEFISHING55

Nice one, congrats!


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## zaraspook

Thanks. Hope it's the beginning of big ones coming in for spawn. We're overdue.


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## fished-out

zaraspook said:


> Thanks. Hope it's the beginning of big ones coming in for spawn. We're overdue.


It's like that at alot of lakes right now. Caught a few in color over at Indian Saturday, but most were not, and the same story further south on Monday. Have to come up to St. Mary's sometime this spring, but with so many good lakes to choose from, it's just hard to make time.


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## zaraspook

Good to know crappie at other lakes reflect similar pattern as GLSM. I've heard same thing from bass guys who fish lakes in the area......fish aren't on a normal behavior pattern, whatever "normal" is. Appreciate your input, fished-out.


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## CHOPIQ

Zara, I heard the algae bloom has started already at GLSm. If thats the case I hate to see it in a month.


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## Salmonid

stopped along the East end of the lake this afternoon looking for some shad, that was tough BTW but found a handful, talked to 2 different bass guys who said the same thing, crappy bass bite today, water from 56-61 in some channels and both said they saw some shad spawning along the rocks in back of south side channels ( North wind today may help explain that) I looked along the North shore and East end and didn't see any near rocks and of the shad I did catch a few were dropping eggs when handled so there ready... and Just for Zara, I did cast net my first GLSM Perch, a really chunky 8.5-9" fish...and also of all the small shad I cast netted, only one was still small enough to be eaten by a 10" crappie, most were 4-5" and too big for crappies to eat so until the shad spawn and a month from now will be when the crappies start targeting them again. for the record, no shad at all in shallow water for me...

Salmonid


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## Saugeye Tom

Mark, your report revels more than most people can aee.........


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> stopped along the East end of the lake this afternoon looking for some shad, that was tough BTW but found a handful, talked to 2 different bass guys who said the same thing, crappy bass bite today, water from 56-61 in some channels and both said they saw some shad spawning along the rocks in back of south side channels ( North wind today may help explain that) I looked along the North shore and East end and didn't see any near rocks and of the shad I did catch a few were dropping eggs when handled so there ready... and Just for Zara, I did cast net my first GLSM Perch, a really chunky 8.5-9" fish...and also of all the small shad I cast netted, only one was still small enough to be eaten by a 10" crappie, most were 4-5" and too big for crappies to eat so until the shad spawn and a month from now will be when the crappies start targeting them again. for the record, no shad at all in shallow water for me...
> 
> Salmonid


Salmonid......arrived at GLSM about 6:30 pm tonight/Weds. I witnessed shad spawning at banks with rock like north and south ends of big red deck, also far north end of my seawall (Frankenstein area). Neighbor next door netted a shad she says is 15". Good amount of shad activity in my channels tonight but wasn't much Sunday. 64 degree water temp in my channel.
Congrats on the perch......now get one on line and hook! By the way Scott and I are fishing tomorrow if you want to catch some specks. I got into some good quantity and quality tonight. Will post about it and a photo once I get it loaded.


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## zaraspook

CHOPIQ.....yes some yuck algae in backend of channels that are dead-end. Farmers were spreading manure, legally, like crazy on March 1. All that rain in 2nd half of March and 1st half April created heavy run-off into creeks....predictable. Fresh manure on fields ended up in lake.....predictable. It will be a miracle if lake doesn't go ballistic this year.

Actually, we had algae warning issued last year before May 15th. Haven't heard if EPA issued any kind of advisory yet. March of 2012 had crazy algae with 80 degree temps. Sunshine, warm water temps, and phosphorus in manure grow lots of algae......duh! It isn't rocket science. Everyone knows the relationship.....where the manure comes from. Stupid that we don't break the cycle.


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## zaraspook

Fished Weds evening from 6:30 pm till dark and had some fun. Caught 14 with 12 keepers. Most were 10-10.5" fish and males but some bulging ladies in the mix, too. Pic below was the biggest......just short of 12.5" with mouth closed and tail pinched. Caught him in about 10" of water from a familiar spring spawn spot. He annihilated the key lime Bobby Garland Baby Shad plastic.




  








IMG_20160427_185339851_TOP




__
zaraspook


__
Apr 28, 2016




GLSM 12.25 crappie 4-27-16






Fish were not too particular about what they would eat. Garland in Bone White/Chartreuse was gobbled by an 11.5" inch fish and curly tail grub in June Bug/Acid Rain produced 11"+ fish, too. Water temp was 64, and basically been in 60's for last 11 days. At the risk of jinxing it, I think spawn is on if a few nights projected in the 40's don't put a damper on it.


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## zaraspook

Fishing buddy Scott and I hit GLSM midday Thursday. He wanted to take home 10 keepers. We had 11 in the bucket that were 10-12" chunks in the first 90 minutes. Stopped keeping fish at that point although we could have kept about 20. We took a lunch break about 2, back to fishing about 3pm and bite was much tougher. Scott's 12.25" crappie was the day's biggest.

Other fish we caught included a small LMB, a bullhead, a gill, and a sheephead. All fish were caught on various plastics including Garland Baby Shad, grub with big paddle tail, twister tails......usually the plastics were multi-colored combinations that included chartreuse. Pretty amazing that only 2 crappies we caught were not "legal", at least 9 inches. Doesn't take long to fill a bucket. It was a decent outing, starting fast and faded later. Water temp was 59.3 midday, down nearly 5 degrees from previous evening.


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## zaraspook

Fishing past weekend delayed until late afternoon Saturday for my grandson's baseball game (it was eventually rained out). First line wet at 4pm and I'd caught 5 by 5pm in the steady rain. That's not a great showing but all 5 were keepers, no toads but solid 10-11" fish. Rare right to catch any fish short of 10" let alone one short of the 9" legal mark. After 5pm caught zero though I tried off and on before dark. 

Stayed overnight and was glad the weather prognosticators missed the forecast. Rather than clouds all day, once the sun peaked out late morning what a great day of sunshine! Fished 10:30 am till noon. Caught only 2 crappies that session. Hard to find a bite but easy to find chores to do until left at 6:30pm. Took one 45 minute fishing break about 4 pm. Caught 4 in that time span including a 12" female bulging with eggs.

Water temp was 58.5 Sunday morning and 63 later that afternoon. Quite a few bass guys fishing my channel Sunday morning were replaced by numerous crappie boats Sunday afternoon. Common theme from both was "poor bite". For me catching only 5 fish Saturday late and 6 fish on Sunday is disappointing. However, all fish were keepers......including earlier this week (Weds) that's 21 consecutive crappies without catching a short fish. Great quality and disappointing quantity. 60-70% appear to be males.

Most of fish were taken on the Bobby Garland Baby Shad (any color combo that included chartreuse) and a few on grub/twister tails. The "herd" at GLSM prefers to pound 1-2' of water fishing 10-12" under bobber. That wasn't productive for me. Majority of my fish were 20-30" under bobber in 2-4' of water.


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## Saugeyefisher

There still hot n heavy hete at buckeye. Two of us brought home 39 crappies,3 bass,3 eyes,an a few big gills. Dipping docks and rocks with baby shad under a float. Not sure on water temp,but wa. Way cooler then last week. Found moreon straight wood then lifts. I think reason for this is one-less pressure on the plain ole wooden docks,two- in full spawn qn temps are comfy enough to where there not seaking the heat they would be earlier in the season. All fish positioned in the shade.


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## OutdoorLife

Salmonid that was me and my co-angler you spoke to on 4/27. Of 17 fisherman only 7 caught fish. One boat found a good sack of bass that day for 13lbs by the boater and 12lbs from the co-angler. We were one of the less fortunate who couldn't find 'em.


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## zaraspook

Saugfisher......you guys are slaying them, again. Keep it going, fella. 

I'm gonna try for a while tomorrow/Weds. Forecast is 90% chance of rain. Is this Seattle? Maybe England? Maybe we should build a dome over GLSM, and make it an indoor stadium.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM Tuesday night at 8:30pm with under half an hour till dark. Managed 3 crappies including this one, not huge, but 11.75" with tail squeezed. It was 22nd keeper in a row, but streak snapped with the next 2 short fish caught before dark.




  








IMG_20160503_203218450




__
zaraspook


__
May 5, 2016




11..75 GLSM Crappie 5-3-16






Weds at Noon fishing buddy, Scott, and I got into the our best action of this spawn. Bite started slow but seemed to escalate as day went on. However, it could have been that we were learning with each fish caught......knew what they wanted and where/how to present it. Of the 8 spots we fished on our walking circuit, only one spot failed to produce multiple fish and we fished most spots twice. 

I did a bit of "pre-fishing" before Scott arrived catching 2 keepers. Once he arrived we got serious, put on our game faces, catching 47 additional crappies (22 for Scott and 25 for me), Scott took honors with a pair of 12.5" fish. There were 4 fish 12" or better. I doubt Scott had more than 2 short fish all day whereas 11 of mine weren't legal. We released anything under 10", plus released several large egg-laden females to keep 29 in pic below.




  








IMG_20160504_195244484




__
zaraspook


__
May 5, 2016




5-4-16 29 GLSM 10-12.5"






Water temp was 60 degrees. Rain was much lighter than forecasted and had a few peaks of sun late in day. Wind was light early increasing to 20-25 mph later in day. Most fish came on the Garland Baby Shad baits in a variety of colors but other plastics claimed fish, too. They seemed to prefer a faster moving presentation than slower one. We took fish right off seawalls and some 10' off the bank and down 3'. Also caught 4 gills, a sheephead, 1 small bass, and I caught 2 small scales from a large fish that I had on for a minute, never surfaced, and came unzipped. Really an enjoyable cay of catching, rarely a 15 minute gap without a bite or fish.


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## zaraspook

This weekend fishing took a back seat to birthdays, Mothers Day, and other family stuff. Squeezed in two hours Friday night and one hour at dawn on Saturday. That great bite from Wednesday was taking a siesta. 6 crappies Friday night, all being keepers, most at a spot that produced zero fish Weds. 3 crappies were all I could find Saturday morning with one keeper among the trio. Packed up and headed to grandson's baseball game. Water temp early Saturday was 63.5. Wind was light which promotes some pretty rough looking surface scum in the back-end of channels.

Maybe someone else had the right recipe for success this weekend?


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## CHOPIQ

I was in St Marys on Sunday for Mothers Day. They had a crappie tourny and I went to the weigh in. Some pretty impressive weights. The winners had over 11 pounds for an 8 fish weigh in. About 6 teams had over 8 pounds. I think big crappie was 1.68. Big black crappies busting with eggs.


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## zaraspook

CHOPIQ said:


> I was in St Marys on Sunday for Mothers Day. They had a crappie tourny and I went to the weigh in. Some pretty impressive weights. The winners had over 11 pounds for an 8 fish weigh in. About 6 teams had over 8 pounds. I think big crappie was 1.68. Big black crappies busting with eggs.


Thanks for report, Chopiq. Those results are right in line with the CrappieUSA tourney a few weeks ago. I think big fish in that one was 1.68#, also. Wish I'd had more time to fish Saturday.


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## harrison08

Made it up this morning to chase the crappie around. The water looks bad, especially for this early in the year. The first two places that I stopped, I didnt even make a cast because the water was awfully green. I eventually made it to a north side channel where I managed just three fish on three bites. The smallest was 11" and two bigguns'. The fish were extremely tight to cover about 2 feet from the bank. Went around the lake only catching 2 shorts...


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## brandonw

Wow Harrison08, that thing is a hog. Did you measure and weigh it?


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## zaraspook

Great photo Harrison08! I love how well our crappies show off their thickness. Yep.....water looks like crap. Like I said in a prior post, lake had an advisory out last year before Memorial Day as well. Pretty predictable this was coming. We had the early warmup (even though temps were cold after that) and water clarity started to go south. All that rain washed all that freshly spread March manure towards the lake. Remember how muddy the lake became? That mud came farm field runoff. The trend of this is very concerning.......


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## flyfishtrout

I've been considering the trip over to GLSM since all my local reservoirs have ONLY been producing dink crappie, like 4-7 inch range


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## zaraspook

Made to GLSM Tuesday night at 6pm, fished until 8:15pm. Was pleased to catch 11, but surprised to catch more small ones than "normal". 5 of the 11 were short and wondered if something was going on. Biggest was a 12.5" girl. 

Today (Weds) friend Scott and I teamed up to see if we could match the 49 we caught last Weds. We didn't make it. Today only 45.......he beat me 25 to 20. Keeper ratio was actually better than last Weds as we caught only 5 short fish. All fish returned to hopefully spawn and catch another day. Scott's 12.75" male was biggest. 

Ratio of males to females was about even. None of ladies were spawned out. Males not oozing gooey stuff either so this spawn still has legs. We caught fish on a variety of plastics, but nothing worked well all the time. Later in the day Scott downsized, switched to smaller shad bodies with lighter jig heads, and continued to catch fish in areas my bigger baits were ignored. Most fish were found in 2-3 fow and 3-7 feet off bank. Fish were not aggressively chasing up. We were dragging our baits thru their beds as close to the bottom as we could. It was a fantastic weather day and catching was pretty darn good. too.


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## zaraspook

flyfishtrout said:


> I've been considering the trip over to GLSM since all my local reservoirs have ONLY been producing dink crappie, like 4-7 inch range


flyfishtrout......the State imposed a 9" minimum keeper rule at GLSM about 5-years ago. Seems to have really helped the crappie population return to "days of old" with more and bigger fish. Rarely talked about, but back in late 90's thru 2006 or 2008 DNR tried to establish walleye in GLSM. Something like 50 million fingerlings and fry stocked over almost a decade. Crappie demise coincided with that period. Adding big numbers of a predator like walleye is bound to have an impact on population of other species. Walleye haven't been self-sustaining and as walleye population diminishes, crappie are doing better........my opinion anyway.


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## harrison08

brandonw said:


> Wow Harrison08, that thing is a hog. Did you measure and weigh it?


No, I did not do either. They were definitely two nice fish though!


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## zaraspook

Carp tournament starts today 13th, runs thru 15th. Come one, come all! Daily prizes, big fish cash, most fish/pounds cash awards. Special awards/prizes for kids...bring the family. You can use any legal fishing method to "catch" carp including bow-fishing. 3 tons of carp removed last year.

When you catch carp anytime at GLSM, please do not return them to the water. State is working hard to "get the carp outta here!".


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## Greyduck

I had to run some cattle up by the lake yesterday. So threw the rod in the truck. Fished about 3 hours. Ended up with 24 keepers. All male and released back. Yellow plastic ruled the day.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> I had to run some cattle up by the lake yesterday. So threw the rod in the truck. Fished about 3 hours. Ended up with 24 keepers. All male and released back. Yellow plastic ruled the day.


Really appreciate your update. On Weds we caught 50/50 ratio of males/females. Your 24 keepers were all males. I'm concluding the girls aren't "in" at your sites yet and the party must be a little further along in my channel. Speaking of yellow baits, I've successfully used yellow of late, too.


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## zaraspook

Friday 13th? Bah! Humbug! Made it to lake at 6pm and wet a line within 10 minutes. I'm optimistic as I approach my 1st spot. 70% of time I can count on at least one crappie here and frequently more. 15 minutes later and 2 different baits without a whiff of a bump, I'm hoofing it to Wednesday's hot spot where we caught at least two thirds of our 45 crappies that day. Surely now I can erase any anxiety that a Friday the 13th jinx could be in the offing. Favorite bait and favorite color tied on, my jig is doing it's tantalizing dance. 20 minutes and working 40 feet of bank, tantalizing dance or not, result is NADA, zero, nothing! Confidence shaken, not broken, I change to 2nd rod with another favorite bait and color and re-fish same area.......same result. Fish are not on wood, not on brush and next 70 feet of bank, all rip/rap, produced no more than 1 crappie last Weds. Perfect! Next 35 minutes on that rip/rap produces 13 keepers from 14 caught. Biggest is a 12.75" lady......9 of the 14 were males. Friday the 13th jinx is an urban legend.

Not enough daylight to fish all 6 spots remaining on my circuit, I narrow it down to three. I do a 5-minute fly-over at the first stop opting to invest more time at one that isn't rip/rap, but I figure it's stone lined bank might be nearly as attractive as rip/rap. First cast within inches of the bank in a foot of water produces the fun surprise in photo below.




  








IMG_20160513_194928636




__
zaraspook


__
May 14, 2016




GLSM 5-13-15 LMBass





At 18"+ the LMB was great sport on my fly rod crappie rig. Also, from the shallow and stone lined area caught 2 crappies, including another 12", this time a male. Final stop was my seawall, 2 more crappies that were the 1st two caught from wood.

16 of 18 crappies were keepers. The bass icing on the cake. Friday the 13th is a good day to fish. The 14 crappies caught on rip/rap were in less than a foot of water, less than a foot from the bank, and my bait swimming no deeper than 4" under surface. I saw the fish hit/take the bait in each case.....really rare to visually witness the strike and initial run when you're fishing in GLSM's poor water clarity. For those who know my fishing habits, all 18 crappies, plus the bass, plus 2 gills were caught on "June Bug/Acid Rain" color combo.


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## firemanmike2127

Nice bass.....& appreciate the great report ! Sounds like great 'therapy' for the recovering fisherman. Mike


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## CHOPIQ

They are having the carp tournament this weekend. I'm interested in some of the weights they bring in. I'm all for getting the carp out of the lake but that's not whats causing the water problems they have there.


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## fished-out

Finally made it up, haven't been since last year. Couldn't get anyone to come with me. Here are two that I caught. Finally figured out the camera phone.


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## firemanmike2127

Very nice !! I won't be able to get out until tomorrow evening....hope they're still hungry. How deep were the fish holding today ? Mike


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## fished-out

firemanmike2127 said:


> Very nice !! I won't be able to get out until tomorrow evening....hope they're still hungry. How deep were the fish holding today ? Mike


no real pattern. fish were scattered.


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## zaraspook

CHOPIQ said:


> They are having the carp tournament this weekend. I'm interested in some of the weights they bring in. I'm all for getting the carp out of the lake but that's not whats causing the water problems they have there.


Chopiq....in full agreement with you.


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## zaraspook

fished-out said:


> Finally made it up, haven't been since last year. Couldn't get anyone to come with me. Here are two that I caught. Finally figured out the camera phone.


Sweet little piggies you caught!


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## zaraspook

I stayed over at GLSM Friday night. Fished from 8:45am to 10 am this morning then had to head south to grandson's baseball game. The bite was really promising this morning. Caught multiple crappies at all 4 spots I hit. All 4 of those spots have some degree of wood cover. 13 caught with 10 of those keepers, biggest was 11.75". 7 males and 6 ladies. Water temp was 64.9 at 7am. My fish were mainly in 2-3 feet of water and I was fishing 18-24" deep (not shallow like Friday evening). However, I caught 3 in water 10-18" in depth, and fishing 6-10" deep. All my fish today were on Bobby Garland Baby Shad 2.25 inch in chartreuse. 

Planned to come back after the ball game, but family in town nixed that. Catching 13 in 75 minutes this morning suggested Saturday might be one of best days of year. Maybe the window will open for fishing some on Sunday.


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## zaraspook

Made it back to GLSM Sunday morning......fishing by 10:15am. Bite wasn't even close to that of Saturday morning. I found a few fish during that first 1.5 hour session, 6 to be exact, all but one a keeper including a 12" male. Took a lunch break and washed dishes left behind when I exited abruptly Saturday morning for grandson's ballgame. By the way that ballgame was postponed due to rain.

Journeyed out for session #2. Two neighbors warned me "no bite today, cold screwed up the bite". Caught 10 during 75 minutes, must have been lucky, but bite did trail off to almost nothing the last 1/2 hour. Cut the grass. Fished some more....45 minutes and very scarce bite yielded 3 more. 19 fish at that point. Thought about leaving but an objective this trip was removing the winter cover from my pontoon......was waiting for wind to die down to handle the cover which is the size of a small parachute. Did more chores and put some food in my belly while waiting for the wind to moderate.

Finally at almost 7pm figured I'd try for one final fish to end the day with 20. Caught 2 in 10 minutes in what seemed a much more aggressive bite. Hmmm....maybe I'd shoot for 25? Maybe hit a nearby target that hadn't coughed up a fish all day and is normally good for 1-2? While walking to that spot, I recalled the words of a crappie fishing friend. _"When conditions change and you don't find crappies where they should be, they probably aren't far away. Fish beyond that spot to the left, right, and farther out, good chance you'll find them nearby." _ In addition to putting those words into action, I also adjusted my bobber a foot deeper. Within 3-4 minutes I had a good one on, but dang my net is 12' behind me and no use . Predictably, that 12-13" dark male unzips hoisting it over the sea wall!

Although I lost the big male, I know there's probably a big female nearby, too. After moving my net within reach, bait is back in the water. Pulled 3 fish from that spot in the next 15-20 minutes, including the lady in pic below.




  








IMG_20160515_191457286




__
zaraspook


__
May 16, 2016




GLSM Fish Ohio 13in 5-15-16





Catch 2 more crappies on my walk back to the house, fishing deeper and a broader area than normal for the cover. Loading up for departure and when putting my rod away, it hits me that my tally is 26 total with 20 keepers. Maybe as dusk settles in, I'll dunk the bait a few times off my seawall? Might get lucky and hit 30? You might notice my tendency to give in to these random "urges". 15 minutes becomes 30 minutes.......in some of the best action of the season, it's 7 fish, 6 keepers before rod finds it's resting place. Day ends with 33 fish, 26 keepers of 10" or better. Three 12" fish to go with the 13" lady. All released to catch again on another trip.


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## Greyduck

Great report Zara. They are of the best looking crappie i have ever seen.


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## zaraspook

Thanks, Greyduck. 

Shucks. Never did get the winter cover off the pontoon. Guess I'll have to make another trip this week to take care of it (and maybe fish a bit? ).


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## tomknous

Sorry for the post jack... But I've grown up on GLSM and live on it now. Went out yesterday evening for a few hours trolling for eyes. Just wondering if anyone knows of any rumors of some possibly picking a few up on the troll? I have talked to many who catch them by accident while bass or crappie fishing, and even a few while catfishing...I've been stomping the spillway since early 2000's catching eyes before the masses from social media came about. I'm not out to fill daily limits, but just wondering if anyone else is in my shoes and likes the challenge ? I'm sure there are some tight-lipped old timers that have figured out some sort of pattern on these fish, but I've not seen anyone trolling the past few years .... Has everyone given up ? Or is someone onto something and keeping it hush-hush? I've been impressed with the number of good-sized fish that come out of the water here, and I'm sure there are bigger ones yet ... Just reaching out to anyone who may have any Intel that they'd be willing to share... What are some of your thoughts? I know the lake well and although there isn't much for Depth or structure... They are hiding somewhere!


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## firemanmike2127

Sorry, but I'm no help on an open lake pattern. I've been fishing below the spillway some through the night & early morning (before sunrise) with decent results occasionally. I'd be willing to invest some time trying to learn some different patterns & areas with structure. I also have a decent size boat to use that 3 people can fish out of quite comfortably. Maybe we need to start a walleye/saugeye thread for Grand Lake so some us who fish here regularly can network & share ideas, techniques, patterns, etc. Mike Bruns. 419-305-8111


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## zaraspook

tomknous said:


> Sorry for the post jack... But I've grown up on GLSM and live on it now. Went out yesterday evening for a few hours trolling for eyes. Just wondering if anyone knows of any rumors of some possibly picking a few up on the troll? I have talked to many who catch them by accident while bass or crappie fishing, and even a few while catfishing...I've been stomping the spillway since early 2000's catching eyes before the masses from social media came about. I'm not out to fill daily limits, but just wondering if anyone else is in my shoes and likes the challenge ? I'm sure there are some tight-lipped old timers that have figured out some sort of pattern on these fish, but I've not seen anyone trolling the past few years .... Has everyone given up ? Or is someone onto something and keeping it hush-hush? I've been impressed with the number of good-sized fish that come out of the water here, and I'm sure there are bigger ones yet ... Just reaching out to anyone who may have any Intel that they'd be willing to share... What are some of your thoughts? I know the lake well and although there isn't much for Depth or structure... They are hiding somewhere!


tomknous.......I knew there was another one out there somewhere, a person with crazy thoughts about catching eyes on the main lake. Nice to know I'm not the only one. Look at my "avatar", the graphic by my username next to all my posts. Might be too small to ID, but fish in photo was caught on GLSM main lake. I was targeting that species that day and many time afterward. 

More discussion to be had on your topic, but lack time to do it right now. Looks like fishermanmike might be another crazy one.


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## zaraspook

A couple of pics from crappies caught Tues evening. 5 keepers among the 7 I caught. Tough bite. Photos are the first 2 landed. First pic is 13"+ Fish Ohio. 




  








IMG_20160517_162645227




__
zaraspook


__
May 18, 2016




GLSM Fish Ohio 13in 5-17-16










  








IMG_20160517_164125333




__
zaraspook


__
May 18, 2016




GLSM 12in male 5-17-16


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## firemanmike2127

Nice !!!


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## tomknous

Fiancé and I were able to slip out for the last half hour of daylight last night ... Managed to pull out six crappie... Five of which were big and dark ... Longest was 12 1/8th inches... The rest were right on the 11" mark ... Still jigging plastics. Up along the docks where no boats were tied up yet!


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## zaraspook

tomknous....Seems were in a routine of a decent morning bite, during daylight you stumble into a few scattered, and evening bite strengthens right up to dark. If sky is overcast it's likely you can get into a decent midday/afternoon bite, too.

I fished Weds morning 8-9am, caught 4 with 3 keepers as bite diminished the higher the sun rose. Prepped my pontoon for launch rest of midday until fishing buddies Scott and Salmonid arrived around 2:30pm to crappie fish. We were very good at crappie _fishing_......very poor at crappie _catching_ during those high sun afternoon hours. Salmonid showed he's on a roll, following up his W. Va. State Record blue cat last Saturday with a Fish Ohio 13" male crappie (photo attached). We paused for a hardy lunch around 4pm, fried chicken and fixens provided by the Blue Cat record holder(thanks Mark). At that point Salmonid had the 1 piggy crappie and a bullhead to his credit. Scott had one crappie, a keeper as his tally, and zaraspook was sitting on the skunk line - no crappies!




  








IMG_5727




__
zaraspook


__
May 19, 2016




Salmonid Fish Ohio 13" GLSM crappie 5-18-16






Only 30 minutes more fishing for me, then left at 5:30 for grandson's ballgame in Eaton, OH. Best I could manage was a couple of short bites - no crappies. Salmonid concentrated on castnetting for shad (bait for a Saturday tourney). Scott fished the evening bite to get 9 more crappies, ending the day with 8 keepers among his 10 fish. Scott and Salmonid departed about 7:30pm. Water temp Weds morning was 60.6, down a bit from Sunday.


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## Saugeyefisher

Good report guys! Ive had troubles getting to the lake for the morning bite,an bye 6/7 to beat to go anymore paddling around in a kayak. So ive had to make the best of it,other then the few we fet in the rocks,if the sun is high,even on the cooler days. Almost ALL my crappiehave been in shade. Just kind of follow the shadows. If the docks are lacking shade because the sun is high. I concentrate on docks were wood and metal or even were two peices of wood kind of sandwitch together,an get my jig right inbetween the sandwitch. this was even the case back in april. They hate that sun in there eyes!.
Ne ways on a much shallower(at the moment) buckeye lake,we are still finding females moving into spawning areas,even a few very pale,with tiny egg sacks. An plenty of darker males,both gaurding fry,and some still building nests. What a season! For me the size has gone down,but im still getting plenty of fish up to 13". An slowly getting more big gills each trip.
Even last sunday in the chilly 20 mph wind we slaughtered crappie from noon-7ish.


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## Saugeyefisher

Oh also,water pumps left in the lake near docks,and pvc protecting the wires running down dock posts have been a garuntee for a fish or two


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher......nice report from over there at B-eye. More similarities than differences between your bite and ours. Agree that follow the shade is a major staple for crappie success. Sometimes we forget the daytime successes when it's overcast do not equate to same success when it's a bluebird day. Especially since we've so many overcast days this spring - no sun at all for 4-5 day stretches.


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## Greyduck

Thanks for the reports guys...... headed up friday morning. Last week 95% of my fish came between the dock and a pontoon. In mid day. Hope that pattern holds tomorrow.


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## zaraspook

Plan to be there Saturday evening and Sunday morning. Lot of stuff to do at my lake place in advance of Memorial Day holiday but certainly will test the waters.


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## zaraspook

Fished 5:30 to 6:30 tonight and was certain I had it figured out. Signs have been numerous lately. More and more female crappies spawned out. Smaller fish showing up where the big ones had dominated just days ago. More evidence tonight.........catching 8 fish in an hour and only one a keeper and several of the dinks hardly 6". For the last 3 weeks keeper rate is consistently 75-80%. Those big spawners are all gone.......won't see them in the channels again until fall. "The 2016 spawn is over" I'm thinking as I break for a dinner of chicken enchiladas. Don't skimp on the jalapenos, please.

I'm disheartened.....spawn has been too short. Lots of crappie fun this spring.....sad it's come to an abrupt end. Instead of fishing after dinner, the dog wins out......he's ready for a long walk at 7:30pm. Out of habit, I grab my rod as me and the dog pass it, just in case. The dog has the lead, I'm just a passenger on this junket. Curiously, he takes me near one of this spring's hot spots and one I didn't get to fish the last time up. What the heck, a cast or two won't hurt. 2nd cast yields a chunky 10" female and she's still loaded with eggs. Three more come my way in the next 10 minutes, 2 of them keepers. Bite is more aggressive here, but quite a few hits are short. Switching to a smaller bait really gets the party going and results are an amazing run of bigger fish, mostly ladies. By 8:30 I have to quit. My smaller bait is beat to pieces having caught 11 of the 14 crappies from this spot and no spare baits with me. 12 are keepers including a Fish Ohio 13" girl, at least two 12"+, and the others mostly easy 11'. Returning to my place I dunk a fresh plastic off my seawall as light fades. Boom! Quickly another Fish Ohio 13.25" egg-laden female. Efforts fail to find a big male from the same spot as the female, but 2 more crappies fall victims to my jig.

In about an hour, 17 crappies produced 14 keepers and 2 Fish Ohio's. More important my conclusion was proven completely wrong, a false alarm, maybe paranoia. Spawn still has legs (and eggs)........get out there and enjoy. Plus, the moon is full! Pic is the 2nd 13"+ crappie caught during a fishing session I almost didn't attempt. Actually, 13.25" with tail scissored. Most of these 17 fish were females and showing plenty of eggs.




  








IMG_20160521_210059798




__
zaraspook


__
May 22, 2016




GLSM 13.25in5-2116 Fish Ohio with tail pinched on Panfish Assassin


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## Greyduck

Nice fish Zara.... friday was a so so day. Brought 21 keepers home with me. The bite was very soft and all off boat docks. I pitched back the females but one did find its way home with me. i just dont think they have spawned yet. My thought at grand lake is when the cottonwood starts blowing they are on the bed. Some of my biggest catches has been over the memorial day weekend back in the day. I think this year will prove about ythe same.


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## tomknous

Zara!!! You need to publish books! The suspense and emotions while reading a simple fishing post had my heart breaking and popping fast in the same post! ha ! Slipped out this evening after returning from another lake (catching a few eyes) and managed five keepers in the last few moments of daylight ....the largest was a fat female at 11 inches ...beautiful way to cap off a gorgeous day! 
Tight lines !


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## tracker_80

Good day this afternoon and evening. Took home 27 with a minnow 12" deep. All were around boat docks and submerged logs. Threw back about six that were in the 9's and only caught 6 shorts throughout the day.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck, tracker_80, tomknous........good reports from each of you confirm GLSM spawn bite remains strong! Sunday my fishing took a back seat to chores. Too much to do for our family Memorial Day gig this weekend. Caught just one lonely dink crappie off my seawall.....that was it until I did the evening bite, starting about 7:30pm. Gotta say evenings have been consistently strong. If your fishing time is restricted, evenings at GLSM is the best bet. Last night did not disappoint. I caught 12. Size was off a bit with just 5 keepers. Biggest was an egg stuffed lady....12". Once again my Bobby Garland Baby Shad plastics were not attracting action. Substituting the short, stubby tailed Panfish Assassin was a whole new ballgame.

Haven't been checking water temp lately, so don't have a reliable number. Just a guess would be 64-65 degrees. My Sunday fish came off rip/rap and natural banks.......the back-end of a channel with no water deeper than 2'. Amazing number of people enjoying the crappie bite Sunday...lots of smiles on their faces!


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## zaraspook

tomknous said:


> Zara!!! You need to publish books! The suspense and emotions while reading a simple fishing post had my heart breaking and popping fast in the same post! ha ! Slipped out this evening after returning from another lake (catching a few eyes) and managed five keepers in the last few moments of daylight ....the largest was a fat female at 11 inches ...beautiful way to cap off a gorgeous day!
> Tight lines !


Appreciate the kudos and pleased you detected the mood shift. Melancholy notes quickly replaced by "little-kid joy" ...........that's fishing!


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## zaraspook

Dredge is doing it's thing in my channel this week. No idea what depth changes will be and could be some of my crappie cover is in jeopardy. For sure shallow areas holding spawning crappies now will be disrupted.....fish forced to move. Maybe some short term losses to fishing but long term gains. In the words of the philosopher LHT (Lowell H. Turner of CJ thread fame)......."Dredge baby, dredge!"


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## jon84

Are there any bait shops at the Celina end of the lake or do I have to drive all the way down to the Outdoorsman


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## tomknous

Depends what you're looking for ... There are a few places in Celina I believe that sell minnows and such yet ... Zuma has a fella that makes nice crappie and panfish jigs, but no live bait ... If you're looking for a complete shop you may need to cruise to SM to visit the Outdoorsman or Grand Lake Bait and Tackle... Great people at both of those shops !


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## TitanFreak9

Chuck and debs in ohio city. 
If you are a pan fishermen, then you must visit his store. 

He puts every one else to absolute shame.


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## zaraspook

The 2 in St Mary's mentioned by tomknous are only ones I know for minnies. Wax worms at most convenience stores.


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## zaraspook

TitanFreak9 said:


> Chuck and debs in ohio city.
> If you are a pan fishermen, then you must visit his store.
> 
> He puts every one else to absolute shame.


I've purchased from Chuck/Debs online store. Merchandise and prices have been excellent.


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## jon84

Thanks guys I'll have to look into that store in Ohio City sounds interesting


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## jon84

I took the kids up to the lake tonight and caught about 15 crappie and 1 small cat. Only cought 9 keepers. But only fished one spot. Blue and white tubes tipped with minnows was the hot ticket tonight.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Once again my Bobby Garland Baby Shad plastics were not attracting action. *Substituting the short, stubby tailed Panfish Assassin was a whole new ballgame*.


This is a point well made. Sometimes we get stuck in a rut of using Our Favorite Bait and the fish ignore it and just simply switching to a different body style of bait or bait size gets the fish moving. I've seen days where I couldn't get bit on a BGBS, switched baits and tubes were on fire and vice versa or where a 2" tube out performed an 1 1/2" tube 2 to 1. If ya know fish are present or they should be present, try switching baits styles before you move and your days out come could be much different.


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## zaraspook

jon84 said:


> I took the kids up to the lake tonight and caught about 15 crappie and 1 small cat. Only cought 9 keepers. But only fished one spot. Blue and white tubes tipped with minnows was the hot ticket tonight.


Nice mess of fish and particularly like the smile on your son's face. The crappie he's holding looks like a female bloated with eggs. Good sign the spawn is still on.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> This is a point well made. Sometimes we get stuck in a rut of using Our Favorite Bait and the fish ignore it and just simply switching to a different body style of bait or bait size gets the fish moving. I've seen days where I couldn't get bit on a BGBS, switched baits and tubes were on fire and vice versa or where a 2" tube out performed an 1 1/2" tube 2 to 1. If ya know fish are present or they should be present, try switching baits styles before you move and your days out come could be much different.


Great advice. I cheat a little. Usually carry 2 crappie poles pre-rigged with different size/style of bait. In shallow lake like GLSM, rarely am I fishing water deeper than 2-3.5'. If fish are aggressive they readily attack "up" in the water column and fishing with bobber 12-18", or less, is fine. If tougher bite, I'll adjust bobber near the bottom, put the bait where they hardly have to move. So, first adjustment is depth. 
If that doesn't work, I'll grab 2nd rod and show them a different size or style bait. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Everyone experiences those times when a productive spot suddenly slows down or quits. Before moving on, I'll try the 2nd rig........try to catch the fish that passed on the first bait and might take a shot at something different. The spot you're on might still be more productive than the next. Doesn't require 2 rods to use the strategy......just easier when you don't have to change jigs or punch new holes in your plastics.


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## zaraspook

Fishing with Scott Weds afternoon and evening, the first word that comes to mind is "slaughterhouse". We caught crappies _everywhere _we stopped, all types of cover. Final tally was 105 between us with 52 keepers although we returned all for another day. 10 keepers were 12"+ , Scott's 57 edged my 48 but I was gaining ground at the end. Story might have ended differently if I hadn't stepped away from fishing for 90 minutes to prep my pontoon, get it launched, and drive it across the lake t moor off my seawall. My daughters and grandkids would not forgive me if pontoon wasn't on the water for Memorial Day lake stuff. Thanks Dan Manning at The Outdoorsman for working me into their slammed schedule, even working after hours to float my boat!

Water temp was 71.7 degrees. A lot of piggies were sitting in less than foot of water. High percentage of females are spawned out, a few still stuffed. Males were squirting spawn juice. Scott proved a wonderful black bean soup and cornbread for dinner. Easy to take a whupping on the fishing scorecard in exchange for Scott's culinary magic!


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## Salmonid

Sweet!!! Now what was the dredge report?


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## Lowell H Turner

why YES, how are the dredges doing ? pretty please...


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## tracker_80

A bit slower than last Sunday. Managed around 20 crappies w/15 kepers. Started around 1 and fished throughout the afternoon. Called it quits around 6. A lot of 10" - 12" crappie. 12-14" deep w/ minnow. Might try to get out early tomm. and give it a better shot.


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## rutty

Fished Saturday, ended with 49 keepers, all caught on the rocks. The males were very tight to the rocks and the females were out about 5-10 ft from the bank. All fish caught on southern pro stingers, purple, blue/white, and white were the hottest colors. Probably caught another 50-60 short fish as well. Fished around 18 inches deep, threw up to the rocks and soon as the bobber stood up on the dropoff is where the fish would bite. Could not get any fish on dock poles. There were great sized fish as well!


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## zaraspook

Unfortunately, no meaningful dredge report. Dredge moved deeper into channel about 150' from where it was parked for several weeks, seemingly ready to do it's thing week before last. Residents advised to move boats unless dredging not wanted off their seawalls. Fired up Monday 23rd, expected to complete my channel in 3 days before holiday weekend. Dredge ran for an hour before shutdown.....mechanical issues. Fixed as of last Thursday so we hear, to restart today/Tues 31st. Boats moved out of channel again. Haven't heard anything about the other 2 dredges stationed on GLSM.


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## zaraspook

Most recent fishing report for me was last Weds which basically said we caught fish at every stop, all kinds of cover, 105 crappies between two of us with 52 keepers. GLSM Thursday bite was much like Weds for the 2.5 hours I fished yielding 35 caught, 16 keepers, and 2 of the three 12" fish were just under the 13" Fish Ohio mark. Friday over 3 different sessions the catch was smoking hot during the day, but weird in evening when more fish came unzipped than were landed........total for the day was 46 with 31 keepers. With a full house at my lake place Saturday, only managed an hour for fishing all day, 7 crappies, 3 keepers.

It really got weird Sunday. Entertaining guests limited my fishing, invested 2 hours both by land and sea (boat). Not only did I eat a skunk, didn't get a single crappie bite! How does it go from catching 139 crappies Weds-Friday to no bites at all? The spawn was clearly in late stages, fewer females carrying eggs, but fish were still around. Might be easier to say my ego (the skunk) is blurring thinking, but here's my theory:

For more than a week residents, fishermen and those who don't, were talking about two changes to the channel water. Water clarity was improving everyday. At best clarity 10 days earlier was an inch or less visibility. Starting in the back end of channels, by midweek it was nearly 18"........as good or better than Feb/March clarity. The 2nd hot discussion was color.....normally pea soup green we were viewing a brown stain, as with substantial rain and runoff. No such rain had occurred. I commented to several neighbors that I've seen similar color and clarity changes, each time was followed by a fish kill. Not massive fish kills, but enough that your eyes tell you something changed and 24-48 hours later your nose confirms it.

The biological sequence goes something like this..........a positive aspect of algae is photosynthesis which produces oxygen, common characteristics of most plant life. On the bad side, when blue green algae dies not only does it produce toxins(commonly microcystins at GLSM) but when algae dies on a large scale, it suddenly robs the water of concentrated oxygen. Dead algae doesn't produce oxygen, a byproduct of photosynthesis. With less chlorophyll and algae concentration water clarity clears. Dead algae can produce different color hues in water, but GLSM commonly is a brown stain. Low oxygen equates to distress for fish, death to fragile shad among others. I viewed 20-25 floaters(mostly shad, drum, and gills) Monday in an areas that 0-1 would be common. I've only witnesses the dramatic shift in clarity and color 3 times..........doesn't advance more than 100-200 yards from the back of channel toward the mouth. The cycle might last 7-10 days, seems localized, before returning to pea green this time of year. Didn't notice the phenomenon on the main lake or other channels over the weekend.

Anyone else witness anything similar over the last week or so?


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## rutty

zaraspook said:


> Anyone else witness anything similar over the last week or so?



I fished Saturday and was in South More Shores and their had to be at least 100 fish dead, almost all the fish were crappie and sheephead. Not sure what happened but their was a bunch of them. My first thought was someone dumped their fish box / stringer that they didn't get to before the fish got old but now I am not so sure because they were all up and down the main channel as well as most of the side channels.


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## zaraspook

rutty.......appreciate the report which suggests other localized fish kills. It points to an oxygen depletion event in my opinion. I can understand why you thought maybe a fishbox was dumped. Doubtful though that fish box or stringer would have included sheephead/drum.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM Saturday morning. Fished for 90 minutes before noon with no bites at first 2 spots. Third spot produced 11 crappies with 8 keepers up to 11.75 inches, mostly males still adorned with war paint. The rest of the day I rotated thru chores and 20-30 minute fishing breaks. Final count was 23 caught, 15 keepers. Also caught some short gills. I was surprised to catch 23 crappies expecting the spawn was over, at least in my area of the lake.

Rotated thru 7-8 different baits/colors. One rod stayed all day with Bobby Garland Baby shad in cajun cricket color (basically orange and green with specks). The 2nd rod used twister tail grubs, shad bodies, and Garland Baby Shad in colors other than cajun cricket. Other than a few gills, the 2nd rod never did catch a crappie.

Sunday morning caught just 3 crappies and 2 of them short fish. Dredge in my channel remains inactive......awaiting parts for repair. Water temp 77.4.


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## brandonw

Zaraspook- how do you like to fish the baby shad? I've only ever tried vertical jigging and under a float. I wasn't sure if you do the same or if you can cast and retrieve them as well?


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## CHOPIQ

Heard a boat was sunk during the bass tournament today. I know the guys who did it. They are both ok. Don't know about the boat yet.


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## TitanFreak9

CHOPIQ said:


> Heard a boat was sunk during the bass tournament today. I know the guys who did it. They are both ok. Don't know about the boat yet.


Details? Forget the plug or hit a stump?


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## zaraspook

brandonw said:


> Zaraspook- how do you like to fish the baby shad? I've only ever tried vertical jigging and under a float. I wasn't sure if you do the same or if you can cast and retrieve them as well?


Keep in mind GLSM is a shallow lake.....rarely fishing Baby Shad in water more than 3-4 feet deep. Best attribute of that bait is moving with that little paddle tail flickering along. I "swim" the baby shads, non-stop. I do use a bobber, but bobber never touches the water. Example.....if water is 3' deep, my bobber is set at about 3'. Bobber stays 4-10" above surface of water and I drag jig horizontally in and around cover I'm fishing.....non-stop, changing directions, faster or slower. For my method bobber isn't a strike indicator like most bobbers, it's a way for me to fish tightline to the jig while judging/controlling depth of bait by watching bobber above water.. Using a 9' flyrod I'm limited to fishing 9-10' from bank/boat. So......I'm dragging/trolling the bait at a controlled depth without bobber touching the water. You'll feel every twig or bump from a fish, and you'll feel initial hit from fish before a bobber on surface will "show" the bite. Hookups are better and you can work an area faster than.

I cast/retrieve the Garland Baby Shads if my target/cover is farther than 10' away. Still have a bobber on, but now the bobber will be on water surface. Retrieve is usually drag bobber a foot or two then pause for 1-3 seconds, and repeat......or pop, pop, pop, pause, and repeat. As soon as bobber gets to within 10' of me, I lift rod and swim the bait the rest of the way back. In a deeper lake if fish were 10-20' down, not sure how I'd fish the bait. However, baits are so effective on crappies I'd find a way to do it. Probably would remove the bobber, fish at depth where fish are, and still try to swim the bait. Hope the description gives you an idea of what I'm talking about.


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## CHOPIQ

Titan, they came out of a channel and didn't realize it had gotten so rough out. They took off and the engine bogged down and died. Just then two big waves came over the side. THe boat eventually flipped over. They called 911 and stayed with the boat. They were rescued and the boat is out of the lake but not looking to good.


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## TitanFreak9

CHOPIQ said:


> Titan, they came out of a channel and didn't realize it had gotten so rough out. They took off and the engine bogged down and died. Just then two big waves came over the side. THe boat eventually flipped over. They called 911 and stayed with the boat. They were rescued and the boat is out of the lake but not looking to good.


For its size, grand lake can be very dangerous with a strong west wind.


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## zaraspook

Under the circumstances it sounds like the outcome is as good as possible. Crazy how fast the lake whips up!


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## Lowell H Turner

am glad the 2 were recovered alive, hopefully they had their floatation on. as far as the fish kill(s) it should be a short term event. with more water depth AND removing so much built up phosphate hopefully this will reduce the amount of remaining phosphate that can be re-suspended by average wave action and some storms for the algae to use. plus by re-establishing those critical wetlands areas at the mouths of the run offs and feeder streams much of that phosphate will be greatly diminished before it ever reaches the lake. with the hopefully honest if perhaps begrudging "cooperation" of the upstream livestock farmers AND the local homeowners cannot help but to sincerely HOPE the lake is genuinely beginning to recover. much muck still needs removed but compared to the putrid horrifically stinking cess pool the lake was in the not so distant past would say it is obviously working !


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## zaraspook

LHT...........yes, lots going on that should pay long-term dividends for water quality.
I'm struggling with an issue that maybe your analytical mind could help me understand. On 4/24/16 according to EPA water testing data that is made public but tucked away on Ohio EPA website, the only waterbody in Ohio that tested above an advisory level of 6 ug/L was GLSM. It measured at 90.32 ug/L microcystins. No advisory was posted at that time. If you were doing the testing, do you think you might include on your subsequent test schedule the only lake that was a problem child, the one that measured 15 times the advisory level of 6 on 4/24/16? Between 4/24/16 and 6/2/16 the EPA conducted and reported on 248 additional tests statewide for toxins. Guess how many tests were done at GLSM according to the published data? Zero!

Hard to believe the EPA is that goofy.......let's not test a site that was the state's biggest problem, not a single time, for the next 6 weeks. Rumors have it that the Lake Improvement Association was told recently the GLSM latest reading for microcystins was 170. Even the current EPA advisory map at link below shows 4 sites >6 ug/L advisories and no advisory for GLSM. Data suppression maybe? I don't get it. What do you think, Lowell?
http://wwwapp.epa.ohio.gov/gis/mapportal/HAB_Monitoring.html 
UPDATE*** EPA recently updated and has an "advisory" out for GLSM. Microcystins at 3 GLSM sites are now 30's or less.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM last night from 7pm till approximately 8:30pm. The crappie bite was decent and I found a good number of my catch extremely shallow. First 2 fish were dinks. Hoping to find bigger ones I moved to another spot on my circuit......nothing there but 1/2 dozen carp cruising the small area. 3rd spot turned the trick, catching 4 keepers among 5 total before the bite went AWOL. Next spot was where the bite showed in extremely shallow water. These were better fish, most pushing the 11" mark, and fish lying in 12" of water or less. Mostly males, still dark with warpaint and majority were almost on the bank (natural bank area, no seawalls) at the back of a channel. Another back-end of a channel produced final 2 fish. Ended with 10 keepers of 15 total. Gills are coming alive in those shallow areas. 

Earlier in week buddy Scott and I fished for several hours in the early evening toward dark. Fish were tough to come by. I caught 15 and Scott 4 with no more than 7 keepers between us. Water temp was 73-74 range, not bad in our opinion but crappies didn't get the message. We changed baits a lot. Garland Baby Shad in cajun cricket color were attracting bites for me, but I wasn't landing any of them. Changed to same bait but Lime Green color and hookup problem went away. They'd hit the cajun cricket whereas they wanted to eat the Lime Green. Weird.


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## zaraspook

EPA updated website to reflect "advisory", plus posted 5/31/16 test results at 3 GLSM sites. Those read 24, 26, and 37 respectively. Last year readings for similar period were 65, 82, and 76 ug/L microcystins at those 3 sites. Not attempting here to draw conclusions.........just to periodically compare 3 data points from one year to next. Some will look better, some will be worse.


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## zaraspook

A good evening Saturday for catching crappies. Catching was easy if, and it was a big if, you could find a 15-20' stretch of water with no visible carp cruising. No carp meant chances were good cooperative fish were lurking below. Caught 19 crappies with 10 keepers. 70% of fish seemed to be males still sporting warpaint from spawning. Bobby Garland Baby Shad caught all 19 and both cajun cricket and key lime colors were equally productive. At least a dozen fish bit within a foot of seawalls. Water temp 79.1 degrees Saturday evening. Cottonwood remains a nuisance. 

Pleasantly surprised to find the crappie bite remains at a high level. It was FUN! The few pics below are all the same 13" Fish Ohio crappie....war paint still intact.




  








IMG_20160611_13 inch Fish Ohio GLSM




__
zaraspook


__
Jun 12, 2016




13 inch Fish Ohio GLSM 6-11-16









  








IMG_20160611_GLSM Fish Ohio 13"




__
zaraspook


__
Jun 12, 2016




20160611_GLSM Fish Ohio 13"









  








IMG_20160611_GLSM Fish Ohio




__
zaraspook


__
Jun 12, 2016




20160611_GLSM Fish Ohio 13"


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## zaraspook

The morning bite Sunday wasn't as charged as Saturday evening, but still pretty good. While not matching Saturday for quantity, quality was top notch. First fish was a beauty 12 inch male and next one a solid 11.5" fish. Next spot produced the 13" fish on Saturday. Pulled 5 from here and really worked it over. Among the 5 was a male at 12.75", just under the Fish Ohio spec, and a female at 11.75 which had jettisoned 1/2 her eggs with more to unload. In an hour and a half I caught 8 total, 6 keepers, four of those 11.5-12.75". Didn't have my net with me so glad all the big ones were solidly hooked in roof of mouth. Similar to Saturday evening, most of Sunday's fish were extremely shallow and/or right up next to a seawall. Very few females in the catch. Didn't fish again Sunday, headed home by noon.

Salmonid.....if you read this post, my Saturday Fish Ohio 13" and the 12.75" Sunday were both taken from about where you were standing for your Fish Ohio crappie a few weeks back.


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## zaraspook

Fishing buddy Scott caught this GLSM crappie "wannabe" 3 weeks ago.....




  








IMG_20160525_155514633




__
zaraspook


__
Jun 14, 2016




Goldie 5-25-16 GLSM


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, have no idea why the information you posted June 6th would not have been immediately posted to the general public. as you said for the next decade at least there will be some bad years but honestly hope nothing like saw in the recent past.. charitably would hope it was an Admin goof up... am not knocking the many professional Admin types out there but admittedly everyone "flubs" the duck on occasion. and those Fish Ohio crappie looked really good ! (except for the weird orange 1...)


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Zaraspook, have no idea why the information you posted June 6th would not have been immediately posted to the general public. as you said for the next decade at least there will be some bad years but honestly hope nothing like saw in the recent past.. charitably would hope it was an Admin goof up... am not knocking the many professional Admin types out there but admittedly everyone "flubs" the duck on occasion. and those Fish Ohio crappie looked really good ! (except for the weird orange 1...)


Yeah....let's just label it administrative constipation. The wheels of gov't slowly turning. EPA actually posted at least 3 sets of test data for GLSM. Nice to know the EPA isn't goofy after all, they did continue testing GLSM (5/16, 5/23, and 5/30). They posted the results for all 3 test dates around 6-10. East Fork has readings >50 to join GLSM and Buckeye in the >20 threshold of the World Health Org. We're at the beginning of the summer algae cycle. Other waterbodies will join the list, unfortunately. Very likely GLSM, Buckeye, and East Fork have worse numbers in their not too distant futures.


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## AEFISHING55

I wonder if all this goose poop on all these lakes are part of the problem. Seems like more and more geese every year.


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## crappiedude

Everyone thought all the algae problems were a products of shallow lakes that are silted in and with low water flow through the lakes in summer the blooms were inevitable on this type of lake.
EF proves this not to be true, most of the lake is deep and it has decent flow through the lake most of the year.
The only good thing about these algae problems is they take a little pressure off the fish for a small part of the year.


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## zaraspook

AEFISHING55 said:


> I wonder if all this goose poop on all these lakes are part of the problem. Seems like more and more geese every year.


AE........believe any kind of poop is part of problem. Actually, the few times GLSM gets an e-coli advisory at a beach, the geese are blamed. Goose poop may have it's own award winning bacteria.


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## zaraspook

An "adopted nephew" of mine is in town this week from Georgia. Entertaining him for 3 days was my responsibility. Luckily, he's an avid fisherman. We made GLSM about 8:15pm Tuesday evening.......just enough daylight to try some quick fishing before dark. I knew a few crappies were still hanging around though harder to find and fewer with each passing day. Bank fishing and moving fast, only an hour to get on fish, 2 of the 6 spots gave up a few. We managed 6 apiece, 3 keepers each, not a bad pace but size is definitely disappearing. Almost all seemed to be males, warpaint still intact.

Thursday morning we looked for crappie again. Best spots were the same 2 that produced fish the night before, plus we found a few fish at locations we didn't have time to fish Tuesday. I caught 11 with just 4 keepers and 11.5" was biggest. I also caught a couple of gills, a bullhead, small 14-15" channel cat, and 10-11" bass. I got into a larger channel cat, probably 4-5#, which is about all I can handle on my crappie rig. Once again I'm not packing a net and holler to my nephew to return to my lake place to grab one. During the 4 minutes nephew is gone I'm playing the cat.......more like he's playing me, I guess. Nephew is ready with net.......fish isn't ready and still making strong runs. Attempting to apply a little more pressure on my adversary, the fish responds with it's strongest run and crappie jig pops loose. Chalk one up for the fish......decent sized channel cat are always good fun! 

While I enjoyed a respectable morning of fishing, my nephew barely made it off the skunk line.....1 crappie and 1 gill. Hard to explain why it happens, especially when we're using same rod, same jig, same plastic, same color plastic and virtually fishing side by side for 2 hours. Only observable difference was speed.....nephew swimming his Garland Baby Shad at 2 times my speed. I suggested early and often he try slowing it down. From personal experience, I can attest it wasn't the first time a fishing partner has been stubborn.

Forgot to get water temp. Dredge continues to sit idle in my channel....assume repairs to dredge remain incomplete. Most fish were taken within inches of seawalls, or from back ends of channels with natural banks and water less than 15" deep. If there were more than a couple carp around, crappies wouldn't play. We left by noon.....didn't stick around for the evening bite.


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## catfish chaser

Zara, I thought you might like this. I was cast netting for shad yesterday and landed 2 different walleyes in the net. They were both around 5 to 6lbs.


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## Salmonid

Zara, Ill give you details offline .. wink wink


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## zaraspook

catfish chaser said:


> Zara, I thought you might like this. I was cast netting for shad yesterday and landed 2 different walleyes in the net. They were both around 5 to 6lbs.


Ryan.....Timing is perfect! With crappie spawn behind us, I'm ready to engage in a walleye/saugeye vigil. Fill me in, man! Very cool!


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Zara, Ill give you details offline .. wink wink


 I'm all ears.........point me in right direction. May start on the project Weds. What's the scoop?


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## zaraspook

My Fathers Day company headed out of town at 3:30pm. I was on the road to GLSM by 5pm. No fishing Fri-Sun is not my norm. Needed a fix. Finally wet a line at 7:30. Quit at 9pm having satisfied the urge to fish.

Guess I'll work on the "catching" urge next time. Got skunked. Just 2 bites and likely both were just pecks from gills. Even tried wearing my cap inside out to change my luck. 

Surprised me that water temp was only 80.7. Last time I checked it was 79 and change. Thought all the sun lately would have pushed temp more. No real wind. As dark approached, shad surface action was high. Lots of shad doing a spawn dance at the banks. Cottonwood action about done.


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## zaraspook

Crappie fished Monday morning for hour and a half. Caught 2 with 1 keeper. Yay! No skunk. Moral victory. Hung around to see if the State might fire up the dredge that's been sitting idle in my channel since April. Not a peep from it so I dropped by the State Park office. Guy I needed to speak to wasn't there. However he called me within 15 minutes. No parts to repair the wounded dredge. Don't expect any action until well after 4th of July weekend. Patience, Grasshopper.


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## Saugeyefisher

Zara,them eyes are probaly right at your feet when crappie fishing. Just like the gils/crappie/bass they stick aroundtill all that easy fry is gone.
I like tossing a 1/8 road runner or thumper jig an twister or joshy swim an target both eyes an crappies.
Target any slight depth changes in the channels or windblown rocky/flat banks.....


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Zara,them eyes are probaly right at your feet when crappie fishing. Just like the gils/crappie/bass they stick aroundtill all that easy fry is gone.
> I like tossing a 1/8 road runner or thumper jig an twister or joshy swim an target both eyes an crappies.
> Target any slight depth changes in the channels or windblown rocky/flat banks.....


Appreciate info,,,,thanks.


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## zaraspook

Very little fishing time last 10+ days, but crappies have fallen way off anyway. Got my 6 yr old grandson out for a bit last Friday 17th. We maxed out his attention span.......an hour of fishing and he makes sure everyone knows he caught 3 fish while "Pop" caught only 2! His first fish was a decent channel cat of 15-16"......he needed a little help lifting it onto the bank. He added 2 gills later. Regretted my phone was left behind, on the charger and we didn't get a pic of the cat since he was so excited about it. We also got in an hour ride on the pontoon......grandson did most of the driving. He liked the pontoon cruise, but catching the cat was the story he tells the most. 

My fish were 2 keeper crappies. One of the two crappies was an "unusual" catch at GLSM. The size of 12.5" isn't unusual. From the attached pic below, do any of you GLSM guys recognize the unusual aspect?




  








GLSM12.5inch 6-17-16




__
zaraspook


__
Jun 27, 2016




GLSM12.5 inch 6-17-16, rare white crappie


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## Salmonid

its a Whitee....LOL


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## fished-out

Salmonid said:


> its a Whitee....LOL


There are good whites in St Mary's, just as there are in Indian and Buckeye. But without the pads to concentrate them, you have to go at it a bit differently....


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> its a Whitee....LOL


As the first responder with the correct answer, Salmonid wins a luxurious Caribbean vacation trip for two. Please watch your mail for the award and details!


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## macfish

I am sure he will need a credit card for this Caribbean vacation, LOL


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## zaraspook

fished-out said:


> There are good whites in St Mary's, just as there are in Indian and Buckeye. But without the pads to concentrate them, you have to go at it a bit differently....


Fished-out.........Are you just going to leave us hanging? You setup a perfect "teaching moment". Thought you were going to tell us "why" white crappies require a different approach, or maybe "how to modify approach in the absence of pads".

I'm unsure if it's biologically possible, but I suspect thru the years GLSM's crappie population has experienced more than just a little bit of intermixing of the white/black gene pool. Some have the extended profile of a white, lack the vertical stripes, but counting splines says fish is a black crappie. Those are more common than catching a fish like the one in my photo with the obvious vertical striping.


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## zaraspook

macfish said:


> I am sure he will need a credit card for this Caribbean vacation, LOL


 Dang......hard to sneak anything by this crowd!


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## Saugeyefisher

Ive always wondered about white/black crappie crossbreading in buckeye. I mean it has to happen,right? This year we caught more white crappie from buckeye then ever before.
And now fished-out has me wonering i.that is because of the lack of water in the pad feilds the last two seasons have pushed/forced the white crappie to spawn on dock posts and rocks,where we typically catch more black crappie.
Another thing at buckeye. On avearage the black crappie are bigger then the white crappie. And other then pads with more water in the lake there is no other natural structure for the crappie to spawn on....
Lol even the saugeyes use the dockposts to spawn at buckeye....


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## fished-out

Saugeyefisher said:


> Ive always wondered about white/black crappie crossbreading in buckeye. I mean it has to happen,right? This year we caught more white crappie from buckeye then ever before.
> And now fished-out has me wonering i.that is because of the lack of water in the pad feilds the last two seasons have pushed/forced the white crappie to spawn on dock posts and rocks,where we typically catch more black crappie.
> Another thing at buckeye. On avearage the black crappie are bigger then the white crappie. And other then pads with more water in the lake there is no other natural structure for the crappie to spawn on....
> Lol even the saugeyes use the dockposts to spawn at buckeye....


Actually, the white crappie are bigger than the blacks in Buckeye....first tournament I ever won there was a mixed bag of 4 black and 4 white crappie, and the whites were bigger. Gave a guy at the ramp some crappie I caught there one day. He posted here somewhere (he didn't know me)--every one was a fish ohio, and all heavy whites.

St Marys--can't divulge EVERYTHING...but think later spawn, far shallower than you would ever think, and the thickest brush you can find.....and that's all I'm sayin! And yes, they cross breed with blacks at almost all lakes, but it's rare because they spawn at different times. Bet there was some overlap this year though.


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## Saugeyefisher

fished-out said:


> Actually, the white crappie are bigger than the blacks in Buckeye....first tournament I ever won there was a mixed bag of 4 black and 4 white crappie, and the whites were bigger. Gave a guy at the ramp some crappie I caught there one day. He posted here somewhere (he didn't know me)--every one was a fish ohio, and all heavy whites.
> 
> St Marys--can't divulge EVERYTHING...but think later spawn, far shallower than you would ever think, and the thickest brush you can find.....and that's all I'm sayin! And yes, they cross breed with blacks at almost all lakes, but it's rare because they spawn at different times. Bet there was some overlap this year though.


Great info,maybe im lookin in the wrong areas but the last two years an thousannds of crappies ive seen,the black crappie are far bigger then the whites at buckeye.
But i do understand that its possible to catch bigger white crappie at times in buckeye.
Haha are average male black crappie this spring was pushin 13"...


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## zaraspook

fished-out said:


> Actually, the white crappie are bigger than the blacks in Buckeye....first tournament I ever won there was a mixed bag of 4 black and 4 white crappie, and the whites were bigger. Gave a guy at the ramp some crappie I caught there one day. He posted here somewhere (he didn't know me)--every one was a fish ohio, and all heavy whites.
> 
> St Marys--can't divulge EVERYTHING...but think later spawn, far shallower than you would ever think, and the thickest brush you can find.....and that's all I'm sayin! And yes, they cross breed with blacks at almost all lakes, but it's rare because they spawn at different times. Bet there was some overlap this year though.


Didn't expect "specifics" from you, fished-out. When I caught the 12' plus white in the photo, my first thought was maybe whites spawn later since it was 2 weeks or more past the remnants of the black spawn. Good info from you to tuck away and keep in mind. Your commentary was appreciated.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Ive always wondered about white/black crappie crossbreading in buckeye. I mean it has to happen,right? This year we caught more white crappie from buckeye then ever before.
> And now fished-out has me wonering i.that is because of the lack of water in the pad feilds the last two seasons have pushed/forced the white crappie to spawn on dock posts and rocks,where we typically catch more black crappie.
> Another thing at buckeye. On avearage the black crappie are bigger then the white crappie. And other then pads with more water in the lake there is no other natural structure for the crappie to spawn on....
> Lol even the saugeyes use the dockposts to spawn at buckeye....


I don't see enough whites at GLSM to do a reasonable comparison of size. However, fishing buddies who fish other lakes frequently tell me GLSM black crappies are heavier/thicker than a similar length white crappie they catch elsewhere. They aren't claiming the whites are longer than blacks, only that a 12" white will in general be lighter weight than a 12" black. Does that seem right to you?


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## fished-out

Absolutely true.


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## fished-out

Absolutely true.


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## zaraspook

For me too many interruptions lately eating into fishing time. Was at my lake place from Friday evening thru late afternoon on the 4th. Friday was a manageable 4 overnight guests. Saturday ballooned to 10 adults, 2 grandkids, and 3 dogs. 12 of us made the annual pontoon trek about 8 miles to Celina to view from the water Celina's impressive 4th of July fireworks. The sunset is incredible and doubtful any other towns the size of Celina does a better fireworks display! Navigating back in the dark and thru several hundred boats requires patience and faith in the judgment of many captains at the helms of the fleet. No close calls.

We dropped 2 overnight guests Sunday night......sleeping only 10 plus the 3 dogs. The holiday was enjoyable for sure, but fishing time limited.......maybe an hour a day usually in 20 minute bursts. Caught just 2 crappies each day,a couple of channel cats and 4-5 gills. Surprised me that gills were not more active.

Stepped out of my comfort zone Sunday.......an amateur hour attempt at trolling for eyes (either walleye or saugeye would do) on the main lake. Intended to hit some rip rap shorelines but dark skies approaching from west convinced me to stay closer to home. Pulled flicker shads, a husky jerk and a small KVD square bill thinking maybe I'd at least stumble into a crappie. It lasted about an hour......had to run back to man the grill. Menu was burgers, brats, and metts to feed a dozen, plus 3 dogs. Trolling produced a skunk, 6 snags, no loss of baits (moral victory?). It won't be my last attempt but I'd prefer to cast next time around.

Water temp Sunday was 72-73.


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## BryanZg

I still haven't made it to St. Marys yet. But I might be heading out there this Sunday. Can you suggest a good place to put in at? And an area to start crappie fishing?


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## zaraspook

BryanZg said:


> I still haven't made it to St. Marys yet. But I might be heading out there this Sunday. Can you suggest a good place to put in at? And an area to start crappie fishing?


I think you'd be coming from southeast, right? Closest public ramp for you would be State East Bank ramps. It's freebie to launch, good parking, and in great condition. Actually, 2 double wide ramps there. You'd be on extreme NE corner of lake off State Route 364. 

As to question about where to fish, summertime crappie fishing at GLSM is a mystery to me. Haven't figured that one out. Once spawn is done in the channels, old timers say the crappies head to "deeper water". Most of main lake runs 5-6'.......not exactly a classic definition of "deeper water" on most lakes. However, main lake usually runs 3-4 degrees cooler than channels.

Maybe someone else will chime in with a suggestion. I just started exploring main lake crappies last year. Caught fish 2 out of 3 attempts and crappies were big ones. If you use live bait, channel cats will provide entertainment in between crappie bites. You could even run into a a school of perch.


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## crappiedude

If I were looking for main lake open water crappie I would probably use my electronics and look for concentrations of fish.
I attached a pick of some summer crappie mixed in with some hybrid stripers. All these fish were clustered around shad.


These fish are in 20 FOW and suspended down at 15' down for the most part but fishing a minnow or jig 8'-10' down was keeping fish going non-stop. As you can see the water is 85* and it's 3:00 in the afternoon. The fish were stacked like that in several spots and we stayed on the fish non stop for about 2 months. Usually in August we start to see the schools break up. For some reason the thermocline seems to start sinking then.

This is but one case and some years the fish are much shallower and we can find fish 3'-6' deep in similar looking spots. Two weeks ago we had similar fish holding in open water and a 5 count on your jig would get you bit almost every cast. It was hot and miserable and we were fishing mid-day.
The bad part we can't find them like this every year  So far this summer has been a tough year to find the big schools consistently.
You mentioned the perch and I was at Rocky Fork yesterday. It was a slow crappie bite with slow but consistent deep activity for most of the morning. Mind you, I don't know anything about RF Lake, it was only my 2nd trip there in probably 25 years. I mentioned we should try another area so we moved to some flats and I kept seeing fish on my electronics. We only had an hour or so to fish with the approaching storms coming so we started throwing jigs like usual. My buddy lost somethin pretty quick and I was getting some super soft ticks. I switched to a plain jig head with a minnow threaded on the hook and my partner did the same. We let our jigs fall to the bottom and started a slow lift/drop. We started catching saugeyes, perch and crappies. In that last hour we managed 3 eyes, 4 or 5 perch and 3 or 4 crappie. What we did notice was we were seeing fish on our electronics where we were catching. Even though I do have DI/SI and my units are connected via Ethernet, I normally only use 2d sonar on the front of the boat while actually fishing. My point is you don't need fancy electronics to catch summer fish but keep the boat moving and keep on looking until you find them.
I hope this helps you guys locate a few.


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## Salmonid

One problem at glsm is the lake is mostly 2-6 ft deep so side imaging doesnt help much and sonar shows are limited when you loose the first 2.5 ft if water. Lol


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## Salmonid

Btw good info!


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> If I were looking for main lake open water crappie I would probably use my electronics and look for concentrations of fish.
> I attached a pick of some summer crappie mixed in with some hybrid stripers. All these fish were clustered around shad.
> 
> 
> These fish are in 20 FOW and suspended down at 15' down for the most part but fishing a minnow or jig 8'-10' down was keeping fish going non-stop. As you can see the water is 85* and it's 3:00 in the afternoon. The fish were stacked like that in several spots and we stayed on the fish non stop for about 2 months. Usually in August we start to see the schools break up. For some reason the thermocline seems to start sinking then.
> 
> This is but one case and some years the fish are much shallower and we can find fish 3'-6' deep in similar looking spots. Two weeks ago we had similar fish holding in open water and a 5 count on your jig would get you bit almost every cast. It was hot and miserable and we were fishing mid-day.
> The bad part we can't find them like this every year  So far this summer has been a tough year to find the big schools consistently.
> You mentioned the perch and I was at Rocky Fork yesterday. It was a slow crappie bite with slow but consistent deep activity for most of the morning. Mind you, I don't know anything about RF Lake, it was only my 2nd trip there in probably 25 years. I mentioned we should try another area so we moved to some flats and I kept seeing fish on my electronics. We only had an hour or so to fish with the approaching storms coming so we started throwing jigs like usual. My buddy lost somethin pretty quick and I was getting some super soft ticks. I switched to a plain jig head with a minnow threaded on the hook and my partner did the same. We let our jigs fall to the bottom and started a slow lift/drop. We started catching saugeyes, perch and crappies. In that last hour we managed 3 eyes, 4 or 5 perch and 3 or 4 crappie. What we did notice was we were seeing fish on our electronics where we were catching. Even though I do have DI/SI and my units are connected via Ethernet, I normally only use 2d sonar on the front of the boat while actually fishing. My point is you don't need fancy electronics to catch summer fish but keep the boat moving and keep on looking until you find them.
> I hope this helps you guys locate a few.


c-dude......some really good info and detail you've provided. While you have that thinking cap on, how would you find main lake crappie where you have 13,500 acres of water and 90-95%+ of it is 6' or less?


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## crappiedude

Well the very 1st thing I would do it trust my electronics. Spending some time just looking would be my 1st step and that isn't easy to do. I'm a pretty weak guy if I go out to just look around and start seeing fish like in that pick I just have to stop and check them out. In fact that pic was from one of my 1st times out when I told my partner I was only going out to try and learn my new HDS units. I told him I may not even fish because I needed to take some time to learn the units. Neither of us really had any idea what we were doing with the new units. We got very lucky on this "discovery" and I think our whole training session lasted maybe 15 or 20 minutes and we couldn't stand it anymore and started fishing. So much for the learning session. That was 4 or 5 years ago but we still approach other lakes in a similar fashion. One thing I will also mention is we very rarely find that patterns or even locations hold the same from year to year. That particular location has been dead for the last 2 years. So basically every year is a new learning curve for the summer months. Some years we figure them out and sometimes we stay confused

One hint that has been given on here as to location is I believe Salmonid has posted in the past as to catching a few "good-uns" (big crappies) while throwing his cast net for shad out on the main lake, I think that is the key to the puzzle. I think you your self have mentioned getting a few out there too. So I would use that as my starting point.

In looking at a large body of water I generally try not to look at the lake as a whole. I've never fished GLSM so I would mentally break it up into 6 or 8 smaller segments. It really doesn't matter what section of lake you start at and I wouldn't worry about what's on the other sections of the lake until I learned what was in the closest location 1st. The fish using those channels in the spring aren't going to run to the other end of the lake after they spawn, they are only going out into the main lake as far as they have to in order to find what they need so why chase over the whole lake.
Kentucky did 2 tracking studies back a few years ago at Kentucky Lake and that's about as big as a lake gets. There were a few exceptions but for the most part the fish rarely moved much from their capture location and even though some fish that moved back out to the lake, for the most part they moved right back to the same coves. There were a few fish who moved around but those were rare exceptions. The study was pretty cool and they posted the updated locations of each fish each week so it was easy to track individuals.

Here is another summer pic. It's mid day, it's hot and if ya note there are plenty of shallow fish. I will also add these fish were flat on fire right during the heat of the day.


Depth is always relative. Those fish are somewhere and they are catchable sometime during the day, simply put they have to eat to survive. Some spots seem to be good in only early morning or late evening or for mid-day. Put in some time on the electronics.
I want to note right now that it doesn't matter what kind of electronics you have but you do need to know how to use it. I've had similar results with my old "flasher" unit. One thing I see as a must have anymore is GPS so you can mark your spots. I used a cheap hand held e-trex with my flasher for 10 years before getting the HDS units.
I would also note any cover or condos I found while I was doing my searching. Some spots will hold fish all summer, some cover seems to only hold fish at different times of the day. Check those same spots at various times to see if there is a preference.
I hope this helps.


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## Salmonid

yup, I always let Zara know when I'm into shad and often find the big crappies right with the big shad at times of year, usually in some of the closest deep water from the shallows they like to hang out in.

Hey Zara whats the dredge update?? that could change everything..LOL


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## Lowell H Turner

you can "cheat" and about 3AM quietly lower some "BBs"( brush blocks) into the lake and GPS them. just DO NOT fish them all the time... (yeah, RIGHT !)


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## Saugeyefisher

I know a good summer time technique at buckeye is fishing under pontoons on the deeper docks. 
An a earlier statement about THICK COVER . Id really concentrate on that. Also large covered docks provide lots of shade. At buckeye alot of the water 5' from shore is the same 100' from shore. So i can see them staying in the thickest stuff there is all year long...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> yup, I always let Zara know when I'm into shad and often find the big crappies right with the big shad at times of year, usually in some of the closest deep water from the shallows they like to hang out in.
> 
> Hey Zara whats the dredge update?? that could change everything..LOL


Can you believe that dredge in my channel is still setting there, same spot, hasn't moved, hasn't been fired up? Assume still awaiting parts to repair hydraulics. Therefore, only change in water depth for my channel is loss of couple inches weekly thru evaporation and whatever it takes to keep water flowing at spillway. At least 3 months idle....dredging was on the schedule to start early April.


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> you can "cheat" and about 3AM quietly lower some "BBs"( brush blocks) into the lake and GPS them. just DO NOT fish them all the time... (yeah, RIGHT !)


True......always have the option to create my own honey-hole!


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## zaraspook

Waiting around for an HVAC technician this morning, pulled 3 crappies from beneath pontoon and a wooden deck. They were wee little ones laddie.


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## zaraspook

Mid-afternoon Monday put in about another 90 minutes in my channel, hitting known areas of submerged cover, a couple toons and same wooden dock fished in the morning Monday. Not a bite other than a few pecks from gills.

However, on the dredging front, while fishing I saw a "State" guy once again visit the dormant dredge in my channel. That's twice in last 7-8 days.....perhaps a sign of some dredge action in the near future? State guy was "gone" by the time I got within hailing distance to ask him anything. Hope springs eternal?


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## zaraspook

Mu hunch about "dredging" was on target. Neighbor called me this morning and related dredge was indeed in action. It's headed down my channel but other side of the sliver of an island across from my place. It's really shallow over there, like under 2', and a ton of logs, thick brush, stumps, and laydowns. Great spring time crappie territory. My neighbor said dredging crew is clearing that cover along bank before dredge works there. In exchange for deeper water, we give up cover that holds fish. Guess we can always add cover, whereas not possible for an individual to increase water depth. Although we'd like to have our cake and eat it, too, state isn't going to put the cover back. 

Depending on dredge progress today, I may need to head up and move my pontoon Friday, otherwise pontoon can probably remain docked at my seawall until Monday morning. Hoping we get to 8' or more water depth.......deepest at the moment might be 3.5'.


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## zaraspook

Headed to GLSM Friday ear;y afternoon. Looking forward to seeing a dredge up close and personal while it was running. On arrival and unloading my truck it hits me........no noise, dredge isn't running. Neighbor tells me dredge was running when he left earlier in the morning. When he returned a couple hours later about 1pm, dredge was quiet and crew gone. Neighbor said he thought dredge crews work only 1/2 day on Fridays(?). At least that explained why the dredge had moved only 30' from spot where it's been parked last 30+ days. 

Saturday early morning I'm fishing a large deck. Neighbor a cross the channel comes out with his newspaper and morning coffee. His place provides a clear view of the dredge and the spot it's working. I asked if he saw the dredge running Friday morning. He acknowledged "yes, saw the dredge running yesterday. It was running but not dredging. Looked like there was some kind of problem with the tall masts on the front of the dredge.......the masts anchor the dredge into the lake bottom and weren't operating right. It didn't look like they fixed it then crew left, didn't return.".

Only thing I can say with certainty is the dredged moved 30'. I guess that's progress.


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## zaraspook

Previously mentioned that I trolled for "eyes" on main lake a couple weeks ago. Not that I knew what I was doing and results confirmed I'm a trolling rookie. Last weekend I made a couple of concerted efforts for "eyes". Both efforts were casting from the bank and targeting rip-rap lined areas and lasted about 90 minutes each. I'm finding I have a short attention span......as a crappie guy I'm accustomed to frequent bites/catches. It's not going to happen that way with eyes, especoally at GLSM. Walleyes haven't been stocked at GLSM for something like 8 years. Saugs were stocked just 2 years and one of those years a load of only 23,000 fingerlings. It's a 13,500 acre lake. Do the math. 23,000 is 1.7 fingerlings per acre. Last year for saug stocking was 2010 or 2011.

The point is I can only stomach about 90 minutes without a fish on. Friday night I fished from about 9pm to 10:30. No fish, no strikes. Saturday morning I fished from 6:30- 8am. No fish, no strikes. I threw crankbaits, swim baits (Berkely hollow bellies and Big Joshys), and a jig/curly tail grub combo.

I wonder if anyone else is pursuing the GLSM eye "ghost"?


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## zaraspook

Dredge is actually running! Came down my channel Tuesday advancing about 75 feet then halted. At that point dredge was within 75' of my place. Trees overhanging the channel which is maybe 30-40' wide.......limbs low enough to block passage of the 2 large masts on front of the dredge. The bank on the opposite side of my channel is actually a narrow island. Dredge backed out and turned down the other side of the island. By Weds mid-afternoon the dredge progressed 150' feet and tried to execute a turn at the southern end of the island. The crew worked on the turn for an hour....they are trying to execute a 75 degree turn with the dredging rig (dredge/boom out front/ and floating barge that keeps dredge pipe positioned in the back) that is 70' long. Not sure it's possible Crew gave up on the effort at least for that day. We may not see dredge crew again for 2 weeks. Crew told me they are short on manpower, can't man all 3 dredges at the same time.

Good to see them start the project anyway. Water temp in my channel on Weds was 88.7 degrees!


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## Lowell H Turner

any progress is still progress sir ! wait until you have an 8`deep channel to add cover to...


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> any progress is still progress sir ! wait until you have an 8`deep channel to add cover to...


Would love to see 8' depth! Made it up there Saturday late afternoon. Neighbor said the dredge ran Thursday, not Friday. Best news is they successfully negotiated the tight turn, dredging another 80', The dredge is positioned to turn into my portion of the channel, but likely will be a week or two before restart. 

Started collecting material for future strategic distribution as crappie cover. Expect to complete some deployment in time for fall fishing season. Could sure use significant rainfall. Water depth directly off seawalls in my area, typically 3-3.5', now 20" or less.

I fished maybe an hour total........several 20 minute bursts between chores. Caught zero, a few gill pecks at my bait, but no hits that resembled crappies. Water temp is holding steady at 88.7 degrees.


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## zaraspook

Last week one of the guys on dredging crew told me they wouldn't be back for several weeks to finish the dredging job. Despite his advisory I moved my pontoon from my seawall to another nearby location. Didn't want my boat to be an obstacle and deter them from dredging as close to my seawall as possible. 

Made it to my place today, Tuesday 26th, at 4pm. Getting out of my truck, immediately recognized the low hum of the dredge working away nearby. An hour later and I would have missed the dredge completely. At 5pm they finished dredging the back end of my channel and a neighbor related my place was dredged yesterday(Monday). It's done, at least in my portion of the channel. A stretch of 100 yards closer to the lake has not been dredged. Neighbor claims dredge crew told him that stretch wasn't on the schedule........they would be moving the dredge further west. We'll see.....that neighbor's info hasn't been very accurate. Seems foolish not to dredge that stretch while all the equipment is here and dredge lines hooked up.

We won't know the results, the new depth of the channel, until we get a boat on the water to check it out. Dredging crew said we should expect to see depth at about 6'. It may sound shallow to most, but depth before dredging was 2.5-3' max. Doubling the depth is significant and when the water returns to normal levels, it could increase another foot or two. Hope so!

Looks like a new round of strategically located crappie attractors will be on my fall/winter "To Do List".


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## zaraspook

With dredge gone I returned my pontoon to my seawall from its temporary docking space. Took the opportunity to survey dredge results. On average the dredge removed 2-3' of muck/sediment. The operator isn't attempting to get all the muck and down to hard-pan, but down to about 6' depth if available. They avoid dredging any closer than 15' of a seawall but will venture inside a couple yards of a natural bank where no man-made structure is adjacent. After dredging water depth is typically 5.5 to 6' where it was 3-3.5' before. There are small pockets 7-7.5', even a few ticks to 8' according to sonar on my pontoon. When lake is at a normal water level all those numbers would read 1-1.5' deeper. 

Results are significant in my book.......definitely happy with end product. In 8 years at GLSM, my channel saw these depths on twice. Both were Springtime flooding with water over the seawall. By the way water temp was 86 Weds mid-day. 

Dredge continues to operate, nearby though not in my channel. The area is all natural bank, no seawalls and operating very close to bank. Could be some new spring/fall targets in the making!


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## AEFISHING

That is good news, I hope they keep it up. Thanks for all the updates!


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## Tom 513

Lowell H Turner said:


> you can "cheat" and about 3AM quietly lower some "BBs"( brush blocks) into the lake and GPS them. just DO NOT fish them all the time... (yeah, RIGHT !)


Last year I spent a Sat afternoon making a dozen bamboo stake pots looked like 3 ft tall satellites setting in my driveway, and they sat there all year till they got too bridle and I had to throw them away, I should of known Id never have the time to make a 3am run, dang it


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## zaraspook

Tom 513 said:


> Last year I spent a Sat afternoon making a dozen bamboo stake pots looked like 3 ft tall satellites setting in my driveway, and they sat there all year till they got too bridle and I had to throw them away, I should of known Id never have the time to make a 3am run, dang it


If you ever get the urge to to build "satellites" again, I'll take them off your hands. Water temp yesterday was either 89.2 or 90.2. I read my digital thermometer in disgust. Neither temp is conducive for what I wanted to do.


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## Tom 513

zaraspook said:


> If you ever get the urge to to build "satellites" again, I'll take them off your hands. Water temp yesterday was either 89.2 or 90.2. I read my digital thermometer in disgust. Neither temp is conducive for what I wanted to do.


I just might, I have a couple groves of Bamboo at my place, plenty of black nursery pots, just need cheap concrete mix, You would have to come down to get them though


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## zaraspook

Tom 513 said:


> I just might, I have a couple groves of Bamboo at my place, plenty of black nursery pots, just need cheap concrete mix, You would have to come down to get them though


We could make that work. How many could I haul in a shortbed pickup?


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## Tom 513

I have a 6ft bed on my Silverado, it would probably hold 12 I'd say


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## crappiedude

Just get some "Boo" from Tom and make these...the pans are reuseable.

http://www.crappie.com/crappie/crappie-cover-lake-structure-and-pond-mgmt/335667-dishpan-stake-beds/


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## Tom 513

crappiedude said:


> Just get some "Boo" from Tom and make these...the pans are reuseable.
> 
> http://www.crappie.com/crappie/crappie-cover-lake-structure-and-pond-mgmt/335667-dishpan-stake-beds/


Thats the same style I made, cant find the pic I took of them, but they had more stakes and where in 5 gallon nursery pots. I will have to see about making some more if You guys want some, I just cant stay up late enough to make the midnight dump run, but You have to figure they would be great habitat and prop friendly, plus with gps now days we would have our own little honey holes for awhile.


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## zaraspook

I like the idea of nursery pots. With a larger "base" should be able to insert more boo or pvc. One of my neighbors at GLSM bout commercially made stake beds that came with weighted plastic bases about 30" or 36" diameter. The shape of base was like the top 1/3 of a sphere. The base had holes to insert the pvc tubes which were 30-36" in length. Probably 40 tubes went into each base. I helped him assemble and sink 6 of them. The end product is probably 5' in diameter and 3-3.5' in height. 

The commercial ones attract fish but not as effectively as wood, in my opinion. However, bamboo will probably snag more wasily than pvc. I think wood/bamboo would be better than pvc, larger base better than smaller, but in the channel I normally sink attractors, it's almost barren of cover. If you add any cover, they will come.

I'll look at my inventory or pots, try to plan how they should look and be made, and maybe hit Tom up for some bamboo. Hey Tom......what diameter is the boo?


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## Tom 513

Zara, last year my bamboo was between 1/2" and 3/4" its a medium size grower about 6ft tall although I have a clump of taller Bamboo but the 6ft variety is the biggest patch, id be happy to supply You with as much as You want and also nursery pots, as You may know I am a landscaper and have hundreds of containers of all sizes. I live west of Cincinnati close to where I-275 and I-74 meet, or I could meet You at Acton lake? just let me know what works best for You


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## crappiedude

If you really want to make the cheapest easiest beds you really don't need any concrete or pots for that matter.
Here's a prime example I saw in another lake a few years ago.


Just cut you boo or stakes (tobacco stakes work well) with a pointed end. Using a 10' piece of 1 1/2" pvc run a couple of bolts at 90 degrees through the pipe 18"- 24" from 1 end. This is the end you load your stakes into and the bolts act as a stop for your stakes. Just use the pole to push your stakes into the lake bottom. If you drop a buoy to work around you can place stakes all around it make beds anyway you want: big, small, wide or short. Use your GPS to mark the beds. One this with these is they can be placed right on a drop and they won't slip away.
One thing I will point out is make sure the beds are deep enough or the stakes are short enough so the don't interfere with swimmers or skiers. In those channels would be an excellent place.


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## zaraspook

Tom 513 said:


> Zara, last year my bamboo was between 1/2" and 3/4" its a medium size grower about 6ft tall although I have a clump of taller Bamboo but the 6ft variety is the biggest patch, id be happy to supply You with as much as You want and also nursery pots, as You may know I am a landscaper and have hundreds of containers of all sizes. I live west of Cincinnati close to where I-275 and I-74 meet, or I could meet You at Acton lake? just let me know what works best for You


Generous offer and much appreciated, Tom. May take you up on bamboo or pots or both! Have some time before taking this one on. Every year I usually add some stuff, but in the fall once temps moderate. I don't last long in 85-95 degree temps.

GLSM water temp today is 88.8 . Fished 30 minutes this morning walking the bank. No crappies, just a couple of gill bites.


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## zaraspook

Made it back to GLSM Saturday evening at 8pm.......just enough time to fish for maybe an hour. 10 minutes into it I actually caught a crappie. Not a keeper, maybe 8", but put an end to the streak and proved they all hadn't vanished from the lake. Checked my crappie log......last one I caught before today was July 16. 3 weeks.....that's pathetic! Way to go June Bug/Acid Rain color!


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## zaraspook

Sunday evening fished GLSM for an hour before dark. Caught only one, but at least the crappie was legal. Caught a couple gills, and lost an unknown species (probably a channel cat or LMB, that picked up my crappie jig and headed like a freight train to a nearby log. I tried to stop the fish from making the log. He won and broke me off.

Put in an hour fishing this morning, Monday, catching 2 crappies both short. Water temp Sunday was 83 degrees mid-morning and 87.5 just before dark. I'm amazed that GLSM has held up this summer without a ballistic algae bloom. Sure, the numbers show toxins in the advisory range, but it could and should be a lot worse. Loads of March manure ended up in the lake as runoff from March and April monsoons that pushed the manure into feeder creeks. Now, water temps have soared and water levels are about as low as I've seen. Low water levels mean algae is concentrated in less volume. Recipe is perfect for a mother load of algae and toxins thru the roof, but not yet anyway (knock on wood). Lake doesn't look bad. Maybe the south side treatment trains are having an impact.


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## zaraspook

I'm at GLSM Thurs 5:15pm as I type this. Did some chores for 2 hours and now thinking about fishing from bank for a bit. Water level off my sea wall is exactly 2', easily a foot under a typical level for early August. A lot of the crappie cover added by me and others the last few years is exposed by lack of water depth. Stake beds contributed by Salmonid have pvc pipe tips breaking the water surface. Hope no one notices. Unfortunately, everything I see so far is cover I'm already aware of......nothing new. Rather than crappie fishing, might be a better time investment to scout the lake and other nearby channels for crappie cover to work in the future. With the boat sitting on the trailer, not too likely a scouting trip will happen.

Water temp is 85.4. Air temp was 97 when I arrived. It slipped to 90 when a shower passed thru. Lots of thunder heard in the distance but the shower here lasted only 10 minutes and was light. Just a thought before I fish........the fish have 85 degree temps. We humans have to deal with 90+ degree temps. Why do we feel sorry for them?


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## zaraspook

I did fish but decided to do dinner first. Kind of forgot daylight is ending sooner each day. Finally made it out at 8pm thinking I had till 9:30. Dang it was dark at 9! 

Got skunked on crappies. Caught one little gill. Last spot, almost dark, I worked more thoroughly than normal. Got a couple crappies here last weekend. Plus, twice in last 2-3 weeks and as recent as last Sunday, I had big fish on at this spot. Both times a fish dug hard, headed fast and hard toward a nearby log. First one came unzipped from my crappie jig and 2nd one(last Sunday) broke me off. Never saw either fish but guessed largemouth, channel cat, or might have been carp. Figured someday I might run into one again.

That someday came sooner than expected. Didn't even feel a tap when my line/crappie jig headed straight out toward the middle of the channel. No mystery fish this time.....when I set the hook it immediately came up and out of the water...... a nice LMB! No horsing this time as long as the bass stayed away from the log. 2-3 minutes into the tug of war the fish did make a turn toward that dreaded log. Too late in the fight, it's tank was losing gas, I reversed its course without issue. 

Hate to make a big deal out of landing a fish except I'm on a sea wall. Low water level means the water surface is 3 feet below me, and they don't call me "NNZ" for nothing. NNZ is "no net Zara". My 4# test line doesn't inspire confidence to lift the fish with the rod. Only option is to thumb the lip. I'm laying on top the sea wall, on my stomach, and stretching 3' below. One of those times I'm glad for every inch of a 6'2" frame.

My apology for a tough-to-recognize photo. Camera and measuring device is with the net about a 100 yards away at my place. I hustle back, find my gear, and rush 2 photos in the dark to minimize more stress to the fish. It was a little slow swimming off but did swim off under its own power.




  








20160811_210325




__
zaraspook


__
Aug 12, 2016




GLSM 18.5" LMB 8-11-16





Bass moved between shooting first and second photo. It measured 18.5". My scale wasn't handy but I'd guess 3.5 to 3.75 pounds.


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## zaraspook

Water temp 80.7 Friday evening. Great to see the a reversal of falling water levels.......streak of 2-3" drop every week comes to an end. This week GLSM gained a couple inches. Didn't help the bite though. Just a few gill bites in an hour session.

On the other hand, my neighbors related channel cat activity has been super. They are fishing the trench of deeper water from the dredge and catching more and better channel cats. No toads but some to 6 pounds. Also, the same trench is producing turtles (8 in the last week)......seems the turtles favor a specific brand of smoky link sausages.


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## zaraspook

Gone all day Saturday, returned to glsm in time to grill dinner. Storm cell moved thru and cleared around 7:30. Decided to bank fish as long as the bite warranted. 40 minutes and I was back at the house watching the Reds,,,,Finnegan had a no-hitter going as the Reds were pasting those Dodgers.

Caught 3 gills and surprisingly 2 crappies, both short. No bites anywhere except around an aerator that runs 24/7. The aerator creates a lot of current in the backend of a channel and consistently attracts schools of shad. Shad looked like the 2-3" variety today. The shad of course attract predators of all types and you never know what may be on the end of your line. However, when the table is set with so many easy prey shad, it's difficult to compete and bring a fish to your bait. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. At least I caught a couple tonight.


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## fishwhacker

Anyone been targeting perch yet?


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Anyone been targeting perch yet?


Shhhh! I can't talk about it.


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## fishwhacker

Your allowed just have to say 6 inches is a big one and caught on red worms 2 ft deep


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker.......nothing to report. By coincidence last Friday I asked about perch at Outdoorsman. Word there was they were not aware of anyone targeting perch, not aware of anyone catching perch since spring.
I haven't tried pushing the perch button. Instead, I put in about 8 hours trolling/casting for"eyes", mostly during July. That was a bust, totally dry hole, and haven't had my fishing boat in water for 6 weeks now. Lake water levels are spooky and the most convenient ramp for me isn't usable with water down this low. Fishing only from bank, my fishing effort at GLSM runs 30-45 minutes a day when I'm there. Was there Thurs evening and caught a few gills, Fished again Friday just before dark.......3 gills and one 10" crappie. Water temps running 79-80 degrees. During August I've caught and witnessed other catches of more 3-4# bass from my channel than crappies of any size. That's crazy......


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## fishwhacker

I figured as much, most GLSMs dont target perch until late sept/nov. Been feeling the itch lately though. Ready for some cooler temps to turn the fall bite on. The grand lake bait and tackle always seemed to have good perch reports before the outdoorsman


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## zaraspook

Anxious to hear about it when you start picking up perch. Sooner the better!


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## tomknous

Zara.... Absolutely no eyes this summer from the main lake ? Did I read that correct a few days ago???


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## zaraspook

Correct.......zero! Not that I'm an accomplished "eye" guy.


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## Jrock1085

Trying to figure out when would be the best time to take vacation and come up there for fall crappie on the lifts


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## fishwhacker

1 to 2 weeks before ice on....gotta wait until the water at least gets back down to 55 degrees


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## Salmonid

I agree late fall is when they are schooled up and is s great time


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## zaraspook

In the areas of GLSM I fish, data from my logs suggest Nov, 15th is about mid-point of fall bite. Three weeks before and after are usually good ones to plan around. Sustained cold snaps can move it earlier. Above normal temps can stretch it later. Last year bite seemed late to get going, November was a great month, and December almost as good as November. Regardless of when, find a school and you catch 75-100. No school and 12-15 is about it. Therefore, keep moving to find the hot bite/school.

I have a group of 6-7 guys who try to do a GLSM fall crappie weekend every year. I try to push them to mid-November. Usually gets scheduled for weekend before or after Halloween. Results are always OK but we don't really nail it. I should add, a couple of the fishing buddies are wimps and can't handle fishing in temps below 50.


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## Saugeyefisher

Guys,find the right lifts and you can pick at them starting as early as October. I think one of the brush pile episodes was shot on 10/2. Ya for non stop action u might wanna wait till later. But I believe they can be had earlier.
I farted around some docks yesterday at buckeye. We hit a few before the sungot high. I was pitching a 1/16 oz road runner and a chartreuse shad body.sun came up,nomore crappie bites. But I only concentrated inthe deeper docks in the cove we hit. I may have found more if I kept at it.
Can't wait for fall!!!


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## Saugeyefisher

What surprised memos yesterday was hitting one right on a shallow cross bar 2" under the water. That's usually right were they sit those first few days of warmth in the late winter early spring


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Guys,find the right lifts and you can pick at them starting as early as October. I think one of the brush pile episodes was shot on 10/2. Ya for non stop action u might wanna wait till later. But I believe they can be had earlier.
> I farted around some docks yesterday at buckeye. We hit a few before the sungot high. I was pitching a 1/16 oz road runner and a chartreuse shad body.sun came up,nomore crappie bites. But I only concentrated inthe deeper docks in the cove we hit. I may have found more if I kept at it.
> Can't wait for fall!!!


Totally agree you can and will get into crappie in early October. Great days are to be had then, but not as frequent as later in the month, or later in fall. By the way I watched that Brush Pile Fishing episode multiple times. I think Russ Bailey was using orange/green or orange/chartreuse plastic that day, but very possible that was in an episode recorded someplace other than GLSM. 

I was at GLSM late Thursday thru Labor Day mid-afternoon. Lots of company in and out for the weekend. My own fishing time was probably less than an hour total. Caught one crappie under a large wooden deck/dock Thursday evening before any visitors arrived. That deck is usually good for a few all summer long but first crappie I've caught there for 2 months. With lake water level down so low, normal water depth there is 2-3' this time of year, but less than 18" now. That was only crappie I caught the entire long weekend. 19" channel cat succumbed to my crappie plastic Monday morning. Always fun to fight a decent channel on my crappie rig/fly-rod. Caught one gill just before starting my car for Monday's drive home. Best fun was getting my grandson into some gills Saturday off my seawall. He caught 7 in about 1/2 hour and added a new fishing skill. He's been baiting his own hook for a year, but Saturday was first for removing fish he catches from the hook. I think he was showing off to one of his cousins, 2-years older who would neither apply his own bait nor touch a fish.

Water temp was 70-71 degrees. For an hour before the Buckeye game stated, I did some scouting from my boat for future fishing spots. With water levels so low, I'm not confident with finding fall crappies in my channel in normal numbers. Located new water that's nearby with interesting targets and not as "challenged" by low water level issues. It's definitely worth investing time there for future rewards.


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## Lowell H Turner

According to a now ODNR District Manager "...have never seen a lake or body of water with a rising/ increasing yellow perch population that any walleye/ saugeye present didn`t go right up with them in size and abundance." We shall see...


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> According to a now ODNR District Manager "...have never seen a lake or body of water with a rising/ increasing yellow perch population that any walleye/ saugeye present didn`t go right up with them in size and abundance." We shall see...


Hey, LHT! Wouldn't his correlation be a great one to see at GLSM? I'm a skeptic, though I'd rather see the DNR District Manager be right on this one. First of all, no saugeye stocked since about 2011 (It was only 2 yrs of stocking.). Seemingly sterile, unlikely saugeye population goes anywhere but down. Walleyes? No stocking on that front either since 2008 or maybe before that it was halted. Only chance to increase walleye population is successful reproduction. State said it wasn't happening at GLSM and creels seem to confirm.....small walleyes aren't being caught. We know some walleye survived, they are infrequently caught, but always they are toads! As you say "we shall see".


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## flyfishtrout

I've fished GLSM plenty of times in the spring, but is it worth it in the fall for crappie, and would you need a boat to get them or do you/could you target them from shore


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## zaraspook

flyfishtrout said:


> I've fished GLSM plenty of times in the spring, but is it worth it in the fall for crappie, and would you need a boat to get them or do you/could you target them from shore


flyfishtrout.........fall crappie bite at GLSM is excellent. Don't have my logs with me but I'd bet whatever numbers I catch in the spring, fall bite will be 80-90% as good. November is usually 2nd best month of the year for me (April or May normally #1). Rare for me to fish from boat. You'll find them coming into channels in October, more fish and better fish as the fall progresses. Your targets don't change much from the spring, but there are times you find big schools of them just "out" 20-25' from bank, seemingly not relating to any cover at all.

A bonus......fall seems to yield better results with perch, too. Perch have been heavily stocked last 4 years and started showing up last fall as well as early spring this year. This thread goes back several years. Go back to Oct-Dec posts for 2015, 2014, etc. You can get an idea of crappie numbers, size of fish, baits used for any of those years. It will be interesting to see what other GLSM guys say about fall crappie bite.


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## fishwhacker

I personally do better in the fall than the spring and I fish from the bank. The closer to ice on the better as the fish school up and find water that is 2-5 warmer than other areas. If you can find a shallow channel or creek feeding into deeper water you should find them.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> I personally do better in the fall than the spring and I fish from the bank. The closer to ice on the better as the fish school up and find water that is 2-5 warmer than other areas. If you can find a shallow channel or creek feeding into deeper water you should find them.


Could not agree more with your "closer to ice" comment. Love it when we get first ice in channels, followed by a warmup to chase ice away. Crappies seem to kick it into next gear and eat like crazy. You don't want to miss those days. To help the thin ice disappear, I'll be out there breaking ice from the bank and pulling fish from those open spots 2 hours later. 

Smaller shad body plastics become favorites of mine when ice and open water are doing battle with each other. Lighter jigs are important for a slower moving presentation, especially when water temps breach low 40's and into upper 30's. The few perch I catch seem to be mixed right in with the crappies. Different plastic for perch though. All my perch caught on same bait, same color combo. Should be fun......I'm getting excited just talking about it. Crappie tacos are terrific but anticipating my first mess of GLSM perch fillets has me drooling. Could this be the year?


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## Saugeyefisher

It can be tough whenyour used to jigging anwalking banks an moving alot. But a majority of the perch caught at buckeye are the guys titelining minnows or red worms/PC of crawlers.
Maybe keep the training wheels on why your jigging? Lol or a training wheel(training wheel being a deadstick for live bait rod).
Put a bell on it if u walk away an open the bail. Might grab u some more perch??


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> It can be tough whenyour used to jigging anwalking banks an moving alot. But a majority of the perch caught at buckeye are the guys titelining minnows or red worms/PC of crawlers.
> Maybe keep the training wheels on why your jigging? Lol or a training wheel(training wheel being a deadstick for live bait rod).
> Put a bell on it if u walk away an open the bail. Might grab u some more perch??


Good advice, sf. Thought about it before that perch might like a little more stationary target and I know they prefer a little meat on the hook. Actually, I usually walk with 2 poles/rigs. No reason I can't put some meat on one and let it sit in the water.


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## zaraspook

Water temps 74.6 yesterday in my channel. We have a long way to go before channel crappie bite gets going. Fished 3 times for crappie over the weekend in 45-60 minute spurts despite the low water conditions . Water off my seawall is 18-20". Caught 1 very respectable gill, 1 16" channel cat from some new water I'm exploring, and Sunday morning a single juvenile crappie. 

Saw 3 boats in a bass tourney Sunday morning. They weren't lighting it up but each boat claimed to have caught a "few", whatever that means. 3-4 years ago I mentioned bryozoa started to appear at GLSM. Each year since they are more abundant. Low water levels are exposing them now. Just about every submerged branch holds one or more. Crappie cover, plastic or wood, holds clusters of the jelly-like colonies that feed by filtering the water. They look similar to brain matter, some call them monkey brains, and are said to be good for improving water quality. I borrowed this photo below of bryozoa.


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## flyfishtrout

Is ice fishing good on GLSM then ?


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## Salmonid

Well it can be but locating fish can be a real chore. Keep moving till you find them


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## fishwhacker

Usually it isnt bad but good ice is hard to come by most winters... had 2 weeks last year i believe depending on your definition of good ice


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## flyfishtrout

I mean I usually consider good ice as ice that's at least 6 inches deep, gone out on thinner but don't trust it enough


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## flyfishtrout

And locating fish is always a chore it seems, one day you can have a hole that produces great then the next nothing, not even marking fish below.


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## zaraspook

Gonna try Brookville Lake in SE Indiana this afternoon (Weds) with a fishing buddy. Last time there about a month ago we targeted walleyes, mostly trolled. From our trolling we caught 1 crappie and 9 channel cats. From casting efforts we managed one LMB, one SMB, and finally while casting my buddy caught the lone walleye. It was a nice one though at 20.5". If we can match that day we'd probably be content.

I probably should have asked what we're targeting today. Guess I'll find out later on.


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## zaraspook

Four and a half hours on Brookville yesterday. We targeted walleye first half, mostly bass 2nd half. Nothing boated but a nice gill after 3.5 hours though we had infrequent strikes and an occasional fish on and lost. Last 30 minutes before dark yielded one smallmouth for my partner, two smallies for me. His smallie was the biggest at 16". Glad we stayed off the skunk line.


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## crappiedude

Good ya didn't get a skunk it's hard to get that smell out of the boat.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Good ya didn't get a skunk it's hard to get that smell out of the boat.


Crappiedude........that's really funny and I got a big laugh out of the comment. Actually, it was my partner's boat that day. We were certainly stinking it up for a while, but air is fresh and clear now.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM late morning Saturday, fishing for 90 minutes. A few things were slightly different. Caught 2 crappies......lately it's been just one....maybe. Secondly, both crappies absolutely inhaled my plastic.....no messing around. Too bad I couldn't find others for a better sample size. Gills were more active too. Perhaps an indicator we're moving out of the summer doldrums? 

Water temp was 73.5 today. Right direction but insignificant change from last week's 74. Better times are ahead.


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## Saugeyefisher

Ya we could tell the water temp was cooler then then the air this morning at buckeye. We started fishing about 930 from are kayaks. In the first hour I got 5 crappies an a good gill flipping under docks with a 1/16 oz road runner an a small chartruese/white crappie twister road runner was orange.
Buddy got 3 nice channel cats on minnows. 
But after 11 or so bite died for us completely. Bummer Im usually onthe water early but wish I was this morning or we would of had double the crappies I imagine. One was pushing 13" I didn't measure. The rest were 9-11".
Hit a few gills on a cricket an called it a day


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## Saugeyefisher

Forgot to mention we spent time looking for eyes to,but didn't hit the first one.


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## zaraspook

Fished my GLSM walking route Sunday morning. Not a lot of bites to slow me down so made the circuit in an hour. One crappie, 2 very nice gills, and a channel cat. 

Forecast calls for mid to upper 80's this week and no rain to speak of. That's the opposite of what we need.


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## Lowell H Turner

well, as the water quality continues to improve if ENOUGH sports fisherpersons (read: TAX PAYERS ) put together a persistant effort to "ask" the state to stock the walleye/ saugeye even for just a few years would bet it would happen !! would bet if petitions were posted in every bait/ sporting goods store within 20 miles of the lake and you were able to present 20,000 signatures... remember,the Corps and ODNR works for US ! if you do not like the way the fishing is currently, well then by all means CHANGE it more to your liking !


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## zaraspook

LHT ...... wasn't complaining just giving an honest report. Fishing at GLSM will be fine with rainfall up there to ease the drought (raise water levels) and when we get into fall bite. Soon we'll be the perch capital of the lower 60 Ohio counties. Life is grand.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Forgot to mention we spent time looking for eyes to,but didn't hit the first one.


With or without saugs sounds like a decent outing for sure!


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## zaraspook

Fished my channel at GLSM Thursday morning. I have this troika thing going. During this summer doldrum period, 70% of time lately my catch is 1 crappie, a gill, and a decent channel cat. That's exactly what I caught Thursday morning in about 90 minutes of fishing. Crappie was short, gill was keeper size, and channel cat 18". Water continues to drop alarmingly with the drought that continues up Celina way. Water is so low, it's no longer possible to lay on my belly atop a seawall and reach down to the water surface to land a fish (like a decent channel cat). I'm 6' 2" with long arms.....not long enough to lip a fish.

For my evening fishing session on Thursday, I decided to change things up. Instead of fishing my normal circuit, I headed to a nearby channel (walking distance). No houses, no seawalls, all natural bank, but recently dredged. Therefore, from dredging it has a 20-30' wide trench running it's length. Width of the channel likely 60-80'. I'd scouted this channel 3-4 weeks ago from my fishing boat. Fished it once from the bank for an hour couple weeks ago. Caught a 16" channel but nothing else that time. 
The bank isn't readily accessible....lots of thick growth everywhere. Easier to fish it from a boat, but that wasn't an option Thurs evening. In a session of 90 minutes, the first 3 places with bank access produced just a few gill bites. 4th spot was last spot before darkness forced me to quit. First fish was a chunky 10.5" crappie that caught me off guard......caught just one of those in last few months! Next fish is another legal crappie but lacked the girth of it's big brother. What, back to back keeper crappies? Not since June I figure. Next fish was a really nice gill, then another nearly the same. The bite slowed but as daylight faded, this spot produced another crappie (a dink) and another keeper gill. I kept say "one more cast" and when that cast produced a yellow belly, I called it a day. Three crappies (2 keepers) and 3 gills in an hour is my best action in 3 months. Was it the great poet Bob Dylan who sang "the times they are a changing"? Photo attached of the biggest crappie just so I don't get out of practice of posting pics




  








20160922_GLSM Crappie




__
zaraspook


__
Sep 24, 2016




9-22-2016 10.5" Crappie






By the way water temp Thursday afternoon was 80.6! That's OK. If weather guys are right we have highs only in 60"s and some low temps in 40's by midweek.


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## zaraspook

Weds 9-28 this week fished GLSM. Though it didn't start that way, most fun (catching) for the fall season......so far. Fished from the bank 10-11:30am yielding no fish, no bites, not even the peck of a single gill. Concentrated on a new channel I fished 3-4 times now. Water was deeper but I'm clueless to where the submerged cover might be.

In the afternoon I focused on my channel, known cover, known spots (they just haven't been productive waters since June). Started round #2 at 1:30 pm at a dock/deck......a few gill bites, but no fish. Then about 2 pm, out of no where, a nice crappie at 11.5". 2 hours later I'd caught 8 crappies, plus 7 gills. Fished another hour trying to get to 10 crappies. Got 9th crappie and 8 more gills in that last hour. Didn't reach double digits for crappies.

9 crappies doesn't sound that impressive, but it's one more than the number caught in all of August. It's a good tease of what's in the future. I used 2" twister tail grubs, no meat. My jig hooks are usually too big for the gills too handle. Gills, however, were nice sized and ravenous......they usually inhaled the entire bait and jig all the way to the weight. No doubt I would have caught 50 of them if using a smaller jig hook plus wax worms. 

Caught most crappies and gills on a color called "Jawbreaker" (red/pink bi-colored grub with a white twister tail) but caught fish on 2 other colors of same grub. All crappies were in under 3' of water, usually less than 5' from the bank or seawall. Gills were even closer to the bank. Water temp was 65.6 degrees.....nice drop from 80.6 six days before. Two photos follow of the bigger crappies, an 11.5" at the deck and 11" off a seawall. It's the one laying in grass and shows the Jawbreaker grub. Anyone else testing the waters lately?




  








20160928_134906_resized




__
zaraspook


__
Sep 30, 2016




11.5" GLSM crappie 9-28-16









  








20160928_144430_resized




__
zaraspook


__
Sep 30, 2016




glsm 11.5" crappie


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## zaraspook

Made it back to GLSM Friday evening at 5pm Wanted to see if crappie bite remained decent. Didn't take long to get an answer. Not a bite, not even a pesky gill bite at first 3 stops. I kept moving and last 90 minutes showed improvement with 4 crappies (3 legal keepers but none bigger than 10"). Also 9 gills, a yellow belly, and small bass. 

Patience, Grasshopper. It won't be long.


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## zaraspook

Really would like to try GLSM crappie bite in the AM, or times other than evening. Didn't work out that way but made it back to lake at 5pm Saturday to fish 2 hours. Take what you can.

Bottom-line, no evidence of fish schooling up yet. They are biting better than a month ago, not as good as a month from now. 5 crappies this evening, just one keeper. Also caught a small bass, 1/2 dozen gills and got into moose of a channel cat. Had it on for about 2 minutes, saw it twice and it was similar in size to the 11 pounder I landed last year on this same crappie rig. After a couple runs I was still in the game and actually the cat had reversed direction, came right at me like the shark in the movie Jaws, pausing just a couple yards from my feet. For an instant I'm delusional, thinking I might even land this guy. 3 seconds later he winds me around a floating log that's tied down. The fish breaks off....game over. Great fun!

By the way....water temp was 63.6 and down 2 degrees from Weds.


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## zaraspook

A bit of fishing on Tuesday........arrived at GLSM at 11:15 am. Fished for an hour before breaking 2 hours to lunch and cut grass. Did another hour plus of fishing before heading home for my grandson's soccer match.

First hour found no bites until the 3rd spot on my walking circuit. Remained on that spot for the rest of the first session. No that the bite was crazy but it was good enough to keep me there. 5 crappies in about 35-40 minutes. 2 keepers at 10". First time this fall to pull more than 2-3 fish from the same spot. Started with a Bobby Garland Baby Shad, caught a dink right a way. A few more bites on the Garland, but no hookups and bite stopped. Before moving on I switched to my other crappie rod. It was rigged with a grub/twister tail, the Jawbreaker color (red/pink grub body and white twister tail). Pulled 4 more crappies from that spot the where the Garland Swim'r was being ignored.

After the break for lunch and grass chores, pulled 3 more crappies from various spots during an hour and 15 minutes. Those were all singles, never multiples from a spot, and included the biggest (11") of the 2-3 hours fished Tuesday. Water temp was 66.2, going wrong direction. Unlikely water temp will head down until the weekend when forecast calls for some low temps in the 40's at night.

8 crappies with 3 keepers isn't hot action but catching nearly double digits in 2+ hours is entertaining and much improved over a few weeks ago. The gills are pretty active and fill in gaps between crappie bites (caught at least 7 or 8 gills). I doubt we'll see the next gear of the crappie bite until we get water temps into 50's.


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## Greyduck

Good report Zara!


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## Greyduck

I didn't get out much this summer... Here is a picture from the boys and mine canoe trip in the boundary waters of Minnesota. We found a huge school of monster crappie







. [URL=http://s195.photobucket.com/user/lbandardie/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20160622_1848211.jpg.html][/URL]


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## zaraspook

Very nice!


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## swohiofiaherman

Greyduck said:


> I didn't get out much this summer... Here is a picture from the boys and mine canoe trip in the boundary waters of Minnesota. We found a huge school of monster crappie
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .


Great catches! Never had a chance to see that in Ohio.


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## bigmexican

Greyduck said:


> I didn't get out much this summer... Here is a picture from the boys and mine canoe trip in the boundary waters of Minnesota. We found a huge school of monster crappie
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .


Chunks for sure!


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## Jrock1085

zaraspook said:


> Really would like to try GLSM crappie bite in the AM, or times other than evening. Didn't work out that way but made it back to lake at 5pm Saturday to fish 2 hours. Take what you can.
> 
> Bottom-line, no evidence of fish schooling up yet. They are biting better than a month ago, not as good as a month from now. 5 crappies this evening, just one keeper. Also caught a small bass, 1/2 dozen gills and got into moose of a channel cat. Had it on for about 2 minutes, saw it twice and it was similar in size to the 11 pounder I landed last year on this same crappie rig. After a couple runs I was still in the game and actually the cat had reversed direction, came right at me like the shark in the movie Jaws, pausing just a couple yards from my feet. For an instant I'm delusional, thinking I might even land this guy. 3 seconds later he winds me around a floating log that's tied down. The fish breaks off....game over. Great fun!
> 
> By the way....water temp was 63.6 and down 2 degrees from Weds.





zaraspook said:


> Really would like to try GLSM crappie bite in the AM, or times other than evening. Didn't work out that way but made it back to lake at 5pm Saturday to fish 2 hours. Take what you can.
> 
> Bottom-line, no evidence of fish schooling up yet. They are biting better than a month ago, not as good as a month from now. 5 crappies this evening, just one keeper. Also caught a small bass, 1/2 dozen gills and got into moose of a channel cat. Had it on for about 2 minutes, saw it twice and it was similar in size to the 11 pounder I landed last year on this same crappie rig. After a couple runs I was still in the game and actually the cat had reversed direction, came right at me like the shark in the movie Jaws, pausing just a couple yards from my feet. For an instant I'm delusional, thinking I might even land this guy. 3 seconds later he winds me around a floating log that's tied down. The fish breaks off....game over. Great fun!
> 
> By the way....water temp was 63.6 and down 2 degrees from Weds.


thanks for the great reports I'm really anxious to get up there and try the fall fishing with my little 12 foot John boat. The second week in November ? If not sooner it sounds


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## zaraspook

Jrock.......2nd week of Nov should be really good. Just a thought, with a john boat you should avoid the main lake if any wind in forecast. Lake is shallow so wind quickly whips it into a dangerous frenzy. Although waves can be manageable if you're on the side of lake that wind is coming from. Lots of cover to fish anyway in most of channels.


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## zaraspook

For about 7-10 days at the end of Sept and first couple days of Oct I was reporting some movement in the crappie bite. Instead of 1-2, it was 5-9 crappies.....but water temp had fallen 10 degrees in just a few days from 73 to 63. Rapid change got them going somewhat and I fished quite a bit Thursday and Friday last week. With plenty of sun and 80+ degree air temp, water temps Were back above 66 degrees. The bite and fish disappeared. Did not catch a single crappie Thursday and even the gill bite was down to a crawl, maybe 3-4 gills and they were back to juveniles, little guys.

I hoped Friday would be better. In the morning it was same old story....no crappies, a few gills, nothing exciting in 2+ hours. Around 12:30 pm I finally caught a crappie.....one at 12.75" that would stretch another quarter of inch to make it a Fish Ohio. The 2 photos are the same fish. I wanted to show it's girth.......really a fatty. Later in the evening I caught 2 more crappies, not keepers and some better gills. 




  








20161007_095757




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zaraspook


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Oct 10, 2016




GLSM 12.75" 10/07/16









  








20161007_095606




__
zaraspook


__
Oct 10, 2016




10/07/16 GLSM 12.75"






Fast downward swings in water temp will turn them on, otherwise bite will yo-yo up and down with water temps until we see evidence of schooling fish. The 12.75" crappie in photo is biggest I've caught at GLSM since June.


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## rutty

I fished there Saturday for the Shelby County Crappie club tournament and ended up winning it with our 8 fish weighing in at 8.25 lbs. Our big fish was 1.27 lbs. We caught a lot of crappie in the 10-11 inch range that we did not need for the tournament. All fish were caught on jigs and it really didn't matter what color. Fished about 18 inches deep. Great day to be on the lake, probably caught 60+ crappies in all. We fished 7:30-3:00


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## fishwhacker

Rutty,
Did you get yours on the main lake?


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## rutty

fishwhacker said:


> Rutty,
> Did you get yours on the main lake?


In the channels.


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## zaraspook

rutty.......good to hear you guys had a bite going Saturday. Friday evening I thought I might have found a pattern but when you only catch a few hard to claim a pattern. Unfortunately, I couldn't fish Saturday, or Sunday either. Congrats on the win!!


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## zaraspook

Friday will likely be a great day for crappie results at GLSM. The fish have to eat sooner or later.....they weren't eating the last 24 hours. I fished Weds evening an hour and a half before dark. Caught 4, 2 keepers and all were buried under brush/wood. Had to dip into every nook and cranny of the cover to get the bite. Absolutely refused to chase 2 inches for a bait . Fished today/Thurs from 2-6pm. Gills were a crazy nuisance and crappie bite worse than Weds.....just 2 crappies between fishing buddy, Scott, and me. Both fish were keepers. 2 fish isn't enough to define a pattern, however, both were tight to wood/brush. Had to downsize baits and fish very slow.

Bite is due to turn on. The fish have to eat and should be ready. Water temp cracked into 50's........was 59.3 degrees this morning.


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## Greyduck

I am hoping they hold off till Saturday to turn on ......lol!


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## harrison08

The good, the bad, and the ugly......that sums up Friday on the lake.

The good: water temperatures were 58.3 this morning, no skunk, wasn't at work. 

The bad: only 2 keeper crappie were caught between my father and I. Only a small amount (6-8) of dinks to go along with the keepers. 

The ugly: the lake looks terrible! Green water with scum and water levels really low (2 feet or so) made it pretty ugly. Anyone have info on why the lake was in such bad shape? Only saw a couple other fishermen. 

Good luck!


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## zaraspook

Hate to hear you guys found the bite just as puny as we had it Thurs. Full Moon and no recent bite.....they are overdue.

As far as the ugly green, usually it's that bad by the 4th of July. It held off a bit this year but been that way for since early August and showing no signs of backing off. Low water/drought conditions at GLSM all summer is a big contributor. Normal amount of chlorophyll but less water volume equates to the green becoming more densely concentrated. When skies are cloudy it doesn't look nearly as bad, but full sun appearance is pathetic. The last EPA water test numbers I saw are about the same as last year. Color won't really back off much until GLSM has good layer of ice and a thaw. You probably are accustomed to see it in Spring. Lake is at it's best clarity in early spring. Definitely can be a shocker to the unprepared.


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## harrison08

Greyduck said:


> I am hoping they hold off till Saturday to turn on ......lol!


How did you do?


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## StillWater

zaraspook said:


> Hate to hear you guys found the bite just as puny as we had it Thurs. Full Moon and no recent bite.....they are overdue.
> 
> fished the north side friday,,,bite was very slow but ,,,,,nice fish,,,,,


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## zaraspook

Good one! No complaint from most of us about size. Just not catching good numbers yet. To some degree I blame the very low water level. Places fished last fall that held fish that were 3-4' depth are lucky to be 2' now. From the bank it is tough to find or reach 3' of water to fish. Good number of my "holes" now 16" of water. Gills are there but no crappies.


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## Greyduck

slow slow slow... we hit the lake around 330. Targeted some deeper water by the mouth of a channel. 3 crappie all keepers. biggest 12.5 inches. I did catch a 2 pound bass on my crappie rod. That was fun. The little lady caught a buch of gills a largemouth and a nice flathead. it was good to get on the lake again.


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## Salmonid

are you sure that was a flathead? possibly a Brown Bullhead?? how big was it, we( the catfish guys who fish the monthly tournaments) haven't seen a real Flathead in 7-8 years now.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> slow slow slow... we hit the lake around 330. Targeted some deeper water by the mouth of a channel. 3 crappie all keepers. biggest 12.5 inches. I did catch a 2 pound bass on my crappie rod. That was fun. The little lady caught a buch of gills a largemouth and a nice flathead. it was good to get on the lake again.


Common theme isn't it? Quality of the crappies we catch is fine. Quantity leaves a lot to be desired. I'm less confident we'll see the fall crappies in channels like normal. 3-5' of water where we normally see them is now 1.5 to under 3'. Possible they are there now, in 3' of water, but most of us bank guys don't know where there is cover in 3' of water. A dock/deck I fish regularly with 3-4' of water below it, routinely produces multiple fish all summer long and higher numbers of crappie in fall. Doubtful I've caught a total of 4 fish from it since July and doubtfull water depth is 2' at the deck/dock now.


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## zaraspook

Fished Tuesday at GLSM with a high school buddy. It was a rerun of previous week. In a hard effort for for 3.5 hours I again managed only 2 crappies, fortunately both keepers, but same dismal number caught. My partner caught 4 crappies, 2 keepers, and 21 gills(helps keep you entertained). 3 of his 4 crappies he caught in the 2 hours at my place before I arrived. He tipped his plastics with waxies, I didn't.

Stayed overnight and I fished again Weds morning. Results were worse. One dink gill in 2 hours and 3 bites maybe. I was ready to tip with waxies but my buddy had used up my stash the day before. Cut some grass, cleaned up my place, and loaded my truck to depart. My last action before departure is always to put away my crappie rod. Grabbed the rod and headed to the shed but couldn't resist a short detour to a big wooden dock nearby. Promised myself......5 casts only then had to hit the trail. This dock has been a disaster for the last few months anyway. Fewer than 5 crappies total from there in 3 months. First cast produced a chunky 11 incher. 2nd cast yields crappie #2, but a short one of 8". Next 3 casts I fired blanks, but hadn't caught crappies on back-to-back casts in months and it was great to pull something from below the dock where water is under 2' today. Put my rod into storage and headed home.

You never know when the worm will turn. I'm pumped for next time! By the way......water temp was 63.6, 4 degrees higher than last week. Bummer. However, temps are unlikely to be that high again this year.


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## zaraspook

Going to fish with a friend Friday morning so came to the lake this evening (Thur). Lure in water at 5:15pm in a steady rain and cool air temps. A reliable aspect of fishing in the rain......no competition for spots and solid cloud cover. First target was that big wooden dock that showed some life my last visit. Not this time though. I had one bite there, a real piggy of a slab, but lost it as I got it near the surface. Made the mistake of investing another 15 minutes trying to re-hook that Momma.....it was 15 minutes I could have invested elsewhere. Next 2 spots were shutouts, too.

It was 6pm and no fish yet approaching 4th spot. Planned to test 2 more spots after this one......now doubtful, especially if I find any bite here. 10 minutes into it, no action so I switch to my 2nd rod and cover the same water. The skunk comes off almost immediately with the 1st crappie, a 10" chunk. No more action until I recall a submerged limb out about 10'. The limb produces 2 more crappies, keepers just over 11". 3 keepers here in 25 minutes is a respectable showing. At most 15-20 minutes remain before dark.....not enough time to try 2 spots. Which to choose?

We'll never know if the choice was the best one, but it was a good one. 20 minutes, 4 more crappies, 2 keepers and largest one of the 90 minute session at 11.5". It was the best action and I actually lost 2 others. Finished with 5 keepers from the 7 caught.

All were caught on Panfish Assassin Chartreuse/Pepper Tiny Shad (1.5"). Walmart stocks them.....about $3 for 15 count bag, The shad bodies were fished 16-24" under bobber, 1/16 oz jighead. Fish caught in cover sucked it in and hardly moved, but also caught ones in open areas that whacked the bait and headed away hard. With limited time to fish, I didn't check water temp. Good action for a change!


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## zaraspook

Caught 11 crappies from the bank Friday, 5 keepers, plus a few decent gills. First time this fall to be in double digits for quantity, but numbers can be deceiving. The 7 caught Thurs evening (5 keepers) was in 90 minutes. Friday's catch took 3.5 hours to accumulate. Bite was not as aggressive Friday and size of fish down a notch. I tried a greater variety of plastics. The Panfish Assassins were again most productive. Color didn't matter (3 colors worked equally).

Water temp was 59, down 4 from Weds. 53-55 range, according to my logs, is where I reliably expect to catch 15-20. Lake water level was up, probably 3 inches, and good to see. If you target gills, it's a very good time to do it.


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## zaraspook

Family visitors all departed Sunday afternoon so I hustled to GLSM to fish, finish cutting grass, and fish some more. Checked water temp initially.....56 today/Sunday. A few more degrees and things could get interesting. Started at my seawall. After a very nice gill, landed 5 crappies in the first 25 minutes with 4 of those keepers. Now that's what I'm talking about! But bite slowed so hiked to next spot and another. At the end of an hour and a half, catching slowed way down and total was only 8. Cut the grass I didn't get done during last trip.

Back to fishing but catching was never the same as that early spurt. Another hour and a half produced only 4 crappies, plus 2 more nice gills. Tally today was 12 crappies, 7 were keepers, largest was 11.5", Great start, wimpy finish. 9 of my 12 caught came off my seawall, some wood and light brush there. Most fish were out from the bank, 10-12' which is about the max I can reach with my rod. I used 3 different plastics during the day. Fish were all caught on the Panfish Assassin (this time a chartreuse with flecks). Bite was aggressive when they hit, they were chasing baits today and didn't have to finesse them from deep in cover, hook sets were mostly solid in roof of mouth. Majority of my fish came in 2.5-3.5 FOW, usually 16-20" under bobber.

12 is my best to date this fall for a single visit. Catch number is creeping upwards. Keeper percentage is already high. Quantity will improve over the next 3-6 weeks. The first 30 minutes today was a preview of good stuff to come. Wish I started earlier.....great bite when I got their but didn't last.


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## brandonw

Zaraspook- I enjoy your posts even though I've never fished GLSM  I love reading crappie posts in general though so thank you.


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## Saugeyefisher

brandonw said:


> Zaraspook- I enjoy your posts even though I've never fished GLSM  I love reading crappie posts in general though so thank you.


Lol he's got a lot of us "hooked" on his posts....


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## zaraspook

brandonw said:


> Zaraspook- I enjoy your posts even though I've never fished GLSM  I love reading crappie posts in general though so thank you.


Appreciate the kudos, brandonw! Pretty sure I get more out of this than any who may read the posts. Putting thoughts down in writing forces me to reflect on the day's effort and results, draw conclusions, analyze things you didn't necessarily notice while focused on catching the next fish. May help me or someone else the next time, next month, next year.... 

From posts I read for other lakes/rivers, and for species other than crappies, it's amazing how often a technique or concept can be translated to fit/test your favorite waters and species. You should feel free to chime in anytime you get the urge. It doesn't matter if it's this thread or any of the great options within OGF.


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## zaraspook

Water temp 52 Weds, down 4 degrees from Sunday visit. Fishing buddy, Scott, was a keeper-catching machine! 9 of his 11 crappies were keepers. He also caught 27 gills. Honors for the most crappies was mine. Just edged Scott with 12. In full disclosure, 2 of my crappies were caught an hour before Scott arrived, (Some might say I cheated, but I call it "scouting". ) Biggest crappie was my 11.5", but only 5 of my crappies were keepers.

Results were more like October should be. Fun day. Only negative.....water level is down 4" in 3 days which suggests State is pulling water again. Water level was too low before.......leave it alone please.


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## Salmonid

Rande I looked at the gauge and it looked like they pulled water on sat/Sun but not since I wonder if the winds changing from NW to East affected the lake tides appearing to look like water flows were up or down, just food for thought, I know we had some strong NW winds over the weekend which would have put more water in your bay over the weekend.


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## zaraspook

Mark,
I think you are dead-on target. I compared two extremes. On Friday lake was swollen from rain plus wind driving water into my channel.....that's a max water level condition for my channel. Yesterday/Weds was opposite extreme. It was post-draw down and wind driving water out of the channel. That represents minimum water level condition. By dumb luck I came to the right conclusion....State must be drawing water, but it really wasn't as severe as it looked, and was already completed. 

Regardless, with water this low I get irritated anytime the State pulls water. By the way, NW wind this morning pushing water "in" and it's up +4" in my channel, about same as Sunday afternoon.


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## Salmonid

I would think flows and wind filling your channel would bring in a new batch of fish. Just like steelhead. Lol. You really need to get some structure in the new channelized deep part of your channel so once fish into that trough. They will concentrate on the only structure there. How convenient that its right behind your house. Lol


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## Salmonid

I would think flows and wind filling your channel would bring in a new batch of fish. Just like steelhead. Lol. You really need to get some structure in the new channelized deep part of your channel so once fish into that trough. They will concentrate on the only structure there. How convenient that its right behind your house. Lol


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> I would think flows and wind filling your channel would bring in a new batch of fish. Just like steelhead. Lol. You really need to get some structure in the new channelized deep part of your channel so once fish into that trough. They will concentrate on the only structure there. How convenient that its right behind your house. Lol


Actually, crappie results for the fall suggest dredging already had positive impact. No way to actually prove a direct tie to dredging, but taking more crappies from my seawall, better fish than normal, and production is more consistent. That is compared to last 8 years. Can't make the same claim for the other split to my channel.......it was not dredged.

It would be nice to populate the trench created by dredge. Really need a better look thru my boat's electronics to make a plan. Still catching fish off those stake beds you built.


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## zaraspook

Fished 4 hours mid-day Thursday with a lunch break in the middle. Wind was blowing N-NW, 180 degrees opposite Weds direction and crappies were not in the mood to grab a bite to eat. Nearly all places that worked yesterday were deserted today. Caught only 9 crappies but 7 keepers with biggest just short of 12". Water was 52.6 degrees today.




  








20161027 GLSM 11.75" Crappie




__
zaraspook


__
Oct 28, 2016




10-27-16 11.75"





It was a day for dipping into wood, every nook and cranny, and occasionally finding a gold nugget down at the bottom. Fish would suck in the bait, move 2-6 inches, and that was it. 

Just before breaking for lunch I caught a nice surprise.......a 9" perch! It hit the same Panfish Assassin bait I use lately for crappies, not tipped, no meat. That's my first perch since spring and comes about 6 weeks earlier than first perch last fall. It was about 12-14' off the bank/seawall, no cover, just open water 3-3.5' FOW and bobber set about 2.5' depth. Came on a random cast when I was trying to find evidence of schooled crappies out in the channel. By the way I did not find evidence of schooled crappies out and about. Since perch are supposedly schooled fish, I made another 15-20 casts in the same and surrounding area. Didn't catch another but did have one hit/bobber run that acted the same as with the 1st perch. After grabbing a sandwich, I invested another hour targeting perch. With 2 rods I pounded the area that produced the perch. One rod equipped with a small plastic and wax worm drifting under bobber. The stiff wind and wave action kept the bobber bobbing. The plastic was a bait which produced 6 or 8 perch previously at GLSM. The other rod I was fan casting as far as possible, pull a foot, stop 5-8 seconds, pull another foot, stop 5-8 seconds. That was the same technique that produced perch #1. There would be no perch #2 today, just 2 decent gills and a keeper crappie from "perching". I retreated to crappie fishing the remaining hour.

At least I'm trying fellas, trying to find perch producing water and techniques. It appears I'm a band of 1. When I unlock the secrets to perch success, my lips will be sealed. I'll share only with those who contributed to solving the GLSM perch puzzle.


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## Greyduck

Not sure wha the cat was ... it was around 3 pounds . I know it was not a channel though. Nice clean fish though. It sounds like a perch trip might be in order soon. See if the old spot from back in the day might still have some mojo.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> Not sure wha the cat was ... it was around 3 pounds . I know it was not a channel though. Nice clean fish though. It sounds like a perch trip might be in order soon. See if the old spot from back in the day might still have some mojo.


Do that perch trip, Greyduck. We need someone going after them with previous GLSM perch experience. I'm depending on dumb luck to carry me thru. Might be a decade before I catch more than one on the same day.


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## zaraspook

My only fishing this past weekend was on Sunday. Put in at least 3 hours from the bank during the morning and early afternoon. Results suggested I should have skipped fishing all together. Caught only 2 and both were short. Almost zero bites.......even gills were absent from the party. Lately on days like that I'd find a few, tight to wood, by dropping a jig on their heads. Not this time. Best bite was a channel cat, maybe 15" from out in the middle of my channel.

Water temp was plus 3.5 degrees from Thursday to 55.5. Seems to be the rule lately, if water temp rises 2-3 degrees, crappies won't come out and play. Not much in the weather forecast to push temps back down until later this week. However, regardless of water temp sooner or later they have to eat. They will turn on at some point.


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## zaraspook

Tuesday morning fished GLSM from 10:30-11:45am. Crappie bite wasn't brisk but at least productive. Caught 6 with 4 keepers. Biggest 11". Only managed to hit 4 spots.......two were vacant and two produced multiple fish. All fish were caught on wood and in shade. All 4 spots contain "light cover", that is a few scattered branches/limbs, nothing heavy and not big enough around to label as logs. Why 1/2 held fish and the other half did not doesn't compute in my head. Took a lunch break when no bites for 15 minutes at the most productive spot. During 45 minutes after lunch I hit 3 spots not fished earlier, No fish and no bites means it's time to do some chores. 

Water temp is 54.1, down a bit from Sunday. Likely I'll take a fishing break later and report whether fishing is good or bad.


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## zaraspook

Tuesday evening fished another 90 minutes. I said I'd report "good or bad". It was bad. One dink crappie. Other than a few pecks from gills, no other bites. Great day to fish, but we need to get back to colder weather. I prefer to occasionally do some catching while fishing.


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## Jrock1085

zaraspook said:


> Tuesday evening fished another 90 minutes. I said I'd report "good or bad". It was bad. One dink crappie. Other than a few pecks from gills, no other bites. Great day to fish, but we need to get back to colder weather. I prefer to occasionally do some catching while fishing.


how dose this weekend look for fishing? Where should I look? We are going to go out of the ramp on the north east corner of the lake near Parkway Drive or do you recommend a different spot ?


----------



## zaraspook

Jrock1085 said:


> how dose this weekend look for fishing? Where should I look? We are going to go out of the ramp on the north east corner of the lake near Parkway Drive or do you recommend a different spot ?


Guaranteed fishing will be better this weekend than so far this week. Why? Because water temps will head down over next 6 days with nighttime temps running in low 40's. Crappie fishing is on a yo-yo pattern.with results tracking directly with water temp. Above 55 degrees the bite falls like a rock, it gets going good in 52-53 range. With this heat wave the bite all but disappeared. Today(Weds) water temp was 57.3 at noon and probably made it to 59 before dark. After Weds night, next 6 nights are forecast in low 40's. Water temp can be back below 55 in a couple of nights and 52-53 water temps Sunday/Monday. It depends on the amount of sunshine/heating during the day. Root for cloud cover! Water temps should be 45-50 range right now instead of 55-60 range.

I think those are the State ramps you are referencing in NE corner of lake. Those are great ramps! Despite extremely low water levels of GLSM, still good water depth there to put boat in/out. However, as you head past marina toward marina, be careful........2 feet of water, maybe less. Every time we get a couple inches of water, State pulls it out. Fish your normal crappie cover, but keep in mind water depths are down 1.5-2.5 feet from early summer. Fish should have fed bag on. Report back with how you do, Jrock.


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## Jrock1085

Thanks a lot. I'm heading up there saterday it Sunday going to have the little boat running. I'll sent some pictures and let you know how it went. Thanks again


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## Jrock1085

Thanks a lot. I'm heading up there saterday it Sunday going to have the little boat running. I'll sent some pictures and let you know how it went. Thanks again


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## zaraspook

Weds fished GLSM with buddy Scott from 1:30 - 5pm. Water temp was 57.3. Beautiful day for fishing with upper 70's air temp. The catching was BRUTAL! For me only 2 crappies, zero keepers, and 3-4 cats which were a blessing to fill the crappie voids. Scott had a good number of gills, probably 8-10, but zero crappies! Between 2 guys fishing for 3..5 hours each, both claim to have a clue about crappie fishing, and the best we can do is 2????

I stayed over night Weds, fished for an hour and a half Thursday morning before I had to be home. Crappie bite was still puny, but using the glass half full viewpoint, my 4 crappies with 3 keepers in 90 minutes looks like the bite was on fire! Water temp was 59.5 degrees, up 2+ degrees in less than 24 hours. Should be back into the low 50's in 4-5 days which will stoke the bite. The keeper crappies were 10-11" fish. I was thrilled to catch a few keepers.

Those Panfish Assassin shad body plastics haven't worked at all lately. In the last week, nearly all crappies were caught on Triple Tip Grubs from Southern Pro. Had a box of a color called "Popsicle" that I bought 4 years ago - never opened before. Grub body is bi-color purple and pink. Twister-tail is chartreuse. I mention it not as an endorsement, but if what you're doing isn't working, try something different, and radically different. A bait purchased 4 years ago, never opened, and the last week it's the only bait to catch crappies? You can bet it won't be 4-years until I use them again. Everyone probably has a similar story........


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## rutty

zaraspook said:


> Weds fished GLSM with buddy Scott from 1:30 - 5pm.
> 
> Those Panfish Assassin shad body plastics haven't worked at all lately. In the last week, nearly all crappies were caught on Triple Tip Grubs from Southern Pro. Had a box of a color called "Popsicle" that I bought 4 years ago - never opened before. ..


That is a killer color on Grand Lake!


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## zaraspook

rutty said:


> That is a killer color on Grand Lake!


rutty........what's your general theory/philosophy for fall crappie on shallow lakes like Grand Lake? Smaller baits? Bigger baits? Do you have a style of plastic you shift to? At GLSM it seems like as water temps fall thru the 40's, working slower and slower is important, smaller baits, lighter and slower falling jig heads. Are those generalizations relatively accurate?


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## zaraspook

Saturday crappie bite is best defined as decent, nothing remarkable, but decent. I fished late morning and mid-afternoon. Water temp was 54 at 10 am. Morning session produced 8 crappies....afternoon session caught 6. 8 keepers for the day, three of them 11", none bigger. Morning bite was more aggressive then fell off as the day progressed. Actually had a better day going until 3 of the last 4 crappies were short. 8 keepers among the 14 caught was....decent.

Fish in the morning surprisingly were within 2-3 feet of seawalls, some as shallow as 16-20" of water.. Everything later came from cover 7-10' out, water depth around 3' (tough to find GLSM water deeper than 3 feet these days). A final thought......caught as many fish from sunny areas as shaded areas. That's a welcome change and hasn't happened previously this fall.


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## zaraspook

Water temp 52.8 degrees Sunday, down 1+ from Saturday. With these bluebird skies and warm air temps, nice to know lake temp isn't rising......again. Did one of those first cast jinx deals. First cast was immediately rewarded with a chunky 10.5" crappie. Almost 2 hours later when I quit, total was only up to 5. Three of them keepers, almost identical 10"+ fish. 3 of the best spots on my walking circuit were off-limits today........homeowners showed up to do some end-of-season clean-up and maintenance. In exchange for fishing privileges on their properties, I honor their privacy when they show. Those 3 spots produced 1/2 my 14 fish on Saturday. I seriously doubt 14 was reachable today. Bites were sparse and fish barely moved when they took the bait. Came home early!

Forecast suggests cooler weather after Tuesday. Still not cold but more like November should be. Average high temp for this date is 54. Historical average low is 37. Descending water temps should accelerate.


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## trailbreaker

was at the spillway last month at GLSM it looked gross.. drove to loramie caught a crappie at earls island


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## zaraspook

Water temp yesterday/Weds at GLSM was 51.7, going the right direction, but still warm for early November. Water temp in mid-40's would be more like it.

I came up Tues evening and managed to fish for 20 minutes before dark. Bite was anemic, Caught 2 dink crappies. Weds morning in advance of Scott's arrival I fished a nearby channel. It was recently dredged. I occasionally fish it and feel it has potential if I can find spots/cover there. No luck......one bite in an hour and headed back to my place. Scott's running a little late so I need to kill some time. Fishing off my seawall I caught 3 dink crappies, no keepers and then one more crappie at a spot we don't fish. 

The sun pops about noon, Scott arrives and we're fishing by 1pm. We covered the first spot hard but only one crappie each to show for it. At least they were keepers and we were off the skunk line. 5 stops later and after 2 hours, the score hasn't changed. Still 1 crappie each. We limp back to my seawall scratching our heads. Finally we find some decent fishing and mostly keepers. Scott finishes with 4 crappies/2 keepers against my 6 crappies and 4 keepers.. Keeper rate, 6 of 10, is fine but we still are looking for a good day for quantity. Adding in the 4 I caught before Scott's arrival......total was 14 crappies for the day, plus Scott caught 4-5 decent gills. 

We did better than the prior week, not as good as the 23 crappies 2 weeks ago. There was no real winning bait pattern......all we tried caught a fish or two. More fish were caught from sun-exposed areas than shade. Most fish were near light wood. Some were caught within a foot of the seawall, some out 8-10 feet from the bank. We expect better days ahead.......


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## zaraspook

Jrock1085 said:


> Thanks a lot. I'm heading up there saterday it Sunday going to have the little boat running. I'll sent some pictures and let you know how it went. Thanks again


jrock........how did you do last weekend at GLSM? Saturday was OK for me, but Sunday very tough.


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## zaraspook

Went to GLSM Sunday AM for a quick trip to handle a few chores and mix in some fishing. At 10am water temp was 43.7 degrees, down 8 degrees from 4-days earlier(Weds). Woohoo! Within the first 5 minutes I landed 2 fish, both keepers at 10" and 10.5", respectively. Off to a great start, but moved after 20 minutes of going scoreless. Drew nothing but blanks at spots 2 thru 5....a bummer and contrary to higher expectations that came with the quick start. Caught one crappie, another 10.5" at spot #6, followed by 2 short crappies at stop #7. Total for an hour and 45 minutes was 3 keepers among 5 crappies caught. 

Took a break for lunch, then raking leaves and grass-cutting. Back to fishing at 3pm and revisited the initial spot that earlier gave up 2 quick keepers to start the day. During 45 minutes I coaxed 3 more crappies to shore, all keepers >10", including a biggest of the day 11". Final hour was invested into the earlier non-productive spots and yielded.......zero. Tally for the day was 8 crappies with 6 keepers. Quality isn't a problem. Quantity continues to be disappointing.

Water temp is a positive.....finally in a good temp range for active fish. The crappies were really spunky, good fight, and the ones caught were eating the plastics big time. Wood was the key.....didn't have to be heavy/thick wood. Most of the water I bank fish is normally 2.5-3.5 feet deep. With drought at GLSM water depth off the seawalls is 12-18" and no fish there. My keepers all came from the rare 2.5-3.5 feet of water I found which included some light wood. In my channel that cover and water depth was 12-14' out from the bank. With low water levels, normal cover is too shallow, in my opinion. Find cover in 3' of water and more, fish should be there. Many channels have zero or very little 3' water now.


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## trailbreaker

someone told me to try a place near some island where a gun shop is


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## zaraspook

trailbreaker said:


> someone told me to try a place near some island where a gun shop is


TB.....that's not enough info for me to identify anything. It's a big lake.


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## Salmonid

Windy point most likely.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Windy point most likely.


Is their a gun shop near WP?


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## fishwhacker

Guessing they meant gun range....i can guess where they are talking pm me and i can fill ya in


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## trailbreaker

i've been around GLSM don't even know where windy point is


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## Salmonid

of course the access at Andersons, but not really an island there, sort of I guess, but crappies still haven't showed up there yet.. My buddy fishes there a lot been getting gills regularly.. very few crappies


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## fishwhacker

Salmonid,
That was my guess. Thats usually a classic fall spot, havent been out lately to check it out though with the 2 little onea at home. 

TB,
Windy point is on the southside by beachpoint restaurant. State dumped a bunch of xmas trees a couple years back. Gets hit pretty hard so usually can catch a few but hard to get a limit there.


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## zaraspook

Crappie bite at Andersons sounds same as my channel. Fished today/Weds with a friend for almost 3 hours. He's one of my lucky charms. Every time we fish GLSM together, we light up the crappies. He caught the first one within 5 minutes, but it was short. Little did we know that short one was his last fish, too. I caught 3, just one a keeper. Not even the gills wanted to play. Total bluebird, lockjaw day!

Water temp 44.4 degrees. A gill guy nearby was complaining also.......only 2 gills for him. More guys are blaming low water level for screwing up the normal fall patterns.


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## trailbreaker

how is the spillway is it still green? also were's a good spot for walleye from the shore no boat


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## fishwhacker

Spillway is still green with no water running over...which is about the only spot you consistently can get walleye. Those who catch them on the main lake keep it a closely guarded secret.


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## Jrock1085

zaraspook said:


> jrock........how did you do last weekend at GLSM? Saturday was OK for me, but Sunday very tough.


Sry I have not been able to get back to you earlier. Saterday the 7th I was able to get up there and WOW that lake is low. I went out and crossed the lake, the only thing I found was 2 gills that pounded my jigs stayed about 5 hours the sun was high and bright I was not able to find anything. I'll try again on the spring. Thanks for all the tips


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## zaraspook

Jrock1085 said:


> Sry I have not been able to get back to you earlier. Saterday the 7th I was able to get up there and WOW that lake is low. I went out and crossed the lake, the only thing I found was 2 gills that pounded my jigs stayed about 5 hours the sun was high and bright I was not able to find anything. I'll try again on the spring. Thanks for all the tips


Jrock......I may have seen you and briefly talked to you that day. Were you alone in a john boat and happen to fish any southside channels? If so it may have been you that I exchanged a few words with.


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## trailbreaker

fishwhacker said:


> Spillway is still green with no water running over...which is about the only spot you consistently can get walleye. Those who catch them on the main lake keep it a closely guarded secret.


if that's the case i'm not fishing there til they have running water... i was there two months ago no one was fishing there


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## Jrock1085

zaraspook said:


> Jrock......I may have seen you and briefly talked to you that day. We're you alone in a john boat and happen to fish any southside channels? If so it may have been you that I exchanged a few words with.


You were on the bank fishing streak beads you and your friend put in ?


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## rutty

zaraspook said:


> rutty........what's your general theory/philosophy for fall crappie on shallow lakes like Grand Lake? Smaller baits? Bigger baits? Do you have a style of plastic you shift to? At GLSM it seems like as water temps fall thru the 40's, working slower and slower is important, smaller baits, lighter and slower falling jig heads. Are those generalizations relatively accurate?


Sorry just got this. I switch to a very small profile bait in the fall on shallow lakes. I like to use 1.5 inch stingers. yes those are all accurate!


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## zaraspook

Jrock1085 said:


> You were on the bank fishing streak beads you and your friend put in ?


Yep. That was one of my neighbor's seawall. The bubbles down the center of the channel were from his linear aerator . Along the seawall I was fishing we put in a series of 7 plastic "stake beds" as fish attractors.

Nice to meet you! I didn't make the connection at the time, but that day remembered you might make it up and thought that might have been you. Came back later but you were gone. If you make it in the spring to GLSM, I'll point out other options that are in that same channel, but not in the branch you were in. Water will be 2-3' higher in spring.


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## Jrock1085

zaraspook said:


> Yep. That was one of my neighbor's seawall. The bubbles down the center of the channel were from his linear aerator . Along the seawall I was fishing we put in a series of 7 plastic "stake beds" as fish attractors.
> 
> Nice to meet you! I didn't make the connection at the time, but that day remembered you might make it up and thought that might have been you. Came back later but you were gone. If you make it in the spring to GLSM, I'll point out other options that are in that same channel, but not in the branch you were in. Water will be 2-3' higher in spring.


I ended up further back in that channel found a realy big dock lots of shade but again very shallow my trolling motor was kicking up muck. Had a hard time shooting back in there and keeping my jigs on the horazontal presentation I was after. 
I had a small pink and black jig with a 32 oz minnow head, probably should have tried a 48 and then even a tinier plastic. But that day I could not get anything even on minnows ( I don't realy fish with them unless the kids are with me). It was fun. I can't wait till I can get back there and try again that was the second time I had fished that lake and now both time skunked or just gills.


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## trailbreaker

i got me an ultra lite rod and reel.... a southbend it takes the abuse i loved it when bass and crappie fight on it


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## zaraspook

jrock.....visualize that same area with aditional 2.5 to 3 feet of water. Entirely different situation in spring. Just a bizarre combination of warm water temps and low water levels. Last year in November I caught 280+ crappies. November this year is 55 crappies. Worst November in my 8 years there. Fish really aren't in channels in normal numbers.

State needs to be less aggressive pulling water at spillway and screwing up the fishing. They overdid it in spring and lake had low levels all summer. We had a week of decent rain/recovery in the fall. They immediately pulled it off and continued to draw down for winter. Anticipated seasonal precipitation didn't show up either time. Clearly those making decisions are not anglers nor boaters.


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## zaraspook

Buddy Scott and I did GLSM today(Fri). Allowing an hour for a great lunch of one of Scott's tremendous soups, we fished three and a half hours. Scott quickly got on the board with a keeper crappie. It was 45 minutes later to the next crappie, pulled by Scott also, and another keeper at 10". It's belly looked like it swallowed a golf ball. Crappie #3 came ashore half-hour later. It was short, and another one hooked by Scott. 

Do you get the pattern here? It's 30-45 minutes between fish.....we're not setting it on fire. Also, notice Scott is the only one doing any "catching". Three for Scott, zero for Zaraspook. The fishing continues another hour, then the lunch break (great soup if you don't mind me repeating myself), then another hour of fishing. 

Final tally for the day.........Scott caught Crappies 1, 2 and 3, but no more.
The crappies hung a skunk on me.....ZERO fish. And I thought fishing Weds was bad. But, I got to eat great soup!


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## zaraspook

Ran up and back to GLSM Sunday 20th. Fished from 10:30 am to 12:15 pm, lunch break and warm up the body, then back to fishing at 1:30 pm. Darn cold with winds roaring from the WNW, occasional snow flurries, just the kind of weather I like and expect for November. Those winds push water down my channel and raise water levels 3-4", plus provide a decent chop to water surface. Measured the water temp right away.......43.3 degrees. That's warmer than I expected (44.4 on Weds and 45+ on Friday).

Fished in 8 spots during the morning session. Other than an infrequent tap from a gill, no crappies bites at first 6 stops. Crap.....this is looking like Friday all over again. Maybe back to back skunks? Nah. Not going to happen (I'm telling myself) but 6 spots and not a dang bite? Lucky #7 spot, mostly plastic stake beds with a bit of wood sprinkled in, yields 3 crappies. All 3 are keepers at 10-10.5 " and any thoughts of the "s" word are long gone. Bite wasn't crazy here, but at least enough to mentally keep warm. Thankfully, rarely do 10" crappies miss your bait. Bite slowed, I moved on, and spot #8 surrendered 2 more crappies. Both were keepers, same 10"+ class fish.

During lunch I note that all five fish came from the same plastic bait. Though I fished a 2nd rod hooked with a different plastic, results were non-existent. Tied 2nd rig this time with a different plastic and lighter jig-head. Session #2 was a huge disappointment. After an hour, nothing to show for it on either rig, and zero fish from the same spots that produced fish earlier. The only significant change was the wind. Both the wind speed and direction changed.....surface chop was negligible. Decided to quit, head home to get to a long "to-do list" to address before Thanksgiving Feast at my place. 

Putting away my crappie rigs, I just happened to notice the change in wind direction was putting a decent chop to water off my seawall. It won't hurt to at least try, right? My home chores aren't going anywhere. A few more minutes of fishing........why not? Fishing the area nicknamed "Frankenstein" doesn't pan out. I move to the other end of the seawall and declare 5 more minutes, that's it. In 10 minutes I add 2 more crappies, both keepers. First one is 11" and final fish another clone of the 10-10.5" crappies earlier in the day. I worked the area for another 15 minutes but no takers.

No giant fish today and quantity still lacking, but 7 0f 7 that were 10" or bigger. That's solid. All fish were caught 9' or farther out from the bank. They were not active and not in a mood to chase baits, pretty much in the bottom of cover. Fish hardly moved, if at all after taking the bait. If a spot gave up a fish, it produced multiples. Though I tried fan casting in open water attempting to locate a school, it didn't work. Last time water was 43 degrees or less, crappies began to show up in decent numbers and size. When water temp rose, bite waned. If water temp doesn't rise, bite should be OK. Should be fun until ice appears.


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## zaraspook

Fished Weds, day before Thanksgiving. Water temp in my channel was down to 39 degrees. That was a nice surprise, It was a tough 2.5 hours, just 4 crappies. 3 of those were dinks,,,,,1 keeper. 

Made it back today, Saturday to fish an hour before the Mich/Buckeye kickoff, and another 75 minutes after the Bucks OT victory. Caught 8 crappies in the first hour on 9 bites. 5 were keepers that included a pair of 11 inchers and a 12". Pretty sure the 12" is the biggest I've had for the fall. Used 3 different style plastics today but all the crappies hit the smaller shad bodies with stinger-like tails. Crappies weren't interested in a small grub/twister tail but some very nice gills fell prey to the grub. After the game fishing was slower, Only ran into 3, one a keeper of 10"+. 11 crappies total today, 6 keepers, I remain optimistic we'll get a few 20-30 fish days before 2016 is history.

Fish were understandably sluggish, were not hammering the bait and running for the hills. But, they were eating the Panfish Assassin baits deep. Also, the crappies are adding weight now. They seemed skinny just a few weeks ago......had not been gorging for the winter like you'd expect. 

Channel water temp was 40.2 degrees today. Crappies were close to cover but not close to bank. Usually were found in water depth greater than 2.5 feet. To find 2.5 water depth, or greater in my channel, it's usually 8-10' off the bank/seawall.


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## Sappy

Was out with Fishwhacker on Friday on the North side we had 5 keepers and a handful of gills. Seen several others caught


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## fishwhacker

Like you said zara they are getting winter weight on


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## zaraspook

Nice photos. Sounds like your and Sappy results were pretty much the same as mine. That's good to know. What was the bait of choice for you guys?


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## fishwhacker

Hand tied 1/64 oz split tails and ice fishing jigs.....very small baits made for gills


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## fishwhacker

8 nice crappies and 5 nice gills today 1 1/2 hrs on north side....pink and white ice fishing jig


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> 8 nice crappies and 5 nice gills today 1 1/2 hrs on north side....pink and white ice fishing jig


I haven't gone that small yet for bait/tackle. Been thinking about it and sounds like it's time. Plan to rig one of my rods with smaller presentation next time out. May not get out until Weds/Thurs. Keep me updated on how it's going if you can. Thanks.


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## fishwhacker

Unfortunately, ill be done until next weekend. Work and kids make me a weekend warrior. Warmer weather coming in might change them from lethargic to being willing to chase bigger baits again. Always worth putting it on a deadstick and trying it


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Tuesday evening......only 40 minutes before dark. Caught 4, 3 keepers in first 20 minutes. Biggest was 11". Fish seemed more aggressive and roaming a bit more at first spot. Invested another 20 minutes between 2 more spots and didn't get a bite.

Fishing buddy Scott and I fished late Weds morning, like 11am till 5pm with a couple breaks mixed in. I caught 2 crappies at our 2nd stop. Scott got on the board a couple stops later, but neither of us landed crappies the rest of the day. Between us we caught about 10 gills to fill the void. Our last stop was back at my seawall.......same place we hit earlier in the morning and same place I'd caught 4 quick ones the night before. Dang if we didn't get into another flurry of activity like I did Tues. Scott had on 3 keeper crappies.....lost all 3 lifting from the water. I lost a keeper, too, lifting up the seawall. The flurry ended with Scott actually landing a fish.......11" largemouth. The crappies didn't bang the baits....everything lip hooked only. Weird day....didn't feel like we'd caught only 3 crappies between us. Water temp was 43.7 on Weds vs 40.2 on Tuesday evening. 

Still time to catch some.


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## harrison08

zaraspook said:


> Fished GLSM Tuesday evening......only 40 minutes before dark. Caught 4, 3 keepers in first 20 minutes. Biggest was 11". Fish seemed more aggressive and roaming a bit more at first spot. Invested another 20 minutes between 2 more spots and didn't get a bite.
> 
> Fishing buddy Scott and I fished late Weds morning, like 11am till 5pm with a couple breaks mixed in. I caught 2 crappies at our 2nd stop. Scott got on the board a couple stops later, but neither of us landed crappies the rest of the day. Between us we caught about 10 gills to fill the void. Our last stop was back at my seawall.......same place we hit earlier in the morning and same place I'd caught 4 quick ones the night before. Dang if we didn't get into another flurry of activity like I did Tues. Scott had on 3 keeper crappies.....lost all 3 lifting from the water. I lost a keeper, too, lifting up the seawall. The flurry ended with Scott actually landing a fish.......11" largemouth. The crappies didn't bang the baitsbaits....everything lip hooked only. Weird day....didn't feel like we'd caught only 3 crappies between us. Water temp was 43.7 on Weds vs 40.2 on Tuesday evening.
> 
> Still time to catch some.


Nice job getting some! How is the water looking? Did it get any more depth to it?


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## fishwhacker

No significant depth added....wasnt fast and furious today but got a few in the hr and half i got out. Middle of the channel 4ft deep bobber never went under they were hitting so slow. Bigger baita thia time chartreuse/milk color. Didnt seem that color matter everyone next to me were catching at the same rate.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> No significant depth added....wasnt fast and furious today but got a few in the hr and half i got out. Middle of the channel 4ft deep bobber never went under they were hitting so slow. Bigger baita thia time chartreuse/milk color. Didnt seem that color matter everyone next to me were catching at the same rate.
> View attachment 224713
> View attachment 224714


Fishwhacker.......good report! I've been waiting to hear someone locate schooled fish out in the channel. Always my practice to try that approach this time of year, but hasn't been a winner yet. Most of my best fall/winter days are ones sitting on schooled fish.


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> Nice job getting some! How is the water looking? Did it get any more depth to it?


Harrison08.....impact from rain this week is negligible. Looking for the silver lining you can say water level didn't fall any further this week! 
Regret to say l'm off the fishing circuit for a period. Priorities have changed. My wife is hospitalized since Thurs.....dangerous bout of double pneumonia and hoping impending blood tests do not indicate additional blood infections. Fingers crossed we get a speedy recovery.


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## fishwhacker

Zara,
Sorry to hear about your wife...hope the ice holds off so you can enjoy some of the best fall fishing that is coming into effect. Best wishes to your family.


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## harrison08

zaraspook said:


> Harrison08.....impact from rain this week is negligible. Looking for the silver lining you can say water level didn't fall any further this week!
> Regret to say l'm off the fishing circuit for a period. Priorities have changed. My wife is hospitalized since Thurs.....dangerous bout of double pneumonia and hoping impending blood tests do not indicate additional blood infections. Fingers crossed we get a speedy recovery.


Sorry to hear that Zara. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.


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## harrison08

Whacker, 

Would a man be wise to fish the north or south side of the lake? Debating about coming up in the morning....


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## fishwhacker

Not sure how the southside is, i haven't fished it in awhile but that is where zara is located i would say depends on the wind. Usually doesn't matter just choose channels with access to the main lake close by. Let us know how ya do


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## firemanmike2127

Zara.....hope the lab results are good your wife recovers quickly. We all depend on our spouse daily, & when your partner is sick priorities immediately shift to the needs of our family. I saw a few pics this morning some local guys posted that did well yesterday on the south side of Grand Lake. Our water level is down to a historic low point. If my memory is correct it was 1989/1990 (?) when I had last seen this much of the lake bottom clearly visible ......VERY LOW !! I'm going out in the morning with a buddy & will post our results tomorrow evening. Mike


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## trailbreaker

prayers for your wife zara


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## Salmonid

Rande, prayers out to you for the wife. I talked to Dan at the outdoorsman, he told me no way should I launch my boat ( 19 ft deep v) even at West bank, said folks have been complaining about dropping trailers off the end of the ramps at about every ramp on the lake.


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## harrison08

Well, I got out Sunday morning to chase the crappie around. I left my house at 6:08 am for the journey north on 127 to GLSM. Estimating that my arrival time around 7:30, I expected to be one of only a handful of fisherman at this very public north side channel. I wasn't. There were trucks and cars parked in almost every spot, and some parked in no spot at all. I knew the fish had been there. The question was "Are they still here"? 

I spent the better part of three hours at this channel. The first hour or so produced no fish for me.....but there was enough action going on around me that I was not discouraged. I had never fished where I was just throwing into the middle of the channel, so I was observing the fishermen around me. I finally got the hang of it and caught 10 or so over the next 1 1/2 hours or so. All the fish I caught were over 10" and less than 12" in length. The last 1/2 hour produced nothing. The fish seemed to turn off throughout the channel. 

I was ready to head home and decided to try another channel already occupied by many fisherman. I am glad that I did. 1st cast produced a fat 12"+ fish. 2nd cast produced the same. 3rd cast ---ditto. All told, I spent 1/2 hour at that spot and caught 8 crappies. 4 of which were over 12", with another one at 13"+. The total for the day was 18 crappie.....all over 10".


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> Well, I got out Sunday morning to chase the crappie around. I left my house at 6:08 am for the journey north on 127 to GLSM. Estimating that my arrival time around 7:30, I expected to be one of only a handful of fisherman at this very public north side channel. I wasn't. There were trucks and cars parked in almost every spot, and some parked in no spot at all. I knew the fish had been there. The question was "Are they still here"?
> 
> I spent the better part of three hours at this channel. The first hour or so produced no fish for me.....but there was enough action going on around me that I was not discouraged. I had never fished where I was just throwing into the middle of the channel, so I was observing the fishermen around me. I finally got the hang of it and caught 10 or so over the next 1 1/2 hours or so. All the fish I caught were over 10" and less than 12" in length. The last 1/2 hour produced nothing. The fish seemed to turn off throughout the channel.
> 
> I was ready to head home and decided to try another channel already occupied by many fisherman. I am glad that I did. 1st cast produced a fat 12"+ fish. 2nd cast produced the same. 3rd cast ---ditto. All told, I spent 1/2 at that spot and caught 8 crappies. 4 of which were over 12", with another one at 13"+. The total for the day was 18 crappie.....all over 10".
> View attachment 224892


Great results, report, and photos! Wish I could join the party, especially after waiting so long.


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## zaraspook

Thanks for all the well wishes. Group thoughts and prayers are working with minor help from 4 days antibiotics so far. No other infections found and vitals trending good.


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## Salmonid

Looks like ill be up Sat morning as i drip off my boat for some work at the Outdoorsman. Rande let me know if youll be up there otherwise ill be parking in a non spot at the overly popular north side deep channel lol


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## T04DF15H

Salmonid said:


> Looks like ill be up Sat morning as i drip off my boat for some work at the Outdoorsman. Rande let me know if youll be up there otherwise ill be parking in a non spot at the overly popular north side deep channel lol


Good luck fishing. the water may be hard on top!


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Rande, prayers out to you for the wife. I talked to Dan at the outdoorsman, he told me no way should I launch my boat ( 19 ft deep v) even at West bank, said folks have been complaining about dropping trailers off the end of the ramps at about every ramp on the lake.


Hey, Mark. State put in a new ramp near me. Auglaize-Mercer county road. Looks like it's functional but I'm not sure if they are done. Road to it is gravel or crushed stone as of last week. I'm guessing they will pave it. Maybe someone at State Park office will know if officially open for use. All channels leading to it and near it were dredged during Oct-November......should be deeper than most channels right now. Travel at your own risk, buddy.

Hard for me to know if I'll be up. Wife will be discharged yet tonight or Tues. Doing really well but may need me around to be butler, chef, dishwasher,..........


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## fishwhacker

Looks like skim ice might be on by this weekend....if you can cast from shore in those dredged channels might not even have to launch the boat....quantity hasn't been great but quality is there.


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## zaraspook

Mark........my place could be an option for you. Nearby is another recently dredged channel.


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## zaraspook

Wife discharged from hospital for her pneumonia stay and making 3 steps forward for every step backwards. With someone to cover for me watching the patient, ran to GLSM Thursday early afternoon. Objective was to setup heating at my lake place to head-off pipes freezing, plus try to fish for an hour before heading home to patient care duties. 

Managed to get in 75 minutes of fishing. Air temp was 24 degrees and wind was brutal. Water temp was incredibly 34.3 degrees. Fortunately, my channel was absent of ice. Unfortunately, it was also absent of bites. An adjacent branch of my channel is less exposed to west winds and was 30% ice covered. Very likely that channel will 50% ice by Fri morning. Quickly hit 3 spots in that channel before running out of time. Managed one bite, one crappie, one keeper that was a 16th short of 11 inches. That bite was extremely timid and fish wasn't going anywhere......just felt some weight at the end of the line and set hook.




  








12-08-16 GLSM Crappie




__
zaraspook


__
Dec 9, 2016




11" 12-08-16 GLSM Crappie






Salmonid........that new boat ramp is not open. State had entrance blocked off with "Road Closed" sign. At 34.3 degrees it won't take much to freeze the channels bank to bank. Wind direction and wave action will determine which channels freeze. As I left Thursday I drove along the East Bank. The winds from west appeared to be pushing slush to the east.


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## zaraspook

Wanted to make it to GLSM Saturday but didn't have someone to sit with my wife until 1pm. By that time Salmonid reached me by phone, had been at GLSM and advised to stay home. Channels he saw, including mine, were totally iced over. Main lake was iced over as far as he could see. He related he'd been to Outdoorsman where someone reported no open water to fish from bank on West side of GLSM. 

Salmonid estimated .5 - 1" of ice Saturday AM. With these temps ice could thicken by an inch a day. Most likely there will be guys out on hardwater Sunday. Nothing in weather forecast to upset the hardwater patterm. Open water season is done for 2016. Glad I caught that single crappie last Thursday!


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## fishwhacker

Bring on the ice....not a huge hardwater guy and spend most winter days tying jigs for open water but do like to get out when i can find someone to go out with me....just for safety purposes. Hope to find some perch through the ice this year....little nervous with th water being so low before ice that the bite might not be very good


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Bring on the ice....not a huge hardwater guy and spend most winter days tying jigs for open water but do like to get out when i can find someone to go out with me....just for safety purposes. Hope to find some perch through the ice this year....little nervous with th water being so low before ice that the bite might not be very good


whacker..........It's my belief that hardwater fishing is an acquired taste. I haven't acquired it, but can't say it couldn't happen someday. A big perch run might be enough to push me over the line.

Water depth has been a totally wacko fishing variable all summer and fall. Nothing behaved like normal. It will probably continue to be a big variable, the wild card. Those 4-5' deep spots that produced ice results last year, are probably 2-3' depths now. Less likely to hold fish. Need to adjust and I'm sure some will figure it out. Keep us posted when you are able to "walk on water".


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## fishwhacker

Zara, i used to be the same way id rather be warm over my vise tying jigs dreaming about open water until i pulled a fish through a hole. Something so unnatural about it makes it appealing not to mention you can try spots you can never get to or stay on with a boat. It isnt for everyone that is for sure ill keep ya posted on ice thickness and any results...guessing by next weekend should have some safe ice


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## Salmonid

Im gonna be up there picking my boat up from the outdoorsman anyways so you can bet ill have all my ice gear with me. Sat morning if anyone wants to tag along or meet up let me know


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## crappiedude

Ice...say it isn't true.
I'm so glad we don't have any ice down here in SW Ohio and I hope we don't get any. I fish East Fork quite a bit and since it's a deep lake it take a little longer before the liquid solidifies. I was out today for a while and the main lake was still in the 50's and the creeks were mid 40's. I hope we still have another month of open water before we see any ice. I don't mind ice fishing if I have to but I'd rather I had to travel to do it and it not be so close to home.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Ice...say it isn't true.
> I'm so glad we don't have any ice down here in SW Ohio and I hope we don't get any. I fish East Fork quite a bit and since it's a deep lake it take a little longer before the liquid solidifies. I was out today for a while and the main lake was still in the 50's and the creeks were mid 40's. I hope we still have another month of open water before we see any ice. I don't mind ice fishing if I have to but I'd rather I had to travel to do it and it not be so close to home.


That's crazy water temp considering GLSM was an ice cube like 34.3 four days ago. That temp was measured 10" deep. I knew once the ice started to show up it would cascade fast. I'm envious of your OPEN water!


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Im gonna be up there picking my boat up from the outdoorsman anyways so you can bet ill have all my ice gear with me. Sat morning if anyone wants to tag along or meet up let me know


Mark......any recent reports on ice thickness?


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> That's crazy water temp considering GLSM was an ice cube like 34.3 four days ago. That temp was measured 10" deep. I knew once the ice started to show up it would cascade fast. I'm envious of your OPEN water!


I was surprised to see 51 degrees when I launched this morning and more surprised to see it hadn't changed at 4:00 when I left. EF is completely different in make up. Average water depth in mid lake is 65' so it takes a while to cool it, the lower end of the lake is close to 100' deep. Even with those depths is rare for us not to be chased off the water from ice sometime in January. If we can find some open water we can usually catch a fish or 2.
Every year I hope we can just skip that whole ice thing down here.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> I was surprised to see 51 degrees when I launched this morning and more surprised to see it hadn't changed at 4:00 when I left. EF is completely different in make up. Average water depth in mid lake is 65' so it takes a while to cool it, the lower end of the lake is close to 100' deep. Even with those depths is rare for us not to be chased off the water from ice sometime in January. If we can find some open water we can usually catch a fish or 2.
> Every year I hope we can just skip that whole ice thing down here.


c-dude.......With EF's depth and "slow to cool" characteristic, does it follow that EF is slow to warm in the spring?


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## zaraspook

Dredge, baby, dredge! I can personally attest one of GLSM's 3 dredges was sucking hot and heavy for 3-months near my southside place. From early September and deep into November you could hear that "giant sucking sound" daily. Once the dredge started on my channel, it remained within 1/2 mile to the west. Results below per the ODNR:_
_
_"Grand Lake St. Marys also experienced a record-breaking year for removing dredge material by taking out 405,523 cubic yards of sediment, exceeding the 2015 record of 364,590 cubic yards."_


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## fishwhacker

Zara, know you occasionally fish brookville, any idea if it freezes there? Thought maybe with the current that runs through might get at least a few extra weeks of open water crappie fishing


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> c-dude.......With EF's depth and "slow to cool" characteristic, does it follow that EF is slow to warm in the spring?


I wouldn't think so since the whole depth of a give lake isn't warmed and a thermocline is established.

In winter the whole water column is cooled since the colder surface water falls through the warmer layers below it. In years past I've fished both Caesars Creak & Brookville in winter and they seemed similar to EF to me.
All of these lakes will normally experience some freezing but they are at a much later schedule and we can fish open water much longer into winter.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, know you occasionally fish brookville, any idea if it freezes there? Thought maybe with the current that runs through might get at least a few extra weeks of open water crappie fishing


Don't recall running into ice at B-ville, but then again never fished it any later than November. I'm confident it's ice free, much like crappiedude describes at East Fork and Caesars Creek. Ramps are likely the only ice concern at B-ville. 

This may strike you as weird, but I've never fished for crappies at Brookville. I'm chasing other species there like smallies and walleyes.


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## fishwhacker

Zara, im here to tell you your missing out a lot of the crappies i have caught outta there are only inches smaller than the 15 to 17 inch saugeyes i usually catch. I would highly recommend taking time to fish for them next time your there.


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## crappiedude

4 or 5 years ago I lived in Cincy and split my winter trips between Brookville and EF and it seemed pretty similar to me. Water levels seemed a bit more stable at Brookville during the rainy periods. It's not uncommon for EF to jump7-10' after a heavy rain. I think the average size crappie was a little better at Brookville but I guess thats always subject to changing. 
One tip for winter fishing is to keep a bag of salt or sand in the truck incase the ramps freeze. I have never had to use it but it's comforting just to know it's there.


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## zaraspook

whacker......I may try B-ville for crappies sometime. My Brookville fishing partner has 3-4 other guys he partners with at B-ville. Those guys only fish for crappies......never target anything else. He gets tired of crappie fishing, calls me. I'm the only guy who wants to target other species, like smallies and walleye. It's a good relief for both of us.


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## zaraspook

Reputable source reports 4.25" of ice in my channel Sat morning.


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## Salmonid

also reputable reports that there are NO fish in your channel either..LOL


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## bigmexican

Salmonid said:


> also reputable reports that there are NO fish in your channel either..LOL


Theres probably crappies in that channnel the lake is full them. But good luck catching them after the ice is on.I fished a channel this evening that I was catching crappies in before the ice with no luck.Its the same old story you can catch them before and after the ice but you can't get them through the ice. I have not talked anyone that catching them when the ice is on in the last several years. If there is anyone that can let's us know.I am not asking where your catching them on GLSM I would just like to know if you are.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> also reputable reports that there are NO fish in your channel either..LOL


I was going to post the same comment, "no fish", but left it unsaid out of courtesy to you. Funny line and glad you filled the void. 
You guys drilled a lot of holes at/near my place. Have some questions about water depth you found at some of them but it can wait until another time.


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## zaraspook

bigmexican said:


> Theres probably crappies in that channnel the lake is full them. But good luck catching them after the ice is on.I fished a channel this evening that I was catching crappies in before the ice with no luck.Its the same old story you can catch them before and after the ice but you can't get them through the ice. I have not talked anyone that catching them when the ice is on in the last several years. If there is anyone that can let's us know.I am not asking where your catching them on GLSM I would just like to know if you are.


BigMex.......you and Salmonid agree chasing crappies under ice is a long shot. I don't know how it would change tactics or baits, but perhaps more sense to target perch? 4 years of aggressive perch stocking should be ready to show results. Actually, I suspect perch might be the ice story this season when it's over and done with.


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## T04DF15H

zaraspook said:


> BigMex.......you and Salmonid agree chasing crappies under ice is a long shot. I don't know how it would change tactics or baits, but perhaps more sense to target perch? 4 years of aggressive perch stocking should be ready to show results. Actually, I suspect perch might be the ice story this season when it's over and done with.


Oh how I hope that is the case. Would really like to get into some nice perch. The first fish I saw come thru the ice at Coldwater Creek last week was a perch. Just a little on the small side.


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## zaraspook

jmaury.........that's encouraging that ice fish #1 was a perch! Don't have my log with me, but believe I caught 4 perch in 2015 and 5 this year. Big disappointment that numbers this year didn't climb by a decent number. Last one was Oct. 27th. Previous year most perch came Nov-Dec. This year water was uber shallow and too warm most of Nov. Keep us posted on your ice-capades.


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## zaraspook

Friday thru Monday forecast......no temperatures below freezing. Ice going bye-bye?


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## crappiedude

Zara just curious, did the weekend rain event help your low water situation any or did it not make it up that far?
Cincy reported 1 3/4" rain over Saturday night. I was looking at water levels of area lakes and East Fork went up about 5', Caesars about 2' and Brookville about 1'.


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## zaraspook

Can't answer that one, crappiedude. Haven't been to GLSM since Saturday midday. It was iced over then with a little water showing on top the ice. Heavier rain came later. What ever the amount of precip, it couldn't have hurt.


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## crappiedude

Don't know if the warm rain over the weekend helped us down here or not but we still have 45 degree water on main lake. Surprisingly water color was still decent after the 5+' rise and then 3' drop over the last few days. usually when they pull the lake that hard is sucks the mud right trough out the lake.
We are starting to get some dreaded ice showing up in the very backs of coves. I'm hoping the Christmas warm up melts what little ice we have...that will be my Christmas present.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Don't know if the warm rain over the weekend helped us down here or not but we still have 45 degree water on main lake. Surprisingly water color was still decent after the 5+' rise and then 3' drop over the last few days. usually when they pull the lake that hard is sucks the mud right trough out the lake.
> We are starting to get some dreaded ice showing up in the very backs of coves. I'm hoping the Christmas warm up melts what little ice we have...that will be my Christmas present.


I'd be plenty happy with "no ice" as a Christmas present! Neighbor told me GLSM ice is 6-7". He's neither a fisherman nor outdoorsman so no clue where he's coming from. I can't dispel his claim though.


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## crappiedude

Even 4-5" of ice isn't going away anytime soon.
Hopefully that rain helped you guys gain a little more depth in your channels. Plus with the new rain coming over the next few days maybe conditions will get back to normal.
The toughest condition to fish is no water.


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## zaraspook

c-dude............ Amen to your statement......._The toughest condition to fish is no water._ We've been trying to fish in no/low water the entire fall/winter.
I haven't been to GLSM in 10 days, last fished there 12/8. Would love to mosey up there today but still have the Christmas crowd hanging at my house. Won't happen today despite the great air temps 55-60+ degrees.

By the way my wife is doing very well after the double pneumonia and hospital scare. She's about 90% and we very much appreciate the positive prayers of OGF nation. Thanks, guys!


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## crappiedude

Good to hear the wife is doing well and is getting back to normal.

Hopefully you guys are getting some of this rain up that way to make up for your low water.
With the holidays upon us it's always tough to get out. I've managed to get out at least once per week anyway and we always seem to manage get at least a few. Getting keepers, 10" or better is another story. Last week we managed to get 6 and had maybe 20/25 shorts. (I don't really keep count, so it's just a guess). Our best day was 18 keepers (about a month ago) but usually I just get 3 or 4, off course we are boat fishing so mobility is good.
I fished from shore this morning for 1 1/2 hours and managed 6 or 8, with only 1 at 10", most fish seemed to like the jig swimming.
I notice you seem to fish shad bodies quite a bit under a cork. For some reason I tend to lean towards tubes 1 1/2" - 2" this time of year as do some of my friends.


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## zaraspook

c-dude......I'm envious you're still catching crappies. Keep it up. Size doesn't always matter, at least at fishing.

I do have a penchant for fishing shad bodies. Also, I have a penchant for fishing grubs/twister tails. Both have more to do with the way I prefer to fish than anything else. 95% of my fishing is from the bank, walking to hit 6-8 spots all within a couple hundred yards of my lake house. I'm fishing for 45-60 minutes, all of it in shallow water (under 4' and most of this year under 2' depth). No electronics to locate fish. It's trying to find which cover the fish are on, picking off 1-2 fish at a spot. If I find more at a spot I'll fish it longer, maybe slow down, and finesse the spot to get a few more. I'm swimming the jig/ plastic the whole time, slower or faster, trying to get a bite or 2. You feel every tick and bump when you're tight-lined to jig, swimming the jig rather than hanging below a floating bobber. Hookups or catch rate goes way up when swimming the bait. I liken this to a bass fisherman who's out throwing spinner baits or cranks to locate fish. 10 minutes on a spot, no fish means it's time to move. Shad bodies with tails and grubs/twister tails are much more enticing when moving/swimming. As Doug Stange says, _the attributes of the bait _are more effective fished a certain way. The method I prefer to use, running and gunning, usually doesn't work worth a snot if fish are tight to cover and not active.

In my opinion crappie tubes are much better finesse baits for crappies. Hanging under a bobber even the slightest wave action on a bobber will keep those tail filaments fluttering, tantalizing a crappie into a strike, or fishing vertically between tree/brush limbs to get them out of cover. Not that you can't/don't get crappies moving or swimming tubes. Often I'm walking with 2 crappie rigs....a bait to swim on one and a bait to fish slower on the other. But, I prefer to fish fast, cover a lot of ground in 45 minutes. Then I head back to my house, do some chores for an hour or two, and fish again later after adjusting tactics from the previous session. If the bite is hot, I'll skip the chores.

If fishing for 3-4 hours I doubt I'd fish the same way. If fishing from a boat my tactics and baits change. If fishing deeper water tactics change, too. It's a productive methodology for my surroundings/environment of fishing in short bursts, from shore, and only shallow water. Until 3 years ago, I rarely used anything other than tubes. Tubes flat out work, but require you to fish slower, if that makes any sense.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> c-dude......I'm envious you're still catching crappies.


If ya want to get out sometime let me know as long as we have open water we can fish. Bank fishing is usually pretty tough because in all but a few spots the shoreline is just too steep.
I understand what you are saying about the various baits. Some years it seems like shad bodies rule the world and at other times tubes are king of the heap. It's a little tricky but we'll fish jigs under a cork down to as deep as 8-10' deep. Anything deeper and you are swimming or tight lining the jigs.
One thing I mess with in summer or winter you don't hear much about is jigging spoons. 1/8 or 1/4 oz spoons in general, no specific type. Dancing a spoon if front of fish seems to get hit pretty quick but I've noticed the bite won't last long. I'll get 3 or 4 fish real quick then you may as well go back to jigs, even though you can still see the school on the electronics they won't hit that spoon again. I don't like those treble hook much either, lately I've been messing around with trimming a hook or 2, so far it doesn't seem to matter too much. One problem with spoons is they seem to hang up a lot on cover. They aren't cheap and they're life expectancy is short.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> If ya want to get out sometime let me know as long as we have open water we can fish. Bank fishing is usually pretty tough because in all but a few


May take you up on an EF excursion sometime. I've done some spoon fishing at Brookville. We were targeting walleyes/smallies and caught a few on spoons and blade baits. We'd occasionally pick up crappies on them and white bass, too. Spoons are good baits, but like anything else you have to use them to develop the right techniques. 

I was at my GLSM lake place today for all of an hour. Just picking up mail, checking for frozen pipes, eyeing the fuel gage on my LP tank, and then a walkabout to view the abundance of ice. I could break ice along some south facing sea walls. It was 1-2" and softening. Some scattered areas had 1/2 inch of water on the ice, likely the rain from Sunday/Monday, and skim ice on the surface of the rainwater. Not much promise of a near term thaw that would provide open water fishing opportunities. I couldn't break ice any further out than a foot from seawalls.....it was clear and solid though thickness was unknown. Water clarity is really nice looking thru the ice. I found cover in spots previously unknown. 

I drove around the south and west parts of the lake. 50-100 yards out from the West Bank has expansive areas of open water that reach as far as Safety Island. Didn't see anyone fishing at Clearwater Creek. Water is flowing at the spillway.............surprised me that only 2 fishermen there. Saw 2 anglers ice fishing the State docks near the ramp at Windy Point. Both sides of Windy Point showed large areas of open water but 100-200 yards from the shore lines. Earlier I drove along the East Bank. One decent pocket of open water that would be fishable from shore but otherwise nothing but ice as far as you can see from East Bank.

I'd guess most channels still have 4+ inches of ice, but don't take my word for it. Prospects for open water fishing aren't as good as for the hard water guys.


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## zaraspook

Link below is to a relatively recent Lima News article. It reports on GLSM's "treatment trains", a long term effort to naturally reduce phosphorus levels from entering the lake. Soon all six "tributaries" (you and I would call them creeks) will have treatment trains. Treatment trains are claimed to reduce phosphorus concentration by as much as 75-85%. The creeks in the watershed flow thru an area dominated by agriculture, including many significant animal operations. Mercer and Auglaize counties are home to the heaviest concentration of animal operations anywhere in the State of Ohio. Phosphorus is highly concentrated in animal poop. As long as manure is abundant and subject to being washed into streams, it makes sense to attempt to treat water with poop/phosphorus content and prevent its dispersion into GLSM. It might make more sense to reduce the animal population (fewer animals = less manure/phosphorus?), or to breed genetically altered cow/pigs/chickens that don't poop (less poop per animal = less manure/phosphorus?). Neither is likely. 

Hindsight is 20/20.....what the heck was everyone thinking to allow so many animal operations to exist in the watershed? Maybe we can pick up the lake and move it? Getting back to the treatment trains, there is no denying they do work. Each treatment train costs a couple mil $ to construct. Here's the link https://limaohio.com/news/207463/grand-lake-algae-treatment-train-promising .


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## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> Link below is to a relatively recent Lima News article. It reports on GLSM's "treatment trains", a long term effort to naturally reduce phosphorus levels from entering the lake. Soon all six "tributaries" (you and I would call them creeks) will have treatment trains. Treatment trains are claimed to reduce phosphorus concentration by as much as 75-85%. The creeks in the watershed flow thru an area dominated by agriculture, including many significant animal operations. Mercer and Auglaize counties are home to the heaviest concentration of animal operations anywhere in the State of Ohio. Phosphorus is highly concentrated in animal poop. As long as manure is abundant and subject to being washed into streams, it makes sense to attempt to treat water with poop/phosphorus content and prevent its dispersion into GLSM. It might make more sense to reduce the animal population (fewer animals = less manure/phosphorus?), or to breed genetically altered cow/pigs/chickens that don't poop (less poop per animal = less manure/phosphorus?). Neither is likely.
> 
> Hindsight is 20/20.....what the heck was everyone thinking to allow so many animal operations to exist in the watershed? Maybe we can pick up the lake and move it? Getting back to the treatment trains, there is no denying they do work. Each treatment train costs a couple mil $ to construct. Here's the link https://limaohio.com/news/207463/grand-lake-algae-treatment-train-promising .


Bottom line is they need to fine the farmer and if they dont reduce the problem like putting buffer zones around the ditches and creeks outlaw them for every! Wake up America protect our resources!


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## brad crappie

brad crappie said:


> Bottom line is they need to fine the farmer and if they dont reduce the problem like putting buffer zones around the ditches and creeks outlaw them for every! Wake up America protect our resources!


Ever


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## crappiedude

The problem with the algae isn't just limited to GLSM it seems to be a national crisis. Just watch the news every summer and it's everywhere. Heck if it's messing up the oceans...these lakes don't stand a chance. Personally I think the problem is bigger than just adding a few buffer zones (not that it isn't a good start) but in lots of places all the streams & creeks have been channelized. Drain tiles have been added everywhere there's a wet spot and run off has been forced along and enter whatever body of water that happens to have a dam. Of course all the bad stuff settles there. If ya really think about it the millions of Native Americans, the millions of buffalo, the herds of elk, antelope plus all the other critters before we got here didn't have waste water treatment plants and they didn't have to deal with this and I bet there was a bunch of do-doo from all those entities listed above. Something is definitely different.


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## brad crappie

crappiedude said:


> The problem with the algae isn't just limited to GLSM it seems to be a national crisis. Just watch the news every summer and it's everywhere. Heck if it's messing up the oceans...these lakes don't stand a chance. Personally I think the problem is bigger than just adding a few buffer zones (not that it isn't a good start) but in lots of places all the streams & creeks have been channelized. Drain tiles have been added everywhere there's a wet spot and run off has been forced along and enter whatever body of water that happens to have a dam. Of course all the bad stuff settles there. If ya really think about it the millions of Native Americans, the millions of buffalo, the herds of elk, antelope plus all the other critters before we got here didn't have waste water treatment plants and they didn't have to deal with this and I bet there was a bunch of do-doo from all those entities listed above. Something is definitely different.


We are over populated we got to feed to many people and so on! Less people less problems period!


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## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> Bottom line is they need to fine the farmer and if they dont reduce the problem like putting buffer zones around the ditches and creeks outlaw them for every! Wake up America protect our resources!


Brad crappie.......the topic of buffer zones is one that really gets me ticked. So simple, but so effective. I don't recall the exact numbers but it's something like the flow of nitrogen/phosphorus/sediment into the stream is reduced by 50-80%. Minnesota requires 50' vegetation buffers on each side of stream in areas near waterways/lakes. Ohio laws must not require more than 10-15' per side from my travels thru the GLSM watershed. The main cost to the farmer is loss of crop yield from those buffer strips. 

Each time I drive to my GLSM place I drive 7 miles through the watershed and cross 4 creeks/streams that dump into Grand Lake. It's 80%+ farm land, acre after acre of corn, beans, wheat, or fallow fields. The algae crisis at GLSM was in 2010.......6+ years ago. What % of those buffers would you guess increased in size since 2010?

I can't drive every foot of the creek banks, nor have I walked every foot of those streams that meander through the fields. Sampling only the fields visible from the roads, the answer is _zero, none, not a single field shows an increase in buffer size_. Hope I'm wrong and admit all stream banks aren't view-able from nearby roads. My apology in advance to any caring farmer who voluntarily removed productive acreage and converted it to strip buffers. You are a hero.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> The problem with the algae isn't just limited to GLSM it seems to be a national crisis. Just watch the news every summer and it's everywhere. Heck if it's messing up the oceans...these lakes don't stand a chance. Personally I think the problem is bigger than just adding a few buffer zones (not that it isn't a good start) but in lots of places all the streams & creeks have been channelized. Drain tiles have been added everywhere there's a wet spot and run off has been forced along and enter whatever body of water that happens to have a dam. Of course all the bad stuff settles there. I


Good point about the drainage tiles.........c-dude. A main principle of controlling contaminants from entering streams is to slow down the flow. The longer it takes to move through grasses, stone, gravel, soil, etc, the more the chemical is filtered/absorbed, therefore minimizing the amount that makes it to the stream. Seems to me drain tiles are designed to accelerate the flow, move excess water/moisture out of the area faster. Isn't that bass-akwards? Farmers should be trying to retain their chemicals on their fields, slow it down for better absorption into their soil. If a farmer has phosphorous or nitrogen in his soil I understand the need to do that. But keep it there.......farmer does not have the right to put those chemicals in _OUR_ water.


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## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> Good point about the drainage tiles.........c-dude. A main principle of controlling contaminants from entering streams is to slow down the flow. The longer it takes to move through grasses, stone, gravel, soil, etc, the more the chemical is filtered/absorbed, therefore minimizing the amount that makes it to the stream. Seems to me drain tiles are designed to accelerate the flow, move excess water/moisture out of the area faster. Farmers should be trying to retain their chemicals on their fields, slow it down for better absorption into their soil. If a farmer has phosphorous or nitrogen in his soil I understand the need to do that. But keep it there.......farmer does not have the right to put those chemicals in _OUR_ water.


 So right Zara the farmers that are committing the crimes need to pay but our government needs to do their job!


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## crappiedude

*I don't think any of this is done intentionally, *I think all of this unintended consequences. Who would have though it would not just go away once it has been used instead of just moving down stream and accumulating. Same things are going on with meds and birth control pills...it's passed on through urine and then on to the waterways. Who would have thunk all this stuff.
All the farmers aren't evil villains out to destroy the free world as some would think. Their lives are affected by this do. I think the government's role should be to try to figure out a solution. Everyone just jumping on the blame wagon, complaining and pointing fingers is doing absolutely nothing to help the problem.

It's our nature as people to try to solve our problems. It's hard for anyone to see the long term problems that some of our fixes create.


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## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> So right Zara the farmers that are committing the crimes need to pay but our government needs to do their job!


brad-c.......keep in mind, farmers technically aren't breaking the law. They aren't held accountable for excessive rain washing legal phosphorus off their land. If one farmer could be identified as the source, maybe he could be held liable. The phosphorus is coming from all farmers in the drainage area. The State might be able to prosecute all farmers in that drainage area, but can you prove how much of phosphorus in the stream came from any single farm and how much the liability would be for any single farm? I don't think the law works that way. Not suggesting law is correct or right.


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## brad crappie

Bi


zaraspook said:


> brad-c.......keep in mind, farmers technically aren't breaking the law. They aren't held accountable for excessive rain washing legal phosphorus off their land. If one farmer could be identified as the source, maybe he could be held liable. The phosphorus is coming from all farmers in the drainage area. The State might be able to prosecute all farmers in that drainage area, but can you prove how much of phosphorus in the stream came from any single farm and how much the liability would be for any single farm? I don't think the law works that way. Not suggesting law is correct or right.


Bottom line buffer zones riparian zones is a most! I got a degree in natural resources but am not a expert but know more then most n this subject! It needs to be mandatory if not the farmer should be reprimanded period! The government tells these farmers what to do like don't plant this crop this year but this! Till every inch of property needs to stop! We as a country don't produce enough food for our country is a joke we depend on other countries and others depend on us! Big money tells farmers what to do whats new! When I was younger I thought farmers were goof ole boys most are not anymore cause of the bottom dollar!


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## brad crappie

brad crappie said:


> Bi
> 
> Bottom line buffer zones riparian zones is a most! I got a degree in natural resources but am not a expert but know more then most n this subject! It needs to be mandatory if not the farmer should be reprimanded period! The government tells these farmers what to do like don't plant this crop this year but this! Till every inch of property needs to stop! We as a country don't produce enough food for our country is a joke we depend on other countries and others depend on us! Big money tells farmers what to do whats new! When I was younger I thought farmers were goof ole boys most are not anymore cause of the bottom dollar!


Also leaking septic tanks to is a issue and stated before making more channels building more places along the lake that take away natural buffers is bad!


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## fishwhacker

Got out for an hr today saw a couple boats busting through the ice and i busted up some by the dock only was able to get 1 good gill and the guy next to me only got 1....water is low this spot is normally 6ft and i was on the bottom fishing 4ft. Not much a report but better than sitting at home


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## zaraspook

f-whacker........I went to glsm Sunday, too, but didn't fish. Busted ice along bank/seawalls for 2 hours. Going up today to fish those areas where I broke ice Sunday. Should have open water out 5-6 feet, maybe more. While breaking ice gives me access, it doesn't fix the water depth issue. Water I've opened will be less than 3' and doubt will hold any significant numbers of fish. On the bright side, water I've opened is a toasty 34.8 degrees. It was 33.4 degrees the day before it quickly iced over a few weeks ago. Like you say...."better than sitting at home".


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## fishwhacker

Looks like ice busting might be short lived with the new cold wave coming....i know you dont ice fish zara but this guy is looking forward to getting back on and drilling holes...did see some guys drive their boat through the ice this weekend and stop on an old perch hot spot so would like to walk out there as soon as we get some good ice again....no longer have a boat so ice is the only time i can access


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## zaraspook

Went up today/Mon as planned. Ice busting the day before didn't produce expected results. Lack of wind, no sun this morning allowed 80% of it to refreeze. Fished it a bit but unproductive - no bites. Headed to East Bank. The area just south of park area was ice free. Fished pilings for 45 minutes - no bites. Back to my seawall. Had open water for 4 feet off seawall. Unfortunately, none of that water is deeper than 2' - no bites. 

At least I got out. Breaking ice 2 days in a row is a good workout for arms and shoulders. Might have burned off the calories from a couple of the 3 dozen Christmas cookies I scarfed down last couple weeks. Should be better open water Tues but I'm baby sitting. 

Hope you find those perch, fishwhacker. Ice should be ready by Saturday/Sunday but all these freeze/thaw/rain/ cycles might build uneven ice. Be safe and take phone pics! Think perch!!!


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## fished-out

You should come south--open water at all the lakes in the cincy area, 41-43 degree water temp, fish were biting on Monday.


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## zaraspook

fished-out........I do fish that direction occasionally.......Brookville Lake. Put my boat away in early December. Can only conclude desire to fish isn't painful enough yet to surmount effort to get boat out and/or head to other waters. Options are always available if you want them.


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## fished-out

Too bad, 58 air temp on Monday. Wish it was that warm today.


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## crappiedude

fished-out said:


> Too bad, 58 air temp on Monday. Wish it was that warm today.


These cold temps are only going to last a few days down here. Should be back above freezing after Monday and for all of the rest of next week.


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## zaraspook

Yep......I noticed Tues - Saturday next week suggests no temps below freezing. Not likely that will be enough warmth to clear GLSM. Maybe main lake if they get a patch of open water and some robust wind, but channels will remain in the freezer.


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## fished-out

crappiedude said:


> These cold temps are only going to last a few days down here. Should be back above freezing after Monday and for all of the rest of next week.


 Yep, going out again if the rain isn't too bad. Mornings can be a bit chilly and I don't like being cold AND wet!


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## zaraspook

Received a text alert this morning of a big jump in water flow at GLSM spillway. Some serious water level change going on according to the monitoring by USGS. Water flow's been stuck at approximately 1 cubic foot per second for quite a while. Flow at 8:45 this morning rose to 463 cubic ft per second in a matter of a few hours.

I'm no where near the lake to view/interpret what a 463% increase in flow looks like. Maybe someone on the ground can chime in. Has to be dramatic change in water level. Data from USGS says "gage height" went from 4.3 feet to 8.9 feet. Cannot say I know exactly what gage height is. Hard to imagine it suggests 5+ feet rise in water level. Clarification anyone?


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## fishwhacker

Haven't gone by the lake yet but we got significant rain yesterday and today, some flooding has occurred. Im happy the lake needed it


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## zaraspook

Absolute agreement!


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## Salmonid

Yup that should be a 5 ft rise and the sad part is its obvious the state is keeping glsm at a empty level even though lake needs water. Sad. Lets see if lake actually dries up this year which could just about happen if we have a drought year


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Yup that should be a 5 ft rise and the sad part is its obvious the state is keeping glsm at a empty level even though lake needs water. Sad. Lets see if lake actually dries up this year which could just about happen if we have a drought year


Hey, Mark. Everyone knows what a "win-win" deal is. GLSM gets a "lose-lose" deal. Yes, we need the water but we don't get to keep it. No, we don't need the phosphorus coming from field runoff, but we do get to keep it.


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## zaraspook

Discharge now up to 535 cu ft/sec and gage height just under 10 feet at 1:45pm today.


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## T04DF15H

zaraspook said:


> Discharge now up to 535 cu ft/sec and gage height just under 10 feet at 1:45pm today.


a friend just told me that he was at the spillway and the gates were closed! Don't know where the flow is coming from???


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## zaraspook

Tubes?


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## T04DF15H

Tubes, gate valves, whatever you want to call them.


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## zaraspook

jmaury......not sure I understand. Your friend says tubes/pipes are not open but water is flowing thru spillway?


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## mercercrappie




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## T04DF15H

I'm not going to speculate any more until I lay my eyes on it tomorrow morning. This morning the water had a ways to go before it went over the notch in the spillway.


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## zaraspook

Good photos! Thanks for posting visual evidence.


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## zaraspook

A neighbor texted me that our channel is up about 6 inches, continues to rise as flooding remains over some roads/fields.


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## T04DF15H

Zara, If I knew how to add a photo it would show the water level up into the tubes but the same trickle coming thru one tune the same as it has been for months. Water in the Beaver is just backed up from all of the rainfall that we had. Can't tell for sure but I'd guess we have between 6"-12" to go before the water reaches the notch in the spillway.


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## T04DF15H

Here we go!


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## zaraspook

Flow is dropping, 270 cubic ft/sec at 7:45 am Friday which is about 1/2 flow rate yesterday. Gage height just above 7'. 
The $64 million dollar question now is "will the DNR let us keep some of that water?". Fishing this fall was the worst I've experienced in my 8+ years at GLSM. Yes, water temps were running way above normal well into November. That's a factor. However, I believe it was the great fishing philosopher crappiedude who said "low water level is the hardest condition to adjust for". With water levels 1-3' in my channel, we didn't get fish in the numbers we've come to expect. My personal catch of crappies was off by 2/3.
I'm optimistic if DNR doesn't drain the new water from the bath tub. They're in a tough position. Landowners downstream won a $52 mil judgment a few years ago.....compensation from the State for poor control of lake discharge, diminished land values, and diminished crop production. The State appealed and lost. The State then appealed the amount of the judgment (land values) and lost. While appeals were in process, State attempted to better control downstream flooding using draw downs. Doesn't sound like courts have been impressed or sympathetic to flood control efforts. And lake residents/users are all pissed off at DNR for constant low water conditions, the result of flood control efforts. If all the appeals are over with, maybe DNR will back off aggressive flood control. Leave some water in the lake for its intended recreational uses.


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## zaraspook

jmaury said:


> Here we go!


Nice work, jmaury! DNR lost that law suit......were blamed that new spillway created flooding downstream. If water isn't substantially flowing out of lake from spillway, maybe the State got screwed?


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## T04DF15H

zaraspook said:


> Nice work, jmaury! DNR lost that law suit......were blamed that new spillway created flooding downstream. If water isn't substantially flowing out of lake from spillway, maybe the State got screwed?


Maybe the State is trying to prove that right now!


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## zaraspook

Made it to my lake place Sunday at 11:30 am. Cruised by the spillway on my way, no fishermen, no roaring water flow, in fact the creek looked iced over. Along the north bank some waters were open in spots fishable from the bank, but not a lot - usually frozen beyond 15-20 feet. Continuing my north side tour, rarely saw much water open near bank, but routinely large areas of lake open farther out with water fowl out there paddling and pooping. Nobody at the popular A-place.....ice too thin for hardwater guys and too thick for soft water guys. Found 3-4 fishermen doing the docks near Yacht Club. They were standing on docks and fishing holes thru ice too thin to trust. Same thing at the Marina on East Bank....3-4 fishing from docks thru holes of thin ice.

Channels are pretty much iced over, but channels with feeder creeks have large, spreading areas of open water. My channel looked like it recently, probably last week, had substantial areas of open water from the bank to 12-15' out. Now re-frozen, ice at bank was 1/4-1/2". 4-5' from shore the ice was about an inch thick. I could easily break large sheets with a 1x2" board I use and opened a number of 25-30' stretches along banks/seawalls. After 2-3 hours 50% of the ice I broke melted and was easily fishable. With no freezing temps forecasted for the next 9, channels should clear, especially if we get decent wind. 

Have to admit......regardless of ice conditions, I'm EXCITED! Sure, I love to to see ice on the run, but my biggest fear wasn't ice, it's been shallow water. The rain last week did the job. Should have enough depth now to hold fish. 10-days ago, water depth off my seawall was 18-20". Today - 34". Lake is up 14". As long as DNR doesn't start pulling water beforehand, should have water depth comparable to the last few years. 

I did not fish! Water is close to chocolate milk color. But I'll be out there in a few days. Just broke up ice to give a few spots a head start. Water temp about a foot down is only 33.7 degrees. Channels fed by creeks could be several degrees warmer.


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## zaraspook

Planned to be at GLSM by 10am Tues morning and hoped to see my channel mostly clear of ice. One delay led to another and so on, finally made it there by 3pm, just 5-hours late. At least the other expectation was on target.......no ice at all in my channel. Tried several baits. Fished for 2 hours. No fish caught. 2 bites only and both were on jig with 1" gulp alive minnow. In cold water I'm trying to dead-stick a 2nd rig for perch while I jig a plastic for crappies on another rig.

Water level was up about an inch from Sunday and +15 inches over last 10 days. Water was very muddy. Interesting that without all the ice around water temp was 37.7, up 4 degrees in 48 hours. On my way back home I drove along the East Bank. Channels at Otterbein were at best 50% ice free. Viewing from the east end main lake appeared 50% open water. Planning to try again sometime this week. No freezing temps forecast for next 8 days.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck........when are you going to get after the crappies? Next 7 days no freezing temps although Weds night low of 32 predicted. Probably a good time to poke around for perch, too. I've caught perch, never in numbers, as early as Feb 1st.


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## flyfishtrout

zaraspook said:


> Greyduck........when are you going to get after the crappies? Next 7 days no freezing temps although Weds night low of 32 predicted. Probably a good time to poke around for perch, too. I've caught perch, never in numbers, as early as Feb 1st.


Is the perch population good there or sparse, I know the crappie are, I make several trips over each spring and can't wait for the crappie to start spawning


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## zaraspook

flyfishtrout........quick answer, perch population is growing. Current catch rate of perch fits into sparse category.

The "rest of the story"....before my time at GLSM, like 1980's and later, perch fishing from GLSM rivaled Lake Erie. For about the last 5-6 years the State operates netting crews to remove carp/rough fish from lake. Those crews report netting good numbers of yellow perch. There were almost never reports of catches. 2012 DNR decided to kick start the native perch population by stocking. Annual stocking classes were 100,000 fingerlings a year until 2015 when a bonus 600,000 were stocked. I don't recall hearing 2016 stocking data.

Personally, I fished 2008-2011 at GLSM and never caught a perch. Caught 2 in 2012 before stocking began. 4 in 2015, 6 or 8 in 2016. It's coming, but most of us don't know how/where to catch them. I expected the ice guys to have a banner year this winter. Ice hasn't really cooperated. My fish have all been surprises while crappie fishing.


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## Greyduck

Zara.... It will be soon! We are still hunting waterfowl but that will end 2/12. The low water last fall really put a damper on the fishing. I am glad to hear the lake is up. Thanks for the report. . .. I am thinking Sunday I will get up there for a bit. Probably leave the boat at home though. So I won't get out to my old perch spot. Checked my records and the first we fished last year was 2/3. Took a nice limit in 2 hours that afternoon. Hope they leave the lake level alone and this warm weather should keep it open .


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## zaraspook

According to my "alert" from USGS, they started pulling water at spillway 6:45 pm last night. Gage height is 9 ft and pulling water at 481 cubic ft/sec at 10:45 am Th morning. Last time I got the alert which was a week ago today, boots on the ground said they weren't pulling water, must have been backed up flow in the Beaver. Hope they aren't pulling this time 'cause once they start their past suggests they will over shoot it, won't stop until you can wade across the lake without getting your hat wet. Boo!


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## Panfish elite

Is the bite over at Grand lake that good for crappie, I've heard plenty about it from friends but never made my way over there.


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## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> According to my "alert" from USGS, they started pulling water at spillway 6:45 pm last night. Gage height is 9 ft and pulling water at 481 cubic ft/sec at 10:45 am Th morning. Last time I got the alert which was a week ago today, boots on the ground said they weren't pulling water, must have been backed up flow in the Beaver. Hope they aren't pulling this time 'cause once they start their past suggests they will over shoot it, won't stop until you can wade across the lake without getting your hat wet. Boo!


Was thinking bout what I heard and am seeing it in other lakes I fish with less funds for infurstructure they are not holding back the wAter like they use to possibly cause of much needed dam repairs on our old dams ! One day their is going to be a major issue! Not saying that's the reason but one day a dam is going to blow


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## T04DF15H

zaraspook said:


> According to my "alert" from USGS, they started pulling water at spillway 6:45 pm last night. Gage height is 9 ft and pulling water at 481 cubic ft/sec at 10:45 am Th morning. Last time I got the alert which was a week ago today, boots on the ground said they weren't pulling water, must have been backed up flow in the Beaver. Hope they aren't pulling this time 'cause once they start their past suggests they will over shoot it, won't stop until you can wade across the lake without getting your hat wet. Boo!


Well this time water is flowing big time down the Beaver. You might want to get over here as the big crappies are biting!


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## zaraspook

jmaury said:


> Well this time water is flowing big time down the Beaver. You might want to get over here as the big crappies are biting!


jmaury........did you have to say that? I ran up to my place today and fished about 3 hours there. Wanted to at least wet a line before they drain the bathtub. I was happy with my 5 gills and a 10" largemouth. Heck, I hadn't caught a crappie there since Dec 8th so I wasn't embarrassed. Then you go and tell me the piggy crappies are jumping from the water onto the bank. Hanging my head in shame.  What bait is doing damage?
Forgot to mention water temp today was 38.3, up a degree. Good enough for this time of year.


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## fishwhacker

Hopefully the current rain negates some of the water their letting out and shut it down before draught levels again.


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## zaraspook

Gage height at spillway is up almost 2' to 10.8' and flow up about 30% to 637 cu ft/sec this morning. Guessing this will continue a while. Spring rains are couple months away. Ground is over saturated. At my seawall yesterday water depth was 36" so lake was up another 1-2". Won't be surprised if State draws down lake level 8-10". Just wish they'd pull water in smaller increments, a couple inches at a time, instead of 8-10". Easier to pull it off that put water back into lake.


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## Redhunter1012

I should be hitting spillway tomorrow morning around 9:30 or so. Wanted to be there earlier but my 2 nephews wanna go so later it is. I will give a report later tomorrow night. Thinking about hitting up Indian Lake later on for some Shoreline saugeye


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## zaraspook

Flow rate now under 100 cf/s and gage height under 6'.


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## hawgseeker

Hello all its been awhile since I been on the forum! Been hearing a lot of good reports on the crappie fishing the past couple days anyone have any reports to share? Also being the I work a swing shift this is my weekend to work but I have Monday or Tuesday off does any one believe the bite will slow down Monday since the temps are dropping a little or will the crappie still be bitting well?


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## CHOPIQ

My brothers went by GLSM today and there was about 70-80 people crappie fishing at the east bank near the beach. Just drive by the beach near the marina you will see the people lined up. They were catching some hog crappies couple days ago but today it slowed down some.


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## zaraspook

Massive group Saturday afternoon fishing along channel where East Bank State ramps are. Sounds like one or more crappie schools must be pounding shad in that general area. Water temp 42 today......amazing compared to barely above freezing 10 days ago.


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## zaraspook

hawgseeker said:


> Hello all its been awhile since I been on the forum! Been hearing a lot of good reports on the crappie fishing the past couple days anyone have any reports to share? Also being the I work a swing shift this is my weekend to work but I have Monday or Tuesday off does any one believe the bite will slow down Monday since the temps are dropping a little or will the crappie still be bitting well?





hawgseeker said:


> Hello all its been awhile since I been on the forum! Been hearing a lot of good reports on the crappie fishing the past couple days anyone have any reports to share? Also being the I work a swing shift this is my weekend to work but I have Monday or Tuesday off does any one believe the bite will slow down Monday since the temps are dropping a little o


hawgseeker.......62 Sunday will warm waters some more and won't fall much Mon/Tues. Crappies should still be hitting if you find the schools. Colder air will keep some of fishermen home... less crowded. You may be better off! Let us know how you do.


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## hawgseeker

Awesome that's what I want to here! Thankyou


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## Jrock1085

anyone heard anything about the tournamet in April yet? I was wondering if anyone was intrested in fishing it and was needing a partner. I would like to fish in the amature division but dont know anyone here in Cincinnati that would go. If intrested text me 702 785 2480


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## zaraspook

Panfish elite said:


> Is the bite over at Grand lake that good for crappie, I've heard plenty about it from friends but never made my way over there.


Last 4 years were outstanding for crappie except fall 2016 when water depth was so shallow last 6 months. 9" minimum gets some credit for improvement in crappie fishing. Some credit owed to the awful algae problem of 2010. It resulted in low fishing pressure for couple years. Lastly, I think crappie population took a hit during 9 years of walleye stocking that ended in 2008. The 52 million walleye stocked in GLSM had to put some pressure on population. 60% of catch are keepers, mostly thick-shouldered black crappies.


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## zaraspook

Fished Saturday and Sunday at GLSM, at least 2 hours each day. Intended to hit the "active" spots on northeast banks where good crappie reports were bubbling up late week. Anglers every packed in every 8-10' both days (crowds were even bigger Sunday). At the risk of not catching anything elsewhere, I didn't join the gold rush either day. 

Fished the East Bank bulk head for 1/2 hour Saturday.....no bites there. Went home to fish my channel. This time I did manage 2 crappies.....both dinks during a 20 minute flurry where I lost 2-3 other crappies. That's the nature of the beast this time of year. Fish are in packs, not distributed on cover. Find a school and you can fill your bucket. Other wise, no bites or few bites. Saturday, I saw several fishing boats on the lake.

Sunday I found some bite action from Noon to 1:30pm. Didn't catch anything though. Bites were all short, a tap or two then jig was dropped. Changed plastics several times, even added some meat(waxies), but it didn't change the nature of the bite. May have been gills. Saw at least 4 boats Sunday......one in my channel. Two fishermen aboard asked me where the fish were. I admitted I didn't have a clue and they indicated catching no crappies, just one accidental gill in 2+ hours on the water.
Water temp was steady both days at 42, muddy with double cream in color. Light wind Saturday.....virtually no wind Sunday. Air temp delightfully in low 60's both days. State doesn't appear to be pulling water in any significant volume. Water depth at my seawall is 41-42" off my seawall, +21-22" from 2 weeks ago.


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## Redhunter1012

Just a spillway report from Saturday. Fished from 9:30-1:30. Kept 6 crappie. largest just over 10", rest were right around 9". Caught probably a dozen or so ranging from 4"-8". Tons of small bass in there as well. Headed to Indian Lake after that and fared much better


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## Saugeyefisher

What do you think is making them eat so well in those spots that are so packed compared to the rest of the spots your fishing,Sara?
More bait?cleaner water? Channel's with feeders?No feeders?
My favorite lake out here produced very well last week. Fish were actively chasing minnows in and around docks. Got them on baby shad an crickets


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## zaraspook

Common to those hot areas......all are short channels or cuts just off the main lake, docks, no feeders, cleaner water mostly, and confident crappies are there to eat baitfish. In general anything north side of lake is cleaner than the southside. Majority of the watershed for the lake is made up of 7 creeks flowing from south to north. I'm confident there are other places like these holding baitfish that crappies are busting. Tried three places that are somewhat similar, but didn't find fish.

The places holding fish aren't new......it's a common cycle every year. Big lake......lots of crappies in it.......all those crappies aren't at the few hot places. Should be plenty of other spots accessible from shore that hold big crappie schools busting baitfish. It's "hide and seek".


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## Greyduck

Made it to the lake Sunday morning after a quick limit of geese. Hit the usual spots that have a tendency to hold fish. We could not locate a school at all. We did take a drive by of the circus on the north East End of the lake. Did not see any catching going on there either. 2 short crappie for us. And that was the only 2 bites we had... good to catch crappie in January even if its just a few. Thanks Zara for the water update..


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## zaraspook

Greyduck..........at least you got one limit Sunday, the geese. Probably sealed your fate before you wet a line. Fishing gods weren't going to bless you with a 2nd limit (crappies). Agree with you that January crappies from shore are not frequent.

Loved your comment of "circus on north east end". Very appropriate.


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## Saugeyefisher

Gotcha zara an sorry didn't mean to call ya sara lol......
I don't know how one can stand fishing in a "circus".....


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## fishwhacker

Did you happen to see the thousands of snow geese on grand lake on sunday, it was incredible...i also avoided the crowd and was rewarded with 1 10inch bass and 4 or 5 small gills....i like catching fish but wont see me in that craziness rather try to find them on my own


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## Greyduck

I sure did. The snow goose range is slowly moving eastward. We see more and more of them every year.There was a small flock of snows, blues and speckled belly just north of where we were hunting sunday.


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## rutty

I fished Grand Lake Sunday as well, fished from 7:30 till 2:00 then hit Rustic for a beer and food. Didn't keep any fish, just catch and release outing on a great day in January. We couldn't find any school of fish, but would pick up 4-5 nice crappie 11-12 inchers in a given area, then wouldn't catch any more. Move and do the same thing. Didn't count them, but if had to guess probably caught 30 fish total for the day. We hit about every channel on the lake it felt like! Just a great day to be out.

Also, couldn't get any pattern at all. Caught fish on rocks, docks, lifts and wood. Fished about 2 ft deep. Color really didn't seem to matter either, or at least we couldn't find one that was better than the other.


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## tomknous

Hey rutty! Wife and I talked to you at rustic that day. We popped out too in the afternoon and played with the bluegill until dark... I've seen more shad in the channels I normally fish this weekend than I think I've ever seen! Did anyone accidentally hook into any perch or walleye over the busy weekend?


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## Saugeyefisher

rutty said:


> I fished Grand Lake Sunday as well, fished from 7:30 till 2:00 then hit Rustic for a beer and food. Didn't keep any fish, just catch and release outing on a great day in January. We couldn't find any school of fish, but would pick up 4-5 nice crappie 11-12 inchers in a given area, then wouldn't catch any more. Move and do the same thing. Didn't count them, but if had to guess probably caught 30 fish total for the day. We hit about every channel on the lake it felt like! Just a great day to be out.
> 
> Also, couldn't get any pattern at all. Caught fish on rocks, docks, lifts and wood. Fished about 2 ft deep. Color really didn't seem to matter either, or at least we couldn't find one that was better than the other.


Lol I don't even fish glsm but have been hoping between here an your alum thread waiting to see your report! I figured u were making the good decision fishing for the wide bodied shallow lake crappie over trying to find them deep on alum. Gotta love the 3 lakes in Ohio that you can target them like it's may all year long!!! 
You get any bigguns?


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Did you happen to see the thousands of snow geese on grand lake on sunday, it was incredible...i also avoided the crowd and was rewarded with 1 10inch bass and 4 or 5 small gills....i like catching fish but wont see me in that craziness rather try to find them on my own


Sorry to say I missed the snow geese invasion. I left for home before 4 pm. When was it? 
Finding a school on your own dang tough this time of year and one guy can't cover a lot of ground. Occasionally it works. 
January bass are not common. I caught one same size last week.


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## zaraspook

tomknous said:


> Hey rutty! Wife and I talked to you at rustic that day. We popped out too in the afternoon and played with the bluegill until dark... I've seen more shad in the channels I normally fish this weekend than I think I've ever seen! Did anyone accidentally hook into any perch or walleye over the busy weekend?


Last fall I committed to make more effort into enticing those perchy fish. Not that it's a huge effort, but I'm carrying a 2nd rig usually baited with 1" Gulp minnow or jig tipped with meat. While I jig for crappies I dead stick the 2nd rig under bobber near the bottom hoping to pop a perch. Ask me "how's that working out for you?".


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## fishwhacker

Saw the snow geese around 2pm....guessing no perch lol.....need some hardwater to get to the spot i want to try


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## rutty

Saugeyefisher said:


> Lol I don't even fish glsm but have been hoping between here an your alum thread waiting to see your report! I figured u were making the good decision fishing for the wide bodied shallow lake crappie over trying to find them deep on alum. Gotta love the 3 lakes in Ohio that you can target them like it's may all year long!!!
> You get any bigguns?


Didn't get any monsters, but most of the fish were 11-12 inch fat blacks. I do love fishing Alum though, but there as been such a hot bite on GLSM lately decided to try that. They shut off that day for us.


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## rutty

tomknous said:


> Hey rutty! Wife and I talked to you at rustic that day. We popped out too in the afternoon and played with the bluegill until dark... I've seen more shad in the channels I normally fish this weekend than I think I've ever seen! Did anyone accidentally hook into any perch or walleye over the busy weekend?


It was nice meeting you and your wife. Hopefully she was feeling better after the bday party....lol. Did you ever get into the crappie? We caught a few real nice gills (actually snagged them), but wasn't targeting them. We also caught shad in the mouth, they were so thick in most channels we went in as well.


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## tomknous

Only one crappie for us ... hugging the bottom with our ice rods off the docks for the most part ... still wishing we were on 4/6/8 inches of ice right now, but plan to give it another shot with long rods tonight !


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Saw the snow geese around 2pm....guessing no perch lol.....need some hardwater to get to the spot i want to try


Of course your correct........no perch for my efforts. However, earliest in the year I've caught GLSM perch is Feb 1. Wasn't expecting to get them yet. When we have Feb open water, it time to ring the bell. Go get some!

By the way I fished today Weds 25th. Line in water at 1:30 pm. An hour later (2:30), I'd caught 9 crappies! All 9 were diseased.......it's called SF Syndrome. Happens when fish are exposed to low water conditions for an excessive time period. They don't grow right. Yep, all 9 showed various levels of the syndrome. SF, you know, "short fish". Took another 2 hours to catch the next 8 crappies. 17 crappies total but only 3 legal between 9.5-10.5". Absolutely thrilled to to catch any crappies.....bigger ones will come. Biggest one today is below. Water temp 41.5 degrees Weds. Starting Thursday 9 consecutive nights have sub-freezing low temps. Lake water temp is heading south. Glad I caught some fish before the hard stuff shows again.
View media item 79650


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## rutty

zaraspook said:


> All 9 were diseased.......it's called SF Syndrome. Yep, all 9 showed various levels of the syndrome. SF, you know, "short fish". 11:19 PM[/GALLERY]


I call it a disease as well, tail too close to their head disease!


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## zaraspook

State is pulling a lot of water at spillway. 489 cu-ft/sec and gage height 9.2 feet. This round started Tues. Previous round started 1/18 and ended 21st(Sat). water depth off my seawall is about 41-42" Weds. Lake maintaining 21-22" gain in depth from couple weeks ago. It's nice. Pretty certain they'd like to pull at least 1/2 the gain off before spring rains but can't dump it in a single swoop. Too wet downstream to distribute water.

My 17 crappies yesterday were caught in 4-4.5 FOW. Same water in Nov-Dec- earlier Jan. was about 2' and wouldn't give up a bite.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> State is pulling a lot of water at spillway. 489 cu-ft/sec and gage height 9.2 feet. This round started Tues. Previous round started 1/18 and ended 21st(Sat). water depth off my seawall is about 41-42" Weds. Lake maintaining 21-22" gain in depth from couple weeks ago. It's nice. Pretty certain they'd like to pull at least 1/2 the gain off before spring rains but can't dump it in a single swoop. Too wet downstream to distribute water.
> 
> My 17 crappies yesterday were caught in 4-4.5 FOW. Same water in Nov-Dec- earlier Jan. was about 2' and wouldn't give up a bite.


Crazy crappies..... I'm not gonna lie I have been pleasantly surprised how well the crappie have adjusted to Buckeye,And it's crazy low water right now. Pulling slabs were it seams so shallow there backs should stick out of the water....lol set a hook on one ice fishing an it comes flying out the hole.


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## zaraspook

As of now DNR has been pulling water 5 full days at spillway. Lake should be showing signs of decreasing levels. Gage height steady at 9 ft. Can anyone confirm drop and how is hard water looking?


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## zaraspook

6 days continuous and flow remains high at spillway according to USGS website. Gage height barely above 9'. No reason to expect this will stop for a while, but a surprise would be nice.


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## Salmonid

Latest statement from the Lake association off of Face Book
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Lake Improvement Association
Like This PagePage Liked · 10 mins · 

Why is water being let out of Grand Lake St. Marys? 

Many people have been wondering why water is being let out of Grand Lake St. Marys. Ohio Department of Natural Resources issued the following statement that explains the Grand Lake St. Marys draw-down. This statement is republished here, unedited:

Begin a draw down in the fall after activities on the lake have been completed. Draw down will ce...ase when the lake reaches 9 inches below normal pool (bottom of notch).

Once achieved, draw down will cease but monitored, retaining the ability and intent to restart drawdowns to keep the lake at a maximum of 9 inches below normal pool if winter rains have elevated the lake and minimized capacity for the spring rains. Ice conditions could be a factor of consideration during the winter drawdowns.

The intent is to cease the drawdowns during March of each year but continue to monitor lake level for further drawdowns after if lake capacity is a concern for spring rains.

During all of this process, Beaver Creek capacity will be also monitored to keep flooding downstream at a minimum.

Reasons why the Lake Level MGMT plan was created
· 1 gate fully open (60”) takes approximately 3 days to lower Lake Level 1”
· Flooding of properties, homes, condos, and subdivisions around the lake
· Dock damage both private and state
· High Lake levels can cause the Montezuma Club Island sewer system to be inundated with surface water causing sewage to overflow into the lake
· High Lake levels with high winds greatly increase erosion to state and private property
· Lake level management requires a proactive approach due to many circumstances

How the Lake Level MGMT plan came to fruition 
· 9 area persons not including any parks officials created the document which consisted of local leaders, lakeside business owner, representative of the LIA
· ODNR adopted the locally developed plan

Proactive lake level management is practiced to help prevent the flooding of private property, damage to docks, sewage overflows and erosion.

Last year, the area experienced a significant drought throughout the boating season which did impact lake levels.

However, the lake still reached “full pool” in both March and April.

History consistently indicates that the current drawdowns should show no significant impact on lake levels during the boating season.

The summer and fall of 2016 has been declared a National Disaster by the US Department of Agriculture.


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## zaraspook

The water level management plan is fine. Tactical execution is where the state goes crazy. If you get 12" of rain in one month late spring-early summer, it doesn't mean you should expect to get 12" the next month. In fact, that may be the last significant rain you see the rest of the summer (so it went in 2016). DNR pulls it all off plus more during one steady drawdown.......drought the rest of summer, almost 2' low by August, and boat owners are pulling boats out before Labor Day holiday due to dangerously shallow water. The "posted water management plan" states current drawdowns show no significant impact on lake levels during boating season" ? That's bull-puckey. Whoever writes that claim is neither a boat owner nor marina owner. They need to talk to get out of the office and talk to people.

My suggestion continues to be "moderation" and to be conservative. If they need to draw down 12", that's great. Do it in 3-steps, or 2-steps. 4" out then wait a few weeks. Let's see if precipitation continues before we take out another 4". Take out 4" more and reassess again. You can always take out more, but once the water is gone, you're screwed. 2 of the last 5 summers we've been constrained by severely low water levels in a lake that is very shallow to begin with. And last year, we got sufficient rain to keep lake at a nice level. Problem was DNR drew it off early and it was gone, gone, gone. Hey guys....take it easy, slow down, a little bit here then a little bit there. What's the rush?


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## zaraspook

Heard a large number of reports of limit catches, big crappies, just a great bite from many areas on GLSM's south side. Those results were mostly from middle of last week through the weekend. Fish were in channels, hungry, and chasing. I haven't been since Weds last week and word is channels are building ice now. Looks like I missed the flurry of activity.


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## Greyduck

I got up to the lake for some evening crappie. Some ice .. some open channels. Brought home 15 chunks.... the biggest being 13" ....most in the 11 to 12". The bite was very light. Lost quite a few fish dragging them up. Threw the net in the truck when I got home. So next time I won't forget it!


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## T04DF15H

Greyduck said:


> I got up to the lake for some evening crappie. Some ice .. some open channels. Brought home 15 chunks.... the biggest being 13" ....most in the 11 to 12". The bite was very light. Lost quite a few fish dragging them up. Threw the net in the truck when I got home. So next time I won't forget it!


Greyduck, I thought a guy next to me was going to go into the channel trying to retrieve one of those fish that got off the hook. I'm thinking it was you, right?


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## Greyduck

Yes it was.... those were some cat like moves not for amateurs! Nice meeting you guys yesterday.


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## zaraspook

Good to hear some found a decent bite yesterday. Went to GLSM yesterday/Weds and got in 2 hours of fishing. Before fishing scouted a few south side places to check ice cover and to see if/where anyone was fishing. Montezuma, Behm's, Windy Point all had sufficient open water to fish. Of those spots only Windy Point had fishermen....a single guy fishing the State ramp/docks and a clump of 4 tightly packed on a single clump of cover. Sunny Side was locked up with ice. At my channel the mouth and first 100 yards was open - wind was pushing waves in and eating ice at a good pace. 80-90% ice cover the rest of the way back into my channel. With only 2-hours to fish, decided just to stay there, fish the few open pockets and break some skim ice in a couple other spots.

Broke up skim ice for first 30 minutes in 3 areas I hoped would be fishable later. Worked 2 decent size areas of open water for the next hour. No bites. 2 of the 3 spots where I broke skim showed enough water to fish. Wasn't ready for the first bite of the day......thankfully the gill inhaled my plastic. At 6" it was decent, but most important that gill lifted the skunk. No more bites there. The final spot really lacked sufficient open water to fish than 10 minutes. Surprised me to picked one short crappie from that spot. 2 bites - 2 fish. Went home about 3pm.

Skim ice off my seawall never cleared sufficiently to fish it. Water level at my seawall measured 37", which is down 5" since the current draw down started 1/21. Flow at spillway continues, 450 cu-ft/sec, and gage height 8.9'. Pretty sure DNR will continue to pull while main lake is ice free. Once lake gets substantial ice, lowering water level pulls ice down with it and damage docks/structures. A couple years ago a winter draw down cost the State $270,000 to repair docks (only the State owned docks).


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## zaraspook

Draw down is in 14th consecutive day. Volume remains steady at 450 cu-ft/sec and gage height 8.9 ft. Let's close those tubes for a few weeks? Days? Hours?


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## bigmexican

zaraspook said:


> Draw down is in 14th consecutive day. Volume remains steady at 450 cu-ft/sec and gage height 8.9 ft. Let's close those tubes for a few weeks? Days? Hours?


They shut 1 tube this afternoon. Crappie bite below the spillway was slow to nonexistent.


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## zaraspook

big mex......USGS website confirms the change. It shows spillway flow dropped to 270 cu-ft/sec at about 3-4 pm Saturday. Gage height down to 7.27. 
Curious to know.......was crappie bite already slow before closing tube or did bite turn puny after closing? From 450 to 270 cu-ft/sec is 40% flow reduction.


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## trailbreaker

Is GLSM open or frozen


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## bigmexican

trailbreaker said:


> Is GLSM open or frozen


As of yesterday it's frozen.I only fished the spillway for an hour or so and they didn't bite any better when both tubes were open or after they shut one.Everyone l talked to said they were not having mutch luck.


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## firemanmike2127

I have only seen one tube open at the west end of the lake recently (all last week ?) My observations were from the front seat while driving by on 127, so I may not have seen where both tubes were open. I haven't fished below the spillway yet this year, but did stop by there a few days ago while walking my dog & only a single tube was flowing. Has anyone checked to see if there is water being released at the east end ? Mike


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## fishwhacker

Only got out for an hr today and all was frozen drilled some holes at the end of a dock and got 2 gills but missed about 7 bites nothing too impressive but a nice sunny day to be out


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## zaraspook

Better than sitting on your backside. Pretty gill is a bonus!


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## Lowell H Turner

Well done ! Better than not fishing at all. Have finally realized the word " work" is the same sort of foul word as the 7 you can't say on public airwaves according to the late George Carlin... funny he didn't include that particular 1. But soon... (Insert evil laughter sound effect here )


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Well done ! Better than not fishing at all. Have finally realized the word " work" is the same sort of foul word as the 7 you can't say on public airwaves according to the late George Carlin... funny he didn't include that particular 1. But soon... (Insert evil laughter sound effect here )


Good to hear from you, LHT. Miss your humor and that "edge" normally lurking somewhere in your commentary.


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## zaraspook

Spillway flow down to 19 cu-ft/sec as of about 11pm Monday night. That's purely a trickle compared to 270 cu-ft/sec the last 2+ days. Gage height down to 4.8'. May run up there Tuesday - measure water depth off my seawall. Hope to still have 30" depth remaining.


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## Lowell H Turner

Has any cover been added to any dredged/ deeper water per chance ?


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## zaraspook

No cover added by me. At GLSM they don't dredge any closer than 15' from seawalls/bank. Need boat for drops. My boat still in storage.


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## T04DF15H

Front page article in yesterday's Daily Standard where the LIA is going to push to have the state set the lake normal level at spillway notch rather than 9" below. That would be good news.


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## T04DF15H

jmaury said:


> Front page article in yesterday's Daily Standard where the LIA is going to push to have the state set the lake normal level at spillway notch rather than 9" below. That would be good news.


Here is a link directly to the Lake Improvement Association.
https://lakeimprovement.com/video-group-address-lake-levels/


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## zaraspook

jmaury said:


> Front page article in yesterday's Daily Standard where the LIA is going to push to have the state set the lake normal level at spillway notch rather than 9" below. That would be good news.


Nice to know others have been bitching, too. And better yet, clearly someone has listened. Managing a shallow lake, and one with very slow water turnover, with a policy that favors worse and sustained shallow conditions is ridiculous. It's easier to pull it down (conditions you can control) than to fill it up (Mother Nature can't be controlled).


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## zaraspook

Didn't get into an outstanding bite today, but caught a few anyway. Spillway first stop for 75 minutes. Kind of a weird mix here - 2 dink crappies and 3 small (8-10") bass. No natural for me to pull in more bass than crappies. About 12-15 fishermen at spillway. Saw a guy lose a piggy "eye" at the bank, then same guy caught about a 3 pound bass later. couldn't identify his bait other than color - white.

Next stop was Hecht's. Fished 20 minutes....quit there when those 30 mph winds blew my cast 40' left of target. Lure wrapped 10 times around a limb that flagged down my errant toss. Broke that one off. Tied on new but left to try a NE side spot with a number of docks. Fish were not on the docks but were definitely stacked off the opposite side of the channel. While I caught 4 crappies (all keepers 10-11" fish), 3 guys on the other side must have caught 50 in the same time frame. The trio were about 4' apart, never moved, and were on that spot who knows how long before I arrived. Most of their fish were caught 8-15' off the bank and fishing 2.5-3' deep. Anyone fishing on my side was casting directly into those 30+ mph winds and we couldn't reach that area across the channel where fish were stacked .

Ventured back to my place. Ice prevented me from fishing it earlier. Shocked to find no ice, 100% clear, just 3 hours later. Probably should have come here sooner.....three 11" fish in about 30 minutes. Those are the biggest I've run into from my channel this year. Total today - 3 bass, 9 crappies with 7 keepers in 3.5 hours. Enough to keep me happy in first week of February.

By the way, water depth off my seawall was 32". DNR's drawdown removed 12" which is half of the 24" gain in depth picked up in December-January. Wish they were less aggressive...guess I've repeated that opinion a few times lately.


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## Greyduck

My boys was up tuesday. They hit a few spots before finding a school. They brought home 41. Pink was the hot color.


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## Salmonid

Rande, looks like Ill be up Next Sunday,( not this one but Next) picking up the boat after having more work done, I may see if I can get Scott to tag along


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> My boys was up tuesday. They hit a few spots before finding a school. They brought home 41. Pink was the hot color.


All but 1 of my fish yesterday, including the 3 bass, were on pink of some sort. Still the hot ticket. I don't recall seeing any crappie guy yesterday not using pink of some variety. When you get on a school I think lots of colors will work but we are reluctant to switch.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Rande, looks like Ill be up Next Sunday,( not this one but Next) picking up the boat after having more work done, I may see if I can get Scott to tag along


Sounds like a winner. Keep me posted. Haven't fished on weekends for a while. Would be nice for a change.


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## brad crappie

Was thinking of coming down from the Cleveland area but is there going to be to much ice in the channels? Thanks!


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## zaraspook

Had to take care of an issue at my lake place on Weds. Managed to get in 2 hours of fishing while there. Snow was just starting. First 45 minutes produced just one fish, a legal crappie. At my 6th spot thought for sure I was on a school. First crappie was a dink and the next 4 successively bigger, followed by another dink The biggest, pic below, didn't quite make the 12" line .  The 6 fish came in 15 minutes then disappeared. I tried to the right, to left left, farther out, closer in. Vanished!

Took a lunch break then at it again for 45 minutes without a bump. Headed south for home. Snow was 2.5-3" when I left. 5 keepers among the 7 caught today.View media item 79672


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## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> Was thinking of coming down from the Cleveland area but is there going to be to much ice in the channels? Thanks!


Tough to predict ice. Lake/channels are slowly warming and becomes tougher for ice to get going. Some channels still had some ice on Tues. This cold shot only 2 days long, then back to 3-4 days with low temps no worse than 30. Wind will be biggest factor to reduce ice and decent winds expected 3 of next 4 days. Should be open water available......just a guess.


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## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> Tough to predict ice. Lake/channels are slowly warming and becomes tougher for ice to get going. Some channels still had some ice on Tues. This cold shot only 2 days long, then back to 3-4 days with low temps no worse than 30. Wind will be biggest factor to reduce ice and decent winds expected 3 of next 4 days. Should be open water available......just a guess.


Thanks bud


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## zaraspook

Initially planned to try fishing GLSM Saturday, but a neighbor said although my channel looked ice free, it was water on top the ice. No open water. Went up Sunday instead, fishing my channel, another nearby spot, plus Harmon's. Turned out to be futile......4 bites and no fish in 3+ hours. Ego was bruised but easier to swallow since I'd heard Saturday's bite was puny, too. As ESPN College Game Day host Lee Corso likes to say "*not so fast*". Later Sunday I heard at least one OGF guy put a limit in his bucket. My ego is now down around my ankles......

Any day, any lake, you may not be catching them, but you can take it to the bank that someone else is filling the boat/bucket.  Water temp was 35.6 degrees. Water level was up 3-4".......most of it due to those frisky winds driving water my direction.


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## harrison08

Fished Saturday with my brother and a buddy. Started at the Sailboat Club along with about 30 others. After 3 hours of fishing, we had 15 or 16 in the bucket. We traveled along looking for another place and ended up at ole reliable for me.....the spillway. The action was non existent for the first hour or so.....then things picked up. We hit one little spot and were on 'em. We had 45min to an hour of fishing fury, picking up some beauties! Crappies were hitting in one spot and one spot only.


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## zaraspook

Nice going harrison08. Boat club had 30 or more fishing Sunday, another 20 at the channel immediately east, plus 20+ at East Bank State ramp. How crowded was spillway Saturday?


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## harrison08

zaraspook said:


> Nice going harrison08. Boat club had 30 or more fishing Sunday, another 20 at the channel immediately east, plus 20+ at East Bank State ramp. How crowded was spillway Saturday?


It wasnt terrible. The south side was iced in to about 8 feet out, so everyone (or most everyone) was fishing the north side of the spillway. People came and went. Saw some toothy critters caught.....some real dandy fish!


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## zaraspook

My wife drafted me for an assignment today......make an hour and a half drive to Wapak. Property taxes due today (15th) and she forgot to mail check. Yes "dear", but I think I'll stop by the lake house to fish for a couple hours if it's OK with you? 3 hours of driving for 2.5 hours of fishing. I'll take that offer anytime.

When I started fishing at 2:40pm, wind was northerly at 20-25mph. Water temp 37.3 degrees and waves rolling down my channel. Air temp was 32-33 degrees and a few flakes of snow appeared at times. My seawall was the closest spot so started there. Had a couple bites right away, whiffed on hook sets, but a good sign for sure. At the end of hour #1, I've caught 11 crappies with 6 in the bucket without moving more than 5 steps. Biggest is 12.25" with weight 1.09 pounds.

Second hour fishing slows down while wind went faster. 3 more crappies from my seawall and 4 from seawall/boat ramp nearby. Of those 7, 3 are keepers. 1/2 of that 2nd hour is spent at 3 other spots without a nibble. Two hour total is now 18 caught, 9 keepers. I spend the final 30 minutes trying to catch 2 more crappies to hit the 20 mark. Manage only one, a dink, and that 19th fish/crappie came upon return to my seawall. Should mention catching 2 gills, too......both good size for this time of year. Pic below is biggest crappie today, which measures 12.25" with mouth closed, tail straightened and pinched. Fish moved while I attempted photo. A nice recreational break this afternoon.

View media item 79732


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## jon84

Fishing was really slow today. I only saw 4 or 5 caught


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## zaraspook

Saturday fishing with grandson at GLSM. He caught 4 gills. I caught 13 crappies with 6 keepers. First 45-60 minutes we focused on getting him into a few gills. Mission accomplished......I fished for crappies during that time frame but didn't get a whiff of a bite. He quit after his 4th, as I pretty much expected. Concentrated on crappies and picked up 2 near some wood....both were dinks. Had a string or good bumps but it seemed they didn't want to eat the Panfish Assassin, chartreuse with specks, I was throwing. Changed to grub, black body with chartreuse twister tail. Crappies liked the change. Pulled 11 more in about 30 minutes from the same cover basic I'd worked with the Panfish Assassin shad body. 

A guy and his partner in a boat witnessed my action and related they'd caught just one crappie in a couple hours. Since I couldn't reach from bank most of the limb where my fish were, I suggested they work the outside of it and I backed off the spot. 15 minutes or so for them produced a couple bites, no fish, and they headed out my channel. I came back to the spot 20 minutes later.......no action. Fished 2 other spots for 1/2 hour......no bites. All 13 crappies, 6 keepers, caught in the one spot in maybe 45 minutes. Not a bite before and after the "gold rush". Good chance the guy's boat spooked the school I was sitting on, but fish could have simply moved on. Next time in a similar situation, not sure I'll be as quick to move away.

Water temp was 42.6, up at least 5 degrees from a couple days earlier. Anyone I talked to unanimously was glad to get out, not thrilled by the lack of success.


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## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> Saturday fishing with grandson at GLSM. He caught 4 gills. I caught 13 crappies with 6 keepers. First 45-60 minutes we focused on getting him into a few gills. Mission accomplished......I fished for crappies during that time frame but didn't get a whiff of a bite. He quit after his 4th, as I pretty much expected. Concentrated on crappies and picked up 2 near some wood....both were dinks. Had a string or good bumps but it seemed they didn't want to eat the Panfish Assassin, chartreuse with specks, I was throwing. Changed to grub, black body with chartreuse twister tail. Crappies liked the change. Pulled 11 more in about 30 minutes from the same cover basic I'd worked with the Panfish Assassin shad body.
> 
> A guy and his partner in a boat witnessed my action and related they'd caught just one crappie in a couple hours. Since I couldn't reach from bank most of the limb where my fish were, I suggested they work the outside of it and I backed off the spot. 15 minutes or so for them produced a couple bites, no fish, and they headed out my channel. I came back to the spot 20 minutes later.......no action. Fished 2 other spots for 1/2 hour......no bites. All 13 crappies, 6 keepers, caught in the one spot in maybe 45 minutes. Not a bite before and after the "gold rush". Good chance the guy's boat spooked the school I was sitting on, but fish could have simply moved on. Next time in a similar situation, not sure I'll be as quick move away.
> 
> Water temp was 42.6, up at least 5 degrees from a couple days earlier. Anyone I talked to unanimously was glad to get out, not thrilled by the lack of success.


I made it down from Berea on sat it was slow but got around 25 with my buddy one fish o with 12 keepers! Let the big one go! Heard Friday in one channel they killed them on the north side!


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## zaraspook

Brad crappie.....along north east corner of lake 3-4 channels have been rotating as hot spots over last several weeks. Lot of limits consistently taken. Sounds like you did fine. Amazing how many times you hear "they killed them yesterday"!


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## RMK

hello! i m new to the forum and have to say this is the thread that brought me here. thanks for you guys updates. very much appreciated. hopefully i will be able to contribute with some updates in the near future.


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## zaraspook

RMK....welcome to OGF and hope our thread serves you well. Some amazing fishing minds contribute to this thread. Impossible not to learn from them, both crappie strategies and techniques. Good luck fishing. Share your successes and frustrations. We'll learn from you, too.


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## zaraspook

Made it to my GLSM lake place today. That's a good thing. Had to take care of a pissy problem.....leaky toilet. Not so good a thing. Managed to work in 3 sessions of crappie fishing. First was a 45 minute tour.......3-4 gill tugs, no fish. Gee.....water temp is 44.7, up 2 degrees. Where's the bite?

Round #2 is more intense, more thorough, more cover hit. More effort doesn't guarantee results, at least not at fishing. Results? One crappie, a legal one. Fished that spot heavily looking others in the school. My fish must have been truant. Not in school today.

Final round headed for a spot discovered last fall. Figured it would be good this spring when water is higher. Fished it twice previously this year with negative results......but learning more about it each time. Caught 5 crappies, all keepers 10.5-11.5" in the first 40 minutes. Remaining 20 minutes just before dark was scoreless. 6 crappies - 6 keepers today. Only bait to produce a crappie today was the Triple Tip grub/twister tail. Color called popsicle (purple and pink bi-color grub body with chartreuse tail) caught the final 5 fish.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try.......? You know the rest of the saying. All fishermen memorized it about the same time as they began catching fish.


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## Saugeyefisher

Wtg zara!!!! That's one style of plastic I don't try enough under a bobber I will be adding some to my crappie dipping box!!!!!


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## brandonw

Saugeyefisher said:


> Wtg zara!!!! That's one style of plastic I don't try enough under a bobber I will be adding some to my crappie dipping box!!!!!


Hm I didn't read where he said he used in under a float, I just assumed he was casting it? 

I purchased a few of the triple tip grubs to try this offseason. I got the black/blue chart tail. Heard great things and I'm excited to try them.


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## Saugeyefisher

I'm assuming he's using a float because of the way bites are described.
An knowing what type of structure zara is fishing....bit I could be wrong,and we all know zara never shares his winning tactics.....
Crappie love the swing an pause action a bobber gives your jig. An sometimes they want jigs so small and light a bobber is the only way to effectively cast....


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## tracker_80

Not much luck today, seems like all the guys I spoke with had a slow day. Only caught a few keepers, all came within 5ft. of shore with some sort of structure. I was fishing some of the normal spots on the north side.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> I'm assuming he's using a float because of the way bites are described.
> An knowing what type of structure zara is fishing....bit I could be wrong,and we all know zara never shares his winning tactics.....
> Crappie love the swing an pause action a bobber gives your jig. An sometimes they want jigs so small and light a bobber is the only way to effectively cast....


Saugeyefisher has it right. Majority of GLSM guys use bobbers. Casting light jigheads is tough, plus difficult to feel and maintain speed/depth of those jig heads. Bobber adds some mass to aid casting and maintain consistent depth of bait.


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## zaraspook

Fishing buddy Scott joined me yesterday at GLSM. First opportunity for us to pair up this year. 1pm when first line was wet, starting at the same channel that produced most of the crappies I caught Tuesday evening. Of course I stuck with the same bait as day before - popsicle colored Southern Pro Triple Tip. Scott's bait was also a grub/twister tail.....bait was different color and slightly bigger profile. Bite wasn't terrific but I was losing fish and landing 3-4 fish. No bites/fish for Scott so he accepted my offer to try a popsicle. Shortly thereafter Scott was on the board and if memory is correct, that fish was the biggest of the day, barely short of 12".

For 3 hours we worked a 150 yard stretch of that same channel. When we quit we'd caught 26 crappies, all but 4 were legal keepers. Our competition this day was uncannily close. Both of us landed 13 crappies. Each had 11 keepers. Both put 6 keepers in the bucket (bucket fish are 10" or better). Both caught one small bass. Both caught 100% of our fish on the popsicle triple tips.

We walked back to my place and decided an "overtime period" was required to determine the day's "champion". This was "sudden death"......first crappie wins. Half an hour later our competition ended. Hunger was the winner. 3 spots tried near my place and neither of us could muster a bite, let alone a fish.

I'm awarding Scott the trophy. After all, though we tied in every category, he had the biggest fish. (Plus, Scott's soups are nothing short of outstanding! Giving up a single day trophy is a small price to pay for gourmet food fare.)

By the way.....water temp at my seawall was 47.1 degrees (that's incredible for February). Also, the early fish I caught were 10-15' our from rip-rap bank. All others 3-7' from bank with some cover/brush.
View media item 79752


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## RMK

i ll be heading out for the first time tomorrow. willing to share how deep you ve been fishing zara?


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## Robert Unversaw

Haven't fished there since I was a kid. I miss that place!


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## CHOPIQ

Headed to St Marys tomorrow for Moms birthday. Plan on hitting GLSM for a couple hours for some crappie fishing. I'll let you know how I do. Not sure where we are starting at, guess play it by ear and drive around for awhile.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> i ll be heading out for the first time tomorrow. willing to share how deep you ve been fishing zara?


Sure........best estimate is 20-28 inches under bobber if casting out very far. However, good number of our crappies Weds came from 12-18" of water. Surprised me fish were so shallow. We would have missed 1/2 our catch if we ignored very shallow light brush or cover. Remember, day to day things change. 

If what you're doing isn't working, change it. When I change bobber depth at GLSM, I usually do it at least 6". In a deeper lake 6" is nothing. At GLSM if you were fishing 2 ft under bobber in 4.5 ft of water, then 6" deeper eats up another 20% of the remaining water column. That's a significant change. If you only change the bobber by 2", as most people do, that's less than 7% of remaining water column. Why bother?

Good luck fishing!


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## zaraspook

CHOPIQ said:


> Headed to St Marys tomorrow for Moms birthday. Plan on hitting GLSM for a couple hours for some crappie fishing. I'll let you know how I do. Not sure where we are starting at, guess play it by ear and drive around for awhile.


I know at least one guy who limited today. I didn't fish.


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## RMK

thank you! hopefully i ll update tomorrow night with what worked and not just what didnt!


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## RMK

no luck for me today. fished 3 channels on the north side. I caught a 3.5 lb carp at the first stop. not even a bite after that. a lot of others trying it on andersons channel. very rough water on the main lake. i went home and took my frustrations out on some bluegill in the pond since i have been looking forward to cleaning some fish all week! anybody else do better than me today?


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## zaraspook

I was determined to fish either Thurs or Fri, before the record warm temps disappeared. It didn't happen Thurs, but I made it to GLSM today for a 90 minute session. It seemed slower today but results similar to Weds. Weds I caught 12 with 10 legal fish in 3 hours. Today caught 7 with 6 legal in half the time. But Weds I lost a high number of fish, therefore more action. Didn't lose any today. All my fish were within 10' of bank.....3 were again in water 2' or less, but 4 were out 7-10' off rip-rap.

Tried more bait options today, but popsicle color Triple Tip by Southern Pro was again only bait to produce. Water temp in my channel was a crazy 51.9 degrees, up almost 5 degrees in 2 days. Shallow fish were caught 10" under bobber. Rip-rap fish took bait about 30-34" under bobber. Medium speed sweeping of rod/bobber for 12-18", pause for about 3 seconds, sweep again. pause. The rig with popsicle plastic has a 32nd oz jig head. Photo below is of 4 crappies today I had in bucket between 10-11.5" to clean. Let them go when I didn't add more.
View media item 79759


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## RMK

thanks zara! very much appreciate the info and the updates.


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## zaraspook

When these big crappie schools gather in channels and you see 30+ guys pounding them for limits, I figured crappies were in those locations hammering shad. Smallest shad I see are 4" range, maybe a little less. That's more than a mouthful for typical 10-11" crappie. What the heck are the crappies schools feeding on these days?


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## Saugeyefisher

Zara the ones imcutting up frombuckeye are loaded with 3" shad. So many you smell shad as yourcutting up fish....
Warm weather had them gorging! 
Here's to the next end of winter warm up


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## zaraspook

Maybe Salmonid will chime in on GLSM shad size. Just because I haven't seen 3" ones doesn't mean none are there. Salmonid is the Sultan of Shad at GLSM. Recently, think he scooped enough for a couple months in 2 throws of castnet. He'll probably know when last shad spawn occurred and how big those fish should be.

And thinking about it, a 3" shad isn't 3" tall. Height is more of a factor than length, right?


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## GOOSE48

Some of the ones I cut last week had shad in there bellies


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Maybe Salmonid will chime in on GLSM shad size. Just because I haven't seen 3" ones doesn't mean none are there. Salmonid is the Sultan of Shad at GLSM. Recently, think he scooped enough for a couple months in 2 throws of castnet. He'll probably know when last shad spawn occurred and how big those fish should be.
> 
> And thinking about it, a 3" shad isn't 3" tall. Height is more of a factor than length, right?


No your right,for a big slab,3" is nothing. As a matter of fact,when there mixed in with eyes we catch them on full sized stickbaits quite often


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> No your right,for a big slab,3" is nothing. As a matter of fact,when there mixed in with eyes we catch them on full sized stickbaits quite often


How big a shad is too big?


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> How big a shad is too big?


Good question. I'm sure your right that the 4" shad your seeing are typically to big for a 10/11" crappie to key in on. And I imagine the ones we get on big sticks and swimbaits (as big as the 3.25" Joshy for me) are more a reaction bite then normal feeding.
From a lot I've read during a "normal" winter crappie are able to see and key in on very small even microscopic at times forage. But these article normally refered to deep lakes in main lake baron muddy bottom areas. And this is why small tungsten jigs work so well under the ice in many of are deeper lakes. But I feel crappie in indian/buckeye/glsm are forced to be different at times.
So what other "baitfish" could potentially school up in glsm? Could there be big time winter bug hatches going on? 
Buckeye the last month I've noticed shad from 1-1/2" up to the big 13/14"ers. And every size in between. And a few days in to these warm trends I've noticed tons of tiny 3/4-1" minnows really tight to shore and pcs of structure. 
Lol I don't know the answer s I just like talking about them


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## Barga.22

I saw a ton of shad in the 2-3" range the other night at it's it. It was later. Could see them in huge schools under my head lamp. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Salmonid

Last week I did net several in the 2.5-3" range, no problem with a 9+" crappie to eat that. next time you catch a 10" crappie, open its mouth and measure the gape and remember, what your seeing is the normal gape, not a stretched one when they are feeding. Make sense?


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## Greyduck

At Grand this morning. Bite was good all morning. We brought home 44 over 10". The bite was light at first light. My buddy must of lost 20 the first hour. Chartreuse was the color of the day. Depths veried at times.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Last week I did net several in the 2.5-3" range, no problem with a 9+" crappie to eat that. next time you catch a 10" crappie, open its mouth and measure the gape and remember, what your seeing is the normal gape, not a stretched one when they are feeding. Make sense?


Can envision 3" and maybe getting 4" into mouth. Swallowing it seems like another story. When would last shad spawn have occurred in 2016, Mark?


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Good question. I'm sure your right that the 4" shad your seeing are typically to big for a 10/11" crappie to key in on. And I imagine the ones we get on big sticks and swimbaits (as big as the 3.25" Joshy for me) are more a reaction bite then normal feeding.
> From a lot I've read during a "normal" winter crappie are able to see and key in on very small even microscopic at times forage. But these article normally refered to deep lakes in main lake baron muddy bottom areas. And this is why small tungsten jigs work so well under the ice in many of are deeper lakes. But I feel crappie in indian/buckeye/glsm are forced to be different at times.
> So what other "baitfish" could potentially school up in glsm? Could there be big time winter bug hatches going on?
> Buckeye the last month I've noticed shad from 1-1/2" up to the big 13/14"ers. And every size in between. And a few days in to these warm trends I've noticed tons of tiny 3/4-1" minnows really tight to shore and pcs of structure.
> Lol I don't know the answer s I just like talking about them


Saugeyefisher, cool commentary from you. ........last Weds my fishing buddy and I noticed most of our crappies were coming close to bank, water depth in some cases under a foot. Seemed weird and we were curious what the heck they were feeding on. Plus, we'd noticed all the shad we saw were 3-4", but mostly 4" or more. Therefore, when buddy Scott cleaned 12 fish that were 10-12", he took it a step farther to get clues on diet. I had expected the fish to be packed with shad. Surprise.....not one of the 12 stomachs contained any shad. One had a 1.5-2" minnow (like you we've observed small numbers of minnows in the shallows). One fish had a 2" leech in its belly. Majority of stomach content appeared to be larval insects. These 12 fish pretty much confirmed your statements about crappie diets.

All these fish came from the same channel, like I said that held lots of 4" or nearly 4+" shad. No 1-2" shad where we've been fishing the last several weeks, at least none that we've seen. These fish may have been deprived of shad they could eat, and clearly shad was not in their recent diet. Maybe they were forced to eat other stuff and elsewhere. Maybe they actually prefer the bugs in various stages. The fish were in and around light brush, twigs, limbs very close to bank. In fact we were catching them in spots that would have been dry land 3 months ago. These 12 fish didn't eat shad recently. Made me doubt the theory that big schools of crappies are pounding schools of shad. At some point those shad outgrow the odds of ending up in the bowels of a crappie.
Everyone seems to be in agreement.......10-11" crappies can handle 3" shad. You and I doubt that a 4" shad is in much danger from crappies. Maybe some other GLSM guys can open a few bellies, measure those shad they find?


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## zaraspook

Fishing buddy Scott and I did some Sunday GLSM fishing. Started just before noon and fished with Scott until 3:30pm. Had a decent bite going right away from my seawall, but those fish weren't as robust as we'd pulled from other spots recently. Yes, we left a good bite and headed to a spot we expected to hold better fish. Yes, if not for one crappie, we'd both would have skunked it up at the "better" spot.

Caught a few more at my seawall, then moved and found a crazy bite. Probably caught nearly 30 between us at that place (one 10" fish after another but rarely bigger than 10"). By then Scott needed to depart. He'd caught 23 crappies with 12 keepers. I had 27 crappies with 20 keepers. Scott took home 13 for table fare and all others returned to catch next time. Biggest was 11"+ caught by Scott.

At 4:30 I decided to try for 3 more fish to get to 30. Got a quick one off my seawall then moved to a spot I hadn't tried. Good move. An hour later I was at 49, needing 1 more for 50. Took another 24 minutes to land number 50. Fish were out further here, and bigger, chunkier ones that we hoped for when we started. At the end I finished with 38 keepers from the 50 caught.

I fished my recent hot bait, the popsicle color triple tip, earlier in the day. Caught zero fish on it, though Scott did ok with popsicle. Thanks for the color "tip", jmaury. 100% of my catch on a color you suggested.


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## Saugeyefisher

Wow great job! You have earned that outing!


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> At Grand this morning. Bite was good all morning. We brought home 44 over 10". The bite was light at first light. My buddy must of lost 20 the first hour. Chartreuse was the color of the day. Depths veried at times.


You mentioned the light bite and losing fish Sunday morning......experienced similar situation Sunday afternoon and evening. Repeatedly, crappies hit the plastic, dropped it, hit again and drop again, as many as 4 times with hits several seconds apart before sucking it in for a run and solid hookup in roof of mouth. More like they were bumping the bait and trying to stun it. It was frustrating but added a twist to catching them.


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## RMK

i still haven't come close to the numbers you are putting up, but i did finally get into my first '17 crappie yesterday. i temporarily gave up on the jigs and plastics i have been struggling with to get a bite.(still dont know what i m doing wrong) i switched to minnows yesterday and caught 4 on 4 bites.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> i still haven't come close to the numbers you are putting up, but i did finally get into my first '17 crappie yesterday. i temporarily gave up on the jigs and plastics i have been struggling with to get a bite.(still dont know what i m doing wrong) i switched to minnows yesterday and caught 4 on 4 bites.


Sweet, RMK! Good photo - the crappie shows some girth. Yes I occasionally get into some numbers but others who post here put up outstanding results almost everyday. If they don't limit, it's news.


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## Saugeyefisher

Love the shoulders nice fish!that's some pretty crappie looking water to.
And I agree,guys put up some amazing numbers! And with all the pressure you guys seem to get is crazy! 
One of these years I'll make the drive! I would love to fish glsm. 
"Waiting on the bite" errrrr! I feel like every trip. In the beginning I lose a few trying to adjust to how they might be biting that particular day. I also will admit,even after I "figure it out" I miss way to many bites imo. Some days I feel like I'm lucky to go 50/50. When there really swallowing the bait 80/100. 
My last trip I only caught a few good ones,but dropped 7/8. 
I shy away from sickle hooks because everyone I know that's made the switch are not happy with the results. I open the gap a bit on my jigs which seems to have started helping.
Gonna keep fine tuning I guess!


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## crappiedude

I like sickle hooks. Some days I'll get outstanding results, other days not so good.
For the most part, I'll use a #2 hook and I kind of lean towards the sickles.
We have so many little crappie at East Fork I think most of the misses come from fishing in the nursery, they just can't get that hook in their mouth.
There are days though (and I'm not sure why it happens) but I have to switch to a 1/32 oz jig with a #6 hook in order to get a fish hooked. These aren't the little guys mind you but nice 10"-12" fish.


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## brandonw

Question- correct me if I'm wrong but I believe you're a bank fisherman. I am too. How do you transport the fish you keep as you move from spot to spot? A bucket or cooler can get real heavy and weigh me down. I like to stay extremely mobile and move fast and cover a lot of ground but I haven't found a great way to keep fish as I go. Any advice?


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## fishwhacker

Brandonw...floating fish baskets are awesome for doing that, the water drains so only the fish are left or a stringer. You have to be careful when using a wire fishbasket as fish can lose a 1/2 inch or more so no keeping crappies that are just over the length requirement isnt a good idea


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## Greyduck

zaraspook said:


> You mentioned the light bite and losing fish Sunday morning......experienced similar situation Sunday afternoon and evening. Repeatedly, crappies hit the plastic, dropped it, hit again and drop again, as many as 4 times with hits several seconds apart before sucking it in for a run and solid hookup in roof of mouth. More like they were bumping the bait and trying to stun it. It was frustrating but added a twist to catching them.


 The strange thing was he was using the same Jig head and body as I was. I am thinking his hook set on his shorter rod might of been the problem. 
It makes sense they were picking small bait off the bottom. We started with tiny jigs and grub bodys. Once the sun was up higher the bigger baits was winning.


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## 07brauj

first post here so I'm trying to figure this out haha...got out for a bit tonight


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## 07brauj

Got out at 4:15 caught 2 in the first 2 Casts.....dead for the next 2.5hrs....moved spots 5 in the next 20min...packed up at 7


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## zaraspook

07brauj said:


> first post here so I'm trying to figure this out haha...got out for a bit tonight


Fresh fillets for the skillet !


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## 07brauj

Sad part is I've been reading your guys very informative post for almost 4 years....I guess it's time for me to throw in some feedback


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## zaraspook

brandonw said:


> Question- correct me if I'm wrong but I believe you're a bank fisherman. I am too. How do you transport the fish you keep as you move from spot to spot? A bucket or cooler can get real heavy and weigh me down. I like to stay extremely mobile and move fast and cover a lot of ground but I haven't found a great way to keep fish as I go. Any advice?


Brandonw......most of those guys who routinely get limits of 30 aren't parked far from where they fish. Catch 5-6, or 15, walk to car and put fish on ice. Some don't add water to their buckets. And, they may move 1/2 dozen times during the day......catch 4-5 fish, bite slows, head toward vehicle(put fish on ice) and drive to another spot somewhere on the lake. 

In my case I rarely keep fish. Might do it 3-4 times a year if a a friend requests fish, or maybe I'm feeding crappie tacos to a group of people. Love to catch them but almost always return them to catch again. Batches I keep are 15 or fewer fish. If catching perch, it's a different game. Perch don't yet co-operate the way crappies do at GLSM.....never catch more than 1 at a time, but this is the time of year it happens. I'm thinking about outfitting a golf pull-cart to wheel around a good sized fish bucket. Taking orders now!


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## brandonw

Thanks for the responses. I guess I'm still looking for a more efficient way to transport fish when I walk from one spot to another. I usually only drive to a couple spots and walk to more from there. Sortve a different scenario than what you described. I usually end up just taking a small cooler. It's the best setup I've found thus far. Tight lines and I enjoy reading this thread, thanks.


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## Saugeyefisher

brandonw said:


> Thanks for the responses. I guess I'm still looking for a more efficient way to transport fish when I walk from one spot to another. I usually only drive to a couple spots and walk to more from there. Sortve a different scenario than what you described. I usually end up just taking a small cooler. It's the best setup I've found thus far. Tight lines and I enjoy reading this thread, thanks.


This time of year a 5 gallon bucket an a stringer is all I really carry when bankfishing.my bucket holds my one Plano crappie box an pliers. If it's chilly out I don't even use the stringer. But if warm I'll string them up an when I move I just toss them in the bucket. I'm not to concerned with keeping them alive as much as I am with keeping them cool.
In hot weather I keep ice in the car,if I'm far from the car I'll use a basket an keep them in shade or deeper water. If I'm close to the car I just take them to the cooler every few fish.

I can't really think of any easier ways,except maybe a mid size cooler on wheels don't use ice use frozen two liter bottles. An double it up to hold your gear,or bungee your gear to it. 
I also add pvc to my 5 gal bucket to hold rods,plyiers,sissors


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## zaraspook

07brauj said:


> Sad part is I've been reading your guys very informative post for almost 4 years....I guess it's time for me to throw in some feedback


Not sad! Most of us lurked before diving in. Welcome to OGF and the thread. Don't be shy!


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## everyday

You should look into a cooler backpack, mine has a pocket that you could put tackle in and there is plenty of room in the cooler. Frozen water bottles help keep your ice solid on warmer days.


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## brandonw

everyday said:


> You should look into a cooler backpack, mine has a pocket that you could put tackle in and there is plenty of room in the cooler. Frozen water bottles help keep your ice solid on warmer days.


Interesting idea, thanks. Which one do you use? How many 10-11" crappie can it hold?


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## zaraspook

Fished Tuesday 10am - 2:30pm with a lunch break in the middle. Water temp was 44.2 . Had just 20 minutes before I had to make a business call. First two casts produced a pair of keepers off my seawall. Amazingly, I pulled 7 more crappies from same spot before making the phone call.

45 minutes later, business over with, back to fishing. Just like last Sunday, instead of returning to the hot spot, I take a 10 minute hike to a "better" spot. Yeah, right....an hour there and not a whiff of a bite. Back to my seawall for a couple fish and over to another property that was hot on Sunday. That spot was OK, not great and with 1/2 hour remaining I head back to my seawall. On the way there it hits me, I haven't tried the popsicle triple tip. I'm at 29 crappies caught with 19 keepers. Tied on the popsicle, and finished with 7 more crappies and 5 keepers. For the abbreviated day total was 36 crappies, 24 keepers, none bigger than 11.25" and most were about 10.5" . Guessing that 7 keepers were 11" and all but one came during the last hour I fished. The late fish were also 2-5' from bank, tight to submerged wood in less than 2' of water. Make sure you test wood in shallow water! Fun day! Caught a lot of fish on pearl body plastic with purple stinger tail.


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## RMK

i m hoping to get out for an hour or two before work in the morning as long as it isn't storming.


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## everyday

The one I have is made by OA gear, wife purchased it on Amazon. Never filled it with fish, but it holds 20 cans and ice so a dozen or so shouldn't be an issue. It wasn't expensive but seems to work well, as in I don't get wet from condensation or leaks. You should be able to find a bigger one if needed.


brandonw said:


> Interesting idea, thanks. Which one do you use? How many 10-11" crappie can it hold?


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## brandonw

everyday said:


> The one I have is made by OA gear, wife purchased it on Amazon. Never filled it with fish, but it holds 20 cans and ice so a dozen or so shouldn't be an issue. It wasn't expensive but seems to work well, as in I don't get wet from condensation or leaks. You should be able to find a bigger one if needed.


Found it. Thanks!

Zaraspook- you may have answered this question already but do you like to tip your jigs with waxies or crappie nibbles ever?


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## zaraspook

brandonw said:


> Found it. Thanks!
> 
> Zaraspook- you may have answered this question already but do you like to tip your jigs with waxies or crappie nibbles ever?


Not a fan of using meat. Can't say "never" use. If I'm with someone having success with tipping and I'm struggling, I could be persuaded. More likely the cure isn't adding meat, rather the type of plastic they use, depth, color, technique/presentation, cover fished. Meat is further down on the list. However, "every dog has it's day". At GLSM meat is a sure fire way to get the gills going, not productive if you want crappies. Tipping is messy, another expense, and time consuming. While someone is messing with meat every few casts, you can get in at least a couple more casts than they do.

If I tip, it's usually dead-sticking a 2nd rod, with intent of stumbling into perch while crappie fishing primary rod. Has not worked yet!


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## zaraspook

Fishing buddy Scott and I tangled with the elements Weds. Wind is a good thing for crappies. Not so good for anglers detecting bites. Not so good for fishermen when combined with falling temps and keeping your apparel sufficient to maintain comfort. 2 hours into, adding an outer garment kept me comfortable the rest of the day. Water temp was 46.3 at my seawall.

Bite was better than expected with fish tight to whatever cover (variable) they held to. However, I went more than a solid hour at one point without a single bite. Popsicle triple tip was an early productive bait, but waned for me. It slowed for Scott, too, but those he caught were all bigger fish including the 12.25" fish of the day. After a very late lunch (gourmet soup from Scott's kitchen - yummy!), we agreed another 30 minutes at one spot then we'd hit the road.

At 30 minutes we'd caught a few, but my switch to a stinger bait was heating up.....more bites, a few bigger fish caught and/or lost. 30 minutes stretched to 60 minutes, maybe 75 minutes, possibly 90? Finally a 12", my biggest for the day. End tally was 43 crappies caught. Zara 26 - 17 for Scott. Keepers scored 15 to 8 in my favor. Scott's 12"+ fish beat my 12", and weighed in at 1.24 pounds. He's had a strangle-hold on the big fish category. Scott took home 18 of our 23 keepers (10-12") and a respectable gill he caught (photo below). Another fun day.
View media item 79771


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## 07brauj

I know this isn't probably the spot for this but does anyone here Fish the St.Marys river? Caught all of these in one night and have never caught a thing again


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## RMK

07brauj said:


> I know this isn't probably the spot for this but does anyone here Fish the St.Marys river? Caught all of these in one night and have never caught a thing again


yes wrong spot. 
but i do. not as much as i used too. never caught a large mouth and the only saugeye i ever caught was probably smaller than your smallest. very impressive! live minnows?


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## brandonw

zaraspook said:


> Not a fan of using meat. Can't say "never" use. If I'm with someone having success with tipping and I'm struggling, I could be persuaded. More likely the cure isn't adding meat, rather the type of plastic they use, depth, color, technique/presentation, cover fished. Meat is further down on the list. However, "every dog has it's day". At GLSM meat is a sure fire way to get the gills going, not productive if you want crappies. Tipping is messy, another expense, and time consuming. While someone is messing with meat every few casts, you can get in at least a couple more casts than they do.
> 
> If I tip, it's usually dead-sticking a 2nd rod, with intent of stumbling into perch while crappie fishing primary rod. Has not worked yet!


Thanks for the response. Good input.


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## 07brauj

RMK said:


> yes wrong spot.
> but i do. not as much as i used too. never caught a large mouth and the only saugeye i ever caught was probably smaller than your smallest. very impressive! live minnows?


I definitely didn't use bluegill


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## h2owolf

zaraspook said:


> Fishing buddy Scott and I tangled with the elements Weds. Wind is a good thing for crappies. Not so good for anglers detecting bites. Not so good for fishermen when combined with falling temps and keeping your apparel sufficient to maintain comfort. 2 hours into, adding an outer garment kept me comfortable the rest of the day. Water temp was 46.3 at my seawall.
> 
> Bite was better than expected with fish tight to whatever cover (variable) they held to. However, I went more than a solid hour at one point without a single bite. Popsicle triple tip was an early productive bait, but waned for me. It slowed for Scott, too, but those he caught were all bigger fish including the 12.25" fish of the day. After a very late lunch (gourmet soup from Scott's kitchen - yummy!), we agreed another 30 minutes at one spot then we'd hit the road.
> 
> At 30 minutes we'd caught a few, but my switch to a stinger bait was heating up.....more bites, a few bigger fish caught and/or lost. 30 minutes stretched to 60 minutes, maybe 75 minutes, possibly 90? Finally a 12", my biggest for the day. End tally was 43 crappies caught. Zara 26 - 17 for Scott. Keepers scored 15 to 8 in my favor. Scott's 12"+ fish beat my 12", and weighed in at 1.24 pounds. He's had a strangle-hold on the big fish category. Scott took home 18 of our 23 keepers (10-12") and a respectable gill he caught (photo below). Another fun day.
> View media item 79771




Zara,

Have they let water level come up with the rain?
How much did you get at GLSM?
Was wondering if depth in channels improved, which increased bite?
Not asking for your exact location, I assume you are on south side of lake,
would you suggest south west, south or south east channels?
I haven't been there in many of years & thinking of making trip up this weekend since we had so much rain south of you that our lakes are unfishable.
Any info appreciated by you or any buddies from up there.


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## zaraspook

h2owolf said:


> Zara,
> 
> Have they let water level come up with the rain?
> How much did you get at GLSM?
> Was wondering if depth in channels improved, which increased bite?
> Not asking for your exact location, I assume you are on south side of lake,
> would you suggest south west, south or south east channels?
> I haven't been there in many of years & thinking of making trip up this weekend since we had so much rain south of you that our lakes are unfishable.
> Any info appreciated by you or any buddies from up there.


Lake levels up 16" from debacle last summer and fall. Channels are normal. New rules governing water control levels which should keep lake at current state. Higher water levels is top reason for return of great crappie fishing.

I'm south east but crappie reports are good all over. In January crappies started showing up in mouths of channel. As waters warm they push further back into channels. Can now say over last 2 weeks fish are showing in good numbers and size 300 yards back into my channel. Hasn't been that way since 2016 spring. I guess other channels flow same pattern. Crappie fishing is very good, but don't know about other species.


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## zaraspook

07brauj said:


> I know this isn't probably the spot for this but does anyone here Fish the St.Marys river? Caught all of these in one night and have never caught a thing again


No problem posting here. Heck....those saugfish/eyes were probably stocked in GLSM anyway. If they came from St. Marys River it's probably proof enough for State to hold the line, never again stock saugeyes into GLSM.


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## h2owolf

zaraspook said:


> Lake levels up 16" from debacle last summer and fall. Channels are normal. New rules governing water control levels which should keep lake at current state. Higher water levels is top reason for return of great crappie fishing.
> 
> I'm south east but crappie reports are good all over. In January crappies started showing up in mouths of channel. As waters warm they push further back into channels. Can now say over last 2 weeks fish are showing in good numbers and size 300 yards back into my channel. Hasn't been that way since 2016 spring. I guess other channels flow same pattern. Crappie fishing is very good, but don't know about other species.



Thanks for response, are those river channels on south side, deep enough for boats?, the one looks like it & goes thru a housing or trailer park, other one looks smaller with no housing developments.
Would you consider both these boat worthy?


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## zaraspook

h2owolf said:


> Thanks for response, are those river channels on south side, deep enough for boats?, the one looks like it & goes thru a housing or trailer park, other one looks smaller with no housing developments.
> Would you consider both these boat worthy?


Hard to know which specific channel(s) you are referencing. As a rule of thumb, I'd say none are navigable farther south than St. Route 219, or in SE corner St. Route 703. It would be a stretch to call anything in the southern watershed a "river". Creeks, yes. If you see a channel from lake with housing on it.........99% of those folks have a boat and dock/seawall. Many channels contain water deeper than large portions of main lake.


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## h2owolf

zaraspook said:


> Hard to know which specific channel(s) you are referencing. As a rule of thumb, I'd say none are navigable farther south than St. Route 219, or in SE corner St. Route 703. It would be a stretch to call anything in the southern watershed a "river". Creeks, yes. If you see a channel from lake with housing on it.........99% of those folks have a boat and dock/seawall. Many channels contain water deeper than large portions of main lake.



Thanks, I was looking at them on google earth, 
also on some of your previous posts, you stated state was dredging, 
what location are they doing that? 
Do you know average depth before & after dredging?
When do they start & stop doing it or is it continuous?
Sorry to be such a pain, just unsure where to go, so trying to eliminate areas.


----------



## brad crappie

h2owolf said:


> Thanks, I was looking at them on google earth,
> also on some of your previous posts, you stated state was dredging,
> what location are they doing that?
> Do you know average depth before & after dredging?
> When do they start & stop doing it or is it continuous?
> Sorry to be such a pain, just unsure where to go, so trying to eliminate areas.


It's called fishing brother not to be rude but u eliminate water as u go I live in Berea Ohio I know the lake some but not good enough yet! There is all kinds of docks wood and riprap to fish! It's a shallow lake be careful!


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## crappiedude

h2owolf
Hey Tom, have you looked at CJ?
It's a lot closer for you and it doesn't appear to be up much at all. Maybe a few inches.
http://lrl-apps.lrl.usace.army.mil/wc/reports/lkreport.html

Don't come down this way EF's a mess and most ramps are closed.
Louisville report says it's up 17' but it was probably closer to 20' when it crested.


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## h2owolf

crappiedude said:


> h2owolf
> Hey Tom, have you looked at CJ?
> It's a lot closer for you and it doesn't appear to be up much at all. Maybe a few inches.
> http://lrl-apps.lrl.usace.army.mil/wc/reports/lkreport.html
> 
> Don't come down this way EF's a mess and most ramps are closed.
> Louisville report says it's up 17' but it was probably closer to 20' when it crested.
> View attachment 231084



Hey John,
How have you been, did I hear you say you finally retired!!

I might consider CJ, probably best choice around here.
I was only going to go to GLSM because Big Bob was going.
I've decided not to go, long drive, waste of gas & time for what I believe will not be good day,
unless you know lake well enough to know where the fish will back off out of shallows & go to deeper water.
Zara stated temp. was 46 plus, it won't be that warm Sunday in the shallows.
The crappie will move out to deeper water & wait. 
GLSM is a shallow water lake, & with the cold air along with wind for 3 days, water temps will drop dramatically in the shallows.
I see E.F. is a mess, CC is up about 4 ft. & will be muddy also, but a few area's may clear up by Sunday so I will go there, since I know where they are!!
PM me your cell # & I will do same, maybe if you come up this way I can put you on some slabs.


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## crappiedude

Yeah Tom I retired Christmas day 2015. I have had a blast the last year. I've fished or hunted 4-5 days a week and people are wrong...I never got tired of it. I did move from east side of Cincy to 2 streets away form East Fork so fishing is real close. My wife, my brother and my hunting partner all retired at the same time so I have lots of people to play with.
I'd love to do a trip to GLSM for a few days this year and maybe CJ but I want a little better weather. I'd love to see what it's like fishing that shallow water. My partner and I've been moving around and fishing some new waters now that we have the time to explore again.
I think I have your contact somewhere. I'll either text or pm you tomorrow.
Good hearing from you.


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## h2owolf

crappiedude said:


> Yeah Tom I retired Christmas day 2015. I have had a blast the last year. I've fished or hunted 4-5 days a week and people are wrong...I never got tired of it. I did move from east side of Cincy to 2 streets away form East Fork so fishing is real close. My wife, my brother and my hunting partner all retired at the same time so I have lots of people to play with.
> I'd love to do a trip to GLSM for a few days this year and maybe CJ but I want a little better weather. I'd love to see what it's like fishing that shallow water. My partner and I've been moving around and fishing some new waters now that we have the time to explore again.
> I think I have your contact somewhere. I'll either text or pm you tomorrow.
> Good hearing from you.



I'm so happy for you, & you are correct, I never get tired of retirement, been 7 years & I don't miss work a bit!! People used to say, you won't be able to sit still, have no trouble sitting & running trolling motor !! It's nice you have buddies also.
Did you make out OK with VA on your ticker?
I was thinking of you coming up to CC, that's where I live & fish. CJ is OK too, I miss going to EF, but CC is somewhat the same a deep water lake.
Are you fishing the EF tournaments since you retired?
I thought I had your cell #, but can't find it, changed phones about 3 times in as many years!!


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## h2owolf

h2owolf said:


> I'm so happy for you, & you are correct, I never get tired of retirement, been 7 years & I don't miss work a bit!! People used to say, you won't be able to sit still, have no trouble sitting & running trolling motor !! It's nice you have buddies also.
> Did you make out OK with VA on your ticker?
> I was thinking of you coming up to CC, that's where I live & fish. CJ is OK too, I miss going to EF, but CC is somewhat the same a deep water lake.
> Are you fishing the EF tournaments since you retired?
> I thought I had your cell #, but can't find it, changed phones about 3 times in as many years!!



I also saw a blip on Crappie.com, do you know if they talking about Larry Y. being ill?


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## zaraspook

Won't make it to GLSM this weekend so hustled up there today. Surprised me to see 1/2 inch of snow on the ground. Water level is holding at 36" at my seawall. Been at same mark for about 3 weeks so State is keeping it where they said. Worst news is water temp in channel fell 5 degrees in 48 hours since Weds, now 41.2 versus 46.3 degrees. Didn't know what to expect for a bite but started better than expected. 13 were keepers out of 17 fish in first 2 hours (11:30-1:30pm). I lost more than my share as bite was timid and lots of lip hooked fish unless you waited a bit longer.

Broke for lunch then went back for 2 more hours. Something changed while I was feeding my face. Bites were scarce and fish were smaller. 4 keepers out of 10 fish, although 2 of the 4 were my first ones over 11" today. Took care of a couple chores and returned to fishing......just an hour this time, unless bite picked up late in the day like it had past couple weeks. No late bite for me today. Caught just 2, 1 keeper which was biggest of day at 11.75". 

29 crappies, 18 keepers is disappointing but at a lot of lakes that would be pretty dang good. As normal, my fishing was from the bank. Most fish were 8-13' from bank and in 3-4' of water. Nothing in close to bank except an occasional dink. It was cold, 29-30 degrees and I was knocking ice from rod guides all day. Hope the crappies don't bail out of the channels and head back out to main lake. It was nice to have them in early....keep in mind it's just March 3rd and it was a sweet gift while it lasts. Popsicle Triple Tip caught about half - Pearl stinger with purple tail got the other half.

Cold to linger another 2 days. By Sun-Mon we should know if fish are still hanging around in channels. Fingers are crossed.


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## RMK

i will be heading out sunday. hopefully i ll be able to let you know if they are still in close.


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## zaraspook

h2owolf......State dredges April till late Nov. Typical depth change from dredging is 2-4'. That sounds insignificant to some, but it's a big change when water is 3' before dredging. 3 dredges.......mostly deployed south side this year. Our watershed flows south to north, the opposite from you guys in Cincy. Therefore, our south side sees more silt/phosphorus from farm fields which is one of reasons for dredging southern channels/bays.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> h2owolf
> Hey Tom, have you looked at CJ?
> It's a lot closer for you and it doesn't appear to be up much at all. Maybe a few inches.
> http://lrl-apps.lrl.usace.army.mil/wc/reports/lkreport.html
> 
> Don't come down this way EF's a mess and most ramps are closed.
> Louisville report says it's up 17' but it was probably closer to 20' when it crested.
> View attachment 231084


Jeez! Lot of water. GLSM saw maybe an inch, that's it. Don't know if main lake is stained but my channel isn't.


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## crappiedude

No, no tournaments for me. I've done a fill in a time or too and wouldn't mind doing a couple more but I don't like mixing fun with money. Those are some great fishermen and they would eat me alive. I do run into a lot of those guys when I'm over there, nice group overall.
I can do a trip to CC, that would be fun. I'm in the middle of bathroom #2 remodel so later this spring would be great.
VA is working great, those folks do good by me. I do like the doctors down there.
I think I heard Larry is getting or already got a knee replacement. I hope he's doing okay.

Zara...didn't mean to hijack your thread. h2owolf (who didn't know me at all) came to the rescue of a fellow Viet Nam vet and helped me navigate to some needed help. I've only met Tom in person one time for maybe 5 minutes and yet he reached out to me over several months to help me out. Super crappie fisherman besides just being a super guy.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Jeez! Lot of water. GLSM saw maybe an inch, that's it. Don't know if main lake is stained but my channel isn't.


Yeah EF is a crazy lake and flooding is common. I guess in a normal year it will raise 10' or more maybe 5/6 times a year. I'm not sure why but in checking that "Louisville Lake Report" EF fluctuates way worse than other area lakes, I guess it supports a larger watershed. One year it went up 40' and that was impressive. Raises can go up 8-10' in a 24 hour period. Once it quits raising, the draw down is much slower generally 2-3' in a 24 hour period.
Years ago a friend of mine went fishing when the lake was on a rise, fishing was pretty good and he didn't think much about it. When you're out there fishing you don't notice the change so much since you're always moving there isn't a constant reference. When he finally headed in and made his way back to the launch he realized he stayed to long when he had to wade through the parking lot to get to his truck.
I envy the guys who's lakes stay stable.


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## h2owolf

crappiedude said:


> Yeah EF is a crazy lake and flooding is common. I guess in a normal year it will raise 10' or more maybe 5/6 times a year. I'm not sure why but in checking that "Louisville Lake Report" EF fluctuates way worse than other area lakes, I guess it supports a larger watershed. One year it went up 40' and that was impressive. Raises can go up 8-10' in a 24 hour period. Once it quits raising, the draw down is much slower generally 2-3' in a 24 hour period.
> Years ago a friend of mine went fishing when the lake was on a rise, fishing as pretty good and he didn't think much about it. When you're out there fishing you don't notice the change so much since you're always moving there isn't a constant reference. When he finally headed in and made his way back to the launch he realized he stayed to long when he had to wade through the parking lot to get to his truck.
> I envy the guys who's lakes stay stable.




Hey John, 
Thanks for the kind words, will always help a fellow brother especially if he fishes.
Yes EF is a weird lake for sure, it is up & down all year long till late fall, you always have to check if they are pulling water. Zara when they pull water, the fish react like minnows when you start dumping them from a bucket, they go down & don't want to bite, makes for tough fishing. As my brother says, "may as well put that pole up your butt!" That's why John & I wish we had lake closer that's not a watershed lake. You have 3 up there, GLSM, Indian, & Ft. Loramie.
On Louisville site this AM, EF is 15 above winter & 11 above summer pool levels & pulling at 2,722 cubic ft. per sec.!! 
John, Thanks for info on Larry, hope he gets better soon. 
Call me when your ready to come north, I'll stake out some fish just for you!
I just caught my PB at CC on 10-26-16 was 16.25 inches!
Zara, thanks for info on dredging, I was curious since never experienced fishing on lake that does that. Also apologize for thread hike. I read all your reports & find them very interesting, & if you fish that well from bank, I bet your a terror on a boat!! Keep up the good reports!


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## zaraspook

Hey, guys, no hijack to apologize for. Thread is about "all things fishing". At the top of the list is discussion about and between fishermen, fishing friends, and the camaraderie.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Hey, guys, no hijack to apologize for. Thread is about "all things fishing". At the top of the list is discussion about and between fishermen, fishing friends, and the camaraderie.


And my favorite thread on ogf! Thanks zara!!!!!


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## trailbreaker

Depending on the weather i'm heading up Wed


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## RMK

Me and a friend made it out today for the afternoon. We fished channels and focused on wood in the water. We caught two. Both keepers. One on a minnow and one on 1/32 unpainted jig tipped with a popcicle joker tail. Both about 15 inches deep. Not sure if most of the fish moved away from the cover to deeper water or were just sitting tight in the cover after the cool down we had the last 3 days.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Me and a friend made it out today for the afternoon. We fished channels and focused on wood in the water. We caught two. Both keepers. One on a minnow and one on 1/32 unpainted jig tipped with a popcicle joker tail. Both about 15 inches deep. Not sure if most of the fish moved away from the cover to deeper water or were just sitting tight in the cover after the cool down we had the last 3 days.


Not a great bite on Sunday for me either. Caught 12 with 8 keepers. All 8 keepers from same spot. As you can see in the photo below of the 12", I had my net with me. Came back to that spot later in day. Lost one that was at least 2" bigger than the 12". Didn't have net with me. I hate when that happens! Stinger caught 1/2 of my fish, popsicle the other half. 

Water temp was 38.1 degrees, down another 3 degrees from Friday. My fish were on near the outside of wood but there was a huge school of shad in this area. It was at the backend of a channel that is relatively shallow 2.5-3' depth.
View media item 79773


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> And my favorite thread on ogf! Thanks zara!!!!!


What a nice thing to say, Saugeyefisher! Credit goes to our growing list of contributors and their great posts of worthwhile info.


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## ohiostrutter

I'm a new guy around here. Fished st Mary's a lot as a kid. Been wanting to venture back and did today. Fished from 8-12 and managed 2, both right at 10". Both on popsicle stingers in the spillway. Didn't manage any bites in any of the coves I tried. Was a lot of fun revisiting places I hadn't been to in 15-20 years


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## zaraspook

ohiostrutter said:


> I'm a new guy around here. Fished st Mary's a lot as a kid. Been wanting to venture back and did today. Fished from 8-12 and managed 2, both right at 10". Both on popsicle stingers in the spillway. Didn't manage any bites in any of the coves I tried. Was a lot of fun revisiting places I hadn't been to in 15-20 years


ohiostrutter......glad you enjoyed your reunion with the lake. Sorry the bite wasn't better but popsicle got you on the board. Bite was gangbusters before that coldfront end of last week and puny bite in channels may be the norm for a couple weeks. Someone will find the crappies.....but they may not share the info. Don't be a stranger, ohiostrutter, and welcome to thread.


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## harrison08

Late report from Sunday. Made it to the lake only to find the fast and furious bite from the week before had disappeared. We only managed two fish at the first spot (both keepers) and two at the second spot (both keepers). We then hit the spillway in hopes that the front wouldn't be as effective (or defective) down there. Only coaxed 6 keepers into biting down there. 10 keepers for the day on a variety of baits.


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> Late report from Sunday. Made it to the lake only to find the fast and furious bite from the week before had disappeared. We only managed two fish at the first spot (both keepers) and two at the second spot (both keepers). We then hit the spillway in hopes that the front wouldn't be as effective (or defective) down there. Only coaxed 6 keepers into biting down there. 10 keepers for the day on a variety of baits.


Sounds like you did better than most! Good job.


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## Crazy4Smallmouth

Hey Everyone, I was wondering if the water in the channels got muddied up from all the rain we got a few days ago? I know, it depends on the channel location, but any general info clean water location would be appreciated. North side, south side, east side, west side, or no clean water etc. Thanks again, I've enjoyed two trips to the lake this year with mixed results! I hope to head up on Thursday if it is fishable.


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## zaraspook

Crazy4Smallmouth said:


> Hey Everyone, I was wondering if the water in the channels got muddied up from all the rain we got a few days ago? I know, it depends on the channel location, but any general info clean water location would be appreciated. North side, south side, east side, west side, or no clean water etc. Thanks again, I've enjoyed two trips to the lake this year with mixed results! I hope to head up on Thursday if it is fishable.


I was at GLSM Tues and Weds. Admittedly I didn't scout the lake widely, just hit 2 channels near my lake place. Those channels showed no muddy or stained water....just the green hue we'd normally expect in spring. I fished with different guys each day, and both commented they were surprised with decent water clarity. Nothing I saw would deter me from fishing. More debris in the water than normal, but debris is from the supercharged winds.


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## zaraspook

A high school fishing buddy and I fished GLSM Tuesday. We had a few light showers before 11am, none after that. Wind was a definite nuisance, difficult to cast with any accuracy, interfered with bite detection, and made some of our spots unfishable. Water temp was 44.6 degrees which was plus 6.5 degrees in 2 days - favorable news. We expected fish to be tight to cover and were not disappointed. If you located fish they bit hard, and really ate the bait. It took me 21 fish to produce 10 keepers. It was a day for patience and finesse, working slowly, grinding out each fish. My high school buddy caught only one crappie but was a keeper, even though we used same bait and worked the same cover. Best bite was last 45 minutes before dark. We had a good time, regardless.

Weds I fished with buddy Scott. As bad as wind was Tues, Weds wind was about double. Water temp was 44.2 degrees, pretty much stable with the day before. Bite was slow again, more fish were lip-hooked, and looking back at it I caught fish only at 2 places. 17 caught, 13 keepers for me. Scott caught 9 with 5 keepers. Once again Scott edged me for "big fish".....11.5 incher. 

Top baits again were my popsicle Triple Tip and pearl stinger. Today I caught a few more on the stinger. Tues the 2 baits were 50/50. For Scott, a pearl Triple Tip caught nearly all his fish. Temperatures are headed sub-freezing for most of the next 9 days. With some lows ahead in teens and 20's, water temps are heading south.....fast. I'm happy with results today considering blustery conditions.


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## Crazy4Smallmouth

Hey, thanks for reporting! I am heading to the lake in a few minutes. I'll report back tonight.


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## trailbreaker

I went yesterday to windy point nothing... a tree branch broke fell into the water i left went to outdoorsman to find out where to go a guy said go to anderson rd where the shooting range was, the guy said look for archery targets i used shad/chartreuse grub nothing it was real windy


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## zaraspook

TB.....Wind screws up your ability to detect strikes and to keep bait where you want it in/on cover, but fish don't mind wind. Tough day to fish yesterday, but you can bet guys filled their buckets somewhere. Late day bite recently has been the salvation for everyone else. Dinner bell seems to ring sometime between 4:30-6pm. Crappies go nuts for 15-60 minutes. Whereas I'd caught 8 crappies between noon and 4 yesterday, racked up 9 more between 5-6pm. Keep at it.......


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## RMK

glad you made it out and were successful before the upcoming cold spell! man i wish i could get out today. stuck at work....


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## Crazy4Smallmouth

Okay, for all who had to work today, you didn't miss anything! I fished for over 4 hours and caught one crappie. I saw two others caught by two different fishermen. However, I did see 30 crappie in a basket that were caught just after sunrise, but the bite shut down when a northwest wind picked up. The same three guys who caught 30 at sunrise were shutdown the rest of the day until they left.


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## zaraspook

Your opening line in the post was a great one! God bless the single crappie you caught. 4 hours and one fish is better than 4 hours and zip. It happens to the best of us. Thanks for posting.


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## RMK

Crazy4Smallmouth said:


> Okay, for all who had to work today, you didn't miss anything! I fished for over 4 hours and caught one crappie. I saw two others caught by two different fishermen. However, I did see 30 crappie in a basket that were caught just after sunrise, but the bite shut down when a northwest wind picked up. The same three guys who caught 30 at sunrise were shutdown the rest of the day until they left.


thank you for the wonderful news. lol


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## fishwhacker

Still way better than work


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## brad crappie

fishwhacker said:


> Still way better than work


My opinion is if u take a vacation day and the fishing is bad I wasted a good vac day! But fishing is fishing dam it! U got to love the ups and downs!


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## trailbreaker

zaraspook said:


> TB.....Wind screws up your ability to detect strikes and to keep bait where you want it in/on cover, but fish don't mind wind. Tough day to fish yesterday, but you can bet guys filled their buckets somewhere. Late day bite recently has been the salvation for everyone else. Dinner bell seems to ring sometime between 4:30-6pm. Crappies go nuts for 15-60 minutes. Whereas I'd caught 8 crappies between noon and 4 yesterday, racked up 9 more between 5-6pm. Keep at it.......


Didn't use live bait.. used small grub


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## Saugeyefisher

trailbreaker said:


> Didn't use live bait.. used small grub


Tb neither is he. Next time maybe try downsizing the grub,and putting a bobber above it. Will help keep your "grub" in The strike zone. Good luck buddy


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## zaraspook

Correct....as Saugeyefisher says, I'm not a live bait guy. Too cheap to use the real thing! Live bait slows you down, isn't as effective, and plastics last a lot longer.


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## dytmook

Never had much luck caught crappie on artificial. Only have 1 catch that I can think of and it was on a rooster tail.


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## RMK

I knew i had way to long of a to do list around home so I wasn't going to be able to make it to the lake. I took a quick break and hit the pond at home for about 30-45 minutes. I was very shocked to find out how good the crappie and bluegill bite was. Caught around 20. Best crappie fell off at the bank and I didn't get to measure him!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> I knew i had way to long of a to do list around home so I wasn't going to be able to make it to the lake. I took a quick break and hit the pond at home for about 30-45 minutes. I was very shocked to find out how good the crappie and bluegill bite was. Caught around 20. Best crappie fell off at the bank and I didn't get to measure him!


Really impressive gill!


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## zaraspook

Thinking the days for open water could be short, hustled to the GLSM Friday afternoon hoping to make the late bite. Jig was in the water at 4pm and first fish/keeper on the bank with first cast. no more bites for 15-20 minutes. The curse of the first fish on first cast? Nope, not today. First hour ends with 10 keepers from 13 fish. 12 of those fish came in 40 minutes.

My phone was going off like crazy with calls/texts and fingers were frozen numb. An hour to warm up and handle a couple of business calls, then back to fishing at 6pm. At 7pm my fingers are as stiff as frozen crappie fillets.....time to head back to the house. Hour #2 was productive with 8 caught, 7 keepers. Two hours yields 21 fish, 17 keepers. Fish were bigger the longer I fished. Biggest in photo below at 12". Quantity and quality was unexpected.
Luck always plays a part in finding fish.......it was good luck today and this week. Photo below was biggest today at 12".
View media item 79792


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## zaraspook

dytmook said:


> Never had much luck caught crappie on artificial. Only have 1 catch that I can think of and it was on a rooster tail.


dytmook.....like most things fishing, jigs/plastics are a learned skill. The more you do it the better you get. Most of us started with live bait but converted to plastics after watching the jig guys kick butt.


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## trailbreaker

I'll do that.. me and a buddy went to gilmore pond in fairfield oh he used a bobber barley moved it caught 4 big ones i caught a small ones they was full of eggs


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## zaraspook

Saturday morning and back to reality so far. 45 minutes and 3 dinks aren't enough to keep my fingers warm. I'll do something productive for a while, then later see if I can find fish. Water temp is 41 degrees in my channel. In the fast action last evening I couldn't spare time to check temp.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Thinking the days for open water could be short, hustled to the GLSM Friday afternoon hoping to make the late bite. Jig was in the water at 4pm and first fish/keeper on the bank with first cast. no more bites for 15-20 minutes. The curse of the first fish on first cast? Nope, not today. First hour ends with 10 keepers from 13 fish. 12 of those fish came in 40 minutes.
> 
> My phone was going off like crazy with calls/texts and fingers were frozen numb. An hour to warm up and handle a couple of business calls, then back to fishing at 6pm. At 7pm my fingers are as stiff as frozen crappie fillets.....time to head back to the house. Hour #2 was productive with 8 caught, 7 keepers. Two hours yields 21 fish, 17 keepers. Fish were bigger the longer I fished. Biggest in photo below at 12". Quantity and quality was unexpected.
> Luck always plays a part in finding fish.......it was good luck today and this week. Photo below was biggest today at 12".
> View media item 79792


awesome! congrats on the good evening.


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## dytmook

zaraspook said:


> dytmook.....like most things fishing, jigs/plastics are a learned skill. The more you do it the better you get. Most of us started with live bait but converted to plastics after watching the jig guys kick butt.


Oh I believe. I haven't put a ton of effort in it and love has been what I grew up on. I'm going to do some more research and try my luck at Indian a bit this year when our boat gets out in and/or I get more time


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## zaraspook

After those 3 dinks this morning I hoped for better results in the evening. Actually bites were more numerous. A lot of bumps by fish but not eating it. They'd drop the bait quickly, like small crappies and gills. 4 caught Sat evening with only 1 legal crappie.

Originally I planned to head home Saturday night. May stay over and try luck Sunday. Hate to leave with a bad taste in my mouth. Plus, the crappies should be eager to eat. They know daylight savings time starts Sunday......one less hour to eat.


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## trailbreaker

zaraspook said:


> After those 3 dinks this morning I hoped for better results in the evening. Actually bites were more numerous. A lot of bumps by fish but not eating it. They'd drop the bait quickly, like small crappies and gills. 4 caught Sat evening with only 1 legal crappie.
> 
> Originally I planned to head home Saturday night. May stay over and try luck Sunday. Hate to leave with a bad taste in my mouth. Plus, the crappies should be eager to eat. They know daylight savings time starts Sunday......one less hour to eat.


If i come back up maybe i can fish your channel


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## dytmook

Ran to fishermans hq this afternoon and got some stuff to try this bobber jig fishing. Now wife get home from work


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## RMK

dytmook said:


> Ran to fishermans hq this afternoon and got some stuff to try this bobber jig fishing. Now wife get home from work


i am very close to 50/50 on crappie from the lake with minnows compared to plastics this year. HOWEVER: 1-I am not catching near as many fish as some of these guys. and 2-i am definitely still learning the skill of fishing with jigs and plastics!


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## ohiostrutter

Contemplating running to the lake tommorrow but man it's cold!


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## zaraspook

ohiostrutter said:


> Contemplating running to the lake tommorrow but man it's cold!


You should do it! Fish are overdue. Fish have to eat and should be acclimated to cooler water conditions. I ran into a really good bite Friday evening, but a lot of others said bite was dead Friday. Saturday reports were stinky and from my personal experience, today was lifeless. Rare for bite to be dormant 3-days like this and 4-days in a row unlikely. I'm betting the guys who get out Monday will see better bite.


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## zaraspook

Didn't plan to stay over Saturday night, but bad taste in my mouth from Saturday results (7 crappies with just 1 keeper) changed my mind. My rule is fish have to eat and you'll run into a good bite at least once every 36-hours. Keep trying.....if not today you'll get a decent bite tomorrow......just keep fishing. Odds are in your favor. Each hour that passes means the good bite is closer.

So after Saturday's puny performance and bad taste in my mouth, I hung around to do it again Sunday morning. I fished hard for 90 minutes. Had more hits than expected, but not sustained hits, not eating the bait, drops and short runs only. Instead of "bad taste" this was stage 4 acid reflux! On 2nd thought, maybe it was that skunky odor hanging over me. None caught this morning......thanks Pepe Le Pew.

Wish I could go Monday or even later Sunday. Might have witnessed that 36-hour alarm blast. Water temp 39.1 Sunday morning.


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## dytmook

I got out for about an hour tonight somewhere I have caught a few crappie before. Signs were good when I walked to spots and saw two herrings but I got nothing. Of course I spend awhile trying to figure out the whole slip bobber situation. My float kept getting stuck to the jig head. Tried s split shot but the only one I had was a little too heavy. As I was leaving I saw fish break the water so that's s good sign. So smaller split shot or a beads are on my next shopping list. Live and learn which was the main focus of my trip.


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## Saugeyefisher

dytmook said:


> I got out for about an hour tonight somewhere I have caught a few crappie before. Signs were good when I walked to spots and saw two herrings but I got nothing. Of course I spend awhile trying to figure out the whole slip bobber situation. My float kept getting stuck to the jig head. Tried s split shot but the only one I had was a little too heavy. As I was leaving I saw fish break the water so that's s good sign. So smaller split shot or a beads are on my next shopping list. Live and learn which was the main focus of my trip.


Just a fyi but fixed floats work great withcrappie jigs on these shallow lakes. A littleess hassle then a slip bobber


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## zaraspook

dytmook said:


> I got out for about an hour tonight somewhere I have caught a few crappie before. Signs were good when I walked to spots and saw two herrings but I got nothing. Of course I spend awhile trying to figure out the whole slip bobber situation. My floa


You are a man of action, dytmook. I like that. You'll be a pro at this in no time.


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## Hortance

dytmook said:


> I got out for about an hour tonight somewhere I have caught a few crappie before. Signs were good when I walked to spots and saw two herrings but I got nothing. Of course I spend awhile trying to figure out the whole slip bobber situation. My float kept getting stuck to the jig head. Tried s split shot but the only one I had was a little too heavy. As I was leaving I saw fish break the water so that's s good sign. So smaller split shot or a beads are on my next shopping list. Live and learn which was the main focus of my trip.


I like the slip-bobber for live bait...have always used it while wading streams and such. Just getting the hang of using the plastics w/ a bobber myself; learning from the masters here. 
Main thing I'm learning is that in addition to structure and depth, I have much more success when the bait is moving from point A to point B. Not just jiggling the plastic, but either have it in some slow current, moving along structure, or if no current, then slowly dragging from one point to another while I jig it.
Anybody else think that's right, or did I just catch a few fish by accident and now think I know something?


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## Saugeyefisher

For me it varies with each trip. But most my bites come as the bobber pauses,or using a light wind to pushy my float into the cover. 
But have caught them how you say to. It all varies.


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## dytmook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Just a fyi but fixed floats work great withcrappie jigs on these shallow lakes. A littleess hassle then a slip bobber


I figured that out a little late, but it was also fun trying something different. Also being prepared for some time in the future when I may need the trick. Also I think I like the slip thing to throw into cover with more control and not worry about getting wrapped around a stick.


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## Saugeyefisher

Yeah slip floats are def. Easier to control on the cast....


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## dytmook

zaraspook said:


> You are a man of action, dytmook. I like that. You'll be a pro at this in no time.


Thanks, occasionally I get one right...now to catch a fish. Also don't tell my wife, she might get ideas.

Total new person question, does this work with other pan fish like gills and what not? I may run out on lunch and fiddle around at the hydro bowl.


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## zaraspook

Hortance said:


> I like the slip-bobber for live bait...have always used it while wading streams and such. Just getting the hang of using the plastics w/ a bobber myself; learning from the masters here.
> Main thing I'm learning is that in addition to structure and depth, I have much more success when the bait is moving from point A to point B. Not just jiggling the plastic, but either have it in some slow current, moving along structure, or if no current, then slowly dragging from one point to another while I jig it.
> Anybody else think that's right, or did I just catch a few fish by accident and now think I know something?


You're opening up a different subject....technique. How you use the bobber to present the bait. Moving the bait horizontally, jigging the bait vertically, popping it, dragging bait, etc. I mostly agree with you that I'm more successful with the plastic moving. My favorite technique for fishing crappie jigs/plastics is swimming the jig with bobber never touching the water. Bobber is no longer the strike indicator. I'm tight line to the jig. When the crappie bumps the lure to bite, I feel it immediately, directly thru the line. Bobber is only there to help me judge how far down the jig is in the water column. I feel the bite before a bobber on the surface will indicate a bite. You may not even feel the bite, but you'll see the line stop moving or change directions.I feel every twig, log, branch, junk in the water. Fewer hang ups on unknown structure and before you bury the hook barb in structure, therefore fewer lost jigs/bobbers. And hook up rate goes weigh up. If I'm casting my long pole more than 16-17' out, I can't keep the bobber from touching the water. I can't use the swimming technique to fish. Beyond 16-17' with bobber on water it's drag/pause technique, until I'm close enough to lift bobber off water surface and swim jig the rest of the way in.

In shallow lakes like GLSM, most guys fish long poles. When spring spawn is on they rarely cast, always fish close to bank, just flip the bobber/jig a few feet or vertically drop jig into/between cover. Not a lot of casting either from land or boat. Swimming is my favorite way to present bait, but works best when fish are active and chasing. Some days they want it stationary, little or no movement at all. Swimming a jig can get you skunked and I'm prone to over do it.


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## zaraspook

dytmook said:


> Thanks, occasionally I get one right...now to catch a fish. Also don't tell my wife, she might get ideas.
> 
> Total new person question, does this work with other pan fish like gills and what not? I may run out on lunch and fiddle around at the hydro bowl.


Absolutely will work with other panfish, plus channel cats, carp, drum, maybe anything that swims.


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## ohiostrutter

Well just didn't have time for the long drive to the lake today....so I walked the 30 seconds to the neighborhood pond. Had a few customers on a purple/black bobby garland stinger


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## dytmook

zaraspook said:


> You're opening up a different subject....technique. How you use the bobber to present the bait. Moving the bait horizontally, jigging the bait vertically, popping it, dragging bait, etc. I mostly agree with you that I'm more successful with the plastic moving. My favorite technique for fishing crappie jigs/plastics is swimming the jig with bobber never touching the water. Bobber is no longer the strike indicator. I'm tight line to the jig. When the crappie bumps the lure to bite, I feel it immediately, directly thru the line. Bobber is only there to help me judge how far down the jig is in the water column. I feel the bite before a bobber on the surface will indicate a bite. I feel every twig, log, branch, junk in the water. If I'm casting my long pole more than 16-17' out, I can't keep the bobber from touching the water. I can't use the swimming technique to fish. With bobber on water it's drag/pause technique, until I'm close enough to lift bobber off water surface and swim jig in.
> 
> In shallow lakes like GLSM, most guys fish long poles. When spring spawn is on they rarely cast, always fish close to bank, just flip the bobber/jig a few feet or vertically drop jig into/between cover. Not a lot of casting either from land or boat. Swimming is my favorite way to present bait, but works best when fish are active and chasing. Some days they want it stationary, little or no movement at all. Swimming a jig will get you skunked.


Great info and it makes sense. Thanks.


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## zaraspook

ohiostrutter said:


> View attachment 231782
> Well just didn't have time for the long drive to the lake today....so I walked the 30 seconds to the neighborhood pond. Had a few customers on a purple/black bobby garland stinger


Very close to popsicle color....nice.


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## ohiostrutter

And this guy


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## fishwhacker

I am the typical grandlake fisherman who uses stationary bobbers and hair jigs with wax worms but i also mainly target gills because i think they taste better and i catch plenty of crappies on the same setup.....i agree that whatever you fish with or for,you either need wind or some movement to get your bait to get a fish's interest


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## dytmook

I do agree with the movement even with live bait. A couple of years ago at Indian I caught some slabs with extreme chop on the main lake. I was shocked.

Just ran down to Eastwood to mess with the rig. Put another bobber stopper on the bottom to try to stop the sticking. Didn't work, so I wrapped the stopper in tape and bam it worked just fine.


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## zaraspook

ohiostrutter said:


> And this guy


Love the coloring on the bass!


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## conley14

zaraspook said:


> dytmook.....like most things fishing, jigs/plastics are a learned skill. The more you do it the better you get. Most of us started with live bait but converted to plastics after watching the jig guys kick butt.


Me and buddy always have a competition when we go to St. Mary's, he uses artificial and i always use minnows on an ice jig and he has yet to catch more than me so when it comes to crappie nothing beats live bait as far as i have always seen.


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## dytmook

conley14 said:


> Me and buddy always have a competition when we go to St. Mary's, he uses artificial and i always use minnows on an ice jig and he has yet to catch more than me so when it comes to crappie nothing beats live bait as far as i have always seen.


I can see that, but I do like this artificial for when I get a free moment I can run out without having to get minnows.


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## Saugeyefisher

conley14 said:


> Me and buddy always have a competition when we go to St. Mary's, he uses artificial and i always use minnows on an ice jig and he has yet to catch more than me so when it comes to crappie nothing beats live bait as far as i have always seen.


Really it's all personal preference. And sometimes the person. But I agree when the fish are finicky and hard to get going minnows will shine. And there's a reason the minnow slow trollers do so well in tournie's.
But when the fish are active I'd put my money on my jigs


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## zaraspook

conley14 said:


> Me and buddy always have a competition when we go to St. Mary's, he uses artificial and i always use minnows on an ice jig and he has yet to catch more than me so when it comes to crappie nothing beats live bait as far as i have always seen.


conley14.....when I made that post on Saturday I figured the live bait guys would be all over me within 24 hours. Surprised it took 4-5 days. Both live bait and artificials work. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy......use live bait all the time and can nearly guarantee most of the crappies come on live bait. Use artificials all the time.....guess what? Most crappies caught will come on artificials. We're better at the things we do repetitively.....the more we do it, the better honed the skills become.

Usually if you dribble right-handed all the time, odds are you're more effective penetrating to the basket from the right. Practice more with lefthand than right, likely the player is better driving to the left. Either can get the player to the rim.

In the end, finding fish is usually more important. You gotta find them to catch 'em.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Really it's all personal preference. And sometimes the person. But I agree when the fish are finicky and hard to get going minnows will shine. And there's a reason the minnow slow trollers do so well in tournie's.
> But when the fish are active I'd put my money on my jigs


Absolutely! There is a reason why bait shops sell minnows and other options, too. Both industries, live bait and plastics/artificials, thrive.


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## zaraspook

When I arrived Thurs at 2:30pm, was not expecting 90% ice cover in my channel. Bummer since I'd heard Weds ice was only 10% and in the backend of channel only. Put nearly 2 hours into breaking ice, let the areas rest for an hour, then fished those areas. Breaking the ice really hastened melting. Fished an hour. Had about 6 timid bites. Caught nothing and headed home. Fair number of 2.5 - 3.5" shad were dead or dying. Nice day for fishing.....catching was the problem. Didn't have any minnows .


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## fishwhacker

Hope the bite picks up for tomorrow heading to brookville in a float tube for walleye......hopefully dont have to bust ice to get out into the water


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Hope the bite picks up for tomorrow heading to brookville in a float tube for walleye......hopefully dont have to bust ice to get out into the water


Let us know how you do, fishwhacker. B-ville Lake is 35-40 minutes from my home. My guess is no ice unless deep into coves. What I hear is north end of lake usually better for spring walleye.....warmer water. From my track record at B-ville for walleye, not a good idea to follow my advice.


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## fishwhacker

I will let you know results, my plan was the north end i believe that is where they would start or end the run to the river also. I was outside today and 32 degrees felt good so 45 tomorrow will feel real nice


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> I will let you know results, my plan was the north end i believe that is where they would start or end the run to the river also. I was outside today and 32 degrees felt good so 45 tomorrow will feel real nice


GLSM hasn't been exciting lately for crappies. Have you been out in the last week?


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## fishwhacker

Been too busy with work and kids....excited to be able to get out for more than 2 hours


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Been too busy with work and kids....excited to be able to get out for more than 2 hours


If I recall correctly you have young ones. Fishing time won't be what it used to be any time soon. Treasure what you get now, but you know where the priority needs to be. Plenty of fishing time later, and if you're lucky kids will be your fishing partners. Good luck at b-ville!


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## trailbreaker

Zara is right the bite slowed down 

*Grand Lake St. Marys (Mercer and Auglaize counties) – *The bite for crappies and yellow perch seems to have turned off. The hardy angler still willing to try, though, might use Cicadas, spoons, or jig and minnow combinations. Try fishing the bait on a slow retrieve as fish seem to be sluggish, anglers report.


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## fishwhacker

Forgot about the drawdown at brookville but made lemonade out of lemons and hit up another local lake for some gills and crappies


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## zaraspook

Went to GLSM midday Friday to fish. Duh, channels were 80% or more ice-covered. Neighbor told me Thursday my channel was free of ice except the back-end. That was before another sub-freezing night Thursday. Broke up ice along seawalls and did fish about an hour before dark......nothing caught from 3-4 timid hits.

Stayed overnight Friday to try again Saturday. My channel was 95% open Saturday morning and water temp was only 35.1 degrees. No wonder bite was so poor Friday. Late morning I fished hard for 90 minutes and caught zero from 5-6 timid bites. Took a lunch break and afterward headed to another nearby channel. Ooops....it was 100% locked up, no open water. 

On a whim I stopped near the backend of my channel at a place I usually don't fish this early in spring. First 15 minutes produced no bites but I continued along the bank. Bobber disappeared in a small place with a pair of 8-10' limbs visible 4-5' from the bank. I whiffed and couldn't coax the fish into a 2nd hit but continued to work the limbs. A few minutes later I landed a first crappie (short) followed by another (shorter than the first). Third fish was an 11 incher and now this spot had my full attention. The spot didn't dry up until I'd caught 10 with 5 keepers over 10". Left that spot and hit 3 others, similar light limbs/brush within 5' of the bank. No bites.

Returned to my lake place and cleaned/picked up to make my exit home. Before putting the rod away, made a short walk to the spot that produced earlier. Caught one 10" fish, then nothing. Close to 4 hours of fishing produced 11 crappies, 6 keepers, from a single small spot. Skunked at all other spots. I felt very lucky to locate the ones I found.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Forgot about the drawdown at brookville but made lemonade out of lemons and hit up another local lake for some gills and crappies
> View attachment 232157
> View attachment 232158


That's a nice load in your bucket! The thought of draw down skipped my mind, too. I believe Bonwell is always open, and normally Fairfield, too. Of course Bonwell is at opposite end of lake from north end you planned to fish. Nice lemonade.


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## RMK

there was a little talk about plastics and bait presentation a few days ago so i figured i d share a recent experience i had...

i was "practicing" in the pond on friday while looking forward to the bite on the lake returning and definitely learned something about presentation. the fish were really liking a continuous jigging of the jig with only occasional pauses in the jigging on the retrieve. most bites came right at the beginning of the pause. the bites while using this retrieve were much more aggressive and more often. i got some light bites swimming the jig a foot or two and pausing, swimming another foot or two and pause. and no bites with jig sitting still in spots i know there were fish. depths of 18 to 36 inches and 2 completely different colors produced the same results. only difference was the presentation.


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## zaraspook

Nice to have the pond as your laboratory to conduct experiments. It will be interesting to see if your 1-day pond pattern holds up or varies day to day.


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## Greyduck

Made it up to the lake Sunday Am. Found a pretty much non existing bite. We hit all are usual spots from the bank. 1 dink was all we could muster. I did get about 8 Small largemouth under the spillway. What was a bit stranger was the lack of fisherman. A trip around the lake and only seen a few out.


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## zaraspook

My opinion.....bite should warm up as water temp does. Couple weeks ago water temp actually crept over 50. It tanked all the way to 35 degrees as of last Saturday. Tues and Weds weather forecast this week have lows into low 20's but rest of 10-day forecast has low temps all better than 40. By the weekend I'd expect water temp pushing into mid 40's. Dinner bell should ring for our crappies. Best days are ahead (fingers crossed).


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## zaraspook

With frequency I mention that when you're having a tough time at the lake, count on it someone else is kicking butt.
View media item 79842
While I was struggling to catch 15 crappies with 7 keepers today another OGF sends me the photo above. Actually, I was feeling decent about my 15. Starting at 3:30 pm Tues by 5pm my count is all the way up one dink crappie! After moving for the 8th time a few fish graciously swim by. In an hour and 15 minutes I pickup 14 more crappies including the 7 keepers. Not bad I'm thinking....slow start but good finish. Always someone out there kicking butt. Keeps you humble and OPTIMISTIC!


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## harrison08

Those sure are some fine looking crappie. The shoulders on these things are second to none in this area.


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## zaraspook

Forgot to mention water temp Tues was 43 degrees......35 degrees last Saturday. Except for the first fish I caught that day, rest of mine were near the backend of a channel, no more than 2.5 feet of water and 5-6' from bank. Pearl/purple stinger was the favorite bait and popsicle twister tail fooled a couple.


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## Salmonid

Zara. Me and Backupbait will be up fishing the first Outdoorsman Catfish Tourney this sat from noon to 6 pm ill give a detailed main lake temp report as we will be most likely near the West end. I might add that tinguppy ( rusty) and his buddy Steve will be fishing there first catfish tourney there as well, i been coaching Rusty so im excited to see how they do lol


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> With frequency I mention that when you're having a tough time at the lake, count on it someone else is kicking butt.
> View media item 79842
> While I was struggling to catch 15 crappies with 7 keepers today another OGF sends me the photo above. Actually, I was feeling decent about my 15. Starting at 3:30 pm Tues by 5pm my count is all the way up one dink crappie! After moving for the 8th time a few fish graciously swim by. In an hour and 15 minutes I pickup 14 more crappies including the 7 keepers. Not bad I'm thinking....slow start but good finish. Always someone out there kicking butt. Keeps you humble and OPTIMISTIC!


just realized what i m missing! i need to buy a green menards bucket. cant wait to get back out now that i know what i m doing wrong!


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Zara. Me and Backupbait will be up fishing the first Outdoorsman Catfish Tourney this sat from noon to 6 pm ill give a detailed main lake temp report as we will be most likely near the West end. I might add that tinguppy ( rusty) and his buddy Steve will be fishing there first catfish tourney there as well, i been coaching Rusty so im excited to see how they do lol


Are you sure GLSM is big enough for the invasion by the "Fab Four" a/k/a Salmonid & Company? Wish you guys the best! 
I've been curious to know how main lake and channel temps are tracking now so your reports will be timely.


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## zaraspook

GLSM on Weds was a struggle. Channel water temp fell from 43 to 39 degrees overnight. The few fish found didn't seem to mind the cooler environment, hit the bait aggressively, and no complaint with the resistance the fish offered to avoid spending a few moments on land. Finding fish was tough, as confirmed by a few other reports from anglers taking limits the day before. I'm confident there were fisherguys who solved the puzzle, as always.

For me, 12 crappies caught, 5 keepers 10-11". My pearl body/purple stinger tail plastic took 1/2 my total. Other half tried to eat a jelly bean stinger tail, slightly longer bait than the pearl/purple stinger. One spot gave up at least 7 of my catch.......a light cluster of small limbs/branches that is 12' wide along the bank that is 12' wide along the bank, some submerged, some showing tips. The cluster is no more than a foot off bank at some places and 10-12 feet out at other places. You could dip into every nook and cranny and eventually pull out a crappie. Water depth at the cluster is 12-24". Other similar cover would not produce a single bite. Had my boat been in the water, lots of spots like this one would be accessible in my channel. I'm waiting on my trailer sticker.

Forecast for extended warmer weather is going to fire up the bite. Put some new line on your reels!


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## RMK

headed out tomorrow. i'll check those brush piles for ya


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> headed out tomorrow. i'll check those brush piles for ya


The green bucket guy pulled his 30 fish limit today......clearly bite improved. No fishing for me. I'm stubborn, only fish the tough days.


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## RMK

Managed 3 today. Caught on minnows in thick cover. A chartreuse marabou jig produced some bites in the same cover. Talked to two guys in a boat that said they hadn't had any luck. Talked to another guy by himself in a boat that was looking for two more for his limit! (I didn't notice a green menards bucket in the boat with him lol) our smallest was just over 9. biggest just under 11.


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## zaraspook

RMK......rumors have it the famous green Menards bucket is in retirement. It's fishing days are over.....now relegated to duties of holding dog poop picked up from the owner's yard.

A friend and I made it to GLSM today early afternoon. Stopped by Outdoorsman to restock my supply of xxxxxxx (secret weapon), and a guys telling me how they killed them Thurs but bite is pathetic today. Head to my place and immediately get a text telling me since I like to fish only on tough days, "you'll love it today". Not good vibes but friend and I roll up our shirt sleeves for fishing.

First spot.....not a single bite. Maybe we should reconsider? Play golf maybe? Noooo way, we like it tough. We alter our normal rotation to test totally different cover and shake things up. 15 minutes later partner Scott drops his 3rd fish in the bucket. Don't think I'd caught a fish yet but that didn't last long. Action was good enough to keep us entertained for a while. When he bite slowed and we moved, my problem had been short fish after short fish. My 12 yielded just 3 keepers. We tried a lot of other places, particularly a few that were very good earlier in the week. Most were totally absent of a bite or a a sporadic fish here and there. 

Scott ended up with 8 keepers among his 15 crappies caught. My score was 21 caught, only 5 keepers. Scott's 11 incher was the day's best. 13 keepers between us from 36 fish was better than we expected from the grim reports earlier. OK results on a tough day.


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## Sappy

Went to Anderson's last evening and caught 2. Both 10.5"


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## T04DF15H

Sappy said:


> Went to Anderson's last evening and caught 2. Both 10.5"


Did you see and hear those 2 crazy turkeys?


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## Sappy

I did hear them,did not see them though


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## Greyduck

jmaury said:


> Did you see and hear those 2 crazy turkeys?


Hey we wasn't up there John! LoL


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## T04DF15H

Greyduck said:


> Hey we wasn't up there John! LoL


I guess I could qualify you as a fellow crazy turkey! lol


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## Saugeyefisher

Great job everyone! Zara the pigs will come shortly! Good to see a nice mix of size! 
As much As I wanted to be out at buckeye today the wind an other plans are keeping me grounded.
Plan on float in, an soak in in the yak tomarrow. With lake coming up 30+" it will give me a ton of more opurtunitys...


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## zaraspook

Saturday at GLSM.......lots of property owners up there Saturday doing winter cleanup. It's good for the area, but puts a damper on the spots I can fish from bank. Fished almost 2.5 hours between a late morning session and another late afternoon. Just one spot produced fish in morning session. 6 crappies/3 keepers, best an 11" on the popsicle triple tip. Late afternoon walked to a nearby channel and access closer to main lake. When I locate fish there, they always seem to run 1-2" larger than the average fish caught in my channel. It didn't disappoint for size. Caught 4, all keepers 10.5 to 11.75". One that was over 12" came unzipped......had my net this time but awkward position I was in to drop bait in a specific 2'x3' spot eliminated the net as an option to land it. During the 2nd round 3 fish came off a pearl Bobby Garland Baby Shad plastic and the 4th fish landed with popsicle triple tip.

Water temp in my channel zoomed all the way up to 50.9 degrees from 43 degrees Friday. 10 fish with 7 nice keepers is respectable. Several crappie boats in my channel didn't offer decent reports.


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## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> Saturday at GLSM.......lots of property owners up there Saturday doing winter cleanup. It's good for the area, but puts a damper on the spots I can fish from bank. Fished almost 2.5 hours between a late morning session and another late afternoon. Just one spot produced fish in morning session. 6 crappies/3 keepers, best an 11" on the popsicle triple tip. Late afternoon walked to a nearby channel and access closer to main lake. When I locate fish there, they always seem to run 1-2" larger than the average fish caught in my channel. It didn't disappoint for size. Caught 4, all keepers 10.5 to 11.75". One that was over 12" came unzipped......had my net this time but awkward position I was in to drop bait in a specific 2'x3' spot eliminated the net as an option to land it. During the 2nd round 3 fish came off a pearl Bobby Garland Baby Shad plastic and the 4th fish landed with popsicle triple tip.
> 
> Water temp in my channel zoomed all the way up to 50.9 degrees from 43 degrees Friday. 10 fish with 7 nice keepers is respectable. Several crappie boats in my channel didn't offer decent reports.


Caught around 20 craps with my buddy did not stay on spots to long but it was slow would catch a few fish then nothing! Prefishing the tourney also saw some nice craps dead!


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## Salmonid

Cat fish tourney update. 66 teams. Channel where we launched was 55 at noon and 57 at 6 pm. Mainlake was 53 all over west end. We caught almost 20 channels just couldnt find any big ones. We finished 20 th only 7 lbs out of the money. Always happens that im just 1 kicker fish out of the money. Lol. Also note 14 teams in the same boat. Winners had 42 lbs. 6 th place had 36+ we had 28 lbs. also very few shad in chsnnels


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## ohiostrutter

7 year old daughter is on spring break this week. She wants a daddy daughter fishing trip and she didn't have to twist my arm. We are headed up midday tomm to fish the afternoon and evening and stay the night and fish Tuesday morning. She's pretty self sufficient so I will get in some fishin between helping her out. Will report back


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Cat fish tourney update. 66 teams. Channel where we launched was 55 at noon and 57 at 6 pm. Mainlake was 53 all over west end. We caught almost 20 channels just couldnt find any big ones. We finished 20 th only 7 lbs out of the money. Always happens that im just 1 kicker fish out of the money. Lol. Also note 14 teams in the same boat. Winners had 42 lbs. 6 th place had 36+ we had 28 lbs. also very few shad in chsnnels


66 teams sounds like a great turnout, Mark. Thanks for water temp info. Not surprising that Montezuma(55-57 degrees you said) would be significantly warmer than my channel(50.9 degrees). Montezuma is a feeder - warmer inflow. Main lake at 53 is warmer than my channel, confirming what I thought. The last significant run in my area was in Feb, water temp crested at 52. Shad were all over the place then, bite was sweet, and crappies were bigger. My channel since then running below main lake temp and crappies are smaller. Good to see temp differential between my channel and main lake is narrowing.

Liked your observation about shad "not in channel". Low shad activity in my channel most of last few weeks. When I have a good day, evidence of shad is up, too, regardless of water temp.


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## zaraspook

New natural wetlands project to aid Montezuma waste water treatment treatment......."one of the first EPA-authorized wetlands pilot study at a wastewater treatment plant". Celina Daily Standard article at this link http://www.dailystandard.com/archive/2017-03-25/stories/31791/wetlands-to-treat-wastewater-discharge


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## Saugeyefisher

I made it to suckeye lake Sunday. Saugeye fished for an hour got one. Then at Sun up dropped in my kayak for crappie. My first cast got me a 12" black then nothing for 1-1/2 hours. Was starting to think it was gonna be a bad day. Then the wind switched from south west to south east an stArted raining an a switch flipped on. 
I knew the weather change was gonna happen but I thought it would be opposite. Good bite pre-front them slow during the wind switch luckily for me the weather change is what they wanted.
I went on to catch 50+ crappies with 30 or so being good keeper size,3 good gills an 6 1lb channel cats. All on a electric chicken solid body tube I trimmed down to about 1 inch. 15" under a fixed float. I kept these 3 between 13-14'' an pulling like Minnie freight trains. Water was murky most came from dock posts a few on natural cover. I kept these an tossed the rest back. 30 is just to many for me to clean


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> I made it to suckeye lake Sunday. Saugeye fished for an hour got one. Then at Sun up dropped in my kayak for crappie. My first cast got me a 12" black then nothing for 1-1/2 hours. Was starting to
> I went on to catch 50+ crappies with 30 or so being good keeper size,3 good gills an 6 1lb channel cats. All on a electric chicken solid body tube I trimmed down to about 1 inch. 15" under a fixed float. I kept these 3 between 13-14'' an pulling like Minnie freight trains. Water was murky most came from dock posts a few on natural cover. I kept these an tossed the rest back. 30 is just to many for me to clean
> View attachment 233059
> View attachment 233060


Nice haul, Saugeyefisher. Impressive looking pile you have there. Curious to know about Buckeye's demographics of white vs black crappies. From your pics and markings, it looks like 3 of the 16 crappies are white. Is 18-20% white crappie fairly representative of Buckeyes mix?

At GLSM it's pretty rare these days to catch crappies that look like whites from the markings. Counting splines can somewhat boost the number of fish that might be whites. Suspect that GLSM population is significantly hybrid/cross-bred.


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## Saugeyefisher

Zara for me personally that's about right on the blacks vs. Whites. But I know a couple guys that claim to catch more white crappie out there. But they are fishing more natural stuff where I'm usually fishing docks. As the water warms up I start seeing more an More white crappie but still would say even then it's more black crappie. Illgo out on a limb an say Indian is the same.


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## ohiostrutter

Fished with the daughter yesterday afternoon and evening. Caught 7 keeper crappie from various places around the lake. Also a bunch of 12-14" bass. My 7 year old wore the bluegill out and had a blast. I did finally figure out that when I was jigging and let the bobber "lay" on the water while intermittently twitching it the bites were few and far between. When I started tight lining the jig and just using the bobber as an indicator of depth my strikes went up exponentially. Or maybe I just wasn't detecting a lot of hits the other way.


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## db1534

I've never been here but was gonna head there tomorrow, can someone please give me a general area to start. I will be with my two little ones so only can fish from shore, any info is greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.


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## fishwhacker

Way to get your daughter into some fish. Were the bluegills shallow yet? Any size to them? You dont have to give specific spots.


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## RMK

db1534 said:


> I've never been here but was gonna head there tomorrow, can someone please give me a general area to start. I will be with my two little ones so only can fish from shore, any info is greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.


which direction are you coming from? N S E or W?


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## ohiostrutter

fishwhacker said:


> Way to get your daughter into some fish. Were the bluegills shallow yet? Any size to them? You dont have to give specific spots.


We had the best luck at the spillways with the bluegills. They were related to little clumps of brush and they were about 18" deep in what my best guess is 5-6' of water. There were some keeper bluegills in the mix but mostly small.


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## db1534

RMK said:


> which direction are you coming from? N S E or W?


I'm coming from the south


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## jon84

First attempt at tying jigs now I just need to get up there and try them out.


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## firemanmike2127

We had some good success crappie fishing in some of the SW channels over the weekend. The fish we caught were in 18"-4' of water & were relating to wood structure & brush. Various colored stingers were all effective fished @ 15" under a fixed float. I'd suggest the Windy Point area to go with your girls. The restrooms ate open & there are plenty of easily accessible areas with chunk rock that can hold gills at this time of the year. There are also lots of fixed brush piles you can hit on foot that might give up some crappie action. I'd suggest taking some waxworms to promote the bluegill bite for the kids. Looks like great spring weather for your outing. Have fun tomorrow !! Mime


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## zaraspook

Great recommendation, especially the consideration for potty breaks!


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## zaraspook

ohiostrutter said:


> Fished with the daughter yesterday afternoon and evening. Caught 7 keeper crappie from various places around the lake. Also a bunch of 12-14" bass. My 7 year old wore the bluegill out and had a blast. I did finally figure out that when I was jigging and let the bobber "lay" on the water while intermittently twitching it the bites were few and far between. When I started tight lining the jig and just using the bobber as an indicator of depth my strikes went up exponentially. Or maybe I just wasn't detecting a lot of hits the other way.


Shhhh. Don't tell everyone about our secret. That's my favorite way to fish. Easier to judge depth with bobber still on the line than not, isn't it? Bite detection goes way up.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Zara for me personally that's about right on the blacks vs. Whites. But I know a couple guys that claim to catch more white crappie out there. But they are fishing more natural stuff where I'm usually fishing docks. As the water warms up I start seeing more an More white crappie but still would say even then it's more black crappie. Illgo out on a limb an say Indian is the same.


Ironic that among my crappies today/Tues, one was a white. Only 2nd white of the year from GLSM where markings were distinctive.


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## db1534

I appreciate it alot everyone! I'll def give a update tomorrow night!


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM Tues at 2pm. Checked water temp first....52.1 degrees! Last time my channel cracked 52 was the last few days of Feb and bite was going nuts. My seawall is a convenient first target.......first dip produced a 10" crappie and in 15 minutes landed 4 with 2 keepers including the 11.5" below.
View media item 79878That was the last photo for the day.....too busy "catching".

The bite slowed there and moved to next spot. Pulled in 4 more there. First 8 all caught with pearl Bobby Garland Swim Shad. Bite slowed so why not try my 2nd rod tied with the popsicle triple trip? Yep.....2 more from the spot where pearl had gone quiet. No more bites for 3 minutes so let's find another place to test how widespread this bite is.

Cover here is almost all PVC stake beds. Had to stay longer at the PVC place as bite wasn't fading. At one point I'm 16 keepers of the first 20 fish before 4 of next 5 were short and suggested time to move again. Both baits are still catching fish with popsicle edging out in front.

The theme continues through a couple more spots and finally tallies 30 keepers from 42 fish. Didn't change baits, lose baits......although the 2 plastics are worn and weary, they are the same plastics I started with.

Best day in a month........best day since water last reached 52 degrees. Crazy good day!


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## firemanmike2127

Zara, forgot to mention that my wife & I found some 52.9° water on Sunday, & our best bite was in that area. We used 4 different colors but a red/chartreuse stinger accounted for most of our bites. I'm not sure how many fish we caught, but I cleaned 15 black crappies & 3 of them were holding eggs. The size was excellent & the bite was aggressive. Good to hear that you had a 'Blue Ribbon' day @ the lake.....a nice reward for all those hours you put in chasing the spring bite ! I just had some minor hand surgery Monday & can't wait to get this dang bulky dressing off my dominant rod hand. With the steady warming water trend finally here the action is only going to pick up. Mike


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## bobberbucket

jon84 said:


> First attempt at tying jigs now I just need to get up there and try them out.


The two purple ones are sweet! I'm positive they will produce for you! If you tie some more add a little white with the purple and see how they like it.


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## firemanmike2127

Those are some nice looking jigs. We had an older gentleman over here @ GLSM that used to tie a bunch of crappie jigs that were marketed locally as 'R & D Jigs'. He told me that his personal favorite was purple & white version that he tied. I happened to spot a couple of them hanging in a local bait shop last year.....& promptly paid for them. Good luck with your new jigs....It would be an excellent day to get some of them wet. Mike


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## jon84

Thank you


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## jon84

firemanmike2127 said:


> Those are some nice looking jigs. We had an older gentleman over here @ GLSM that used to tie a bunch of crappie jigs that were marketed locally as 'R & D Jigs'. He told me that his personal favorite was purple & white version that he tied. I happened to spot a couple of them hanging in a local bait shop last year.....& promptly paid for them. Good luck with your new jigs....It would be an excellent day to get some of them wet. Mike


Are you taking about the guy that lived on windy point?


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## firemanmike2127

Possibly....I'm positive was from the Montezuma area. I can picture him in my mind but can:t remember his name. His jigs were the mainstay of crappie anglers before the popularity of larger plastic offerings exploded. I still have a small selection of his jigs in a metal fly box & like to use them when the bluegills are active on the rocks....
that way I'm less likely to lose them. Mike


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## fishwhacker

His name was dalton and had a crappie mailbox....once he was done i started tying my own....still have a handful from him.


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## RMK

jon84 said:


> First attempt at tying jigs now I just need to get up there and try them out.


nice! those look pretty impressive to me. i would have to think those tied up road runners would be deadly on aggressive active crappie.


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## jon84

firemanmike2127 said:


> Possibly....I'm positive was from the Montezuma area. I can picture him in my mind but can:t remember his name. His jigs were the mainstay of crappie anglers before the popularity of larger plastic offerings exploded. I still have a small selection of his jigs in a metal fly box & like to use them when the bluegills are active on the rocks....
> that way I'm less likely to lose them. Mike


If it's the guy I'm thinking of I have some of his Digs at home I'll take a picture when I get there


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## jon84

jon84 said:


> If it's the guy I'm thinking of I have some of his Digs at home I'll take a picture when I get there


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## db1534

Went out today, no luck but def looks promising. We will definitely be back! Thanks to everyone who helped out. Water seemed a little muddy


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## fishwhacker

jon84 said:


>


Looks like a dalton for sure egg yarn and a couple strands of flash


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## zaraspook

Grandson Max and Nephew Aiden were my fishing buddies Weds afternoon. First time fishing for Aiden who is 7. Max (6 yrs old) and I've fished several times, just for gills though. Rookie Aiden caught 6 crappies to best Max with 4, but Max had biggest fish at 11.25". Neither previously caught a crappie, but we took care of that today. We all had fun, they learned a bit about crappie fishing, and as Max said "we had a guy's day out". Some day they may share my fishing passion. Pics below...nephew first.
View media item 79880View media item 79879


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## RMK

looks like a great "guys day out". good for you for teaching and sharing with them. also a little jealous because i m pretty sure they just did better in an afternoon than i have in 6 or 7 outings. haha. one of these days i ll put a picture on here of a pile of em.....


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## zaraspook

RMK.....I'm convinced it won't be long until those "piles" come for you. I should add my fishing partners were using plastics. Nephew's first crappie was a plastic tipped with wax worm. After that they decided to go rogue, no more meat/live bait.

Water temp Weds midday was 50.1, down a couple degrees overnight which is normal. Before boys arrived, I went out "scouting", looking to find fish. 45 minutes later I returned.....17 keepers from 20 fish. The action was actually better than Tues afternoon when catching 30 keepers from 42 fish. So, I knew I could the boys on fish. While trying to teach them some "technique" yesterday, to prove there were fish below, I caught 23 with 16 keepers. All my fish were on the popsicle triple tip, 1/32nd oz jig, variable depths from 12" to 3' under bobber, and within 12' of the bank. Haven't put on a fresh popsicle for 10 days. This one is beat to hell, split and torn, still producing producing fish......more than 60 in last 24 hours, and 100+ fish since it was tied on. Sure beats multiple trips to bait shop to buy minnies.

Fantastic is the only word to describe the current crappie run. Several boats were in/out of my channel Weds. All caught fish......lots of smiles on the faces of anyone fishing. It won't last forever but we should see similar action on and off during April and May.


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## brad crappie

Did u guys get a lot of rain was wondering if the lake got real muddy? Thanks


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## RMK

brad crappie said:


> Did u guys get a lot of rain was wondering if the lake got real muddy? Thanks


We got quite a bit of rain. A few heavy down poors. Don't know amounts. Will be on the water around 5. Can let you know clarity then.


----------



## brad crappie

RMK said:


> We got quite a bit of rain. A few heavy down poors. Don't know amounts. Will be on the water around 5. Can let you know clarity then.


Thank u bud!


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## RMK

Maybe a little more brown than normal. Probably more due to the wind than the rain. No bites yet.


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## oldroller

Tough Sat. caught 9 pretty good ones,shut down around 10:00 nada after that


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## zaraspook

Late post from Friday.......our pattern continues. Tues, Weds, Friday were hard to tell apart as bite was fantastic all 3 days. Buddy Scott joined me and he got started close to 1pm. Pretty sure he had 4, all keepers, before I wet a line 15 minutes later. Between us we caught 20 from the first spot. Moved on to a 2nd spot and bite was even better there. Getting a little over-confident about finding a bite everywhere, we left spot #2 prematurely where bite was still pretty good.

Our target was another nearby channel we could walk to. It's not as consistent as others, but fish run bigger if we locate them. We didn't locate them. Next hour and a half only Scott caught a fish, just one. Confidence broken we limped back to first 2 spots, finding fish still there and hungry. While I sat on one spot for the next hour and a half, Scott hit 2 others. We both kept busy, but Scott's haul included some of the bigger fish of the day.

We finally quit to eat some tasty red beans and jasmine rice. Doubtful anyone fishing GLSM eats as well as I do when fishing with Scott. Crappie count was 78 total between us. 48 with 30 keepers for me. 20 keepers from 30 fish for Scott. An 11.75" fish was the day's biggest, caught by Scott. 90% of Scott's fish were on a triple tip pearl with black speckles. Two-thirds of mine were fishing a Bobby Garland Baby Shad Swim'r, two tone white and yellow. Other third of my fish fell for the trusty popsicle triple tip grub/twister tail. Wood was popular cover as were the PVC plastic stake beds.
Scott wanted about a dozen fish. These were all 10.5 - 11.75". One of them we released before cleaning, feeling confident it was female with a good load of eggs. I hate keeping females when the spawn is coming soon.
View media item 79882By the way water temp was 51.9 degrees, up a degree since Weds.


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## zaraspook

With visitors at home from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon, it wasn't a fishing weekend for GLSM. But, last family left at 3pm Sunday. Figured if I hustled there I could fish from 5-8pm. Made it there by 4:40 and line was in the water within 5 minutes. Just stayed close to my place. 

Bite wasn't the glorious one of the last 2 weeks but plenty active to make the trip worthwhile. Caught 31 with 19 keepers, 3 of which were 11"+. I used a white/chartreuse Bobby Garland the first hour until it was too ragged to keep on the hook. Popsicle triple tip took the 2nd shift and 3rd hour was pearl/purple stinger I'd been in love with but hadn't used during last 3-4 trips. No real noticeable difference between production from each bait. All caught double digit fish, but the bite was fading as time progressed. Kinda wished I'd started with the stinger.

Fish were definitely relating to cover......in general inside 3-4' from bank produced smaller fish than 5-10 foot from bank. Water temp was 51.2. a bit lower than Friday. Fish are amazingly feisty when your get one on. Water clarity is about as good as it gets at GLSM, although channels feed by creeks are understandably more stained. Lot of rain in the forecast this week. Water level remains stable......not much up/down variation for several weeks.


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## RMK

Impressed as usual. Good job Zara and thanks for the updates.


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## RMK

might as well complete my update from friday evening. boat in a little after 5. some sun and light breeze. got across the lake and clouds and wind set in. we got our butts kicked: by the wind, by the dropping temperature, by the lake, by the fish, and even by the rain by the end of the trip! lol cant wait to get out and try it again!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> might as well complete my update from friday evening. boat in a little after 5. some sun and light breeze. got across the lake and clouds and wind set in. we got our butts kicked: by the wind, by the dropping temperature, by the lake, by the fish, and even by the rain by the end of the trip! lol cant wait to get out and try it again!


Not surprised with your post since you fished later in the evening. Scott and I both felt bite was "softening" as the evening went on. By softening I mean fewer bites, fewer caught, and mix shifted to smaller fish. Sometimes you get into a feeding frenzy at dusk.......not Friday.

You have the right attitude, RMK. Best crappie days are ahead of us!


----------



## zaraspook

Want to go against the pros? Link below to the Crappie USA Super Event at GLSM on April 28-29 http://brushpilefishing.com/tournament/ .


----------



## zaraspook

I can't personally attest to Monday's crappie bite at GLSM. Here's a photo of one angler's result. Notice anything familiar about the photo? 
View media item 79884


----------



## Hortance

I recognize the small crappie to the right of the bucket...


----------



## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> I can't personally attest to Monday's crappie bite at GLSM. Here's a photo of one angler's result. Notice anything familiar about the photo?
> View media item 79884


Black crappie 9 t 11in


----------



## trailbreaker

zaraspook said:


> Want to go against the pros? Link below to the Crappie USA Super Event at GLSM on April 28-29 http://brushpilefishing.com/tournament/ .


What's the cost to get in


----------



## zaraspook

Hortance said:


> I recognize the small crappie to the right of the bucket...


You're a funny guy! Not the answer I was fishing for.....


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## zaraspook

trailbreaker said:


> What's the cost to get in


TB.....don't know entry fee. I assumed somewhere at the link provided the cost would be listed.


----------



## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> Black crappie 9 t 11in


BC.......you might be right, don't know for sure, and knowing the unnamed guy who sent me the pic, I'd bet more than a few of the fish are >11". Not the answer I was fishing for, however.......


----------



## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> BC.......you might be right, don't know for sure, and knowing the unnamed guy who sent me the pic, I'd bet more than a few of the fish are >11". Not the answer I was fishing for, however.......


Can't tell them all but they might be all males from my phone they don't have big baby bellies


----------



## zaraspook

BC......my phone suggests some impressive bellies. Maybe if the fish were on a flat surface, instead of grass, bellies would appear more stout. "All males" isn't what I'm looking for. Hint......March 21st I posted a different photo, same guy. Viewers picked up something in that photo, something that was a sure fire cure to their anemic crappie catching performances.


----------



## RMK

zaraspook said:


> I can't personally attest to Monday's crappie bite at GLSM. Here's a photo of one angler's result. Notice anything familiar about the photo?
> View media item 79884


the green menards bucket came out of retirement!!!!


----------



## RMK

and thats a beautiful pile of crappie


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## harrison08

Hello everyone again,
I just returned from a spring break trip to Florida and am ready to chase some crappies around. I did a little inshore fishing there-- you can read about it in the Out of State forum! 
Hope to see you out there soon!


----------



## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> BC......my phone suggests some impressive bellies. Maybe if the fish were on a flat surface, instead of grass, bellies would appear more stout. "All males" isn't what I'm looking for. Hint......March 21st I posted a different photo, same guy. Viewers picked up something in that photo, something that was a sure fire cure to their anemic crappie catching performances.


Maybe a shad in the picture


----------



## crappie4me

green bucket!!!!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> the green menards bucket came out of retirement!!!!


We have a winner! You are on your game, RMK. Yes, green bucket was rumored to be in retirement. The photo shows said Menard's bucket clearly back on the job. Some astute viewers noted they didn't own a green bucket and hypothesized lack of a green bucket was likely _*the*_ key factor for catching piles of large crappies. Some scoffed at the notion, denying any rational relationship between a green bucket and catching crappies. Naysayers beware. I have it on good authority the green bucket angler experienced a serious reduction in his catch. Upon re-commissioning the bucket, quantity and quality of his catch immediately returned to historical levels. Be careful......never doubt the power of the green bucket.


----------



## zaraspook

crappie4me said:


> green bucket!!!!


You got it, crappie4me!


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## RMK

i just checked menards website. looks like the bucket runs around $2.75 without the lid. i ll have one by this weekend.


----------



## zaraspook

RMK said:


> i just checked menards website. looks like the bucket runs around $2.75 without the lid. i ll have one by this weekend.


----------



## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM at 4:15 Tues. Friend coming up for 8am fishing Weds. Dipping a line by 4:30 and I should add "unimpressively". First hour ended with 7 keepers among 10 caught. Sounds like a good pace but 8 came from one spot of four I fished. Two spots later I got into a good school of fish. For the better part of the hour there, it was either a fish or at least a bump on 90% of the casts. Great action......at least 25 crappies with a good number of 11"+ fish. Finished up at my seawall with 3 of the biggest fish of the day including an 11.75". Haven't seen many 12" fish yet, but they will show soon.
Total haul for under 3 hours was 42 with 30 keepers. Popsicle triple tip caught fish but stingers took 3 out of every 4 fish. Water temp was 52.7 degrees and seems up 2-3". Fish were caught as little as 12" under bobber and as deep as 30" under bobber. Crappies are very spunky at this water temp. I released all. I don't have a green bucket .


----------



## harrison08

I just bought 2000 shares in Menards...green bucket sales only! I know one thing, if a fisherman thinks something will help, they will buy it!


----------



## RMK

any predictions on what this 48+/- hours of cold temps will do to what seems like a great bite right now?


----------



## zaraspook

Weds at GLSM with fishing buddy Scott did not result in a fantastic crappie day, but it was OK. Other than the early light shower, rain held off until late. Wind wasn't that bad and skies bounced from sunny to overcast each hour. If you moved around enough, you could find fish. When fish were located, they'd bite. We'd catch 2-3 quick ones then work hard to pull a few more. Water temp was 51, a little cooler than 24 hours earlier. Off my seawall water depth is 40", 4" higher than a few weeks ago, but rise has been slow. Not the crazy up and down we've witnessed during last 3 years when water level management was ultra aggressive.

Back to fishing......Scott was whipping my butt from the outset catching 14 keepers among his 22 crappies. With a late surge I surpassed his total with 24 crappies, falling short on keepers with 12. I believe Scott had a fish just under or over 12" as biggest fish. Our hook up rate was really off early......bites were there, fish would bump the lure in typical crappie fashion, but drop plastic almost immediately. Did not seem to matter whether bait was a grub/twister tail, stinger, Garland Baby Shad.......result was same. Switching to a more compact bait (shorter tails and stouter body) fixed that issue. Panfish Assassin, one of my favorite baits but ignored most of this Spring, was the solution this time. All fish released for the next guy(perhaps me) to catch again.

Good food today, a cold multi-bean salad with robust flavors. Tremendous stuff, Scott!


----------



## Greyduck

Fished grand last friday. The boys and I took the boat up for the day. Fishing was slow all morning. Ran down the Southside of the lake a few miles from where we launched. The lake was glass at noon. We found some fish and was way back up in a channel. We came into a opening when I realized the north wind was picking up. We headed back out only to find very rough whitecaps. Ended up turning back into another channel. After taking a few over the sides of our 1860. A special thanks to a gentleman named Terry who was starting to fish. He drove me back to get my truck and trailer. We pulled out and all was fine. Be careful out there. If your on this board thank you Terry for hauling my wet cold but back to the truck.


----------



## RMK

i m not terry but i am the other 1860 that put in at 5 and crossed the lake both ways north and south friday evening and got soaked going both ways! lol


----------



## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> Fished grand last friday. The boys and I took the boat up for the day. Fishing was slow all morning. Ran down the Southside of the lake a few miles from where we launched. The lake was glass at noon. We found some fish and was way back up in a channel. We came into a opening when I realized the north wind was picking up. We headed back out only to find very rough whitecaps. Ended up turning back into another channel. After taking a few over the sides of our 1860. A special thanks to a gentleman named Terry who was starting to fish. He drove me back to get my truck and trailer. We pulled out and all was fine. Be careful out there. If your on this board thank you Terry for hauling my wet cold but back to the truck.


Good judgment, Greyduck. You didn't allow your macho side to interfere with prudent decision making. My super sized ego put me into a few dangerous situations over the years. Hope your example helps me/others think twice before a future choice between ego and safety. Thanks for sharing and thanks for Good Samaritan Terry.


----------



## zaraspook

I'm stumped this time. Was I hypnotized? Drunk as a skunk? Did I eat a pot laced brownie? Or was it "mind control", fishing god mind-control? 

After fishing GLSM Weds, late afternoon I'm loading up my truck to head home. Happen to notice a "green object" in the truck bed. Didn't require much effort to ID the object.......Hmmm, how did a Magical Menard's Green Bucket get there? Brand spanking new one, too. I don't own one. Alzheimer's? No recollection at all of a visit to Menard's.
Go with the flow, I guess. Heck, I'll try it out. Haven't put away my crappie rods yet and my seawall is right here. Ignoring the fact that Scott and I pounded my seawall multiple times thru the day without a single fish, and last time was no more than an hour ago. Let's give this bucket a stern test....let's see if the bucket's magic is real or myth. 2 minutes is all it takes, a chunky 10.5" crappie in my hand from the first dip into cover. I'm a believer!

It doesn't settle exactly how/where/when the bucket came from, but I have a good idea.


----------



## brad crappie

Was the lake turned up bad the last 2 days or fish catching weekend thanks !


----------



## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Happen to notice a "green object" in the truck bed.


You can never have too many lucky charms when you're fishing... I hope it works well for you.


----------



## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> Was the lake turned up bad the last 2 days or fish catching weekend thanks !


Stuck at home since Weds so haven't witnessed lake conditions. I heard crappies were tight lipped Weds-Thurs, but making up for lost time today.


----------



## jon84

What have been the hot colors lately going up tomorrow and want to make sure I have enough jigs tied


----------



## T04DF15H

jon84 said:


> What have been the hot colors lately going up tomorrow and want to make sure I have enough jigs tied


My favorite lately on sunny days has been a white body with a chartreuse green stinger tail. Cloudy days I go with a black body with a green or pink stinker tail. A lot of stuff will work if you dip it in front of their face.


----------



## zaraspook

jon84 said:


> What have been the hot colors lately going up tomorrow and want to make sure I have enough jigs tied


jmaury is on target, white or pearl bodies with chartreuse, purple tails have been good for several weeks. Weds 1/2 my 26 fish were on key lime bait,
Fished only for 1 hr and 15 minutes today/Sat. Bite was puny, 4 fish with 1/2 on white/chartreuse and 1/2with key lime.


----------



## jon84

zaraspook said:


> jmaury is on target, white or pearl bodies with chartreuse, purple tails have been good for several weeks. Weds 1/2 my 26 fish were on key lime bait,
> Fished only for 1 hr and 15 minutes today/Sat. Bite was puny, 4 fish with 1/2 on white/chartreuse and 1/2with key lime.





jmaury said:


> My favorite lately on sunny days has been a white body with a chartreuse green stinger tail. Cloudy days I go with a black body with a green or pink stinker tail. A lot of stuff will work if you dip it in front of their face.


Guess it's time to get busy at the vice


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## RMK

i d be interested in seeing finished products if you dont mind shareing. i thought your other ones looked good


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## jon84

RMK said:


> i d be interested in seeing finished products if you dont mind shareing. i thought your other ones looked good










if your interested in seeing more look me up on Facebook Jon's jigs


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## RMK

Nice! I m probably one of 5 humans left that dosn't have Facebook and honestly don't plan on getting it. Lol


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## Saugeyefisher

RMK said:


> Nice! I m probably one of 5 humans left that dosn't have Facebook and honestly don't plan on getting it. Lol


Make that 6


----------



## jon84




----------



## Saugeyefisher

Looking good! Hope they work out for you! I need to add some hair jigs to my arsenal. But do so well on soft plastics I don't give hair enough time....
A new to me plastic I used last trip an worked well







There a solid body tube made bye venom I've been trimming a bit of the top and bottom for a smaller profile. But as the bait fish get bigger I'll keep them hhole. I forget the total length but I'll look an post it tomarrow. 
I'm heading out to my local lake. Plan on being in water before Sun up. Have this tied up on one,an a chartreuse/pearl baby shad rigged on my long pole... 
Hope we gettem going good. If not I got waxies an gills will have to save the day. Might do some eye/bass fishing as well,will see how it goes


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## jon84

Here are some more I've got done tonight. I even did one in someone's favorite pattern lately.


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## zaraspook

jon84 said:


> Here are some more I've got done tonight. I even did one in someone's favorite pattern lately.


You are talented! All look sweet but tough to resist those pearl/purple.....


----------



## RMK

Popcicle ehh! Nice work


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## jon84

Thank you guys. I've been crappie fishing my whole life and just decided to start making some jigs a few weeks ago.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Popcicle ehh! Nice work


popsicle one is dead on!


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## jon84

more popcicle


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## fishwhacker

Nice work jon on the jigs. I have been tying my own for 5 years and after you land your 1st slab on something you tied yourself its hard to go back to store bought. Im sure you have heard chuckanddebs.com is a great place for materials and prices are great. Weather forecast looks prime for crappies to start moving in close soon.


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## zaraspook

jmaury said:


> My favorite lately on sunny days has been a white body with a chartreuse green stinger tail. Cloudy days I go with a black body with a green or pink stinker tail. A lot of stuff will work if you dip it in front of their face.


JM....... Where do you get those stinker tails?


----------



## T04DF15H

zaraspook said:


> JM....... Where do you get those stinker tails?


lol, you know a stinker tail just might be the thing! Wouldn't make a difference what color you used!


----------



## jon84

Seems to of been too nice today. I only fished for about an hour with no bites but that seemed to be the norm


----------



## Popspastime

Does any one have the water temp there?


----------



## brad crappie

Popspastime said:


> Does any one have the water temp there?


Around 630 yesterday I had I think 57! Bite was tough for me for 2 days found fish but the wind screwed things up yesterday


----------



## zaraspook

Popspastime said:


> Does any one have the water temp there?


Main lake temp - don't know.
Southside channel - 49 degrees Saturday, 52.7 degrees late afternoon Sunday


----------



## zaraspook

Lot of posts this weekend about tying jigs, stinky tails, water temps.....scarcity of posts about fishing. I take it results for most weren't worth bragging about.....including mine. Saturday I arrived at 2pm. 4 bites, 3 fish in 45 minutes spells anemic. Did some chores then 30 minutes for 1 more crappie. Caught 3 more in the 45 minutes before dark. 5 of the 7 for the day were keepers. Bite on Sunday was a smidgen better. Three 45 minute sessions produced 10 crappies, 7 keepers which is too slow to keep me around for the evening bite. 49 degrees in my channel Saturday.....52.7 late Sunday after a lot of sun.

Boat traffic both days was crazy....perhaps a tourney, recreational guys fishing, and suspect much of it guys "practicing" for Crappie USA Super Event at end of the month? With channels 60-70 feet wide and water depth of 4-5 feet max, I doubt the crappies were happy with all the ruckus. When the fish aren't active and chasing, my first adjustment is to go deep. Of course, "deep" at GLSM doesn't mean 10, or 20, or 30' of water. It means get down to the bottom, you need to hit them in the nose. Most fish I caught my jig was 3', even 4' under bobber, in and around significant cover. After pulling 4 keepers off a seawall during one session Sunday, I left the spot. A nearby boat swooped onto the spot as soon as I left. The property owner told me later that day the boat camped there for 45 minutes......no fish. I'd bet they weren't fishing deep enough.

Pearl/Purple stinger caught most of the fish. White body/chartreuse tail stinger accounted for maybe 5. Popsicle triple tip only found one fish but it was the biggest at 11.5".


----------



## zaraspook

jon84 said:


> Seems to of been too nice today. I only fished for about an hour with no bites but that seemed to be the norm


I talked to many boat fisherman over the weekend. None seemed too happy with the bite


----------



## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> I talked to many boat fisherman over the weekend. None seemed to happy with the bite


I talk to lot to same thing bud it's frustrating tho!


----------



## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> I talked to many boat fisherman over the weekend. None seemed to happy with the bite


Saw a ole timer with a green marnards bucket catch a few then my trolling motor was getting weak from all the wind I need to buy power poles! I left then! Lots of fish I found in three channels but they were tight lipped!


----------



## RMK

my report from sunday was a very tough bite. at least from 7a.m. to 1 p.m. we fished a lot of wood-stakes, tree tops, brush with no fish to show. caught one small fish early off of a dock. i heard from someone that did fairly well that got into some early on metal.


----------



## Saugeyefisher

Yesterday was much tougher at my home lake then I thought it would be.
Started at 7. Didn't get a keeper till 10 or so. But steady picked them the rest of the day. Wood was key ,with shade.
At first electric chicken solid tubes worked,then as it warmed a 1.5" peartruse twister slow rolled under a float (thanks to zara an this thread!) Was the ticket. Bait was set at 15" but with a steady reel was probobly 10" below surface. They were really swallowing the twister!
Caught 21 keepers 10 dinks an 10big gills.
About 1/2 the males I caught were showing color an has red tails.
This full moon an warm up will start the spawn in shallow lakes but thankfully I believe it will go through the next full moon in may!! Gonna be a fun month guys....
Here's a few I kept early on for a friend
Played catch an release rest of the time


----------



## bobberbucket

zaraspook said:


> .. It means get down to the bottom, you need to hit them in the nose. Most fish I caught my jig was 3', even 4' under bobber, in and around significant cover. After pulling 4 keepers off a seawall during one session Sunday, I left the spot. A nearby boat swooped onto the spot as soon as I left. The property owner told me later that day the boat camped there for 45 minutes......no fish. I'd bet they weren't fishing deep enough ".



That is some solid advice right there good stuff!

I used to fish with this old timer here up north and we would sometimes fish 14 1/2 ft deep in 15 fow in submerged brush (actually it was a giant oak tree totally submerged) catching hogs in June - July. He'd say boy sometimes you gotta fish deep right down to the wood! And he was right! Typically back then we used pinmins with live minnows. Sure we lost a ton of pinmins but we stuck a bunch of hawgs! I've pulled lots of crappie with a jig and minnow casting and bouncing along the bottom in areas where they were stacked almost dead on the bottom hugging brush. I always try and fish The Whole water column before I settle on the best producing depth. 

O yeah I'm a huge fan of this thread btw!


----------



## zaraspook

bobberbucket said:


> That is some solid advice right there good stuff!
> 
> I used to fish with this old timer here up north and we would sometimes fish 14 1/2 ft deep in 15 fow in submerged brush (actually it was a giant oak tree totally submerged) catching hogs in June - July. He'd say boy sometimes you gotta fish deep right down to the wood! And he was right! Typically back then we used pinmins with live minnows. Sure we lost a ton of pinmins but we stuck a bunch of hawgs! I've pulled lots of crappie with a jig and minnow casting and bouncing along the bottom in areas where they were stacked almost dead on the bottom hugging brush. I always try and fish The Whole water column before I settle on the best producing depth.
> 
> O yeah I'm a huge fan of this thread btw!


Bobberbucket.......we are a big fan of your stories and examples. Keep it coming!


----------



## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> View attachment 234227
> Yesterday was much tougher at my home lake then I thought it would be.
> Started at 7. Didn't get a keeper till 10 or so. But steady picked them the rest of the day. Wood was key ,with shade.
> At first electric chicken solid tubes worked,then as it warmed a 1.5" peartruse twister slow rolled under a float (thanks to zara an this thread!) Was the ticket. Bait was set at 15" but with a steady reel was probobly 10" below surface. They were really swallowing the twister!
> Caught 21 keepers 10 dinks an 10big gills.
> About 1/2 the males I caught were showing color an has red tails.
> This full moon an warm up will start the spawn in shallow lakes but thankfully I believe it will go through the next full moon in may!! Gonna be a fun month guys....
> Here's a few I kept early on for a friend
> Played catch an release rest of the time
> View attachment 234227


sf..........nice work , report, and photos! You said you intended to work twister tails into your crappie game. Dang if you didn't follow thru, and with early success!


----------



## zaraspook

Heard first-hand reports last Friday of DNR's release of perch fry/fingerlings at GLSM. Specifically, Windy Point and Sportsman's were 2 sites. Unable to locate anything online or in the media with specific numbers such as fry vs fingerlings stocked. Anyone have input on the GLSM perch release? If I recall correctly, perch stocking initiated in 2011......this would be 7th consecutive year.


----------



## Barga.22

I have a buddy who was there when they released them. The DRN guy told him 3 million fingerlings/fry. They also estimate only a 5% survival rate but after as many years as they've done it the spawning should be increasing exponentially. He told my buddy they are hoping to do some sampling around the lake later this spring. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## zaraspook

Barga.22 said:


> I have a buddy who was there when they released them. The DRN guy told him 3 million fingerlings/fry. They also estimate only a 5% survival rate but after as many years as they've done it the spawning should be increasing exponentially. He told my buddy they are hoping to do some sampling around the lake later this spring.
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Great info!


----------



## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM just before 4pm Tues and line wet 30 minutes later. I've had some kind of a bug since last Friday and still feeling low energy, so I restricted tonight's walking circuit to just 4 spots. None are more than 2 minutes from my door. Rotated thru the four, then returned to the two that showed evidence of bigger fish. The bite cycled from none, to slow to decent to aggressive, then faded late during the 2.5 hour session. Caught maybe 6-8 in the first hour, but finished with 27 caught, 17 keepers. I had a lot of short fish, mostly early, but it's clear the size mix is changing nicely. 5 of mine tonight were 11.25- 12".....those fish were more scarce the last few weeks.

Pearl-purple stinger was good for about 40% of catch, but probably 60% of short fish. Panfish Assassin I previously called "key lime" is officially called chartreuse/pepper shad. It's a stouter body than most stingers, stubby tail, and the crappies now hit it more aggressively. I've been singing praises to these Panfish Assassin shad bodies for the last 2-3 years.

Shad activity and lots of surface action everywhere tonight. Water temp was an amazing 58.2! In my channel spawn is not on. No real sighting of females bulging with eggs. Males are getting darker, not really wearing warpaint yet, and not showing signs on lower body/tails working on beds. At 58.2 and full moon stuff, fishing should be exciting..
The 11.5" below was caught with pearl/purple stinger. 12" gobbled the chartreuse pepper shad.View media item 79901View media item 79902


----------



## RMK

hope you get back to 100% quick zara. very nice looking crappie!


----------



## Saugeyefisher

Great job! Your over all numbers for time out has been fantastic! I'm slinging bobbers all day long to get results about like yours! And it will just keep getting better here for a little while! Pre-spawn crappie bite is the best! 
I'm glad the bigger ones are starting to show up For you to.
Un fortunately I'm going to miss this weekend's action out my way  due to a mini family vacation. But it has opened up the opportunity to fish a early week day next week. Lol I'm used to having buckeye to my self in my little kayak,I'm not digging all the extra boats haha. So will be nice to fish a week day. The funny thing is,saugeye are biting all around but I have no desire to leave the crappie alone in my free time!


----------



## zaraspook

Saugfish......caution - getting the crappie-bug could be hazardous to your health!


----------



## RMK

i definitely fell victum to that crappie bug this year. and i really have no idea where i caught it from. too long of break between deer season and turkey season i guess! i still havent been real successful at it yet but i think that is part of what is driving me so hard to do it more and more.


----------



## zaraspook

Fishing accomplice Scott and I fished Weds at GLSM. Cloudless skies and light wind made perfect conditions....for playing golf! We still managed to find some good fish but the pace required patience and we really never found a "hot" bite. Earlier in the week I said males weren't dark with spawn warpaint......no change there. I also said we weren't seeing females with bulging egg bellies.....ladies with eggs are definitely on the rise. Water temp backed off to 55.2 degrees Tues morning, recovering to 59.7 by 5pm.

We totaled 45 crappies, Scott 18 and 27 for me. 15 keepers for Scott and 21 on my side. 80% keeper rate, 36 out of 45, is crazy good. Big fish was a 12" male I caught. Discounting a couple of food breaks and time-outs, we fished at least 4 hours. Those Panfish Assassin baits I talk about are officially called "Tiny Shad"......definitely the day's most productive baits for both of us. We caught a few on other small plastics such as stingers but never enough to prevent returning to the Tiny Shads. Quite often we get into a hot bite before dark....didn't happen for us Weds.

Fishing was OK......shameful of me to call 36 keepers "OK". Let's change that to "good". Scott's culinary work was so good we ate twice!


----------



## zaraspook

RMK said:


> hope you get back to 100% quick zara. very nice looking crappie!


I'm a good 90% now, thanks. If the Easter Bunny brings dark chocolate I'll instantly hit 100%-mark.


----------



## zaraspook

Arrived at GLSM Friday evening at 6pm. Wanted to fish, but first order of business was to install a anew cranking battery in my fishing boat. Can't really complain about the failed battery. It's the original starting battery - boat is now 8 years old. I stayed on the job, kept focus, completed the task at hand without wetting a line. Rarely have that kind of discipline living on the lake. Not within my DNA to pass by a an idle rod without grabbing it, fishing for 20 minutes that seems to stretch into an hour and a half.

Battery job completed it was 7:15pm. Grabbed a rod in time to avoid hyper-ventilating. Fished until dark, a bit more than an hour. Especially in an evening, first bite is usually within a few minutes. Not a good sign when it took 15 minutes to pull first crappie from my seawall. At least it was a beefy 11+" fish. 5 more keepers followed in the next 25 minutes before the bite slowed. Light was fading, maybe enough for another 30 minutes so I left to try another nearby spot. Not a great move this time....actually hit 2 spots and caught just one crappie, the first short fish, and last fish for the evening.

Water temp was 62.7, plus 3 degrees over the last 2 days. Those a re spawning numbers if the fish are ready. Same baits from Weds were still tied on my 2 rigs. My pearl/purple stinger got skunked - not even a bite tonight. Chartreuse pepper Tiny Shad/Panfish Assassin caught all 7 fish tonight. Really had enough hits on the Tiny Shads to easily double my catch. I've mentioned before, there are times the crappies hit the bait and drop it quickly. Other times it's rare they ever drop it (most of the last 2 weeks). A lot of those drops tonight and didn't have enough time to play with a fix.

Spawn isn't far a way......probably places on the lake where spawn is in 1st gear right now.


----------



## zaraspook

Saturday morning at GLSM.........fished and hour plus a little before heading home. Piggies were on the prowl. Caught 12 with 10 keepers. A 13.5" Fish Ohio were among those caught. According to my scale the big crappie weighed in at 1.64 pounds. Also, caught a couple of males that showed a lot of wear from working on beds. Water temp was 60.4 degrees. From my short sample in the morning Saturday should be a good day for catching. Two pics of 13.5" Fish Ohio crappie below:
View media item 79911View media item 79910


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## harrison08

Beautiful fish! Great reporting!


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## Hortance

I hit the docks yesterday AM around 630....had a total of 3 crappies....all on minnows, all 10-11'' in the first hour 630-730....then the bite stopped.
Odd that I was catching at around 2 ft deep, off/at the ends of the docks. Nothing on the walls or along docks, second trip in a row. I'd catch one, then nothing, move, catch another, then nothing. Almost like I was taking a crappie off of a territory it had won, then had to move to get another. Maybe they ARE spawning now, zara. 

Went to some other canals, found very few fish from 8-10. Four nice/keeper catfish, though. Weird.


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## RMK

nice fish zara! glad you had the net with ya. as always-thanks for the updates. i hope to be out a few times late in the week.


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## zaraspook

Hortance said:


> I hit the docks yesterday AM around 630....had a total of 3 crappies....all on minnows, all 10-11'' in the first hour 630-730....then the bite stopped.
> Odd that I was catching at around 2 ft deep, off/at the ends of the docks. Nothing on the walls or along docks, second trip in a row. I'd catch one, then nothing, move, catch another, then nothing. Almost like I was taking a crappie off of a territory it had won, then had to move to get another. Maybe they ARE spawning now, zara.


Hortance.....for sure they don't all drop eggs/fertilize at same time and lake wide the crappies aren't all on same schedule. Some could be spawning now. My only reference point is my channel. It's not fed by a feeder creek and seems to cool faster, warm slower than those with a feeder creek. My channel is probably a lagging indicator in reality. Males aren't yet as dark as I expect them to be and getting increasing numbers of males that are beat up from working beds. However, it can change fast. Whereas 10 days ago very few of the females I caught were bulging with eggs, now the numbers are climbing fast. If I fished other areas regularly I might better correlate my channels with others.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> nice fish zara! glad you had the net with ya. as always-thanks for the updates. i hope to be out a few times late in the week.


Yes.....been pretty good lately at packing my net. Might have something to do with losing a 12+" fish every time out lately.


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## Specgrade

I've been hiding under a rock as of late. Have they cleaned the lake up from all the green soup? It was just terrible a while back and I haven't been there since.
Thanks.

Beautiful crappie btw.


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## RMK

Specgrade said:


> I've been hiding under a rock as of late. Have they cleaned the lake up from all the green soup? It was just terrible a while back and I haven't been there since.
> Thanks.
> 
> Beautiful crappie btw.


its been green for as long as i can remember. probably never going to change that in a 5 foot deep lake. however as far as official toxicity levels from the blue green algae.... i havent checked them in a long time. usually tends to go up the warmer the water temp gets. and then down again as it cools off.


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## zaraspook

Specgrade said:


> I've been hiding under a rock as of late. Have they cleaned the lake up from all the green soup? It was just terrible a while back and I haven't been there since.
> Thanks.
> 
> Beautiful crappie btw.


Water clarity's been great so far this year, but it's taking a hit now. Nice to see the fish you have on the line before you lift it from water. It will get greener by the week now that water is in 60's and longer days of sunshine driving growth of chlorophyll. Pea soup will be the color by June. We're optimistic.......natural filtration treatment trains being constructed on all the creeks in watershed should be the lake's salvation some day.


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## Specgrade

Rmk, zaraspook glad to hear someone is doing something about that poor lake. I gotta get back to Behms, they have some great chow.

Thank you for the replies guys!


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## Saugeyefisher

Fished my home home lake today. Started out really hot them slowed to a crawl. Think I fishished with a dozen keepers an a couple jumbo gills only 4/5 total toss backs. Between moving spots I only fished half a day. I imagine the bite will pick back up this evening. Solid chartreuse tube bait got 10 then a all black ratso got the rest an the gills. They wanted the jig sitting still today. Some of the males were completely decked out with beat up tales. An a couple plump females. Jig was 15" below my float. Was able to give my long rod a work out today so that was fun. Nothing like pulling back on a thick slab or gill an it not budging for a second or two as the long rod is loading up. It really allows me to horse fish in with hard hooksets!















A buddy joined for a bit an got a few as well.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Fished my home home lake today. Started out really hot them slowed to a crawl. Think I fishished with a dozen keepers an a couple jumbo gills only 4/5 total toss backs. Between moving spots I only fished half a day. I imagine the bite will pick back up this evening. Solid chartreuse tube bait got 10 then a all black ratso got the rest an the gills. They wanted the jig sitting still today. Some of the males were completely decked out with beat up tales. An a couple plump females. Jig was 15" below my float. Was able to give my long rod a work out today so that was fun. Nothing like pulling back on a thick slab or gill an it not budging for a second or two as the long rod is loading up. It really allows me to horse fish in with hard hooksets!
> View attachment 234948
> View attachment 234949
> 
> A buddy joined for a bit an got a few as well.


Good stuff for you guys! Interesting to see the mix of white and black crappies since I'm so accustomed to steady diet of black crappies. Almost went into shock last week when I caught my 2nd white of the year from GLSM. Good post.


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## zaraspook

GLSM Tuesay - went up to cut grass and mop floors. Some high school buddies coming in this weekend for our 3rd annual "crappiethon". Gave into to my weakness, fishing, and dipped for an hour before pushing the mower around. Actually, fished for 61 minutes starting at noon to catch 13 crappies, 11 keepers. First 2 were 11.5" and a 12". The bite was ok but a few spots I expected to pull fish from were dry holes. All these fish were caught on the Pan Assassin Tiny Shad. Water temp was 62.4 degrees.

Done with grass and mopping floors, I went back to fishing later. Fish went fickle, wouldn't eat the Tiny Shad, so switched baits to a Triple Tip black with chartreuse tail. Took about 90 minutes to catch a dozen, 8 keepers. After packing up for my exit, decided to check out the evening bite before putting my rod away. 20-25 minutes produced 1 bite, no fish. Unsure where the bite went but I can take a hint. Headed home. 25 caught total with 20 keepers. Lots of 11" inch fish.

Males are definitely taking on warpaint......they've really darkened in last few days and showing signs of wear and tear from prepping beds. And, it's amazing how the males are super-charged when this spawn thing gets going. They fight like banshees, and don't quit. Fun.


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## RMK

thats awesome. sounds like a great tuesday!


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## RMK

a friend and i went for about an hour and half this morning from shore. 830-10a.m. i would call the bite pretty good. 6 fish around 10", 1 small fish, and a couple green sunfish. most were caught on a pink and green stinger tail shad body 2 feet from the rocks. guys across the way from us looked to be floating minnows around a few loan branches in the water about 10 feet out and did about twice as good in the time we were there. location porbably had as much to do with that as the bait.


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## RMK

Picture of my friends success earlier in the week. Same setup as above.


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## RMK

I m hopeing to be out the next 3 days.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> a friend and i went for about an hour and half this morning from shore. 830-10a.m. i would call the bite pretty good. 6 fish around 10", 1 small fish, and a couple green sunfish. most were caught on a pink and green stinger tail shad body 2 feet from the rocks. guys across the way from us looked to be floating minnows around a few loan branches in the water about 10 feet out and did about twice as good in the time we were there. location porbably had as much to do with that as the bait.


RMK......seems like you're getting more comfortable with plastics. Do you feel that way?


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## RMK

i m trying to make myself get more used to them. i know they can be great from what you and others have told me. i want to get to the point where they are my go to. i think i now own about 1/2 to 3/4 of every style and color of crappie soft bait known to man lol. it still amazes me how you guys consistantly figure out what color and style of bait the fish want to eat. not to mention depth and presentation. oh yea, and where the fish are even at! for now i still have more confidence in minnows. i'll get there...

my friend that has also now fallen to this crappie addiciton got into fish a couple times early this week when he was out. i told him good deal, looks like you figured something out.... he replied "i think there are just more dumb fish in shallow" lol


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## zaraspook

Got in an hour of fishing when I arrived at noon. Caught 10 with 6 keepers, though it seemed slower. After chores and errands another hour of fishing yields 6 crappies, 5 keepers, about the same pace. I did notice, however, to that point not a single crappie was caught on the lime green, Tiny Shad, Panfish Assassin. Changed the Tiny Shad color, switched to solid chartreuse with flecks, and during the final session the Tiny Shad caught 4 of the 7 crappies. 

23 total with 17 keepers. Looking back, all but one crappie today came from within 4 foot of the bank and the final 4-5 fish were within 12" of the bank in water hardly enough to cover them. Water temp 66.7 degrees and I caught another white crappie today!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> i m trying to make myself get more used to them. i know they can be great from what you and others have told me. i want to get to the point where they are my go to. i think i now own about 1/2 to 3/4 of every style and color of crappie soft bait known to man lol. it still amazes me how you guys consistantly figure out what color and style of bait the fish want to eat. not to mention depth and presentation. oh yea, and where the fish are even at! for now i still have more confidence in minnows. i'll get there...
> 
> my friend that has also now fallen to this crappie addiciton got into fish a couple times early this week when he was out. i told him good deal, looks like you figured something out.... he replied "i think there are just more dumb fish in shallow" lol


Your friend is dead on. We all catch more because they are in shallow where we can get at them. Whether or not those fish are dumb probably irrelevant. Once they move out we will all catch a lot less of them.


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## zaraspook

Past weekend from 2pm Friday until noon on Sunday had a group of friends for a GLSM Crappie outing. It was a 3rd annual event......the guys I grew up with from grade school thru high school in Kettering, OH. We shared great camaraderie, lots of empty beer cans/bottles for recycling, good eats including the best crappie tacos on the planet, funny stories and recollections, poker after dark, and caught enough crappies to keep everyone satisfied with the fishing.

3 guys were "minnows only" fellas. By mid-Saturday each was given private, 3-minute training in zara's plastics techniques. Each landed a first fish on plastics within 5 minutes, one required only 15 seconds for successful initiation. They easily tripled their catch numbers compared to results with minnows. We kept/cleaned the 30 fish 10-12" in photo. Water temp fell 9 degrees from Thursday's 66.7. Good weekend!
View media item 79936


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## brandonw

zaraspook said:


> Past weekend from 2pm Friday until noon on Sunday had a group of friends for a GLSM Crappie outing. It was a 3rd annual event......the guys I grew up with from grade school thru high school in Kettering, OH. We shared great camaraderie, lots of empty beer cans/bottles for recycling, good eats including the best crappie tacos on the planet, funny stories and recollections, poker after dark, and caught enough crappies to keep everyone satisfied with the fishing.
> 
> 3 guys were "minnows only" fellas. By mid-Saturday each was given private, 3-minute training in zara's plastics techniques. Each landed a first fish on plastics within 5 minutes, one required only 15 seconds for successful initiation. They easily tripled their catch numbers compared to results with minnows. We kept/cleaned the 30 fish 10-12" in photo. Water temp fell 9 degrees from Thursday's 66.7. Good weekend!
> View media item 79936


That sounds like a great weekend. Friends, cold beverages, crappie tacos, fishing.. what more could you ask for. 

Oh and I speak on behalf of everyone watching this thread when I kindly request an online version of the tutorial on Zara's plastics techniques


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## zaraspook

Those generous words from brandonw are a perfect lead in to my Tues PM fishing report. Fished from 5-6pm, a dinner break, then another hour up until dark. It was definitely playing to a tough crowd tonight. 2 bites in the first hour yielding one poor crippled crappie. Poor guy would easily measure 10"+, if it had a tail. Apparently, working so hard to prep a bed for the ladies, he worn away 80% of the tail. Doubt he could have moved fast enough with just a nub of a tail to catch anything but my slow moving plastic. Not much better the 2nd hour......2 keeper crappies on maybe a 1/2 dozen bites.

Highlight of the final hour was getting into a 2.5-3 pound LMB on my crappie rig. It was in heavy crappie cover and in seconds had me hopelessly hog tied around multiple limbs. I was forced to break off, but the fish still hooked with line wrapped around the limbs. 10 minutes later the fish continued the tug of war with the limb, moving the limb while he struggled to get unzipped. Darkness set in and I'm unsure how the limb/bass battle ended.

I'll pass along a hunch to anyone targeting crappie in the near future at GLSM. Over the weekend with my high school friends we noticed bigger baits were definitely out-catching smaller baits. Warmer water temps, 63.8 degrees tonight, produce significantly more green matter/chlorophyll in the water column. Clarity is taking a normal hit. The theory.......fish may have a tougher time seeing/finding the smaller baits. I normally shift to larger crappie plastics as clarity deteriorates. Keep it in mind......might make a difference for you.


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## Lowell H Turner

Bigger bait hopefully bigger fish...


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## RMK

and i switched from larger baits to smaller baits last weekend.... my results proved your theory correct. ugh!!!


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## Fishingfun

O


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## zaraspook

Fishingfun said:


> O


H?


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## zaraspook

60.2 degree water temp this morning. Good amount of boat traffic in my channel and everyone scratching their heads......Where did all those fish go, the ones that appeared to be ready to spawn just a few days ago? Buddy Scott and I fished earlier than normal. Very beginning was great! First dip produced an 11.5" male for me. Took 2 more hours to catch next 2 fish. In the meantime, Scott caught 6 crappies with 6 keepers. Ironic part is one of my all time favorite baits for GLSM is a twister tail in the color "june bug/acid rain". I introduced Scott to the bait and color 2-3 years a go. He's using my bait to kick my butt! Final session I catch 3 more, while he gets blanked. Yes, I switched to june bug/acid rain. 

We tied with 6 crappies each for the day. 4 of mine keepers while all 6 of Scott's were keeper class. I took big fish today....11.5", the one I caught on first cast. Smaller baits did not generate a single hit. The Hot Grub twister tails are not only a bigger bait, but that nice movement of the twister tail helps the fish locate the bait in cloudy water (at least that's our story).


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## zaraspook

Oooops....guess it's officially called Acid Rain/June bug per Southern Pro.
https://grizzlyjig.com/p-141-2-hot-grubs.aspx


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## fishwhacker

Cold front must have them eating smaller size baits caught 4 while bluegill fishing today and rolled several more on 1/64oz split tails....only fished an hr and would have assumed I would have limited if i could have stayed fishing.


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## zaraspook

Sweet! How was gill bite? Sounds like maybe crappies are coming out of their funk just in time for Crappie Super Event today/Saturday.


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## fishwhacker

Had a few decent gills definitely a long way until they are on their beds yet. Tournament should be won by an ounce or 2, everyone should be turning in 12 to 13 inch fish imo.


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## RMK

They must ve been bitting today because I even managed 7 fish in an hour and a half! All keepers best just under 11"








Picture pretty much says it all.


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## fishwhacker

Difference in the color tells me some are getting ready to spawn but i suspect like the one in your pict have a couple weeks. 2 to 3 weeks a lot of them will be covered in warpaint


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## GOOSE48

Looks like the water got green really fast this year


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## fishwhacker

I agree probably because of the mild winter and lack of rain this spring. Gonna be a bad algae year again.


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## firemanmike2127

If the totals I heard from yesterday's weigh-in were correct the average was around 1 1/4 lbs.....we're fortunate to have such good quality crappie here in GLSM. Mike


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## RMK

fishwhacker said:


> Difference in the color tells me some are getting ready to spawn but i suspect like the one in your pict have a couple weeks. 2 to 3 weeks a lot of them will be covered in warpaint


Now that I looked back at the picture.... was that a white crappie? I wish I would ve paid better attention before I threw them back. I was excited to be catching and didn't pay much attention. I think most of the others I ve caught were blacks.


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## jim8861

Black


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## fishwhacker

It was a black crappie just lighter in color.


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> If the totals I heard from yesterday's weigh-in were correct the average was around 1 1/4 lbs.....we're fortunate to have such good quality crappie here in GLSM. Mike


Here's a link to the results of Crappie USA Super Event. Notice that the Amateur Division winners outweighed the Pro Division winning weight. https://www.crappieusa.com/Tournament_Results_News_Release.cfm?Tournament_ID=572


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> It was a black crappie just lighter in color.


The fish in the photo looks like a female and won't darken like the males do......you can pick out the egg sack tilted on a diagonal toward the end of her gut. Pretty fish!


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> I agree probably because of the mild winter and lack of rain this spring. Gonna be a bad algae year again.


whacker.......every Feb, March, early April we get teased. We get a glimpse of what someday might happen. Actually viewing the bottom in 2' of water is remarkable! Or, the ability to identify the fish on the end of your line before you lift it from the water, what a treat! With hope I think "maybe this will be the year"? Some people dread April 15th because it's Tax Day. I dread the 15th because the early season clarity is gone and/or fading fast. 

2017 will not be "the year". Nor will 2018, 2019, 2020...... Who knows how long it will take? We take it on faith the the volume of phosphorus coming into the lake is reduced to someday turn the tide. Dredging, we are told, is lowering the legacy/existing phosphorus levels. Tough for progress to be noticeable when our low-flow lake takes 2.6 years to turn over it's water volume one time. If we could just "flush" it one time! Dump all the water in one fell swoop, immediately replace it with new water, without taking on new phosphorus, we'd might see how GLSM will look in 20+ years. Make a note for Tax Day 2018....maybe we see a difference then.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Here's a link to the results of Crappie USA Super Event. Notice that the Amateur Division winners outweighed the Prod division winning weight. https://www.crappieusa.com/Tournament_Results_News_Release.cfm?Tournament_ID=572


Not surprised at all but nice to see some local guys do great in that tournament.


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## Saugeyefisher

Out here at buckeye we didn't even see the winter time clear waters we usually get. I remember dipping crappie back in January thinking how dirty the water was for that time of year. An now most of the coves have more a brown loo ok to them then green. But I'm sure the green is coming


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> The fish in the photo looks like a female and won't darken like the males do......you can pick out the egg sack tilted on a diagonal toward the end of her gut.
> Zara,
> I thought about that too...i would think even the females darken a little more before spawning. Mainly due to water temp not because of the spawn like the males


----------



## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Out here at buckeye we didn't even see the winter time clear waters we usually get. I remember dipping crappie back in January thinking how dirty the water was for that time of year. An now most of the coves have more a brown loo ok to them then green. But I'm sure the green is coming


Saugfish......maybe the drastic lowering of Buckeye flushed enough phosphorus/algae from lake down stream? Might be a side benefit of the effort to fix damn. That would be a big win and worth the hassles.


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## zaraspook

Actually, I've heard ladies can darken, too. Haven't personally witnessed it on females but could be the males change so dramatically that ladies still look light in comparison.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM around 3 Monday.....was fishing by 3:30pm. I found the bite slow and then on top of that it seemed 75% of my really good fish came unzipped. Uncommon for me, my net was with me and handy........but fish unzipped before I got them to net. Hook sets were almost always lip only.....like they just weren't eating the bait. Usually changing the style and/or color of bait will get you to a bait they want to eat. Not today. I shifted in and out of different colors and styles with frequency.

I fished a good 3.5 hours. Landed 18 with 11 keepers. An 11.5" female was biggest....like I said big ones were usually the ones that got away.

Water temp was 60.6 degrees, cooler than I expected. Was 60.2 last time I fished (Weds last week). Today's thrill was a toothey fish I got into on my crappie rig. First one of these this year, maybe in 2 years. 19 incher......that "slabmaster" crappie measurer in the photo below is 16.5" end-to-end. Sorry the fish has so much debris on it. Fish wouldn't stop flopping on the ground. These have considerably more speed than the fastest crappie.
View media item 79953


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## RMK

I got beat by the lake and the crappie yet again today. I was on the water from about 1 to 5. I covered alot of water and fished alot of different types of structure trying to find where they were with no luck. I varied depth and style of bait at every spot. I probably should ve tried more variety. I did pull one halfway out of some brush that spit the bait before he got into the boat. Feeder creeks were very stained from the heavy rains. Other channels the water seemed to be of normal clarity. 

I couldn't swallow getting skunked so I hit the pond when I got home. Glad I did. Bite was decent. I kept a few to clean and a 15 incher that got to go back in.


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## zaraspook

That's a beast and worthy of the big smile! 

GLSM was tough today and totally understand the need to get into some fish. One of my neighbors is an old timer, knows his stuff when it comes to crappies. He and another guy fished 2 hours in the evening - caught just 2 dinks.

I did get into a short term pattern that worked for about 6 fish in 1/2 hour. All were males, about 2' off the bank in 2 feet of water, I assume working on beds, natural bank with a few light twigs in water, no substantial wood. Bait really didn't matter.......they attacked anything that came by. It was near the backend of a channel not fed by a creek......green but not stained by muddy water. It was just before I nailed the pike.


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## fishwhacker

That is a giant RMK for sure. Zara congrats on landing the pike. Usually only seem them right after ice out.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> That is a giant RMK for sure. Zara congrats on landing the pike. Usually only seem them right after ice out.


My pike follow that axiom "right after ice out", usually before mid-April. Ironic that 2 weekends ago a neighbor told me he'd caught a pike. Mine came while fishing on his property and might have been same spot. You never know what's next if you have a line in the water.


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## zaraspook

Caught 26 with 18 keepers Tues. Bite was slow until 3 pm, then for one hour it powered on the way a spawn bite should. Got 14 in that hour. Thank you, Green Bucket Guy. Black/chartreuse you suggested worked well.

Water temp Tues was 57.7......down 3 overnight and probably leaking downward the entire week. Other than that one hour of crazy, aggressive bite at 3pm, fish were hard to find and harder to coax into making a run at your lure. My theory is they don't move much, stay pretty much on the same spawning spots they were on before multiple fronts came thru, but they aren't going to chase. A few of them will bite, take an easy opportunity strike, if you put the lure on their noses. If you're fishing 4' of water, fish 3.5 feet deep......get down to the bottom. In 3' of water.....get to a 30" depth. Don't expect to catch a bucketful, but numbers will be decent. I was fishing 3-4' deep in my channel, virtually on the bottom, all day. Most GLSM guys would fish 14-16", the normal depth they fish regardless of conditions, catch 2-3 fish and call it a day. When the fish aren't aggressive or "chasing" as I call it, your tactics have to change.


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## zaraspook

55.5 degree water Weds......lost a couple more degrees in channel. Partner Scott was running 2 hours late for our noon start time and gave me a 2 hour head start. Could only manage 5 bites and 5 crappies in that 2 hours, a puny head start against Scott, so I thought. Once he arrived it took me close to 3 hours to get my next 5 crappies. Normally 10 crappies means you got your butt kicked. Today it was enough. My 8 keepers included a 12.75" big fish of the day, just short of Fish Ohio. We both struggled but Scott struggled more. He caught the 11th and final crappie of our weekly head-to-head to stay off the skunk line. Doubt we ever worked harder to catch 11 fish but never could solve the puzzle

System won't let me upload a photo of the "big fish", maybe later. Fri thru Monday forecast has low temp in the 30's....yuck!


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## RMK

any advice for trying to catch these fish with the predicted cold spell we are in/have ahead of us the next 4 days?


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## Saugeyefisher

RMK said:


> any advice for trying to catch these fish with the predicted cold spell we are in/have ahead of us the next 4 days?


If the majority of the fish have moved in to spawn,odds are there will still be plenty of fish to catch. You will jus5 have to try harder. Kinda cold front staples to know,an I think can be applied to a lot of different species. Try going smaller,(if that don't work try going bigger,they might want more bang for the buck),fish as close to stucture/cover as you can. If a wood dock has 8 posts holding it up an my pattern lately has been dock post. I will cast to each side of each post. 32 spots to hit. If you position your Cast right you can cover a few posts on each cast to save time.
If there on laydowns fish every twig on the lay down.
If the sun pokes out I hit the shady side of said spots several times with different baits before moving on.
Remember rocks hold heat,and black crappie will drop eggs on/in between rocks.
This weather is settling in rather thenhitting us hard at once,so I still think there will be some good bites to be had... haha I hope.....
Oh yeah.... I'll also take a pack of wax worms for the gills an maybe a extra crappie bite if it's that slow....


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## RMK

thanks alot saug! that sounds like some great info to me. i will put it to use soon.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> If the majority of the fish have moved in to spawn,odds are there will still be plenty of fish to catch. You will jus5 have to try harder. Kinda cold front staples to know,an I think can be applied to a lot of different species. Try going smaller,(if that don't work try going bigger,they might want more bang for the buck),fish as close to stucture/cover as you can. If a wood dock has 8 posts holding it up an my pattern lately has been dock post. I will cast to each side of each post. 32 spots to hit. If you position your Cast right you can cover a few posts on each cast to save time.
> If there on laydowns fish every twig on the lay down.
> If the sun pokes out I hit the shady side of said spots several times with different baits before moving on.
> Remember rocks hold heat,and black crappie will drop eggs on/in between rocks.
> This weather is settling in rather thenhitting us hard at once,so I still think there will be some good bites to be had... haha I hope.....
> Oh yeah.... I'll also take a pack of wax worms for the gills an maybe a extra crappie bite if it's that slow....


Great advice, SF!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> any advice for trying to catch these fish with the predicted cold spell we are in/have ahead of us the next 4 days?


RMK....ignore weather and go fish. Best days come when your expectations are low. Example - Weds friend Scott and I struggled to catch 11 crappies. Raining like heck this morning, wind howling, I stayed over last night with the taste in my mouth of that poor outing. Planned to fish Thurs morning for just an hour.....how could bite be worse than afternoon before? 45 degrees to boot. Actually fished an hour and 10 minutes. Bites were aggressive and fish were big. Hit 4 quick spots and caught multiple fish at each one (day before we were lucky if we got a bite at 4 consecutive spots). Caught 13 with 12 keepers, two 12"+ and majority of others 11" or better, fishing exact same places as the day before. It was a total shock since bite has been anemic last 7-10 days, but good shock. Funny how poor weather doesn't matter when you get into a decent bite. That was the best bite I've seen in several weeks and a better showing of bigger slabs.

Saugfish is right......fish should be around even if water temp cracks back into upper 40's as I expect. They will be in same places, near wood or structure. Fish still have to eat, sometime, and will eat aggressively at times. When not aggressively eating they will be tighter to cover, require more patience, more finesse, working a spot from every angle to find the gold nugget below. On those less aggressive days get your bait deeper/near bottom. And at these temps, low 50's or less, we get a bonus that crappies fight best.

Today's best performer was green Tiny Shad Panfish Assassin (swallowing it deep) and secondly black/chartreuse triple tip (twister tail, stinger,anything black/chart).


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## RMK

Thanks alot. I really do appreciate you guys' help. This is the 2nd or 3rd time I ve recently heard good things about black and chartreuse. I placed an order today. Hope it arrives in time for this weekends fishing.


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## Salamander

Thanks for the report zaraspook!


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## zaraspook

Met up with *jmaury* Thursday afternoon and fished about an hour. Rain was still there but winds calmer. Hot bite I saw earlier in the day subsided and big ones were on a siesta. We caught a few crappies, maybe 10-12 between us, perhaps 3-4 keepers. We should know better......neither of us had a magical green bucket! Next time!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Thanks alot. I really do appreciate you guys' help. This is the 2nd or 3rd time I ve recently heard good things about black and chartreuse. I placed an order today. Hope it arrives in time for this weekends fishing.


RMK.......black/chart should be a staple in your plastic inventory. Most crappie guys at GLSM have it high on their list for cloudy/dark days. Because GLSM is turbid/cloudy/poor clarity most of the time, I'm apt to use that color combo anytime, regardless of cloud cover.


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## RMK

Tough day for me. Covered a lot of water and no crappie to show. Caught two small gills. I regularly marked fish 1 to 3 feet off the bottom out from docks. Closer to the bottom in shallower channels up a little higher in deeper channels. Got one of the marked fisb to bite on a minnow but missed. Not sure if they were crappie or not. The area I ve had the best luck in was very muddy. I was also surprised how high the lake was today. I ll be back out tomorrow, hopefully with a crappie to show for it.
I m guessing it would be best to fish the green water and don't spend much time in the very muddy water even though fish were in the area of the muddy water?










A pair of geese standing on the tops of a couple of the tallest stakes in a stake bed that isn't usually under water









Mudline coming into the main lake from a feeder creek.


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## outbackmac

leaving tomorrow morning for GLSM. Be there for a week. hope to catch a few fish.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Tough day for me. Covered a lot of water and no crappie to show. Caught two small gills. I regularly marked fish 1 to 3 feet off the bottom out from docks. Closer to the bottom in shallower channels up a little higher in deeper channels. Got one of the marked fisb to bite on a minnow but missed. Not sure if they were crappie or not. The area I ve had the best luck in was very muddy. I was also surprised how high the lake was today. I ll be back out tomorrow, hopefully with a crappie to show for it.
> I m guessing it would be best to fish the green water and don't spend much time in the very muddy water even though fish were in the area of the muddy water?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A pair of geese standing on the tops of a couple of the tallest stakes in a stake bed that isn't usually under water
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mudline coming into the main lake from a feeder creek.


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## zaraspook

Nephew of mine fished Saturday, too, at my seawall where he knows location of all submerged cover. Skunked! 
Remarkable how clearly mudline is detectable in the photo. My opinion, doubtful there's any great advantage fishing green over muddy. With lake temps falling, muddy is probably warmer....an advantage for muddy and I'm not sure visibility in green is better visibility than muddy. Plus, wherever fish are I doubt they move very far from spawning areas. And, a bigger bait, particularly with movement to it like from a twister tail (displaces more water), could offset visibility issues. Fish still eat in muddy water.....just have to be a little closer to see bait. Lateral lines in fish help them sense water being displaced by an object nearby.
It's a learning process, RMK, and at least you were out! Rare for me to get out on weekends lately.....too many family events competing with fishing time. Nephew also mentioned water level was up significantly.


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## RMK

I took a chance and fished the muddy water with decent results. Black and white pan fish stinger took 3 and black and chartreuse triple tip grub took 1. 3 keepers out of the 4. I fished deep. Probably close to 5 feet at times. That was a first for me. I played around a little with tipping with wax worms. Not sure if it made a difference with the crappie. It did add some excitement to the day by adding a few getting bluegill bites. 7 of those nibblers made it to the boat. I d say the bite is heading back in the right direction. Just in time to go back to work. Hmm.... sick day? Haha.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> I took a chance and fished the muddy water with decent results. Black and white pan fish stinger took 3 and black and chartreuse triple tip grub took 1. 3 keepers out of the 4. I fished deep. Probably close to 5 feet at times. That was a first for me. I played around a little with tipping with wax worms. Not sure if it made a difference with the crappie. It did add some excitement to the day by adding a few getting bluegill bites. 7 of those nibblers made it to the boat. I d say the bite is heading back in the right direction. Just in time to go back to work. Hmm.... sick day? Haha.


Way to go, RMK! Your plastic experience is coming and confidence, too.


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## RMK

Thank you. Long way to go but I am definitely learning alot and starting to put a couple things together.


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## zaraspook

Sunday evening made it to GLSM at 7:30 pm. Fished an hour and a half before dark. Rise in water level was more than I expected, probably 10" but maybe more. Nice to see water at this level after a 3-4 year absence. Lot of debris on surface, stained but not really muddy in my channel and 54.6 degrees. Temp surprised me that it wasn't a few degrees cooler......only lost a degree from Weds so all the added water must have been respectably warmer.

Caught 11 crappies, not bad results but only 3 were 10"+. Only one fish in warpaint, the remainder very light in color and I suspect mostly spawned out females. You could make out a soft depression in underbelly where bulging egg sac had once been. Might have been a big rush to unload the eggs before water cooled even more.

Most of my crappies were super shallow, 10-20" of water and 1-2' from bank. Had more hits on triple tip black/chartreuse but terrible hook up rate, losing at least 7-8 fish. Switched to Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad.....fewer hits but crappies ate the bait better and it did not lose fish. Also caught 2 yellow bellies and 3-4 gills. Hopefully I'll get more fishing time on Monday.


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## zaraspook

Bluebird day at GLSM......a grinder to get a few crappies. Had a late morning session, mid-afternoon session, and final late evening one. 1 keeper of 5 fish in AM, afternoon 2 keepers from 6, and evening session 4 of 5 fish were keepers. Fish in evening were more aggressive. Rest of the day they wanted the bait nearly dead-sticked and nearly on the bottom(4-5' deep). Most of the evening fish were females still bulging with eggs......hopefully the females suggest this spawn still has legs. Earlier females caught today were post-spawn. Lot of gill bites mixed in today. Water temp this morning was 51, down almost 4 degrees.


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## Hortance

zaraspook said:


> Bluebird day at GLSM......a grinder to get a few crappies. Had a late morning session, mid-afternoon session, and final late evening one. 1 keeper of 5 fish in AM, afternoon 2 keepers from 6, and evening session 4 of 5 fish were keepers. Fish in evening were more aggressive. Rest of the day they wanted the bait nearly dead-sticked and nearly on the bottom(4-5' deep). Most of the evening fish were females still bulging with eggs......hopefully the females suggest this spawn still has legs.  Earlier females caught today were post-spawn. Lot of gill bites mixed in today. Water temp this morning was 51, down almost 4 degrees.


Always appreciate the water temp updates....and +1 for grinding.


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## zaraspook

53 degrees today, Hortance.  Fished only from 9 to 10:30 Tuesday morning before heading home. Fishing was 180 degrees opposite from Sunday/Monday when the little ones were running amuck. Was beginning to think the big ones were done and vacated the channel.

First one was a nice 11" with bulging egg sack. Pace wasn't overwhelming, but steadily added one chunk fish after another. Opted for bigger baits today......Bobby Garland baby shad swim'r (paddle tail). Color was cajun cricket (orange-green) and I was trying out a new fly rod. The big bait combo produced 8 crappies, 8 keepers all between 10.5-12.25". and the biggest a male. My 2nd rig was the small bait, Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad, and the only crappie on it was a short fish. Most of fish today were egg-filled females, a good sign we have a way to go yet in this spawn. I caught fish at all 4 spots visited this morning.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> That is a giant RMK for sure. Zara congrats on landing the pike. Usually only seem them right after ice out.


Got report of another pike caught today. 20 inch. Makes you wonder if DNR was stocking pike, not perch.


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## fishwhacker

I would assume there has to be some big pike in the lake since no one targets them.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> I would assume there has to be some big pike in the lake since no one targets them.


I recall bass guy catching 9.7 pound or 7.9 pounder 6-7 years ago. Saw photo of it at Outdoorsman shortly after caught. Friend caught 28" pike a week after I caught a 25" from exact same spot. That was 2 or 3 Springs back. Tough to target them. Look how hard it is to target and catch perch and we know numbers of perch should be up there.


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## fishwhacker

I always heard pike are caught in droves in the early spring by bass fisherman using bright colored spinnerbaits....cant say i have truly targeted perch in awhile....fishing time is limited with 2 small ones so I just dont chance getting skunked when the gills or crappies are hitting


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## zaraspook

Whacker....you hit on the key deterrent to chasing perch. Fishermen want to catch fish. With crappies/gills easy to find, why invest the time chasing perch? To that point I heard northside reports yesterday that crappie bite was as good as it gets. Lots of females, egg-laden and big, being caught. Spawn kicked up several notches. 

I don't really have many bassin' friends but plenty of bass boats fish up and down my channel. I'll probe the pike frequency question with them and see where it goes. Used to get occasional reports of pike, far fewer reports last 3-4 years, but acknowledge haven't put the topic in front of bass guys.

That was a good walleye report you shared from Brookville Lake. Despite bad weather you guys did well. Good pics too from you with gills and crappies that week.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM at 12:30 today. Talked with 4-5 crappie fishermen and 3 bass boats guys. Everyone upbeat with the bite. Consensus thinking from crappie guys is "peak time" is here or days away. Water temp 56.1 degrees.

I caught 37 today with 25 keepers, estimated the mix 60/40 females. Darn good bite included 3 over 12". Pic below is just short of Fish Ohio female at 12.75. Bigger baits was the theme again. Garland Baby Shad Swim'R best, color cajun cricket but others caught fish too. Fun day.


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## RMK

great fish! congrats on a great day!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> great fish! congrats on a great day!


Thanks. Fortunate to get 5-6 fish at a time at multiple spots on multiple visits to each of them. Expect good catches were widespread at GLSM. Know of at least one guy who had 30 keepers Thurs. He's also a bank fisherman.


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## zaraspook

Water temp 57+ Friday. Fishing friend Scott joined me about 10:30 am. I had a 90 minute head start on Scott as he was delayed. The bite was wimpy for first hour of the headstart until I hit a spot unavailable to me Thursday. Got into some piggy action there, fitting since Scott wanted a few fish for home......target was 10.5" to 12" males, or spawned out females. Caught 10 fish by the time he arrived, 7 keepers 11"+, but only 3 that fit Scott's selective harvest rules. The fish in pics below was also in the bucket, just for show. It clearly did not fit either the gender or length slots we wanted. The 13.5" Fish Ohio female was released to bare young, and to catch again.
View media item 80004View media item 80003.
Look closely in the 2nd pic.....the Acid Rain/June Bug Hot Grub (twister tail) I mention with frequency is in the photo. Unfortunately the purple twister tail is buried in the grass. It's the ugliest bait on the market in my opinion, but a 4 year favorite that produces regularly at GLSM and fits our technique.

Compared to Thursday we found slower and deeper was key to catching bigger fish. Crappies weren't interested in our shad body plastics unlike the day before. Twister tails, Hot Grubs for me and Triple Tips for Scott caught all fish but 1 or 2 with our technique. I couldn't abandon Acid Rain/June Bug color while Scott's successful colors were Motor Oil/Chartreuse and Popsicle. too.

Bite dropped like a rock as the sun rose higher. Though I had the headstart of 7 keepers from 10 fish before Scott arrived, once he got there the catching was relatively even. 10 fish with 7 keepers for Scott. 10 keepers from 13 fish for me. Total of 24 keepers between us this day, 33 caught, all from the bank.

Scott took home 12 fish, none smaller than 11", at least 3 maybe 5 over 12" including a near FO male at 12.75". My Fish Ohio 13.5" female took honors for Friday's Big Fish. We quit mid-afternoon......good fun!


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## RMK

another great day. very impressed and jealous!


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## RMK

buddy scott and i got out for a couple hours on the water this morning. seemed to be a pretty good bite and wish i could ve stayed out longer. we got into some smaller fish. 10 fish 4 keepers. scott beat me in numbers and size. popsicle triple tip for him took 6 fish and 3 keepers best 11inches. black and white stinger tail for me took 3 fish and 1 keeper. scott continued on from shore after i had to rush home and get ready for work. his next stop produced 3 more keepers and one short fish.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> another great day. very impressed and jealous!


No reason to be jealous. I have a bit of a head start on you. Experience counts at catching.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> buddy scott and i got out for a couple hours on the water this morning. seemed to be a pretty good bite and wish i could ve stayed out longer. we got into some smaller fish. 10 fish 4 keepers. scott beat me in numbers and size. popsicle triple tip for him took 6 fish and 3 keepers best 11inches. black and white stinger tail for me took 3 fish and 1 keeper. scott continued on from shore after i had to rush home and get ready for work. his next stop produced 3 more keepers and one short fish.


Made it to GLSM late last night and tested the AM bite Tues. Similar to your experience, it was a parade of small fish. Only 3 keepers among 15. This spawning run suggests the big ones had first crack at it, now done, and little guys have filled the void. A male heavy with warpaint was my biggest at 11". Most fish were in shallow, very shallow like a foot of water within 2' from natural bank. I used same baits left on rods from last week. Acid Rain/June Bug caught most of my fish. Bobby Garland Baby Shad Swim'r, a bigger bait, caught the bigger fish. Cajun Cricket color.

Water temp was 63.5 early this morning which is up a bunch from last Friday. Water level looks down maybe 2". Several crappie boats in my channel today. Not for long though as action so meager. Probably will try evening bite if I get done dinking around with my pontoon


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## zaraspook

Evening bite no different than the morning session. Although changed baits caught 14, 3 keepers again (10" or better). Most fish were short males, very shallow water and within a foot or 2 of natural bank. Virtually nothing caught in normally productive cover in water over 3'. Total for both sessions 29, 6 keepers. I assume these males are waiting on ladies. Hope they are bigger than the guys.


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## Saugeyefisher

Good numbers zara! I fished buckeye sunday,but didn't start dipping for crappie till about noon-2pm. Sun was out and hot...
I feel like the fish I caught were fry guarding males. They would hit the bait hard an fast,then just sit with it after pulling the float down 2". Then were Barley hooked in the lip. One small female with eggs the rest smaller 10" males. No big slobs this time. 
I did see a big 14" female a fellow ogfer got. 
But at yuckeye I'd say the majority have spawned out. 
But usually there is still a couple weeks of post spawn fishing as long as temps don't spike to much.
I'll probobly be moving in to deeper lakes my next few trips


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## zaraspook

"Fry guarding males".....ha ha ha. Appropriate though.
Only fished an hour this morning. Got my new norm of 3 keepers in 5 fish. Quit to do chores that I've procrastinated on, opted to fish about 100 times.


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## RMK

Friend scott found a hot spot with hungry bigger fish this morning. I tried a couple spots before meeting him there with only a small bass from my first two spots. He had 5 or 6 10 to 12 inchers by the time I got there. As I was pulling in to his shore spot in my boat he was trying to hold up a 13 incher to show me and it slipped out of his hands and made its way back into the water. We continued to fish the area from my boat adding a few more to the total. Only one small fish caught while I was there and one or two before I got there. Scott had the hot color. Black and chartreuse bigger bodied bate. I managed a couple on a cajun cricket joker tail. Another bigger bait. Most caught on rocks a foot or two from shore a few 2 feet deep on dock posts.
















Scott kicked my but in numbers. I switched to the bait he was using after he left and made a couple more casts and sure enough......








Very interesting to me how just a different spot had night and day difference in size of active fish compared to the run of smaller fish we got into earlier in the week. I would guess this area was later to warm up compared to where we caught the smaller fish. 

Also saw a nice toothy fish floating on the main lake.


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## zaraspook

Great report, RMK. You/Scott are improving results and FAITH in plastics. Plus you guys are making analysis and changing baits/tactics on the fly. Nice to see that. 
Hearing about some bigger fish is encouraging to me. Part of my results yesterday close to bank and shallow was on banks with gravel, rock, and rip rap, similar to what you guys found today. Keep that concept in your plan of attack. It's been past of my game plan for about 4 weeks......with most consistent success. Keep it up, guys!


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## zaraspook

Fished only an hour Weds AM. 5 fish with 3 keepers...better than the 15 fish to get 3 keepers like yesterday, and day before. Didn't get back to fishing until 7:30 pm. Not a lot of time to fish before dark and worst, two people sitting on the spot I planned to fish. Bummer.....forced to make a quick decision on which spot offered the most in common with the spot I wanted. That's where I headed with no hesitation (actually, I was doubting the decision with every step......this backup spot had been stingy for 3-4 weeks, giving up maybe 2 crappies total). 

Sometimes these doubts and 2nd choices work out........this was one of them even though rod #1 equipped with Acid Rain/Purple triple tip failed to stir a bump in 15 minutes. Switched to rod #2, Cajun Cricket Bobby Garland Baby Shad Swim'r. Quickly a bump and whiff, followed by another bump, fish on, fish unzipped. Right back to same spot, good fish on, and net too far away to get to. I dragged it up the gravel bank.........nice 12" spawned out female in pic below. 








Next 2 casts are to the same spot and produce an 11" spawned out female, followed by another near 11" female, also spawned out. Nearby I catch a short male in warpaint, plus 2 small bass. Darn good action from a spot that was just the backup!

30 minutes before dark my first option/spot is clear of anglers. I head there despite knowing 2 anglers worked it hard for 60-90 minutes. Managed 3 dinks from 4 fish - all males in black. At dark and back home, my seawall yields another 11" female, this one still packing her eggs. For the day tally is 14 caught with 8 strong keepers. 

Quality of fish is back! Skeptical, however, this spawn has much gas left in the tank.


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## Saugeyefisher

It has been fun watching you(RMK) gain confidence in the jigs through this season! Great job.... not sure how it is at glsm but out this way the rocks seem to always be the spot to fish late into the spawn!!


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## RMK

I have learned alot this first year of seriously targetting crappie on the lake. Still alot more to learn! Both from you guys' help and by trial and error. Even just getting used to fishing out of my boat was a huge learning curve. You guys talking about late spawn, spawned out, and spawn coming to an end has me worried! What do we do next? Just fish deeper structure? Back to the tree tops I haven't fished much earlier? Or is it a long hot summer waiting on the cool down for a fall bite?
I think saugeye mentioned targeting deeper lakes.... I might have to do some searching and see how far away a deeper lake is from me.


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## Saugeyefisher

Ya these shallow dock lakes get tough in the summer. Fish can be had but feeding windows are smaller and schools are hard to locate.
I think your best bet at glsm maybe slow trolling small cranks to cover ground.
The deeper lakes imo are easier to locate crappie in the summer. And the spawn last a tad longer.


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## firemanmike2127

Alum Creek has some deeper water with a nice crappie population. I like crappie fishing over @ Salamonie, IN......particularly in the fall.


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## Saugeyefisher

firemanmike2127 said:


> Alum Creek has some deeper water with a nice crappie population. I like crappie fishing over @ Salamonie, IN......particularly in the fall.


Alums good,but between alum and glsm there are plenty of great crappie lakes. 
And actually for me an a few others alum has been a bit tough the last two seasons for crappie. Plenty of them but hard to find The biggins. There still there but I just think its in a bad cycle. Now it's cousin a tad south [hoover] has seemed to finally break it's few year bad cycle and is putting out both great numbers and great size. Then to the north of alum is deleware. It's a wonderfull crappie lake. I don't fish it because I enjoy fishing lakes with both saugeye and crappie. 
To be totally honest other then a few places around the state where the crappie might be stunted Ohio has great over-all crappie fishing. You can pretty much pick any of them. 
But don't let me discourage you from trying glsm in the summer. I'd say open water trolling minnows or cranks. And sun-up/sun-downbite along any bank with really good shade or big flat wooded docks in deeper water that have lots of shade they hold crappie year around...
And the usual spots will hold them just not near the numbers as spring/fall/winter....


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## RMK

Very good info there guys. Thanks!


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## fishwhacker

Usually slow trolling or dock shooting especially in high residential areas works well. Usually resevoirs start heating up also once the natural lakes are done also. Crappie fishing never stops it just changes.


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## zaraspook

Still at the glsm Thursday morning finishing some chores started the day before, got to fish the AM bite for an hour. It wasn't pretty......4 fish, a pair of super dinks and 2 keepers between 10.5-11". Very few bites.

Had not measured water temp in my channel since Tuesday. Last Friday it was 57 late in day. Tuesday temp 63. Thursday temp 72.6! Turned my stomach.....if there were any laggard crappies, still waiting to spawn, those will do it fast at that water temp. That's not to say my channel water temps reflect glsm as a whole. It warms fast and main lake temps easily run 4-8 degrees cooler.


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## RMK

fishwhacker said:


> Usually slow trolling or dock shooting especially in high residential areas works well. Usually resevoirs start heating up also once the natural lakes are done also. Crappie fishing never stops it just changes.


I was hoping someone would have the answer I was looking for.... crappie fishing never stopping just changing!


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## RMK

We took a chance and left scotts "hotspot" alone this morning and tried the area we got into the smaller fish earlier. Bigger fish were active and biting. I didn't let him get as much of a head start on me today before I switched to black and chartreuse. Around 12 fish caught. Only 2 shorts. The bigger fish included a couple solid 12" fish and one we stretched to 13. Talked to another crappie guy that was happy with the bite.

Scotts big fish of the day.


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## RMK

I need to have someone look at my fish finder or just bring a water thermometer with me. My boats definitely isn't acurate. Seems to run around 10 degrees cool for some reason. I wish I could give water temp updates.


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## RMK

Trying to get my (pregnant) wife to share this new found addiction with me but I don't think she quite gets it. Oh well, at least she tolerates it.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> We took a chance and left scotts "hotspot" alone this morning and tried the area we got into the smaller fish earlier. Bigger fish were active and biting. I didn't let him get as much of a head start on me today before I switched to black and chartreuse. Around 12 fish caught. Only 2 shorts. The bigger fish included a couple solid 12" fish and one we stretched to 13. Talked to another crappie guy that was happy with the bite.
> 
> Scotts big fish of the day.


Great results!


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## fishwhacker

Nice job....wife and I are going to try tomorrow for our 4 year anniversary. We used to go together but kids put a stop to that. It will be great to be out with her again


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Nice job....wife and I are going to try tomorrow for our 4 year anniversary. We used to go together but kids put a stop to that. It will be great to be out with her again


Happy Anniversary to you......hope you two get into some good ones!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> I was hoping someone would have the answer I was looking for.... crappie fishing never stopping just changing!


Can't claim to have solved the GLSM summer crappie puzzle. Most of my success comes during morning or evening. Under pontoons is most consistent location for me, under docks a reasonable 2nd. The operative word is "under".....same plastics you now use will work fine.


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## fishwhacker

Well considering a rain break we got about 3hrs of fishing in today. Not fast and furious but had about 20 or so nice gills and 5 or 6 nice crappies including this one over 12 inches.


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## zaraspook

Well deserved effort and result. Nice to see a male crappie still dark. Numbers are waning.


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## Saugeyefisher

I caught a lot of males at Indian today guarding beds/fry. Most with beat up tails. One female spewing eggs. TONS of fry hovering around the dockposts with thick moss... actually watching the fry compared to a straight tail baby shad you can really see why they work so well!


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> I caught a lot of males at Indian today guarding beds/fry. Most with beat up tails. One female spewing eggs. TONS of fry hovering around the dockposts with thick moss... actually watching the fry compared to a straight tail baby shad you can really see why they work so well!


Neat observation about shad baits. You can't see 2" down in our green water to arrive at your conclusion.


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## RMK

Today in one of the channels that is fed by one of the treatment trains visibility was close to 6 or 8 inches! We were commenting on our baits actions under water as well!


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## firemanmike2127

What size were the bluegills that were hungry ? I haven't had had too many hit my crappie plastics so far this season, but I've been using 1 3/4" - 2 1/4" stinger minnows mostly when I've had time to do some crappie fishing If the gills are in that shallow area in numbers they'll be ready to start spawning soon....which would be earlier than last season. Mike


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## RMK

Scotts hot spot produced again today. Roughly 22 keepers and 5 shorts. Scott again beat me in size and numbers. However, I beat him in smallest sunfish landed. It had to be under 2"! Lol scott was about 6 inches shallower than my 12 inches and that did the trick today fishing in the rocks. 

Scott caught some amazing fish today. Two big fish right around 13". One fat! And full of eggs.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Scotts hot spot produced again today. Roughly 22 keepers and 5 shorts. Scott again beat me in size and numbers. However, I beat him in smallest sunfish landed. It had to be under 2"! Lol scott was about 6 inches shallower than my 12 inches and that did the trick today fishing in the rocks.


Those are definitely nice slabs. I'm envious! Haven't seen but 1 female with eggs in the last 7 days over here.....interesting isn't it? Same body of water but spawn progress, and bite, can be so different. Great to hear your positive eye-witness report on better water clarity at a treatment train!

Did an hours worth of fishing this morning. Caught 4, 2 keepers, both over 11" but very few bites, little surface action going on, even gills were reluctant to play. Had high hopes for 2 rocky banks that I like to fish......1 bite between the two rocky spots and zero fish.

With friends/family visiting Memorial Day weekend, too many chores to get my place/boats ready. Finally got break to fish at 7pm, but neighbors got to me first.....to chat. 8pm before I wet a line. Don't know when during the day conditions changed, but bite was all together different. Lots of shad and fish surface action, too, normally a good sign. Caught 6 with 4 keepers, 3 nice fish at 11.5-12". Big ones were roaming.

Also, got into a heavyweight something. Had it on for 2 decent runs before jig unzipped. Never saw it with poor water clarity and a heavy layer of cottonwood at that spot. It wasn't as fast as most bass, didn't dog down like respectable channel cats.......never will know. Always that chance you get into an "eye" on our lake. If a crappie, it would have to have been a toad. Fishing was fun......just didn't get to do it enough.


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## zaraspook

Should have mentioned I did fish GLSM for an hour Monday morning before leaving for home at noon. 6 caught with 3 keepers 10.5-11.5" mostly caught on black/chartreuse. 3 crappie guys in a boat sitting on one of my good spots and another large spot I fish was 80% covered with cottonwood fluff. My walking circuit , therefore, was severely neutered. Productivity at my seawall not good either. Weekend bass tournament guys pulled out or moved 90% of my cover at south end of seawall. With braid line so popular, tougher to maintain location of any of my strategically placed crappie cover.

Water temp was 65 early on Monday, falling off a tad from 66 Sunday.


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## zaraspook

Thursday AM between 8:30 and 10:45 caught 17 with 8 keepers 10" or more. None made it to 12" tick. Didn't start out well, just one dink in first 45 minutes and 4 different spots. Finally found fish in a rocky bank area, most less than 2' from shore and 10-20" of water. 15 of them were males still wearing warpaint and my guess is they were guarding beds.

All fish caught on black/chartreuse twister tail, but males guarding beds are ultra aggressive, and chase almost anything. Found one other spot that produced 4 of the total........it lacked the rocks but shared the characteristic of a shallower area than surrounding water. One fish today was a white crappie, not too common at GLSM. Water temp 64.9 degrees, stable from Monday, and lake is up 3" overnight, and rising. 

Homeward bound now......most of lake chores done and pontoon in the water for family arriving Friday for holiday weekend.


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## RMK

good job zara. i hope you and your family enjoy the weekend! and you get some fishing in too


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## zaraspook

Same wishes for you and family. Fishing time will take a hit but it's a trade off for other good things. Enjoy!


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## Greyduck

Hit the lake Friday early afternoon, shallow was the game. Not sure how many fish Ohio crappie we put in the boat but it was game on.


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## RMK

Greyduck said:


> Hit the lake Friday early afternoon, shallow was the game. Not sure how many fish Ohio crappie we put in the boat but it was game on.


Good job! Man I wish I wasn't 13 hours away! Although I did just wash off the surf rods....


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## Greyduck

The surf rods would of came in handy. We broke 2 im6 10 footers digging them out of the brush...


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## fishwhacker

While i was bluegill fishing all the crappies i caught were up tight to the bank also....a lot of times they would bite as i was lifting my jig out to cast. 2 broken rods.....ouch.


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## zaraspook

50%+ of my crappies right at bank for last couple weeks, and rarely a female caught. Escaped without rod damage, maybe because bank was where I expected the bite. I was chuckling that it was nearly fishing top-water for crappies!


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## zaraspook

Friday noon thru Monday late afternoon was a festive holiday at GLSM with family and friends. Food was fantastic! Bottles, cans, and growlers of adult beverages were abundant and found a proper home at the local recycling center. My ribs, chicken, burgers, brats, sausages will compete nicely with those grilled anywhere. Regardless, none of those pampered items could compete with our Sunday dinner fare of GLSM crappie tacos. Even light eaters paraded back for 2nd's, even thirds, of our Memorial Day traditional meal. 

My fishing time was predictably erratic.....short stints of 15-30 minutes, maybe twice reaching an hour. I caught 12 crappies Friday, 10 Saturday, 9 Sunday and didn't fish Monday. Consistent with recent patterns, most were male crappies in shallow water and many tight to the bank. Water temps ranged from 67 degrees Friday to 71 degrees Monday. I recall only one 12" fish, but several others 11.5", mostly on twister tails in Acid Rain/June Bug or Black/Chartreuse patterns. Carp were abundant intruders as was cottonwood "fluff" that seriously covered the water surface. Any guest that fished for crappies was rewarded, plus a few smaller bass, gills, and a decent channel cat were landed. Despite the gloomy weather forecast for the weekend, we had sun every day and temps were good. Awesome holiday weekend!


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## Saugeyefisher

Right on zara!!!! An your right the weather was fantastic! Was the most enjoyable memorial wwwkend I've had in a while. From BBQ to swimming with the kids to catching fish with friends!!! Glad you had a good weekend as well!!!!!


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## zaraspook

Last at GLSM on Memorial Day and that day fishing never made it to the top of the list. Got to the lake Thurs just in time for the 7pm evening circuit. Managed only 3 crappies from first 3 spots over almost an hour. It was feeling a lot like last Saturday and Sunday with fish few and far between. Then it hit me.....all three of my fish had come close to bank, shallow water.....why am I mostly fishing cover 7-10' from bank in 3-5' of water? Duh. 

Fortunately, nearby is a back end with water 1-3', no seawalls, and mixed rip rap and natural bank. It started slow as apparently I'm on the fringe of a sweet spot catching a pair of 11.5" males that had to be 95% covered with black warpaint. Moving another 20' on the bank must have been ground zero. A 10' stretch produced 8 more crappies, all but 2 in the 10.5-12.5" category. One rod was rigged with a twister tail grub black/chartreuse. The other rod was baited with a Garland Baby Shad Swim'r in Cajun Cricket. Both worked equally well until the Cajun Cricket shad body was too beat up to hold on the jig head. 10 fish during that 45 minutes. Caught 5 more at another shallow area in the final 15 minutes before dark.

18 total, 13 keepers, most fish males 11"+. Best action in a while. Tomorrow morning I'll be fishing shallow water from first wetting of line and until it proves to be the wrong strategy. Water temp was 73.5 degrees. Cottonwood wasn't bad since wind was light today.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> until the Cajun Cricket shad body was too beat up to hold on the jig head.


Ever use a touch of super glue on the tip of the plastic before pushing body on the jig head?
It works wonders in helping to keep the bait on the jig even when it's beat up pretty bad.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Ever use a touch of super glue on the tip of the plastic before pushing body on the jig head?
> It works wonders in helping to keep the bait on the jig even when it's beat up pretty bad.


Firm believer in Super Glue, C-dude. In fact, first got that tip on this website from an OGF'er. Really did not expect to get into the good, aggressive bite I found, therefore walked out of my lake place without net, without bait case, and without my glue. Just grabbed 2 crappie rods and walked to first spot. 
Thanks to the wonders of super glue that plastic was well broken in. Had been glued on that rig since April 22nd when I hosted a group of 6 neighborhood guys (elementary school days) for a fishing weekend. If anyone reading this doesn't use super glue with plastics, crappiedude has shared a great tip!


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## crappiedude

Personally I go hot & cold on using it but if I find a particular color that's working I'll glue up a few baits. The other day I was working a jig & cork along a bank and a friend of mine said "you may want to look at your bait". We were getting hits on almost every cast but since I use a jig with #2 hook I don't hook up with a lot smaller fish. I started that day with a glued up black/chart tube and when I took the time and really looked at it, all of the little strands of the chart skirt were missing. Normally without glue all those missed hits would have resulted in my jig (as we say) "having his pants pulled down". Then I would have had to reposition or replace the body instead of keep fishing.


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## RMK

I m definitely going to hang on to that " my jig having its pants pulled down" line.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Personally I go hot & cold on using it but if I find a particular color that's working I'll glue up a few baits. The other day I was working a jig & cork along a bank and a friend of mine said "you may want to look at your bait". We were getting hits on almost every cast but since I use a jig with #2 hook I don't hook up with a lot smaller fish. I started that day with a glued up black/chart tube and when I took the time and really looked at it, all of the little strands of the chart skirt were missing. Normally without glue all those missed hits would have resulted in my jig (as we say) "having his pants pulled down". Then I would have had to reposition or replace the body instead of keep fishing.


Agree with you........glue is less forgiving than not glued, the plastic more likely to rip or tear when one end is fixed. Also, takes a little more time to remove and replace a glued bait. However, when casting under docks or toons, without glue it's "pants down" quickly, 1/2 dozen casts. Once it starts the bait slides down nearly every cast. I don't care for jigs with barbs to retain the plastics. Most of our crappie baits are pretty small, and the barbs on hook shaft wreck the head of the baits. And, the barbs screw up the balance of the jig head. My preference are jigs with a simple ball.....they hang horizontally in the water.


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## zaraspook

Fished from 9-11 this morning(Fri). Bite was decent and fish were in the same places as Thursday evening bot not quite as close to the bank. 12 caught with 7 keepers, mostly 11-11.5" keepers. 100% of fish came on Acid Rain/June Bug grub twister tail.

Didn't fish again until 7pm, same timing as Thursday evening. Any other similarities to Thurs stopped there. I gave up after 90 minutes having caught 2 crappies, both short. Very few bites.....couldn't solve the puzzle tonight.
Pic below is one of the crappies during the morning session. Didn't quite make it to 12" when measured the correct way with mouth closed.


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## zaraspook

Water temp 73 today/Saturday for an 8:30-10:30 morning session. After just 2 short fish Fri evening, 8 today was good. 5 keepers this time with all 11" or better, including a 12" and a 13". Interesting that each of the 2 biggest were lone wolves, the only crappie caught at those spots. Acid Rain/June Bug twister tail produced 2 keepers from 4 fish. 3 keepers from 4 fish for the Bobby Garland Cajun Cricket Swim Shad(including the 2 biggest crappies).

Increasingly carp are monopolizing the shoreline with crazy mating foreplay. Crappies moved out a bit, not far. The ones I caught were 6-10' from bank. Also, caught 3-4 small gills and a 2+ lb channel cat - always fun on my fly rod crappie pole. Cotton wood galore on the water surface. No evening session for me today. Chores at home are calling. 13" photo below.


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## zaraspook

Interesting discussion, photos, at OGF thread at link below. Apparently GLSM has a significant population of rare _mirror scale pattern carp. _Nice to hear something positive about GLSM's carp population! A new entry for your bucket list? Link is https://www.ohiogamefishing.com/thr...-roughfish-double-threat.314796/#post-2328989


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## RMK

Cool!


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## zaraspook

Wednesday mid-day to Thursday I entertained my just-turned 7 grandson, nephew 7, and a niece's current "significant other" at GLSM. Water temp surprised me at 71.9 degrees, lower than last weekend, but forgot last 4-5 nights were cooler. Weds I was targeting crappies (that's a surprise?) while the 3 others targeted crappies for the first hour Weds afternoon. My 3 partners were convinced early crappies weren't cooperating. They switched to anything that would bite. Gills were more than eager to play. Best I could muster was 3 crappies, only one respectable keeper, in 2+ hours. My fishing partners each managed 12-15 gills apiece.......no crappies.

Weds morning I decided to make a down payment, to invest time in hunting/targeting the elusive GLSM perch. No info being shared by those who try to catch perch at the lake, therefore I selected our strategy from my back side. Wind was light, rare at GLSM, so my strategy was to pick an area of the 13500 acre lake and drift. At any point in time, at least one rod was rigged with worms under bobber and one rod rigged with worms tight-line on the bottom. Plus at least one rod was rigged with minnow under bobber and one rigged with minnow tight-line on bottom. Drift speed was relatively constant from .7-1.0 mph and water depth varied between 5' and 9'. Bobber fishing was usually 1-2' off the bottom. 

The two 7-year olds were much more patient than I expected. Catch expectations for perch were low, but we figured worst case scenario we'd catch a crappie or two, probably a channel cat or 3. After 2.5 hours the little guys lost interest. 2 bites and no fish caught for our 4-person group was the limit. We headed back for lunch. Although they said they were willing to venture out for another main lake try, a decent gill bite from the bank off my seawall changed their minds. They caught 15-20 gills apiece, add a couple yellow bellies, and 2 painted turtles. It was a better offer than no action from the boat and main lake. They had a great time! Perching will have to wait........we failed to prove GLSM contains catchable perch.


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## Salmonid

Great report Zara. Fyi ill be up tomorrow afternoon for the Outdoorsmans Catfish tourney. 4-10 pm. Ill post results sometime Sunday.


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## RMK

Friday first half of the day- not much crappie action for us. We managed 2 decent fish and 2 or 3 shorts. Missed 3 other keepers. Not really enough action to put a real strategy together. Fish caught on dock posts and in the middle of brush. Water temp varied from 70 to 72.
Funny you mentioned perching zara. I caught wind of some supposedly being caught so we loaded up a couple extra poles today with perch rigs. We drug some minnows and worms around on harnesses for a little bit with no luck.


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## zaraspook

K


RMK said:


> Friday first half of the day- not much crappie action for us. We managed 2 decent fish and 2 or 3 shorts. Missed 3 other keepers. Not really enough action to put a real strategy together. Fish caught on dock posts and in the middle of brush. Water temp varied from 70 to 72.
> Funny you mentioned perching zara. I caught wind of some supposedly being caught so we loaded up a couple extra poles today with perch rigs. We drug some minnows and worms around on harnesses for a little bit with no luck.


Good report RMK and some nice crappies.
State had been stocking perch for 6 years now, on top of the native population. It's absurd we can't target and successfully catch them (at least credible reports are about as common as muskie catches). Lots of guys want to know where and how, but don't invest time /effort to solve the puzzle. Great to hear you and partner are bucking the herd, contributing to the cause. Instead of 10 years to do it alone, as a group working together maybe we get it done in 2 years. Fish are there - we have to find them and refine process to catch.


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## crappiedude

Don't know if this will help but last year at Rocky we were targeting and catching perch on jigs tipped with minnows. We'd motor around until we'd see some fish on the electronics usually in 10-12 fow and we'd just start fishing. Most of the time it was a mixed bag of fish...saugeyes, crappie, perch &/or cats, I'm sure some shad were mixed in the screen too. One thing I noticed was if the screen was blank it was time to move.
PS... I have no real clue as to what to do to consistently catch perch but this seemed to work for us the few times we went there.


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## crappiedude

Forgot to mention we fished the jig/minnow combos on or very near the bottom.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Don't know if this will help but last year at Rocky we were targeting and catching perch on jigs tipped with minnows. We'd motor around until we'd see some fish on the electronics usually in 10-12 fow and we'd just start fishing. Most of the time it was a mixed bag of fish...saugeyes, crappie, perch &/or cats, I'm sure some shad were mixed in the screen too. One thing I noticed was if the screen was blank it was time to move.
> PS... I have no real clue as to what to do to consistently catch perch but this seemed to work for us the few times we went there.


C-dude.....I'm sure it's perch info like you are providing, baits, depths, techniques from other lakes that will be read and successfully adapted at GLSM. In particular, info from other shallow lakes can help. 
Not much 10-12 fow at GLSM. Lots of 4-6' and electronics aren't as useful for finding fish. I have down imaging in my boat, SI was just coming out...... the cone at 4' doesn't show much. At Brookville my electronics are useful. Different story at GLSM. Keep the info coming, C-dude. Much appreciated!


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Great report Zara. Fyi ill be up tomorrow afternoon for the Outdoorsmans Catfish tourney. 4-10 pm. Ill post results sometime Sunday.


Hope your team tears then up, Mark! Not likely I make it up Saturday. Find me a good perch spot while you drift about and await for next bite.


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## zaraspook

Went to GLSM late Sunday afternoon to catch up on grass-cutting and a few other chores. 7-9pm tested the waters to check out the crappie bite. Water temp was 75.5 degrees. The grub body twister tails I started with were apparently not on the Sunday menu......almost an hour and not a bite.

Had a thought that with all the bug hatches and spring fish spawns, smaller baits might be a better choice. Rummaged thru the crappie box I carry, looking for smaller plastics, the smaller the better. Best I could come up with was the Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad. Within 3 minutes a nice 11" crappie was the first of the day. Nothing "magical" followed, not one of those spurts where you catch 10 more in 30 minutes. However, I did land 3 more crappies in the final hour. 4 crappies, 2 keepers.....a good ending for a Sunday evening.


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## Salmonid

Catfish report was good for some teams but not us. lol. My luck of bad continues in The June tourney. We fished everything from 1-8 ft of water. wood , rock , ledges , points sandbars etc. Only mustered up 9 small channels. Winners had about 37 lbs. took 29 to place 56 teams.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Catfish report was good for some teams but not us. lol. My luck of bad continues in The June tourney. We fished everything from 1-8 ft of water. wood , rock , ledges , points sandbars etc. Only mustered up 9 small channels. Winners had about 37 lbs. took 29 to place 56 teams.


Did you try the football field? Like I mentioned to you earlier, dredge was over their for weeks. Haven't been there to check out what was/was not dredged.

June tourney aside, you own the season ending "Classic" if you get there......


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## Salmonid

yup we fished the football field, nothing, was a week too late I'm thinking.. both mouths had been dredged but the rest is like it was , not sure where they were at over there other then making channel a wider maybe.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> yup we fished the football field, nothing, was a week too late I'm thinking.. both mouths had been dredged but the rest is like it was , not sure where they were at over there other then making channel a wider maybe.


That "football field" has 3 "mouths". One each at NE, NW, and SE corners. While dredge was there, I saw it working in the NE entry, heard the dredge working in NW mouths, couldn't tell if SE mouth was dredged. Did you get into the SE mouth? Wondered if it was dredged.


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## zaraspook

Mid Monday morning this week I "played" from boat in a north side bay. Rather than fishing my local crappie circuit from shore that morning, since my boat was in the water I opted for another exploratory perch expedition. A "rumor" suggested said NW bay was a favorite haunt for GLSM guys who fish for perch. Had 2 hours available so I invested the time perching the bay. 

Wind was variable, probably 8-15 mph. I drifted, making 3-4 passes through different areas of the bay. In general water depth was 3.5- 6 feet. One rig was a jig tipped with minnow, under bobber set at abut 4' depth. The 2nd rig was tightline, bottom dragging 1/3 of a night crawler on a small circle hook that was tied approx 2 feet above a bottom sinker. In 90 minutes of fishing, I managed a single bite and a single fish. No, the single fish was not a perch as targeted. It was a crappie, a nice one just shy of 12". Ironic.....I pass on crappie fishing, targeting perch but catch a crappie.  The crappie came on bobber/minnow rig.

Two perching trips on main lake.....no perch.....yet. Assume I'm the only one playing at this game. Suggestions anyone?


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## RMK

i was starting to think the crappie followed you around the lake.... now i know they do! i havent made it back out, but you wont be alone in this perch search. planning on getting out early friday for the first half of the day again. I m in the process of getting set up to try my shot at trolling for crappie. I m hoping this technique may lead to bonus perch or at least discover some new to me perchy areas of the lake.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> i was starting to think the crappie followed you around the lake.... now i know they do! i havent made it back out, but you wont be alone in this perch search. planning on getting out early friday for the first half of the day again. I m in the process of getting set up to try my shot at trolling for crappie. I m hoping this technique may lead to bonus perch or at least discover some new to me perchy areas of the lake.


Funny one! Your crappie trolling setup......spider rigging? Aside from "where are the freaking perch in GLSM" there is another mystery question that looms for GLSM. Where do the summertime crappies go? You're trolling efforts can play a big part toward solving that one. Best of luck and will be watching your posts!

I'm a bit out of the fishing loop for awhile (not like I was ever in the loop for perch). Planned to be up there Weds thru Friday morning. Wife unintentionally threw a wrench in plan. She broke her arm/wrist Weds afternoon.....both radius and ulna broken right at wrist. Needs surgery but no orthopod available at hospital last night. Still working on scheduling surgery...today, tomorrow, who knows when? 

Last note......DNR released roughly 100,00 perch fingerlings late last week. Number seems lower than last couple of years, however, believe it was March when DNR released a couple million fry in GLSM.


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## RMK

i m sure there is going to be alot of trial and error and error and error on the trolling. i am planning spider rigging (pushing). i m planning on using jigs and plastics, hooks and minnows, small minnow harnesses, and even small cranks. different combinations of of the previous on each line until i find something that proves to outfish the other. I 'm set up for 6 rods off the front. However I will be limited to fishing 2, or 4 if i have a second person in the boat. wish i could legally run 4 when solo. i ve done a lot of reading on here and other sites about pushing or spider rigging. some people swear by trolling for crappie. "only technique that can be used year round on any body of water for crappie" i read several places. i'd like to know if the people that wrote that have ever crappie fished in a lake where the majority of the channels are deeper than the main lake. I also have rod holders on the back to long line but i m really hoping i can do it off the front spider rigging. 

Good luck to your wife! and a quick recovery! OUCH!


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## RMK

Thursday early morning session- got on the water a little after 6. Water temp 75. Fishing by 615. Started out throwing a small crank along a seawall in 7 fow. That quickly produced a 16" heavy bass and another smaller bass a little while later. Switched to the jig. Cajun cricket joker tail (bigger bait). That caught 4 crappie and another good bass fairly quickly then nothing. Switched to a black and white pan fish stinger tail (smaller bait). That caught the 5th and largest crappie of the day at 11.5" the fish i caught were on outside corners of the seawall and at transitions from seawall to rock banks a couple feet out. Fished about 24 inches deep.
Wish I would ve had more time before work today... another rare not windy and smooth water day on the lake.
















16"bass on the small crank









17"bass on the cajun cricket joker tail


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Thursday early morning session- got on the water a little after 6. Water temp 75. Fishing by 615. Started out throwing a small crank along a seawall in 7 fow. That quickly produced a 16" heavy bass and another smaller bass a little while later. Switched to the jig. Cajun cricket joker tail (bigger bait). That caught 4 crappie and another good bass fairly quickly then nothing. Switched to a black and white pan fish stinger tail (smaller bait). That caught the 5th and largest crappie of the day at 11.5" the fish i caught were on outside corners of the seawall and at transitions from seawall to rock banks a couple feet out. Fished about 24 inches deep.
> Wish I would ve had more time before work today... another rare not windy and smooth water day on the lake.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 16"bass on the small crank
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 17"bass on the cajun cricket joker tail


Good job, man! Some nice variety to the catch and sunrise pic is sweet.


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## firemanmike2127

RMK.... I live in Celina & have an interest in learning how to effectively spider rig for crappies. I have another friend I fish with that has some experience with this technique & we're supposed to install rod holders bases on his 20' Skeeter soon. He used to fish a bunch of crappie tournaments & we're planning to hit a couple of deeper lakes this summer to do some spider rigging. I have 4 traditional Attwood rod holders mounted on the bow on my boat & have been shopping for some 12-14' rods & a long handled dip net. Please give me a call at your convenience....I'd like to network with some other fisherman to learn more about this technique. Mike Bruns. 419-305-8111


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## RMK

firemanmike2127 said:


> RMK.... I live in Celina & have an interest in learning how to effectively spider rig for crappies. I have another friend I fish with that has some experience with this technique & we're supposed to install rod holders bases on his 20' Skeeter soon. He used to fish a bunch of crappie tournaments & we're planning to hit a couple of deeper lakes this summer to do some spider rigging. I have 4 traditional Attwood rod holders mounted on the bow on my boat & have been shopping for some 12-14' rods & a long handled dip net. Please give me a call at your convenience....I'd like to network with some other fisherman to learn more about this technique. Mike Bruns. 419-305-8111


I will definitely get ahold of you. I am very new to this but I do want to get it figured out. I have 2 10' Mr crappie poles and am waiting on 2 12' poles to arrive. From my research the shallower the water the longer the pole the better-farther away from trolling motor noise and vibration. But also lower visibility (in glsm) will help us get away with using shorter poles in the shallower water.


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## ohiostrutter

I'm a relative newbie to jig fishing exclusively for crappie. I'm a die hard spring turkey hunter so I miss some of the best crappie action every year while hunting. Finally made it up to st Mary's today. Fishing the West Bank on rocks. All fish with 6-8' of shore. They were hitting about any color bobby garland baby shad but seemed to prefer a pink/white/chartreuse body. Roughly 12"-24" deep. Biggest was a good 13" fish.


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## Saugeyefisher

ohiostrutter said:


> I'm a relative newbie to jig fishing exclusively for crappie. I'm a die hard spring turkey hunter so I miss some of the best crappie action every year while hunting. Finally made it up to st Mary's today. Fishing the West Bank on rocks. All fish with 6-8' of shore. They were hitting about any color bobby garland baby shad but seemed to prefer a pink/white/chartreuse body. Roughly 12"-24" deep. Biggest was a good 13" fish.


Very well done!!!!


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## RMK

Nice catching ohiostrutter!!


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## zaraspook

ohiostrutter said:


> I'm a relative newbie to jig fishing exclusively for crappie. I'm a die hard spring turkey hunter so I miss some of the best crappie action every year while hunting. Finally made it up to st Mary's today. Fishing the West Bank on rocks. All fish with 6-8' of shore. They were hitting about any color bobby garland baby shad but seemed to prefer a pink/white/chartreuse body. Roughly 12"-24" deep. Biggest was a good 13" fish.


That's as good a haul as I've seen in a month! Outstanding, and far from "newbie" performance. Congrats! 
The one you're holding in the photo appears to be a white crappie......not exactly rare at GLSM but enough uncommon that I always do a double-take. Love those Garland Baby Shad baits. Great post and pics.


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## ohiostrutter

zaraspook said:


> That's as good a haul as I've seen in a month! Outstanding, and far from "newbie" performance. Congrats!
> The one you're holding in the photo appears to be a white crappie......not exactly rare at GLSM but enough uncommon that I always do a double-take. Love those Garland Baby Shad baits. Great post and pics.


Of the 17 I brought home there were 4 white and the remainder blacks. In my limited experience at the lake that seemed like a lot of whites


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## fishwhacker

If your a newbie at crappie fishing at glsm you need to perch fish and let us know how you found them haha


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> If your a newbie at crappie fishing at glsm you need to perch fish and let us know how you found them haha


On the money, fishwhacker!


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## Acton Angler

I had some family up there catfishing a couple of weeks ago and they caught a couple of perch by accident.
Southeast part of the lake near a grassy secondary point. They had nightcrawlers on the bottom and knew something other than catfish was nibbling at it. Eventually they hooked into a couple of perch that ranged 5-6" in length. What seemed at first like a bit of a nuissance turned out to be a pleasant surprise. They were light/finicky bites, albeit on catfish tackle. If you scaled your gear more for perch, perhaps they would have hit better and taken the hook more easily.
I hope this helps in your quest for some perch. It would be great to see perch turn into a viable game fish on the lake!


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## zaraspook

The few perch I've caught were 8-9" while crappie fishing.


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## zaraspook

Acton Angler said:


> I had some family up there catfishing a couple of weeks ago and they caught a couple of perch by accident.
> Southeast part of the lake near a grassy secondary point. They had nightcrawlers on the bottom and knew something other than catfish was nibbling at it. Eventually they hooked into a couple of perch that ranged 5-6" in length. What seemed at first like a bit of a nuissance turned out to be a pleasant surprise. They were light/finicky bites, albeit on catfish tackle. If you scaled your gear more for perch, perhaps they would have hit better and taken the hook more easily.
> I hope this helps in your quest for some perch. It would be great to see perch turn into a viable game fish on the lake!


You're right, of course. Most of us catch a few perch while targeting other species and think we can get away with that approach. Not likely to happen. Rumors are some anglers do well targeting and catching GLSM perch. I know none of those people and can't say if success is truth or myth. Believe 100%, however, that it will require perch sized tackle and techniques to produce repeatable results......no different than cats, crappies, bass, carp, etc. Plus it will require time/effort......there's always a price to pay, lack of success, before success arrives. Not an enviable endeavor when your fishing time is limited and the prospects are initially high for a skunk.


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## Acton Angler

zaraspook said:


> You're right, of course. Most of us catch a few perch while targeting other species and think we can get away with that approach. Not likely to happen. Rumors are some anglers do well targeting and catching GLSM perch. I know none of those people and can't say if success is truth or myth. Believe 100%, however, that it will require perch sized tackle and techniques to produce repeatable results......no different than cats, crappies, bass, carp, etc. Plus it will require time/effort......there's always a price to pay, lack of success, before success arrives. Not an enviable endeavor when your fishing time is limited and the prospects are initially high for a skunk.


Very true Zara. I just figure you have to find them before you can catch them, no matter your technique. If a couple of you guys are investing some time to target them, I was just hoping I could help you out in locating them. Good luck!


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## tylerd1994

I'm not sure this will help you guys. But from about 2004-2007 when I was a youngster my dad would take me out for perch in the fall at GLSM. There were numerous occasions we limited out on good eater size perch. I'm not sure if the water conditions in the proceeding decade did a number on the population but we had a lot of success near boat docks and the rocky points in October and November.


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## zaraspook

Acton Angler said:


> Very true Zara. I just figure you have to find them before you can catch them, no matter your technique. If a couple of you guys are investing some time to target them, I was just hoping I could help you out in locating them. Good luck!


Concur with you entirely and appreciate any and all info. Thanks.


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## zaraspook

tylerd1994 said:


> I'm not sure this will help you guys. But from about 2004-2007 when I was a youngster my dad would take me out for perch in the fall at GLSM. There were numerous occasions we limited out on good eater size perch. I'm not sure if the water conditions in the proceeding decade did a number on the population but we had a lot of success near boat docks and the rocky points in October and November.


tylerd........ hope to duplicate those successes you had. Thanks for info and feel free to chime in with more.


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## firemanmike2127

I did some perch fishing a number of years ago @ GLSM when there was a surge of angler interest in that species. It seems like it was in the early to mid 1990's. We fished some areas that had featureless bottom content, but not as much silt as I recall. At that time we used traditional spreaders & tipped with either a whole or half minnow based on the bite. We kept our baits 4-6" up off the bottom. As tylerd1994 indicated, we also fished a few rocky points, an area east of Dayton Island, & also south of the swimming beaches at the State Park 1/4-1/2 mile out in the main lake. The 3rd area I mentioned would occasionally have 15-20 boats out there in a pack. We had some decent success back then during those fall outings. Mike


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## Saugeye Tom

firemanmike2127 said:


> I did some perch fishing a number of years ago @ GLSM when there was a surge of angler interest in that species. It seems like it was in the early to mid 1990's. We fished some areas that had featureless bottom content, but not as much silt as I recall. At that time we used traditional spreaders & tipped with either a whole or half minnow based on the bite. We kept our baits 4-6" up off the bottom. As tylerd1994 indicated, we also fished a few rocky points, an area east of Dayton Island, & also south of the swimming beaches at the State Park 1/4-1/2 mile out in the main lake. The 3rd area I mentioned would occasionally have 15-20 boats out there in a pack. We had some decent success back then during those fall outings. Mike


Hey Mike good meeting you, Did you find eagle creek marine?


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> I did some perch fishing a number of years ago @ GLSM when there was a surge of angler interest in that species. It seems like it was in the early to mid 1990's. We fished some areas that had featureless bottom content, but not as much silt as I recall. At that time we used traditional spreaders & tipped with either a whole or half minnow based on the bite. We kept our baits 4-6" up off the bottom. As tylerd1994 indicated, some decent success back then during those fall outings. Mike


Mike,
For the last couple years every 4-5 months we'd wander into a perch discussion in this thread. After 4-5 posts it would quiet down until the next round. In the last week you, Action Angler, and tylerd provided more "substance" than the total of any commentary for the prior 2 years. I personally appreciate the contributions from you and others. Regardless if the perch info comes from the 90's or early 2000's, I expect successful techniques and locations from the past will succeed this time around, also. Most of us are starting from scratch on this species. Even info as basic as hook size is an unknown to me.

You mentioned an area east of Dayton Island back in the 90's as one spot you recalled. That one caught my eye.....it's not the first time east of Dayton Island came up. The only credible/successful perch report I've heard was in fall of 2015 or spring of 2016. A panfishing friend related 3 of his longtime fishing accomplices caught 90 perch and kept 60 from an east of Dayton Island location. Fish all came from a 60-yard diameter area. Inside the diameter they caught fish- outside virtually nothing. He was not on the boat that day, but saw photos. 

Thanks for sharing info....the more pieces of the puzzle we get, the better the chances that someone reaps benefit.


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## RMK

The first rumor I heard a few weeks ago about perch being caught in both size and number was also from a SE corner location as someone else mentioned again. 
Not sure if I ll get the chores done in time.... but hoping to make a trolling/perch search outing tomorrow evening.


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## zaraspook

Hope you get into them! Good luck.


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## firemanmike2127

Tom, I didn't take time to run over to the Lund dealer on Thursday because I made the decision to head back to my shop in Celina & finish a customer's boat ahead of schedule. Hope we can get together down the road & wet a line for a few hours. Zaraspook, I was having a discussion re: GLSM perch fishing in the 90's with a friend of mine who had some good success also. He's a very proficient angler & we're going to be hitting a local reservoir for smallmouth tomorrow. I'll be sure to bring up the topic & see if I can provide some additional input. Mike


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## zaraspook

At lake Monday AM to catch up on chores.....will have a house full for upcoming long holiday weekend. Got in 45 minutes of crappie fishing about 10am. Hit 4 spots on my walking circuit with 3-4 bites, just one short crappie. Anemic bite convinced me I'd be more productive cutting grass and power washing my deck. Water temp was a surprise....just 70.5 degrees.

Returned to GLSM mid afternoon Tuesday......more pressure washing on the schedule. Gave in to the fishing urge at 8:15 pm and fished until 9pm. 2 short crappies. Both came from same spot as the single fish yesterday. Water temp 71.6 today.

Might try perching one day this weekend. My son in law and a guest say they'd like to try. The blind leading the blind........


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## fishwhacker

Stay positive, ya never know. I have had novices put me on a pile of fish because they tried spots that i would have never cast to and found deep holes or underwater cover that i didnt know was there


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## zaraspook

fw.......although I quickly back-off summer crappie fishing sessions around my place, a few hours later I'll hit those spots again. Eventually the fish have to eat. Otherwise, my reputation is for persistence and patience. Not easily dissuaded. We'll give the perch a fair block of time this weekend though hosting a bunch of guests can unpredictably throw some curve balls at your schedule.

And you're right about novices.....most of my local crappie spots were "discovered" by rookies.

Fished close to an hour this morning. Only one crappie but a decent 10.5" fish for a change. Water temp 69.6, rare for late June.


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## RMK

i like that water temp. 
i have been busy with chores around home and getting ready for our first, due in early august, and havent been able to get out for a while. made a trip to indian a couple weeks ago also took up a couple days getting ready for. my glsm trolling system is all set up and works great in the barn lol. fingers crossed for making it out at some point this weekend. working a bunch of overtime isnt going to help that but still hoping.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> i like that water temp.
> i have been busy with chores around home and getting ready for our first, due in early august, and havent been able to get out for a while. made a trip to indian a couple weeks ago also took up a couple days getting ready for. my glsm trolling system is all set up and works great in the barn lol. fingers crossed for making it out at some point this weekend. working a bunch of overtime isnt going to help that but still hoping.


Do it, RMK! Fish are calling you.


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## zaraspook

Spent Friday late afternoon thru early evening Tuesday 4th at GLSM. Family, friends, as well as 4 newbies who were friends of my 2 daughters. We entertained as many as 18 for dinner, 15 sleep-overs at a time......good fun and crazy with bodies lying everywhere. Entertaining that many and keeping my pontoon, fishing boat, and Sea Doo all running without mishap was a challenge. 

Fishing rarely made it to the top of my task list.....managed just three 30-45 minute sessions from bank for crappies. Each time 1-2 others tagged along to fish. I caught 1 crappie each session with bites very rare. Two of the 3 were nice keepers. Though we cycled thru a variety of plastics, all 3 crappies came on Panfish Assassin Tiny Shads (tons of shad everywhere were very small, 1-2" and close to the size of Tiny Shad plastics). No one else caught a crappie.

Actually put in more time "perching" than chasing crappies. First 1.5 hour session was Sunday evening from 8:30-10pm from my boat. Two rods rigged like targeting cats, baited with crawlers and fishing 8-10' deep on bottom produced 3 bites, 1 fish. Tuesday 7am session in a different location for 90 minutes produced just one bite, 1 fish. Neither fish, unfortunately, was a perch. Both were small channel cats 13-14". Can't brag that added anything to my GLSM perch knowledge base. I'm not a threat to the lake's perch population.......yet.

Water temps were generally 78-79 degrees. Lake continues to run uncommonly high water levels, probably 1.5-2 feet above GLSM levels for same time frame last 4 years. Very pleased with the revised water management policy! Water is plenty green, but most of my guests felt not as green as recent years. We haven't witnessed any heavier, multi-colored algal surface conditions. Channels with feeder creeks were very muddy early in the weekend.


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## RMK

great report zara. i have been so dang busy i havent made it out. looks like this weekend is out as well unless i can make it happen friday evening


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## Salmonid

Hey Zara. Any chance your available early Sunday for a spider rigging test run at Acton?? My boat, just have a seat to fill and thought youd like to see it in action. Let me know.


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## RMK

Zara- bring me back some pointers from that trip!


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## ohiostrutter

Fished today 6-930 a.m. Super slow. Ended with 7 crappie (3 keeper size) 1 channel cat and one drum. Small minnows, fry EVERYWHERE. I was literally watching nice crappie right on the bank slamming the bait fish. I had the feeling there was just too much baitfish to compete with. I tried matching the hatch with a Tennessee shad color bobby garland but had all my fish on a pink and chartreuse baby shad


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Hey Zara. Any chance your available early Sunday for a spider rigging test run at Acton?? My boat, just have a seat to fill and thought youd like to see it in action. Let me know.


Interest? Yes. Availability? Don't know. Largely depends on my wife's broken wrist. Her 2-week, post surgery appointment is today in afternoon. She's pretty much pinned to my side, goes where I go, unless someone is around. Will depend on what surgeon tells us today at appointment. Appreciate offer and will let you know. About what time Sunday AM and how long do you expect to be out?


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Zara- bring me back some pointers from that trip!


Glitch in scheduling......we weren't able to make spider rigging trip happen. Looking to do it in a few weeks, possibly at GLSM rather than Acton Lake. More later.......


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## tylerd1994

zaraspook said:


> Mike,
> For the last couple years every 4-5 months we'd wander into a perch discussion in this thread. After 4-5 posts it would quiet down until the next round. In the last week you, Action Angler, and tylerd provided more "substance" than the total of any commentary for the prior 2 years. I personally appreciate the contributions from you and others. Regardless if the perch info comes from the 90's or early 2000's, I expect successful techniques and locations from the past will succeed this time around, also. Most of us are starting from scratch on this species. Even info as basic as hook size is an unknown to me.
> 
> You mentioned an area east of Dayton Island back in the 90's as one spot you recalled. That one caught my eye.....it's not the first time east of Dayton Island came up. The only credible/successful perch report I've heard was in fall of 2015 or spring of 2016. A panfishing friend related 3 of his longtime fishing accomplices caught 90 perch and kept 60 from an east of Dayton Island location. Fish all came from a 60-yard diameter area. Inside the diameter they caught fish- outside virtually nothing. He was not on the boat that day, but saw photos.
> 
> Thanks for sharing info....the more pieces of the puzzle we get, the better the chances that someone reaps benefit.



We were fairly old school in our approach when we went after perch from what I remember. All from the bank. When we fished the docks and off the rocky points we would use #2 gold Aberdeen hooks with live minnows. Our rig was on a stick cork with a small split shot 6-8 inches up from the bait. We would set out corks so that they would just barely start tipping up, indicating we were just scraping the bottom. From what I remember and the info I could get from my Dad we went for about 4 years straight in the late fall. I know it was cold enough we had our bibs on. I would roughly say 6-8 trips and I know we limited on on this approach twice. There was a time or two we skunked but as basic as our approach was I believe that's understandable. I wish I had more info for you but I'm pretty sure our success came from a "grandpas buddies brother in law" said try this, and we did lol.


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## zaraspook

Thanks tylerd1984. Any and all info is good info and I guess I'm an old school kind of guy. I imagine you picked up a few other species while you were fishing, such as crappies. Although my perch dedicated excursions so far are from boat, I've used minnows under bobber, just off bottom, as you described and tight-line to bottom sinker with hook tied 14-18" above sinker and baited with partial crawler. Both rigs gave same result - ZERO so far. Gotta find some perchy fish first. When I try bottom rig again it probably makes sense to tie double hooks.


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## RMK

I got some Mr crappie troll tech crappie rigs for one of my crappie trolling presentations. They are a w hook setup with a weight at the bottom designed to hold the line strait up and down suspended while trolling. But I will also be trying them drifting with the weight on the bottom looking for perch. Fairly reasonably priced for a pre rigged ready to go setup. I think it was $7 for a 3 pack.


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## RMK

* 2 hook


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## zaraspook

RMK...... In no time you'll be changing your avatar to "perchmaster". Looking forward to it!


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## zaraspook

My broken wristed wife booted me out of the house tonight. She said I'd become more of a pain than her surgically repaired wrist with a plate and 10 screws. She recommended a few hours of fishing might cure my disposition. What a wonderful human being she is! 

No matter that arrival at GLSM was late, only allowed for an hour to fish before dark. No matter the crappies didn't want to play and only 3 gills joined in. Another hour or two in the morning with line in water should complete the therapy. Regardless of the catch, attitude adjustment should be complete by mid - morning.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> RMK...... In no time you'll be changing your avatar to "perchmaster". Looking forward to it!


the first step to that or figureing out how to spider rig would be actually getting on the water... and i have found that difficult to do lately!


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## zaraspook

RMK........you aren't missing much. Summer is a good season to have limited fishing time.


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## zaraspook

Ooops.....almost forgot to mention I got in almost 2 hours of Monday morning crappie fishing at GLSM. I did catch 2 crappies this time and a few gills. One crappie was legal. Both crappies caught from bank on the main lake, not in my channel. Cajun cricket colored plastic. Not lots of fish but mission accomplished......attitude fully adjusted.

Water temp 78.2 degrees. Awesome to experience continuing nice water levels. 50" depth off my seawall whereas 20" last fall. Lots of plant life appearing in shallows that were AWOL last 4 years.


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## Saugeyefisher

I miss my shallow water slabs! Gonna pick some hot days the next few weeks and go pontoon shooting in between saugeye at Indian the next few weeks,I'll report how it goes.....


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> I miss my shallow water slabs! Gonna pick some hot days the next few weeks and go pontoon shooting in between saugeye at Indian the next few weeks,I'll report how it goes.....


My favorite summer target is a nearby, massive dock/deck. It probably provides the equivalent shade of 4 pontoons. But, it's one of the few casualties of high water levels. Current water surface is above the floor of the dock/deck, therefore no gap remains to cast under. The owner usually ties his pontoon to the dock which leaves another good target to shoot and the guy would park his pontoon for me to optimize my coverage. He passed away last year. Pontoon gone. God bless him.....an outstanding member of the human race.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> My favorite summer target is a massive dock/deck. It probably provides the equivalent shade of 4 pontoons. But, it's one of the few casualties of high water levels. Water surface is above the floor of the dock/deck, therefore no gap remains to cast under. The owner usually ties his pontoon to the dock which leaves a good target to shoot and the guy would park his pontoon for me to optimize my coverage. He passed away last year. Pontoon gone. God bless him.....an outstanding member of the human race.


Ya I was gonna pull a nap out and look for the deepest water with docks near bye. And those big broad flat docks are what I was looking for,as well as boat houses.... 
Its usually not as hot n heavy as in the cooler months but can usually pull a few good fish through out the day.... 
I like using a 1/16 or 1/8 0z road runner,with any baby shad style bait. Usually orange head with a chartreuse body or clear with flake body depending on water color.... 
If waters really dirty I'll use chartruese/black combo.....


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## zaraspook

From bank Saturday AM fished GLSM for almost 2 hours. Avoided my channel and walked to an area that's more like a long cove off main lake, than a channel with heavy residential development. Once again my target this session was the elusive GLSM perch, but this time fishing the mouth of the cove, water closer to the main lake. 

General strategy was to fish one rod tight line on the bottom, baited with a partial crawler. While waiting for a bite, I'd keep my mind/body entertained casting 2nd rod for a stray crappie or whatever with my crappie rig. Bottom rig with crawler was first in water. Clearing brush on the bank to have decent room to cast, my crappie rig isn't wet yet when the rod tip of bottom/crawler rig begins to bounce. Seconds later it's "fish on"! First of the day landed and 20 minutes later, same process, and the 2nd fish (bigger than #1) is landed. I'm having fun, but not catching perch. Both fish were 2-2.5 lb channel cats.

After another hour fishing that spot and another produced just a single fish, an 11 inch crappie. No perch. Water temp was 80. One of these days.......


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## zaraspook

One of the GLSM Green Bucket brigade introduced me to sickle hooks in late spring. Sickles don't represent much of my jig inventory(10% maybe), but probably 40-50% of my May crappies were with sickles. That doesn't necessarily mean they are better, but shows I'm using sickles considerably more and more. 

Who else does/did use sickle hooks for crappies and what are your thoughts? Good/bad? Pros and cons?


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## RMK

no personal experience but i just looked them up and they look like they would have more "holding power" on fish. i am pictureing some good fish that shook the hook right at the surface this past spring and wondering if these would ve held on to them.


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## fishwhacker

Zara, they seem to do a great job for crappies because of the wider gap but i generally am a bluegill fisherman so i dont fish with them a whole lot. A friend of mine who sells his jigs swears all the crappie fisherman around grandlake are converting.


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## Saugeyefisher

I have tried them twice. Both times dipping docks under a float with Bobby garland baby shad... Both times I was back to my regular shank jigs within 2 hours of fishing.... for some reason I had a better hook up rate with my standards.

But that the only experience I have with them.....

Zara, let's add a bunch of ice to your channel and have a party your place this weekend will pretend it's november


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## firemanmike2127

I'm a sickle hook/plastics guy for crappies now even though I used the conventional round bend styles for years. I still have some really nice hand tied smaller jigs (round bend) that I'll use after ice out. The sickle hooks we are using today seem to tolerate the abuse of brush fishing better & definitely are sharp. I think that the ones I'm buying from my guy in Ft. Loramie are poured on a Mustad hook. I recently ordered some heavier crappie jigs with # 4 hooks for some deeper trolling applications....when I pick them up I'll be sure to verify the brand & post it here. Mike


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## firemanmike2127

I was given a couple of bags of some #6 - 1/32 oz. sickle hook jigs from another fisherman that were from a different source. I'm comparing apples to apples here since that's what I have tied on most of the spring. As with many forms of tackle, there DEFINITELY was a big difference. The barb on the donated jigs was not nearly as well formed & the hook shank would break much more easily after being bent a few times. Mike


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## firemanmike2127

I was given a couple of bags of some #6 - 1/32 oz. sickle hook jigs from another fisherman that were from a different source. I'm comparing apples to apples here since that's what I have tied on most of the spring. As with many forms of tackle, there DEFINITELY was a big difference. The barb on the donated jigs was not nearly as well formed & the hook shank would break much more easily after being bent a few times. Mike


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> no personal experience but i just looked them up and they look like they would have more "holding power" on fish. i am pictureing some good fish that shook the hook right at the surface this past spring and wondering if these would ve held on to them.


RMK......you're on to the characteristic of sickles that could be the most persuasive. With my first trial, I'd read absolutely nothing about sickles, none of the hype, my mind totally unbiased. Since I always carry 2 rods rigged anyway, I tried to keep a sickle on one rig, "normal/standard" rounded gap jig on the other. At that time jigs were almost always 1/32 oz, sickles were normally #6 'cause that's all I had, normal jigs occasionally #4 instead of #6's. Within a few hours the sickles seemed a little tougher to drop/release from hangups in brush. Condition did not result in lost jigs, just required awareness of the tendency and a bit more patience. 

The very 1st trial also resulted in an abnormal number of hook sets at the side/corner of fish mouths, while rarely a solid hookup in roof of mouth. That was alarming bit I now dismiss it. Just a quirk how the fish were biting and reacting to my bait that day. Day 2 with sickles was back to frequent roof of mouth hook sets, at times so solid it required some skill to extract the jig. Jig seemed cam locked down like vice grips, hard to even wiggle. Most crappie guys come to accept that hooked fish, normally bigger ones, can and do come unzipped. By no means would I suggest lost fish and bad hook sets are gone. Nope. However, I do feel the fish's ability to rotate and slide along the curve of the hook, is limited/restricted by the bends/angles of a sickle hook. If you can reduce unzipped fish by 1/4 or 1/3, is it worthwhile? Early on fishing standard jigs and sickles at the same time, the reduction was noticeable. I buy into the "holding power" hype.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Who else does/did use sickle hooks for crappies and what are your thoughts? Good/bad? Pros and cons?


When I first heard about sickle hooks I didn't want to try them because there were so many reviews about hooks breaking. If the lead was too hot when the jigs were poured some thought it made the hooks brittle and they easily broke, some thought it was just bad batches of hooks. I stayed away from them for a few years but I did notice some of my hooks were breaking on my regular jigs so the condition wasn't limited to just sickle hooks. Things changed or quality improved but the breaking is not as prevalent anymore.
I switched to sickle hooks back maybe 5/6 years ago and to be more specific I almost always use a #2 sickle hook. Since I'm stuck inside this morning because of the rain and was refreshing a few tackle boxes I pulled a few jigs out to show as a comparison. In the pick below the left column is #2, the right #4 hooks. The top hook in each column is a conventional hook and everything else is sickle. Some are weedless w/ the #2 being a brush guard & the #4 are a plastic "Y" guard. I rigged some of the jigs with Bobby Garlands, Grubs & 2" tubes to show how the different sizes hooks looked on the baits and how much hook was exposed on the different baits.









I do feel like I get better hook-ups with the #2's with less lost fish but I also realize I may miss some smaller fish because of the bigger hook size. If you really look at the difference it seems the gap difference is pretty insignificant but the shank is considerably longer on the #2. If ya look at the pic above it illustrates it pretty well what I'm talking about. It doesn't seem to affect how the fish take the bait too much though.








The fish have been just inhaling the baits fow the past 3/4 weeks and it was hard to miss anything. Last night was an exception, I lost 4 out of 5 it seemed and the ones I did get were barely hooked. I can't blame that on hook size, the bites were just not aggressive.

Since were talking jigs...what about weedless.
Personally I like them and to be specific I will only buy the weedless with brush guards. No more Y guards, and absolutely none with that single wire (hate does not nearly describe how I feel about that wire). My wife hates all brush guards, she feels they cause her to miss too many fish. (she does set the hook) I will used non-weedless while fishing open water but almost exclusively use weedless when fishing cover.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> I have tried them twice. Both times dipping docks under a float with Bobby garland baby shad... Both times I was back to my regular shank jigs within 2 hours of fishing.... for some reason I had a better hook up rate with my standards.
> 
> But that the only experience I have with them.....
> 
> Zara, let's add a bunch of ice to your channel and have a party your place this weekend will pretend it's november


Saugfish......Ditto! Had exactly the same experience. Wasn't getting expected hook up rate, switched to my normal #4 standard gap 1/16 oz (sometime #2) with Garland Baby Shad and issue went away. However, not sure I ran an apples to apples road test. My #4 sickles look conspicuously like #6's despite the label on the bag. Plus, threading plastics on sickles is tricky, tend to thread deeper into the body of the plastic and result in less exposed hook gap. Sickles require me to take more care with the plastic. In general, the taller the plastic, the more apt I'll have a problem with a sickle gap. 
A final observation for , I suspect the actual gap of a sickle is less than the actual gap of a standard hook. My sickles turn in toward shank at the barb, closing the gap. Haven't taken time to measure the gap at the hook point. Some say sickles have a wider gap than standard hooks. Mine don't suggest that's true, at least not at the point/barb. It almost suggests for larger/taller baits (Garlands are 2-2.25" I think), to go a size bigger with a sickle than you would with a standard jig/hook. 

Tough to resolve these "finer" bait/hook issues when you aren't catching many crappies! I'm good to go with the party at my place this weekend to ice down the channel. You bring the ice! Might need a ton or two.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> When I first heard about sickle hooks I didn't want to try them because there were so many reviews about hooks breaking. If the lead was too hot when the jigs were poured some thought it made the hooks brittle and they easily broke, some thought it was just bad batches of hooks. I stayed away from them for a few years but I did notice some of my hooks were breaking on my regular jigs so the condition wasn't limited to just sickle hooks. Things changed or quality improved but the breaking is not as prevalent anymore.
> I switched to sickle hooks back maybe 5/6 years ago and to be more specific I almost always use a #2 sickle hook. Since I'm stuck inside this morning because of the rain and was refreshing a few tackle boxes I pulled a few jigs out to show as a comparison. In the pick below the left column is #2, the right #4 hooks. The top hook in each column is a conventional hook and everything else is sickle. Some are weedless w/ the #2 being a brush guard & the #4 are a plastic "Y" guard. I rigged some of the jigs with Bobby Garlands, Grubs & 2" tubes to show how the different sizes hooks looked on the baits and how much hook was exposed on the different baits.
> View attachment 241578
> 
> 
> I do feel like I get better hook-ups with the #2's with less lost fish but I also realize I may miss some smaller fish because of the bigger hook size. If you really look at the difference it seems the gap difference is pretty insignificant but the shank is considerably longer on the #2. If ya look at the pic above it illustrates it pretty well what I'm talking about. It doesn't seem to affect how the fish take the bait too much though.
> View attachment 241579
> 
> The fish have been just inhaling the baits fow the past 3/4 weeks and it was hard to miss anything. Last night was an exception, I lost 4 out of 5 it seemed and the ones I did get were barely hooked. I can't blame that on hook size, the bites were just not aggressive.
> 
> Since were talking jigs...what about weedless.
> Personally I like them and to be specific I will only buy the weedless with brush guards. No more Y guars, and absolutely none with that single wire (hate does not nearly describe how I feel about that wire). My wife hates all brush guards, she feels they cause her to miss too many fish. (she does set the hook) I will used non-weedless while fishing open water but almost exclusively use weedless when fishing cover.


That's an "information packed post" if I've ever seen one! Have a question or 2 but can't do them now. Love it, c-dude!


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## Salmonid

Not that my crappie opinions count for much but I've used sickles for 4-5 years when I could find them. Wider gap and the bigger bend would mean that there is a time and place for them. If bites are light maybe not. But if there sucking in the jigs good you'll get a roofie hook set about every time. Like the. Catfish world there are specific hook styles for specific techniques and so I'm sure there are some good "pro" opinions on the subject on YouTube. Still hoping to get up there Rande soon for the spider rigging effort


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## crappiedude

Zara
That's a condensed version...if it was winter I would have really laid it on thick adding the 1/32oz, 1/24oz, 3/32oz & possibly several sizes of road runners.
Like you I also like a 1/32 under a cork for the cooler months. In spring in skinny water swimming a 1/32 oz jig can be hard to beat if the fish are aggressive.
I will say using those bigger hooks I won't get as many bluegills hooked up but I'm okay with it.


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> I was given a couple of bags of some #6 - 1/32 oz. sickle hook jigs from another fisherman that were from a different source. I'm comparing apples to apples here since that's what I have tied on most of the spring. As with many forms of tackle, there DEFINITELY was a big difference. The barb on the donated jigs was not nearly as well formed & the hook shank would break much more easily after being bent a few times. Mike


From my exposure I'd say 1/32 and #6 is most popular jig setup at GLSM, especially in spring and for some year round. Only time I use #6 is with smaller plastics, water temps in 30's and jigs might go as light as 1/48 or 1/64. I plan on broader use of sickles in future but not complete conversion for a while.....lots of traditional gappers to work thru first.


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## Saugeyefisher

Good conversation guys, especially with the hot temps! 
Thanks for all the info.
Crappiedude, I can honestly say,I have NEVER used a weed guard on anything I've ever used. The lakes I fish are not to weedy. Now I do fish some laydowns with a bunch of fresh limps on them that I'll lose a bait to now an then. But for the most part im using braid. So I'll pull straight back holding the drag and straighten most of my jigs an get them back. I usually don't mess around with trying to "jerk" it free. I like to get it over fast to try not to spook the school.

I will add I do make the gap on my regular round head crappie jigs a bit wider with a pair of pliers. 

I'm going to get some sickle hooks an mess around again with them. Might get some with weed guards to.


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## crappiedude

Saugeyefisher said:


> I will add I do make the gap on my regular round head crappie jigs a bit wider with a pair of pliers.
> 
> I'm going to get some sickle hooks an mess around again with them. Might get some with weed guards to.


I was going to mention that about "opening the gap" on the regular jig hooks, I used to see guys mention that quite a bit pre-sickle days. Some folks used to feel they got better hook ups and better holding with the wider gap especially with lager baits that filled up the hooks.

I like the weedless for fishing in brush piles, there are no predominant weed beds on the lakes I fish. The primary lake I fish is East Fork (I can be on the water in 10 minutes)and when they built the lake they left a lot of standing timber so I'm trying to keep from snagging woody cover. We also fish a lot of stump fields and laydowns in other area lakes (Rocky, Paint, Cowan and the Ohio River tribs). So it's more the woody cover I fish. I hate snagging any cover if I can help it. I don't care about the jigs, I don't want to disturb the cover.
Like I said earlier I like the fiber brush guards. Sometimes I will open them up just a little by spreading the fibers just a bit which helps protect the hook a little more. I generally buy 200 of the 1/16oz at a time so it's not perfect but it sure seems to help compared with using an open hook. I fish a lot of sunken cover and a lot of hits come just as the bait crawls over limbs and starts to fall. I'm old school and still use mono.
Some feel that when using jigs with brush guards the fibers should be trimmed a little closer to the tip of the hook thus creating a little smaller profile. Personally I leave them full length (as some of my friends do). I feel the little longer lengths make them a little more flexible.

I used to get all my jigs from the custom jig makers on the fishing websites. Unfortunately I just haven't had much luck with these guys lately (last order took over 4 months to get) but I've had great luck getting my jigs off of eBay. I just ordered 200 non weedless and got them in just a few days and 200 weedless and they will be here any day now which is right at 2 weeks but that was what they quoted so it's perfect. I could have got a smaller quantity in a few days too but I'm in no rush. Prices were good too.


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## crappiedude

I will add this, it probably took me a year to get used to using the bigger hooks especially with the brush guards. I'll still use my non weedless jigs but when I need to get into the cover and dig them out, I'll guarantee those #2 sickles with the fiber guards will be on the end of my line.

PS... the summer crappie fishing has been fantastic the last week or so since the lakes have been fairly stable. The fish are definitely active when you find them.


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## fishwhacker

Found one while bluegill fishing today ticking a jig off the bottom unfortunately he was by himself.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Found one while bluegill fishing today ticking a jig off the bottom unfortunately he was by himself.
> View attachment 241690


Hey, congrats! Pretty little guy. You know what that proves don't you? It proves there is one perch in GLSM! It's never more than one. Never when you target them. So why was I chasing perch this morning for two hours beginning at 7:30? Insanity to actually target them.

Two rods with a pair of hooks on each baited with a portion of a crawler fishing tightline off the bottom and from bank. Actually, most of my crawlers looked more like redworms....I though that might be a positive. Results were 2 carp, a yellow belly, 2 channel cats, and a 10" largemouth. Please note how many perch are on the list! One of the channel cats was a decent one.....20". Took a photo but site won't let me post it. Maybe later.

Water temp was 80. Clearly you can't catch perch by targeting them. Next time I'm targeting great white sharks. Might be better odds catching a great white. Might catch a perch......


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## fishwhacker

Zara, dont give up hope on perch yet wait until we strike out during fall first haha. Im sure if a boat had good electronics and someone had time to dedicate they could get them figured out. Just like I know guys who dedicated themselves to figuring out the walleye found them. They are just smart enough to not tell anyone. Even if they post they got them and nothing else doesnt take long for someone to tail them out the channel


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, dont give up hope on perch yet wait until we strike out during fall first haha. Im sure if a boat had good electronics and someone had time to dedicate they could get them figured out. Just like I know guys who dedicated themselves to figuring out the walleye found them. They are just smart enough to not tell anyone. Even if they post they got them and nothing else doesnt take long for someone to tail them out the channel


whacker.....no chance I'll "give up" on perch. I figure catchable population of perch can only increase over next few years as stocked fingerlings and fry mature. Summer GLSM crappie bite is always difficult anyway. No real loss from devoting time to the little green guys and anything I learn may pay long term dividends.

However, I do pledge to stop tipping off the perch when I'm coming after them. It could be my intentions are being "leaked" to them. Tough to mount a surprise attack when the enemy gets the word in advance. Need to do a better job of secret/covert operations. Plenty of times in past I believe other species got the word in advance and thwarted my efforts to catch them. Bass, walleyes, crappies have been able to shut me down. No other way to explain it. Certainly, those skunky fishing days are never the result of the fisherman's skills/knowledge! Somehow those fish just knew we were coming.


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## RMK

fishwhacker said:


> Found one while bluegill fishing today ticking a jig off the bottom unfortunately he was by himself.
> View attachment 241690


congrats fishwacker! looks to be strong, healthy, and have great color.


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## RMK

weedless jigs are definitely in my future. thought about trying them this year but i stocked up on too many regular ones to quick. might as well go weedless sickle while i m ordering.


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## RMK

I made it out for my first shot at slow trolling and added some hours to the perch search.
Stopped by the outdoorsman and stocked up on minnows and crawlers. There is some good info as to the stocking numbers for glsm up on a paper by the door in there for about the last 8 or 10 years.
On the water before 730. Water temp 79.8 and still high. Not muddy.
Crossed the lake and started out a couple hundred yards off shore slow trolling 2 different rigs I had setup for perch. One worm harness and the other a two hook set up loaded with minnows. About 2 hours into that setup and location no luck.
Headed in a bit shallower and swapped out rods. Put out a 10 foot crappie rod with a #2 snelled hook with a spinner on the top loaded with a worm and chartreuse roadrunner loaded with a minnow on the bottom with a 1 Oz weight under them. 2nd rod 12 foot crappie rod rigged the same just flip flopped the snelled hook with spinner on the bottom and roadrunner on top on this one. Pushed them at 1 to 1.3 mph with one rod ticking the bottom and the other a foot off the bottom. The set up with the roadrunner and minnow on the bottom produced a channel cat, a rock( yes I actually hooked and landed a rock) and an old tshirt.... switched out one rod for another to push a crankbait along a sea wall. slow trolling wasn't slaying fish like I planned so back to jig and float and shooting a roadrunner in a channel I ve never fished before but it had some docks, partially submerged stumps, a boat house/dock and several types of bank so thought it would be worth a shot. Water temp 82 and 4.5 to 5 feet deep. No luck. Headed down the lake to a channel that held some spring crappie. Water temp back down to 80 and deeper water with a lot of docks/pontoons. More jigging more shooting the roadrunner. No crappie. Headed out of there and to the middle of the lake. Loaded up the worm harness and the double hook rig and set up for a long drift to pass by the oil derick with the baits dragging the bottom. No bites. 
I was happy with how my slow trolling set ups worked. Just need to work on finding the fish now.








My rock-








Two perch rigs
















Spider rigging setups-








Rig for pushing cranks


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Somehow those fish just knew we were coming.


People being careless at the launch ramps are doing it...they bend over, their smart phones fall in the lake and the next thing you know the fish have access to the internet.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> People being careless at the launch ramps are doing it...they bend over, their smart phones fall in the lake and the next thing you know the fish have access to the internet.


C-dude.....that's hilarious! 
And now equipped with cell phones, obviously fish figured out how to get my cell number. Using GPS they track me, then put out Zara-alerts. I can't hide. Perch know I'm there before my line breaks water.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> I made it out for my first shot at slow trolling and added some hours to the perch search.
> Stopped by the outdoorsman and stocked up on minnows and crawlers. There is some good info as to the stocking numbers for glsm up on a paper by the door in there for about the last 8 or 10 years.
> On the water before 730. Water temp 79.8 and still high. Not muddy.
> Crossed the lake and started out a couple hundred yards off shore slow trolling 2 different rigs I had setup for perch. One worm harness and the other a two hook set up loaded with minnows. About 2 hours into that setup and location no luck.
> Headed in a bit shallower and swapped out rods. Put out a 10 foot crappie rod with a #2 snelled hook with a spinner on the top loaded with a worm and chartreuse roadrunner loaded with a minnow on the bottom with a 1 Oz weight under them. 2nd rod 12 foot crappie rod rigged the same just flip flopped the snelled hook with spinner on the bottom and roadrunner on top on this one. Pushed them at 1 to 1.3 mph with one rod ticking the bottom and the other a foot off the bottom. The set up with the roadrunner and minnow on the bottom produced a channel cat, a rock( yes I actually hooked and landed a rock) and an old tshirt.... switched out one rod for another to push a crankbait along a sea wall. slow trolling wasn't slaying fish like I planned so back to jig and float and shooting a roadrunner in a channel I ve never fished before but it had some docks, partially submerged stumps, a boat house/dock and several types of bank so thought it would be worth a shot. Water temp 82 and 4.5 to 5 feet deep. No luck. Headed down the lake to a channel that held some spring crappie. Water temp back down to 80 and deeper water with a lot of docks/pontoons. More jigging more shooting the roadrunner. No crappie. Headed out of there and to the middle of the lake. Loaded up the worm harness and the double hook rig and set up for a long drift to pass by the oil derick with the baits dragging the bottom. No bites.
> I was happy with how my slow trolling set ups worked. Just need to work on finding the fish now.
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Your effort grade is an A+, fella. You mixed it up on baits, locations, techniques. GLSM is a big lake. Few anglers regularly catch fish in the summer. Welcome to the club! I'd share info but as my posts demonstrate I don't have a clue. Where are the GLSM crappies, perch, eyes in summer?


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## fishwhacker

I agree heck of an effort. There is one technique I have always wanted to try at GLSM that I havent since I no longer have a boat. I know in Tennessee you cant find a crappie during summer during the day and that is why they exclusively fish for them at night using lights to draw in baitfish first then catch the crappies. Anyone ever try this locally. Not sure it would apply or not.


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## Saugeyefisher

fishwhacker said:


> I agree heck of an effort. There is one technique I have always wanted to try at GLSM that I havent since I no longer have a boat. I know in Tennessee you cant find a crappie during summer during the day and that is why they exclusively fish for them at night using lights to draw in baitfish first then catch the crappies. Anyone ever try this locally. Not sure it would apply or not.


I do this at alum/Hoover all the time. I've wanted to try it. But in my opinion it's better done over deeper water holding crappie/bait during the day. I'm also not sure how well it would work in the green water. Alums pretty clear.
When we don't feel like setting up lights we just fish under street lights.. . It's a very fun/relaxing way to fish!!!


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> I agree heck of an effort. There is one technique I have always wanted to try at GLSM that I havent since I no longer have a boat. I know in Tennessee you cant find a crappie during summer during the day and that is why they exclusively fish for them at night using lights to draw in baitfish first then catch the crappies. Anyone ever try this locally. Not sure it would apply or not.


A guy who lives 3 doors away from my lake place has a light. It hangs a foot or 2 above water off his good sized wooden dock. He claims it works well for him, however, haven't seen him there at night for at least 4-5 weeks. He's a hell of a crappie fisherman, quit doing regional crappie tourneys 6-7 years ago for health reasons. If he does it, it probably works. But as we know, nothing works all the time.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> I made it out for my first shot at slow trolling and added some hours to the perch search.
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Forgot to mention........I noticed your green bucket in 2nd photo!


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## crappiedude

RMK said:


> I made it out for my first shot at slow trolling


I'm curious....what determines where you start or what location to try when you set up?


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## RMK

crappiedude said:


> I'm curious....what determines where you start or what location to try when you set up?


i wish i had an idea of where to start! this was my first attempt at spider rigging/slow trolling for crappie. this paticular outing i was trying my luck to find perch and crappie so i went to an area that i heard rumors of pearch being caught before. 

if i was in a deeper lake with more main lake structure and features- i would use my electronics and target deeper creek channels in the 20 feet deep range and look for suspended fish. i would also look for stump fields and attempt to keep the bottom jig just above them. another challenge with shallow GLSM, electronics dont cover near the area that they do in deeper water. i did mark a stretch of water in the 9 foot range on the main lake last trip. but the water is also higher than it has been in several summers.

my next attempt is going to be in a channel/bay that we did well in during the spring. there is deeper water, 10 maybe 11 feet, in the same area. during the spring we were catching them close to the bank on the rocks and on the posts. i m hoping they might still be there just deeper now. we will see. another interesting feature of GLSM-alot of the channels are deeper than the main lake. i have marked fish on/suspended in the first drop offs from the main lake into the entrance of channels at several different spots on several different ocasions. looked to me to be fish under neath baitfish. sounds like an ideal catching situation right?? however i still havent gotten any of these fish to bite. so i dont know what they are. may all be shad.

i ll take any tips on what you guys would look for in a starting point and feel free to critique my rigs as well. both for the crappie set ups and the perch.


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## crappiedude

I'm no expert on spider rigging so take anything I say with a grain of salt but even though it's not my preferred method I do it on occasion and I do okay at it. One thing I will say is that even though we have the depth in our lakes to fish deep I rarely need to fish much deeper than 12-15 fow. Most of the fish we catch this time of year will be 10'-12' deep.
I fish the upper end of one lake and the whole area is silted in and I fish the same way on that lake. On that end of the lake there is very little depth change. There are a few scattered logs on the bottom and they are like magnets. Lots of this water is under 10'deep.
This is a school of crappie in 12fow, this is usually what I am looking for. A few days ago I had a huge school located in 7-10 fow about 150 yards from this spot. Ignore the depth contours on the map showing 20 fow it's not as close as the map looks.
(One section of this map shows a parking lot in 12 fow.)









For me I look for 1 of 4 things when fishing new water.
1) contour changes
2) surface activity
3) fish on my electronics
4) submerged cover
Those summer crappie have to be some where so I would pick an area of the lake I wanted to fish and pick the lake apart a couple of hundred acres at a time. For me I would spend a lot of time just looking...even in 6-10 fow your electronics will give you plenty of info. Granted you will be looking at a small area but if the screen is blank I probably wouldn't spend much time fishing in an area.
As far as a rig goes again I'm no expert but for that type of fishing I keep it pretty simple. I just use a basic double minnow rig. From the main line I will tie on a simple snap or swivel and I'll leave about 12" of extra line to which I'll tie a #2 or #4 hook. On the other side of the snap I'll add about 30" of mono and I'll add a 1/2or 3/4 oz weight (I use egg sinkers with the line wrapped 4 times through the weight) I leave around 12" tag line and add a hook. I tip both hooks with minnows.
I think just the massive size of GLSM would make it a huge challenge and the fact it has no real depth makes the whole lake a possible fishing spot add to the challenge.
Good luck.


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## RMK

crappiedude said:


> I'm no expert on spider rigging so take anything I say with a grain of salt but even though it's not my preferred method I do it on occasion and I do okay at it. One thing I will say is that even though we have the depth in our lakes to fish deep I rarely need to fish much deeper than 12-15 fow. Most of the fish we catch this time of year will be 10'-12' deep.
> I fish the upper end of one lake and the whole area is silted in and I fish the same way on that lake. On that end of the lake there is very little depth change. There are a few scattered logs on the bottom and they are like magnets. Lots of this water is under 10'deep.
> This is a school of crappie in 12fow, this is usually what I am looking for. A few days ago I had a huge school located in 7-10 fow about 150 yards from this spot. Ignore the depth contours on the map showing 20 fow it's not as close as the map looks.
> (One section of this map shows a parking lot in 12 fow.)
> View attachment 241902
> 
> 
> For me I look for 1 of 4 things when fishing new water.
> 1) contour changes
> 2) surface activity
> 3) fish on my electronics
> 4) submerged cover
> Those summer crappie have to be some where so I would pick an area of the lake I wanted to fish and pick the lake apart a couple of hundred acres at a time. For me I would spend a lot of time just looking...even in 6-10 fow your electronics will give you plenty of info. Granted you will be looking at a small area but if the screen is blank I probably wouldn't spend much time fishing in an area.
> As far as a rig goes again I'm no expert but for that type of fishing I keep it pretty simple. I just use a basic double minnow rig. From the main line I will tie on a simple snap or swivel and I'll leave about 12" of extra line to which I'll tie a #2 or #4 hook. On the other side of the snap I'll add about 30" of mono and I'll add a 1/2or 3/4 oz weight (I use egg sinkers with the line wrapped 4 times through the weight) I leave around 12" tag line and add a hook. I tip both hooks with minnows.
> I think just the massive size of GLSM would make it a huge challenge and the fact it has no real depth makes the whole lake a possible fishing spot add to the challenge.
> Good luck.


thank you. i will put more time and trust into using my electronics. maybe i simply havent been in the right spot yet. which is very possible. do you know off the top of your head if you have your chart speed cranked up to stretch those fish out like they appear to be or do they just appear that way because they are schooled up and overlapping each other.


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## crappiedude

About the electronics it takes a while to build any kind of trust or to have any faith in them.
I've been using some form of locator for 45 years and I'm lost with out them. Before electronics I had a 6'-6" worm rod I was always shoving down in the water to check depth, it was slow and primitive but it worked. 
Those fish are probably stretched out like that because I'm sitting directly on top of that school and I'm barely moving. You can see my speed is .1 mph on the left part of the screen. One thing I forgot to mention when slow trolling is I try to keep my line almost vertical so I'm keeping my bait at the intended depth.
I don't usually actually spider rig since I only fish one rod like I described in the other post. I think I have adult attention deficit order, I just can't sit still. While I have the one rod out sitting in a holder I'm always casting another rod with a jigs on it. Sometimes the jig gets most of the fish, sometimes the minnows. Here's a secret about summer crappies...they CAN sometimes be partial to a 1/16 oz roadrunner. It's not all the time but sometimes they want that extra little flash and won't hit a regular jig. I have no idea why that happens but it's a secret...don't tell anyone. So if you're sitting on fish and they won't hit you jig, they won't even sniff your minnow, (shhh!) you got 1 more option.
I went back out today and beat them up a little more. One thing about summer fish is once you figure out the where, they usually don't go too far from day to day. What's funny is sometimes they will be there year after year, sometimes not and the search starts all over again. Most of this school seems to be pretty small fish but out of now where you'll get a 10+" or 2, then wade through the dinks again.
I will almost bet if you can find activity on your electronics (or one of the other points) you will find your crappie and perch and catfish and bass and bluegill and......


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> I'm no expert on spider rigging so take anything I say with a grain of salt but even though it's not my preferred method I do it on occasion and I do okay at it. One thing I will say is that even though we have the depth in our lakes to fish deep I rarely need to fish much deeper than 12-15 fow. Most of the fish we catch this time of year will be 10'-12' deep.
> I fish the upper end of one lake and the whole area is silted in and I fish the same way on that lake. On that end of the lake there is very little depth change. There are a few scattered logs on the bottom and they are like magnets. Lots of this water is under 10'deep.
> This is a school of crappie in 12fow, this is usually what I am looking for. A few days ago I had a huge school located in 7-10 fow about 150 yards from this spot. Ignore the depth contours on the map showing 20 fow it's not as close as the map looks.
> (One section of this map shows a parking lot in 12 fow.)
> View attachment 241902
> 
> 
> For me I look for 1 of 4 things when fishing new water.
> 1) contour changes
> 2) surface activity
> 3) fish on my electronics
> 4) submerged cover
> Those summer crappie have to be some where so I would pick an area of the lake I wanted to fish and pick the lake apart a couple of hundred acres at a time. For me I would spend a lot of time just looking...even in 6-10 fow your electronics will give you plenty of info. Granted you will be looking at a small area but if the screen is blank I probably wouldn't spend much time fishing in an area.
> As far as a rig goes again I'm no expert but for that type of fishing I keep it pretty simple. I just use a basic double minnow rig. From the main line I will tie on a simple snap or swivel and I'll leave about 12" of extra line to which I'll tie a #2 or #4 hook. On the other side of the snap I'll add about 30" of mono and I'll add a 1/2or 3/4 oz weight (I use egg sinkers with the line wrapped 4 times through the weight) I leave around 12" tag line and add a hook. I tip both hooks with minnows.
> I think just the massive size of GLSM would make it a huge challenge and the fact it has no real depth makes the whole lake a possible fishing spot add to the challenge.
> Good luck.


Cdude- on the image you're showing of your electronics, any idea how wide the cone is at the 12' depth you were on? Is it safe to say at 6' depth the cone will be 1/2 as wide as at 12'?


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## crappiedude

Zara, how wide is the cone angle at 12'... to be honest I have no idea but I would have to believe it doesn't cover more than maybe 2 1/2' to maybe 3'- diameter area. On a 6' depth I think it would be fair to assume half of that area would be what you're looking at. If you turned on the unit and the boat is sitting perfectly still I would bet that the area being covered at 12' depth is close to 3x the square footage being cover at 6' depth.

I think I know where you're going with this but here's my thoughts....
To me the diameter of the area being covered isn't important. Unless I use side scan (which I rarely use) I can't change the area being viewed but it doesn't make the info I gather any less important.

I mentioned using my 6'-6" fishing rod as my 1st depth finder. A friend used to give me a lot of grief over it until we were out bass fishing one day. The area was a big shallow flat in the back of a creek. I had about 10 fish to his 0 and he said I was just lucky or was front ending him. After kicking his butt I pointed out the stump he was about to fish had a 12" hole sitting on the right side, 90% of all fish from that stump I'd ever caught came from that deeper hole. I pointed out a tree I caught a good bass on and I knew exactly how far that trunk ran out from the bank and there was a fork in the tree about 25' from shore, most of the better bass came from that fork, I pointed out a section of shore that had a rocky bottom that wasn't visible but I knew it was there and it held good fish on occasion, I knew of a few hidden logs and on & on. The diameter of that rod tip was maybe 1/2" at all depths but the info it gave me was invaluable.

One thing with electronics is you aren't looking at just that tiny little circle. You are looking at an area the width of the cone angle (let's use 2' wide for ease) by the length of the run you make. Let's say you make 1 scanning pass 300' long. You just looked at 600 sf of bottom that you never had seen before. What did you see? Any contour changes? Any "junk" (brush, stumps, were there any fish ect) and if you have GPS did you mark those spots for later reference. Having GPS is important for 2 things 1) to mark what you find. 2) to track what areas you already looked at.
Now move over 30 or 40 yards from you first run and make a parallel pass alongside your first run, see anything different? Did you mark it? When scanning areas run at about 3 to 4 mph. I admit it bores me to do this so instead I may troll some shallow running baits to see if I can't catch a fish or 2 just for fun. The info you accumulate will take years and the lakes are always changing, new storms add new trees or destroys a dock which sinks. It doesn't take much cover to hold some fish. If you find 10 pieces of hidden cover and you catch 3 or 4 fish off of each piece you find, you just had a pretty good day.

When I look at a big open body of water and try to figure out where to fish, I view the fish in that lake much like birds in the sky. Go outside and look up...the sky isn't full of birds, they're in pockets here and there, in fence rows or field edges. Fish to me in a lake are similar. Even when you're running electronics and you aren't seeing anything you maybe still learning where NOT to fish. You just eliminated a huge section of lake to not waste your time on.
Just like most of the sky being void of birds, most of the water is empty of fish.


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## RMK

I was thinking along the same lines as I believe zara was. But when you put it that way crappie dude it does make more sense.


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## crappiedude

I can definitely see where Zara's coming from and his point is valid and well taken. Zara is the guru of GL so take what I say as an option or a different approach.
Mind you I have never been to GLSM so I have no real knowledge of the lake and that lake is huge. I see posts on here where people are trying to figure out where the fish are through out the summer months, I'm only offering my perspective. I can't imagine fishing a 13,000 acre mud flat...it seems to me you need some way of eliminating large sections of lake so you can concentrate your real efforts on sections of water that you feel would offer at least an increased odds of being successful. If I knew where any deeper water was I would look at those areas first.

Mind you what I'm saying is simply how I approach summer offshore fishing. I'm not trying to say anyone's approach is better or worse. I use this method on 5 or six area lakes and we catch fish on all of them. This lake is somewhat new to me so I'm really lost on Rocky Fork, we catch fish there but I really don't know the lake at all. Every time we go to RF we fish a few spots where we've been successful before, then after a few hours of fishing we head to a new section of the lake we've never fished. 1st trip yielded 5 waypoints, 3 trips later I have about 20. Next trip I hope to add a few more.
I have about 30 waypoints on another lake. I hardly look at the rest of the lake anymore we just spend the day going from spot to spot. If we happen over something new, we mark it. The deepest spot is 13' the rest is 7'-10'.

My approach is simply my way of making the boring summer months pass by until the cool waters of fall return and we can get back to the jig and cork fishing we all love.


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## RMK

i appreciate the help and info crappie dude.


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## zaraspook

C-dudes examples are great - he has a way of keeping it all in perspective. Easy to identify with.

By no means am I a techie on this stuff, however, as suggested by c-dude, using purely sonar which is 20 degree angle, at the bottom you're viewing an area(circle) approximately 1/3 of the depth. At 21 FOW, electronics are showing a 7' area. Conversely, in 6 depth, the bottom view is 2' diameter.

Down imaging (DI) provides a 60 degree cone angle, much wider "view". As it works out, the electronics display a bottom view equal to the water depth. Therefore, in 21 FOW you see a 21 foot diameter bottom view with DI. 6' of water provides a 6' wide bottom view. 

Since the water level is up 1-2' over last year, essentially you can scout more of GLSM's bottom in less time, particularly with DI over sonar only. Assuming an average depth of 5', plus if you accept the generalized statement that GLSM is 8 miles long and 3 miles wide, in just 3168 passes(east-west) one could map/locate all bottom structure of the main lake. Too bad GLSM doesn't average 20' depth.......fewer than 800 passes would do the trick. 

Thankfully, you don't need all structure, a couple dozen spots will do it.


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## fishwhacker

Zara, great math work. 3168 passes is all....tell work i need 6 months of haha.


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## RMK

so 3168 passes at 3 mph each it would take 8,448 hours or 352 days. add load and unload time and drive time to and from the lake-fishwacker you better take a year and a half off of work.


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## crappiedude

RMK said:


> i wish i had an idea of where to start!


Now you do...take it for what it's worth.


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## zaraspook

When the task seems insurmountable, like an avalanche of snow buried your home in 80' of snow and debris, you start one shovel at a time. A hole here, then another shovel full, and another. Soon it becomes a tunnel.........one step, one shovel at a time.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, great math work. 3168 passes is all....tell work i need 6 months of haha.


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## Saugeyefisher

Great stuff guys! Thanks for all the posts c-dude!!!! 
Now how many passes would it take with the 1/2" rod tip!?!?
I don't have electronics in my kayak. So I'm going off past experiences in a boat with electronics. And a 1/8 oz jig/tail to tell me what's down below.... a lot of times I'll take a break from fishing, and just drag bottom with my paddle or anything I have that will reach bottom. Looking for changes in the bottom like rock-mud transitions,lay-downs,weeds,droppoffs..... you can learn a lot about small stretches of an area.


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## crappiedude

Saugeyefisher said:


> Looking for changes in the bottom like rock-mud transitions, *lay-downs*, *weeds*, *drop offs.....* *you can learn a lot about small stretches of an area*.


This is really all you need. You do this and you'll be catching fish while the rest of the guys are still making their 3000+ passes.


Personally I would only look at the deeper water like I mentioned in post #3468.


crappiedude said:


> it seems to me you need some way of eliminating large sections of lake so you can concentrate your real efforts on sections of water that you feel would offer at least an increased odds of being successful. *If I knew where any deeper water was I would look at those areas first*.






zaraspook said:


> *At 21 FOW,* electronics are showing a 7' area. Conversely, in 6 depth, the bottom view is 2' diameter





zaraspook said:


> *Too bad GLSM doesn't average 20' depth..*.





crappiedude said:


> Most of the fish we catch *this time of year will be 10'-12' deep*.


So since my ideas seem so impractical to execute. How would you go about finding fish?


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## Saugeyefisher

Sorry,I should of added. The lakes I fish are shallow,a lot like glsm. And I'm a shallow water guy even in lakes with deeper water. As most guys are out trying to find the big schools out in mainlake areas I like to pick at them with jigs in shallow areas they still use to feed in the summer. Like docks,laydowns on steepbanks,any shaded area,including the shady side of points.....

I'll admit when it comes to locating summer time crappie in lakes like glsm,indian,buckeye, I stick to what I know and chase other fish elsewhere.

If I where to chase open water summer fish in the shallower lakes in a boat with enough room an equipped for the job. I'd want to have a 2nd person so I could use 4 rods(In zara's situation maybe more using a pontoon). And I would set out a spread of crankbaits at the few different depth options available and start trolling crank baits or spider rigging minnows. But probably cranks first cause you can cover ground faster. And if I had the right electronics mark stuff as I went that looked "crappie". Pretty much how c-dude ecplains....
Then if you find some fish holding areas go back over them spider rigging/drop-shotting minnows/ or tossing jig an tails or jig/minnow combo.......

It may just be a case of needing to keep moving and just picking them apart or you might find the mother load.

I wish we had a few more "shallow lake" guys to chime in. 

Late last winter on buckeye why I'm tearing them up dipping docks I run into another guy fishing minnows out in the mainlake doing just as good.... 

Spots that produce dead winter may also be spots that produce in dog days of summer


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## RMK

So since my ideas seem so impractical to execute. How would you go about finding fish?[/QUOTE]

Scanning the entire lake is impractical. But picking apart smaller portions and learning an area isnt. 

Your info was great, helpful, and much appreciated. The comments about how long it would take to scan the hole lake by me definitely weren't ment to poke fun or depriciate your great input.

I started picking apart an area today while pushing two poles in hope of a bite. No takers but I put a way point on a hole, found out an area wasn't near as deep as I thought it was, and might ve even marked a couple fish.


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## fishwhacker

I definitely wasnt disregarding the drive around and looking at you electronics. Like you mentioned only need to find 30 potential spots wouldnt take long I imagine to get that. I have seen on tv how they can eliminate depths that arent producing to reduce search time. If no crappies in water 4ft and under you would really narrow your search fast lol.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM Fri evening with enough time for 45 min of crappie fishing. One bite, one 10 inch crappie. Water temp was a modest 76.4 degrees and water level down 2-3".


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## zaraspook

Saturday morning was another "perching" venture. Worms on the bottom. After 2 hours and multiple bank location, not a bite. I'm accustomed to perch neglecting my offerings, but usually a carp, channel cat, drum will participate and break the monotony. Not this time. To avoid a skunk, it required quick change to my crappie rod, and 5 minutes of jig in water. Caught a decent one in picture below, then another short one. 2 crappies, no perch, no skunk. 
Pictured fish came off a wooden dock post, 2-3' of water, june bug/chartreuse twister tail grub.
View media item 80187


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> I definitely wasnt disregarding the drive around and looking at you electronics. Like you mentioned only need to find 30 potential spots wouldnt take long I imagine to get that. I have seen on tv how they can eliminate depths that arent producing to reduce search time. If no crappies in water 4ft and under you would really narrow your search fast lol.


whacker.....both funny and great observation that if no crappies in under 4' of water you'd eliminate a bunch of territory at GLSM. However, how do you determine where they aren't since fishfinders have questionable effectiveness at GLSM? Seems like you have to fish that 4' of water, get some data, before declaring it futile and unworthy to fish.
No easy solution to summer crappies at GLSM. It probably explains why so few do it. Like Saugeyefiser said *"I'll admit when it comes to locating summer time crappie in lakes like glsm,indian,buckeye, I stick to what I know and chase other fish elsewhere".* Most guys I know use the summer to chase other species and/or fish elsewhere. Look at me.......I'm chasing perch. Though I haven't caught a single perch this summer, it's my assessment that chances for catching a bucket full of perch is at least as good as catching a bucket full of crappies. I'd love to develop a new summertime fishing option from GLSM.


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## RMK

nice crappie zara


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> whacker.....both funny and great observation that if no crappies in under 4' of water you'd eliminate a bunch of territory at GLSM. However, how do you determine where they aren't since fishfinders have questionable effectiveness at GLSM? Seems like you have to fish that 4' of water, get some data, before declaring it futile and unworthy to fish.
> No easy solution to summer crappies at GLSM. It probably explains why so few do it. Like Saugeyefiser said *"I'll admit when it comes to locating summer time crappie in lakes like glsm,indian,buckeye, I stick to what I know and chase other fish elsewhere".* Most guys I know use the summer to chase other species and/or fish elsewhere. Look at me.......I'm chasing perch. Though I haven't caught a single perch this summer, it's my assessment that chances for catching a bucket full of perch is at least as good as catching a bucket full of crappies. I'd love to develop a new summertime fishing option from GLSM.


Maybe it should be the opposite if you found a crappie in 6ft of water you could highlight where you know at least one was holding and target that depth. Wouldnt matter if your depth on your finder is inaccurate


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## zaraspook

True. Would be nice to know more than just the water depth (cover, structure, contour?) before drawing too many conclusions about where they are. However, at least you have a data point with some info. But, you gotta catch the first one (not easy to do on main lake) to begin process.


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## Salmonid

Zara. I just got some perch intel from a buddy who got 3 keepers this am. I'll call you later with details lol


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## RMK

even a report of perch being caught without details is encouraging!


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## RMK

Saturday a.m. didn't make it out as early as I wanted. Made it to the days target channel about 830. Surveyed the mouth of the channel and saw what I thought to be some promising marks, depth, and depth changes. Slow trolled 2 poles with a several different set ups and minnows. No takers. 
Any feedback on these marks would be appreciated. 

Thought I found perch sitting just off the bottom here by the cursor. ??









I had hopes of these being crappie...









Single fish under bait...??









??









Guessing a bunch of bait









I had high hopes for these being suspended crappie to. But no bites or catches to prove or disprove this.


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## zaraspook

The 3 perch Salmonid reported were all 9" size range, caught west bank area, while fishing from bank for gills. 2 on redworms, 1 on minnow, all 10" under bobber. Two caught near rocks and third was out from bank a distance. I haven't been to lake since last Sunday......no fishing does not make for a happy Zara.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Saturday a.m. didn't make it out as early as I wanted. Made it to the days target channel about 830. Surveyed the mouth of the channel and saw what I thought to be some promising marks, depth, and depth changes. Slow trolled 2 poles with a several different set ups and minnows. No takers.
> Any feedback on these marks would be appreciated.


Nice graphics included, RMK. Wish I could provide reasonable confirmation of what you were seeing. Aside from the bait balls, nothing else I could interpret with high degree of confidence.


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## crappiedude

Good job RMK and I love the pics.
When interpreting pics on electronics it's always hard to say exactly what is what but as you keep moving forward with your endeavors you will increase you understanding of the lake each week as you keep building on your knowledge of the lake.

Here's my take...
Pic 1-is very similar as to what we see on Rocky Fork when we've caught perch.
Pic 2-definitely looks like it could be crappie
Pic 3-hard to say
Pic 4-do you have any weeds? (very similar as to what I see at Cowan)
Pic 5-bait balls
Pic 6-definitely suspended fish, got to catch one to say for sure. If we don't catch one we say they're carp.

One thing I see in 5 of your 6 pics that you don't mention is depth change. Some pics it's pretty slight but others it's more pronounced. Pics 1, 4 & 5 are definitely worth noting and that would be areas I would be looking at and there are several ways I approach understanding them. These changes is what would excite me. On a side note I will add is those slight depth changes may be key but we have to start somewhere so I'll start with the more defined drops.
Let's look at pic#4, here you have a very defined drop of 3'+.
Questions I have are...
How long does that drop run?
Is it straight or does it turn? (a turn in direction creates an underwater point)
Is there any junk on it? (trees, logs ect)
There are 2 ways to define this drop-off. Before GPS (on a calm day is best) I would carry about 10 marker buoys and I would just pick a starting point and zig/zag back and forth across the drop and every time I hit the top (say 6') I would drop a buoy. Maybe space them 30/40 yards apart. Once you get all those buoys dropped stop and look at them. There sitting on surface of the lake is a very visual line defining how that drop off runs. You will see any drastic or even slight changes in direction of the drop. Now scan that line with your electronics and mark any junk with your GPS (I use blue dots). Now go back and get your buoys and head to either your 1st or last buoy and continue on with your search. Now, we are in a world of GPS you can simply mark a waypoint instead of using the marker buoys but do it with a different color (I use red). Eventually you have a picture of what the lake really looks like on the bottom (red dot) and will see in an instant any cover (blue dot)or potential hot spots along the way.
I will add this that even though it is illegal to add cover to lakes in Ohio it does happen. I don't condemn or condone the practice but if something should fall into the lake at certain spots along that drop off, I would bet it would be a magnet to crappie. There is an excellent thread on the crappie site about cover (nuff said)

RMK, I hope you got the picture as to how I approach the info on your pics. When starting it's not just the fish you are looking for but it's really an understanding of the body of water you are fishing. You don't need to know what the whole lake looks like, honestly who cares what it looks like. Those fish you were catching on the bank back in spring & winter went somewhere. In just one trip out using your electronics you probably have a better understanding of that area than people who have fished it their whole life.
I bought my current electronics in 2011. I remember marking waypoint #1 back in that spring that year when the unit was new. I was out last week and added waypoint #511. I fished Sunday with a friend and we didn't keep any fish but I know between us we caught over 100. Most were small but we had plenty of 10" fish for several meals had we wanted them.
There is no mystical place the crappie and perch are hiding up there, knowledge is the key to finding them. You keep doing what you're doing and you are on your way to doing just that.


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## fishwhacker

Rmk your advice is so solid makes me want to buy a small boat again with electronics just to learn more about the spots im catching fish at and gaining knowledge of why they hold to particular areas during the course of a year.....great info


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## RMK

Thanks a lot crappie dude! When I first saw the drop off come up on my screen I marked it. I then tried my best to follow the deep water marking it several times. And then I slow trolled back and forth through my marks. I will be back to that area hopefully at a better time of day for a chance at a bite. I would love to see what is down there making those "perch" marks. Thanks again


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## crappiedude

RMK said:


> Thanks a lot crappie dude!


You are certainly more than welcome.
Keep in mind it's a process and I have been using electronics since the 70's. I'm no expert, not anymore than the next guy. I just have experience.

Something I didn't mention.
That is using marker buoys while fishing. I find it is best in open water fishing to use a marker buoy while fishing. A school seems to break up if you try to stay directly on top of them in the boat and just fish vertical. Boat noise, prop wash ect scares them. As I cross over a piece of cover I am about to fish I drop a buoy on the off side of the cover by a few feet so I'll know where the cover is when I begin to cast. I never drop a buoy on the cover because the buoy line will interfere with my fishing. For cover that is really shallow sometimes it's best to add a several waypoints about 15 feet off the cover so you don't have to actually run the cover over in order to relocate it. Let's say the cover comes up close to the surface. Mark it and drop a buoy on it. Now back off of that buoy 15' or so and drop another buoy and mark that buoy with a way point too. Move around and repeat that 15' buoy a couple more times in different spots. The next time you hit the lake and want to locate this spot and fish it, you will know where your cover is once you set up on one of those out lying markers. With several marks around the cover you will always be able to approach from down wind so you wont be blown over your spot no matter which way the wind blows.
I'm sure in no time you'll figure out what works best for you.
Good luck in your efforts.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> You are certainly more than welcome.
> Keep in mind it's a process and I have been using electronics since the 70's. I'm no expert, not anymore than the next guy. I just have experience.
> 
> Something I didn't mention.
> That is using marker buoys while fishing. I find it is best in open water fishing to use a marker buoy while fishing. A school seems to break up if you try to stay directly on top of them in the boat and just fish vertical. Boat noise, prop wash ect scares them. As I cross over a piece of cover I am about to fish I drop a buoy on the off side of the cover by a few feet so I'll know where the cover is when I begin to cast. I never drop a buoy on the cover because the buoy line will interfere with my fishing. For cover that is really shallow sometimes it's best to add a several waypoints about 15 feet off the cover so you don't have to actually run the cover over in order to relocate it. Let's say the cover comes up close to the surface. Mark it and drop a buoy on it. Now back off of that buoy 15' or so and drop another buoy and mark that buoy with a way point too. Move around and repeat that 15' buoy a couple more times in different spots. The next time you hit the lake and want to locate this spot and fish it, you will know where your cover is once you set up on one of those out lying markers. With several marks around the cover you will always be able to approach from down wind so you wont be blown over your spot no matter which way the wind blows.
> I'm sure in no time you'll figure out what works best for you.
> Good luck in your efforts.


As normal, great advice c-dude!


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## Saugeyefisher

I agree,great stuff! An thanks for taking the time to share! 
As much as I believe there is a good summer mainlake bite to be had in these open shallow lakes,like I said,I don't have the time to figure them out.

Rmk did you try trolling cranks through any of that stuff? Behind spider rigging minnows trolling cranks is probably the most productive/efficient way to catch crappie in the summer. 
The crappie we catch in the summer why saugeye fishing buckeye come on cranks.
And you here all year from the Indian eye trollers pulling good crappie. An these guys are pounding bottom at 3+sog. 
I think a spread from bottom-surface going slower like 1.5-2 would pull even more....
I wish some of the tournie guys would chime in. Sometimes there forced to fish these lakes mid-summer. Some of them fish shaded docks/pontoons but a lot of them push minnows on mainlake.

I love the way this conversation has gone,it's been great reading it....


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Thanks a lot crappie dude! When I first saw the drop off come up on my screen I marked it. I then tried my best to follow the deep water marking it several times. And then I slow trolled back and forth through my marks. I will be back to that area hopefully at a better time of day for a chance at a bite. I would love to see what is down there making those "perch" marks. Thanks again


Wouldn't be surprised if your drop off is from relatively recent dredging. Looks similar to others I see in channels that I know were recent dredging spots. Typical width of dredge trench is something like 20-25' depending on any nearby structure, up to 30' max. Info might help you define the trench side to side. The State tries not to dredge closer than 15' of sea walls and docks.


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## RMK

Saugeyefisher- I had poles set up with cranks in the boat ready to go but didnt try them. Should have.

Zara- definitely a drop off due to recent dredging. I followed the deep channel to the back of the dredge lol. It's still parked there.


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## zaraspook

Late summer to early fall last year dredging crew was in my channel and adjacent ones. I talked with the crews a number of times. In general they said 2-4' is usually the depth change from dredging. From my electronics that 2-4' seems to hold true and shoul be the additional depth in the drop-off. I expected the drop offs to be good to target fish but most commentary I get says dredged trenches are barren.....no cover/structure. Might be true and I don't catch fish in the trenches. However, I feel the shallower ledges beyond the trench are more productive than before dredging.

I'm suggesting it might be better to fish near the trench than in it, unless you find cover in the trench. Watching the dredges operate, I got the impression the sweeping action of the dredge arm to right an left would push cover/debris to the edges of trench while leaving the trench bottom cleaner. I can't say I confirmed the theory with my electronics.


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## zaraspook

Hadn't fished since 30th last month......bummer . Got in almost 90 min Thurs evening. Water temp a pleasant 74 degrees....highly unusual for August. Some algal slime on water surface....lack of wind will do that. Water level down 4-5 inches from 2 weeks ago......still 18" or more above last year this time.
I mourn the loss of a GLSM ally. For 50 years this ally stood steadfast in support of fishermen young and old, novice and expert. Last week my crappie fishing ally of 9 years met its maker, passed on into the heavens, to wherever torn down fishing structure goes. The 700 Sq ft red deck/dock and prior home to hundreds of crappies caught by me and others is gone, destroyed and removed by its non-fishing new owner. Gonna be lots of pissed off crappie/bass anglers this fall.

Back to fishing...caught one 7" crappie, one gill, one decent bullhead in my 90 minutes of bank fishing. Had more bites than expected, probably gills.
Rest in peace "big red deck".


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## Salmonid

I started to tear up when you told me about the dock removal yesterday. RIP ole buddy. You will be sorely missed.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> I started to tear up when you told me about the dock removal yesterday. RIP ole buddy. You will be sorely missed.



My personal best GLSM 15"+ crappie came from below "big red" as well as several 3# bass. Now it's a long stretch of rip rap just begging for development. Very likely can be more productive than before! However, it was unique and can't reproduce overhead cover like that. State rules for docks/decks don't permit. Have to be diligent to stay on Wes' good side and maintain my privileges.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Friday evening before a dozen guests arrived. Had more bites than expected with two fish "on" momentarily before coming unzipped. No clue what those fish were since they didn't make it to the surface for ID. Doubtful they were crappies.

2-3" shad were thick and everywhere and viewed a few 10-12" class. Didn't get to fish again before departure about 10am Saturday. Lack of fishing time getting old - would like to further the chase for perch. My wife's progress with broken wrist has been puny.....not a whole lot she can do for herself with only one functional hand. Patience, Grasshopper.


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## zaraspook

With limited lake access last 6 weeks, decided to pick tomatoes Tuesday. My wife is a tomato addict, easily consumes 5-6 a day. Whereas the word "fishing" doesn't do much for her, any mention of the word "tomato", even 3 rooms away, with doors closed, TV on too loud, she'll hear and respond to "tomato". Tues I softly mentioned "might go pick some tomatoes today". Less than a minute later she handed me my truck keys.

No I don't have a garden, but a long time friend does. He's a golf and fishing friend of 20 years, and one of the 2 sources who feed my wife's tomato addiction. While he's on vacation for 11 days, he asked if I'd help keep his tomatoes from going to waste. Awesome! Not often you can keep a friend happy and your wife happy with a single activity. Talk about a "Win - Win" situation! Even better, it's a "win - win - win" since my buddy has a pond.

Picked tomatoes for 2 hours. Fished for 1 hour, not prime time but 4:30-5:30pm. Required about 30 minutes to find a bait they'd hit. Caught 3 small bass 11-13". Plastic worm. Wife is happy with her 6-7 day supply of tomatoes. I squeezed in a bit of fishing......I'm happy.

Hmmmm. My wife asked if there were any zucchini ready yet. Might be forced to return to the garden today to check it out. Gotta keep the ladies happy, right?

View media item 80231View media item 80230View media item 80229


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## Hortance

Nice. If that pond is full of similar-sized LMB, you might be doing your buddy a favor to keep a few....

Good strategy on acting interested in your wife's stuff.


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## zaraspook

You're right about fish population perhaps needing thinned. Ones I caught were on the skinny side, too. Pond has a decent class of 15-17" fish as well.....though I could see them there was no interest in my offerings.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> was no interest in my offerings.


Ever try "bubble gum" worms fished weightless? I think they call it wacky style now.
We used to use them by just hooking the egg sack and casting them out in ponds. They would sink very slowly. Just as they started to sink out of sight we give them a slight twitch to move them back in view....repeat....repeat. Hooking just the egg sack they kind of folded in half when we twitched them. Bass just loved them especially in ponds.
Crème made a rather plain style worm and the body looked like a real crawler. We used to use those if we could find them but others worked good too.


----------



## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Ever try "bubble gum" worms fished weightless? I think they call it wacky style now.
> We used to use them by just hooking the egg sack and casting them out in ponds. They would sink very slowly. Just as they started to sink out of sight we give them a slight twitch to move them back in view....repeat....repeat. Hooking just the egg sack they kind of folded in half when we twitched them. Bass just loved them especially in ponds.
> Crème made a rather plain style worm and the body looked like a real crawler. We used to use those if we could find them but others worked good too.


Started out weightless wacky rigged without success at the pond. Actually ended up weightless and hook threaded thru head was only way to get hits. They wanted small profile worms....I had none. Took the skinniest I had and bit off 2" of the head. Wacky might have worked fine if I had tried the smaller plastic with it. I, too, fished weightless worms in upper 2-3' of water column with frequency in ponds. Can be fun....


----------



## Saugeyefisher

crappiedude said:


> Ever try "bubble gum" worms fished weightless? I think they call it wacky style now.
> We used to use them by just hooking the egg sack and casting them out in ponds. They would sink very slowly. Just as they started to sink out of sight we give them a slight twitch to move them back in view....repeat....repeat. Hooking just the egg sack they kind of folded in half when we twitched them. Bass just loved them especially in ponds.
> Crème made a rather plain style worm and the body looked like a real crawler. We used to use those if we could find them but others worked good too.


Isn't it funny how you can do something for years (like you and wacky rigging) with great luck,then someone goes an wind a tourney or something with that same rig,gives it a weird name or names it after themselfs (nedrig). And all of a sudden it's a new hot technique they find a way to promote an cash in on. 
I'm going to start hooking big joshys and twister tails sideways and name it the "wacky Bobby rig"


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## crappiedude

Saugeyefisher said:


> funny how you can do something for years


I first started fishing rubber worms this way 50 years ago. I'm 65 now and it was before I could drive. A friend of mine introduced it to me using the infamos "purple worms" from back in the day. Long before the "Texas Rig" came about.
Another friend introduced me to the bubble gum version years later.
I guess this shows I'm still living in the past...LOL


----------



## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Isn't it funny how you can do something for years (like you and wacky rigging) with great luck,then someone goes an wind a tourney or something with that same rig,gives it a weird name or names it after themselfs (nedrig). And all of a sudden it's a new hot technique they find a way to promote an cash in on.
> I'm going to start hooking big joshys and twister tails sideways and name it the "wacky Bobby rig"


Doug Stange of In Fisherman almost always hooks any swim bait sideways, not thru back, unless fishing weeds. After seeing that, whenever my crappie plastics get beat up I will rehook it. Upside down, sideways.....doesn't seem to matter much. 
Agree with you that much of fishing is recycled. It may be new to that fisherman at that time, but highly likely it's been done before.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Doug Stange of In Fisherman almost always hooks any swim bait sideways, not thru back, unless fishing weeds. After seeing that, whenever my crappie plastics get beat up I will rehook it. Upside down, sideways.....doesn't seem to matter much.
> Agree with you that much of fishing is recycled. It may be new to that fisherman at that time, but highly likely it's been done before.


Yeah if you read through some of the saugeye posts in the central Ohio forums there are a couple guys that do really well threading the swimbaits on there sides.

One of my favorites was when they started calling a rubber worm hooked on a over sized jig head a shakey head.

Zara,are you gearing up for the fall bite? I know I'm pumped.
Me and a friend fished Hoover dam sunday (a deeper lake in central ohio) for crappie. The action was non stop and really fun. And we took a fair amount of keepers home,up to 12". And probobly released 50+ just under 9" fish. Dropping minnows in 12-20 ft of water over schools of fish we would see on the electronics.
But it's just not the same as the cooler water,shallow fish. And the average size of the shallow lake fish. It really is impressive what the cooler water and a little more size do for there fighting ability! Can't wait for fall/winter!!















Sorry double posted the pic.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> I first started fishing rubber worms this way 50 years ago. I'm 65 now and it was before I could drive. A friend of mine introduced it to me using the infamos "purple worms" from back in the day. Long before the "Texas Rig" came about.
> Another friend introduced me to the bubble gum version years later.
> I guess this shows I'm still living in the past...LOL


You may appreciate this added twist to my pond report this week. When I decided to fish the pond I discovered virtually all my tackle was at lake place, not at my home in Indiana. Specifically wanted plastic worms and luckily found a sizable, old style tackle box tucked away in my garage. My favorite uncle gave me the tackle shortly before he died in 2000. I'm sure most of those plastics were 5-10 years old then. The worms I caught fish on this week were about 25 years old. Living in the past........not so bad !


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Yeah if you read through some of the saugeye posts in the central Ohio forums there are a couple guys that do really well threading the swimbaits on there sides.
> 
> One of my favorites was when they started calling a rubber worm hooked on a over sized jig head a shakey head.
> 
> Zara,are you gearing up for the fall bite? I know I'm pumped.
> Me and a friend fished Hoover dam sunday (a deeper lake in central ohio) for crappie. The action was non stop and really fun. And we took a fair amount of keepers home,up to 12". And probobly released 50+ just under 9" fish. Dropping minnows in 12-20 ft of water over schools of fish we would see on the electronics.
> But it's just not the same as the cooler water,shallow fish. And the average size of the shallow lake fish. It really is impressive what the cooler water and a little more size do for there fighting ability! Can't wait for fall/winter!!
> View attachment 243654
> View attachment 243654


Impressive haul, guy! Nice mix of black and whites in the coolers. And you are so right those crappies putting up a stronger tussle with just a few degrees cooler water.

Ready, willing, and able for fall/winter bite.


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## RMK

It's been just about a week since my last search. Not much to update about the fishing/searching from my last couple outings. However my wife and I had our first the early hours of friday morning. Fishing is temporarily on hold lol


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## crappiedude

Now that's a keeper for sure...what a cutie!


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## fishwhacker

Congrats....hope all is going well. Dont worry sleep and fishing time slowly comes back.


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## zaraspook

She's a trophy if I ever saw one! 
Kids are a life changer. There will come a time when you remember little before they arrived. Your memory will recall events in your life by time stamps of your kids such as "we bought that house when baby was 5 and started school".
Raising your kids may be your #1 responsibility for several decades. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Will be a fun ride.


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## Saugeyefisher

RMK said:


> It's been just about a week since my last search. Not much to update about the fishing/searching from my last couple outings. However my wife and I had our first the early hours of friday morning. Fishing is temporarily on hold lol


Did she fit in the green bucket!
I'll add. Most newborns I've seen (including one of my two) are not pretty. She is gorgeous! Congrats!


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## zaraspook

At GLSM Tuesday to fish a bit.......sadly last time to fish there was the 11th. 11 day gap is probably the longest since February.

Water temp 77.7 degrees. Water level is down to 43" depth off my seawall, which translates into roughly a loss of an inch a week since 4th of July. Lack of rain will do that, plus the State's water management policy stopped the yo-yo of pulling water every time it sprinkled. This is so much better.

Fishing consisted of 2 sessions, an hour each from the bank. First session at 2:30pm and finale at 7:30pm. The mid-day session produced 4 crappies, two from under pontoons in about 3' of water, and two off a seawall with several plastic PVC stake beds in 3-4' of water. The 2 crappies from beneath toons both hit Acid Rain/June Bug Hot Grubbs (twister tail grubs). Tried the same Hot Grubs at the plastic PVC area, caught nothing but was getting gill bites. Switched to Motor Oil Triple Tips (they are smaller profile baits than Hot Grubs) and caught 2 crappies and 2 gills from the plastic stake beds.

2nd session was 4 hours later with sun fading fast, Hot Grubs were shutout, Triple Tips caught 6 gills. No crappies during 2nd session. Fishing under bobber my baits were usually running a foot off the bottom. Gill bites were frequent, crappies not but I'm not complaining. 4 crappies in the 1st hour is easily the best I recall in 6-8 weeks. 
3 of 4 crappies were short, only 1 keeper class crappie as shown below.
View media item 80233


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## RMK

Very encouraging zara! I was excited to see some low night time temperatures in upper 40s. The days are getting noticeably shorter too!


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## zaraspook

Fished almost 2 hours Thursday at GLSM. Results similar to Tuesday except gills weren't as active. 3 crappies and 3 gills caught. All 3 crappies were legal and best a very decent 11-incher. Two of the 3 gills were well above avg for GLSM. Hot Grubs got a few bites while catching nothing. Triple Tip grubs in motor oil color caught all the fish. They wanted it moving a lot faster than I normally fish and slammed it when they hit. 
Water temp 74.8 Thursday - down 3 degrees from 2 days earlier. The bite is showing some signs of life.
View media item 80234


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## RMK

With zara having some success and fishing buddy scott wanting to go- we got some crappie time in early Saturday a.m. headed out with high hopes after hearing third hand of a possible limit caught yesterday or the day before at a north side shore spot. A more traditional glsm approach today. Jigs under cork in brush, tree tops, stake beads, and some plastic fish structures. Plastic fish structure produced most bites. A couple promising nibbles but probably mostly gills. Scott managed 1 gill and a sucker. Saw a ton of bait in all locations. Some very small fry.

Slow trolled minnows for a tiny bit in a deep mouth of a channel that appeared to be loaded with suspended fish. No takers.

Nice and cool smooth morning on the water.


----------



## zaraspook

RMK said:


> With zara having some success and fishing buddy scott wanting to go- we got some crappie time in early Saturday a.m. headed out with high hopes after hearing third hand of a possible limit caught yesterday or the day before at a north side shore spot. A more traditional glsm approach today. Jigs under cork in brush, tree tops, stake beads, and some plastic fish structures. Plastic fish structure produced most bites. A couple promising nibbles but probably mostly gills. Scott managed 1 gill and a sucker. Saw a ton of bait in all locations. Some very small fry.
> 
> Slow trolled minnows for a tiny bit in a deep mouth of a channel that appeared to be loaded with suspended fish. No takers.
> 
> Nice and cool smooth morning on the water.


Good effort and report, RMK. Those gazillion shad we're seeing are part of the problem, I think. They are the competition, overly abundant and easy dinner fare for those crappies we target. When crappies are hungry now, doesn't take them long to get a full belly. I sense with the easy buffet table for them, we're more apt to get "reaction" bites.....relying on their predator instincts to jump on an "opportunity" too good to pass up. That's a challenge!

I made it to GLSM at 7:30 pm Saturday and not much time to fish. Managed just one crappie, very few bites in line with your experience Saturday morning , and even the gills were taking a siesta. Never got around to checking water temp......maybe in the morning.


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## zaraspook

Sunday morning water temp was 71 and later in the day 72.5, down a few more degrees from earlier in week. Sunday AM I watched a spider rigged boat go down my channel while sipping coffee on my deck. 3 guys, two up front and the 3rd with his two rods in tow off the transom. Each rod was double rigged with minnows. Ran into them again 45 minutes later in an adjacent branch of my channel. While in my channel they'd caught 2 cats, 2 crappies and claimed one crappie was 12". When I finished my morning 75 minute session, I'd caught 3 crappies, a nice 11" to go along with a pair of 8" guys. All three succumbed to the motor oil triple tip that's enjoyed a bit success lately.

Didn't get back to fishing until 5pm.......lots of chores backed up while I rarely made it to GLSM over last few weeks. First cast of the evening session resulted in a snag on the under structure of my neighbors pontoon. Lost that that motor oil plastic and decided to go smaller. Hadn't tied on a Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad since spring. With all the small shad roaming everywhere, it might be a good time. I think the color of this one is called chartreuse pepper, my favorite.

First cast under that toon produced a short crappie. 3 casts later I added an 11" and before moving on a 3rd crappie joined the party. Bite slowed, I moved on, catching fish at 3 of 5 spots. Second session lasted 2 hours less 20 minutes for a dinner break to produce 11 crappies, 6 keepers. 

Daily total was 14 crappies, 7 keepers......4 between 11"- 11.5". Also caught 2 cats and 3 gills. Totally blew me away to be part of that level of action! Best quality crappie action in 10-11 weeks at GLSM. 11 of 14 crappies on the P/A chartreuse pepper.

Couple of pics follow. Fun day......
View media item 80249View media item 80248


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## RMK

Great job zara! Not sure if the news from the spider riggers you talked to is incouraging or discouraging for my efforts at it. I m sure 6 rods like they were able to run increases their odds compared to only the two I ve been able to run this far. I d also be very interested in a speed from them if you happen to run into them again. Maybe I can get fishing buddy scott to sit behind 2 slow trolled crappie poles saturday morning and double our chances.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Great job zara! Not sure if the news from the spider riggers you talked to is incouraging or discouraging for my efforts at it. I m sure 6 rods like they were able to run increases their odds compared to only the two I ve been able to run this far. I d also be very interested in a speed from them if you happen to run into them again. Maybe I can get fishing buddy scott to sit behind 2 slow trolled crappie poles saturday morning and double our chances.


I did ask about speed. Response was .5-.6 mph. Also asked if they ever stumbled into perch while spider rigging and response was "not at St. Mary's". Surprised me they were fishing so shallow, looked like 2' though running in 4-6' of water. Might have been dictated by trying to avoid frequent snags?


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## zaraspook

zaraspook said:


> I did ask about speed. Response was .5-.6 mph. Also asked if they ever stumbled into perch while spider rigging and response was "not at St. Mary's". Surprised me they were fishing so shallow, looked like 2' though running in 4-6' of water. Might have been dictated by trying to avoid frequent snags?


Put 4 poles out and get a blowup dummy to sit next to you!


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## RMK

great idea. I like it.


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## Salmonid

Possible that me and Catmangler will be up this Sun or Monday prefishing for Catfish championships the following weekend. Perhaps I'll break out the Spyder rigs and give it a go for a while.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Possible that me and Catmangler will be up this Sun or Monday prefishing for Catfish championships the following weekend. Perhaps I'll break out the Spyder rigs and give it a go for a while.


That sounds like fun.


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## fishwhacker

Found one while bluegill fishing on north side about 3ft deep. New spot i have never fished. 6 nice gills and this guy in 30 minutes. I will be revisiting this spot.


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## Salmonid

I catfishes yesterday with Catmangler prefishing for next weekend Catfish Classic tourney. Put in at 8:30 chasing shad. Founds hundred of 3-4" shad about everywhere we went. Finally found 1 jumbo about 13" anyways we fished all over the west half 5 different spots and found a mix of cats at every spot ,some bigger some smaller and we were happy with what we found
The water was a little choppy with a west wind at about 8-10 mph. Water was 64 degrees when we got in and only 66 when we left around 3 pm. Ok so when castnetting for shad did manage 2 keeper crappies. 1 near montezuma and the other near the mouth of cold water creek. No Ryme or reason to them and call tell you the lake had a phenomenal hatch of shad this year as there are schools all over the lake even out in 7-8 fow. Nobody on the whole lake until about noon then the pontoon army and jet skis showed up in droves around Windy Point area. The had the boat rocking and rolling pretty good With colder temps predicted the next 14 days and nights, should tighten up the crappies

Salmonid


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## fishwhacker

Moosestock yesterday so the lake was packed with pleasure boaters.


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## zaraspook

Had guests at my lake place Friday thru Monday afternoon. Other than Friday evening, my only fishing time came in the mornings before others crawled out of bed. Hour and a half produced just 5 crappies, but that's miles better than July-August. 4 out of 5 were legal...two of them dandy 12" fish. Haven't seen a 12" fish for a while, let alone a pair. Also, caught a small channel cat and 6 gills. although I used other plastics, all fish were caught with chartreuse/pepper Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad. Water temp 70.2 degrees. Pics of the 12" fish below:
View media item 80269View media item 80268


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Moosestock yesterday so the lake was packed with pleasure boaters.


My two daughters and friends were among the crowd at Moosestock, therefore my pontoon a contributor to the heavy boater traffic.


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## RMK

my inlaws contibuted 1 pontoon and 2 jet skis as well.....


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> my inlaws contibuted 1 pontoon and 2 jet skis as well.....


Have you fished your in-law's channel before?


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## RMK

yes. probably the channel i have fished the most. if not the most a very close 2nd. a few crappie minded folks on that channel that have added some fish structure. also a dock that has 6 or 8 wooden 4x4 posts that held fish pretty consistantly most of the spring as well!


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## Saugeyefisher

anyone else see or here about this? We had pretty steady winds here in Columbus over the weekend. Mostly look like carp an shad but I think I spy a few crappie. 
I don't have a Facebook account this could be a old pic or maybe not even glsm. 
Just wondering if you guys have herd/seen anything like this out there lately?


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> I catfishes yesterday with Catmangler prefishing for next weekend Catfish Classic tourney. Put in at 8:30 chasing shad. Founds hundred of 3-4" shad about everywhere we went. Finally found 1 jumbo about 13" anyways we fished all over the west half 5 different spots and found a mix of cats at every spot ,some bigger some smaller and we were happy with what we found
> The water was a little choppy with a west wind at about 8-10 mph. Water was 64 degrees when we got in and only 66 when we left around 3 pm. Ok so when castnetting for shad did manage 2 keeper crappies. 1 near montezuma and the other near the mouth of cold water creek. No Ryme or reason to them and call tell you the lake had a phenomenal hatch of shad this year as there are schools all over the lake even out in 7-8 fow. Nobody on the whole lake until about noon then the pontoon army and jet skis showed up in droves around Windy Point area. The had the boat rocking and rolling pretty good With colder temps predicted the next 14 days and nights, should tighten up the crappies
> Salmonid


Speaking of shad, it might be wise to wear a hard hat when fishing GLSM. Labor Day morning walking thru my neighbor's yard toward the famous but now vanished "big red deck", came a crashing sound from above. I was under an 80' oak tree and immediately reacted to throw an arm over my head and duck from an expected falling limb. 20' to my left came a heavy thud as an object smacked ground. Two steps in that direction and it was simple to identify the object. Since when did shadzilla take up traveling by air? Easily a 16-18" shad (maybe approaching 2 pounds) , it's face was two thirds eaten away! Bird or animal eating on it from a perch 50-60' up in the tree and lost it's grip on the fish? Bird flying above the tree and lost grip? I have seen eagles flying above. First time I've been bombed by a fish! 

Hope you're right that crappies could soon start congregating with cooling water temps. It's a little early but why not?


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> View attachment 244978
> anyone else see or here about this? We had pretty steady winds here in Columbus over the weekend. Mostly look like carp an shad but I think I spy a few crappie.
> I don't have a Facebook account this could be a old pic or maybe not even glsm.
> Just wondering if you guys have herd/seen anything like this out there lately?


Saugfish.....over the weekend I had the thought that it's been a remarkable year for absence of fish kills. Only ones I've witnessed were modest numbers of shad caught in ice early in year. Interesting......


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## Salmonid

We never saw any dead fish all over the west end and In several channels also???


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## Saugeyefisher

Ya guys like I said,more then likely nothing. I couldn't get any further info then that pic. Could be a small isolated area fish were blown to. They look pretty ripe in the pic....

Thanks guys


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## brandonw

I can't confirm or deny the pic but the comments on FB said it was below the spillway. Wouldn't have seen it on the main lake.


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## RMK

only floaters i ve seen this year were early spring and even then not many at all. been a good year from what i ve seen.


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## Saugeyefisher

brandonw said:


> I can't confirm or deny the pic but the comments on FB said it was below the spillway. Wouldn't have seen it on the main lake.


Thanks for replying. Like I said earlier no fb account so I couldn't read the replys. 
And my cousin who sent me the pic,never replied with anything else. 

I assume if you guys on the lake are not seeing anything it's a non-issue....


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## firemanmike2127

I inspected the area below the spillway yesterday & saw the fish that were in the Facebook pic someone posted. I wasn't too surprised to see this since the flow of water through the lower notch of the spillway stopped within the last 4-6 days prior to the die off. I'm pretty sure most of those fish had congregated there because of the higher oxygen content in the water, considering the time of year. Once the flow stopped the fish didn't leave the immediate area & without a fresh water supply bringing in more O2 they expired. I'm certainly no fisheries biologist by any means, but similar occurrences have happened in that area previously. I did see a pic of a nice big walleye & some decent crappies that came from below the spillway recently before the water stopped flowing. Mike


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## Saugeyefisher

firemanmike2127 said:


> I inspected the area below the spillway yesterday & saw the fish that were in the Facebook pic someone posted. I wasn't too surprised to see this since the flow of water through the lower notch of the spillway stopped within the last 4-6 days prior to the die off. I'm pretty sure most of those fish had congregated there because of the higher oxygen content in the water, considering the time of year. Once the flow stopped the fish didn't leave the immediate area & without a fresh water supply bringing in more O2 they expired. I'm certainly no fisheries biologist by any means, but similar occurrences have happened in that area previously. I did see a pic of a nice big walleye & some decent crappies that came from below the spillway recently before the water stopped flowing. Mike


Thanks! Makes sense to me....


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> I inspected the area below the spillway yesterday & saw the fish that were in the Facebook pic someone posted. I wasn't too surprised to see this since the flow of water through the lower notch of the spillway stopped within the last 4-6 days prior to the die off. I'm pretty sure most of those fish had congregated there because of the higher oxygen content in the water, considering the time of year. Once the flow stopped the fish didn't leave the immediate area & without a fresh water supply bringing in more O2 they expired. I'm certainly no fisheries biologist by any means, but similar occurrences have happened in that area previously. I did see a pic of a nice big walleye & some decent crappies that came from below the spillway recently before the water stopped flowing. Mike


Logical explanations. Thanks for your input, and confirmation, too!


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## zaraspook

Hey.......I forgot to post the rest of my GLSM fishing ventures over Labor Day weekend. I'll make it short and sweet. Water temp on Sunday was 67 degrees in my channel. Saturday morning 90 minutes produced 6 crappies and among 5 keepers were a couple of 11" fish but no 12" like evening before. Caught 5 gills with the crappies and a 18" channel cat. What I liked best was 5 of the 6 crappies came from a single spot. First time I'd caught more than a fish or 2 at one location. What I least liked was that productive spot wasn't available the rest of the holiday weekend......homeowner showed up. How rude can you get? Don't these guys understand I like them and all that stuff, but don't show up when fish are biting.

Only ran into 2 crappies Sunday morning and 4 Monday morning during 90 minute sessions. Total of 17 crappies during 6 fishing hours......not a great pace but it is coming! All the crappies, gills, and cats sucked in the same chartreuse/pepper Panfish Assassin plastic. Also, only 3 short crappies/throw-backs is a bit of icing on the cake. Good time to lube the reels and put on fresh line in anticipation of the fall bite.


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## Sappy

Took a pic of this one while fishing below the spillway over the weekend about 24" most of the other were shad


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## zaraspook

Sappy said:


> Took a pic of this one while fishing below the spillway over the weekend about 24" most of the other were shad


Too bad. That's a real toad and if a walleye as you say should be at least 9 years old. Walleye last stocked GLSM about 2008, maybe 2006? Good post!


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## macfish

Is there anyway to tell if they opened the pipes up at the spillway? leaving sunday and was hoping to hit the spillway for crappie?


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## Sappy

They were just open a trickle when I was there Sunday


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM in time for Friday night bite.It wasn't crazy but caught 7 with 5 keepers. A couple 11"+ but no 12"s. Saturday AM fished just 20 minutes before heading home for grandson's soccer game. Caught one dink crappie.
Did make it back for an hour of the Saturday evening bite. Respectably found 6 with just a single short one. Added a couple gills, 2 pound channel cat, and a sheephead for an active hour. All my crappies still coming on the chartreuse/pepper Tiny Shad/Panfish Assassins. Crappies won't touch my other baits although other species do.

As I type this at 11:25pm Saturday I realized my omission today.....never checked water temp. Now done...64.5 degree water temp at this moment!


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## Salmonid

Zara not much to add. Me and Erik (Catmangler) got on the water yesterday around 2 pm after getting a bunch of 3" shad on the East side. We were fishing the Outdoorsman series Catfish championship We ran to the west end and started out on one of our presfishing spots and within the first hr had about a dozen fish and had around 32 lbs of fish in the box for a great start but wind kept shifting from N to NE to E through the afternoon and the bite crapped out accordingly. Water was 66 in mid lake with a steady 8-12 mph wind. It took us the next 5 hrs to actually upgrade a 1/2 lb to our total We caught probably 25-30 fish total and I was a nervous wreck since I knew we didn't have the 40+ lbs we would normally need to place but as luck would have it we had enough to win barely so we lucked out. This was my 4 th time winning the championship. Who hooo. 6 channels for 32.4 lbs.


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## firemanmike2127

Congratulations on your win !! There are quite a few locals that fish The Outdoorsman's weekly tournament. Pretty impressive that you've won the Classic for a 4th time. Mike


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## crappiedude

Congrats on the win


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## Saugeyefisher

Congrats! You are a heck of a catfisherman ,an sounds like you have a great partner in da mangler!


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## Saugeyefisher

Zara,great to see you continue to have good outings relative to the time of year. 
Can't wait to get back out on buckeye. It'll orobobly be October though before I get out there....


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## Salmonid

Fireman. I actually won it 5 times but found out my partner was ineligible. Therefore dq'd before weigh in but had that one won by about 5 lbs. that sucked. Grey area on the rules


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Zara not much to add. Me and Erik (Catmangler) got on the water yesterday around 2 pm after getting a bunch of 3" shad on the East side. We were fishing the Outdoorsman series Catfish championship We ran to the west end and started out on one of our presfishing spots and within the first hr had about a dozen fish and had around 32 lbs of fish in the box for a great start but wind kept shifting from N to NE to E through the afternoon and the bite crapped out accordingly. Water was 66 in mid lake with a steady 8-12 mph wind. It took us the next 5 hrs to actually upgrade a 1/2 lb to our total We caught probably 25-30 fish total and I was a nervous wreck since I knew we didn't have the 40+ lbs we would normally need to place but as luck would have it we had enough to win barely so we lucked out. This was my 4 th time winning the championship. Who hooo. 6 channels for 32.4 lbs.


Thanks for not making me a liar. As I continue to tell the world over and over again, you own that Catmaster Classic Championship! Someday they will name it after you. Way to go Salmonid and Catmangler!
Pretty crazy you can't find any shadzillas these days in GLSM when I nearly took one on the head.


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## RMK

I ordered some big joshy swimbaits early last week hoping to go to indian and try casting for some eyes this weekend. Unfortunately time would not allow for the trip to indian, or even a shorter trip to glsm. I couldn't take it anymore and decided to tie one on and just throw it in the pond for a little bit. 3 crappie, including a 16" brute, and 2 bass in about a 20 minute session. I thought the 2.75" that I ordered were going to be too big for crappie. However even an average size crappie had no problem inhaling it. They have great action. Can't wait to throw them at some saugeye. Might even try them for some crappie on the lake.


----------



## RMK

Salmonid said:


> Zara not much to add. Me and Erik (Catmangler) got on the water yesterday around 2 pm after getting a bunch of 3" shad on the East side. We were fishing the Outdoorsman series Catfish championship We ran to the west end and started out on one of our presfishing spots and within the first hr had about a dozen fish and had around 32 lbs of fish in the box for a great start but wind kept shifting from N to NE to E through the afternoon and the bite crapped out accordingly. Water was 66 in mid lake with a steady 8-12 mph wind. It took us the next 5 hrs to actually upgrade a 1/2 lb to our total We caught probably 25-30 fish total and I was a nervous wreck since I knew we didn't have the 40+ lbs we would normally need to place but as luck would have it we had enough to win barely so we lucked out. This was my 4 th time winning the championship. Who hooo. 6 channels for 32.4 lbs.


great job! thats awesome. 
not sure if its you or not but there is a boat i see from time to time on and around the lake. big black lund i think. kicker motor. tandem axle trailer. rod holders all across the back and along back sides. definitely set up for kitty fishing. really sweet boat. i have to take a double take everytime i see it.


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## Salmonid

RMK there are 2 brand new Black Bass Pro Trackers out on the lake both with setups like your talking about the ones you speak of are great anglers and finished right behind us, I have a 19 ft Brown Sea Nymph with the same rod holders set up all over it, LOL only a single axle trailer. ( easier to maneuver in the garage)


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## Salmonid

Duhh, I said Sea Nymph but mine i s a Smokercraft...Ill see if I can find a picture..


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> I ordered some big joshy swimbaits early last week hoping to go to indian and try casting for some eyes this weekend. Unfortunately time would not allow for the trip to indian, or even a shorter trip to glsm. I couldn't take it anymore and decided to tie one on and just throw it in the pond for a little bit. 3 crappie, including a 16" brute, and 2 bass in about a 20 minute session. I thought the 2.75" that I ordered were going to be too big for crappie. However even an average size crappie had no problem inhaling it. They have great action. Can't wait to throw them at some saugeye. Might even try them for some crappie on the lake.


Outstanding 20 minutes, RMK! Same pond you pulled a 14" or 15' crappie earlier in year?


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## Salmonid

Here is one from the side. Easy to spot with White Johnson motor on it from a distance. It will be easier to spot once I get all my sponsors wrapped on it next month.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Outstanding 20 minutes, RMK! Same pond you pulled a 14" or 15' crappie earlier in year?


yep. same pond zara. something that kind of made the catch even neater was that the big crappie came out of the middle of a pine tree i sunk early in the spring. i watched it come up and suck in that big jig. i thought it was a bass untill i got it back up after it took a short run back towards the pine tree.


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## RMK

Salmonid said:


> View attachment 245273
> 
> Here is one from the side. Easy to spot with White Johnson motor on it from a distance. It will be easier to spot once I get all my sponsors wrapped on it next month.


another very nice boat. i ll keep an eye out for you!


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## crappiedude

Salmonid...good looking boat. I bet she can handle some pretty rough water.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> yep. same pond zara. something that kind of made the catch even neater was that the big crappie came out of the middle of a pine tree i sunk early in the spring. i watched it come up and suck in that big jig. i thought it was a bass untill i got it back up after it took a short run back towards the pine tree.


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## zaraspook

Always a good feeling when you pull fish from cover you added.......it's an investment in the future and keeps paying dividends. I know that feeling of suspecting it may be a bass on the end of your line rather than a crappie. Happens everytime I get into a 12"+ crappie. They pull a lot harder and of course at GLSM with the murky green water, you can't ID the fish until it breaks surface.


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## zaraspook

Had to make a quick trip Tues to my lake place to retrieve a business document I fortuitously left behind. Went early, there by 9am, so why not take advantage of an opportunity to fish? First hour of bank fishing was miserable, just an occasional peck from gills, and then a solid fish came out of nowhere. It was a sweet 12.5" crappie. One fish in an hour calls for attitude adjustment. Headed back to the house for coffee and to get my phone in the event I caught another photo-worthy fish. While sipping the java, why not leisurely fish my seawall? Good decision - 4 more crappies in half an hour, including the 12" in photo below.
View media item 80292Took care of several work related phone calls, did lunch, and returned to fishing about 2:30pm. Most of that 90 minute session focused on 3 pontoons within a 200' stretch of seawall. The 'toons were ticket for crappie action. Rotating between the 3 boats numerous times, 'toons produced 15 crappies. Whereas my first 90 minute session yielded just 5 fish, 4 were keepers including the 2 at 12" or better. The 'toon session produced 15 crappies, just 6 keepers.

Went back for one more session at 6pm. Quit after 45 minutes, few bites, and only a single crappie of 11".

21 total crappies, 11 keepers (two 12" class). Also caught a smaller channel cat, and 7-8 gills. Best crappie day since June. 20 of crappies came from chartreuse/pepper Tiny Shad, 1 crappie and the channel cat came on a key lime Bobby Garland Baby Shad. The fish were definitely "picky".....I tried 2 colors of the Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad other than chartreuse/pepper but zero caught. 62.4 degree water temp in my channel. Slow start, good mid-day action, slow ending.


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## RMK

nice!! that is a thick healthy looking crappie pictured too!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> nice!! that is a thick healthy looking crappie pictured too!


noticeable weight gain over the last 4 weeks, rmk, as they forage on shad-a-plenty


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## zaraspook

This is the time of year bryozoa (moss animals) are frequently seen at GLSM. The "colonies" are well developed late summer/fall, usually attached to sticks, logs, pilings. Photo below is a small branch I snagged.....provides a good view. A colony becomes a jelly-like blob, made up of individual animals. They are "filter feeders", eat algae among other micro-organisms. Listen up now gents, they are said to be a sign of "good water quality, not bad".
Multiple colonies are attached to this branch. Colonies will die off, lose the coloring with cooler water temps. Some call them "monkey brains". I first saw one 4-5 years ago at GLSM. They are abundant now.....tough to pull up any kind of "crappie cover" today that won't have at least one colony attached. Complex chemical make-up is now being explored as a cancer drug and for other medical applications.
View media item 80297_VIMS professor Carl Hershner notes that bryozoans consume algae, so the "alien pod" is "actually a good thing to have around, despite its looks." "It's not a sign of bad water quality," he adds, "and it doesn't hurt fish._


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> This is the time of year bryozoa (moss animals) are frequently seen at GLSM. The "colonies" are well developed late summer/fall, usually attached to sticks, logs, pilings. Photo below is a small branch I snagged.....provides a good view. A colony becomes a jelly-like blob, made up of individual animals. They are "filter feeders", eat algae among other micro-organisms. Listen up now gents, they are said to be a sign of "good water quality, not bad".
> Multiple colonies are attached to this branch. Colonies will die off, lose the coloring with cooler water temps. Some call them "monkey brains". I first saw one 4-5 years ago at GLSM. They are abundant now.....tough to pull up any kind of "crappie cover" today that won't have at least one colony attached. Complex chemical make-up is now being explored as a cancer drug and for other medical applications.
> View media item 80297_VIMS professor Carl Hershner notes that bryozoans consume algae, so the "alien pod" is "actually a good thing to have around, despite its looks." "It's not a sign of bad water quality," he adds, "and it doesn't hurt fish._


Good info! I always wondered what they where. I see them on buckeye


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> This is the time of year bryozoa (moss animals) are frequently seen at GLSM. The "colonies" are well developed late summer/fall, usually attached to sticks, logs, pilings. Photo below is a small branch I snagged.....provides a good view. A colony becomes a jelly-like blob, made up of individual animals. They are "filter feeders", eat algae among other micro-organisms. Listen up now gents, they are said to be a sign of "good water quality, not bad".
> Multiple colonies are attached to this branch. Colonies will die off, lose the coloring with cooler water temps. Some call them "monkey brains". I first saw one 4-5 years ago at GLSM. They are abundant now.....tough to pull up any kind of "crappie cover" today that won't have at least one colony attached. Complex chemical make-up is now being explored as a cancer drug and for other medical applications.
> View media item 80297_VIMS professor Carl Hershner notes that bryozoans consume algae, so the "alien pod" is "actually a good thing to have around, despite its looks." "It's not a sign of bad water quality," he adds, "and it doesn't hurt fish._


thats some great info and great news!


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## zaraspook

Saugfish......hadn't heard of bryozoa at other nearby lakes. I think GLSM could have more bryozoa than perch.  No scientific data but I "catch" more of them than perch!


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM Friday in time to fish at 3pm. Plan was to fish the pontoons first. Toons seem to be best when sun is high and bright, midday to mid afternoon, driving crappies into shade beneath. It was mostly cloudy.....go figure.

Had enough sun at times to push some fish to the toons. Caught 12 from beneath the toons and 8 from traditional wood/brush/pvc cover fishable from the bank. Of the 12 pontoon crappies, only 2 keepers, whereas 7 of the 8 crappies were keepers from non-pontoon locations. I noticed the same trend Tuesday. Bigger fish are scattered, harder to find, rarely found in multiples. When you need gratification or a dose of better action, pontoons are the place to be.

I'm trying to uncover an effective plastic other than the key lime Tiny Shad/Panfish Assassin. Not going well. 19 of 20 fish today on key lime. Caught one of the keepers on a stinger, jelly bean color, otherwise even the gills wouldn't touch the stinger. 

No 12" fish today, therefore no photos. 3 best were all 11" range. Forgot to get water temp......will address that omission in the morning. 

21 crappies Tuesday and 20 today......back to back ? Have to go back to May for the last time that happened.


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## zaraspook

Water temp Saturday was 66 about 8am. My morning session was void of any action.....not a crappie to be found that wanted what I was throwing. Monotony was broken by a sheephead if that's any consolation. Gills had the same no-bite disease as the the crappies, very rare. Cover fished was all my normal wood, brush, pvc stake beds that have been providing the bigger fish over last couple weeks. 

My mid-day session started earlier than normal, around noon, showed promise. Pontoons gave up 10 crappies, 7 keepers, nothing bigger than 11". As earlier in the day, typical cover of wood/brush/plastic yielded no crappies......silence other than a few gills.

Evening session didn't happen. I opted to watch the Buckeyes instead. Overall, Bucks gave us a better performance. Army didn't have the talent to defend against Buck's offense. Considering how little time Bucks actually had the ball, 38 points was an explosion.


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## RMK

Not much to add on catching fish but we made it out for a couple hours sunday evening. Water temp back up to 72-73 in the channel we focused on. And we did see quite a few of the clusters of moss animals! Pretty neat.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Not much to add on catching fish but we made it out for a couple hours sunday evening. Water temp back up to 72-73 in the channel we focused on. And we did see quite a few of the clusters of moss animals! Pretty neat.


Those bryozoa seem capable of attaching to about anything! My Sunday fishing results weren't good and decided not to stick around for evening bite, or lack thereof.


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## zaraspook

My Sunday results were painful. Water temp was 66.2 early morning. Doesn't surprise me at all that RMK found late day temps back into 70's. Morning session was a skunk from the crappies. Mid-day session produced 4 crappies, 2 keepers. 3 of the 4 were under pontoons but pontoon bite way off from prior 10 days. Gone by late afternoon after finishing my last section of deck staining/sealing, did not stick around to see if evening bite turned on.

My opinion....that 2-3 week cold spell turned the bite on. Water temps were flirting with cracking below 60 (62 degrees the lowest I recorded). In a matter of days temps jump 8-10. The few crappies I caught Sunday appeared somewhat "stressed". Body coloring was very light. Pinkish coloring appearing around the lower lip/mouth area and front under body. Someone else may have a different interpretation for those coloration changes, but I'm blaming the water temp spike. 10 day temp forecast is above avg to avg temperatures. No suggestions water temps will make a marked shift down. However, main lake current temps should be lower than we have in channels. That difference will even out, faster if we get decent wind to push water around.


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## Saugeyefisher

Hoping this warm spell is the last of the summer! Only thing going good with it is the nights keep getting longer. An looks like another cool down later on in the long range....


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## Salmonid

crappiedude said:


> Salmonid...good looking boat. I bet she can handle some pretty rough water.


Lol yes it's a 19 and with 4" higher sides then the standard deep v's , I've had it out several times in honest 4-5' rs Definitely a white knuckle ride at idle speed even. But she does as well as can be expected.


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## zaraspook

6:30pm Weds arrival at GLSM. Water temp at 72.5.....ugly! Only had an hour and 15 minutes of daylight to fish and expectations were low with those water temps. 
Not to suggest it was a crazy bite, but easily beat expectations. 6 crappies with 4 keepers, plus 4 gills, and a carp of about 5 pounds that wanted my plastic. Everything caught on Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad chartreuse pepper except one crappie that opted to grab triple tip grub in motor oil color. 11 fish in 75 minutes is decent action. 2 crappies were thick and 11+". When I found fish, they were eating the bait.......no playing around.
Pics below of 2 crappies at 11"+.
View media item 80321View media item 80322


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## zaraspook

Hung around my place Thursday for more fishing and more chores. Water temp 11am today was 71 plus change. Although I caught a few, bites were rare and timid to boot. Weds evening bite much more aggressive. 

Hit 6 spots from the bank for 90 minutes.......not a whiff of a crappie at 5 spots, though I usually caught a gill or two at those empty crappie spots. A single spot gave up 4 crappies, all legal or better, from wood cover. Around noon took a 45 minute recess from doing chores. Targeted 3 toons.....no crappies but 4-5 gills wanted to play.

Final session started at 6:30pm for 75 minutes 'til dusk. Managed 2 crappies, 1 a keeper from a PVC stake bed. Crappie bite was consistently sluggish all day, crappies certainly were not chasing, while gills and a decent channel cat were in a hurry to eat. 6 crappies total, 5 keepers today as compared to 15-20 crappies daily when water temps were 6-10 degrees cooler. Patience, Grasshopper.


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## zaraspook

Hey, guys. Just noticed that this GLSM Crappie thread hit a landmark of sorts. Probably happened sometime last week that we passed the 200,000 mark for "number of views". Only one thread exists among all OGF threads with more views. That's awesome! We're lucky to have contributors like we do, apparently supplying worthwhile fishing info, and commentary. 
Thanks to all who have chimed in since the first post Oct. 3, 2011. Hope a few fishermen along the way benefited from our chatter. I have for sure. I catch at least 5 times the number of crappies today as back in 2011 and best of all have met some great people along the way.


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## Salmonid

Hey Zara I noticed a few fish coming off pvc stake beds lately Any theories???


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Hey Zara I noticed a few fish coming off pvc stake beds lately Any theories???


No theories that hold water. Just not catching enough fish yet to make smart conclusions. PVC is probably most reliable to pull fish from lately, but not by wide margin. Most of the pvc is in one area, and it's a large area compared to most spots with a single piece of cover. Takes 30-45 min to fish the plastic thoroughly, therefore pvc gets fished longer. Secondly, the pvc stake beds are usually 7-12'+ off the bank. Not a lot of wood or other cover that I fish that far out. Wood/brush is inside 6' mostly. It might not matter whether the cover is wood or plastic as long as the cover is 7-12' off the bank. Can't test that hypothesis on my milk route.

Fishing 'toons has a similar outcome. Pontoons I fish are parked parallel to the bank/seawalls. When I cast beneath a pontoon, the 'toon farthest from the seawall (outside toon) will be more productive for crappies than inside toon (closest to seawall). That outside toon is roughly 7-9' off the seawall. Inside toon is about 1' from seawall.

Therefore, theory is "any cover 7-12' off the bank"?


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.........by the way I received that email msg. Gracias, amigo.


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## zaraspook

Maybe a little bump in crappie action on the horizon? Next 4 nights low temps into the 40's.........woohoo!


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## crappiedude

So how close to the shore (sea walls) did they dredge?


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## fishwhacker

Hope they contain the manure from running off or we just took a big step back.


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## firemanmike2127

The watershed for Grand Lake only extends to the north for a mile or less to St.Rt 29/R.J.Corman railroad & there is probably only 300-350 acres of farm ground left in this area (where I grew up). The new dairy is around 4-5 miles north of the watershed boundaries. The watershed to the south of the lake is where the almost all of the agriculture related phosphorus originates. The total area of the GLSM watershed is 58,000 acres. Mike


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## RMK

yep. thankfully the dairy isnt in the grandlake water shed. unfortunately it is in mine. i have mixed feelings about it. hopefull they will be monitored close enough there wont be any issues.


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## fishwhacker

firemanmike2127 said:


> The watershed for Grand Lake only extends to the north for a mile or less to St.Rt 29/R.J.Corman railroad & there is probably only 300-350 acres of farm ground left in this area (where I grew up). The new dairy is around 4-5 miles north of the watershed boundaries. The watershed to the south of the lake is where the almost all of the agriculture related phosphorus originates. The total area of the GLSM watershed is 58,000 acres. Mike


Mike,
Glad to hear that. In the article they said runoff into the watershed was a concern that is why i assumed they meant grandlake given its close proximity. I appreciate you sharing that, clears that up.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> So how close to the shore (sea walls) did they dredge?


C-dude........15 feet.


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## crappiedude

That's pretty close. I can see how those PVC condos nearest that break line could become a major attraction.


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## zaraspook

Arrived at GLSM Weds evening. Only 45 minutes remained before dark so grabbed a rod and got right into fishing. I don't remember getting a bite. Skunk. Water temp was 75.3 degrees.

Thursday morning went back at it, deciding to try a nearby channel I can walk to but hadn't in last 6-8 weeks. That hour was a replay of Weds evening.......no catches, no bites. Returned to my channel and 15 minutes into it I'm interrupted by a game warden. Nice guy, we chatted for 15-20 minutes and he inspected my fishing license. Hated to admit to him I'd caught nothing but did get my first bite. Still fishless, moved to the next spot on my circuit. Ended the crappie drought quickly with a keeper just under 11" and caught 8 more fish there. Unfortunately, none of the 8 were crappies (gills, a bullhead, and a 2-3# channel cat) but any action was was an ego booster). Evening session was more productive with 4 more crappies, 2 of which were keepers. Water temp Thursday was down 4 degrees, 71 degrees and change.

This morning (Fri) I was optimistic, but prematurely. Just 1 short crappie although gills are still active. Water temp is an encouraging 66.5 degrees. Two weeks ago when water temp was 62-65 range, those temps produced catches of 15-20 crappies daily. Better days ahead........


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## RMK

Good job zara. I was tempted to peak in your channell this morning and see if you were fishing your circuit. Ran out of time. I was running late to meet the wife and baby for lunch. Longer boat ride back than expected due to the choppy main lake.

On the water and fishing around 730. Only a couple, probably bluegill, bites the first 2.5 hours and first two spots. 3rd stop, around 1030, found hungry fish. Not sure if it was time of day or location that made the difference . I m guessing location. 

Best day I ve had in quite a while. 8 crappie, 5 gills. Nothing huge but a couple in the 11 inch range and only one under 9. Possibly a white pictured below ??


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## firemanmike2127

Nobody has said much about productive depths lately. One of my regular fishing partners has been on a few nice crappies & he has been fishing between 24-30" deep lately. He fished a couple of the sunny days & also the crappie tournament last weekend (finishing 3rd). He commented to me that the trolling patterns weren't effective so he fished primarily lifts & pontoons. Interesting enough, he also hit some normally productive brushy cover in 6-7' FOW & didn't have any takers. I haven't been out since coming back from salmon fishing in MI. Mike


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Good job zara. I was tempted to peak in your channell this morning and see if you were fishing your circuit. Ran out of time. I was running late to meet the wife and baby for lunch. Longer boat ride back than expected due to the choppy main lake.
> 
> On the water and fishing around 730. Only a couple, probably bluegill, bites the first 2.5 hours and first two spots. 3rd stop, around 1030, found hungry fish. Not sure if it was time of day or location that made the difference . I m guessing location.
> 
> Best day I ve had in quite a while. 8 crappie, 5 gills. Nothing huge but a couple in the 11 inch range and only one under 9. Possibly a white pictured below ??


Glad to hear you found some, RMK. Only 2 identifiers I know are vertical bar patters on the body sides or for whites or counting splines on the front of dorsal fine. 5-6 splines before the dorsal starts to web is for whites, 7-8 splines on a black. Dorsal in photo isn't spread out enough to count splines. My guess is a black crappie. A few weeks back I noticed and probably reported a number of crappies "light colored", lacking random black specks. Looked similar to yours but I didn't feel they were whites and didn't think to count splines.


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## RMK

firemanmike2127 said:


> Nobody has said much about productive depths lately. One of my regular fishing partners has been on a few nice crappies & he has been fishing between 24-30" deep lately. He fished a couple of the sunny days & also the crappie tournament last weekend (finishing 3rd). He commented to me that the trolling patterns weren't effective so he fished primarily lifts & pontoons. Interesting enough, he also hit some normally productive brushy cover in 6-7' FOW & didn't have any takers. I haven't been out since coming back from salmon fishing in MI. Mike


I was close to 30" deep today if not 3 feet. I was impressed how well some did last Sunday in that heat. Several teams also blanked as well though.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Glad to hear you found some, RMK. Only 2 identifiers I know are vertical bar patters on the body sides or for whites or counting splines on the front of dorsal fine. 5-6 splines before the dorsal starts to web is for whites, 7-8 splines on a black. Dorsal in photo isn't spread out to be counted. My guess is a black crappie. A few weeks back I noticed and probably reported a number of crappies "light colored", lacking random black specks. Looked similar to yours but I didn't feel they were whites and didn't think to count splines.


 I always think the pale/colorless blacks are whites.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> I was close to 30" deep today if not 3 feet. I was impressed how well some did last Sunday in that heat. Several teams also blanked as well though.


Other than when depth is less than 3' I've been fishing 3-4' since July. Shhh, don't tell anyone.


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## zaraspook

Ugly Friday evening results. Caught just one crappie, but decent 10 incher. By the way..... 4' down.
The last 2 days I bet I had 2 dozen bites that were crappies, initial bump just like a crappie, float goes on its side, then no follow up run like crappies do. I think they suck it in, and spit it out immediately. I usually downsize bait under those circumstances, but Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad are already a compact little bait. I did go smaller for a while but crappies weren't interested. Those bites might be more of a reaction/reflex bite but the fish really isn't hungry. Sometimes you you get them to bite, can't get them to eat it. Did you notice anything similar today?


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## RMK

yes. and i almost mentioned the light bite. slight tug, float tips over and sits there on its side. happend 3 or 4 times at least. luckily, today, they kept my bait in their mouth long enough for me to load up the tension on the rod! 
man that is great feeling when you lean back and set the hook and your rod tip stays down and the pole just bends. unlike when you lean back and your float and jig go flying over your head empty, or you rip a 3 inch bluegill out of the water... lol


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## zaraspook

Definitely had my share of midget gills............. Ha, ha, ha!


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## Salmonid

Zara. If crappies are like catfish. When there's a east wind high pressure day (post hurricane) the fish hunker down and won't chase. Add a cold front and things go from bad to worse. Lol.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Zara. If crappies are like catfish. When there's a east wind high pressure day (post hurricane) the fish hunker down and won't chase. Add a cold front and things go from bad to worse. Lol.


Thanks for the "excuses", Mark. I wasn't expecting to kick butt, but feel usually be should able to dig out a handful. Not every time though. Will be some outstanding days in next couple months.


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## Salmonid

Just saying when its like that, youll have to sloooow down and nudge them in the nose with it and expect them to just open and close on the bait and not move. that's all I was saying, I'm all outta excuses where I come from, fished Ohio river tourney yesterday out of Cinci, 3 crappy bites, 1 -1 lb flathead to boat with 2 minutes left in tourney, ouch, with tail between my legs...Ill call you this week, stay tuned


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Just saying when its like that, youll have to sloooow down and nudge them in the nose with it and expect them to just open and close on the bait and not move. that's all I was saying, I'm all outta excuses where I come from, fished Ohio river tourney yesterday out of Cinci, 3 crappy bites, 1 -1 lb flathead to boat with 2 minutes left in tourney, ouch, with tail between my legs...Ill call you this week, stay tuned


It happens, man, beyond our control!


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.....Our mutual fishing buddy, Scott, would probably tell you that I go deep (bottom) and s l o w down pretty quickly if crappies aren't cooperating. That might be the only reason I caught the few I stumbled on. Could have been worse!


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## zaraspook

At GLSM yesterday/Tues. Caught 2 crappies in morning, 2 in early afternoon, 3 in evening. 6 of the 7 were keepers. Water temp 60.2 degrees early in the day. Fish I caught were mostly on cover, 8-10' from bank, down 3' in 4' of water. Consistently s l o w despite nearly a full moon.
Last fish of day was biggest at 11" plus change.


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## RMK

glad to see some color on your fish zara. i hope that is a good sign for a better bite to come. less stressed fish.... 

scott and i worked pretty hard to boat 6 keeper fish on sunday. had 3 maybe 4 keeper fish come off on their way out of the water. blamed that on a not supper aggressive bite. couldnt be our hook setting abilities. several smaller fish and quite a few gills came from under pontoons. electric chicken bobby garland baby shad seemed to work best for us.


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## RMK

Not pictured was another small but keeper white crappie that we released. Wish I would ve got a picture. Had fairly defined vertical bars. 

Also notice the darker color on the fish on the bottom compared to the rest. The fish on the bottom came from my pond.


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## zaraspook

2 of my 7 crappies were under toons. I expect to pull at least 4-5 from under a pontoon.....got just 1 each at 2 different toons and no crappies at 3rd pontoon. That's another area where bite is "off" right now.
Electric chicken got 1 of my crappies, a decent channel cat, and couple of gills yesterday. 6 of crappies caught on chartreuse sparkle. All were on Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad plastic. Been thinking about up sizing to Garland baits since shad I see are getting bigger....maybe next time I'll rig one of my rods with Garland Baby Shad and test bigger bait.
I'm confident, as you are, that hook setting ability is never a factor when I lose fish.


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## zaraspook

2 of my 7 crappies were under toons. I expect to pull at least 4-5 from under a pontoon.....got just 1 each at 2 different toons and no crappies at 3rd pontoon. That's another area where bite is "off" right now.
Electric chicken got 1 of my crappies, a decent channel cat, and couple of gills yesterday. 6 of crappies caught on chartreuse sparkle. All were on Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad plastic. Been thinking about up sizing to Garland baits since shad I see are getting bigger....maybe next time I'll rig one of my rods with Garland Baby Shad and test bigger bait.
I'm confident, as you are, that hook setting ability is never a factor when I lose fish.


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## zaraspook

Arrived Weds evening and got in 45 min fishing before dark...... 2 crappies both keepers. Water temp was 65. Thurs fished 3 sessions catching 7 crappies with 6 keepers. Bite was miserably slow early, better as day progressed. 4 of the 7 came on Garland Baby Shad in Key Lime color. The key lime Garland also caught a decent channel cat. 
Water temp dropped to 64.5 Thurs. Not much in the weather forecast to suggest water temps will drop.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM around noon Saturday, fishing by 12:30. Couldn't find a bite anywhere. Eventually tried pontoons catching 5 in 45 minutes. All but one were keeper size including the 12" fish in photo.

Completed some chores and settled into the Buckeye game. Half time provided enough time to catch one more crappie, another keeper and the only one not caught under a toon.

Water temp still 64.5 on Saturday. 3 of crappies caught on Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad in chartreuse sparkle and 3 with Garland Baby Shad in key lime pie pattern.


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## zaraspook

Fished Sunday late morning for an hour. Dead calm conditions......no wind, no rain, no surface action and especially no bites, other than a runt gill. Licked my wounds over lunch (a corned beef sandwich with a heavy dose of brown mustard, full layer of crunchy dill pickles, swiss cheese, on wheat-just can't handle rye). Nothing better to change your attitude than good food.
On to my list of chores......top of the list is clean gutters. Hmmm. Clean gutters - grab rod. Clean gutters - grab rod. I grabbed the fishing rod. Gutters can wait 30 minutes while I throw a few baits under 3 pontoons. 2 keeper crappies later, I moved on to the gutters. Couple hours later I was allowed another fishing break. Added 2 more keepers. 
Caught just 4 crappies Sunday but all keepers........not catching good numbers but no complaint with size. Water temp 64.


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## Lowell H Turner

You're catching them ! Any word on the dredging report for the year ? Thank You Zaraspook !


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> glad to see some color on your fish zara. i hope that is a good sign for a better bite to come. less stressed fish....


My crappies over weekend were mostly "lighter" colored like you've mentioned


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> You're catching them ! Any word on the dredging report for the year ? Thank You Zaraspook !


Mum's the word, LHT. Last year the State tried to dredge up to Thanksgiving, so I assume equipment is still deployed, still sucking muck.


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## RMK

i know of two dredges still out and still working. dont know any numbers as to how much they ve pumped or how long they will continue.


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## firemanmike2127

I'll check with my neighbor, Tom. He is the Dredge Supervisor for the State of Ohio. The last conversation we had about his crews productivity for the year was positive. I'd be surprised if they didn't exceed last year's total. Mike


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## brad crappie

RMK said:


> i know of two dredges still out and still working. dont know any numbers as to how much they ve pumped or how long they will continue.


Where are the dredges the names of the channels thx!


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## RMK

brad crappie said:


> Where are the dredges the names of the channels thx!


prarie creek, and if i remember right the other one i saw was west of club island. there was one on the west bank too but i dont know if its still in.


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## brad crappie

RMK said:


> prarie creek, and if i remember right the other one i saw was west of club island. there was one on the west bank too but i dont know if its still in.


Thx


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## firemanmike2127

Lowell, During the last LIA meeting Saturday Tom gave a report on the local dredging program. So far this year his crews have removed 405,257 cu. yards of material. Last year the the record total was 405,523 yards. The smallest dredge will be shut down sometime this week while the 2 larger ones will stay in operation until the week prior to Thanksgiving. Mike


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## Lowell H Turner

Thank you for the information, rarely get on here any more let alone actually fish, just working too much. Enjoy yourselves !


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## zaraspook

We miss you, LHT!


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## zaraspook

RMK..........I'm tying on a small white twister tail with hot pink jig head. Other than 2 perch I caught in 2012 (before stocking started), and 1 perch I caught late Oct/Nov last year, the remaining perch I've caught were on the pink/white combination. For the rest of the year I'll carry 3 rods.........2 rigs targeting crappies and 3rd tailored for perch. Every spot I try, each of the 3 rigs will get some time in the water. We'll see if I can coax any of the green striped guys to shore.


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## RMK

sounds like a great idea. and even better you have a color that has worked before! after this weekend i plan on putting some time into dragging minnows around on the main lake again as well. got a tip from a different inland lake perching thread that possibly using a piece of crawler might be a better idea than the hole crawler i was using earlier this year. also may try smashing one of the two minnows on a double hook rig.


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## AEFISHING55

http://www.13abc.com/content/news/O...investigation-wants-settlement-450437043.html


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## RMK

AEFISHING55 said:


> http://www.13abc.com/content/news/O...investigation-wants-settlement-450437043.html


unfortunate for whatever body of water that happend in. thankful it wasnt GLSM


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## fishwhacker

That is one way to ensure proper manure application. Wouldnt take too many of those fines to make people pay attention


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> sounds like a great idea. and even better you have a color that has worked before! after this weekend i plan on putting some time into dragging minnows around on the main lake again as well. got a tip from a different inland lake perching thread that possibly using a piece of crawler might be a better idea than the hole crawler i was using earlier this year. also may try smashing one of the two minnows on a double hook rig.


Depending on the crawler size, I use 1/4-1/3 piece. Can't say it works, however. No perch caught.


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## zaraspook

Water temp today/Thurs was 61.8 degrees. Cooler weather on the way should soon take a bite out of 60+ degree warmth. Arrived about Noon and fished off and on 3 hours. First 2 hours there were long waits between bites. Caught just 6 but keeping with the recent trend, all were keepers, including an 11" and 11.75". The pattern was "no pattern" except most spots were absent of fish willing to bite.

Fortunately, 6-7pm the bite turned in my favor. Caught another 6 in that final hour......4 from a spot that gave up 2 earlier in the day. That's a new twist. Usually, it's one fish only, no group activities. Ended with 12 crappies, 11 keepers, 7 of keepers 11" or better. Most all hit my plastics like freight trains. No problems with finicky bites. Key lime pie color of Garland Baby Shad caught 7-8 fish, Panfish Assassin in chartreuse pepper caught remainder. My hot pink jig with white twister tail grub, my self proclaimed perch bait, caught zero crappies, zero perch.

Photos include the 11.75 but I don't recall which photo. It was a good day.....better ones ahead.


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## zaraspook

Did not get to fish as much today, but enough to know bite was tough. 5 crappies with 4 keepers. Best action was at sunset along a linear aerator that was packed with shad. Unknown species of fish were busting the 100' line of shad. Pulled 2 keeper crappies plus 3 channel cats from near the train of shad. Cats were all similar size, about 2#. Water temp 61.2 Fri midday.


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## RMK

Not much useful info to add other than zara had more success the last two days than me and another seasoned glsm crappie veteran that I talked to on the water today. I managed one keeper thursday and one today. The veteran didn't get a bite thursday and managed 4 small keepers today. 
One success for me the last two days was learning alot about two new to me areas that I'm sure will produce fish at some point.
Zara mentioned the shad on the linear aerator. This is something I have noticed at many different locations. Today I came across a different type of aerator. It was more of a pump creating a horizontal current from the back corner of a seawall rather than bubbles coming up from below. This aerator was stacked with shad like no other one I have ever seen. Most fish that I could see close to the surface were 3" to 4" fish. My first thought was of salmonid and how I figured he could catch some shad zilla here. My 2nd thought was of the pile of 15" fat crappies that had to be stacked up and living under this giant baitball. No catches to prove that theory. Only taker was an 8" sucker of some sort.


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## zaraspook

RMK....."8 inch sucker of some sort", maybe a sheephead? They have a snout and mouth similar to a sucker. Silvery in color and in murky water like GLSM you'd think it was a crappie before getting the head out of water.

Saturday was a stinker for crappie fishing. Water temp jumped past 64. If fish are cooperating, I'll skip college football games (except Buckeyes) and chase crappies. I watched a lot of college football yesterday. Buckeyes were awesome! Tale of the tape.....2 short crappies from under pontoons between 1-2pm. 1/2 hour before Buckeyes started caught 1 keeper of 10.5". It was on wood a foot from the seawall.

The Outdoorsman has its Crappie Classic today I think. Couple of crappie boats came down my channel, probably pre-fishing for the "Classic". They were not lighting it up. Witnessed one crappie caught by a guy shooting toons. Same toon that I pulled one of my short fish. If the tourney is today/Sunday weather conditions could be brutal.


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## Saugeyefisher

We saugeye fished buckeye today. We seen a guy hammering crappie off a deeper dock with a lift. Deep as in 4' of water surrounded bye 3' of water. Live minnows under a float. 
Unfortunately the guy with me isnt in to crappie as much as i am. I even hinted a couple times,"hey i got the crappie jigs an floats". But no go..... I WILL BE BACK.....

Surface temp was 67°. 

The aerators at buckeye are also shad magnets. And usually are bigger fish blowing up on the shad. A lot of times its channel cats. We get all excited cause they look just kinda like saugeye busting shad,or wipers. 
Its funny to. All those shad stacked on top of each other,an we have found the best bait to get the catfish to bite is a crappie tube on a 1/32 oz head no float. 
Lift drop,lift drop. Ive had a couple situations like this were i was purposly going on cat fish trips with a light action rod and a crappie tube. Its pretty funny,and really fun to do.


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## Lowell H Turner

Saugeyefisher, can clearly hear you saying that and sounding like the Terminator...


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## zaraspook

Finally,


Saugeyefisher said:


> We saugeye fished buckeye today. We seen a guy hammering crappie off a deeper dock with a lift. Deep as in 4' of water surrounded bye 3' of water. Live minnows under a float.
> Unfortunately the guy with me isnt in to crappie as much as i am. I even hinted a couple times,"hey i got the crappie jigs an floats". But no go..... I WILL BE BACK.....
> 
> Surface temp was 67°.
> 
> The aerators at buckeye are also shad magnets. And usually are bigger fish blowing up on the shad. A lot of times its channel cats. We get all excited cause they look just kinda like saugeye busting shad,or wipers.
> Its funny to. All those shad stacked on top of each other,an we have found the best bait to get the catfish to bite is a crappie tube on a 1/32 oz head no float.
> Lift drop,lift drop. Ive had a couple situations like this were i was purposly going on cat fish trips with a light action rod and a crappie tube. Its pretty funny,and really fun to do.


Finally, someone talking my language, Saugfish! I mean this line from your text "Deep as in 4' of water surrounded by 3' of water". Those guys from deep water lakes don't get it. When we say "go deep", we mean 4' instead of 3'. Ha!

Know exactly what you mean by channel cats busting shad. I'd bet I've caught 15 channel cats in the last 5 weeks. I never fish for them......always crappie fishing. I'm sure 12 of the 15 cats were at aerators loaded with shad. Surface was non-stop wave action as fish were rolling beneath shad on surface. Almost looked like surface was "boiling". Those channels provide fun action and put a good bend on a crappie long rod. I was swimming a Garland Baby Shad thru and near surface action, and of course it was the Key Lime Pie color.


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## RMK

Very tough weather conditions on sunday. Wind, off and on rain, wind, falling temperature, waves, did I mention wind? We started out jigging a "deep water" (lol) spot where we have caught fish before but hadnt tried recently. Cycled through depths basically top to bottom and few different colors and sizes of baits and minnows producing 1 definite bite. That bite proved to be a yellow belly on the next cast. Time to try something different. Pontoons. We ended up finding a few there willing to bite. Shortly into our pontoon shooting adventure we both hooked up at the same time. After 3 hours with one bite, a double proved to be to much excitement to happen all at once. My fish some how broke off during its top water splashimg show. Scott landed his half of the double. All keeper fish and scott with a really good 13" fish. Action was never fast and furious but enough to keep us interested. Not sure color was as big of a factor as hitting the crappie in the nose and hoping that it bit was. Pink and green curly tail grub for me for the most part and scott stuck with green, chartreuse sparkle, keylime in various shapes of bait. Ended up doing better than the previous couple days but hopefully there are better days to come. No perch.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Very tough weather conditions on sunday. Wind, off and on rain, wind, falling temperature, waves, did I mention wind? We started out jigging a "deep water" (lol) spot where we have caught fish before but hadnt tried recently. Cycled through depths basically top to bottom and few different colors and sizes of baits and minnows producing 1 definite bite. That bite proved to be a yellow belly on the next cast. Time to try something different. Pontoons. We ended up finding a few there willing to bite. Shortly into our pontoon shooting adventure we both hooked up at the same time. After 3 hours with one bite, a double proved to be to much excitement to happen all at once. My fish some how broke off during its top water splashimg show. Scott landed his half of the double. All keeper fish and scott with a really good 13" fish. Action was never fast and furious but enough to keep us interested. Not sure color was as big of a factor as hitting the crappie in the nose and hoping that it bit was. Pink and green curly tail grub for me for the most part and scott stuck with green, chartreuse sparkle, keylime in various shapes of bait. Ended up doing better than the previous couple days but hopefully there are better days to come. No perch.


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## zaraspook

Those are some good looking slabs! Nicely done. Looks like I need to work curly tails/twister tails back into my rotation. I've been off them lately even though I'm a fanatic. Got stuck on shad bodies with straight tails and paddle tails.


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## zaraspook

Had my license checked recently by an Auglaize County fish/game officer. Nice guy. Markus was his name if I recall. Actually, he never did ask for my license, but after 15 minutes of conversation I asked if he'd like to see it. Conversation went on another 15 minutes and touched on perch and saugeye. Regarding perch Markus conceded the DNR is a little concerned few perch show up in anglers' buckets. However, they intend to stay the course with stocking program. Of the 6 stocking classes, only the first 2 should be of decent size to harvest.

For convenience and assuming a 10% survival rate for the first 200,00 fingerlings, that's 20,000 mature perch. Considering GLSM covers roughly 13,500 acres, that's about a perch and a half per acre. Duh. Survival rate is actually more like 4%, or 0.6 fish per acre is the impact from stocking. Building the perch population takes time. Anglers will learn to catch them as population climbs yearly.

Regarding saugeye, let's talk Asian Carp first. Many of you know the Army Corp of Engineers has responsibility for the plan to prevent Asian carp invasion/spread. Markus related GLSM is one of 4 Ohio potential points of invasion/spread. In theory GLSM connects to Lake Erie via the East Bank bulkhead, which feeds the St. Marys River, eventually feeding north to the Maumee and Lake Erie. Original plan called for the GLSM bulkhead to be sealed. But the bulkhead also feeds the old Miami-Erie canal system. Towns in the area want water in those canals for historical/heritage reasons and aren't keen on bulkhead closure. Markus indicated the Army Corp has a plan using screens of some sort to prevent fry/fingerlings from penetrating to the St. Mary's River watershed for Lake Erie. Markus said the screening option is a year or so away from implementation (original target was 2017). If/when that happens, not only will Asian Carp not find a path into the Erie watershed, saugeye stocked into GLSM would no longer threaten to migrate into Lake Erie. GLSM could then become a saugeye fishery.......stocking could resume in GLSM. That's cool!


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## RMK

good stuff! i guess that explains a little better the difficulty in catching the perch. great to hear of the continued stocking attempts for them. and that would be awesome to get a saugeye fishery going. 
driving by the fish farm the other day i noticed they are building on/renovating again as well. that was good to see. anything to make the fish growing progess better or more efficient means good things for anglers not only at grandlake but also other lakes that our fish farm supplies.

not to side track the previous post too much.... but i was reading through the LIAs long term goals and plans yesterday and noticed the talk/plans of adding main lake structure (islands) to help with shore line erosion/destruction. It would make sense to me that they could use dredge material inside of sea walls/rock walls to create these islands. In return creating some deeper areas around these islands. In return creating some future deep water honey holes for perch and saugeye fisherman or maybe the person interested in slow trolling for summer time crappie


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM late afternoon today/Weds from 4-6pm. Water temp down to 56.4, exactly 8 degrees since Saturday. Keep in mind the channels cool faster......guessing main lake is 2-4 degrees warmer. Might add my fishing was all from shore.

Caught 9 crappies in the 2 hours I fished. 5 keepers among the 9. 3 fish caught from submerged wood, 1 from PVC plastic stakebeds, and 5 from under pontoons including 3 of the 4 short fish. Pontoons are most productive cover for last 3-4 weeks but rarely have pontoons given me fish bigger than 10.5-11". First crappie was a chunk bellied 11" in wood....none bigger than that one today.

7 of 9 fish caught on Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad in Chartreuse or Chartreuse Pepper. The largest and smallest crappies came on Garland Baby Shad in Key Lime Pie. Photo below is the first 11".


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> good stuff! i guess that explains a little better the difficulty in catching the perch. great to hear of the continued stocking attempts for them. and that would be awesome to get a saugeye fishery going.
> driving by the fish farm the other day i noticed they are building on/renovating again as well. that was good to see. anything to make the fish growing progess better or more efficient means good things for anglers not only at grandlake but also other lakes that our fish farm supplies.
> 
> not to side track the previous post too much.... but i was reading through the LIAs long term goals and plans yesterday and noticed the talk/plans of adding main lake structure (islands) to help with shore line erosion/destruction. It would make sense to me that they could use dredge material inside of sea walls/rock walls to create these islands. In return creating some deeper areas around these islands. In return creating some future deep water honey holes for perch and saugeye fisherman or maybe the person interested in slow trolling for summer time crappie


rmk.......agree with your post but have concern over using dredged material to fill in island behind rip rap walls. Seems to me that dredged sludge is pretty loose stuff. Rip rap border of an island isn't solid and containment questionable. That high phosphorus muck behind porous "walls" probably seeps right back into lake. Probably precautions available to safeguard but I'm skeptical.


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## fishwhacker

Zara, i believe there are certain precautions they can take because west bank boat ramp is made of dredged material. Of course that was done years ago so maybe they didnt care about it seeping back into the lake, but they have some experience creating dry land out of dredge material.


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## brad crappie

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, i believe there are certain precautions they can take because west bank boat ramp is made of dredged material. Of course that was done years ago so maybe they didnt care about it seeping back into the lake, but they have some experience creating dry land out of dredge material.


Letting u guys know this was bout 24 years but when the perch were being caught my buddy that is from piqua we fished riprap around the beach in the northeast corner of the lake and did well!


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Fished GLSM late afternoon today/Weds from 4-6pm. Water temp down to 56.4, exactly 8 degrees since Saturday. Keep in mind the channels cool faster......guessing main lake is 2-4 degrees warmer. Might add my fishing was all from shore.
> 
> Caught 9 crappies in the 2 hours I fished. 5 keepers among the 9. 3 fish caught from submerged wood, 1 from PVC plastic stakebeds, and 5 from under pontoons including 3 of the 4 short fish. Pontoons are most productive cover for last 3-4 weeks but rarely have pontoons given me fish bigger than 10.5-11". First crappie was a chunk bellied 11" in wood....none bigger than that one today.
> 
> 7 of 9 fish caught on Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad in Chartreuse or Chartreuse Pepper. The largest and smallest crappies came on Garland Baby Shad in Key Lime Pie. Photo below is the first 11".
> View attachment 247723


nice! that is a thick fish top to bottom!


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## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> Letting u guys know this was bout 24 years but when the perch were being caught my buddy that is from piqua we fished riprap around the beach in the northeast corner of the lake and did well!


Interesting. The fish/game officer I recently talked to said exact same thing!


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## zaraspook

Crappie bite Thursday at GLSM was anemic. Fishing on and off during day, 2.5-3 hours total, caught a grand total of 5. Little ones ruled the roost - just 2 keepers. Pontoons were the source of 3 but all three were the short fish. The lonely 2 keepers caught from wood and pvc stake beds. Acid rain - june bug Hot Grub was the better bait catching 3 fish, including both keepers. Timid bite when they took any bait. Water temp was 58.8, up 2+degrees.


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## Lowell H Turner

Stay with them, they are there...


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Stay with them, they are there...


Can't prove it by me.


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## zaraspook

Sunday Noon made it io the lake for some crappie fishing. Fishing was good. Apparently the crappies didn't get the message. catching was not so good. Three - all dinks. Pontoons, a savior of sorts the last few weeks, couldn't come to the rescue. They were barren, too. Water temp was 57.6 and I don't think that's the problem.

I'll speculate. Last 10 days or so, quantity is down and percentage of short fish is climbing. Feels like the bigger fish vacated, disappeared, aren't there. Dug out my log from last year/2016 and noted a similar trend for for same part of October while water temps fell from low 60's to mid 50's. Last 8-10 days of Oct 2016 water temps were 52-54 range and catches improved. Personally, last year's fall bite was a disappointment so I have some anxiety making comparisons to a shitty period. I'm speculating that crappies are in the transition to school up. 

If that's the case, picking off a scattered fish here and another one there will be tougher. More spots will become barren, but if you catch one, there should be more close by. When it gets into full swing, fish will seemingly not be relating to cover at all. More likely they are relating to bait fish and are just "out there" in areas you normally don't fish. Find a school and you can catch a lot of fish. No school - no need for water in your bucket.

It won't happen overnight. Forecast for next 10 days calls for 7 nights with low temps in 30's. Water temps in the 40's aren't that far away (last year Nov 11th, 19 days from now). Hopefully those schooled crappies find your channel and do it better and longer than a year ago!


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## zaraspook

Managed 2 hours this morning(Monday) at GLSM before heading home. Pattern remains the same.....few fish and lack of decent ones. Two crappies this AM and both short. One from wood and a final fish from beneath my pontoon. It was so small I thought it was a leaf, instead puny 5" crappie. No surface action, shad were nowhere, few bites other than an occasional gill (caught 3).


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## Salmonid

Zara I suspect the cooler temps have pulled the shad out of your channel into the main lake and the crappies followed them at least the bigger crappies defendant on the yoy shad which are now 3.5-5" now add that I'm sure they are still pulling water to lower the lake and big fish are retreating as an instinct to not get stranded. Once water stops getting pulled around mid Nov I bet you start seeing more big fish come back into your channel. Just guessing. It it sounds good on paper. Lol


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Zara I suspect the cooler temps have pulled the shad out of your channel into the main lake and the crappies followed them at least the bigger crappies defendant on the yoy shad which are now 3.5-5" now add that I'm sure they are still pulling water to lower the lake and big fish are retreating as an instinct to not get stranded. Once water stops getting pulled around mid Nov I bet you start seeing more big fish come back into your channel. Just guessing. It it sounds good on paper. Lol


Concur entirely that shad headed out to warmer waters of main lake. Crappies and other shad predators followed just as you describe. Channel "feels" like the dead sea! You recall the linear aerator (you/Ryan cast netted it once}? Normally it's a 100 foot long dinner table of dense shad packing its length. I noticed Sunday shad density appeared 75% less than 7-10 days earlier.
However, if State is pulling water it's not heavy. Measured depth Monday off my seawall at 34".....little or no change in last month. ** Edit -Took me awhile to find the USGS link. You are absolutely correct the State is pulling water at spillway. It's not a gully-washer going down the Beaver (6.62 cubic ft per second) but will do damage to water level over time. I can't tell when it started....at least 8 days ago.
When water temp differential narrows between main lake and channels, shad will return. Crappies will be hot on their tails to feed and fatten.
Until then a good strategy for shore fishing is near mouths of channels of main lake. Water temp will even out there first/faster. Also, channels that are short ones...quick to balance/even out with main lake. As you say, at least it looks good on paper.


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## Salmonid

Well Zara, it looks like Ill have a whole lot of time on my hands for a few weeks since I was let go from work yesterday, declining sales across the board and my sales were not any better, LOL id like to come up one day next week, so we can give it a shot if your able to schedule a day, will talk later, maybe this post cold front week will help...


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Well Zara, it looks like Ill have a whole lot of time on my hands for a few weeks since I was let go from work yesterday, declining sales across the board and my sales were not any better, LOL id like to come up one day next week, so we can give it a shot if your able to schedule a day, will talk later, maybe this post cold front week will help...


Sorry to hear about work thing but those situations have habit of working out for better. Should be ok for a day of fishing next week. I will check with wife's schedule. Her wrist still an issue and talk now leaning toward more surgery. Plan to be up there tomorrow as my pontoon coming out of water.


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## RMK

Sorry to hear about the job salmonid. Hope you can enjoy some time off and something better comes around quick for ya.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM 4:30 pm Weds and fished until 6pm. Good amount of surface action and signs of shad. Fished 6 spots, and I fished 3 of them a 2nd time. Gills were pecking a lot, crappies not as active. Caught 3 crappies with just one keeper. Also caught a sheephead, an aggressive 12" largemouth, and a few small gills.....kind of a smorgasbord evening. Water temp was an attractive 53 degrees.

A neighbor friend was sitting on one of my preferred spots. He was gill fishing with 10 nice ones in his bucket. He'd fished the spot for 2 hours in the morning.....it was dead. He came back to it 2:30 in the afternoon to get the gills, plus 10 crappies which he threw back, plus this little guy in photo, that was just over 8".


----------



## RMK

nice! similar size as the ones you ve came across in past years zara? or bigger? just trying to get a guess if they are growing and chances of catching keepers in upcoming years is going to get better. or if the way it is now is how its going to be (as far as perch fishing) also thats the second one i ve heard of caught while targeting bluegill. maybe we need to try going smaller for the perch.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> nice! similar size as the ones you ve came across in past years zara? or bigger? just trying to get a guess if they are growing and chances of catching keepers in upcoming years is going to get better. or if the way it is now is how its going to be (as far as perch fishing) also thats the second one i ve heard of caught while targeting bluegill. maybe we need to try going smaller for the perch.


Mine have all been 8-10". The 10's probably were native perch, not stocked fish. Yes, small baits. This guy's jigs are tiny, almost ice jigs and plastics are 1" max. Plus he always tips with wax worms. Most perch guys always tip with some kind of meat or use meat only.


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## RMK

ok. dont know what year of fish your neighbors would be then. but i think it was similar in size to the one fishwacker shared with us earlier this year. nice to see another one...


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## zaraspook

Google says 3 years for perch to reach 7-8 inches, 4 years 9-11". I'm amazed! We could have foot long perch from stocked fingerlings. Surprises me.


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## zaraspook

Don't know where it came from but shockingly had a good fall fishing day. Got my pontoon off the water early morning. Didn't wet a line until 10 am. Got into double digits before noon catching 10 with 4 keepers. First crappie was 11" and last of the morning 10 was another at 11". Worked on cleaning and winterizing boat for a couple hours....back to fishing 3:30-5:30 pm for 8 more, 5 of those keepers including another 11". 18 total with 9 keepers 10" or better. I was happy. Best day of Oct., so far. 
Fishing from shore only 3 crappies were caught within 9 feet of bank. Most were on cover 12-14' out.......they wanted it slow, pretty much vertically jigged, on the bottom or close, didn't matter whether in sun or shade. Crappies were not chasing. Caught fish on Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad in chartreuse pepper and chartreuse silver flecks, a small white twister tail with pink jighead(my perch bait), and Acid Rain/June Bug Hot Grubs. Gills were pecking at my offerings all day......caught 5-6. Water temp? Lowest of the fall at 50.7 cool degrees. That's more like it!


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## zaraspook

From 50.7 to 43.1........that's water temp drop from last Thursday to Weds/yesterday. My fishing results Weds afternoon were very slow, few bites. Crappies weren't responding.......may need a few days to acclimate to plunge in temps. Among the four I caught, 3 were keepers including two at 11"+ as in photos.
















Hot Grubs twister tails caught all 4 crappies though I used other plastics more than half the time. Twister tails fall more slowly in water column, forcing you to slowdown. If you found fish, that's apparently how they wanted it. Jig-heads were 1/32nd oz.


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## RMK

great quality zara! hopeing to make it out saturday late morning for at least one more shot this year. picked up a new pole a couple weeks ago and reel arrived today. it would be nice to get a first fish or two for the new set up.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> great quality zara! hopeing to make it out saturday late morning for at least one more shot this year. picked up a new pole a couple weeks ago and reel arrived today. it would be nice to get a first fish or two for the new set up.


Shocked me that we hit 43 degrees this fast........Nov 19th last year we hit upper 40's. I feel crappies are in shock, too. I'll fish right up to first ice........after that I'll fish anytime we have open water in channels.

Fishing this weekend. 6 of us will crappie fish by day, drink a little beer, and play a little poker by night. We grew up in same neighborhood of Kettering as kids, same schools, same church........now we get together 1-2 times a year for fishing and whatever. Should be fun!


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## RMK

i ll be close... i m smoking some chickens and watching buckeys at my inlaws on saturday. then we will be eating the chickens at a small get together on sunday.


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## johnnywalleye

why is this thread continuing? i check it and i am reading 2011. times have changed. delete the thread and start a new one.


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## harrison08

Or, you can just pass this one on by JohnnyBoy!


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## RMK

i like this one


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## crappiedude

johnnywalleye said:


> delete the thread and start a new one.


SAY WHAT???
This is a great thread. More threads on the internet should follow the style of this one.
Lots of info in here from a lot of very knowledgeable fishermen.


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## zaraspook

Arrived at GLSM mid-afternoon on Thurs. Line in water at 4pm. Should mention water temp at 44.9 degrees today compared to 43.1 two days earlier. Had hoped crappies acclimated to the sudden chill. Early returns weren't definitive.....they wanted it slow and on/near the bottom (keep in mind bottom where I fished was only 3-4'). Within an hour it was clear bite was way ahead of Tuesday, fish were bigger, and they've been eating. Very fat specimens they were. 6 chunk crappies in the first hour and a half though last 30 minutes was void of bites.

With maybe 45 minutes of light left, I returned to my seawall hoping to get a couple more. Good timing......a couple more turned into 9 more from a 20 foot section along my seawall. They were chasing and aggressive! 10 keepers from the 15 total caught. 5 of the keepers were thick 11-11.75 inches and the biggest 12.5". The party stopped at dark....assume they moved elsewhere. 2 caught on cherry/black twister tail with chartreuse tail. Remaining 13 inhaled the Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad in chartreuse pepper. Great fun....love it when you hit a school of fall crappies with the feed bag on.

First photo is 11.5" and 2nd one the 12.5". Definitely a different bite tonight and a heftier class of fish cruising my channel. All fish caught 10-15 feet out from bank.


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## brandonw

Nice work Zara! That big girl has some girth to her. Very healthy looking fish. Love the reports, as always.


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## RMK

Nice zara! Hope that bite holds up for you and your buddies this weekend. Great fish


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## zaraspook

My Boys from the Hood weekend is over.......great time with the wit our group of 6. Beer flowed freely during the Friday 2pm thru Sunday noon junket, though by Sunday the fluids slowed to a trickle. Tough to maintain the pace the pace of years gone by. Great food, camaraderie, poker, tall tales.......notice no mention yet of the fishing?

Catching crappies was a challenge. Multiple fronts coming thru the culprit.......certainly fishermen ignorance or incompetence not to blame? We added a "team" feature this time around. 3 on 3 competition........amazing how a team setup changed the effort. All fished early, often, despite 48 hours of a finicky bite.

From past results everyone wanted on Zara's team. That doesn't work. We paired the historically #2, #3, and #4 anglers on one team. #5 and #6 anglers joined me on the 2nd team. Did I mention anglers #5 and #6 caught a combined total of zero crappies in our latest two events (Spring 2017 and Fall 2016)? After Friday my team trailed by 2 crappies. Saturday was the only full day of fishing, though we all stopped to view the puny Buckeye football performance. Saturday ended with my team making up ground and surging into the lead by 2. All anglers were out early Sunday morning, fishing hard for 4+ hours until the Noon buzzer sounded. 

Only 2 contestants scored Sunday, one on each team. The other team caught 2, while I found 6 crappies. Team Zara earned bragging rights by a 6 point margin!
Final tally was 24 to 18. My team mates contributed 4 of our fish........I caught 20. The bite was disappointing the entire 48 hours, but competition kept it fun! 

The largest 2 fish were heavy 12.5" specimens and 8-10 were 11" class fish. Water temp rose daily.......48.5 degrees by Noon Sunday. My buddies all hit the road and were out of the area a couple hours before the tornado/weather challenges erupted near GLSM.


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## brandonw

Despite the light bite, sounds like a killer weekend! I'm anxiously waiting for my invite to the next one


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## Lewzer

Love reading the posts and results. Keep this thread going Zara....


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## zaraspook

Lewzer said:


> Love reading the posts and results. Keep this thread going Zara....


Kind words, Lewzer. Chime in to the continuing thread when you get the urge.


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## Lewzer

I wouldn't have much to contribute to a GLSM thread. Never even seen the lake. But, I do a lot of crappie fishing in NEO, especially in the fall. I like reading the crappie threads all over the state like the Caesar's Creek crappie posts going on now in the SEO forum. It helps to put the big picture together even though the reservoirs are so different. Caesar's Creek-very deep. The deepest reservoir in Ohio. West Branch and Mosquito where I go is average depth 20-30fow whereas GLSM is very shallow like Buckeye.
I've been following your thread since you started it.


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## Saugeyefisher

Lewzer said:


> I wouldn't have much to contribute to a GLSM thread. Never even seen the lake. But, I do a lot of crappie fishing in NEO, especially in the fall. I like reading the crappie threads all over the state like the Caesar's Creek crappie posts going on now in the SEO forum. It helps to put the big picture together even though the reservoirs are so different. Caesar's Creek-very deep. The deepest reservoir in Ohio. West Branch and Mosquito where I go is average depth 20-30fow whereas GLSM is very shallow like Buckeye.
> I've been following your thread since you started it.


Lol ive never seen the lake either. indian and buckeye and glsm are all the same type of lake. Ive gained a lot of knowledge from this thread.
And i also like to see whats happening around the state. I get excited everytime i see a new post on here. 
And to let all the previous posts go to waste,would be such a waste. 
This post is pretty much a fishing log from a local that really knows his species. Lol stufff like that sales at yard sales and auctions! 
And zaras been kind enough to share it with all of us,and at the same time not even giving away peoples "honey holes".
Imo its one of the top threads going on this site (lol,im a bit biased to the "rainy nite bite jerks limit" thread.thanks to fishslim for that great thread).


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## zaraspook

Lewzer said:


> I wouldn't have much to contribute to a GLSM thread. Never even seen the lake. But, I do a lot of crappie fishing in NEO, especially in the fall. I like reading the crappie threads all over the state like the Caesar's Creek crappie posts going on now in the SEO forum. It helps to put the big picture together even though the reservoirs are so different. Caesar's Creek-very deep. The deepest reservoir in Ohio. West Branch and Mosquito where I go is average depth 20-30fow whereas GLSM is very shallow like Buckeye.
> I've been following your thread since you started it.


Good to know you've been hanging with us since early times. Gratifying to know we neither bore nor piss off everyone. And don't underestimate yourself. I learn a few things from just about every seasoned crappie guy, regardless of shallow/deep water. Again, don't hesitate to chime in but it's not required.


----------



## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Lol ive never seen the lake either. indian and buckeye and glsm are all the same type of lake. Ive gained a lot of knowledge from this thread.
> And i also like to see whats happening around the state. I get excited everytime i see a new post on here.
> And to let all the previous posts go to waste,would be such a waste.
> This post is pretty much a fishing log from a local that really knows his species. Lol stufff like that sales at yard sales and auctions!
> And zaras been kind enough to share it with all of us,and at the same time not even giving away peoples "honey holes".
> Imo its one of the top threads going on this site (lol,im a bit biased to the "rainy nite bite jerks limit" thread.thanks to fishslim for that great thread).


Fishslim's thread Rainy Night Bite Jerk Limit is outstanding and my favorite as well. Easy to get consumed by it.....great info and spell-binding how Slim and others hunt the fall/winter "big girl" saugs.


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## Salmonid

Hey Zara, any updates on the challenge I proposed to you? LOL


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## zaraspook

No. Looked for my braid while at GLSM last Friday. Couldn't locate it. Rest of weekend played "host" to old neighborhood gang and never got back to the search. Need to do that next trip.......


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## zaraspook

Weds 4-5:15 pm caught 7 with 3 keepers. Not enough light to hit but 4 spots. Caught fish at 2 and no bites at others. Bite wasn't crazy but more than adequate compared to the weekend. 

Ran into a neighbor who earlier in the day fished a spot from which I pulled 5 crappies this evening. He's a gill guy. Said the crappies had been smoking hot at that spot. He'd caught 35 crappies there - wished the gill bite had been as good.

Water temp 47 degrees and headed down. Water level +4" from last week. I'll go another round in the morning.....


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## RMK

I hope the gill guy appreciated the crappie entertainment he found! Wowee!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> I hope the gill guy appreciated the crappie entertainment he found! Wowee!


Gill guy doesn't mind catching a few crappies, but make no mistake, he's fishing for gill meat! Loves gills and extremely rare that he keeps crappies. He'd gladly trade 35 crappies for 5 keeper gills. Biggest thrill from the crappies is the opportunity to stick a finger in my eye! The one exception to keeping gills is perch. Couple weeks back I posted a perch photo....he was the fisherman that caught and kept that perch.


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## Acton Angler

Zara it sounds like you've found an excellent trading partner for yourself! Does the gill fisherman usually tip with waxworms? Curious to hear if that's what he was using when he nailed 35 crappies.


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## zaraspook

Yes.....he always tips with wax worms on tiny jig(#10 hook size) with tiny plastic (at most 3/4 inch or less) and 98% of time chartreuse color.
He's amazing at catching gills! And his gill technique will hands down out-catch most crappie guys on those tough crappie days.


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## zaraspook

Water temp today/Thurs 45 degrees. Business stuff and chores delayed fishing until 1:30pm. Fished until dark with an hour break to cut grass. Results were decent... 9 keepers from 14 caught, a pair of fat 11" were the biggest. Bite was a little more aggressive......crappies were chasing but not track meet levels. All caught on wood including a new wood cluster I sank on Sunday. Pulled 5 crappies from the new cluster.....an investment that should pay dividends for years. A good day....water temps to make a substantial move soon.


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## zaraspook

Friday water temp eased 3 degrees to 42. Late morning fishing was nearly a bust, just 2 crappies though both keepers. Learned a lesson, however, that paid dividends later in the day. First bite was a sow of a crappie. Had her on and to the surface quickly but really didn't give her enough time to take bait before hook set. She was lip hooked and no chance to land her. The rest of the day I gave the fish more time with bait before setting hook and didn't lose another. Then again I never had another opportunity for a piggy like the first fish.

Made it back to fishing at 1:30pm and caught a quick one, then dead the rest of the hour. After a short break and just an hour before I needed to depart, changed my mind and decided to try fishing one more time. Found an entirely different bite! 7 crappies in an hour turns a pissy day into a good one. Caught 10 for the day, 6 keepers, two at 11". I'll take it!

The late fish were out 10-15' off the bank and down 3'+ in 4-5' of water. Whereas bite was extremely timid during the rest of the day, those last 7 were feeding fish, "grab it and go".

Side note - the gill guy was out today for an 60-90 minutes around noon. Two gills and no crappies......left early.


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## Saugeyefisher

Good job zara! You make me want to crappie fish,but the saugeyes are biting everywhere you go right now. I plan on checking the longrange forecast and trying to get the kayak out if we get another day simaler to today...


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## zaraspook

Don't blame you at all for saug chasing. You're catching as many saugs as I catch crappies, plus no question that saugs are higher on yummy scale.


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## Sappy

Found a perch today while gill fishing


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## RMK

Awesome! Similar size as the other two I ve seen. Maybe a little bigger. Might be something to that size. And something to say for the next two years!


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## zaraspook

Sappy said:


> Found a perch today while gill fishing


Excellent, Sappy! A perch here.....a perch there. Maybe soon, perch everywhere!


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## zaraspook

Arrived GLSM at 1pm Weds. Fished until almost 5. Caught 12. Six of first 7 were keepers. Last 5 produced just one keeper. Nothing huge.....11" the best of the lot. Most notable aspect today was the water temp. Tepid waters for the first time this fall broke into the 30's......39.5 to be exact. Last year we slipped into 30's Nov 23rd. 
For me the bite was very light. Fish moved off with the bait slowly but were fiesty upon hookset. Heard of some good results put up by others. Rain tomorrow but I'll be out there for at least a little while.


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## Rick L Roop

Ho


zaraspook said:


> Fished a little over two hours Saturday morning and found a better crappie bite than previous weekend. Caught 11 crappies, 6 were legal size and a few bluegills. Three hours more fishing on Sunday produced 19 crappies with 12 over the 9" minimum. For the two outings 18 of 30 fish legal size......that's a great ratio and consistent with the fall class of fish. Most are 9.5-10.5 length. Biggest one this weekend was 11.25.
> 
> It was a subtle bite........fish would take the grub and barely move, very slowly if at all. The majority of fish were taken on a triple tip grub.....color called "motor oil". When the bite slowed down on Sunday I up-sized baits after noticing the guys throwing really small baits weren't catching much. About 10 of the 19 were caught on a Southern Pro "hot grub", which is a a bit larger than the triple tips. The color I used was ugly.....I think called June bug/acid rain.


How's the lake look


zaraspook said:


> Fished from shore Saturday 10/1 in the afternoon and evening in between doing chores and watching as much of the Buckeyes as I could swallow. In the first 90 minutes caught only 3 crappies and 1 bluegill, but 2 of the crappies were 10.5 and 11.25. Those fish were caught on triple tip grubs.
> 
> I figured the bite was slow so next session started to play with fishing depth and cycled thru 3 different baits and 6 different color combinations. Once locating depth and tube color, the bite was very active with both crappies and bluegills willing to play the game. By the end of the day Saturday, catch was 23 crappies, 18 bluegills, and one 10" bass. I don't tip with wax worms but many GLSM fishermen do.
> 
> GLSM has a very impressive class of crappies. 16 of the crappies were legal.....very few short fish. 11.25 was biggest, most 10.25-10.5". Bulk of fish were white crappies although just before dark I found some fast action for black crappies in the 9.5-10" range.
> 
> More than 1/2 the bluegills were keeper size, thick 7-8". When I arrived Saturday around noon my neighbor was just quitting.....in a bucket he had 13 great looking gills to clean. He said he kept 18 earlier in the week and he and a friend quit at 50 gills the prior weekend.
> 
> I fished for an hour and half Sunday morning. Bite was slower but caught 6 crappies, 4 bluegills, and another small bass. 4 of these crappies were 10+ including one 11.75. 70% of my crappies were legal......impressive and says something for the impact of the state's 9" size limit.
> 
> The real key to catching fish was depth. Fish were holding around brush/cover, but right off the bottom. They weren't aggressive and required you pretty much hit them in the nose fishing within a few inches of the bottom. Water temp was 57 degrees (earlier in the week I was at Brookville and water temp there 67 degrees......big difference).
> 
> Below is a pic of an 11.25 inch crappie caught Sunday by my nephew.


How's the lake look


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## zaraspook

A fishing buddy, Doc, and I wet lines Weds about 12:30. He's a deep lake crappie guy, mostly Brookville Lake. Air temp was 38, rain was steady, wind gusty.......perfect day for fishing. The only major obstacle....catching. By 3pm I managed 5 crappies/3 keepers, a couple of gills, and a small bass. Fish were hunkered down into cover, not chasing. Few bites we had were extremely timid. Doc was big time frustrated, cycled thru baits like crazy, and refused to accept my multiple offers of a Tiny Shad Panfish Assassin in chartreuse pepper. Can't blame him. After all, it wasn't exactly like I was killing them.

At 3pm as we were walking to our next spot, Doc announced " All right! I surrender. Let me have one of those damn baits." That next spot is small, at most 15' of seawall with a little strategically placed wood. I refused to fish the spot until he'd thoroughly worked it over first. I was afraid if I didn't get him on a crappie, he might blow a fuse, have a stroke or something. Over the next 20 minutes he landed a gill, an 11" crappie, a 12" bass, and bonus fish in photo below. It measured 9"

Water temp was 39.2 degree and I caught one more keeper at next and last spot of the day. 4 keepers among my 6 crappies for the day. Shitty day but we had a great time.


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## RMK

you have obviously showed those panfish assassins work. i, for some reason, also try for as long as possible not to use them. they are short and stiff i guess is how i would describe them. i like the action of a slab slanger, a panfish stinger, a baby shad, a triple tip, or even a curly tail so much more than those short stiff things that dont have the action i like. even though the crappie obviously prefer what they offer quite often!

great job in the not so enjoyable conditions by the way!


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## Saugeyefisher

I dont have any panfish assasins either. But only because i have not noticed them when shopping for crappie plastics,or atleast in the colors id want. Soon i will have them! 
That short stiff body might be key when there not on the feed? 

Zara,for november,december crappie fishing,what weather patterns make you drool at the mouth an are "have to" fish situations at glsm? 
I dont have enough experience this time of year to have "have to" fish crappie situations. For saugeye its before/during/right after fronts when that winds moving things around. 
In late winter for crappie at buckeye its that 3rd/4th/5th day into a steady warm up,late spring those all day steady sprinkles etc,etc....
What type of weather pattern really gets you excited this time of year?


----------



## harrison08

Dad and I made it up to the lake around 7:00 this morning. We took a trip through Celina to look at some of the damage from the tornado. That must have been one big, scary storm. We started at a north side spot around 7:30 or so. There was some action, but definitely nothing to brag about. If we caught a fish, it was a single. Maybe one time, we had back to back fish from the same spot. Timid bite, with the fish either setting the floater on its side or slowly swimming away. Long story short, 13 keepers and maybe a half dozen shorts for the day. No bites after about 11:00. We made a complete loop around the lake and saw only two other fisherman. It will get better soon!!


----------



## RMK

Saugeyefisher said:


> I dont have any panfish assasins either. But only because i have not noticed them when shopping for crappie plastics,or atleast in the colors id want. Soon i will have them!
> That short stiff body might be key when there not on the feed?
> 
> Zara,for november,december crappie fishing,what weather patterns make you drool at the mouth an are "have to" fish situations at glsm?
> I dont have enough experience this time of year to have "have to" fish crappie situations. For saugeye its before/during/right after fronts when that winds moving things around.
> In late winter for crappie at buckeye its that 3rd/4th/5th day into a steady warm up,late spring those all day steady sprinkles etc,etc....
> What type of weather pattern really gets you excited this time of year?





Saugeyefisher said:


> I dont have any panfish assasins either. But only because i have not noticed them when shopping for crappie plastics,or atleast in the colors id want. Soon i will have them!
> That short stiff body might be key when there not on the feed?
> 
> Zara,for november,december crappie fishing,what weather patterns make you drool at the mouth an are "have to" fish situations at glsm?
> I dont have enough experience this time of year to have "have to" fish crappie situations. For saugeye its before/during/right after fronts when that winds moving things around.
> In late winter for crappie at buckeye its that 3rd/4th/5th day into a steady warm up,late spring those all day steady sprinkles etc,etc....
> What type of weather pattern really gets you excited this time of year?


sorry to side track this again for a sec.... so would you say sunday could very possibly be one of those dont miss saugeye fishing days at indian? during/just after a front, calling for WNW winds 15-25mph temps steady in the low to mid 30s. i was planning on making time to go and try it regaurdless of bite predictions.


----------



## Saugeyefisher

RMK said:


> sorry to side track this again for a sec.... so would you say sunday could very possibly be one of those dont miss saugeye fishing days at indian? during/just after a front, calling for WNW winds 15-25mph temps steady in the low to mid 30s. i was planning on making time to go and try it regaurdless of bite predictions.


Yes i do,the hole weekend! Play that wind! Look for good current. If there not right in the current,look for the current breaks


----------



## zaraspook

RMK said:


> you have obviously showed those panfish assassins work. i, for some reason, also try for as long as possible not to use them. they are short and stiff i guess is how i would describe them. i like the action of a slab slanger, a panfish stinger, a baby shad, a triple tip, or even a curly tail so much more than those short stiff things that dont have the action i like. even though the crappie obviously prefer what they offer quite often!
> 
> great job in the not so enjoyable conditions by the way!


RMK......I felt the way you do and don't remember what possessed me to buy P/A's the first time. I do remember first time I used them. Channel was 50% frozen. Open areas had large ice sheets floating back and forth. Buddy and I were casting out between the ice flows in mid-channel. I was out-catching him 5 to one with the Assassin. Finally, he agreed to try one. We were on same spot for almost 5 hours, 10 feet apart. I caught 105 crappies and my friend caught 63.

Keep in mind your plastic is more than the tail. The baits you mentioned do have action tails that flutter, paddle, twitch,etc.......clearly an assassin is low on that trait. Must be something else the fish see in an Assassin. Forget the tail. What about the body of the Assassin? Any distinguishing traits? All the others look to be streamlined, aerodynamic, rounded or curved for low resistance and to efficiently move thru water. Assassin.......short and fat, built more like a semi-truck than a Corvette. And that bottom of the bait......it's flat, high drag/resistance on that flat bottom surface. In my opinion the flat bottom prevents sinking as fast as the other baits, and glides downward rather than sinking like a dart. The motion of the entire bait, particularly on descent is different than stingers, Bobby Garland shad baits, etc. Flat bottom is key, I think.....I consider it a "glider" bait, slower falling, slower reacting, slower turning because of the flat/broad bottom. P/A's don't have a sexy tail, but action of the entire bait must be appealing. Of course, nothing works all the time.


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## zaraspook

This morning was apparently a good one. My wife's wrist surgery yesterday has me sidelined for a while. Guess the crappies decided not to wait for me, put the feed bag on. One of those Green Bucket guys took a limit from one of the "popular North side" spots. Amazing how the green bucket does it's voodoo! I'm envious!

Photo below
View media item 80484


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> Dad and I made it up to the lake around 7:00 this morning. We took a trip through Celina to look at some of the damage from the tornado. That must have been one big, scary storm. We started at a north side spot around 7:30 or so. There was some action, but definitely nothing to brag about. If we caught a fish, it was a single. Maybe one time, we had back to back fish from the same spot. Timid bite, with the fish either setting the floater on its side or slowly swimming away. Long story short, 13 keepers and maybe a half dozen shorts for the day. No bites after about 11:00. We made a complete loop around the lake and saw only two other fisherman. It will get better soon!!


harrison08.......you and your Dad did fine. Amazing you saw so few others fishing. I heard the bite was much improved Fri morning.


----------



## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> I dont have any panfish assasins either. But only because i have not noticed them when shopping for crappie plastics,or atleast in the colors id want. Soon i will have them!
> That short stiff body might be key when there not on the feed?
> 
> Zara,for november,december crappie fishing,what weather patterns make you drool at the mouth an are "have to" fish situations at glsm?
> I dont have enough experience this time of year to have "have to" fish crappie situations. For saugeye its before/during/right after fronts when that winds moving things around.
> In late winter for crappie at buckeye its that 3rd/4th/5th day into a steady warm up,late spring those all day steady sprinkles etc,etc....
> What type of weather pattern really gets you excited this time of year?


Saugfish...... I don't think crappies ever go nuts like the saugeye symphony in concert with low pressure systems. Let me chew on it. Good luck this weekend!


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> I dont have any panfish assasins either. But only because i have not noticed them when shopping for crappie plastics,or atleast in the colors id want. Soon i will have them!
> That short stiff body might be key when there not on the feed?
> 
> Zara,for november,december crappie fishing,what weather patterns make you drool at the mouth an are "have to" fish situations at glsm?
> I dont have enough experience this time of year to have "have to" fish crappie situations. For saugeye its before/during/right after fronts when that winds moving things around.
> In late winter for crappie at buckeye its that 3rd/4th/5th day into a steady warm up,late spring those all day steady sprinkles etc,etc....
> What type of weather pattern really gets you excited this time of year?


I'm excited every time I get to fish, especially for crappies. Thought it over and this time of year I don't have any special set of conditions to drool over. Regardless of conditions, fishing means you have to figure out the bite. However, my channel is on the south side of the lake. I do prefer a NW or N wind which drives water into my channel, raises water level as much as 4-6". By the time the wind pushes water from Celina in the NW corner of lake to my channel on SE side of lake, it's run 8+ uninterrupted miles. White caps push the water, bait fish, and predators into and down my channel. NW or N wind almost always gets fish and feeding stirred up.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM Tues for a quickie. Started at 1:30pm and knocked off at 5:15p with an hour food and work break in the middle. Water temp 39.5 which I believe is same as last Weds. Water level off my seawall was 47", a shocker that it's up 13" since last week. Haven't seen weekly change of more than 2" since June. Another surprise, water was definitely stained.....about the color of coffee.

Walked my circuit.........5 spots, 1 bite, 1 crappie (10"). Just plain and simple dead. Cycled through a bunch of bait changes with maybe two rare, timid bites. On 2nd thought, 2 bites is probably not right. One bite more like it. After my break I picked up 2 quick ones off my seawall and then repeated my earlier tour for 1 more crappie.

2 hours with just 4 crappies.........I debated packing up and heading home, grabbed my rods to put away, then turned around . 45 minutes more minutes of light so why not finish it out? Sometimes my seawall can work some magic right at dusk. And this was one of those times. Not exactly on fire, but definitely this was a more aggressive bite. Caught 5 more including the one in photo below (a 16th inch under 12", fat and bulging).

9 total with 5 keepers in 10-12" range. Only 2 fish came on Panfish Assassin. The other 7 ate the same Bobby Garland Baby Shad in Monkey Milk pattern. All were caught 8-12' off the bank in/near brush or wood. I fished 3.5 to 4' deep in 4-5' of water. A good ending makes for a good day.


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## Saugeyefisher

Great looking fish zara!


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## Greyduck

Thanks for the report... Going to give it a try tomorrow.


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## crappiedude

Nice report Zara.
Yesterday was the 1st time this year I saw water temps below 50 degrees. With deer archery season and now the holidays I just haven't had much time to fish in Oct/Nov. I went out yesterday morning for a few hours and did pretty good on numbers but only had a few 10"+ in the mix, I fish from 9:00-1:00.
I find this time of year if time permits I'm one of the last guys off the lake as I tend to like that last hour of the day. Seems it can make a so-so day into a winner.


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## crappie4me

zaraspook said:


> Made it to GLSM Tues for a quickie. Started at 1:30pm and knocked off at 5:15p with an hour food and work break in the middle. Water temp 39.5 which I believe is same as last Weds. Water level off my seawall was 47", a shocker that it's up 13" since last week. Haven't seen weekly change of more than 2" since June. Another surprise, water was definitely stained.....about the color of coffee.
> 
> Walked my circuit.........5 spots, 1 bite, 1 crappie (10"). Just plain and simple dead. Cycled through a bunch of bait changes with maybe two rare, timid bites. On 2nd thought, 2 bites is probably not right. One bite more like it. After my break I picked up 2 quick ones off my seawall and then repeated my earlier tour for 1 more crappie.
> 
> 2 hours with just 4 crappies.........I debated packing up and heading home, grabbed my rods to put away, then turned around . 45 minutes more minutes of light so why not finish it out? Sometimes my seawall can work some magic right at dusk. And this was one of those times. Not exactly on fire, but definitely this was a more aggressive bite. Caught 5 more including the one in photo below (a 16th inch under 12", fat and bulging).
> 
> 9 total with 5 keepers in 10-12" range. Only 2 fish came on Panfish Assassin. The other 7 ate the same Bobby Garland Baby Shad in Monkey Milk pattern. All were caught 8-12' off the bank in/near brush or wood. I fished 3.5 to 4' deep in 4-5' of water. A good ending makes for a good day.
> View attachment 249697


 i would be very happy to catch a few them size in the spring..much less almost december!..chunky slab there.


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## fishwhacker

Wow suprised on the water rising in your channel noticed the spillway pipes were open on my way home from work today.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Wow suprised on the water rising in your channel noticed the spillway pipes were open on my way home from work today.


USGS website shows they've been pulling water hard since 18th. Army Corp probably would not like to see heavy ice cover at these water levels. Remember the ice damage to docks, etc a few winters back? They might let the pipes flow for a while.


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## zaraspook

crappie4me said:


> i would be very happy to catch a few them size in the spring..much less almost december!..chunky slab there.


Definitely they have feed bag on if you can locate fish. The few who fish this late can get some of heaviest fish of year.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Nice report Zara.
> Yesterday was the 1st time this year I saw water temps below 50 degrees. With deer archery season and now the holidays I just haven't had much time to fish in Oct/Nov. I went out yesterday morning for a few hours and did pretty good on numbers but only had a few 10"+ in the mix, I fish from 9:00-1:00.
> I find this time of year if time permits I'm one of the last guys off the lake as I tend to like that last hour of the day. Seems it can make a so-so day into a winner.


Couldn't agree more. Nice to read your reports and glad to see you back out there. Crazy that shallow lakes are sinking into mid to upper 30's and you guys still 10+ higher.


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## harrison08

Came up this morning with my brother and a buddy of mine. We started fishing a north side channel with modest results until the fish stopped at about 9:30-10:00. Chartreuse was the key color in the morning. After a cruise around the lake, we returned to the same channe as the morning. Action picked up and the bites cane more quickly. Bubble gum was the color of the afternoon. The quality of the fish was outstanding. Many 11”+ including a few over 12”. 35 brought home with several smaller 9-10” thrown back.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Couldn't agree more. Nice to read your reports and glad to see you back out there. Crazy that shallow lakes are sinking into mid to upper 30's and you guys still 10+ higher.


The difference in these lake types is always amazing to me too. I think it was just 2 weeks ago we still had water temps in the 60's. Even though the creeks have cooled to the upper 40's the main lake is still low 50's. One added benefit we enjoy in the deep water lakes is the delaying of ice up. In a normal year we won't see ice until sometime in mid/late Jan and warmer years like last year, we fished open water all winter.
The hardest part of fishing this time of year is time. Hunting, kids, grand kids, holidays, more hunting, birthdays, momma projects, friends ect... all come into play. I have no idea how I fit it all in before I retired.


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> Came up this morning with my brother and a buddy of mine. We started fishing a north side channel with modest results until the fish stopped at about 9:30-10:00. Chartreuse was the key color in the morning. After a cruise around the lake, we returned to the same channe as the morning. Action picked up and the bites cane more quickly. Bubble gum was the color of the afternoon. The quality of the fish was outstanding. Many 11”+ including a few over 12”. 35 brought home with several smaller 9-10” thrown back.


Now that's what I'm talking about. Great day of fall crappie fishing.!
My long tradition of fishing Friday after Thanksgiving was halted. We still had a house full of family and friends. Hope the crappies wait a few more days.


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## RMK

Friday late morning midday. Headed to the lake about noon and saw quite a few people at a Northside shore spot. Wasn't sure if there was a bite to be had or it was crowded just because it was nice out. Must ve been a bite. Good job Harrison! 
Headed across to my favorite area. I knew it would probably still be muddy but have caught a couple there when it was muddy before. I ve heard going darker with your bait helps in muddy water. ?? It was quite a bit dirtier than I expected. No takers after several size/style bait changes. Water temp 39 to 42. I probably should ve fished some cleaner water. 
I will definitely make a few casts today from shore at my inlaws. Wife won't let me take the boat to thanksgiving. Haha.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Friday late morning midday. Headed to the lake about noon and saw quite a few people at a Northside shore spot. Wasn't sure if there was a bite to be had or it was crowded just because it was nice out. Must ve been a bite. Good job Harrison!
> Headed across to my favorite area. I knew it would probably still be muddy but have caught a couple there when it was muddy before. I ve heard going darker with your bait helps in muddy water. ?? It was quite a bit dirtier than I expected. No takers after several size/style bait changes. Water temp 39 to 42. I probably should ve fished some cleaner water.
> I will definitely make a few casts today from shore at my inlaws. Wife won't let me take the boat to thanksgiving. Haha.


RMK....in the stained to milky mud conditions past Tues I went with the darker bait strategy....didn't work. Other rod had Assassin in chartreuse pepper, always good for a few, but wasn't effective. Eventually decided they needed more help finding my bait in poor visibility as with bigger bait. Switched to Hot Grub twister tail for a few bites, but Bobby Garland Baby Shad was the trick in the end. Rather than dark pattern, it was opaque, almost white with feint blue flecks. Pattern actually called Monkey Milk. 
At GLSM I recommend first finding a size they will hit. Once you know they can find the bait, you can fine tune for color/style of bait. Hope you get some!


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## RMK

I wondered about what your thinking was when you mentioned that color the other day. A little different than the norm. Now that you mentioned the almost white colored bait.... a black and white is what I caught them on in the spring in the mud. I thought it was because of the black.... maybe it was the white that was the trigger.


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## harrison08

Thanks, it was a great day to be out! I talked with several other fisherman and everyone seemed in really good spirits. There was a great vibe to the day and a lot of sharing the secret colors, haha.


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## RMK

Well I didn't get skunked today. Yep, I caught a shad. Oh well... at least the buckeyes won.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> I wondered about what your thinking was when you mentioned that color the other day. A little different than the norm. Now that you mentioned the almost white colored bait.... a black and white is what I caught them on in the spring in the mud. I thought it was because of the black.... maybe it was the white that was the trigger.


Very well could have been white trigger. And, those P/A's I'm enamored with? Chartreuse top /sides but WHITE bottoms.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Well I didn't get skunked today. Yep, I caught a shad. Oh well... at least the buckeyes won.


Looks like a great hook set!


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## zaraspook

Quick trip to GLSM Sunday. Noon arrival and departed at 4pm with an hour of running errands in the middle of my 4 hour stay. Water temp was 38 degrees, stained but modestly improved from last Tuesday. State's been pulling water since 18th........loss of 3" over the last 5 days. I'm hoping they don't go nuts but expect they'll bleed off another 6-9".

First hour of fishing produced 4 crappies, one on Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad (electric chicken) and 3 on the Monkey Milk Garland bait. Both baits had been fished equal time. Bite was feeble, nothing hooked solidly in roof of mouth, all fish lip-hooked, and I lost 3 better fish that bit the Garland bait. When they don't really eat the plastic, it usually means I'm not giving them what they want. With the puny bite, I decided to run my errands and ponder possible changes to my fishing tactics.

For hour 2, I decided the Garland Monkey Milk had the most fish on so I stay with it but give more time before hookset. The electric chicken Tiny Shad wasn't getting hits but it's a great bait for hookups. I'd just change colors......Chartreuse Pepper. The 2nd hour produced 12 crappies, Tiny shad taking 7 of the 12. Did the tactical changes work? I'd say "yes".......honestly though, the bite was more aggressive that 2nd hour. Any plastic might have worked. 

3rd hour I stayed with the same baits, catching 8 crappies. Bite was fading fast, however, with only 1-2 the final 25-30 minutes. For the 3 hours fishing I caught 24 crappies, 12 keepers, mostly 10-10.5 inch fish, no more than than 1 at 11". Looking at the 10-day weather forecast, water temps may remain in the 38-40 range. Good time to be fishing.


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## zaraspook

Sorry I didn't add that my fishing Sunday was from the bank, usually 4' down in 4-5 FOW. No fish caught closer than 8' from bank, most out 10-14' near submerged cover.


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## zaraspook

After playing the part of "Uber driver" all Tues morning for my wife (she's on the mend from 2nd operation on her wrist broken in mid-June), she surprised me with a reward for being a good boy. She said "Go fishing! I don't want to see you again until Weds night." Not necessary to tell me twice.....made it to GLSM in time to fish for 2 hours at 3pm. First the good news.....only took 20 minutes to catch the first 7 crappies. Also good news, caught 5 fast crappies in the last 20 minutes at dusk. During the 80 minutes in between, worked my butt off to find only 2 crappies. Ended with 9 keepers from the 14 caught.

Water temp is up 2 degrees to 40 from Sunday. Drawdown is now down 5" since starting on the 18th. Water clarity improves daily....moderate stain. All 14 crappies caught 10-15' off bank and near cover. None of keepers made it to 11" mark keeping with recent trend of somewhaty smaller fish. One of 14 fish fell for Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad. Remainder caught with Bobby Garland Monkey Milk pattern worked 4' under bobber in 4-5 FOW. As in most games, a quick start and strong finish is usually enough for a good game. Weather was a bonus!


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## zaraspook

40.8 water temp Weds. State is still pulling water aggressively. Depth off my seawall is 40", down 7" from peak about 11/21. I'd prefer they plug the drain now but likely it goes 5" more.......35" off my seawall before the recent monsoon event in mid-November.

All right, I've avoided the Weds fishing report long enough. Started fishing at 9:30 am yesterday. Wind was barely existent with bluebird skies so I was pleasantly surprised to catch 5 in the first 30 minutes. Then the bite hit a wall. Could not squeeze another bite from that spot. Moved on. Next spot 1 bite, 1 midget crappie despite meticulously pounding that spot. 2 more spots reinforced the verdict.......crappies were in hiding! It was 11:30am and time to do anything but fish. I tested the bite 3 more times during the afternoon for 15-20 minutes each. Not a whiff of a crappie and headed home by 4pm.
Later in the evening I heard similar results as mine, but that spillway action was good.


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## zaraspook

Saturday fishing at GLSM was decent, caught 14 with 9 keepers. Keepers included one at 12" and three others between 11-11.75". Photo of the 12" is below. Monkey Milk Garland baits still most prolific for me. Didn't really try P/A Tiny Shad this visit but used a shad body stinger in Orange or Red Jelly Bean pattern off and on. It caught 2 fish......crappies weren't all over it.

My channel still a modest stain to the water......a little better. Water temp nudged down about 2 degrees at 39. I'm more and more bothered by this draw down. I measured water depth at 34" off my seawall, that's another 6" drop. Remeasured twice because 6 inches in 3 days isn't possible. More likely my measurement Weds was misread. Lake is now down 13" and according to USGS website State continues pulling water at wide open throttle. C'mon guys - stop it! Fish flee the channel at this depth. 13" may not sound like much to deep lake guys, but it's 25% of GLSM's average lake depth and the fish do notice. 

My 12" crappie decided to tuck it's tail toward me. Oh well.....
View media item 80515


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## RMK

sorry you ve been stuck reporting solo zara, but i do appreciate the reports and pictures. i havent been able to get out. i m also not happy to hear about the lake draining going on. i drove over the beaver 4 times the last two days in the dark coming and going to work. it was high and flowing! probably some crappie catching going on there with the flow.


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## zaraspook

I drove by as well, Saturday. Ditto on your the high and fast flow comment. I noticed about 12 vehicles parked and decided not to add my truck to the count (didn't have my fishing gear with me anyway). Some reports I've heard from there were very impressive.


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## Saugeyefisher

Man they need to wuit pulling all the water from your channel!!! 
Im pretty sure buckeye is back to being close to its goal of 3+ feet BELOW winter pool again this year. and they started a month early but the last two rain events have held them up. Fingers crossed for a few more turd soakers before the "big freeze",lol.


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## Greyduck

I was there friday evening and Saturday morning. It was good fishing. But i wonder how much damage it is doing to the lake. It is sucking big breeding size crappie out of the lake by the thousands. Fish we dont see in the channels but we see their offspring there. I cleaned quite a few fish with eggs.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> I was there friday evening and Saturday morning. It was good fishing. But i wonder how much damage it is doing to the lake. It is sucking big breeding size crappie out of the lake by the thousands. Fish we dont see in the channels but we see their offspring there. I cleaned quite a few fish with eggs.


Greyduck......another crappie guy I know expressed similar view about masses of big crappies being sucked from lake. He went as far to suggest an effort should be made to block the fish loss. Doubtful it will ever happen and spillway has been a tremendous fishery for so many. Of course, crappies are just one species going thru the pipes.....walleye, saugeye, perch, etc. All fish we can't seem to catch from main lake are regularly found in the buckets of spillway guys.

After fishing Friday and making a Saturday return trip, you clearly were into some good fishing. Congrats! The egg thing must be fairly common right now.......same topic is being discussed in a number of the OGF threads. Interesting to read.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Man they need to wuit pulling all the water from your channel!!!
> Im pretty sure buckeye is back to being close to its goal of 3+ feet BELOW winter pool again this year. and they started a month early but the last two rain events have held them up. Fingers crossed for a few more turd soakers before the "big freeze",lol.


"Big Freeze" may not be that far off. Weather forecast calls for low temps below freezing, teens and 20's, each of next 10 nights. Your saugeye nights should have plenty of iced eyelets on your rods.


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## zaraspook

Weds fished 2-4:30 pm. Wind was howling.......love that. Fished 5 spots. First spot produced 1 crappie at 10.5". Didn't know at that time it would be as big as any others for the day. Next 3 spots were empty. 5th spot I visited more than once. Pulled 21 from it with 7 keepers. Pretty sure all fish came on Monkey Milk pattern of Garland Swim Shad. That bait has been on my rod for about 3 weeks. It's tattered and torn, but hook still works.

Water temp today 37.5, close to coldest so far this fall. Water depth off my seawall 36" today, 2" deeper than Saturday. How does water level rise when State is still pulling enough water to irrigate Texas and without any rainfall to speak of? I'll tell how. Wind. Saturday when depth measured 34" wind was blowing South to North, pushing water out my southside channel to north side of lake. Today 20-30 mph wind from west is driving water from west to east, raising water level in my south east channel. It's physics.  Fun to catch that many crappies in December even if most were throwbacks. Actually all were thrown back.


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## RMK

Great job zara! Very interesting information with the wind and water depths. I ve heard about that on the big lake blowing water in and out but didn't realize our lake could do it to. Maybe we ll get a good enough west wind to blow the water back in from the beaver... along with the crappie, walleye, saugeye etc. that have joined the water down there. Haha! Probably not.
One other thing from your post. Almost every time scott and I are out together we talk about finding that spot that we can catch a number of crappie (heck 10 plus not even 21!). We ve found areas or, a given channel, when we ve caught those numbers a couple times but it's always been 1 to maybe 3 fish from each piece of structure. Maybe December will be our month to find a pile in one spot like you did today!


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## zaraspook

RMK.......you will have many of those days (10, 20, 30 fish) over next 12 months. Problem is.......days are numbered for 2017. Channels will have a lid (ice) very soon. 90% of my fish were out 15-20' from bank. Obviously I was sitting on a school. Same spot my gill fishing friend hit for 3 solid hours before I arrived. He caught 50 plus gills, kept the biggest 18-20 and said he'd picked up 4 crappies there. He correctly predicted I'd have a good time with crappies there. 

Hard to find single fish now - they are running with classmates. Therefore, if you don't find a school this time of year, tough to catch more than a handful. If you fish and assuming it's from the bank, do some casting out in the middle looking for the school. If you suspect you find a school, cast right and left of it, in closer and out beyond the school to define size and location. I've found ones that were 30 yards wide, other like Weds school was at most 10' diameter. Outside that limited area was nothing but gill bites. If you know any spots of submerged cover that's 10' out, a good target is about 5-8' beyond that cover.

Another way to get 20 quick ones is the spillway. A friend pulled 25+ keepers Tuesday. He returned Thur morning and scrambled to get just a few. If bite is on you'll easily get into double digits. The water flow there will keep ice away longer than channels. Other than the 2-3 hours I had Weds, low chance I'll make it up again before channels are mostly ice. Go get 20 while you can!

By the way, DNR now is 20 consecutive days of pulling water. Fish will/are running for safe haven.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> before channels are mostly ice


What a horrible thought unless you're an ice fisherman. I hope we've got at least another month of open water before we have to face that. Last weeks the creeks were down to around 40 degrees but the lake was still holding at 52. Hopefully we don't get much snow today and all our ramps remain open. It's supposed to go up in 40's on Monday.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> What a horrible thought unless you're an ice fisherman. .


Great description for it, *Horrible*! Even if you're an ice guy, until the ice is safe we're caught in never-never land.......can't fish. On 2nd thought, DNR still pulling water. There won't be enough water in my channel to hold fish even if the ice disappears. For the sake of the ice guys, I'm hoping it freezes hard and fast as possible. Better to have someone get some fishing than none of us. High time for some of those perchy critters to make their presence known.


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## RMK




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## RMK

Guess it might be hard to see in the small picture. But I was surprised to come around the corner and see ice as far as I could see from the east bank. Inlaws channel was pretty much the same!


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## zaraspook

RMK..... Yuck, but good to know. Thanks.


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## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> RMK..... Yuck, but good to know. Thanks.


The water issue might be because the dam is strcually not sound any more most of our dams are not in this country! The government is not going to tell us 99 % of the time!


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## Saugeyefisher

brad crappie said:


> The water issue might be because the dam is strcually not sound any more most of our dams are not in this country! The government is not going to tell us 99 % of the time!


look how long they neglected the dam on buckeye. Waited so long it became an emergency


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## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> The water issue might be because the dam is strcually not sound any more most of our dams are not in this country! The government is not going to tell us 99 % of the time!


Hey bc.......There are reasons to think GLSM may not have have the structural issues that many others suffer from. Spillway at GLSM was rebuilt in 1996-97 time frame. No guarantee that flaws don't exist, but it's a "baby" in it's expected life cycle, and I expect a lot of age related issues were corrected. 
_The present spillway was constructed between 1996- 1997 as a replacement for the 1914 spillway, and is 500 feet long and 19.5 feet from the crest to the toe of the_
_spillway._


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## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> Hey bc.......There are reasons to think GLSM may not have have the structural issues that many others suffer from. Spillway at GLSM was rebuilt in 1996-97 time frame. No guarantee that flaws don't exist, but it's a "baby" in it's expected life cycle, and I expect a lot of age related issues were corrected.
> _The present spillway was constructed between 1996- 1997 as a replacement for the 1914 spillway, and is 500 feet long and 19.5 feet from the crest to the toe of the_
> _spillway._


Thx for giving me that infor! So with That u would think it's structurally sound! Here in the northeast Berlin reservoir their is a lawsuit from land owners with the core about them lowering it way to low! It hurts the fisherie big time!


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## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> Thx for giving me that infor! So with That u would think it's structurally sound! Here in the northeast Berlin reservoir their is a lawsuit from land owners with the core about them lowering it way to low! It hurts the fisherie big time!


bc........State does a fall draw down at GLSM as a flood control maneuver. State lost a suit by landowners downstream from spillway to the tune of $50+ million for not controlling spring floodwaters. Courts ruled land was damaged and not usable. That's one reason for the draw down. 

2nd reason was one year in the 3-4 winters lake was very high. Draw down began in late Jan or February. Lake had a 20" or more ice thickness at the time. As water was lowered couple feet or so, the ice lowered too, pulling down docks with it. Landowners filed damage claims against the State. State denied claims, at least no one I know got paid. However, State owned docks around the lake suffered damages and those were fixed.......$285,000. After that they decided to do draw downs in fall, never winters.


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## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> bc........State does a fall draw down at GLSM as a flood control maneuver. State lost a suit by landowners downstream from spillway to the tune of $50+ million for not controlling spring floodwaters. Courts ruled land was damaged and not usable. That's one reason for the draw down.
> 
> 2nd reason was one year in the 3-4 winters lake was very high. Draw down began in late Jan or February. Lake had a 20" or more ice thickness at the time. As water was lowered couple feet or so, the ice lowered too, pulling down docks with it. Landowners filed damage claims against the State. State denied claims, at least no one I know got paid. However, State owned docks around the lake suffered damages and those were fixed.......$285,000. After that they decided to do draw downs in fall, never winters.


Thx again for infor I know bout draw downs but their has to be happy median and it's seems fishermen get screwed most of the time! The farmers land that got flooded and so on they still don't pay the price for polluting are water ways! And people that live on lakes and flood planes no the consequences of living near water! Also open septics tanks and home owners who fertilize their yards that go in our water ways need to be fixed!


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## brad crappie

brad crappie said:


> Thx again for infor I know bout draw downs but their has to be happy median and it's seems fishermen get screwed most of the time! The farmers land that got flooded and so on they still don't pay the price for polluting are water ways! And people that live on lakes and flood planes no the consequences of living near water! Also open septics tanks and home owners who fertilize their yards that go in our water ways need to be fixed!


Also the farmers won again with the Great Lakes thing they say we got to do this but it's emplementing over a course of a few years that's bull it should start now!!


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## zaraspook

Wow! State found the "OFF" button to spillway tubes. Closed the pipes Monday afternoon. Spillway fishing will be iced over soon if not already so. Guys who fished spillway in the last week said crappies were stacked in there but not necessarily biting.

I was at lake Tues afternoon for a couple of hours. Temperature inside my lake place was a bit cool.......41 degrees. All channels near me locked up with ice. I broke up some ice in various locations off seawalls. About a foot out ice was 1.5 - 1.75 inches thick. Since the draw down was over with, I decided to check water depth off my seawall. Water depth was either 45" or 47" before draw down. Water depth is now 30". Even if ice melted tomorrow, I'm doubtful the crappies are hanging around in 30" of water.

A fishing friend said western end of lake was 95% open Tuesday after 90% iced over on Monday. Driving by the east end it looked 95% ice Tues. Northeast channels all hardwater. With spillway/Beaver icing over now, open water guys are shut down. Hardwater guys, it's your turn. You may have fishable/safe ice by the weekend if not before. Be safe!


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## zaraspook

Only fishing report I heard this week was a daring soul who fished a popular North side haunt on Thursday. Ice was in the 2.5" range (makes me shudder) and produced a few gills.
Another report from fishing at Lake Loramie Friday. I didn't ask about ice thickness but the catch was more interesting........6 keeper gills, 3 crappies, and a legal saugeye. Whatever the ice thickness was, weather forecast suggests ice will shrink next 6 days. Might even be a chance for open water at GLSM by Friday next week. If channels are open I will probably be there.


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## Lowell H Turner

Please be SAFE on the ice ! Take your safety gear WITH you, not left in your vehicle where it cannot possibly help you if you suddenly need it. Cats claws, a rope and a whistle are the minimum with a change of warm clothes just in case. Having accidentally gone thru the ice once can GUARENTEE you it will change your mind so you never let it happen again ( if you survive it ). Be SAFE !


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## zaraspook

A week ago today (Thurs) I was at GLSM. Channels were iced over. I broke ice 1-2 inches thick along bank, thinking it might be the catalyst to melt a large enough area to fish. That was a pipe dream and didn't happen as I never did dunk a jig. By the way water level at my seawall was down to 28". Before draw down started in November water off my seawall was 47". 19" drop from 47 inches is a huge reduction by the State. Even if I succeeded in opening up water from ice, very unlikely fish would have been there.

On the other hand, fish were definitely abundant elsewhere. The west bank spillway was giving up "big girl saugeyes" like crazy. Unfortunately, I didn't get to sample the action personally. I'm not too keen on banks lined by anglers every 15', plus wife had physical therapy late Thursday and needed me as her Uber driver.

One of my friends (photo below) caught a 9# saugeye Weds. Really sweet. A fishing partner of his caught a brute 11.1# toad. Biggest fish of the day was a 12#+ "eye". We're never really certain if the eyes are walleyes or saugeye since GLSM had massive walleye stockings for nearly a decade. Walleye stocking ended about 10 years ago. Saugeye stocking was 2 short years, about 2010-2011. The DNR will accept eye carcasses to genetically identify the fish........usually the ID suggests they are saugeyes.

To appease local fishing guys, I avoided posting about the hot spillway eye action. Some believe no one else knows about their good fortune and no one sees the multitude of vehicles and fishermen along the spillway bank. Lots of eyes and other big fish taken there in the last few weeks. Ice guys should be happy......nice stretch in the forecast for building and maintaining ice. Good luck, fellas!
View media item 80541


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## Greyduck

Nice eye JM!


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## ohiostrutter

The spillway action is HIGHLY publicized on a couple different facebook pages. It arguably reaches exponentially more anglers than this thread does. With social media and folks that surprisingly aren't shy about sharing, the days of secrets are over haha


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## Salmonid

My buddy got 2 on Sunday there including one that was 10 lbs 4 oz and a 5.5 lber. It's froze over today and not thick enough to get on it 
I reAd where half a dozen different folks were trying it today and falling through on the first step. Lol. Yes I'm on at least 4 different FB forums regarding GLSM


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## fishwhacker

Salmonid said:


> My buddy got 2 on Sunday there including one that was 10 lbs 4 oz and a 5.5 lber. It's froze over today and not thick enough to get on it
> I reAd where half a dozen different folks were trying it today and falling through on the first step. Lol. Yes I'm on at least 4 different FB forums regarding GLSM


I saw someone standing on the ice today around 5pm.


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## Saugeyefisher

Lol everyone desperate to get in on that big eye action! Crazy the size of dish coming from there. 8lb+ saugeye are pretty rare anymore,an its putting out multiple 10+lb fish,thats just INSANE. Lol wish i lived closer. Id be that nut fishing it at 2am to beat the crowds!


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher......keep in mind those 10-12# saugs come from just 2 years of DNR stocking saug fingerlings at GLSM. No saugs stocked in last 5 years, maybe longer than that. If/when East Bank bulkhead gets a fix that prevents fish from passing into Erie watershed, look out! Saug stocking at GLSM could resume. GLSM is already proven as fertile for growing toad saugeyes. Could get interesting a few years down the road.


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## zaraspook

Mt apology. In my recent GLSM saugeye post, I mentioned the fish was a 9# saug, but labeled the fish photo as 7#. Photo label is wrong.......it was 9#, not 7#. Now corrected.


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## zaraspook

I'm hearing 4-5 inch ice on GLSM channels. Anyone confirm?


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## fishwhacker

Ill be out tomorrow and will report back....gonna start at loramie though. I would image conditions should be similar


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## fishwhacker

Slow day...loramie had 3 to 5 inches of ice. Had 4 perch, 1 nice gill, 1 small crappie and 2 sunfish in about 4 hours. Glsm had 6 to 8 inches of ice and had 1 nice gill in an hr. Sore today from punching holes.


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## Lowell H Turner

Happy New Years to you and yours, sir ! Hopefully the tooth fairies will come a-calling on you soon !


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Happy New Years to you and yours, sir ! Hopefully the tooth fairies will come a-calling on you soon !


And may 2018 treat you kindly with health, prosperity, and a full bucket, LHT! I was sure this would be the year our GLSM ice guys would find the perch in abundance. Not heard a peep! Silence can be a good thing, however.


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## tracker_80

I am far from an expert, but a slow day on the North side for gills. Only tried one spot, the other guy I spoke with had the same story. Better luck to you guys and be safe.


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## zaraspook

tracker_80 said:


> I am far from an expert, but a slow day on the North side for gills. Only tried one spot, the other guy I spoke with had the same story. Better luck to you guys and be safe.


tracker_80..........how was your north side ice?


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## tracker_80

Ice was pretty thick everywhere I drilled, never got a chance to actually measure. I was the only one out, so I was still pretty conservative of how far I ventured out.


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## zaraspook

Was at GLSM yesterday/Thurs for a short time (not to fish). Toured a few of the west bank and north side areas. Saw a single ice fishing at Anderson's and one near Boat Club.


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## oldroller

Years ago we perch fished GLSM I don't remember any of the spots.Where do all those nice crappy go in the winter?


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## zaraspook

oldroller said:


> Years ago we perch fished GLSM I don't remember any of the spots.Where do all those nice crappy go in the winter?


Good question..........those who know, don't tell. Those who tell, don't know.


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## fishwhacker

I have trouble finding more than a handful of gills through the ice let alone the mythical perch haha....


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## tracker_80

Fished the South side tonight, a lot of small gills. I know better than to try and find the elusive crappie and perch


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## Salmonid

I saw a post on FB this afternoon with someone who had 4 keeper perch caught through ice at Anderson this morning. FYI.


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## firemanmike2127

Any idea if they were in the channel ? Perhaps farther out in the.lake ? Just wondering about the bottom composition ...which is undoubtedly mostly silt in the channel. Mike


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## RMK

I stopped by the outdoorsman late this morning to get a few wax worms and ice jigs and other things that i don't need any more of!....lol but I also tried to get some information on a hot bite through the ice anywhere on the lake (specifically perch!). Only answer I got was there have been quite a few people in but nobody back with a report and it sounds like they are doing well at indian. So i headed home to practice on the pond before I make a trip out on the GLSM ice. I was surprised about a couple of things back at home on the ice.
1-the ice wasn't near as thick as I thought it would be. Probably 4-5". Good clear and smooth ice though. 4 or more inches of snow on top must be keeping it insulated a little.
2-there was a good bite to be had!
I only had about 15 minutes to fish after I checked the ice and took for ever to get a hole drilled (something not quite right with my auger that I need to look into) but pretty much as soon as the jig took up the 4 feet of slack to the cork it was getting bit! My first drop down the hole of the season I brought up a double. A small gill and it's big brother on the jig above it. I will be back out. And i will make it to the lake after 1 or 2 more practice sessions at home.


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## fishwhacker

Salmonid said:


> I saw a post on FB this afternoon with someone who had 4 keeper perch caught through ice at Anderson this morning. FYI.


Thats awesome...hope that is the start of something


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> I saw a post on FB this afternoon with someone who had 4 keeper perch caught through ice at Anderson this morning. FYI.


Good info, Mark! Though the reports of perch don't seem to be much more frequent, there is a noteworthy change. Catches prior to the 2nd half of 2017 were always singles, a lone wolf. Now we're seeing/hearing reports of multiples, 3-4 at a time. Still far from catching a bucket full, but progress for sure!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> I stopped by the outdoorsman late this morning to get a few wax worms and ice jigs and other things that i don't need any more of!....lol but I also tried to get some information on a hot bite through the ice anywhere on the lake (specifically perch!). Only answer I got was there have been quite a few people in but nobody back with a report and it sounds like they are doing well at indian. So i headed home to practice on the pond before I make a trip out on the GLSM ice. I was surprised about a couple of things back at home on the ice.
> 1-the ice wasn't near as thick as I thought it would be. Probably 4-5". Good clear and smooth ice though. 4 or more inches of snow on top must be keeping it insulated a little.
> 2-there was a good bite to be had!
> I only had about 15 minutes to fish after I checked the ice and took for ever to get a hole drilled (something not quite right with my auger that I need to look into) but pretty much as soon as the jig took up the 4 feet of slack to the cork it was getting bit! My first drop down the hole of the season I brought up a double. A small gill and it's big brother on the jig above it. I will be back out. And i will make it to the lake after 1 or 2 more practice sessions at home.


Looks to me like you are ready for prime time. Really nice results for a short practice run. Don't wait too long. Forecast mentions 50 degrees on Thurs.


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## fishwhacker

Drilled about 2 dozen holes at Andersons and fished about 2hrs not a bite....nice out though balmy 20 degrees


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Drilled about 2 dozen holes at Andersons and fished about 2hrs not a bite....nice out though balmy 20 degrees


fw...........perch clearly must have been below the 25th hole!  Or 26th, 27th, 28th? Applaud your effort.......


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## fishwhacker

The worst part about ice fishing is the amount of effort it takes to try a different spot compared to just casting to it in open water. Still a nice day to be out enjoying the quite of winter


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## Salmonid

Ok I'm seeing a bunch of reports from andersons where folks have a dozen to maybe 30 gills on the ice with 1-2 perch in the mix. So the 4 keepers was supposedly also from Anderson s area as well That's a deeper mud bottomed area there and apparently holding a few perch. I haven't made it up yet. Maybe next weekend. I'm trying to get to Erie this weekend.


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## RMK

There was a new perch in the aquarium at the outdoorsman this morning. Big one! Nobody new where it came from.....


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## Saugeyefisher

Out here at buckeye lake i have a really tuff time finding any crappie under the ice. Fishing the same exact areas i would be from my kayak if there was no ice. And i know the crappie stay in this area because if that ice melts tomarrow id catch them tomarrow,its happened so many times in winters pasts... i think a lot of my problem is having no electronics im constantly on bottom looking for bites from bluegill an only everyonce in a while work the middle or just under the ice. Lol but its only 2/3 feet of water to so not much to work. And we may be spooking the fish away....
My only other thought is to try at night.


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## fishwhacker

I may just be missing the window also....2 kids under the age of 4 means i get out when i can and not when i would like.....there was 2 guys that stopped when i was out and both left about as quickly as they showed up. Also did see a couple beaver traps set up...havent seen one setup on the ice before. Kinda cool to see.


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## RMK

Haven't been able to make it to the lake yet. More practice at home went well though.


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## bobberbucket

Saugeyefisher said:


> Out here at buckeye lake i have a really tuff time finding any crappie under the ice. Fishing the same exact areas i would be from my kayak if there was no ice. And i know the crappie stay in this area because if that ice melts tomarrow id catch them tomarrow,its happened so many times in winters pasts... i think a lot of my problem is having no electronics im constantly on bottom looking for bites from bluegill an only everyonce in a while work the middle or just under the ice. Lol but its only 2/3 feet of water to so not much to work. And we may be spooking the fish away....
> My only other thought is to try at night.


Are there weeds in this 2/3 feet of water? If so are those weeds still green and alive? If there are weeds and they are dead the fish are likely not there. If were a betting man I’d say those fish are suspended on the first drop off near that area. Try 6-12 ft of water fish the whole water column don’t be afraid to fish way up high. I’ve caught plenty of crappie fishing 12” deep the fish were right under the ice. If your using electronics it should be easier to locate suspended fish.


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## Saugeyefisher

bobberbucket said:


> Are there weeds in this 2/3 feet of water? If so are those weeds still green and alive? If there are weeds and they are dead the fish are likely not there. If were a betting man I’d say those fish are suspended on the first drop off near that area. Try 6-12 ft of water fish the whole water column don’t be afraid to fish way up high. I’ve caught plenty of crappie fishing 12” deep the fish were right under the ice. If your using electronics it should be easier to locate suspended fish.


Its a large cove on a very shallow lake. No weeds,an there might be a 6/7" drop off sonewhere,but we where in the deepest part we have found back there.
Maybe they do pull out as the ice forms,but it would be a haul to deeper water. The water outside of the cove is even shallower of a reslly good distance.

If i get another shot im gonna try it at night an see what happens. 

We have seen 2 7" crappie in 3 trips,plenty of gills though.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher.......interesting that Buckeye crappies are a mystery to find under ice, and GLSM, another shallow lake, crappies are notoriously rarely caught under ice. If someone solves the puzzle at either lake, likely that same solution works at the other lake. At least the gills seem to cooperate at both.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Saugeyefisher.......interesting that Buckeye crappies are a mystery to find under ice, and GLSM, another shallow lake, crappies are notoriously rarely caught under ice. If someone solves the puzzle at either lake, likely that same solution works at the other lake. At least the gills seem to cooperate at both.


Dont get me wrong there are guys getting them,more so on the mainlake bye guys targetting saugeye. Then thetes the few guys everyyear getting them to go in backwater areas. 
But for me,they are indeed a mystery fish,lol.....


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher.........since I don't ice fish I probably shouldn't comment. No first hand experience for making judgment. However, I don't think GLSM main lake gets much ice fishing pressure. Rarely see ice guys on main lake other than southwest area when saug-fever reaches a peak. Only ice guys I see are in channels. In the summer everyone says the masses of crappies go out to main lake. I figure winter crappies go same place as summer crappies....main lake. If crappies are camping in main lake and fishing guys are in channels, not high probabilities of success for anglers.

I'm guessing ice out there is less predictable, inconsistent. It's not like we routinely see 10-16" ice like we did about 4 years ago. Plus a lot more work to haul ice/winter gear 300-400 yards out on main lake instead of 50-100 feet in a channel. Mystery fish is accurate label!


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## Saugeyefisher

I think we shoukd all hit rmk's pond for are crappie fix


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## zaraspook

Saugfish.........if memory serves me that pond produced a 14" or 15" white crappie earlier last year. Right rmk?

Don't tell anyone but rmk is offering a 4-hour fishing junket on that pond. It's open for bidding on eBay. Current bid is $1,284,303.00 which is $1 over the last of my 72 bids. I dropped out.


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## RMK

lol you two are both welcome to come fish anytime. ice, summer, spring, or fall. i d probably learn a few things.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> lol you two are both welcome to come fish anytime. ice, summer, spring, or fall. i d probably learn a few things.


Didn't you pull a 14" or 15" from the pond earlier last year? I recall from the photo you posted of the fish, I suggested it was a white crappie. Appreciate the invite. We're playing with you because we like you and your work ethic at improving your "game".


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## RMK

yes i did catch a big white crappie in there pretty early spring and another one in the fall. quite possibley the same fish. but i wouldnt be too surprised if there are a few in there in the 14"-16" range.


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## Saugeye Tom

Where can I get in on the bidding


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## fishwhacker

Slow day today only got 1 fish....good news it was a perch


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## RMK

Great job fishwhacker! That's awesome. How was the ice? I drove around and checked a couple spots today. Didnt get out and chop or drill but it looked like the edges had melted and opened up but were refreezing nicely. Snow tomorrow wont help but i m hoping to make it out friday.


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## fishwhacker

Rmk, i actually found some open water to fish, but my brother in law was on the ice on Saturday....he said 1st 8 ft were junk and he had to go off a dock to get onto good ice.


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## zaraspook

If you get only one, perch is a good way to go. Something special about catching them while you know population is building. Cool that you found open water. Under bobber?


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## RMK

fishwhacker said:


> Rmk, i actually found some open water to fish, but my brother in law was on the ice on Saturday....he said 1st 8 ft were junk and he had to go off a dock to get onto good ice.


Ok. Thanks. That's how I got on my pond on friday. I still didn't feel real comfortable and didn't venture to far from the dock.


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> If you get only one, perch is a good way to go. Something special about catching them while you know population is building. Cool that you found open water. Under bobber?


I agree...it was under a bobber


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## zaraspook

Late summer and early fall last year while crappie fishing, 3-4 times I targeted perch fishing tight line on the bottom with a 2nd rig. Used meat (an inch or so of night crawler). Channel cats liked it......not a whiff of a perch. Of the 9 perch I've caught, all were under bobber while chasing crappie. One of these days.......


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## fishwhacker

I really wish there was a place that sold minnows in Celina all year round or wax worms that werent dead for the matter....might try minnows through the ice if half my fishing time wouldnt be taken away to go drive to get bait


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## zaraspook

Wacker.....you'd think a lake the size of GLSM would have more options for minnows. Might be a business opportunity there for an industrious person...... Wouldn't have to be a traditional brick and mortar setup. Maybe an Uber service? Cellphone on demand delivery? Premium priced for a premium convenience? Don't know if fishermen who are notoriously tightwads would buy into it but it's a contemporary idea.

If you haven't already tried, consider the Gulp Alive products from Berkley. In a pinch Gulp minnows are a good substitute, convenient, and some minnow guys completely converted away from real minnows. I've dabbled with them, particularly at Brookville Lake, using 3" and 4" for smallies and walleyes. They work if you don't mind catching channel cats, too.
I've occasionally used the 1" Gulp minnows to tip with at GLSM, usually with my grandson/nephews. They work! Will catch crappie and gills plus my first GLSM perch took Gulp 1" minnow. It's a lot easier to carry a little bag of Gulp minnows than a bucket of the real thing.


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## RMK

Or maybe somebody with an existing business ( or even a boat dealer) close to the west bank and the spillway could get a bait tank setup.... Hint hint!  Probably not millions to made in minnows but sure think there could be some money to be made.


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## firemanmike2127

Sandy at The Boathouse had minnows most of last year. I'm not sure if there was enough demand for her to consider carrying them for the 2018 fishing season. I'll check with her & post accordingly. Mike


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## fishwhacker

Fireman mike thats a great point, never tried buying bait there since new owners took over. Do they carry live wax worms not dead frozen ones? 

Zara,
Ill have to pick up some gulp minnows to try but i think the action of live minnows on a dead stick was more of what i had in mind. Great suggestion though. I like the thought of the uber bait delivery guy, if the brought bait, beer and food right on the ice i might never leave lol.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Fireman mike thats a great point, never tried buying bait there since new owners took over. Do they carry live wax worms not dead frozen ones?
> 
> Zara,
> Ill have to pick up some gulp minnows to try but i think the action of live minnows on a dead stick was more of what i had in mind. Great suggestion though. I like the thought of the uber bait delivery guy, if the brought bait, beer and food right on the ice i might never leave lol.


Hilarious!


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## zaraspook

At GLSM Monday 11am-2pm. No fishing planned but thought I could break some shoreline ice.....hoping to help thawing along later in the week? Forget it! Found just one 2-3' area, an open water pocket, where I could break ice at all. My neighbor's sump pump discharges basement water there. Ice I broke was easily 3-4" around the hole......clear and hard ice. Occasionally you'd see patches of opaque/frosty, degrading ice near the bank, but I couldn't break it. A few small areas had water on top of ice, not that much. Good clear ice elsewhere, estimated at least 4-6" thickness 10 ft out from bank. 3-4" of ice right off seawalls.

Also, lots of 3" shad frozen into to top 2" of the ice in my channel. Observed a few vehicles at spillway which appeared at least partially ice free.


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## Greyduck

Thanks for the ice update Zara. I am dtill hopeful we will have open water soon though. Its been a month sense I have caught fish. Starting to develop a twitch..lol


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## firemanmike2127

I was down at the spillway for about an hour late yesterday afternoon. I was casting for the walleye/saugeye bite but no takers. I did happen to bump two nice healthy appx. 10 1/2" crappies during my cast & retrieve session. They were both lightly snagged in the side & I released them. There was another fisherman opposite me that was catching a bunch of dinky bluegill. The only guys I spoke with were targeting crappies said that it was a pretty slow day for them. The south tube was cracked open a little bit but the flow wasn't enough to generate any significant current. Mike


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> Thanks for the ice update Zara. I am dtill hopeful we will have open water soon though. Its been a month sense I have caught fish. Starting to develop a twitch..lol


Greyduck......good to hear from you. I'm suffering the same disease.......early December I think when I last fished.


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## firemanmike2127

I was down at the spillway for about an hour late yesterday afternoon. I was casting for the walleye/saugeye bite but no takers. I did happen to bump two nice healthy appx. 10 1/2" crappies during my cast & retrieve session. They were both lightly snagged in the side & I released them. There was another fisherman opposite me that was catching a bunch of dinky bluegill. The only guys I spoke with were targeting crappies said that it was a pretty slow day for them. The south tube was cracked open a little bit but the flow wasn't enough to generate any significant current. Mike


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## zaraspook

fmmike........good report and info! Anglers rarely are accused of honesty. Wasn't necessary that you acknowledged "snagging" the pair of crappies. I'm impressed, Mike.


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## zaraspook

Earlier this week I heard another "perch" report. Not that it was a bucketful, just a single, but good that still getting reports here and there. This one was a south side location and thru the ice. Probably not long until you find them on your hook.......


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## firemanmike2127

Fishwacker, the waxworms @ the Boathouse were pretty fresh last season. Once or twice I stopped in late in the year & all Sandy happened to haveleft was some bait that wasn't real frisky. She very graciously just gave them to me & let me know when her next delivery of fresh bait was scheduled. Obviously, when you stop at bait vendor that isn't very busy the quality can suffer. Zara, thanks for the compliment. I'm trying to catch my first walleye or saugeye of the year before the end of the month. No luck last night either. I did manage to 'snag' three more fish late yesterday afternoon, despite some pretty cold hands. All I could manage was a 5" crappie, a 13" drum, and a really fat 14" quillback. I'll review how to post pics so I can hopefully share a quality fish I've caught soon. BTW, there hasn't been any appreciable change in the water conditions down there the last couple of days. Mike


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## Redhunter1012

firemanmike2127 said:


> Fishwacker, the waxworms @ the Boathouse were pretty fresh last season. Once or twice I stopped in late in the year & all Sandy happened to haveleft was some bait that wasn't real frisky. She very graciously just gave them to me & let me know when her next delivery of fresh bait was scheduled. Obviously, when you stop at bait vendor that isn't very busy the quality can suffer. Zara, thanks for the compliment. I'm trying to catch my first walleye or saugeye of the year before the end of the month. No luck last night either. I did manage to 'snag' three more fish late yesterday afternoon, despite some pretty cold hands. All I could manage was a 5" crappie, a 13" drum, and a really fat 14" quillback. I'll review how to post pics so I can hopefully share a quality fish I've caught soon. BTW, there hasn't been any appreciable change in the water conditions down there the last couple of days. Mike


I was hoping to get down there Saturday morning right at daybreak. Gotta be some eyes in some of the spillways around here. I will give a report, good or bad


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## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> I was hoping to get down there Saturday morning right at daybreak. Gotta be some eyes in some of the spillways around here. I will give a report, good or bad


Good luck if you make it. If you get into a GLSM "eye", it will be memorable. Short ones here are 6-7 pounders.


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## Redhunter1012

Ive gotten into my fair share over the last few years. And yea, they never cease to amaze me with their thickness


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## Lowell H Turner

This is where horizontal cover i.e., "C" tree placement becomes important. Yellow perch lay their eggs in gelatinous strings, if they are laid in sediment the hatch rate is rather dismal. However, draped over almost anything horizontal but that allows water circulation the successful hatch rate skyrockets rather dramatically. Yellow perch are difficult to 'manage' but providing successful hatch conditions is key. And as the still rather high perch population in CJ has coincidentally shown putting them in mass seems to work well... a well learned Game Warden, Harold Brown (RIP) showed myself a report concluding that as yellow perch populations rise or diminish so goes the walleye/ saugeye population in those same lakes. Talk to ODNR ( Debra Walters, District 5 and please give her my warmest regards) but DO NOT say a single word about yellow perch ! Tell her you'd like to pull a "CJ Brown"...


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## Redhunter1012

Ended up foul hooking 1 eye today. Caught a couple legal 10" crappie and snagged probably a dozen others ranging from 4"-10". Snagged a lot of carp too


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## zaraspook

Good looking eye, red hunter. If you didn't weigh it, what's your guess? You had enough action today to make it interesting. Thanks for the report!


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## Greyduck

Spent the morning at the lake. Fishing not catching! Ice was still on but retreating fast. Was a good morning to get out in January though!


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> Spent the morning at the lake. Fishing not catching! Ice was still on but retreating fast. Was a good morning to get out in January though!


I'm envious! Planned to come to GLSM Sunday. Instead one of my daughters drafted me into another moving exercise (truck owners know truck ownership comes with lifetime opportunity to participate in moving anyone you know and all other people they know). GLSM has to wait. No fishing makes me grumpy. 1, 2, 3.....I'm counting to 10.


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## Redhunter1012

zaraspook said:


> Good looking eye, red hunter. If you didn't weigh it, what's your guess? You had enough action today to make it interesting. Thanks for the report!


Probably 8lbs. Around 25" give or take a half inch. I catch 100's of eyes a year so those should be pretty close, or i lie a lot


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## Saugeyefisher

Thats a great looking eye!!! I REALLY HOPE these pictures are making there way in front of some dnr or ohio fishery guys eyes.. 
Simply amazing what is being pulled from that spillway! 
It would be hard, one because river fish dont typically have the "beer guts" lake saugeye/walleye do. And 2 the dna results would have to come back "saugeye" . Butttt i could see the record being busted in the near future if these fish keep showing up,potentially.


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## Redhunter1012

This fish was a walleye. I catch 100's a year in the Maumee, Erie, and a couple upgrounds. I catch 100's of saugeyes a year from Indian, and several upgrounds. Unless spillway fish are different, which is possible.


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## Saugeyefisher

Redhunter1012 said:


> This fish was a walleye. I catch 100's a year in the Maumee, Erie, and a couple upgrounds. I catch 100's of saugeyes a year from Indian, and several upgrounds. Unless spillway fish are different, which is possible.


Oh,i beleive you. But imagine some of these fish are saugeye to.... ive caught plenty of both in my life to. But even if it looks 100% saugeye they still do a test to determine before it can be considered a record.


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## ohiostrutter

Contemplating hitting the lake Thursday. It's a toss up between there and paint creek. I will report if I make it. The spillway saugeye/walleye bite is tempting


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## fishwhacker

Looks like the opportunity may be closed spillway looked 60%frozen when i drove past at 4pm id assume it will be fully frozen by tomorrow


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## RMK

ohiostrutter said:


> Contemplating hitting the lake Thursday. It's a toss up between there and paint creek. I will report if I make it. The spillway saugeye/walleye bite is tempting


if its a little bit of a drive for you i might be hesitant to head up due to the possibility of it being iced over.


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## zaraspook

Very interesting discussion regarding walleye/saugeye in spillway, fellas. For perspective, walleye were stocked 1999 - 2008 (56.4 million fingerlings or fry). My first year at GLSM was 2008. Walleye catch reports were rare. Majority of catches were at spillway, or from ice guys, or an occasional report from catfish guys using cut bait/shad. At that point the DNR acknowledged attempts to transition GLSM into a walleye fishery had failed. 
While GLSM was getting walleye, other Ohio lakes were stocked with saugeye. No saugeye for GLSM because the remote probability that sterile GLSM saugeye could migrate up the St. Marys river, north into the Maumee, into Lake Erie and mess up the walleye gene pool of Erie. We were begging for saugeye stocking at GLSM but the DNR was firm - no saugeye. Risk to Erie's walleye fishery was out of bounds. I respect that position.

Now the story gets weird. In 2009, surprise, surprise! May 29, 2009 the DNR stocks 23,000 saugeye fingerlings into GLSM. Another 100,000-110,000 fingerlings were released in 2010, the next year. All were triploid sterile fingerlings. 2010 was the year algae at GLSM "blew up" with the Mother of All Algae Blooms. A hard stop was was applied to saugeye stocking - none since 2010. Two years was it! Three + years later GLSM reports like at the following link begin and continue now. http://www.theoutdoorwire.com/story/1359620435phwkfyfgc73 . The DNR requested fishermen turn in carcasses from harvested eyes to determine if the fish were walleye or saugeye. Though I've never seen/read an official scientific report, a friend who supplied multiple carcasses stated all his fish were identified as saugeye as were others he knew of.

It's difficult to fathom that 125,000 fingerling saugeye, a few now 8 yrs old, but most 9 yrs old produce all the catches we see now. The 56 million walleye stocked, if still alive would be 10-20 years old. Although GLSM was deemed a failure as a fishery for walleye, wouldn't you think at least a small number would have successfully spawned? Therefore, we could have some walleye still swimming the shallows of St. Mary's.

Imagine if those 56 million walleye stocked in GLSM over a decade, had instead been saugeye?  In a year or two, saugeye may again be in the GLSM stocking future.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Thats a great looking eye!!! I REALLY HOPE these pictures are making there way in front of some dnr or ohio fishery guys eyes..
> Simply amazing what is being pulled from that spillway!
> It would be hard, one because river fish dont typically have the "beer guts" lake saugeye/walleye do. And 2 the dna results would have to come back "saugeye" . Butttt i could see the record being busted in the near future if these fish keep showing up,potentially.


What is current saugeye State record?


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## ohiostrutter

zaraspook said:


> What is current saugeye State record?


14.04 pounds


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> What is current saugeye State record?


And if you dont lnow the story about it. It was caught at antrim lake. A lake never stocked with saugeyes but the olentangy river runs next to it,an i beleive there is even a over flow pipe or something connecting the two... the olentangy had never been stocked either. But deleware dam,wich dumps into olentangy was stocked in previous years(not long before this record,maybe even during,i forget when they stopped stocking it).
An the fish was caught on the balled up trout power bait fishing for stocked trout.
There are pics floating around of it somewhere.its a TOAD!
The one before that came from alum creek lake an i think was just over or just under 13lbs.....


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## fishwhacker

Zara, my only question is what the total stocking numbers for yellow perch so far without consistent successful outings? Where do all these "stocked" fish go to? I appreciate the efforts of stocking fish but dont see many results, even the normal "success" in the spillway there was never a normal pattern for these walleye/saugeye on the main lake. Maybe enhanced efforts of providing fish structure or spawning areas for native populations would be better. Dont know just bewildered that these stocking efforts dont really have results on the main lake


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## zaraspook

Saugfish......cool story about the state record fish.
Ohiostrutter....... 14.04 is a toad for state record. On about 12/26 I posted a report from GLSM spillway. Earlier that week on 12/20 a friend caught a 9# saugeye at spillway, his fishing partner caught one of 11.1#, but fish of day was 12.4# caught by another guy. My post included photo of the 9# fish. I have photo of the 11.1# but didn't post it since I didn't know the guy. If the DNR gives us another 125,000 saug fingerlings, GLSM may break that 14# record! Note - all those fish caught on 20th were "claimed" to be saugeyes.....could well have been walleyes.


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## Saugeyefisher

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, my only question is what the total stocking numbers for yellow perch so far without consistent successful outings? Where do all these "stocked" fish go to? I appreciate the efforts of stocking fish but dont see many results, even the normal "success" in the spillway there was never a normal pattern for these walleye/saugeye on the main lake. Maybe enhanced efforts of providing fish structure or spawning areas for native populations would be better. Dont know just bewildered that these stocking efforts dont really have results on the main lake


The lack of success with the saugeyes,is they stopped the stockings,imo. You need a few straight years of stockings to establish a ok population. The reason your seeing them in the spillway is because its a small concentrated area,that concentrates fish during/after high water from below and above,again my opinion,glsm is a big lake with lots of water for them to hide. 
If they put as many saugeye in glsm as they have indian or buckeye it would be just as good,imo.


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## Saugeyefisher

I wassnt around for the inland walleye days of central ohio,but but im pretty sure the saugeye have been way more successful then the walleye,over all,in central ohio. An beleive if given the chance,the same would hold true for glsm,really no reason it wouldnt. They draw most all the lakes down in central ohio for winter and/or during high water events,some get flushed,some dont. Some lakes hold them better then most,but indian an buckeye hold them really well during normal rainfall years


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## fishwhacker

Saugeyefisher said:


> I wassnt around for the inland walleye days of central ohio,but but im pretty sure the saugeye have been way more successful then the walleye,over all,in central ohio. An beleive if given the chance,the same would hold true for glsm,really no reason it wouldnt. They draw most all the lakes down in central ohio for winter and/or during high water events,some get flushed,some dont. Some lakes hold them better then most,but indian an buckeye hold them really well during normal rainfall years


Saugeyefisher i would be tickled pink if they could get an active population at GLSM. Do saugeyes spawn at indian or alum, i dont see achieving that at Glsm due to it being a silt bottom i would think the eggs would get silt on them much like erie has happen during turbid spring weather.


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## Saugeyefisher

fishwhacker said:


> Saugeyefisher i would be tickled pink if they could get an active population at GLSM. Do saugeyes spawn at indian or alum, i dont see achieving that at Glsm due to it being a silt bottom i would think the eggs would get silt on them much like erie has happen during turbid spring weather.


No there not,but stocked in large numbers every year as a "put and take" fishery. Some studies say a small percentage could,but highly doutfull. 
But they do go through all the motions.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, my only question is what the total stocking numbers for yellow perch so far without consistent successful outings? Where do all these "stocked" fish go to? I appreciate the efforts of stocking fish but dont see many results, even the normal "success" in the spillway there was never a normal pattern for these walleye/saugeye on the main lake. Maybe enhanced efforts of providing fish structure or spawning areas for native populations would be better. Dont know just bewildered that these stocking efforts dont really have results on the main lake


Whacker.......tough questions and observations from you, young man. I can answer the first question. Beyond that, the best I can do is to offer a few opinions. As far as the total number of yellow perch stocked so far........I never saw numbers for last year, 2017. From 2012 thru 2016, DNR stocked 1.6 million fingerlings. In addition, GLSM received roughly 29 million yellow perch fry. My wild ass guess for what was stocked in 2017......conservatively, probably another 400,000-500,000 fingerlings and 10 million fry. 

Keep in mind the stocking numbers are skewed. In the 1st 3 years the total was just 100,000 fingerlings a year and zero fry. In 2015 fingerling numbers jumped to 700,000 plus almost 17 million fry. 2016 was 600,000 fingerlings and 12 mil fry. Reason for jump? Our wonderful St. Marys hatchery improved the process dramatically. 

Be an optimist......when perch stocking started, they said would take 4-5 years to see results. It's been 6 years. The first 3 years were only 100k fingerlings per year. That's 300k fingerlings of the total 2.1 million total fingerlings, just 14% of the total stocked are likely old enough, mature enough to catch, maybe eat. 86% aren't in play yet. The next 3 years we'll see between 4 - 7 times as many mature fish coming into play each year. My numbers don't include any boost that might result from maturing fry (whatever survives from estimated 40 million stocked fry). When it takes off, it could be an exponential improvement.


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## Salmonid

I agree with Zara. Majority of fish caught are the originals at 7-9". These are spawning fish now and in reality it will take there babies babies to getting the cycle going so I'm guessing another 5-6 years before we reach a solid catchable number. The key here is if they are spawning or not. That won't be known until the state stops stocking and does some netting to capture Yoy fish. Just gotta be patience guys. Mother Nature takes time. Another question to be asked is how the world class fishery crashed and why haven't the remaining perch rebounded since then. I'm pretty sure the state would love to jump start them so they establish on their own but not have it be a put and take fishery.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, my only question is what the total stocking numbers for yellow perch so far without consistent successful outings? Where do all these "stocked" fish go to? I appreciate the efforts of stocking fish but dont see many results, even the normal "success" in the spillway there was never a normal pattern for these walleye/saugeye on the main lake. Maybe enhanced efforts of providing fish structure or spawning areas for native populations would be better. Dont know just bewildered that these stocking efforts dont really have results on the main lake


whacker......."Where do all these stocked fish go?" Most don't survive to become adult fish. The smaller the fish is when stocked, the lower the survival rate (and it depends on how you define what a survivor is). I've heard numbers like 1% survival rate for fry of most species, therefore, 99 of 100 fry don't make it. 10 million perch fry = 100,000 survivors (I'm guessing survivor commonly means adult/breeder size). For fingerlings I've heard numbers like "4% survivors" and as high as 20% in some species. For the sake of argument, assuming 4% of the 2012-2014 perch classes survived, 0.04 X 300,000 = 12,000 surviving perch. GLSM is something like 13,500 acres of water. From the first 3 perch stocking classes, so far our stocking program added less than one adult perch per acre at GLSM (.888888 per acre).

To your suggestion other than the spillway, stocking programs have been a bust for the main lake, you're 100% on target. I don't get it either. Those fish in spillway came from the main lake. It's proof the fish are in main lake. Where are they?? How do we catch them? One answer is we don't fish the main lake enough. Most of the fishing at GLSM is done from the banks, on the banks, and targeting crappie, or cats, etc. When fishing for crappies it's unlikely we'll get a limit of walleyes or saugeyes. Clearly the lake lacks structure, depth, depth changes, weeds to attract and hold fish. You're right.......if we added structure and other missing elements, maybe main lake would attract fish, then anglers. Bottom line is we don't really fish the main lake and it's not rich with stuff to concentrate fish populations.

We need the State to dredge/dig a few big holes on main lake, scatter some rip rap, logs, etc. in and around the holes, and mark it off as "fishing only" zones. No speed boats, no tubers, no skiers with a 5mph speed limit.


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## fishwhacker

Zara, great point. We know there is a large population of northern pike in GLSM also that people dont target, the wierd thing is i have caught more pike crappie fishing that walleye lol.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, great point. We know there is a large population of northern pike in GLSM also that people dont target, the wierd thing is i have caught more pike crappie fishing that walleye lol.


 Yep......ditto on the pike. Caught 2 pike in 2017, zero eyes but while crappie fishing. I have however specifically targeted pike at GLSM, though without success.


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## Greyduck

The fact that pike will breed in the lake makes you think the walleye should. I have never caught a pike there in the 50 years of fishing there. I have seen a few caught though. 
The main lake is seldom fished as Zara said. We use to fish the derick on the 70's. Always killed the night crappie. Channel cats in the early morning. But as far as hitting the main lake in random spots. It dont happen. The fish are way to nomadic to target.


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## fishwhacker

Has anyone ever had sucess walleye fishing in the spillway waters on the st marys side or is that another place no one tries?


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## firemanmike2127

Funny you mentioned that. I had discussed walleye/saugeye fishing along the feeder for the canal with a friend the other day. I don't know anyone who has been fishing for 'eyes on the E outflow of GLSM though. He was of the opinion that there was a problem with the gates on that end as well, but I haven't been able to verify that yet. Mike


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## ohiostrutter

fishwhacker said:


> Has anyone ever had sucess walleye fishing in the spillway waters on the st marys side or is that another place no one tries?


I've always wondered why there is a fraction of the traffic on the east side spillway, although I admittedly have never had as much success there myself as the West Bank.


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## fishwhacker

Only thing i can really think of is parking could be an issue on the east side


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> The fact that pike will breed in the lake makes you think the walleye should. I have never caught a pike there in the 50 years of fishing there. I have seen a few caught though.
> The main lake is seldom fished as Zara said. We use to fish the derick on the 70's. Always killed the night crappie. Channel cats in the early morning. But as far as hitting the main lake in random spots. It dont happen. The fish are way to nomadic to target.


Too bad you haven't enjoyed a GLSM pike encounter on a crappie rig. it's not that the pike are big, typically 15-20", but they are so fast, always in thick junk, and it's a battle to root them out of the jungle. My biggest was 22" and cost me a cell phone during the struggle. A fishing friend caught a 27" inch pike 40-50' from where I pulled mine a week earlier. That was 2015, early April.

Regarding main lake fishing, after the spring crappie bonanza/spawn, the bite goes to hell and we all say the crappies went where? The main lake. After fall bite, first ice, then we all say crappies went where? Main lake. For the most part main lake is like a huge bath tub. Mostly smooth bottom, almost constant depth, stumps are removed from a 50 year campaign by State to appease pleasure boaters from blowing out props and lower units. It's damn near barren out there. Wouldn't be nice to have a couple of fishing only zones, filled with all types of fish-friendly obstacles, to concentrate those nomadic fish of all sorts?


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Has anyone ever had sucess walleye fishing in the spillway waters on the st marys side or is that another place no one tries?


If you follow the Central Ohio forum.....particularly Rainy Night Bite Jerks Limit, the saugeye guys there are tuned into locating "current" to find eyes. Last year attempting to locate water current at GLSM led me to try E. Bank spillway/bulkhead. On 2 occasions I made an effort with swim baits and stick baits, twice on the discharge side of the flow and once on the lake side of the bulkhead(where water is pulled from the lake). No luck for me chasing eyes on either the discharge side or lake side of gates, but that's no different than the rest of the lake. Never tried twister tail jigs like most GLSM guys like at the Beaver.

Actually, I have some excellent crappie days in the bay around the gates and fishing the wood pilings at the gates. Those were early spring days, open water in that bay while rest of the lake was iced over. As recently as last Monday morning I tried that area for an hour. I hadn't fished in 2 months, was desperate to get out before the next round of cold sealed up the lake again. The entire east bank was free of ice as far out as 100 yards. The bay/gates seemed logical (it was the only option I could find Monday morning). It satisfied my fishing hormones though no bites/crappies.

Parking is a bit of a problem. A few times I've see cars on both sides of SR-364. At the south end of the State Park area, the last picnic shelter has a huge parking lot, never full, and little more than a 2-3 minute hike bulkhead.


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## macfish

Are you talking about over b the Hatchery? Tried that area a few times myself and never had any luck.


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## zaraspook

Yes.


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## Salmonid

Problem on the east side is it's an overflow. As opposed to a bottom sucking open pipe pulling bottom fish. That's why there are hardly any fish on the East end. And why spillway is alwYs best after a long flushing of the lake


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## Saugeyefisher

Ive only skimmed throug the posts so if i missed something i opoligize.
How many consecutive years was the saugeye stocked? Buckeye lake has had its numbers cut the last few years because of the dam project. That plus more drawdowns then normal,the lake is a shell of its self when it comes to saugeye. Ya there being caught still but just a few years ago 20+fish nites/days was the norm. Now 6 fish is a wonderfull trip.
And in lakes like indian an buckeye,other then mid summer an a few spots during the spawn the hottest bites are usually in the skinney channels/coves/canals. Esp the popular "fall bite". 
And the current we look for in these shallow lakes are most of the time generated bye wind in narrow spots like channels and bridges. 
Then when there drawing down in funnel areas even on the oppisite end of the lake will form currents from the dam an water being sucked out.
And imo a lot of these spillway fish its often hard to tell how long they have been below the lake. A lot will hang out downstream then venture up stream when water is released for either food or spawning......


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Problem on the east side is it's an overflow. As opposed to a bottom sucking open pipe pulling bottom fish. That's why there are hardly any fish on the East end. And why spillway is alwYs best after a long flushing of the lake


Exactly! The West Bank spillway has it's own "hatchery" of sorts, to restock the spillway multiple times per year. Every time those tubes are opened, spillway is restocked by it's hatchery (better known as the main lake).  However, the spillway's hatchery is routinely being pulled by a flow of 500-1000 cubic feet per SECOND! It's not just fingerlings and fry, but hefty, full grown walleye, saugeye, cats, carp, crappie, perch caught up in that flow and deposited into the limited confines of the Beaver. Those toad walleye/saugeye clearly are difficult to catch when scattered among GLSM's 13,500 acres. But, pile them up in far less than one acre of water below the spillway........we've all seen what happens.

Let me see if I'm reading this correctly......The State stocks gamefish in GLSM as midget fry/fingerlings. The main lake grows them for years to maturity and bigger. Then we open the door(tubes) and let them run away? Does that define "sanity" or "insanity"?


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## fished-out

The biggest problem in St Mary's for perch is the lack of vegetation. They spawn in strings on thick vegetation, tree roots, branches, etc. Hard to get a viable population just through stocking--they've got to spawn. The good news--if they have good spawning habitat, they can expand fast. But I just don't see the pads, weeds, and other vegetation that I see in other good perch lakes. There are some good root/tree areas, but I'm not sure they're thick enough to protect the fry from predators. Just a thought.


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## Saugeyefisher

fished-out said:


> The biggest problem in St Mary's for perch is the lack of vegetation. They spawn in strings on thick vegetation, tree roots, branches, etc. Hard to get a viable population just through stocking--they've got to spawn. The good news--if they have good spawning habitat, they can expand fast. But I just don't see the pads, weeds, and other vegetation that I see in other good perch lakes. There are some good root/tree areas, but I'm not sure they're thick enough to protect the fry from predators. Just a thought.


Years ago there was a large area,homeowners on buckeye would collect and dump xmas treez in an area that already held stray perch every now an again. For the few years these guys did this the early spring perch fishing was great in this area. Its been a while since this has been done and now this spot only holds the stray perch again....
For the most part buckeye perch are few an far between. But when u do get one its usually big


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## brad crappie

Heard back In the day st Mary's had pads! Thx to sediments and possibly pollution vegetation is mostly wiped out! Zara got a ? How many home owners are still using fertilizer on their grass to!


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## zaraspook

fished-out said:


> The biggest problem in St Mary's for perch is the lack of vegetation. They spawn in strings on thick vegetation, tree roots, branches, etc. Hard to get a viable population just through stocking--they've got to spawn. The good news--if they have good spawning habitat, they can expand fast. But I just don't see the pads, weeds, and other vegetation that I see in other good perch lakes. There are some good root/tree areas, but I'm not sure they're thick enough to protect the fry from predators. Just a thought.


fished-out.......one of best hopes for return of vegetation seems to be the natural treatment trains located in the watershed. Something like 5 of them built, under construction, or construction planned. Idea is to filter phosphorus from incoming flows before it makes it to main lake. Lilly pads showing up in those areas and expanding in impressive style. Will help in long run.

We shouldn't overlook the impact of predators on the perch population. As the story goes, GLSM perch population rivaled Erie 30-40 years ago and as recent as '80-early '90's.  Stocking 56 million walleye fry/fingerlings 1999-2008 didn't do the perch any favors. Perch are high at the top of the walleye preferred dinner menu. Likely the walleye stocking also a factor in weak crappie classes in mid-2000's and later. DNR meant well.......there are always unintended consequences.


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## Saugeyefisher

Ya walleye and saugeye eat perch and crappie,but as long as the shad population is strong i dont think they hurt the population much of perch and crappie. Walleye,perch,and crappie share the same waters all across the north and mid-west. And a lot of these lakes in the north that are good walleye and perch lakes are also wonderfull pike and/or muskie lakes....


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Ive only skimmed throug the posts so if i missed something i opoligize.
> How many consecutive years was the saugeye stocked? Buckeye lake has had its numbers cut the last few years because of the dam project. That plus more drawdowns then normal,the lake is a shell of its self when it comes to saugeye. Ya there being caught still but just a few years ago 20+fish nites/days was the norm. Now 6 fish is a wonderfull trip.
> And in lakes like indian an buckeye,other then mid summer an a few spots during the spawn the hottest bites are usually in the skinney channels/coves/canals. Esp the popular "fall bite".
> And the current we look for in these shallow lakes are most of the time generated bye wind in narrow spots like channels and bridges.
> Then when there drawing down in funnel areas even on the oppisite end of the lake will form currents from the dam an water being sucked out.
> And imo a lot of these spillway fish its often hard to tell how long they have been below the lake. A lot will hang out downstream then venture up stream when water is released for either food or spawning......


Saugfish......GLSM only stocked with saugeye two years. A token 23,000 fingerlings in 2009 were followed with 100,000 in 2010. That's it!

If/when DNR, Army Corp, and other stakeholders find an acceptable method, Army Corp plans to block fish movement from from GLSM thru overflow spillway to east to prevent Asian carp migration/threat to Lake Erie. When that happens, rumor has it DNR could restart saugeye stocking of GLSM. Does that make sense to you? Supposedly, a plan to be agreed upon in 2018.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Saugfish......GLSM only stocked with saugeye two years. A token 23,000 fingerlings in 2009 were followed with 100,000 in 2010. That's it!
> 
> If/when DNR, Army Corp, and other stakeholders find an acceptable method, Army Corp plans to block fish movement from from GLSM thru overflow spillway to east to prevent Asian carp migration/threat to Lake Erie. When that happens, rumor has it DNR could restart saugeye stocking of GLSM. Does that make sense to you? Supposedly, a plan to be agreed upon in 2018.


Yes it does,and 100% explains why you guys never really seen those fish. Just not nearly enough of them to maje a differnce in a lake that large.

That would be cool if they do figure things out an eventually start pumping saugeyevim there!


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## RMK

brad crappie said:


> Heard back In the day st Mary's had pads! Thx to sediments and possibly pollution vegetation is mostly wiped out! Zara got a ? How many home owners are still using fertilizer on their grass to!


There are still lilly pads out there. The biggest area of pads is now inaccessible, by boat at least. They are surrounded by a rock wall created for one of the treatment trains. This area of pads was there before, during, and after the peak of "the sediments and possibly pollution". They have started another small patch just west of prarie creek, and the rock wall, that have seemed to take pretty well.


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## Salmonid

Speaking of ruining the lakes best habitat for spawning. Does anyone know what the hell the thoughts were to build riprap walls all over across the best coves for spawning?? Last I heard the DNR said it was the state parks ideas and the state park folks said it was DNR idea but nobody know why or what the plan is..... all I know is it WILL effect future spawns in the lake.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Speaking of ruining the lakes best habitat for spawning. Does anyone know what the hell the thoughts were to build riprap walls all over across the best coves for spawning?? Last I heard the DNR said it was the state parks ideas and the state park folks said it was DNR idea but nobody know why or what the plan is..... all I know is it WILL effect future spawns in the lake.


Good observation, Mark, and I too have been scratching my head. Acknowledge that someone from State, DNR, elsewhere must have solid reason/purpose. At first I figured the intent was construction of breakwalls to breakup unabated waves/current running the length of lake. Scratched my head more when the lengths of rip rap were 100% closed off. No water entry into the rip rap and no water way for exit. Is the intent to keep something contained within or keep something out? 

You know how Minnesota has a gazillion lakes? Maybe a decentralized lake in our future? Instead of one big lake, turn it into a bunch of little lakes or lagoons. One lagoon is stocked and fished only for perch? Another one saugeye only? Canoes only in another? There's a good chance I'm gonna look real dumb when the State provides a simple answer. One last guess.......State got a bargain deal on rip rap and need a place to put it.


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## RMK

Salmonid said:


> Speaking of ruining the lakes best habitat for spawning. Does anyone know what the hell the thoughts were to build riprap walls all over across the best coves for spawning?? Last I heard the DNR said it was the state parks ideas and the state park folks said it was DNR idea but nobody know why or what the plan is..... all I know is it WILL effect future spawns in the lake.


i don't know the thoughts on the completely closed in rock walls. some of the enclosures are to hold dredge material(sportsman's club)-another unfortunate area that was full of great habitat to block off from the main lake. My first thought was that the feeder creeks that flow into the lake were going to flow directly into these enclosed areas.... the chemicals and waist would be filtered out naturally by flowing through a wetland/marshy habitat and then the filtered out clean water would return to the lake. however this isn't how prairie creek works. the creek still flows freely directly into the lake and water is occasionally pumped from the creek and carried through a tube to the east and into the treatment train. and i think water is then pumped out of the treatment train back into the channels of aqua view that flow back into the lake.(last part could be inaccurate) so i m still not quite positive on why the rock wall blocking off the main lake from the water south of the big island in prairie creek: where the lilly pads and other great habitat are that are no longer accessible to fishes or boats. i haven't looked closely at the plans for the treatment trains for the chickasaws that are going to happen next. but i m guessing the shallow area south of that island will also get rock walls on both ends and no more spawning or boats in there anymore either. so there's my long uneducated answer.

short answer- i hope all consequences/possibilites have been thought through by people that know alot more about the topic/issues than i do. and i do feel the people in charge have done and try their best to do this


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## crappiedude

Are the rock wall meant to act as "silt traps". I've seen a few smaller lakes that had rip rap walls across the inflowing creeks arms. The walls were built a couple hundred yards out into the lake. The way it was explained to me is that the inflowing water carrying the sediment will hit the wall and drop most of the dirt/soil (sediment) in the trap. Material being trapped this way will reduce the amount of area that will need to be dredged in the future.
I guess it makes sense if it works.


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## zaraspook

Crappie are generally tough to locate thru the ice at GLSM. A fishing report from Tuesday this week runs counter to norm. Photo shows a nice bunch of gills and 1/2 dozen keeper crappie, biggest 11". Nice work! Wish I could claim them, but not the case.




  








Image(3)




__
zaraspook


__
Feb 8, 2018




2-6-18 GLSM thru ice


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## CHOPIQ

I know in the 80s I would see people hauling perch out by the wagonloads. No one practiced self control. There was no limit on them then and people would catch 2-3 5 gallon buckets of them and keep all of them. they were huge perch, all breeding size.


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## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> Heard back In the day st Mary's had pads! Thx to sediments and possibly pollution vegetation is mostly wiped out! Zara got a ? How many home owners are still using fertilizer on their grass to!


bc.......hard to tell # of owners using nitrogen/phosphorous based lawn fertilizers. 12 lots on my road. 11 of us don't fertilize lawns at all. Fertilizing requires higher frequency of cutting grass. Have better things to do at lake than cutting grass. The 12th guy is a lawn/landscaping fanatic. He uses Scotts Nitrogen/Phosphorus Free lawn fertilizer. Waters his plants/grass by pumping from lake. Says the lake water has enough nitrogen/phosphorous to provide a shot in the arm.

Not saying no one fertilizes.......any report that residential property owners are even slight contributors to lake issues is "Fake News".


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## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> bc.......hard to tell # of owners using nitrogen/phosphorous based lawn fertilizers. 12 lots on my road. 11 of us don't fertilize lawns at all. Fertilizing requires higher frequency of cutting grass. Have better things to do at lake than cutting grass. The 12th guy is a lawn/landscaping fanatic. He uses Scotts Nitrogen/Phosphorus Free lawn fertilizer. Waters his plants/grass by pumping from lake. Says the lake water has enough nitrogen/phosphorous to provide a shot in the arm.
> 
> Not saying no one fertilizes.......any report that residential property owners are even slight contributors to lake issues is "Fake News".


Thanks I hear u!! I love hearing bout the lake southwest of me and some people care bout the waterways! Keep up the good work down there see u in the spring the crappie bite and the tourney down there


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## zaraspook

Apparently still a nice bite going on at GLSM for crappie thru the ice. A dozen keepers Weds between 10-11". Great results! Same guy who caught the pile of gills and 1/2 dozen crappie Tuesday. Proof positive that GLSM crappie can be had thru the ice, if you know what you're doing. Word has it that he's running 75% keeper rate.




  








GLSM Thru Ice 2-7-18




__
zaraspook


__
Feb 8, 2018




GLSM Thru Ice 2-7-18


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## RMK

wow!! great looking fish!! 13"+ in the bottom left of that picture?


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> wow!! great looking fish!! 13"+ in the bottom left of that picture?


My friend said 11" was biggest so I'd guess none would have been 12" or more. It's been so long since I fished they all look like 2 pounders to me.


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## RMK

dang, guess i m having withdraw syptoms too. i thought they looked big. still great looking fish either way


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## fishwhacker

Any details that can be shared? Main lake or channel? Minnows or jigs? Deep or shallow? Not gonna be able to get out for a couple weeks but like to play scenarios in my head lol


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## RMK

i have been dieing to try a couple deep drop offs from the the main lake into the channels through the ice. time and weather hasnt aloud that for me yet.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Any details that can be shared? Main lake or channel? Minnows or jigs? Deep or shallow? Not gonna be able to get out for a couple weeks but like to play scenarios in my head lol


Channel - Jigs - 6+ fow


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## ohiostrutter




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## ohiostrutter




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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> i have been dieing to try a couple deep drop offs from the the main lake into the channels through the ice. time and weather hasnt aloud that for me yet.


Mentioned before that I'm not an ice guy. Last year on this date I caught 7 crappies, one at 11.75" and was well on my way to the best February ever. Unfortunately, we have quite a way to go for open water. I'm ready!


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## zaraspook

I was at GLSM Friday from noon-4pm to take care of some chores. Fishing was not planned but I would have if nearby water was open. It wasn't - I didn't. 

Channels are heavily iced......I've heard some as much as 10" as of Thurs/Friday. Western 2/3 of main lake is pretty much void of open water. Eastern 1/3 of main lake showing potential. There are large sections of open water, well off the north bank though. That open water is much closer to southern shores. An example would be Harmon's Landing area. Open water is in the bay at Harmon's, and wouldn't take much to open water into the channel mouth. Next round of warmth, especially if accompanied by rain and decent wind, could make Harmon's an open water target. That's my "tip of the week". Maybe we'll try providing a "tip of the week" every week? Then again, it may be the first and the last.


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## fishwhacker

Just got back from west bank, was gonna get out on the ice but punched a hole at the end of the dock and it was maybe 2 to 3 inches of gray ice....too thin for this guy. Punched 6 holes and played aroubd for about 90 minutes not even a bump. Ready for open water


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## zaraspook

Forgot to mention on Fri I saw one guy on the ice at boat club and another at Andersons. Ice at both must have been suitable.


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## zaraspook

Woo-hoo! 6 of next 9 days forecast hi temps 50+. Only 3 of next 9 with lows forecast below freezing. Ice eating rain forecast 6 of 9 days. We may get sick of rain but worth it to kiss your ice good-bye. Hallelujah!


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## RMK

That open water north of harmons grew quite a bit from friday to last evening.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> That open water north of harmons grew quite a bit from friday to last evening.


Bring it on! Did you get to view the channels at Harmon's? Thank for update.


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## RMK

I didn't get a chance to check the channels. I had just enough free time to either check channels for ice/open water or head home and check the ice on the pond. I choose to check the ice at home!


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## zaraspook

Nicely done, RMK!


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## zaraspook

More crappies thru the ice at GLSM.........not mine. They were tagged Thursday in the AM, 6' of water, small ice jigs, chartreuse, spikes, and pulled from channel with 6" ice thickness. With all the rain and warmth that ice has to be deteriorating. The Magic Green Bucket scores again!


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## zaraspook

Lots of channels partially open water now.....not all, and a few are fully open. I still haven't fished yet this year. Some chance I may end my fishing drought Weds. Fingers crossed.
A fishing friend made his 2018 open water debut today. He retired his ice equip last week.......back to the long rod today. He caught 2 nice crappies in first 5 minutes including a 12" from a south side channel.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Lots of channels partially open water now


Good to hear the ice is going away up that way. All our ice has been gone for a while but now we're dealing with high water. EF is up around 9' and I'm going to bet it will raise at least that much more in the next week due to the incoming rain projected for the next 3-4 days. With the Ohio River at or just above flood stage they won't be releasing much water at least until things settles down a little. With the temps heading into the mid 70's today I've really got the bug.


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## Saugeyefisher

Planning on dropping my kayak in this weekend for the first time this year,gonna be primarily a crappie trip


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Good to hear the ice is going away up that way. All our ice has been gone for a while but now we're dealing with high water. EF is up around 9' and I'm going to bet it will raise at least that much more in the next week due to the incoming rain projected for the next 3-4 days. With the Ohio River at or just above flood stage they won't be releasing much water at least until things settles down a little. With the temps heading into the mid 70's today I've really got the bug.


Hard to imagine water rising 9'. only a few places in the entire 13,500 acres of GLSM that have water that deep. Rarely does lake rise 9 inches, let alone 9 feet.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Planning on dropping my kayak in this weekend for the first time this year,gonna be primarily a crappie trip


Good for you! Lot of rain drops and wind in weekend forecast........hope you find a bite.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Good for you! Lot of rain drops and wind in weekend forecast........hope you find a bite.


Lol yeah just seen potential gusts up to 40mph sunday,this trip might turn into a saugeye trip from the bank


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Hard to imagine water rising 9'.


That lake is like a yo-yo this time of year. Normally the will pull it down around 2'-2.5' per day when it's up like this. The worst I ever saw it was the lake went up 40'. I think the only other Ohio lake that's this crazy if Paint Creek and it's up over 20'.


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## dcool

crappiedude said:


> That lake is like a yo-yo this time of year. Normally the will pull it down around 2'-2.5' per day when it's up like this. The worst I ever saw it was the lake went up 40'. I think the only other Ohio lake that's this crazy if Paint Creek and it's up over 20'.


In my 66 years of fishing GLSM, i have never seen 40'. Must be a big hole that i missed somewhere.


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## Saugeyefisher

dcool said:


> In my 66 years of fishing GLSM, i have never seen 40'. Must be a big hole that i missed somewhere.


He is talking about water leves rising at other lakes. Not saying glsm has 40' of water


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## Saugeyefisher

Crappiedude,thats crazy,an really aggrevating when it comes to fishing. 
Lol we get fustrated at these shallow lakes with water changes of just a few feet....


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## crappiedude

Saugeyefisher said:


> Crappiedude,thats crazy,an really aggrevating when it comes to fishing.


Yeah it's discouraging for sure. I really hope we don't get the 3"-4" of rain they're calling for down here in the next week. Hopefully it settles down soon.


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## zaraspook

dcool said:


> In my 66 years of fishing GLSM, i have never seen 40'. Must be a big hole that i missed somewhere.


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## zaraspook

2018 debut today, Tuesday, at GLSM. Weather was awesome, bite was even better. 21 keeper crappie between 10.5-12" in 2.5 hours. Fished 30-36" under bobber. South side channel......lots of limits taken today. Fun day!


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## RMK

Great job zara! Heck of a debut! That's some crappie action right there.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> 2018 debut today, Tuesday, at GLSM. Weather was awesome, bite was even better. 21 keeper crappie between 10.5-12" in 2.5 hours. Fished 30-36" under bobber. South side channel......lots of limits taken today. Fun day!
> View attachment 255969


Great debut!!! An thanks for making me jelous..... great job!


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## dcool

Great job Zara, looks like another great year on GLSM.


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## Redhunter1012

Good catch Zara!


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Great debut!!! An thanks for making me jelous..... great job!


Saugfish.........just figured I'd set marker for your 1st crappie yak outing this weekend.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Saugfish.........just figured I'd set marker for your 1st crappie yak outing this weekend.


 Kinda pumped today to see no rain now on sunday,an wind went from 20-30mph with 40 mph gusts to 15-25 with 40mph gusts
If that 40mph part drops any at all,im all in,spot im hitting is pretty wind protected.. 
The bar has been set high


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## zaraspook

you're right guy for task. Conditions will make it all sweeter!


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## fished-out

crappiedude said:


> That lake is like a yo-yo this time of year. Normally the will pull it down around 2'-2.5' per day when it's up like this. The worst I ever saw it was the lake went up 40'. I think the only other Ohio lake that's this crazy if Paint Creek and it's up over 20'.


Nope, Deer Creek, Paint Creek and Delaware are all worse than East Fork. I think those 3 are all the Huntington district and all 3 can have a 30-40 foot rise happen almost every year.


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## fishwhacker

Speaking of rise and fall tubes are open in the spillway....really blown out right now with all the rain


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Speaking of rise and fall tubes are open in the spillway....really blown out right now with all the rain


As of 7pm Thursday running at 585 cubic feet per second........there go more saugeyes, crappies, perch, blah, blah, blah.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> The fact that pike will breed in the lake makes you think the walleye should. I have never caught a pike there in the 50 years of fishing there. I have seen a few caught though.
> The main lake is seldom fished as Zara said. We use to fish the derick on the 70's. Always killed the night crappie. Channel cats in the early morning. But as far as hitting the main lake in random spots. It dont happen. The fish are way to nomadic to target.


Greyduck........a pleasure to meet you Tuesday at GLSM. You (and your boys, I guess?) were heading out just as I was coming in to fish. Thanks for the tip.....it worked out just as you described. Great to put a face and name together!

Gotta ask.......how long did it take you guys to clean that massive pile of fish?


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## Greyduck

Zara.... Nice to meet you also. Redbeard is my oldest son. Cole is my hunting fishing partner. Glad the tip worked out for you. The fish seemed to be everywhere but it was almost automatic in that little area. 
Not long at all on the cleaning. All three of us are very efficient with fillet knives. We have a good set up in the kitchen for cleaning fish and game. We will have a few good fish frys out of that mess. Hope to get back after them sunday.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM Friday and was dangling a bait by 3pm. With limited time I decided to be a homeboy, stick around my lake place, just fish from shore within 100 yards of my house working territory memorized like the back of my hand. Crappies don't usually make it this far back into my channel this early, at least not the bigger ones.

Glad I had a good day earlier in the wee, because it was a struggle. Stuck with it though for 2.5 hours, already expecting my patience would be challenged. Must have tried 20 spots, 1/2 dozen baits and colors, locating crappie at just 2 spots. Caught 7 at one spot early in my round, 4 in the last spot in the last 1/2 hour. Among those 11 only 4 were keeper grade, not much past 10". All were caught on same bait (fluorescent pink/orange).

First 7 crappies were all congregated on a PVC fish attractor I put in 3 years ago, 4-5' off the bank in 3' of water. Last 4 crappie were hugging a 12' log in 2' of the muddiest water I saw all day. In between the early 11 and late 4 crappie bursts, only action was a largemouth, every bit of 5" that made me chuckle with it's puny size. That bass was followed 2 casts later by a 2nd bass, a cute 4 incher.


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## crappiedude

EF is now sitting 22' above pool.
I'd be more than happy with a pair of bass just like that if I could just find some decent water.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> EF is now sitting 22' above pool.
> I'd be more than happy with a pair of bass just like that if I could just find some decent water.


How many acres does EF cover?


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## mikebrownie98

1


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## mikebrownie98

2


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## mikebrownie98

3


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> How many acres does EF cover?


DRN website says it's 2100 acres at summer pool. Right now it's probably close to 3000. LOL
Really starting to muddy up too but if we get a few days of sun that will really warm up those shallows.


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## Saugeyefisher

Winds not to bad out my way. Heading to my favorite,local,shallow lake to play in da mud......

Zara,not bad at all. All things considered.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Winds not to bad out my way. Heading to my favorite,local,shallow lake to play in da mud......
> 
> Zara,not bad at all. All things considered.


I fished Saturday morning catching just one dink crappie from my only bite. Tried a 2nd round, no fish, may have had a bite or two but probably was wishful thinking. Gave up, gave in, as I heard others were lamenting over absence of a bite, and headed home. I should add there were guys who got crappie limits Friday, that smelled of Pepe Le Pew on Saturday. Sunday bite should be better despite muddier conditions.

Water temp was 41 Saturday......I was delighted with that. Water level off the "world famous Zara sea wall" was 44". Don't have a prior reference point in 2018 for water depth to accurately judge how much the lake has risen. Just a guess.....probably up 10-12" in last 2 weeks. My channel more stained Saturday than Friday, but not yet ready to call it muddy. Channels that are creek fed are chocolate milk. Those channels are pumping lots of muddy flow into main lake.......muddy water lines are very obvious.


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## Salmonid

Wink wink. Glad the pvc paid off. Good job!!


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## Saugeyefisher

Well the wind didnt stop until i got the kayak loaded an headed home.... but was able to get a few keepers between dink-fest 2018. Small cricket in white an small ratso in chartruse ruled the day both on a bright orange 1/64 oz head 14" under my pink float. Was able to know crappie an bluegill fish ohio off the list. Caught 45/50 fish half gills half dink crappies 4-81/2" only a few keepers. An 4 bass 2 dinks 2 the size in pic


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## Saugeyefisher

Oh yeah water was heavily stained... imagine that


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Well the wind didnt stop until i got the kayak loaded an headed home.... but was able to get a few keepers between dink-fest 2018. Small cricket in white an small ratso in chartruse ruled the day both on a bright orange 1/64 oz head 14" under my pink float. Was able to know crappie an bluegill fish ohio off the list. Caught 45/50 fish half gills half dink crappies 4-81/2" only a few keepers. An 4 bass 2 dinks 2 the size in pic
> View attachment 256397


Nicely done under pitiful conditions! I'm impressed.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Wink wink. Glad the pvc paid off. Good job!!


At the gone but not forgotten Big Red Deck, actually one of your pvc's there and one from the homeowner who executed Big Red. Have not caught a fish this year from my seawall!


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## zaraspook

I had a 24-hour window to fish late Sunday thru noon Monday. 90 minutes before dark Tuesday evening produced one dink crappie from 2 bites. Monday morning in 2 hard fought hours produced the same result, I dink crappie but 5-6 bites (mostly gills pecking away). Water was at it's peak of muddiness. Got zero bites on bait that's been most productive and changed to bigger bait, darker color.........was hoping larger size and color would help crappies locate target in poor clarity. The few bites I ran into were after the change.

Water temp 42.8 yesterday off my seawall. Water level not rising anymore......DNR pulling water since 21st.

Crappie reports are pretty good on multiple north side locations......in general water clarity not showing muddy conditions there. Lots of species eating at the spillway per reports. Photo from yesterday included one fat perch and for any non-believers, a really sweet looking 27" pike! With the tubes open at spillway, the Beaver is the recipient again of restocking from the main lake.


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## ekriet9

Fished today for a couple hrs and found a nice little school in some brush. Fished for 2 hrs or so and caught a dozen or so real nice crappie. Small purple plastics 18” under a float was the best for me


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## zaraspook

ekriet9 said:


> Fished today for a couple hrs and found a nice little school in some brush. Fished for 2 hrs or so and caught a dozen or so real nice crappie. Small purple plastics 18” under a float was the best for me


ekriet9......thanks for chiming in and reminding us there are still catchable fish at GLSM. Keep up the good work and reports!


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## zaraspook

Planned to hit GLSM today/Thurs but wife changed the schedule. She kicked me out of the house Weds mid-morning, told me to go fishing Weds, a day earlier, to make up for wiping out Thurs. Lovely lady, she is. Made it to lake just before noon. Even though my channel had been extremely stingy since 23rd, tried it for an hour. Jeez! Nothing happening other than a few gill pecks......this may be worst yet. Water temp was 44.4 degrees, clarity improving but well stained...... conditions clearly are better so why the heck is the bite not better?

Headed to the north side expecting better water clarity and found it, however, not all north side spots are that way. Tried 2 spots with best clarity for 45 minutes and headed back to my place still riding the skunk line.......not a nibble. Walked my homeboy circuit, 6 spots this time, mostly at the backend of a channel that was alive with shad about 3" size. When I left that spot the pain in my butt, from sitting on the skunk line now 3 hours, was doing a head-shot on me. Confidence was slipping fast and I contemplated surrender.....guess it was time to accept reality, cleanup, packup and head home.
Dishes washed, carpet vacuumed, truck packed I picked up my crappie rods to put them away. Shoot. It's only 5pm. Why not make one last effort and try a spot I hadn't hit today? It's a bit of a hike but what do I have to lose? During my 7 minute hike to the destination, now nicknamed Last Gasp Gulch, I worked on the attitude adjustment thing. Confidence needed attention. I arrived and 10 minutes into it a little voice was whispering "WTF were you thinking?". Wait a minute.....was that a crappie tug, line moving off, followed by a whiff on hookset? It was followed by an immediate repeat bite and whiff. Third time is a charm! Only a 7 inch crappie but more important, skunk is gone! Next 20 minutes brings 5 more crappie, 4 keepers. None were huge though 2 at 10.5". It didn't matter. After a 10 minute drought at Last Gasp Gulch I quit, briskly walked back, put away my rods, and motored home in a good mood.

6 crappie, 4 keepers is normally not a good day. This time it felt like a great day! Sometimes it's not what you catch, it's when you catch it.


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## Salmonid

Zara I'm guessing that your channel is colder then most since it has no creeks feeding it thus the absence of fish here lately. Just a thought. Now once the weekend gets here and 2 days of north winds pushing warmer lake water and fish into your channel I'm predicting a decent weekend for you. I'll be up in a few hrs looking for bigger shad. I'll report anything worthwhile tomorrow.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Zara I'm guessing that your channel is colder then most since it has no creeks feeding it thus the absence of fish here lately. Just a thought. Now once the weekend gets here and 2 days of north winds pushing warmer lake water and fish into your channel I'm predicting a decent weekend for you. I'll be up in a few hrs looking for bigger shad. I'll report anything worthwhile tomorrow.


As normal you are on your game. Wholeheartedly agree and fishermen in my channel look forward to northerly winds to drive water, baitfish, and predator fish our way. Also a factor in slow warmup at my place is the distance I am from main lake. We're back pretty far into channel. Shorter channels get warmer waters and fish considerably quicker.

By the way when I was at lake Weds struggling to get off the skunk line, a life long GLSM crappie guy stopped nearby to hit the "Medusas". I told him I'd fished the area hard and got skunked. He scolded me for wasting my time crappie fishing while the State was aggressively pulling water, and showed me his jig. Tiny one tied on and had come there for gills. In 20 minutes he caught about 25, but not keepers. While catching the gills he told me the prior week he was crappie fishing in a southside channel, was getting bit but always a short bite - no fish. He downsized baits and went back at it. Caught 18 perch in the next hour, kept all of them. They were 8-10.5", now cleaned and in his freezer awaiting a special occasion. 

Hope you got into the shadzillas on your bait run to GLSM.


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## Saugeyefisher

Salmonid said:


> Zara I'm guessing that your channel is colder then most since it has no creeks feeding it thus the absence of fish here lately. Just a thought. Now once the weekend gets here and 2 days of north winds pushing warmer lake water and fish into your channel I'm predicting a decent weekend for you. I'll be up in a few hrs looking for bigger shad. I'll report anything worthwhile tomorrow.


Good stuff!


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## Salmonid

Ok I started at 6pm last night near the sailboat club, it was raining steady, dropping temps near 35 degrees and wind from the north in gust hard enough to make sure you had good footing. Lol. First throw of the net got 4 decent gills and 3 keeper crappies. No shad so I started throwing deeper off the ends of the docks getting a fair amount of gills, short crappies, sheepies and even a 4" yeller belly along with a bunch of 3-4" shad and 1 stray 7" shad so I made a move to super secret spring sumo shad spot #346 and in the dark/ sleet and gusting winds over the next hour managed about 15 jumbos. So life is good . I might add that the SB club was chocolate and the other channel I was in was fairly clear.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Ok I started at 6pm last night near the sailboat club, it was raining steady, dropping temps near 35 degrees and wind from the north in gust hard enough to make sure you had good footing. Lol. First throw of the net got 4 decent gills and 3 keeper crappies. No shad so I started throwing deeper off the ends of the docks getting a fair amount of gills, short crappies, sheepies and even a 4" yeller belly along with a bunch of 3-4" shad and 1 stray 7" shad so I made a move to super secret spring sumo shad spot #346 and in the dark/ sleet and gusting winds over the next hour managed about 15 jumbos. So life is good . I might add that the SB club was chocolate and the other channel I was in was fairly clear.
> View attachment 256684
> View attachment 256685


That one next to your boot is a TOAD!


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## zaraspook

At GLSM 11-3:30pm Friday and fished about 3.5 hours. An hour of that 3.5 was invested in my channel.....one bite, which was a decent gill and first fish off my seawall this year. Crappie are still AWOL. Water temp slid backwards 2 degrees to 42.2. Water clarity was not bad when I arrived but chocolate milk when I left. Depth off my seawall was 48", that plus 3 from Weds Looked like Weds/Thurs rain did a number on the feeder creeks. Standing water everywhere. I'm confident inflows were at least equal to the 583 cubic feet per second that was exiting the lake at spillway.

With no apparent bite in my channel, nothing new, where did I head? Let's do the 7 minute walk to.......Last Gasp Gulch! First observation there......man this is muddy, but only 1/2 as muddy as the stuff flowing into the mouth of the channel. Wind blowing straight into the mouth at 15-20mph and feels a lot colder than 40 degrees. Third observation......despite mud, crappie are still here as my first 2 fish-on come unzipped. After hour one I'd caught 6 with 4 keepers including one of 12"+. Headed back to my place to #1- pee, #2- eat lunch, #3 get my phone so I can take photos. No bucket with me and not keeping fish today.

Returned to exact same spot, Last Gasp Gulch, and luckily fish didn't leave during my pit stop. 8 of the 12 crappie in round 2 are keepers. No 12" in this hour and a half, but photo below is one of the 3 or 4 in the 11"+ category. 12 keepers from a total of 18 crappie today. Second photo is looking out the channel toward lake from Last Gasp Gulch. 
4 fish today on jelly bean stinger. 14 fish today on chartreuse/pepper Tiny Shad. Enjoyable day!




  








IMG_20180302_140802835




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zaraspook


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Mar 3, 2018




GLSM 11.5" Crappie 3-2-18









  








IMG_20180302_151535844




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zaraspook


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Mar 3, 2018




3-2-18 GLSM Last Gasp Gulch


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## zaraspook

State continues to pull water at spillway.......no surprise with heavy rain/inflows from GLSM watershed. Tubes flowing since 2/21. What does that mean? It means the Beaver is in day 14 of it's latest restocking program courtesy of GLSM main lake. Great fishing reports from spillway. We previously mentioned crappie, some perch, the 27" pike and photo below courtesy of a fishing friend and The Outdoorsman. Another jumbo saugeye, 9-pounder, caught last Weds. Congrats!


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## harrison08

Made it up to the lake on Sunday with my favorite fishing partner, my father. Started out on the south side and had a couple takers. Bite seemed to be very timid. We drove around to a couple other spots and ended up on the north side. This channel had 10 fellas or so fishing already. We decided to partake and worked hard for some fish. The fish seemed to be coming in and out of the structure. I ended up catching 14 with 2 over 12". One was 13" and 5 1/2" wide- a true brute. Dad ended up catching some more to add to the total. Red body and yellow tail stingers worked the best for us. Sure was nice to get back out there and catch some fish!


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## RMK

harrison08 said:


> Made it up to the lake on Sunday with my favorite fishing partner, my father. Started out on the south side and had a couple takers. Bite seemed to be very timid. We drove around to a couple other spots and ended up on the north side. This channel had 10 fellas or so fishing already. We decided to partake and worked hard for some fish. The fish seemed to be coming in and out of the structure. I ended up catching 14 with 2 over 12". One was 13" and 5 1/2" wide- a true brute. Dad ended up catching some more to add to the total. Red body and yellow tail stingers worked the best for us. Sure was nice to get back out there and catch some fish!


good job and report!


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## Saugeyefisher

RMK said:


> good job and report!


Ditto,sounds like a good time!


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## Saugeyefisher

Zara the big saugeye pics kill me man! I WANT one,lol... ive been fishing for 31 years and fishing for saugeye for 20 ,fish really hard for saugeye for 8 years now an still have not sniffed 10 lbs. 
An honestly wonder if it will ever happen. 
Amazing,keep the pics coming. It gives me confidence one day i might hit the 10lb mark


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> Made it up to the lake on Sunday with my favorite fishing partner, my father. Started out on the south side and had a couple takers. Bite seemed to be very timid. We drove around to a couple other spots and ended up on the north side. This channel had 10 fellas or so fishing already. We decided to partake and worked hard for some fish. The fish seemed to be coming in and out of the structure. I ended up catching 14 with 2 over 12". One was 13" and 5 1/2" wide- a true brute. Dad ended up catching some more to add to the total. Red body and yellow tail stingers worked the best for us. Sure was nice to get back out there and catch some fish!


Congrats on the 13" which qualifies as Fish Ohio!


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## zaraspook

With 32 degree or less forecast for low temps 10 consecutive nights, tried my best to make it to GLSM today. Made it, but not until 3:30 pm and air temps already on the decline. My local channels still muddy as hell, but I came to fish. Hit 3 spots without a bite.......that convinced me to head to Last Gasp Gulch while I had good light. It was a hard hour there, found 2 fish, both keepers at 10" while light showers were on and off. With 1/2 hour of light remaining, I revisited a spot that was an earlier blank. Caught 2 better crappies there and had a pair of fish unzip. Photo is the biggest at 11.5".

At least all 4 I landed were keepers. Hasn't been that way in my channel.....good sign. Water temp was 41.5 degrees....coldest water since Feb 24. Last year on this date water was 44.6 and I caught 21 crappies - 10 keepers.


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## RMK

good job in less than ideal conditions. i woldnt have near as many as you, as far as fish or total outings, but i need to do a better job of keeping records of dates fished, conditions, locations, etc... i m sure it would help me put a bigger picture together.


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## fishwhacker

Nice job Zara. Any word if they are still draining fish out of the lake via spillway?


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Nice job Zara. Any word if they are still draining fish out of the lake via spillway?


Affirmative. Average flow for last 2 weeks between 500-600 cubic ft per second. This morning is 474 cfs. Beaver is re-stocked. GLSM is de-stocked. Despite pulling all that water, water level at my seawall is unchanged.... 45". Outflow is just keeping pace with inflow. Lake not losing water. It just loses fish.


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## conley14

That Saugeye doesn't look anywhere near 9lbs.


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## zaraspook

conley14 said:


> That Saugeye doesn't look anywhere near 9lbs.


Personally, I didn't see it and not in position to defend claimed weight. I'll point out that fish was photographed at The Outdoorsman, the most recognized bait/tackle shop in St. Mary's. Outdoorsman runs a ton of ton of fishing tourneys on GLSM. Outdoorman posted the photo on their Facebook page. I'd trust their ability to weigh a fish, but don't know if they weighed it. The angle of the photo doesn't show give a great view of the fish's belly.......who knows?


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## zaraspook

Hung around my lake place overnight Tues to try the crappie bite again this morning(Weds). First cast produced a 10" fish and 3rd cast yielded a clone of the first fish. Thought I might be into a pile of them, but everyone knows the first cast/first fish curse. Caught 5 total, 3 keepers at the first spot. Not a whiff of a bite at 3 other spots. Howling wind made it tough to see a bite......left after 90 minutes.

Water temp today 40 degrees even, down 1.5 over night. For what it's worth I cycled through a lot of plastics Tues evening and 4-5 more plastics today. Every fish I caught was on Monkey Milk Baby Shad.


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## RMK

monkey milk producing in the muddier than normal water again.....if i m correct, i think that has worked for you before??


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## Saugeyefisher

conley14 said:


> That Saugeye doesn't look anywhere near 9lbs.


Who cares,its a BIG saugeye that neither you or I caught. 
And if its not 9 lbs,its awfully close to it! 

Again,impresive fish!!


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## 1catdaddy1

bait!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> monkey milk producing in the muddier than normal water again.....if i m correct, i think that has worked for you before??


RMK.........you expertly picked up on that! Very good. I don't think lighter and natural looking colors fit conventional wisdom to use in dirty water. Couple of weeks ago a fishing friend at GLSM told me he was using pearl, doing well with it in muddy water. Didn't have pearl with me so I slapped on the Monkey Milk, kind of opaque white and blue specks, and it worked. Returned to the bait Tues and Weds this week. It was the best bait again. Obviously crappie see it and find it. Late last year I started using Monkey Milk frequently. Good Baby Shad bait.


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## zaraspook

1catdaddy1 said:


> this one is 8.5 roughly through the ice at indian, obviously not recent,buddies nice fish.bait was netted today at st marys,shad were great,netted several big crappie also,biggest was 14.5,and yes,all but shad were released.bring on the cats!


So, salmonid isn't the only cat guy who likes GLSM for shadzillas. We have plenty. Come back soon.


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## zaraspook

Knowing my weekend was likely a bust for fishing, headed up Friday morning with a hard stop to leave by 3pm to pick up my grandkids for an overnighter. 10:30 arrival seemed decent........should get 4+ hours of fishing in. One small issue I didn't see coming........ICE! Not that channels were locked up. Ice cover was partial, but ice cover was 100% on the only 2 places I've caught crappie lately.
Ran errands and by 12:30 pm all areas free and clear, though clock reduced to 2.5 hours. First spot was giving up bites from the get-go......not a problem. Catching was the problem. Very sure I whiffed on 7 before landing one. That was the pattern......lots of bites, few fish, and only 2 of the 6 were keepers. With an hour left I hustled to Last Gasp Gulch, confident I'd find a few bigger ones. Not this day.....not a nibble. Made a fast return to the first spot.......5 minutes at best left on the clock. 3 casts, 2 bites, 1 crappie (smallest of the day at 5").

5 dinks, 2 keepers, 36.8 degree water temp(ouch!!!!!), water level down 4" at my seawall at 40", water clarity stained but best in 2 weeks. Once tubes are opened State likes to over do it. In preparation for spring rains, likely they will pull 9-10" more. Won't take long since inflows are way down......outflows at tubes still up there at 460 cfs.
5 of 7 crappie caught on Monkey Milk Baby Shad. 2 caught on on Baby Shad color that is pink and white body with chartreuse tail.


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## harrison08

Went up with a buddy of mine since high school for a short trip this morning. Left Middletown at 6:15 to arrive at GLSM at 7:45. Got a tip from a local buddy about a spot to try. We pulled in to find 15 or so anglers fishing the same general area. Most fisherman caught one or two, if any at all. Between the two of us, we ended up with 17 keepers. Bubble gum color, red and chartreuse, and white all produced fish. We packed up to head back at noon. It was a chilly day, so I was happy with our results. Biggest fish was 12 1/2" (first fish of the day).


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## RMK

Good job harrison! You guys did better than alot of others. Including us. Made it out friday and today, first halves of each day. Between the two of us, that produced 1 bite and one 11.5" fish boated by scott. From watching and talking to shore folks pink seemed to be quite commom among those having success. Water is finally clearing nicely. North side less stained than the south, as expected I suppose. Friday water temps 36 to 37. 38 today and managed to find some 41 degree water in the muddier south side spot we tried today. I m convinced my boat is cursed.... only possibility is better days to come for us!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Good job harrison! You guys did better than alot of others. Including us. Made it out friday and today, first halves of each day. Between the two of us, that produced 1 bite and one 11.5" fish boated by scott. From watching and talking to shore folks pink seemed to be quite commom among those having success. Water is finally clearing nicely. North side less stained than the south, as expected I suppose. Friday water temps 36 to 37. 38 today and managed to find some 41 degree water in the muddier south side spot we tried today. I m convinced my boat is cursed.... only possibility is better days to come for us!





harrison08 said:


> Went up with a buddy of mine since high school for a short trip this morning. Left Middletown at 6:15 to arrive at GLSM at 7:45. Got a tip from a local buddy about a spot to try. We pulled in to find 15 or so anglers fishing the same general area. Most fisherman caught one or two, if any at all. Between the two of us, we ended up with 17 keepers. Bubble gum color, red and chartreuse, and white all produced fish. We packed up to head back at noon. It was a chilly day, so I was happy with our results. Biggest fish was 12 1/2" (first fish of the day).





harrison08 said:


> Went up with a buddy of mine since high school for a short trip this morning. Left Middletown at 6:15 to arrive at GLSM at 7:45. Got a tip from a local buddy about a spot to try. We pulled in to find 15 or so anglers fishing the same general area. Most fisherman caught one or two, if any at all. Between the two of us, we ended up with 17 keepers. Bubble gum color, red and chartreuse, and white all produced fish. We packed up to head back at noon. It was a chilly day, so I was happy with our results. Biggest fish was 12 1/2" (first fish of the day).


Good post and great results, h08!


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## zaraspook

Early afternoon for me today at GLSM crappie fishing of course. Caught a couple nice ones......
















I was stuck in Shortyville on crappie. Only 3 keepers from the 14 I caught. It didn't matter...... I was thrilled to catch 2 perch in same outing. First time. Can you ID the bait both perch ate?
Water temp 37.7 in my channel Sunday. Depth at my seawall down 2" at 38". Not sure when perch spawn but could be one of reasons the critters are making way into channels? Mid - 40's maybe?


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## tylerd1994

Went out Saturday at around 12:00PM. Caught 17 keepers in 2 hours fishing docks in about 8-9 FOW. Jigging a white split tail set about 4 foot deep on 1/64 pink jig head size 6 hook. Most fish were caught on pilings under the docks, or on any wood structure near the docks. Most were between 10-11".


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## zaraspook

tylerd1994 said:


> Went out Saturday at around 12:00PM. Caught 17 keepers in 2 hours fishing docks in about 8-9 FOW. Jigging a white split tail set about 4 foot deep on 1/64 pink jig head size 6 hook. Most fish were caught on pilings under the docks, or on any wood structure near the docks. Most were between 10-11".


Excellent!


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Can you ID the bait both perch ate?


I guess it's just hard for any fish to resist those BGBS in monkey milk when the master is working his magic.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> I guess it's just hard for any fish to resist those BGBS in monkey milk when the master is working his magic.


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## RMK

tubes are closed!! and the spillway stocking program is now put on hold.....until they open the flood gates again....


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## firemanmike2127

This afternoon there were 15 vehicles parked down beside Beaver Creek this afternoon & 7 more were in the parking lot next to West Bank Road.....hope the fish are wearing helmets.


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## Salmonid

I saw a FB post with someone had a picture of around 30 cars and the shore looked like the Maumee. Lol


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## Redhunter1012

There were lots of hungry eyes. We released about 6-8 snagged ones too. Also got 4 legal crappie and a 25" and 18" pike. 4 of these were 28" or larger. Guessing the smallest was 8 lbs


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## fishwhacker

Combat fishing at its finest. Heard game wardens were out there undercover.


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## Redhunter1012

Haha
I see me and my jeep there. I seen the warden not long after we got there. Not sure if he came back undercover. I could understand why. From 9 pm til 9:30 we snagged into so many fish. They were thick. We would hit fish every cast. We left at ten, and the fish were still hungry.

Are snaggers a problem down there? I didnt see any snagged fish kept, but after dark who knows. I know a few times we were sure it was a legal eye only to be snagged in the cheek or head. I suppose peeople would get tempted quick.


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## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> Haha
> I see me and my jeep there. I seen the warden not long after we got there. Not sure if he came back undercover. I could understand why. From 9 pm til 9:30 we snagged into so many fish. They were thick. We would hit fish every cast. We left at ten, and the fish were still hungry.
> 
> Are snaggers a problem down there? I didnt see any snagged fish kept, but after dark who knows. I know a few times we were sure it was a legal eye only to be snagged in the cheek or head. I suppose peeople would get tempted quick.


Great job of getting those pig "eyes". This time around, what's your thinking, are they walleye or saugeye?


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## Saugeyefisher

u guys need to take advantage of this. These average sizea are UNREAL. 
On another note. I do feel bad for the locals that are always down there. That little hole is being advertised all over the internet (if i was hitting fish this size id be bragging everywhere to).

Redhunter,congrats on the pigs!


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## Redhunter1012

Im 100% confident they are walleye.


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## zaraspook

While the spillway is the big GLSM story, some of us are still doing pedestrian crappie fishing. Monday morning I crappie fished for 2.5 hours. Whereas the afternoon the day before produced 17 crappie but only 3 keepers, Monday morning gave up 10 keepers from 20 fish. Two fish at one spot and 18 another. You could pick up a few inside 10' from the back on various structure, but rarely a keeper. More fish and bigger ones were 15-25' out in channel, beyond structure and wanted the bait 28-30" under bobber. Probably 1/3 caught on Monkey Milk Baby Shad. Hotter bait was Jelly Bean colored shad body with stinger tail. Spots I fished were 200-250 yards yards off the main lake.......takes a while for bigger fish to make their way that far back into the channel. My 2 biggest crappie were no more than 11"........that will change as water temp rises. 37.5 degree water Monday and in the morning stagnant water showed some skim ice.

A decent day it was although no perch.


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## Redhunter1012

Yea the average size of these fish are just stupid. As far as advertising spots, i understand the frustration . They arent any secret spots anymore. Everyone knows as soon as they shut down the tubes there, its a bloodbath.


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## Redhunter1012

Forgot to mention the big LM Bass i caught and released. Thought for sure i had a big Eye on. Pic doesn't do it justice. Jus a guess, but probably 17" and an easy 5 lbs. Just a freaking toad


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## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> Im 100% confident they are walleye.


Good! You haven't changed your posture. Local sentiment is on the other side, though I'm not aware of a scientific ID by State guys lately. If walleyes, it would prove there actually was a benefit from the 9-year walleye stocking experiment that ended 10 years ago. I'm going to talk to a guy who may have the connections to get a test done.
A nice LMB, dude!


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## Salmonid

Better yet we need the state to hurry up and get those screens on the tubes. Lol.


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## ohiostrutter

Just saw a pic from the beaver on facebook of an absolute pig walleye. Biggest I've seen yet. Also same angler with a huge pike. It's getting to where I might play hooky soon


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## zaraspook

I told a fishing friend Sunday night tubes closed. Didn't have to tell him twice. He was at spillway early today/Monday. Before 9am Monday morning I got this photo (below).









Around midday he sent this photo from home. What a day!








He'd caught a 2nd eye. One just over 27" and other just under 27". Bigger one was 9#3oz. Smaller one went 7#10oz.

Monday evening my phone chimed again with a new text msg.....same friend. What's he sending me now, maybe a photo of the fresh fillets to make me more jealous? No, nothing like that. Can you believe he went back, pulled another eye that is so fat it looks like a pin prick would explode it's gut? A pregnant hippo might be an apt description. Gaze if you can stand to:

View attachment 257531


















28" and 10# 14oz.....a personal best! His total Monday was 27# 11 oz for an avg of nearly 9# 4oz per eye. Great day! Congrats on the new PB. You are the man, T04DF15H.


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## bountyhunter

shame your 200 miles away.


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## Saugeyefisher

bountyhunter said:


> shame your 200 miles away.


As nice as these fish are. I have absolutely no desire to fish such a small place with so many people.
And a 10lb inland walleye/saugeye is very hi on my "bucket list" but i just wouldnt quite feel the same about it there as i would somewhere else. 
It reminds me of a trout release on a small pond except maybe a small smaller window to get these fish.....
And im not at all hating on those catching these fish,c-grats!! Just not my thing.
To those fishing down there. How many of these fish are swimming up from down river? How manu are freshly dumped fish?
Id guess with how aggresive theyve been,lack of battle wounds,an the time of year a lot of these fish are river residents??????


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## firemanmike2127

These fish have spent their entire adult life in GLSM. The spillway empties into Beaver Creek & when the tubes are opened the gamefish get flushed/transplanted to Beaver Creek, which turns into a very shallow waterway 3/8 of a mile downstream of the spillway. The pics you're seeing online is the short deeper stretch of water that's holding most of the fish when the bypass tube(s) are open . Mike


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## Saugeyefisher

firemanmike2127 said:


> These fish have spent their entire adult life in GLSM. The spillway empties into Beaver Creek & when the tubes are opened the gamefish get flushed/transplanted to Beaver Creek, which turns into a very shallow waterway 3/8 of a mile downstream of the spillway. The pics you're seeing online is the short deeper stretch of water that's holding most of the fish when the bypass tube(s) are open . Mike


So no chance at all of even some of these fish being river residents? 
I know here locally they will travel up some really shallow stuff,in fast water,for LONG distances until they run into the dam an have to stop. 
Im not saying i dont beleive you. But if there are really thismany walleye/saugeye being dumped every hi water event then there are a lot more fish swimming around in that lake then some would think....
I would think with glsm being shallow they would show up more,bye fisherman,an electro shocking.

The only thing i know about this lake is what i read on here. And these fish are very fascinating to me. And from the size an numbers id say something went very right with this stocking class of fish.


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## firemanmike2127

Beaver Creek has a section of very shallow riffles appx 3/8 of a mile from the spillway. When the bypass tube(s) are open & the water level is up the fish can migrate downstream in the Beaver which empties into the Wabash River in western Mercer County. The Beaver & Wabash are much more like glorified drainage ditches until you get quite a ways farther downstream. In Mercer County they tent to only be 20-25' wide & not much deeper than 2-3' in most areas. When the water level is normal in Beaver Creek the riffles I mentioned probably trap almost all of those larger fish in the deeper 3/8 mile stretch of water which is just downstream of the spillway. Mike


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## Greyduck

To bad the dnr does not harvest some of these to milk for restocking. With the fish hatchery so close and plenty of empty ponds there. Maybe this would stem some natural breeding in the lake.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> So no chance at all of even some of these fish being river residents?
> I know here locally they will travel up some really shallow stuff,in fast water,for LONG distances until they run into the dam an have to stop.
> Im not saying i dont beleive you. But if there are really thismany walleye/saugeye being dumped every hi water event then there are a lot more fish swimming around in that lake then some would think....
> I would think with glsm being shallow they would show up more,bye fisherman,an electro shocking.
> 
> The only thing i know about this lake is what i read on here. And these fish are very fascinating to me. And from the size an numbers id say something went very right with this stocking class of fish.


Saugfish......some perspective.......the creek (Beaver Creek) below spillway is roughly 50-60 feet wide (that's probably generous). The area that draws the crowds could be 1.5 football fields in length. 50' times 450' is 22500 square feet, just a bit more than a half acre of water (1 acre =43560 sq ft) at spillway. As a wild ass guess, let's assume 4% survival rate of saugeye of the original 125,000 saugeye fingerlings(125k fingerlings total stocked 2010-2011, zero since).......5000 fish survived. GLSM is 13,500 acres which equates to .37 saugeye per acre of GLSM. At this point it's estimated 125-150 eyes harvested from the spillway since tubes closed Sunday. Eye population in spillway/creek was at least 250-300 per acre there, not counting ones flushed further downstream and not counting eyes that remain uncaught in that 1/2 acre of spillway. Concentration of eyes in spillway, on a temporary basis, conservatively becomes at least 800 times the eye population in GLSM.

I used to think the spillway eyes were significantly from upstream migration. Could happen but it ignores that these magnificent eye events all seem to coincide with spillway tube openings. Maybe all it proves is fishermen will catch crazy size/numbers of fish if they come upon an obscene concentration of those fish. Duh!


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## RMK

Makes me want to put a little more time into dragging flicker shads around the main lake to find out!


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## Fishbaughzach

When some of the fish caught have sores and cuts from being thrown into the rocks its pretty obvious where the fish are coming from. It's truly sad that such a great fishing lake is putting that in jeopardy by opening the spillway to let these fish just be flushed into a creek. I am mainly a crappie fisherman and seeing some of the big crappie get thrown down there really bothers me. If I would fish the spillway I would be tempted to bring the fish back into the lake.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> I told a fishing friend Sunday night tubes closed. Didn't have to tell him twice. He was at spillway early today/Monday. Before 9am Monday morning I got this photo (below).
> View attachment 257529
> 
> 
> Around midday he sent this photo from home. What a day!
> View attachment 257530
> 
> He'd caught a 2nd eye. One just over 27" and other just under 27". Bigger one was 9#3oz. Smaller one went 7#10oz.
> 
> Monday evening my phone chimed again with a new text msg.....same friend. What's he sending me now, maybe a photo of the fresh fillets to make me more jealous? No, nothing like that. Can you believe he went back, pulled another eye that is so fat it looks like a pin prick would explode it's gut? A pregnant hippo might be an apt description. Gaze if you can stand to:
> 
> View attachment 257531
> 
> View attachment 257533
> 
> View attachment 257535
> 
> 
> 28" and 10# 14oz.....a personal best! His total Monday was 27# 11 oz for an avg of nearly 9# 4oz per eye. Great day! Congrats on the new PB. You are the man, T04DF15H.


wow those fish are simply amazing. i m so excited about a possible saugeye stocking program starting back up. even if these are walleye being caught it seems like the stocked saugeye could thrive just as well. only problem would again be the huge size of the lake and the numbers of fish that it would take to make it rival indian in the catching department.


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## RMK

Fishbaughzach said:


> When some of the fish caught have sores and cuts from being thrown into the rocks its pretty obvious where the fish are coming from. It's truly sad that such a great fishing lake is putting that in jeopardy by opening the spillway to let these fish just be flushed into a creek. I am mainly a crappie fisherman and seeing some of the big crappie get thrown down there really bothers me. If I would fish the spillway I would be tempted to bring the fish back into the lake.


although i m pretty sure its illegal, i know it has been done, and have been tempted to do it myself. 
on the crappie note- i fished the spillway late monday night into tuesday morning(missed the walleye frenzy by a few hours from what i was told) one guy sitting across from me on the east bank snagged a crappie. as he held it up he said "good god this has to be the biggest crappie i ve ever seen"-guessed to be around 16.5 and tossed it back in....


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## zaraspook

ohiostrutter said:


> Just saw a pic from the beaver on facebook of an absolute pig walleye. Biggest I've seen yet. Also same angler with a huge pike. It's getting to where I might play hooky soon


ohiostrutter........maybe pic below is the huge pike? Thanks to Salmonid via Facebook.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> wow those fish are simply amazing. i m so excited about a possible saugeye stocking program starting back up. even if these are walleye being caught it seems like the stocked saugeye could thrive just as well. only problem would again be the huge size of the lake and the numbers of fish that it would take to make it rival indian in the catching department.


RMK........restarting saugeye stocking sounds so wonderful! Keep in mind saugs are eating machines. There will be a price to pay. Crappie will take a hit like they did 2000-2008 massive walleye dump. Perch will take a hit just like it did during same walleye dump. DNR needs to be careful.......define what objective is for fish demographics and manage stocking to that end. Remember, when they did walleye stocking fishermen never learned to catch them while other species diminished. Who says we'll learn to catch saugeye better than we did walleye (except at the spillway). 
I support saug stocking. However, at what cost to species most people are successful catching? Perch experiment isn't yet a winner, however, showing potential.


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## zaraspook

Fishbaughzach said:


> When some of the fish caught have sores and cuts from being thrown into the rocks its pretty obvious where the fish are coming from. It's truly sad that such a great fishing lake is putting that in jeopardy by opening the spillway to let these fish just be flushed into a creek. I am mainly a crappie fisherman and seeing some of the big crappie get thrown down there really bothers me. If I would fish the spillway I would be tempted to bring the fish back into the lake.


fishb......I had exactly same reaction to the big pike photo when I heard it was returned to spillway. Would rather it gone back into main lake, where it came from before spillway.


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## Saugeyefisher

firemanmike2127 said:


> Beaver Creek has a section of very shallow riffles appx 3/8 of a mile from the spillway. When the bypass tube(s) are open & the water level is up the fish can migrate downstream in the Beaver which empties into the Wabash River in western Mercer County. The Beaver & Wabash are much more like glorified drainage ditches until you get quite a ways farther downstream. In Mercer County they tent to only be 20-25' wide & not much deeper than 2-3' in most areas. When the water level is normal in Beaver Creek the riffles I mentioned probably trap almost all of those larger fish in the deeper 3/8 mile stretch of water which is just downstream of the spillway. Mike





Fishbaughzach said:


> When some of the fish caught have sores and cuts from being thrown into the rocks its pretty obvious where the fish are coming from. It's truly sad that such a great fishing lake is putting that in jeopardy by opening the spillway to let these fish just be flushed into a creek. I am mainly a crappie fisherman and seeing some of the big crappie get thrown down there really bothers me. If I would fish the spillway I would be tempted to bring the fish back into the lake.


But the pics ive seen recently are not showing many battle wounds. And fish eyes swim up river to spawn. 
I find saugeye/walleye/pike indrainage ditch sized creeks all the time below lakes.
Ya slot of the fish are probobly feshly dumped.but id bet a lot of money some of those fish came up-river an where dumped some time ago.....

An about the drawdowns and loseing fish,the guys in charge of the drawdowns dont care one bit about those fish.
At alum creek thete is a stidy going on about how many muskie go through the dam. If the numbers are high i think thete gonna try to develop a way to "strain" the water so onky water gets through....


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Makes me want to put a little more time into dragging flicker shads around the main lake to find out!


We should do that, RMK. Before suags were stocked, 2009-2010, I caught 2 walleyes from main lake. Never got any while trolling, but used my boat 90% of the time and catches were casting. Everyone said it was a waste of time to attempt walleye anywhere but spillway.


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## RMK

definitely a balancing act to be played there


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## crappiedude

As far as fishing going out the overflow, it's been going on for as long as they've been building lakes and stocking fish. Look at all the saugeye in GM river, aren't those all coming from stocking programs at Indian Lake. I think the only way to stop them from escaping is to stop all the stocking and that wouldn't be any fun.
When we have extreme rainfall all that water has to get holed up in our lakes then released downstream.
If all those big eyes are coming out of the lake it only proves that the lake has what it needs to grow big fish but the fisherman hasn't figured out what it takes to catch them.


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## fishwhacker

I have to say i have heard on numerous occasions that guys had the eye bite "figure out" on the main lake they were just tight lipped so there spots wouldnt turn into the spillway. Look how ridiculous cw creek was years ago when they were located through the ice on the main lake. Anyone figuring them out on the main lake in a boat has an advantage keeping it a secret as not too many people are going to catch on compared to bank fishing.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> I have to say i have heard on numerous occasions that guys had the eye bite "figure out" on the main lake they were just tight lipped so there spots wouldnt turn into the spillway. Look how ridiculous cw creek was years ago when they were located through the ice on the main lake. Anyone figuring them out on the main lake in a boat has an advantage keeping it a secret as not too many people are going to catch on compared to bank fishing.


Have to admit I put in lots of hours on main lake chasing walleye. That was pre-saugeye time frame. Might have figured out saugeye had I invested an equal amount of time as spent on walleye.......saugs are considerably more fisherman friendly beasts. When the State backed off saug stocking in 2nd year, I lost enthusiasm for the project.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Have to admit I put in lots of hours on main lake chasing walleye


Did you do any good? I had a few guys around here when I was younger tell me it was a good place it go for eyes. I never made it though.


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## Saugeye Tom

crappiedude said:


> As far as fishing going out the overflow, it's been going on for as long as they've been building lakes and stocking fish. Look at all the saugeye in GM river, aren't those all coming from stocking programs at Indian Lake. I think the only way to stop them from escaping is to stop all the stocking and that wouldn't be any fun.
> When we have extreme rainfall all that water has to get holed up in our lakes then released downstream.
> If all those big eyes are coming out of the lake it only proves that the lake has what it needs to grow big fish but the fisherman hasn't figured out what it takes to catch them.


they used to stock the river....


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Friday, at least 3 hours between 11 and 4PM. Before I forget, 1st day I fished GLSM this year was Feb 21. I caught 50 crappies that day and kept a pile of 'em. Water temp that day was 44 degrees. Then came the cold and with it water temps headed down. Still heading down. Wrap your head around 35.9 degree water today. Non-stop 20's every night are taking a toll. Skim ice in channels is more frequent. 

So here's my story. First hour and half went scoreless, not a single bump. Same spot I'd hit Monday and caught 20 crappies. Unknown at the time, the next spot was the only one to give up fish today. Caught 1st crappie quickly, a keeper of 10". Took a while but finally fish #2 was on land......a perch, 8.5", which makes me smile! No bucket with me so it went back into the water just as the crappie did. Stopped for lunch and returned with my bucket. Moved my float a bit deeper and fished slower, one of the tactics I usually do when I might be on perch. Next fish was an 11" crappie....into the bucket, which was followed by an 11" perch and real fatty of a fish! Put at least another 45 minutes into this spot working out/in, left and right, 30-40' in every direction without another perch, although 2 more crappie went into the bucket. Other spots were dry holes. 

This is the 2nd time this week I managed 2 perch in an outing. In fact, never caught 2 perch in one day my previous 9 years at GLSM. Big perch took a Monkey Milk Baby Shad. 8.5" perch ate a Jelly Bean shad body stinger. Two crappies bit the Monkey Milk baby Shad. 2 crappies ate the Jelly Bean plastic. Photo below is a side by side comparison of an 11" black crappie with 11" yellow perch. Sorry I didn't notice the background table was not the best for a photo.


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## fishwhacker

That perch is a tank. Way to go Zara, hope this is a good sign of things to come from the perch pop


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## oldroller

With perch showing up like that I wish I could remember some of my old ice fishing spots.It could be something next year


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## zaraspook

At the risk of showing I'm a perch novice just realized the 11" one is a PB (personal best).  Couple of other pics of both perch from yesterday.


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## zaraspook

Oops.


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## T04DF15H

zaraspook said:


> At the risk of showing I'm a perch novice just realized the 11" one is a PB (personal best). Couple of other pics of both perch from yesterday.
> 
> View attachment 257777


Congrats on the PB!
Wish I could catch one!


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## zaraspook

Remember, you have to target perch! Ha! Ha! Ha! 

But you got your 30 crappie today, and a 13.5" PIG. Best results I've heard today.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Did you do any good? I had a few guys around here when I was younger tell me it was a good place it go for eyes. I never made it though.


2008 was my 1st year at GLSM. All I heard was you can't catch walleye in the lake, just spillway. I had a pontoon, no fishing boat, so bought a brand new boat in May 2009. Watched Doug Stange on InFisherman catch walleye like crazy. Paddle tail soft swim baits were new then and Stange made it look like taking candy from babies. Back then not some much structure in the lake compared to now. Safety Island and oil derrick were among the few. My game plan was to go to Safety Island and cast swim baits to within 20-60 feet off bank of the island.Son and I motored out.....took 30 minutes to get there and began casting swim baits, specifically perch pattern/colot of Berkley hollow belly swimbaits. 45 minutes from departure, I boated my first GLSM walleye. It was 16.5", and before they ever stocked saugeye, therefore no debate about ID of fish. If you look at my avatar, my picture/photo with my name, the fish I'm holding up is that walleye and we're in my boat bought specifically to chase walleye. It took 45 minutes from leaving my dock to prove the pundits wrong.....that's why I have a big smile on my face. That fish was only catch that trip.

We returned the next weekend, anxious to hit Safety Island again, and expand to other spots. At exactly the same spot at Safety Island, one of my casts hooked and landed walleye #2, an 18.5" fish this time. At another part of the island I hooked another, it was much bigger estimated at 6#. My son scrambled around the boat to grab the landing net, all the while I'm screaming for him to hurry. We lost that one during our novice attempts to net it.

With my son and alone we tried at least 30+ more boat trips on the lake that summer/fall, many times at night, chasing walleyes, likely 75 hours total, past Halloween that year. We caught a variety of other species, never another walleye. Sorry it took so long to respond, c-dude.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Sorry it took so long to respond


No problem, I was just curious. It was probably sometime in maybe the 90's when I had heard it was a good walleye lake. The guy who told me about GLSM made it sound like it was almost impossible to not catch a limit.


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## fishwhacker

Crappiedude, id say you got some bad info. As long as i can remember there werent any eyes in Glsm until the attempted stocking in the early 2000s. I might be wrong but i never heard that as a kid. It was always famous for crappie and perch.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> 2008 was my 1st year at GLSM. All I hear was you can't catch walleye in the lake, just spillway. I had a pontoon, no fishing boat, so bought a brand new boat in May 2009. Watched Doug Stange on InFisherman catch walleye like crazy. Paddle tail soft swim baits were new then and Stange made it look like taking candy from babies. Back then not some much structure in the lake compared to now. Safety Island and oil derrick were among the few. My game plan was to go to Safety Island and cast swim baits to within 20-60 feet off bank of the island.Son and I motored out.....took 30 minutes to get there and began casting swim baits, specifically perch pattern/colo of Berkley hollow belly swimbaits. 45 minutes from departure, I boated my first GLSM walleye. It was 16.5", and before they ever stocked saugeye, therefore no debate about ID of fish. If you look at my avatar, my picture/photo with my name, the fish I'm holding up is that walleye and we're in my boat bought specifically to chase walleye. It took 45 minutes from leaving my dock to prove the pundits wrong.....that's why I have a big smile on my face. That fish was only catch that trip.
> 
> We returned the next weekend, anxious to hit Safety Island again, and expand to other spots. At exactly the same spot at Safety Island, one of my casts hooked and landed walleye #2, an 18.5" fish this time. At another part of the island I hooked another, it was much bigger estimated at 6#. My son scrambled around the boat to grab the landing net, all the while I'm screaming for him to hurry. We lost that one during our novice attempts to net it.
> 
> With my son and alone we tried at least 30+ more boat trips on the lake, many times at night, chasing walleyes, likely 75 hours total, past Halloween that year. We caught a variety of other species, never another walleye. Sorry it took so long to respond, c-dude.


That's a pretty interesting storey/history right there. And to catch basically on your first cast of your attempts and then to only get one (almost two) more after that is crazy. You obviously had the right idea, just not the density of fish there to be consistent would be my guess/excuse....hehe.


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## Salmonid

Saw a post of FB of another really nice pike taken well downstream on the Beaver and another of a fat 9.5" perch taken at the spillway. Perhaps Zara should sell his canal front place and buy riverfront below the dam. Lol.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Crappiedude, id say you got some bad info. As long as i can remember there werent any eyes in Glsm until the attempted stocking in the early 2000s. I might be wrong but i never heard that as a kid. It was always famous for crappie and perch.


fw........Walleye stocking started late 90's. Those 50-60 mil walleye fry/fingerlings played a role in GLSM perch decline. Ask any walleye you know, perch are high on the walleye menu, gourmet menu.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Saw a post of FB of another really nice pike taken well downstream on the Beaver and another of a fat 9.5" perch taken at the spillway. Perhaps Zara should sell his canal front place and buy riverfront below the dam. Lol.


Hey, dude! My 11" perch would kick a puny 9.5" critter all day. Just when I'm starting to get some perch love, you suggest I move? I may never catch another, but will take my chances.


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## Salmonid

Not that anyone else will be stupid enough to take the boat out Saturday but just in case. This Saturday the Outdoorsman has their first Catfish tournament from noon-6 pm. You can register at the Outdoorsman anytime between now and Sat at noon. Cost is $50 per team. Ps dress warm and dry lol


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Not that anyone else will be stupid enough to take the boat out Saturday but just in case. This Saturday the Outdoorsman has their first Catfish tournament from noon-6 pm. You can register at the Outdoorsman anytime between now and Sat at noon. Cost is $50 per team. Ps dress warm and dry lol


Saturday forecast looks very typical for the avg February day. Oh, I guess this is March, isn't it. Water temp off my seawall was 39.9 today. Good luck with the kitties!


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## zaraspook

Wife had an appt today/Tues that was near my lake place. Good reason for me to volunteer to provide transportation (and get in couple hours of fishing!). Conditions are never perfect for fishing. It wasn't that cold. I like wind but today's 20-30 mph was the challenge. Very difficult to see/feel/detect bite. I know I missed many bites and fish.
At first 4 spots I was shutout. 5th spot pulled 6 keeper crappie among 7 caught, not tremendous action but steady if you worked area thoroughly and multiple times. Keepers were modest 10-11". 3 caught on Jelly Bean and 4 gave it up for Monkey Milk. Structure was a standalone wooden dock aka Last Gasp Gulch. 
Fish were under the water end of dock or within 4 feet of end. Depth is 3-4 ft with a few skimpy limbs in the area . Water temp 39.9 degrees. Tactic was vertical jigging if you can do it in 20-30 mph wind. 7 fish in 90 minutes at the dock isn't an active bite but under conditions I was thrilled.


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## 1catdaddy1

Salmonid said:


> Not that anyone else will be stupid enough to take the boat out Saturday but just in case. This Saturday the Outdoorsman has their first Catfish tournament from noon-6 pm. You can register at the Outdoorsman anytime between now and Sat at noon. Cost is $50 per team. Ps dress warm and dry lol


looking forward to the pleasant day we will have on the lake,interested to see how many show.good luck!


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## Salmonid

Ha ha. I agree. Id rather not fish Sat but have to as ill only be able to make 4 at the most so i have to make sure i qualify for the classic since ive won that 4 times. I never do very well in the spring but the later the year goes the better i do it seems. Not looking forward to it but we will be there dressed up like the Michelin Man


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## 1catdaddy1

glad i havent put away my ice fishing suit yet! bite will be interesting.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Ha ha. I agree. Id rather not fish Sat but have to as ill only be able to make 4 at the most so i have to make sure i qualify for the classic since ive won that 4 times. I never do very well in the spring but the later the year goes the better i do it seems. Not looking forward to it but we will be there dressed up like the Michelin Man


Hey, Mark. If I'm up there Saturday and you need to thaw, get a cup of java, whatever, c'mon over. Might be a long run from where you normally fish. What time does tourney start? By the way water temp in my channel is a robust 40.4 degrees today. 39.9 Tues.....running in place.


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## zaraspook

Haven't been many fish photos lately. Got there at 5pm Thurs. 1st crappie was a good 11" fish. Just 4 dinks after that. Frigid temps keeping everyone inside? 
Some people like to show off. This bucketful was caught by one of the green bucket brigade, not by me. I'd tell you that he got his limit of 30 catching only 30. No throwbacks, all keepers, and he doesn't keep any less than 10". Doesn't make sense to tell you about the 30 for 30 because you wouldn't believe me anyway.


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## RMK

Haha! That's amazing..... and your re right- unbelievable. I guess some guys just have this thing figured out. Big congrats to the owner of that green bucket!


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## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> Haven't been many fish photos lately. Got there at 5pm Thurs. 1st crappie was a good 11" fish. Just 4 dinks after that. Frigid temps keeping everyone inside?
> Some people like to show off. This bucketful was caught by one of the green bucket brigade, not by me. I'd tell you that he got his limit of 30 catching only 30. No throwbacks, all keepers, and he doesn't keep any less than 10". Doesn't make sense to tell you about the 30 for 30 because you wouldn't believe me anyway.
> View attachment 258270


No boat I bet and sitting on dock with good structure also in a channel out of wind!!! I get jealous up north cause we don't have protective canals!


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## Salmonid

Zara. Tourney this month is from noon-6 pm. Ill be driving around the laker from 9:30-12 looking for shad. Seeing any in your channel lately? Im looking for big ones not the smaller guys.


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## zaraspook

Fished a short time late morning Friday. It was biteless, no reason to continue, and water temp fell to 37.9 over night. 
Went back to fishing at 3pm. 4 spots later I don't think I'd had a bite. After arbitrarily changing plastics to blue/white stinger, a little birdie or something whispered for me to back off my bobber depth. First cast got a bite and next cast another bite and 1st fish of day. Steady bites, though not aggressive ones, continued for an hour. The next 3 crappie were keepers and last 3 dinks.
I get the feeling the fish are as frustrated as fishermen by persistent water temps in 30's.


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## Salmonid

Water was 38.2 in the main lake but almost 43 in montezuma channel but didnt mark a damn thing in there. Btw. It was an anchor mans game today in the catfish tourney with a steady east wind at 15-20 mph and solid 3 ft rollers. Needless to say our dragging baits out in The main lake with huge drift socks as for naught Had 7 bites only managed 18 lbs for a steller 27 th place out of 42 teams today. Took 39.5 lbs to win and 4 th place had 35 lbs 
Until next month. Lol


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Water was 38.2 in the main lake but almost 43 in montezuma channel but didnt mark a damn thing in there. Btw. It was an anchor mans game today in the catfish tourney with a steady east wind at 15-20 mph and solid 3 ft rollers. Needless to say our dragging baits out in The main lake with huge drift socks as for naught Had 7 bites only managed 18 lbs for a steller 27 th place out of 42 teams today. Took 39.5 lbs to win and 4 th place had 35 lbs
> Until next month. Lol


Rewards don't match the punishment.......lake owes your team a few next round.


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## zaraspook

Saturday AM fished a quick hour and 15 min before heading home. Caught 12 crappie with 6 keepers and 6 short. Majority of fish were out 15-25 feet from bank, not really any structure out there that I know of. Bites were plentiful but very timid, and fished 16-18" under bobber. Those blue/white stingers were productive again. Air was cold, rod eyelets frequently frozen. Decent size keepers showing up in better numbers than last few weeks.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Saturday AM fished a quick hour and 15 min before heading home. Caught 12 crappie with 6 keepers and 6 short. Majority of fish were out 15-25 feet from bank, not really any structure out there that I know of. Bites were plentiful but very timid, and fished 16-18" under bobber. Those blue/white stingers were productive again. Air was cold, rod eyelets frequently frozen. Decent size keepers showing up in better numbers than last few weeks.


Thats not to shabby! We found some crappos yesterday why chaseing eyeballs. They would chase and hammer a 1/4 lipless crank yo-yo'ed off the bottom,an i think game on,grab my crappie rod from my van and start doing my thing-not a sniff on 5 different crappie plastics delivered in different fish catching ways.as my buddy hooks a few more on the lipless cranks.... been a tuff couple weeks,need to get after some crappies asap!


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## Seasport

Thank for the tip. I an about 1 hour north


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## fishwhacker

Not a super hot bite today but got a few gills and a couple crappies that wanted in on the action, gills were the target. Always amazes me that one of those tanks can be landed on a 1/64oz hair jig.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Not a super hot bite today but got a few gills and a couple crappies that wanted in on the action, gills were the target. Always amazes me that one of those tanks can be landed on a 1/64oz hair jig.
> View attachment 258506


Nice haul, fw!


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## zaraspook

The Green Bucket guy pulled another limit yesterday. Nothing unusual there. 

Visited the GLSM hatchery last Friday. Their breeder perch were just beginning to release eggs. Males are in the same tanks with the ladies, get fertilized, egg ribbons harvested daily and placed in racks under controlled water conditions to hatch/grow into fry and fingerlings. Interesting process for sure. GLSM hatchery is State's only producer of perch, not that perch is their only product. Crew there is responsible for some production innovations over the years which have exponentially incremented production. The brood stock is amazing to see.......includes toad-sized females 14-15" range. Breeders are raised right on site. Keep it up guys!


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM at 2:30 Tues afternoon. First spot I hit kept me busy until 4:30. I was on a seawall fishing 18" under bobber and didn't move more than 15' right or left. 22 keepers from 47 crappie caught. That's not a great keeper ratio for Grand Lake, but the bigger fish are just beginning to make it into latter portion of channel. 2 biggest were 11'. 

Crappie were aggressive and chasing. It was one bump and bobber gone, or bobber buried immediately. Blue/white stinger was incredible bait catching 2/3's of fish. Monkey Milk enticed the last 17 fish. Obviously I was sitting on a school. Majority of fish were caught 12-20" off the bank. 20+ fish per hour is great fun!

Water clarity was about as good as it gets in my channel at GLSM. Forgot to check water temp...too busy catching!


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## zaraspook

Water temp Weds 42.5 and clarity suffered a bit from rain/runoff.......not muddy in my location. Weds morning started at Windy Point. An hour there.....no fish, no bites, no fun. Back to my place to ponder next move and empty kidneys. Came up with a not too imaginative idea......why not try the spot where all the action was the day before?

Made the one minute walk to Medusaville and launched a long cast. Bobber settled on the water and in one second disappeared. First bite of day, first crappie of day both checked off my "to do list". Caught crappie on 12 of first 13 casts before sanity set in. Not big fish, mind you, mostly 7 - 9.5". At the end of an hour and a half I'd caught 23 with 4 in the bucket 10-11".

About that time fellow OGF'er T04DF15H came by. He was going to teach me his method to cleaning crappie, give a demo, but first we needed a few more keepers in the bucket. We stayed on the same fishing spot for 90 minutes, maybe a bit more. The hot bite held up for each of us to catch 25-30 fish, a total of 12 in the bucket. Let the demo begin! 30 minutes later 24 gorgeous fillets were ready for a brine bath. His method is really slick, but will require some practice before I'm ready for prime time.

Later Weds I tried fishing "the spot" one more time before heading home. Action slowed modestly but size was on the uptick. 5 keepers, including 11.5" in photo, from 17 caught in about an hour. Spot had produced roughly 150 crappie from Tues afternoon to Weds afternoon. Probably 60-70 "legal", >9". Blue/white stinger was my dominant bait and pink worked magic for T04DF15H (thanks for the excellent lesson/demo!).


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## brandonw

Killin’m! Nice work!


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## Redhunter1012

Looks like they just opened the spillway pipes


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## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> Looks like they just opened the spillway pipes


They sure did.....about an hour ago. I was up there Weds and lake was not up appreciably. Looks like incessant rain today changed the calculus. Flow at the moment suggests maybe a single tube only. Doesn't matter.....Beaver is getting restocked!


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Water temp Weds 42.5 and clarity suffered a bit from rain/runoff.......not muddy in my location. Weds morning started at Windy Point. An hour there.....no fish, no bites, no fun. Back to my place to ponder next move and empty kidneys. Came up with a not too imaginative idea......why not try the spot where all the action was the day before?
> 
> Made the one minute walk to Medusaville and launched a long cast. Bobber settled on the water and in one second disappeared. First bite of day, first crappie of day both checked off my "to do list". Caught crappie on 12 of first 13 casts before sanity set in. Not big fish, mind you, mostly 7 - 9.5". At the end of an hour and a half I'd caught 23 with 4 in the bucket 10-11".
> 
> About that time fellow OGF'er T04DF15H came by. He was going to teach me his method to cleaning crappie, give a demo, but first we needed a few more keepers in the bucket. We stayed on the same fishing spot for 90 minutes, maybe a bit more. The hot bite held up for each of us to catch 25-30 fish, a total of 12 in the bucket. Let the demo begin! 30 minutes later 24 gorgeous fillets were ready for a brine bath. His method is really slick, but will require some practice before I'm ready for prime time.
> 
> Later Weds I tried fishing "the spot" one more time before heading home. Action slowed modestly but size was on the uptick. 5 keepers, including 11.5" in photo, from 17 caught in about an hour. Spot had produced roughly 150 crappie from Tues afternoon to Weds afternoon. Probably 60-70 "legal", >9". Blue/white stinger was my dominant bait and pink worked magic for T04DF15H (thanks for the excellent lesson/demo!).
> View attachment 258840


Great job! We re just down here practicing a new to us technique to bring home... looking forward to getting back on the more familiar waters of glsm.


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## zaraspook

Wow.... 8 rods on your spider rig. Hope the new technique you're practicing works up here.


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## zaraspook

First a clarification........spillway tubes apparently were not opened on 3/29. The surge of water.........just overflow from tribs/rain. It's water coming over the top, not from the tubes on bottom, not sucking jumbo fish of every variety. This is not a major restocking episode from the main lake into the Beaver.


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## zaraspook

Secondly, a fishing report. Water temp Friday was 45 degrees.......Yes! That's warmest since Feb 21, the first day I fished this year. Water was stained to muddy, not bad in my channel. Bite wasn't as crazy as Tues-Weds but good enough to keep your interest and put fillets in the pan.

Caught 9 crappies in my first 90 minute session in the late morning with a friend who lives nearby. Only 2 in the bucket at 10"+, but 1/2 the short ones were over 9" and legal. 2nd session from 2-3:45pm was with a different buddy. Each of us caught 12-15 fish and we added another 9 to bucket. Those 11 were cleaned, biggest 11". At 6pm I decided to put in another 30 minutes fishing before storing my rods. The bite changed the plan, stretched in to 90 minutes. 17 crappies, 10 keepers, 3 of those 11-11.75" and better than any I cleaned earlier.

Size definitely improved as day progressed. 12's, 13's and ?? on the horizon. Although I started with blue/white stingers, I switched to and stayed with Monkey Milk Baby Shad for the 2nd session......somewhat bigger bait, easier to for fish to locate in stained water. Pink worked, as did white with chartreuse tail, tried by others during the day. 

Fished just one spot all day. it's the same spot fished on Tues/Weds. 200+ crappies pulled from that spot since Tuesday. Guess it's the full moon? Though we'll get bigger ones, odds aren't good for topping quantity during the rest of 2018. You can bet I'll be trying.........


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## brad crappie

Made it down sat morning from berea the rain stopped in time the fishing was ok! Buddy and I caught around 25 craps lots of smalls with some good ones plus the gils , could of caught more if we stayed on fish but we are prefishing for crappie USA tourney so we checked out knew areas! Muddy water was in a lot of places and of course we caught fish in clearer water! Warmest water was 51 sad thing we only caught gils there!


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## zaraspook

Omitted from last report we were fishing from bank, under bobber 18" to as deep as 3.5', in water 3.5-5' depth. A few fish taken inside 10 feet from bank but sweetspot was 12-16' from bank.


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## firemanmike2127

Lots of rain around GLSM today. The spillway is flowing pretty strong with water coming over the entire perimeter. The lake is definitely stained & the south side feeder channels are going to bring in plenty more muddy water over the next 4-5 days. I haven't fished the lake for the last couple of weeks so I have no recent temperature reading to contribute. Mike


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> Lots of rain around GLSM today. The spillway is flowing pretty strong with water coming over the entire perimeter. The lake is definitely stained & the south side feeder channels are going to bring in plenty more muddy water over the next 4-5 days. I haven't fished the lake for the last couple of weeks so I have no recent temperature reading to contribute. Mike


Maybe we can get this rain, mud, yo-yo water levels over with before crappie spawn starts. I'm not planning on it. A surprise would be nice....


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## fishwhacker

Looks like the weather should straighten up next week if the forecast holds.


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## zaraspook

My 7 yr old grandson and I are heading to GLSM midday Weds. He's on Spring break....tough to call it "Spring" with snow flurries flying. We'll fish, maybe catch. Either way it will be an adventure! More later......


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## Redhunter1012

Good luck and stay warm Zara


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## RMK

She was high, muddy, and angry this morning. Good luck with the grandson zara. We ll be out friday.


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## zaraspook

Redhunter, RMK.......appreciate the well wishes! They weren't enough to work magic. Fishing Weds afternoon and today/Thurs was nasty. Grandson was skunked......although only 7 he knows what skunked means. I caught one dink Weds and today one dink plus a 10". Actually, he said he had a great time anyway. Was his first time to play with a new spinning/crappie outfit I bought him for Christmas. At that age casting is 1/2 the fun. He's a good student/quick learner and did really well.

I knew we'd be looking at muddy water, cold air temps, high water, and wind. That wasn't disappointing.......but disappointed water temp hadn't made any progress. Water temp actually made it to 45 last week and now backed up, just 42.8.


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## zaraspook

Saturday morning water temp is 41 and clarity is poor, not quite chocolate milk, and plenty high. Arrived at lake 2:30pm Friday. 4 crappies, 2 keepers in 2.5 hours. Fished again at 7pm for 45 minutes. Only caught 2 but they were both goodies, an 11.5" and in photo below a 12".




  








IMG_20180406_191320102




__
zaraspook


__
Apr 7, 2018




Grand Lake St Marys 12" 4-6-18
 




This morning remains slow. 2 keepers among 3 crappies caught. Jelly Bean stingers are the only plastic to get a hit last night and today. The few I've managed are in 5' of water around submerged cover roughly 10-12' of bank. I'm fishing 2.5-3' deep. Sad to say the bite was more aggressive last night.


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## crappiedude

I'd take that slow fishing anytime over this no fishing. Lake is back up 12' and with the Ohio River back at flood stage they aren't drawing any water off right now.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> I'd take that slow fishing anytime over this no fishing. Lake is back up 12' and with the Ohio River back at flood stage they aren't drawing any water off right now.


c-dude......At EF sounds like you're caught between a rock and a hard place and both equal "no fishing". High water and it's going nowhere.........pull that boat/trailer up to GLSM.


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## zaraspook

I posted that Saturday AM was slow. Later in the day, after 4pm, the bite was a whole different universe. Not that I got into a pile of them, but fish I found were aggressive and wanted to eat. No fooling around and jigs were deep into throats when extracted. Caught 11 with 7 keepers, plus discovered another plastic option to throw besides "jelly bean" stingers. Maybe I should say "rediscovered" another option........after pulling 3 straight 11-11.5" slabs from the channel, it was clear my Monkey Milk Baby Shad was back in the game. I'd given up on Monkey Milk after a week of lousy bites, but it was a week nothing else worked......except an occasional fish on jelly bean. It caught 6 of the 11 Saturday afternoon.

Crappie are doing what pre-spawn crappie should be doing. The 11" fish are crazy fat/thick, and eating some where even if we can't catch them. Bigger ones are finally showing up far back into channels despite cold and muddy water. Spawn is not far off and will go on no matter how much fisher guys complain about conditions. Keep your bait in the water, they are coming.


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## firemanmike2127

Thanks for the nice report & I really appreciate you posting the positive results. Personal commitments (& work) have preempted my time to fish the last 2-3 weeks. Other than missing 2 bass at one of the city ponds the other day my poles have been collecting dust in the garage. Guess it's time to give my crappie rods a boat ride this week. We should see a gradual return to normal spring water color over the next few days as well. The warming trend in the weather pattern will bring a welcome increase in water temps as well. Mike


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> Thanks for the nice report & I really appreciate you posting the positive results. Personal commitments (& work) have preempted my time to fish the last 2-3 weeks. Other than missing 2 bass at one of the city ponds the other day my poles have been collecting dust in the garage. Guess it's time to give my crappie rods a boat ride this week. We should see a gradual return to normal spring water color over the next few days as well. The warming trend in the weather pattern will bring a welcome increase in water temps as well. Mike


Amen!


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## RMK

last fridays outing was a dissapointment. hoping to be out the next several days. water clearing much?


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## zaraspook

Last at lake Saturday. Just arrived GLSM 4pm Tues. Using Saturday as 100% muddy reference, today is 90%. A little better but by now fish have adjusted and should not bother them. Cold water more of a factor. Should have better info in couple of hours.


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## RMK

As far as water temp goes.... Hopefully you ll be seeing the coldest you will see right now! Good luck zara


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## Saugeyefisher

I dont care how much i get rained on saterday. IM CRAPPIE FISHING!!


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## crappie4me

Saugeyefisher said:


> I dont care how much i get rained on saterday. IM CRAPPIE FISHING!!


 without a doubt..me 2!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> As far as water temp goes.... Hopefully you ll be seeing the coldest you will see right now! Good luck zara


Water temp 42.5 degrees......running in place. Water clarity slightly better than I previously said. Perhaps 80% as muddy as Saturday.

Bite this evening wasn't very active (I'd heard earlier in the day bite was tough) unless you feel one bite every 10 minutes is good. In a prior post I mentioned the bigger fish have made their way all the way into the back of my channel. Still the case.....when I caught one, it was usually a bigger, broad shouldered, fat, heavier crappie. Only managed 11 in 2 hours, 7 keepers including a 12" in photo below, plus 4 others 11-11.75".
First 3 fell for a jelly bean stinger, last 8 jumped on Monkey Milk Baby Shad. It works in the muddy water, defies traditional thinking. Biggest fish was caught 2' from seawall but in general most fish were 8-10' off the bank.




  








IMG_20180410_174512362




__
zaraspook


__
Apr 11, 2018




Grand Lake St. Marys 12" Black Crappie 4-10-18


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> I dont care how much i get rained on saterday. IM CRAPPIE FISHING!!


Smart man!


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## RMK

Thanks for the update and great job! As usual.... ha! 11 fish in 2 hours- fat fish at that- a slow bite for zara. I m looking forward to my first 11 fish DAY this year. Any fish... including shorts, suckers, and yellow bellies! Lol


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## brandonw

What RMK said. I wouldn't mind one of zara's slow bite days myself 

Good fishing is right around the corner!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Thanks for the update and great job! As usual.... ha! 11 fish in 2 hours- fat fish at that- a slow bite for zara. I m looking forward to my first 11 fish DAY this year. Any fish... including shorts, suckers, and yellow bellies! Lol


RMK.... Not saying this holds 100%, but if you can choose when you fish, go for later in day over earlier. Midday and later fish seem more aggressive with an extra spurt 5-7pm. Water temp can easily swing 3-4 degrees by 5pm.


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## RMK

Wish I could. My best shot at free time is usually in the morning. Especially during the week. 
2 bluegill and 1 bite I m calling a crappie bite for my efforts this morning. Water 43 to 45. Found cleaner water starting about halfway back a non feeder channel.


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## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> RMK.... Not saying this holds 100%, but if you can choose when you fish, go for later in day over earlier. Midday and later fish seem more aggressive with an extra spurt 5-7pm. Water temp can easily swing 3-4 degrees by 5pm.


In the spring and late fall better to sleep in and let the temps rise for better bite


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## zaraspook

Weds AM fished from 10-12:30. 10 crappie with 5 keepers. Only noteworthy aspect was Monkey Milk being shut out. All fish caught on Jelly Bean stinger. Water temp reading.... 44.4.....heat wave!

1/2 dozen crappie boats passed down my channel, mostly pre-fishing for Cabela's/Crappie USA 2-day tourney starting 26th. None of those guys were happy with lack of bite. I got back to fishing from 5-7pm. That time frame had been consistently better for last few weeks - it did not disappoint. I put up good numbers, 20 caught with 14 keepers. Action was actually better....I whiffed at least 25 times as crappie weren't really attacking the bait. They'd make initial hit then nothing, no finish. Fish were solid keepers but overall size was off a bit from evening before. 
Total for Weds was 30 crappie, 19 keepers. Jelly Bean stinger was best early but pearl/purple stinger dominated the evening session. Monkey Milk hung a goose egg. Evening bite was better than expected.....good day!


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## RMK

water up to 48 this morning. 46 on the mainlake. wind is howling


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## fishforlife

was nice talking to you the other day. Great reports and is nice to put a name with a face. keep up the good work and will be seeing you on the lake.


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## zaraspook

fishforlife said:


> was nice talking to you the other day. Great reports and is nice to put a name with a face. keep up the good work and will be seeing you on the lake.


It was an honor to chat with you, fishforlife! After our talk, I tried to get a better timeline on the "big red deck". You are right........it hasn't been 3 years since its demise. Just shy of 3 years since the property owner passed away, but Big Red came down August of 2017. That shows how much I miss the deck......seems like an eternity since I last caught a crappie there. 
Good luck in the tourney!


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## AndOne

My first trip fishing St. Mary's tomorrow in a boat. Plan on fishing Southside, or should I say Southeast side. Any suggestions would be welcomed. 

Best of luck!


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## firemanmike2127

If you look for the channels with clearer water at the back ends that should help. The inflow from the most recent rains has slowed up considerably but the run-off was helping with the water temps. I Zaraspook has been updating this thread with his current patterns. Mike


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## RMK

Covered a lot of water first half of today. Temps from 50 at the ramp to as high as 58 in some shallow muddy water. Water colors varied from thick chocolot milk to see through green according to location. Fished brush, down trees, stake beads, lifts, docks, and even a few rocky bank lines just incase.... in water depths from 9 feet deep to 1 foot deep. roughly 8 areas fished. Nothing to show for it. Most areas were new to us and we came across a few spots that looked really good that we will definitely hit again. The elusive crappie evaded us yet again. See what we find tomorrow


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## AndOne

Same as RMK. 

It was nice to be out and enjoy a day of good weather. Saw a bunch of dead ones, had 1 hooked and saw it. Not sure why they decided to not bite on our first trip to the lake.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Covered a lot of water first half of today. Temps from 50 at the ramp to as high as 58 in some shallow muddy water. Water colors varied from thick chocolot milk to see through green according to location. Fished brush, down trees, stake beads, lifts, docks, and even a few rocky bank lines just incase.... in water depths from 9 feet deep to 1 foot deep. roughly 8 areas fished. Nothing to show for it. Most areas were new to us and we came across a few spots that looked really good that we will definitely hit again. The elusive crappie evaded us yet again. See what we find tomorrow


Week after week of low water temps and in a quick 48 hours we're well into 50's.....that is crazy! I'm gonna miss that steady 40-42 range where fish acclimated to temps and actually were reasonably predictable. By the way my channel was 54-55 degrees at 2pm. Whole new ballgame now. I don't expect mid 50's to last. Warmer surface water will mix with cooler water below, warmer channels will mix with main lake and cool. Mid next week it would be good if water temps are upper 40's to 50.
Rmk.....have you fished my channel this year yet?


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## zaraspook

Fished Fri from 1-2:30 pm, did boat stuff and chores for 3 hours, then back to fishing at 6:30pm. First fishing session ended with 8 keepers of 9 crappie caught. Bites were numerous, catching not so good. Fish were 1 bump and done, not eating it, hit and drop. I hooked many, lip hooked only though and tore thru lips lifting from water. Plenty of action - lousy hookups. Evening session found slower bite and slightly better hookups for an hour. Final 20-30 minutes fish were aggressive and hanging on to plastic. 6 of 11 crappie in evening session were keepers. 14 keepers out of 20 total. Pearl/purple stinger caught 3, jelly bean stinger got 6, Monkey Milk baby shad pulled just 1 but biggest fish, chartreuse pepper Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad won the day with 10. Most fish caught 24-30" under bobber, but caught fish both a foot deeper or foot shallower. For first time this year most fish were caught 4-5' feet from bank (but 3-4' of water) . Decent day overall.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Week after week of low water temps and in a quick 48 hours we're well into 50's.....that is crazy! I'm gonna miss that steady 40-42 range where fish acclimated to temps and actually were reasonably predictable. By the way my channel was 54-55 degrees at 2pm. Whole new ballgame now. I don't expect mid 50's to last. Warmer surface water will mix with cooler water below, warmer channels will mix with main lake and cool. Mid next week it would be good if water temps are upper 40's to 50.
> Rmk.....have you fished my channel this year yet?


I have not fished your channel yet this year. Fished it once last year before I knew it was yours. Scott caught a catfish. Lol. I almost pulled in there yesterday on my way home to see if you were fishing your circuit. After feeling defeated I was interested in a quick lesson at zara's school of crappie fishing!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> I have not fished your channel yet this year. Fished it once last year before I knew lesson at zara's school of crappie fishing!


Reason I asked is my branch of my channel has been pathetic. Actually 3 branches to my channel off main lake. Most of my fish at this time coming from another branch. That's probably about to change if water temp stays 50+.
You were probably off GLSM before I arrived Fri. Do you normally put boat in at ramp near inlaws? Maybe we can prearranged a morning that both of us have an hour or two of common fishing time?


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## RMK

That sounds good zara. Launched from windy point yesterday, near inlaws wednesday, rustic thursday, quite often the state ramp east of the sailboat club... my choice of launch site is really normally just determined by what is closest to where I m going to try to fish that day.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> That sounds good zara. Launched from windy point yesterday, near inlaws wednesday, rustic thursday, quite often the state ramp east of the sailboat club... my choice of launch site is really normally just determined by what is closest to where I m going to try to fish that day.


Makes perfect sense to launch according to that day's fishing plan. It's a big lake. Less time making runs, more time with bait in water.


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## Saugeyefisher

Crappie fishing was just ok at buckeye for me fished 730-noon until winds got hi.
Caught 11 crappie only 3 keepers,about same gills 1 keeper 2 lm bass an 2 channel cats. Caught fish on everything i tossed better fish came on bg shads in elecvchicken and chartreuse with sparkles under a float 15". 
In big ole gal just barley under 14"








1 liter water bottle for size reference


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Crappie fishing was just ok at buckeye for me fished 730-noon until winds got hi.
> Caught 11 crappie only 3 keepers,about same gills 1 keeper 2 lm bass an 2 channel cats. Caught fish on everything i tossed better fish came on bg shads in elecvchicken and chartreuse with sparkles under a float 15".
> In big ole gal just barley under 14"
> View attachment 260032
> 
> 1 liter water bottle for size reference


That's a good one, saugfish! I'm still waiting to crack 13" size barrier for 2018. Have a good number of 12's, but usually into the spawn before I see 13" or better. How deep of water were you fishing when you got the big one?


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## RMK

Saugeyefisher said:


> Crappie fishing was just ok at buckeye for me fished 730-noon until winds got hi.
> Caught 11 crappie only 3 keepers,about same gills 1 keeper 2 lm bass an 2 channel cats. Caught fish on everything i tossed better fish came on bg shads in elecvchicken and chartreuse with sparkles under a float 15".
> In big ole gal just barley under 14"
> View attachment 260032
> 
> 1 liter water bottle for size reference


Great fish saug!


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> That's a good one, saugfish! I'm still waiting to crack 13" size barrier for 2018. Have a good number of 12's, but usually into the spawn before I see 13" or better. How deep of water were you fishing when you got the big one?


I was fishing the deepest dock in the whole cove.. lol a whopping 3-1/2' deep .... she barley moved the bobber. Just sucked the bait in


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> I was fishing the deepest dock in the whole cove.. lol a whopping 3-1/2' deep .... she barley moved the bobber. Just sucked the bait in


That's about what I expected, similar to depths I typically fish at GLSM.


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## RMK

Water down to around 52 and probably falling sunday morning. Started out in cleaner water on an aluminum lift. 7am to 8am produced decent action. Quite a few bites and quite a few fish missed but some boated. Headed across to some brush on a seawall. Brush produced bites on both sides but they didn't eat it. Time to go into the middle. Two keepers pulled out of the middle. Back to the lift for one more try. One more short fish pulled off the deep side and that spot seemed to be out of fish willing to bite. Fished the channel out quickly searching for another spot with some active fish. No luck. Off to muddier water, even muddier than it was on Saturday, with alot of down wood. One more keeper and another short. Chartreuse sparkle panfish assasin for me and same color but different bait for scott caught fish. I also caught a couple on bg baby shad in electric chicken. Minnows got more action than any of our plastics today. Fished generally 2 feet deep. some in deeper water came 3 feet down. Bite started out good and slowed quickly to non existent for us. We ended up catching 17 fish. 10 keepers. At least 3 lost on the way in. No real big fish but it felt good to be involved in some catching today. Some more mud being brought into the lake now but hopefully not as much as the last round.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Water down to around 52 and probably falling sunday morning. Started out in cleaner water on an aluminum lift. 7am to 8am produced decent action. Quite a few bites and quite a few fish missed but some boated. Headed across to some brush on a seawall. Brush produced bites on both sides but they didn't eat it. Time to go into the middle. Two keepers pulled out of the middle. Back to the lift for one more try. One more short fish pulled off the deep side and that spot seemed to be out of fish willing to bite. Fished the channel out quickly searching for another spot with some active fish. No luck. Off to muddier water, even muddier than it was on Saturday, with alot of down wood. One more keeper and another short. Chartreuse sparkle panfish assasin for me and same color but different bait for scott caught fish. I also caught a couple on bg baby shad in electric chicken. Minnows got more action than any of our plastics today. Fished generally 2 feet deep. some in deeper water came 3 feet down. Bite started out good and slowed quickly to non existent for us. We ended up catching 17 fish. 10 keepers. At least 3 lost on the way in. No real big fish but it felt good to be involved in some catching today. Some more mud being brought into the lake now but hopefully not as much as the last round.


Nice job, RMK, and good to hear the P/A's contributed a bit. Water clarity was just getting good......


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## zaraspook

Tues evening fishing 5-7pm, water temp a surprising 47.3, water somewhat stained but pretty good for GLSM. Like normal still dang cold. 9 crappie caught, 6 keepers, including this chunk 12". Normal full frontal nudity view and then a side view - you guys who catch white crappies rarely get to see the brawn and belly of a GLSM black crappie.




  








IMG_20180417_182309313




__
zaraspook


__
Apr 19, 2018




12" Grand Lake 4-17-19









  








IMG_20180417_182335544




__
zaraspook


__
Apr 19, 2018




12" Grand Lake St Marys, none of those puny white crappies at GLSM






Stayed over to fish Weds AM. Water temp dropped 2 to 45. Sunshine off and on in the morning. Caught 19 but took 3 hours. 13 of those were keepers. Bite got better as day wore on but I should have slept in......bite wasn't much early. Jelly Bean stinger got skunked. Chartreuse pepper Tiny Shad Panfish Assassin pulled 7 crappie, and Monkey Milk came on strong with 12. You had to coax them into biting today, but if they bit it they ate it.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid.......meant to mention to you for the last 2 weeks, lots of shad in my channel, the fork with the boat ramp. Good numbers of shadzillas, 10-14" breaking surface and slow swimmers under duress as recent as yesterday/Weds. Could be worth cast-netting attempt next time you look to replenish. You know better than I do how long they are likely to hang around. Looking out for you, brother!


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## RMK

great fish zara! man that is thick. i know the weather/temps werent great for our trip to kentucky lake and bigger fish were probably deeper and we were catching smaller fish shallower... but we mentioned several times while we were down there that we were looking forward to catching thick GLSM crappie when we got home. the fish we caught down there were so much thinner than what we are used to seeing back here at home.

on the shad note- salmonid let me know as well if you are in search of more shad zillas. in the last two weeks we have come across a couple channels that seemed to be holding some big ones as well. side imaging view of them below. i m guessing they were big shad we were marking because we saw them surface from time to time while we were seeing these marks.


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## RMK




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## Salmonid

Ill be up tomorrow morning to find shad before the Catmaster Tournament. Might bring the boat in Zara you just never know. 10-11:30 am. You never know what kind of boat you might see by your place. Lol.


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## fished-out

Big two day crappie tournament this coming weekend, Friday and Saturday. Crappie USA I think.


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## Salmonid

Well glsm put the double whammy on me at the cat tourney. 48 teams and me and Randy (backupbait) took 5 th place. Problem was they only paid 4 places so yet again 1 fish out of the money. That seems to be my normal placing in the spring pre spawn lol. Then the 2 bd kick in the taint was my Minn Kota Terova took a dump on me. That one really gonna hurt the pocketbook. I drove it to Cinci this afternoon and pray the parts and labor gods take it easy on me as a new Terrova 36 is not in the budget ($2400)
Water was stained with a 5-10 mph eastery wind which had us digging fish out of the mud all day. Had about 30 fish caught and missed about 30 more ( seriously). Best 6 went right at 34 lbs. winner had 39 lbs. see below. Also got a cool looking channel that had the tar disease thing going on.


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## Salmonid

I saw on another board that the winners of the crappie tourney had 5 fish for 9.02 lbs and they had big fish too. Btw thats a 1.8 lb ave. Wow!


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## RMK

8 fish= 1.12 avg. But yes that was still 8 good fish!


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## Salmonid

I saw it said 5 fish sorry about that. This was An Outdoorsman tourney. Right? Isnt Cabelas Crappie usa upcoming soon?


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## RMK

Oh! Maybe we are talking different tournys now. Outdoorsman is 8 fish and I just double checked. Their first tournament 1st place was 8.94. Still 8 nice fish though. Yep big one this Friday and saturday. Cabelas crappie usa.


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## mercercountyhunter

Tourney was on Indian lake and big fish was same team with a 1.61. Not sure if 7 or 8 fish though for the 9.02.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Well glsm put the double whammy on me at the cat tourney. 48 teams and me and Randy (backupbait) took 5 th place. Problem was they only paid 4 places so yet again 1 fish out of the money. That seems to be my normal placing in the spring pre spawn lol. Then the 2 bd kick in the taint was my Minn Kota Terova took a dump on me. That one really gonna hurt the pocketbook. I drove it to Cinci this afternoon and pray the parts and labor gods take it easy on me as a new Terrova 36 is not in the budget ($2400)
> Water was stained with a 5-10 mph eastery wind which had us digging fish out of the mud all day. Had about 30 fish caught and missed about 30 more ( seriously). Best 6 went right at 34 lbs. winner had 39 lbs. see below. Also got a cool looking channel that had the tar disease thing going on.
> View attachment 260649
> View attachment 260650


Mark........unfortunate to miss by so little, but since you can only make about half the Catmaster tourneys this year, 5th place is a positive toward the year end Classic, right? I've caught a few of those "********" channel cats myself, but really never understood what was going on to cause the pigmentation blotches. Devilish looking!


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## zaraspook

My Spring fishing weekend, Friday afternoon thru Sunday Noon at GLSM, was a good time! 5 of us, old neighborhood friends from grade school to high school, got together for the 5th consecutive year for smack-talking, team competition for crappie by day, poker by night, plus non-stop beer and great food consumption day and night. Plenty of reminiscing and story-telling were themes regardless of the activity. Those stories were ones told/heard many times before, a sign the beer created the correct mood/atmosphere for all.

Poker was a 4-star event, relatively even with just a single argument, no more than a $6 gap between biggest winner and worst loss. Food was outstanding, headlined by Saturday night's GLSM crappie tacos, rated as 5-star by all. BBQ pulled pork was excellent, but unfortunately up against stiff competition (gourmet crappie tacos).

Team fishing competition......very tight through out the event. 48 52 degree water temp for the weekend. Friday fishing started at 3pm. Bite was slow, all but one got on the board. The laggard fished minnows only. 32 crappie caught. My 2-man team led the 3-man 17-15. I'd contributed 13 of my team's 17. We likely would have trailed had one in the other team not switched from minnows to plastics sooner. No way we could anticipate despite a full day of Saturday our fishing results would be pathetically worse. Team Zara 6 fish and 4 for the competition......ouch! Lots of crappie boats, assumed to be pre-fishing for next week's Cabela's/Crappie USA tourney, plus bass guys from a small tourney, creating rush hour traffic jams in the channel. Sunday morning resembled Saturday.....I caught 4 while the other team found just 2 crappie. The minnow guy stubbornly stuck to his minnows the entire time.......good thing he was skunked for the weekend, Another win for Team Zara by the slimmest margin ever, 2 fish! Later Sunday the bite warmed up somewhat but our friendly competition ended at Noon.

Weekend event was a great time and we'll do it again in the fall!


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## RMK

Sounds like a blast zara! Hope all are recovering well from the weekend's events..... haha


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Oh! Maybe we are talking different tournys now. Outdoorsman is 8 fish and I just double checked. Their first tournament 1st place was 8.94. Still 8 nice fish though. Yep big one this Friday and saturday. Cabelas crappie usa.


Did you fish any Fri-Sunday at GLSM?


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## RMK

yes. first half of the day friday. we found a few fish and left them when the crowds of boats started coming into the area. headed down your way to take a peak. cant remember what time we got down there probably around noon. we might ve seen you out but you were working/talking to somebody so i didnt want to bother you. but i waved. might not of even been you but we kind of thought it was. talked to a nice older gentleman sitting on his edge of the channel, looked to be drowning a minnow, while his wife waited for him. he had some good storeis and mentioned he had been in that place for something like 40 years. our best fish (boated by scott) a thick fish in the 12" range.


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## RMK




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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> yes. first half of the day friday. we found a few fish and left them when the crowds of boats started coming into the area. headed down your way to take a peak. cant remember what time we got down there probably around noon. we might ve seen you out but you were working/talking to somebody so i didnt want to bother you. but i waved. might not of even been you but we kind of thought it was. talked to a nice older gentleman sitting on his edge of the channel, looked to be drowning a minnow, while his wife waited for him. he had some good storeis and mentioned he had been in that place for something like 40 years. our best fish (boated by scott) a thick fish in the 12" range.


Ha! Ha! That's exactly why I asked if you fished any. I saw a guy in a boat wave my direction. I waved back, didn't have a clue who it was, but within a few moments had a thought it might be you. You were heading deeper into that branch of channel and I took a step that direction to explore. Never made it there.......had to resolve some issues with a couple of guests who arrived early.

Congrats to Scott on the sweet looking 12". Nothing that big for us. Plenty of legal fish, but we set our keeper definition at 10.5". Only 9 fish made the cut.


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## zaraspook

Weds water temp 52.5 at midday and clarity good for GLSM at this time of year. Still some boat traffic of crappie guys practicing for Crappie USA gig which starts Friday. From my perspective crappie bite remains as lame as over the weekend. No improvement......no worse either. 6 crappie caught, 2 keepers including 11 and 7/8th inch in photo. No way to stretch it to 12". Monkey Milk was skunked......all fish caught on chartreuse pepper Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad, 30" under bobber in 3-5' of water. Fish were on submerged cover 7-10' off the bank.


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## CHOPIQ

I'm sure that ugly Indiana sweatshirt is hurting your fishing. Try an osu shirt guarantee you'll do better. Lol. Brother was at st Mary's last Friday. Him and another guy caught over 60 nice crappies. They kept 30 of nicest ones. Should be a great tournament. I'd fish it but already have a 3 day mushroom trip planned.


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## zaraspook

CHOPIQ said:


> I'm sure that ugly Indiana sweatshirt is hurting your fishing. Try an osu shirt guarantee you'll do better. Lol. Brother was at st Mary's last Friday. Him and another guy caught over 60 nice crappies. They kept 30 of nicest ones. Should be a great tournament. I'd fish it but already have a 3 day mushroom trip planned.


You should tune in more often. 80% of my gear is Ohio State stuff. I'm born and raised in Ohio, life long Buckeye. My 2 daughters both grads from Indiana University, buy me great gear.....a token for the 8 yrs of tuition I forked over to Indiana. Glad to hear your brother and friend got into a pile of GLSM's crappie.


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## zaraspook

My GLSM channel saw a steady stream of Crappie USA boats Friday. My apology to them that fish were tight lipped and playing hard to get. About 1:30 a 20-30 min rain cell went thru and crappie jaws loosened for a short while. At least one boat added several to the livewell.
I caught a few between the waves of crappie boats including this 12 and a quarter incher.








Tourney guys should see better bite today.


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## ekriet9

Weigh in is live on wosn on brush pile fishing 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## zaraspook

ekriet9 said:


> Weigh in is live on wosn on brush pile fishing
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Thanks for info! Unfortunately don't get that station where I am. Post anything you can to provide winning weights, etc.


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## ekriet9

I think it was 15.66 that won it. 1.85 big fish 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## killingtime

Local New Knoxville bait maker Mike Powell and his good friend won the tournament.


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## mercercrappie

Final results


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## RMK

Friday- day one crappie usa glsm-
After a very early launch, a much cooler than expected nap on the floor of the boat, the 0630 start time brought a pretty fairly steady bite that slowed after the first 45 minutes and stopped 2 hours into the first day. 13 legal fish out of the 20 in that time frame. Not much in the size department but we definitely had our 7 fish to weight in. After close to an hour of no bites of our own, and no catching going on that we could see close to us, time to move. 2nd stop-too many boats in the area for me to comfortably join in on their search. 3rd spot- boat anchored where I wanted to fish but some other options near by. No bites. Off to spot #4. No boats. No fish willing to eat a jig either. Probably enough time to run back down 1/4 of the length of the lake to see if spot #1s fish got hungry while we were gone. We found a couple more bites and i lost a good fish on its way into the boat. We targeted deeper water and metal was our structure of choice. Monkey milk bg baby shad took majority of fish. Electric chicken, and black blue and chartreuse added a few as well fished roughly 24 inches deep. First day total weight of roughly 4.72lbs secured us in the #22 spot of the 50 team amateure side. 
Reports from the top teams revealed they were fishing shallow brush in 1 to 3 feet of water fishing 12 inches deep. Big surprise to me that fish were that shallow let alone the bigger fish were. 
With a colder and cloudier day two expected- no way the proven shallow pattern would hold up- so day two began in the same deep water/metal spot for us. The 0630 feeding frenzy only lasted the first 15 minutes today instead of the roughly 45 minutes it lasted on day one. 3 fish in the box after the first 2 hours and 3 hours in we were the only boat left in the area. Slowly picked up 4 more slightly larger fish to get our 7 keepers. With some of the pressure off it was time to push some minnows and see what happens. No takers after about an hours effort and 3/4 of the length of a channel at our blazing .2 to .5 mph rate it was time to get back to the jigging. surprised to finally find a couple bigger fish on the same metal that had been hammered by us, and many others in the last 48 hours producing only 9 and 10 inch fish. Ended day two with a little better weight for our 7 fish of 5.84 and a total weight for the tournament of 10.56 securing us in the 15th spot. 3.92lbs short of the winners and 1.27lbs out of the money.
Turns out the shallow brush bite held up in day two even with the cooler, cloudier, and windier conditons for the higher finishing teams. We learned alot, had some fun, and aren't to disappointed with our finish. 20 crappie caught on day one with 13 keeprs and 13 on day two with a few bigger fish and only 2 or 3 shorts. 

Our big fish for the tournament (as usual boated by scott) a solid 12+" fish, 2 11s, and 4 fish close to and around 10" for our day two weight in. And some beautiful marks that I have to call crappie that i really don't know why I can't catch while spider rigging.


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## firemanmike2127

Nice report Ryan ( I waved when you were leaving the weigh-in yesterday afternoon). Interesting to me was how good the total weights were for the 'Amateur' Division compared the Pro side. Many of the anglers entered are from the immediate area, but we obviously have some local anglers that really have GLSM dialed in. Mike


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Friday- day one crappie usa glsm-
> After a very early launch, a much cooler than expected nap on the floor of the boat, the 0630 start time brought a pretty fairly steady bite that slowed after the first 45 minutes and stopped 2 hours into the first day. 13 legal fish out of the 20 in that time frame. Not much in the size department but we definitely had our 7 fish to weight in. After close to an hour of no bites of our own, and no catching going on that we could see close to us, time to move. 2nd stop-too many boats in the area for me to comfortably join in on their search. 3rd spot- boat anchored where I wanted to fish but some other options near by. No bites. Off to spot #4. No boats. No fish willing to eat a jig either. Probably enough time to run back down 1/4 of the length of the lake to see if spot #1s fish got hungry while we were gone. We found a couple more bites and i lost a good fish on its way into the boat. We targeted deeper water and metal was our structure of choice. Monkey milk bg baby shad took majority of fish. Electric chicken, and black blue and chartreuse added a few as well fished roughly 24 inches deep. First day total weight of roughly 4.72lbs secured us in the #22 spot of the 50 team amateure side.
> Reports from the top teams revealed they were fishing shallow brush in 1 to 3 feet of water fishing 12 inches deep. Big surprise to me that fish were that shallow let alone the bigger fish were.
> With a colder and cloudier day two expected- no way the proven shallow pattern would hold up- so day two began in the same deep water/metal spot for us. The 0630 feeding frenzy only lasted the first 15 minutes today instead of the roughly 45 minutes it lasted on day one. 3 fish in the box after the first 2 hours and 3 hours in we were the only boat left in the area. Slowly picked up 4 more slightly larger fish to get our 7 keepers. With some of the pressure off it was time to push some minnows and see what happens. No takers after about an hours effort and 3/4 of the length of a channel at our blazing .2 to .5 mph rate it was time to get back to the jigging. surprised to finally find a couple bigger fish on the same metal that had been hammered by us, and many others in the last 48 hours producing only 9 and 10 inch fish. Ended day two with a little better weight for our 7 fish of 5.84 and a total weight for the tournament of 10.56 securing us in the 15th spot. 3.92lbs short of the winners and 1.27lbs out of the money.
> Turns out the shallow brush bite held up in day two even with the cooler, cloudier, and windier conditons for the higher finishing teams. We learned alot, had some fun, and aren't to disappointed with our finish. 20 crappie caught on day one with 13 keeprs and 13 on day two with a few bigger fish and only 2 or 3 shorts.
> 
> Our big fish for the tournament (as usual boated by scott) a solid 12+" fish, 2 11s, and 4 fish close to and around 10" for our day two weight in. And some beautiful marks that I have to call crappie that i really don't know why I can't catch while spider rigging.
> View attachment 261028
> 
> View attachment 261028


RMK.......top 15 in your 1st Crappie USA is remarkable! Way to go for you and partner Scott.

As far as the shallow water tactic, the weekend before it was showing results in my channel. Crappie guys practicing for Crappie USA, were pulling fish from southern end of island across from my place.......12" under bobber in 2' of water. Up until then, that bite didn't exist there. Friday the tourney crappie guys enjoyed decent success there, especially noon and later.


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> Nice report Ryan ( I waved when you were leaving the weigh-in yesterday afternoon). Interesting to me was how good the total weights were for the 'Amateur' Division compared the Pro side. Many of the anglers entered are from the immediate area, but we obviously have some local anglers that really have GLSM dialed in. Mike


Good observation you make on total weights, Mike. Not much deviation between pro and amateur ranks.


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## firemanmike2127

Actually, the Amateur division kicked some serious butt over the Pro side. From 3rd place on down the Amateurs had consistently heavier weights. That also points to some seriously close competition to me....especially in the Amateur division. Mike


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## RMK

firemanmike2127 said:


> Nice report Ryan ( I waved when you were leaving the weigh-in yesterday afternoon). Interesting to me was how good the total weights were for the 'Amateur' Division compared the Pro side. Many of the anglers entered are from the immediate area, but we obviously have some local anglers that really have GLSM dialed in. Mike


You should ve flagged me down. I would ve liked to have shown you the finished spider rigging setup on the front end of the boat that you helped me brainstorm with a little bit.


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## RMK

I had a couple goals for this our first big tournament. Weight in 7 fish each day and finish in the top 25 to qualify for the classic. Funny thing is I won a free pass to the classic thursday night at the pre tournament seminar raffle. We had a number of 7 lbs a day in mind as what it would take to do well in the standings. We were a little short of that but I m still very ok with how we finished.
Spider rigging (more specifically on GLSM) is something I ve been interested in figuring out. We haven't put a ton of time into it still and still haven't had success at it. I met a guy while prefishing last week from out of town that was doing it without any luck as well. He went to a cork and jig on day 2 and caught some fish. Could be a fishing storey but a team from Indiana that was spider rigging weighted in 7 good fish on day one but didn't do as well with it on day 2 using the same technique in the same location.


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## fished-out

For what it's worth, many of the teams from Indiana like to spider rig.


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## zaraspook

57.3 degree water temp Mon. Fished 2 hard hours. Zero bites. Zero caught. Zero keepers. Ugly skunk. Gorgeous Bluebird day. It happens. Pepe le Pew is alive.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Tuesday this week and Weds for part of day after my skunking on Monday. Took another skunking on crappie Tuesday with water temps at 62.5 degrees. Total absence of a crappie bite again, but nothing changed from prior day......beautiful weather once again. Weds morning was a 3-peat, but at least you knew a front was coming, conditions were going to change. Afternoon brought an end to the crappie skunk streak, just before I had to head home. Finally caught 2 decent (10.5-11") males, darker coloration in prep for spawning within a couple feet of bank. Don't have confirmation, but I'd bet the bite Thursday and today is much more active.

Water temp is probably 65-67 range. Spawn is due and may come and go before you know it. Unfortunately, no fishing time for me before Monday.


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## Greyduck

We took a crappie skunk to on Tuesday. But switched to cats after seeing it was not going to happen. Some nice cats came to play. Very enjoyable day to relax on the water.


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## crappiedude

It's funny how things change from lake to lake.
We had bluebird skies early this week and I've been fishing several lakes every day from Fri to Wed with jig and bobber and have just been killing it. Overall size isn't great but we'll hit some pockets of good fish here and there. Doesn't seem like it's lake specific since we've been moving around to different locals and all have seemed to be about the same...once we find them. Moving around and finding some active fish has been key. Tubes jigs (red/chart, orange/chart, and purple/chart) have definitely lead the way but tried with monkey milk BG and an unknown make pink/black shad body only getting a hand full.
I had knee surgery (torn meniscus) yesterday so I'm out of commission for a little bit but hope to be back at it again next week if I can.


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## Saugeyefisher

Gonna give her a go tomarrow am on my local shallow crappie lake. Hope they come out to play. Numbers just have not been there for me yet. Ive caught an lost a few real bruisers the last two trips.but no numbers. 
Got two spots in mind an if tbey dont pan out,ill be doing as mentioned above an changing gears to cats or just toss on a small crank an see what happens.... it is may,right?


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## crappiedude

Good luck tomorrow.
We found fish in small pockets. Where we did find them they would be pretty abundant. What we did notice was the bulk of the fish and some of our better fish were still hold out in deeper water. I imagine in another few days or even a week it should get a lot better.
I'm hoping to make a trip in the next week to my favorite crappie lake and kick their butt. Never really know though...they may kick mine.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Gonna give her a go tomarrow am on my local shallow crappie lake. Hope they come out to play. Numbers just have not been there for me yet. Ive caught an lost a few real bruisers the last two trips.but no numbers.
> Got two spots in mind an if tbey dont pan out,ill be doing as mentioned above an changing gears to cats or just toss on a small crank an see what happens.... it is may,right?


Crappie are on a different calendar this year! FTHOOA calendar......"frustrate the hell out of anglers".


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## Saugeyefisher

Took a few hours but hit 20 crappies today. 1st two hrs they where tite to the bank as it got later they backed away. 
Pearltruse baby shad under a float a few gills 5 bass an 4 cats as well. Fun morning. All bright colored males. Including a big 14" black


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## zaraspook

"Devilish", that's the first word to come to mind regarding your 14" slab. When they are wearing spawn war paint, they look like the devil. Nice day and biggy piggy Mr. Saugfish!


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## zaraspook

Monday, Monday.....Made it to GLSM about Noon and fishing by 12:30pm. First news I got from a highly respected crappie old timer....."Hope you aren't here to crappie fish. It's dead. Nothing but a few gill bites this morning. You can forget about a spawn this year. Pretty well a consensus the crappies spawned "out in the lake". Channel spawn isn't going to happen." Bummer!

When I left GLSM last week, fishing certainly sucked. But, the last half hour produced 2 10-11' males, sporting traditional spawn tuxedos, and a clear sign the boys were arriving. My high optimism for the 2018 spawn was quickly dashed within 5 minutes of my arrival.

Grabbed the rod pair I usually travel with and began my rounds. Took 5 minutes to catch my first 10" male wearing war paint. Hmmm. Maybe the local crappie guru has it wrong? Took 20 minutes more to land the 2nd male, maybe 1/2 inch better than his brother. Just 2 bites, but 2 fish resulted. I moved to next spot which was in full view of where the crappie old timer was busy roofing a garage. Pulled 4 more crappies there, 3 more keeper males in black and a bigger female about to burst with eggs. Old Timer saw them all, came over twice, checked out my bait, went back to roofing. I was blanked at the next spot, then quit for a couple hours of chores.

Made it back to fishing from 5:30 -7:30pm. Concentrated on some shallow water spots that are usually good when the spawn gets going. Yep...even though these spots hadn't produced a crappie yet in 2018, today they gave up 7, majority males in black wardrobes. Ended with 13 caught, 9 keepers though none bigger than 11". 

First the males come in and wearing formal attire.....normal spawn behavior. Fish move into normal spawn areas. Water temp 62-65 usually works best to get the spawn going (late day temp today was 70.2). If it walks like a duck, quacks likes a duck.....it's a duck! Don't know how long it's will last but the spawn is on, fellas!


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## zaraspook

Tuesday looked like another bluebird day....better for a round of golf than fishing. Fishing was decent, however. 14 crappie in the morning 9-10am. From 11-noon, just 2 more . Also, caught my first channel cat of the year while crappie fishing. A 2 pound channel cat is good fun on a crappie rig.

3 females with eggs among the 16 crappies and 9 keepers today. All were trying to eat my Monkey Milk colored BG Baby Shad. Water temp 67.4. Carp are numerous and active.


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## zaraspook

Wednesday at GLSM.....morning was brutal. Quit after an hour with 1 crappie, a keeper. Cut grass instead and excelled at it. You might say anyone can cut grass, but this is supposed to be spawn time and anyone can catch crappie during spawning. Right?

Afternoon tried again, different spot than in the morning, and way different results. Caught 10 with 9 keepers. Evening trip produced 7 more crappie on the same spot for an 18 fish total and 14 keepers. Among the keepers below are pics of a 12" female and 11.75" male wearing war-paint.




  








IMG_20180509_134155256




__
zaraspook


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May 10, 2018




GLSM 12" female Black crappie









  








IMG_20180509_174210277




__
zaraspook


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May 10, 2018




GLSM 11.75" Male Black crappie






Water temp today was 69,4 degrees. Had great fun for 30 seconds when I had a 24"+ pike on my crappie rig. It's teeth got the better of my 4# mono line. Pike came at the exact spot I caught one last year.... Also had on a big "I don't know" fish for 4 minutes. Got into it about 4' off the bank. After runs right, left, in, out all I could do was hang on. Fish came unzipped with about 90 foot of line out and a head of steam going north. We'll never know. Plus, an 11" largemouth joined the party of fish eating my plastic.

Winning plastics today were Monkey Milk Baby Shad (on top in photo below) for 7 crappie today including 12" female and Key Lime Pie pattern Baby Shad Swim'R for 11 crappie, the bass, the pike, and the "I don't know" marathon runner. Fun day!




  








IMG_20180509_213604847




__
zaraspook


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May 10, 2018




Best Crappie Baits today 5-9-18


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## RMK

where has the popcicle triple tip grub been hiding? or did your new found monkey milk friend replace him?


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> where has the popcicle triple tip grub been hiding? or did your new found monkey milk friend replace him?


RMK.......have asked myself the same question. I've given grub bodies, rather than shad bodies, very limited opportunity to catch fish this spring. Easier to use the bait already tied on from prior day or trip. Actually began last fall, early winter, when Monkey Milk was earning more time in my rotation.

My strategy changes for spawn period. I want to drag a bigger bait through/near the beds created by males. They will attack almost any and everything near their beds. Right now, Key Lime Pie Garland Swim'R (with paddle tail) is batting in lead-off spot. It's slightly longer/bigger than the counterpart Baby Shad. I'm focused on water from 10" deep to 2.5-3' deep. In my opinion that's where majority of beds are, that's where majority of fish are. Most productive area to fish. Triple Tips will work fine, but Hot Grubs probably better since bigger bait (easier for fish to see). A bonus from bigger bait is you also get an occasional bass, pike, channel cat to wolf down a tantalizing bigger bait than 1.5" crappie plastic. Next trip I will try acid rain/June bug Hot Grubs and some other creature baits I play with only during spawn. Amazing how many crappie you can catch a foot from bank in a foot of water!


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## Salmonid

Zara. Well the catmaster tourney was another wastes of entry fee for me and Tinguppy ( Rusty) as most prespawn outings are for me. We fished a bunch of 2-3 fow catching loads of dinks and mustering up 6 fish from 3-4 lbs each but no kicker. Finished 8 th out of 44 teams and 4.5 lbs out of the money. Typical for me this time of year. Cold front dropped temps from 75-65 and luckily wind was steady but changed all day, actually in 1 drift the wind changed from all 4 directions and my gps trail loomed like a horse shoe. I need spawn to be over. Lol


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## zaraspook

36 teams behind you would probably love to have your total. Not bad in my book! Your best lies ahead.


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## zaraspook

Lack of crappie posts on this thread is alarming. Didn't know what to expect arriving at GLSM Sunday evening at 6pm. Neighbors volunteered crappie bite was decent. Caught 10 in first hour, ate dinner then back at it for 45 minutes. Just 2 in the 2nd session. 7 0f the 12 were keepers. 8 of the 12 fish were males. Two of females looked to still be carrying eggs, some males shooting milt streams as I unzipped the hooks. 

Didn't get to hit my most productive spot - homeowners were there. I expect they will be gone when I try fishing again Monday morning. Least productive spot in 2018, my seawall, showed signs of life including the 12.5" male in photo below. All but one fish bit the Monkey Milk Baby Shad. More time to fish in the morning and I'll experiment with baits. 

Water temp today was 72.6 degrees. Spawn still there, for now.




  








IMG_20180513_190242196




__
zaraspook


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May 14, 2018




12.5" male Grand Lake 5-13-18


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Lack of crappie posts on this thread is alarming.


That usually happens when everyone is catching.

Fishing down this way has really picked up since the end of April and the perpetual winter that wouldn't go away. We've mostly been fishing Rocky Fork, East Fork and the Ohio River with the OR getting the nod for the bigger fish. The channel cats are heading into the banks now so they are also adding to the excitement.
My boat fishing has been way down since my knee surgery on 5/03 so I've been stuck fishing from the bank in some heavily pressured spots. Catching has not been a problem with most 1-2 hour trips yielding plenty of action but size just isn't there. I don't keep many fish so all the catching is still fun even with the smaller fish.
This week is big fun for me with 3 friends getting me out for some mercy trips in their boats to (yesterday) the Ohio River creeks, Wednesday to Paint Creek and Friday to East Fork.
The knee is really doing well and I think I can launch my boat solo but I don't want to push it so I may wait until the weekend to try. I don't want any set backs.
My worst fear this year was going directly from winter to summer has happened so having a prolonged shallow bite likely won't happen but if/when the crappie move off the banks I'll just have to chase them a little deeper.
Good luck up there and keep them picks coming


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## zaraspook

Good to hear your knee is coming along, C-dude. Your point that "everyone is catching" may well be the case! We share same concern over quick transition from winter to summer equating to abbreviated shallow bite period. Hoping not but beyond our control.......

No photos today. Catching keeper fish but none 12" or better.....yet.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> No photos today


...so I'll add a few from earlier.

Late April not much was showing up shallow so we moved off the bank to find some bigger fish holding about 10' deep in 15 fow. They we scattered but hungry. This particular lake is full of whites. These went from 10"-12 1/2"









Got out with my friend to try to find a few one day. The crappie were scattered from the cold fronts but this area seemed to hold some nice flatheads. Another friend had one the day before. Who says these guys don't eat crappie jigs? 









Got a mixed bag this day of blacks and whites. Little fellas on the bank with the big girls hanging out deeper.









Time for everyone to get off your butts and out on the water.


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## RMK

Glad to hear your knee is getting better c-dude and nice fish!


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## RMK

sunday first half of the day- we didnt find the fast and furious bite we were kind of anticipating but we caught some fish. roughly 15 legal crappie, around 7 shorts, 1 keeper gill, and a few small angry green sunfish. most fish came fishing 8 to 10 inches deep. casting to the rocky bank and working the jig back towards deeper water. most bites came within 3 feet of the bank. i regret not getting a few pictures. these fish were mostly very dark males. unfortunaley no jumbo males. some fish still hanging out deeper on metal, and even a few pulled from under pontoons. monkey milk bg baby shad for me, black and chartrues paddle tale mr crappie slabalicious for scott


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> ...so I'll add a few from earlier.
> 
> Late April not much was showing up shallow so we moved off the bank to find some bigger fish holding about 10' deep in 15 fow. They we scattered but hungry. This particular lake is full of whites. These went from 10"-12 1/2"
> View attachment 262256
> 
> 
> Got out with my friend to try to find a few one day. The crappie were scattered from the cold fronts but this area seemed to hold some nice flatheads. Another friend had one the day before. Who says these guys don't eat crappie jigs?
> View attachment 262258
> 
> 
> Got a mixed bag this day of blacks and whites. Little fellas on the bank with the big girls hanging out deeper.
> View attachment 262259
> 
> 
> Time for everyone to get off your butts and out on the water.


Nicely done! That flattie must have been fun on crappie rig.


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## zaraspook

Ended up Monday with 18 caught and 12 keepers. Biggest was a 3 way tie, 3 fish at 11.5" of which one was a female still strutting a beer gut of eggs. First 12 I caught on Monkey Milk Baby Shad, roughly 2 hours in the morning. Since I forgot to try my Hot Grub twister tails, I did another hour session at 12:30pm and exclusively used Acid Rain/June Bug pattern. Caught the final 6 crappies......virtually the same catch rate as the Monkey Milk Baby Shad, however, I was re-fishing spots I'd hit earlier in the day. Only difference.........the hit seemed more violent on the Hot Grubs. It was a good day. Wanted to stick around but headed home by 2:30pm for my grand daughters T-ball game Mon evening.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> sunday first half of the day- we didnt find the fast and furious bite we were kind of anticipating but we caught some fish. roughly 15 legal crappie, around 7 shorts, 1 keeper gill, and a few small angry green sunfish. most fish came fishing 8 to 10 inches deep. casting to the rocky bank and working the jig back towards deeper water. most bites came within 3 feet of the bank. i regret not getting a few pictures. these fish were mostly very dark males. unfortunaley no jumbo males. some fish still hanging out deeper on metal, and even a few pulled from under pontoons. monkey milk bg baby shad for me, black and chartrues paddle tale mr crappie slabalicious for scott


Good showing, RMK! Those Monkey Milk Baby Shad just grow on you, don't they? If I could find Monkey Milk Hot Grub twister tails I know I'd have to buy them. Might be perfect bait.


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## Greyduck

One of the 5 fish Ohio we took on Sundays outing. Brought 33 over 10" home.


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## RMK

Greyduck said:


> One of the 5 fish Ohio we took on Sundays outing. Brought 33 over 10" home.
> View attachment 262317


beautiful fish!


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Good showing, RMK! Those Monkey Milk Baby Shad just grow on you, don't they? If I could find Monkey Milk Hot Grub twister tails I know I'd have to buy them. Might be perfect bait.


they certainly have. i have 2 variations of monkey milk in panfish assassin tiny shad, a monkey milk big flat bait with 2 tales (slab doctr i think) for shooting pontoons, and of course the baby shad. not sure how much color matters to the shallow males right now but i ll probably stick with it untill it stops catching.


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## Saugeyefisher

Gonna have to get me some monkey milk,lol.... i tend to use bright colors alot an dont use natural colors often enough. The natural color i use most often is straight black... veey good color in dirty water. My all time favoritecolor is electric chicken.... if i dont have e.c. on hand ill use a pink head an chartruese body or vise versa.....


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> they certainly have. i have 2 variations of monkey milk in panfish assassin tiny shad, a monkey milk big flat bait with 2 tales (slab doctr i think) for shooting pontoons, and of course the baby shad. not sure how much color matters to the shallow males right now but i ll probably stick with it untill it stops catching.


As you know I carry 2 rods with different plastics and alternate them early to see what fish can see and are willing to hit. Monkey Milk is always on one of them. Since last fall, very few times it wasn't best bait. It would normally at least get bit and catch a few. And one day last week, Key Lime Pie worked better dragged thru beds. Monkey Milk is a good plastic to start with - can't figure out what they want unless you catch a few.


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## zaraspook

When we had all that rain and water was high and muddy, I was doing well with MM. It defies conventional thinking for dark baits in mud, but it works. I avoided natural colors at GLSM most of my fishing career. Now that's flipped.....always 1 rig is MM. That will change someday, but works for now.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> When we had all that rain and water was high and muddy, I was doing well with MM. It defies conventional thinking for dark baits in mud, but it works. I avoided natural colors at GLSM most of my fishing career. Now that's flipped.....always 1 rig is MM. That will change someday, but works for now.


Yeah i remember that... actually it kinda stuck with me a few times at buckeye in the muddy water. Bite would slow on my bright bait,id try a natural bait (no monkey milk in my arsenal at the time).lol never left it on long enough though....
I also need to go buy a duplicate crappie rod. I waste to many baits ripping them off to switch out,an super glue.need more super glue...... I carry 2/3 rods fishing shore or kayak,lol but 2 usually have saigeye baits on them,yeah even when im crappie fishing,lol.... now a couple trips i did toss my ultra light in the kayak an used small ratso and mousey type baits on it for cold front crappie and gills (lookingfor bites period) but i dont like using a u.l. for crappie fishing. I like a little more backbone to get a better hook set. I tend to set the hook pretty hard crappie fishing with a float. Lol sorry im wondering off subject... off to cabelas an feild stream for some monkey milk.......
These pop up storms should do a good job at keeping water temps down..... hopeing for another good weekend....


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Yeah i remember that... actually it kinda stuck with me a few times at buckeye in the muddy water. Bite would slow on my bright bait,id try a natural bait (no monkey milk in my arsenal at the time).lol never left it on long enough though....
> I also need to go buy a duplicate crappie rod. I waste to many baits ripping them off to switch out,an super glue.need more super glue...... I carry 2/3 rods fishing shore or kayak,lol but 2 usually have saigeye baits on them,yeah even when im crappie fishing,lol.... now a couple trips i did toss my ultra light in the kayak an used small ratso and mousey type baits on it for cold front crappie and gills (lookingfor bites period) but i dont like using a u.l. for crappie fishing. I like a little more backbone to get a better hook set. I tend to set the hook pretty hard crappie fishing with a float. Lol sorry im wondering off subject... off to cabelas an feild stream for some monkey milk.......
> These pop up storms should do a good job at keeping water temps down..... hopeing for another good weekend....


saugfish.........agree with your thinking about storms moderating the water temp. Took so long for the spawn to get here, would like to see it prolonged.


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## zaraspook

Rolled into GLSM at 1am Weds morning after 2 ballgames Tuesday night for my grandkids. Hit the sack right away since I wanted to get an early start on the crappie.....fearful spawn is going fast and want to squeeze out as much as I can.

Business issue delayed the fishing and didn't get going until after 9am. Twister tail got skunked. Key Lime Pie BG baby Shad caught 2 females not quite spawned out, then no bites. Couldn't believe I didn't have Monkey Milk Baby Shad tied on either rod. Hastily took care of that and started catching robust males. At that point I'd caught 8 in an hour before a neighbor asked for some assistance. Disappointing I got in only another hour and a half fishing by45PM. Fortunately, when I fished I found cooperating, aggressive males........tally at 4pm was 15 keepers from 18 caught and had just landed a 12" male deserving a photo (to post later).

Final session started at 6pm until 7:30pm covering 2 spots, usually great during spawn but dry holes in 2018. All hell broke loose! 26 crappie between the 2 spots and in one spot the males on beds were seemingly everywhere, crawling like ants. 

Content and hungry, I quit to pour a craft beer and put a steak on the grill. While the steak sizzled, grabbed a rod and caught 2 more testosterone charged males off my seawall. Final tally 46 caught, 35 keepers, 4 males at 12"+. Beer and steak never tasted better.......an outstanding day!




  








IMG_20180516_154238123




__
zaraspook


__
May 17, 2018




Grand Lake St. Marys 12" Crappie 5-16-18


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## Saugeyefisher

Amazing day,great job!


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## zaraspook

Fortunate to be at right place at right time. Went back to same place this morning. We caught fish but nothing like mayhem of previous evening.


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## zaraspook

Met up with T04DF15H Thursday morning to hunt crappie. Wednesday's hot spawn spots were at the top of our target list. Too bad we couldn't duplicate action off the charts, but we did just fine. While I was gabbing with a neighbor fisherman, T04DF15H was wetting line, landing and releasing a few crappies. Fish we caught at first stop weren't really the big black males we were wanted. He decided to grab his bucket before the next stop, maybe keep a few.

Stop #2 was the site of crappie mayhem the evening before. It didn't take long before we were both catching fish. Bite was steady, not crazy. Most of my fish were going into the bucket, not so for my fishing partner. It was time for an introduction. Although T04DF15H has an impressive arsenal of crappie plastics, my current favorite bait and pattern is not in his inventory. He graciously accepted my offering, his introduction to the power of Monkey Milk BG Baby Shad. He tied it on and "bucket fish" followed soon.

I took break for 45 minutes, a meeting with a contractor, but T04DF15H and Monkey Milk didn't miss me an inkling. When I returned he was still catching fish, pace had slowed, but I suggested we move. We caught fish at next stop, but not quantity and quality. We actually tried 2 additional stops with even less action. Deciding to put a bow on it, we called it a morning with our best 15 in his bucket. 

Between us I'm guessing we caught about 30. In addition to the crappies I caught an 11-12" largemouth, while T04DF15H caught a largemouth of 14". Our best 15 in the bucket included 5 crappies at 12" or better. We had a good day! T04DF15H caught and put more in the bucket than I did.

6-7:30 pm Thurs evening I revisited the same spots, catching 15 total, 11 keepers, all released. Channel water temp Thursday morning was 70.6, not going crazy!


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## fishwhacker

Took the little guy out today for 50 minutes and he reeled in 3 all by himself. Crappies definitely had the feedbag on.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Took the little guy out today for 50 minutes and he reeled in 3 all by himself. Crappies definitely had the feedbag on.
> View attachment 262574


Wonderful! Lucky boy and lucky Dad!


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## fishwhacker

I agree may not catch as many with him along but as long as he is having fun i dont care. Very lucky he never wants to leave when were out and has patience that i have never seen in a 3 year old


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## zaraspook

Saturday 5-19-18




  








IMG_20180519_205654519_BURST000_COVER_TOP




__
zaraspook


__
May 20, 2018




Grand Lake St Marys Pike 5-19-18


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## fishwhacker

Got out today again with the little guy and got on some giant gills and a few nice crappies. He is turning into my good luck charm


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## Tom 513

Zara, I have been trying hard the past few years to break the minnow habit and now that the guy who runs the bait shop by Acton has become a counter and has a hard time opening his store by 7:00am, I am even more determined. Here are 2 color combos that are my go to, I favor Bobby Garland plastics but bought Strike king paddle tails to troll with and rig them on a #6 red matzo hook that i found this winter. Junebug and Chartruse is my fav but bubblegum (electric chicken)and chartruse is a close second, I always tip them with a Chartruse or Pink nibble for good measure, today at Acton water temp had dipped yo 66 in morning and 77 by noon, the bite was tougher than last windy sunday and they lost there appitite around 11:00, still managed 20 or 25 with 8 nice keepers, i believe this cold front is prolonging the spawn.
















Sent from my SM-J727V using Tapatalk


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## zaraspook

That's a great report, Tom. Good to hear baits and techniques that work for others. With crappie shallow water lakes and deep water lakes have more in common than different.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Got out today again with the little guy and got on some giant gills and a few nice crappies. He is turning into my good luck charm
> View attachment 262754
> View attachment 262755


Love your son's hat. You have a fishing addict "in the making".


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Saturday 5-19-18
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> IMG_20180519_205654519_BURST000_COVER_TOP
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> zaraspook
> 
> 
> __
> May 20, 2018
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Grand Lake St Marys Pike 5-19-18


What!?! congrats on the toothy critter. how long?


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## RMK

Sunday-first half of the day-the spawning action continues. Quite a few aggressive and very dark males shallow relating to rocky shore lines. Jigs 8" under float casted to the rocks and worked slowly away from the shore until it disapered. This technique and location resulted in numbers of fish but most fish in the 8.5" to 10.5". We found some bigger fish still holding deeper on metal. Still holding eggs as well. Monkey milk bg baby shad and black and chartreuse paddle tale took the most fish. Caught a couple of the smaller black males on an electric chicken joker tail- i like the bait more than the crappie usually do but it worked. I took the big fish of our day with a chunky bass that had to be pushing 3lbs and long crappie at 13". Scott caught a very special crappie. Not the longest fish we ve ever seen but quite possibly the tallest and thickest measuring a little under 12. I d guess around 25 fish caught with 17 or so legal fish. I know the stage of the spawn varies by location on the lake but with some females still holding eggs out deeper I d have to guess we have a little bit more time to enjoy it.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Sunday-first half of the day-the spawning action continues. Quite a few aggressive .
> View attachment 262829
> View attachment 262830
> View attachment 262831
> View attachment 262832


RMK........great report, nice haul by you/partner, and awesome photography work! Spawn has been tremendous, once it got rolling. Quality/weight of fish unbelievable. Although 13"+ fish have been rare for me, heavy 12"s commonplace. For all those who knock GLSM for various reasons, it's one hell of a crappie fishery!


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## zaraspook

I fished at least 1 hour 8 of the last 9 days......cool to personally witness the spawn build, spread, and unfortunately fade. Still fish out there though. Big female today oozing eggs all over me. Today, Monday, was one of hardest. Spawn areas a week old drying up, males out of their tuxedos, but still producing a few post spawn crappie. Other spawn areas that started later are slowing, but warpainted males still there spurting fluid. Thanks to one small patch of water/bank, my total for the day was boosted to 32 crappies with 21 keepers. On a daily basis I'd catch as few as 12 crappie and as many as 46 with 35 keepers that day. Caught a total of 197 crappie over the 9-day period. Water temps stayed in the 69-73 degree range over the 9 day period....stable, no quick rise or fall.

A shout out to fellow OGF'er T04DF15H. We fished a couple hours Sunday afternoon. Each of us caught 12-15 fish. A 12" male he caught was a beauty..........solid black, gorgeous fish. Thanks, again.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> What!?! congrats on the toothy critter. how long?


Your 3# bass may have been longer. Pike was caught at 9pm whatever day that was. Last fish and getting dark, and nothing with me to measure. I'm guessing.........17-18". Later on that night I looked at the pike photo and thought it must have been a mistake. My pike couldn't have been as big as it looked in photo. Fish looks a lot bigger in photo than it was.........the angle of the dangle, I guess.

Nice LMB you had, RMK.


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## RMK

Haha! I guess i need to practice that "angle of the dangle" in my future photography lol awesome fish regardless of length


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## Salmonid

Not exactly a glsm report but here goes. Fished my pond tonight for about 30 minutes near Dayton. Dabbing a clear and blue twister tail on a 1/16 oz jighead about 18” under a small peg float along the shorelines in about 18-24” of water Around the wood i quickly picked up 2 12” channel cats so i moved over along some rock i have along the bank and my float slowly sinks like a crappie bite and i set the hook only to realize what ive hooked is big, really big and for 10 min with my 7.5’ light action rod i just stand there and notice that this fish is just swimming around and never speeds up just slowly keeps swimming up the bank pulling drag so i keep walking around the pond keeping up with it and after slowly cruising around the pond he starts heading for a submerged stump and there is absolutely nothing i can do other then lean hard on the rod in a steering motion but he never knew he was hooked as he circled the stump and the line got stuck and after a few minute i had to just pull on it until the 8 lb line broke. Certainly one of my bigger catfish in the pond as several have been caught in the 15 lb range but i can assure you this was like no 15 lb channel ive ever caught and ive got at least 18-20 channels in that range. This thing just had more power then about anything ive ever hooked. He was on for at least 10 minutes ,Lol. Sorry for the rant but 2 points worthwhile , first is the channels are on the banks and secondly is they are eating plastics and are a blast to catch!?! Till next time as I have unfinished business up at the pond!!

Salmonid


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## crappiedude

Salmonid said:


> but 2 points worthwhile , first is *the channels are on the banks* and secondly is they* are eating plastics* and are a blast to catch


Yes they are. We haven't gotten anything that big but the smaller channels have been all over our plastics the last few weeks. It's surprising just how shallow some of them are.


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## M R DUCKS

As 1st noted Dec 1 2011 by TCfischer.
you're killin' me......GL St. Mary's is NOT in SW Ohio !


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Not exactly a glsm report but here goes. Fished my pond tonight for about 30 minutes near Dayton. Dabbing a clear and blue twister tail on a 1/16 oz jighead about 18” under a small peg float along the shorelines in about 18-24” of water Around the wood i quickly picked up 2 12” channel cats so i moved over along some rock i have along the bank and my float slowly sinks like a crappie bite and i set the hook only to realize what ive hooked is big, really big and for 10 min with my 7.5’ light action rod i just stand there and notice that this fish is just swimming around and never speeds up just slowly keeps swimming up the bank pulling drag so i keep walking around the pond keeping up with it and after slowly cruising around the pond he starts heading for a submerged stump and there is absolutely nothing i can do other then lean hard on the rod in a steering motion but he never knew he was hooked as he circled the stump and the line got stuck and after a few minute i had to just pull on it until the 8 lb line broke. Certainly one of my bigger catfish in the pond as several have been caught in the 15 lb range but i can assure you this was like no 15 lb channel ive ever caught and ive got at least 18-20 channels in that range. This thing just had more power then about anything ive ever hooked. He was on for at least 10 minutes ,Lol. Sorry for the rant but 2 points worthwhile , first is the channels are on the banks and secondly is they are eating plastics and are a blast to catch!?! Till next time as I have unfinished business up at the pond!!
> 
> Salmonid


Sooner or later you will get into that fish again for "round #2". Maybe a different outcome, maybe not.


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## zaraspook

M R DUCKS said:


> As 1st noted Dec 1 2011 by TCfischer.
> you're killin' me......GL St. Mary's is NOT in SW Ohio !


Geographically, you are correct. ODNR puts GLSM in SW region for water management and administration purposes. Economically, the lake depends significantly on the Dayton metro area, NW Dayton communities.
For years the Cincinnati Reds were in the Western Div of National League. Geographically, it made no sense. Business reasons sometimes rule the roost.


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## crappiedude

M R DUCKS said:


> As 1st noted Dec 1 2011 by TCfischer.
> you're killin' me......GL St. Mary's is NOT in SW Ohio !


You must really be bored to look back to find that post from 2011


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## Saugeyefisher

M R DUCKS said:


> As 1st noted Dec 1 2011 by TCfischer.
> you're killin' me......GL St. Mary's is NOT in SW Ohio !


But the mods have been fine with it since 10/3/11. 
Everything will be ok .....

Zara,thanks for starting amd continuing this thread. Aa long as there is a new post its the first one i check everytime i get on.....


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> But the mods have been fine with it since 10/3/11.
> Everything will be ok .....
> 
> Zara,thanks for starting amd continuing this thread. Aa long as there is a new post its the first one i check everytime i get on.....


Saugfish ......glad to hear that! Must mean the many contributors provide beneficial info from time to time. Personally, I'm proud the "tone" of discourse is usually positive, optimistic, and followers generous with help. Not saying we don't harp and gripe, bitch and moan. Some threads get testy, commentary turns way too personal. Rarely the case here. Guys do a great job of expressing opinions without throwing verbiage bombs.


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## fishwhacker

Got out this afternoon trying for bluegill with a 1/64oz hair jig tipped with a wax worm on the southside of the lake and a funny thing happened. I started really getting into the crappie. It was mid afternoon with air temp approaching 90. Last couple weeks i have been getting lots of nice gills and thought the crappies must be done spawning and it was the bluegills turn, but a day like today must mean in certain spots crappies are still spawning. Not huge ones just solid 9-10 inchers with males sporting war paint


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## zaraspook

Made it to lake Friday noon Fished in between prepping for guests for holiday weekend. First wave of guests arriving Friday evening. 2nd wave came mid - Saturday. Last wave arrived Sunday morning. All stayed overnight at least one night, some fur 3 nights. Good times, grilling and chilling, boating, not much time for fishing.
I caught 12 Friday, better than expected, water temp 78 then. Saturday my catch shrunk to 8. Sunday a paltry 2 crappies.....water temp was 86 at 4pm and bites scarce. Both Fri and Sat my catch included multiple 12" fish, a couple of them males in warpaint and 12.5" female, recently spawned out. Surprises me that quality fish like these are spawning this late in cycle, but it's a pleasant surprise.


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## RMK

Good job on the catching you guys! No fishing time put in by me this weekend. Did get to take the baby on her first trip on the water. First battle- lathering her up in sunsscreen, second battle- stuffing her in the life jacket. After that, the boat ride it's self went pretty good. Alot of boat traffic out there. Both by fisherman and pleasure boaters. I ll be back out in search of some crappie end of the week and sunday.


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## crappiedude

This thread has such a diverse following from all parts of the state who fish a variety of lake types plus the fact that Zara seems to welcome a sharing of info on his thread I decided to post this here.

With the spawn clearly winding down and the water temps climbing higher it's time to start looking beyond the shallow water haunts for crappie. I don't fish the shallow waters of GLSM but crappie are crappie no matter where they are. In the last few weeks, the size of our shallow catch has diminished greatly on the 4 lakes we routinely fish.
Just like I usually do this time of year I started fishing shallow spawning areas with not very good results lately. I'd get a few short fish and plenty of catfish but the larger crappie were no where, at least where I was looking.
For the past week I still started shallow and on lake #1 I never got a fish on the bank so after 3 hours of fishing several spots I moved off shore and went to several areas in open water. I fished each spot for about 45 minutes. As I suspected all the spots not only held some fish but they all held some better sized fish.
A friend of mine fished lake #2 with his cousin and pretty much found the same thing as I had the previous day. On this lake we killed the fish about 10 days ago on jig & cork against the bank. Since he was striking out shallow he backed off the bank a little and started looking in 7-8 fow and found his best action of the day ending with a dozen over 10" for the skillet. Big fish was just a touch over 13".
Lake #3 we fished yesterday and we headed straight for some deeper stumps. To our surprise, nothing...not even a bump. We moved shallow for the next spot, same results here with maybe a few gill bumps. The third spot was deep again but the results were still the same with no fish. Now we're 2 hours into the day and not caught 1 fish. The fourth spot we went to was shallow but it held some short fish, this spot is normally one of our go to spots so we're baffled. The fifth spot was some submerged trees just 50 or 60 yards out off the bank from the last spot and BINGO!
We stayed on fish for the next 3 hours and managed 25 fish over 10" for the skillet. Threw another 10 or 15 keepers back plus a bunch of short fish. The better fish were holding deeper in the cover. The fact that only 1 of the 3 deep spots held fish tells me the crappie are still in transition off the banks and the fishing will improve over the next few weeks.
Morale is if you aren't catching...keep looking, their life cycle is changing.






















Lures of choice were BGBS in either Key Lime or Monkey Milk and tube jigs in orange/chart or purple/chart. I'm not too sure color mattered that much but we switched as bodies wore out and needed to be changed just to give the fish a little different look.


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## fishwhacker

Great insight, it has been posted many times on this thread that after the spawn the crappies disappear from GLSM. I really think it is the amount of time spent fishing from the bank vs a boat. Im included in that group in that i can only catch them when there close due to being a bank fisherman. Lucky for me i enjoy chasing gills as much as crappies so i always have an excuse/reason to get out.


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## RMK

i would really like to put more time into searching for crappie on the mainlake or even just finding deep submerged structure. i havent had luck with it to this point. shade-large docks over hanging a large area of surface water, and finding the right pontoon that sits significantly more than it moves(prefereably in deeper water) are still my current post spawn/hot water go to spots to check. often these spots are within feet of where they were caught during pre spawn and even very close to where they were during the shallow spawn action. i would love to see the travel patterns of a radio tagged crappie in glsm.


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## crappiedude

GLSM has a unique event going on up there.....dredging. (more)Deeper water is being added every year. One problem I can see is since it isn't old established water is the possibility of a lack of cover in the newly formed depths. I would think if that's the case a few strategically placed crappie condos to sweeten the spot would do wonders to attract and hold the fish.
I was fishing with a guy one day and he promptly went to a point and started fishing off to one side. When I asked if he like fishing points he said "Not really but I placed a few limbs in here last week" Even with the cover in there on this spot that short time we managed to catch a few that day.


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## ohiostrutter

There is a small area on the West Bank that shows 16' deep on maps. Haven't checked with a depth finder. That area definitely has more depth changes/character than the rest of the lake. Anyone poked around there?


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## firemanmike2127

Years ago there was a fairly wide (35-50') trough that ran east to west in the western end of the lake. I never tried real hard to see how long it was but it but it had a depth that was at least 3-5' more than the main lake basin. I crossed it a number of times but the graphs we had back then had pretty poor resolution. I remember finding it using one of the real early Humminbird side imaging graphs that had pixels the size of a small truck. The deepest water I EVER found on GLSM was at the very end of Windy Point on the east side after the extension was added. Keep in mind that I'm not referring to the ring of rocks that make up the 'island' north of the portion attached to land. The water there was 14' deep & there was a really big stump down there too. We actually dove there one day when were out doing some dive training & search patterns in open water. I'm going to guess that it was probably around 1997 or 1998 (not sure). I verified the depth indicated on my graph by using an anchor. That particular spot isn't really any deeper than the surrounding area now & the stump is gone. There is no water around GLSM that is anywhere near 16' deep these days that I know of. Mike


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## crappiedude

RMK said:


> shade-large docks over hanging a large area of surface water, and finding the right pontoon that sits significantly more than it moves(prefereably in deeper water) are still my current post spawn/hot water go to spots to check.


Shade could be a big, big draw this time of year. On one lake we fish the crappie will move along a southern shore and remain active as long as its shaded. As the sun comes up early in the morning the shade comes out into the lake quite a bit but as the sun rises more and more the shaded area shrinks. After about 11:00 most of the shade is gone and the crappie seem to settle down into deeper cover. (or maybe under a toon or dock)


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## Saugeyefisher

I find more crappies in shade then i do open deep water on buckeye in the summer... 
But i dont chase them to often that yime of year at buckeye....


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## firemanmike2127

Well, I stand corrected since I found some 16- 20' deep water today off of of the west bank of GLSM. I was running a little 13' Boston Whaler with an old customer & he had a small Garmin graph that had CHIRP technology, so I'm assuming that it was accurate. 20.2 FOW was the deepest point I found. Mike


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## ohiostrutter

firemanmike2127 said:


> Well, I stand corrected since I found some 16- 20' deep water today off of of the west bank of GLSM. I was running a little 13' Boston Whaler with an old customer & he had a small Garmin graph that had CHIRP technology, so I'm assuming that it was accurate. 20.2 FOW was the deepest point I found. Mike


Someone get out there and drop a jig!


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## RMK

firemanmike2127 said:


> Well, I stand corrected since I found some 16- 20' deep water today off of of the west bank of GLSM. I was running a little 13' Boston Whaler with an old customer & he had a small Garmin graph that had CHIRP technology, so I'm assuming that it was accurate. 20.2 FOW was the deepest point I found. Mike


secrets out now!.... haha. i havent fished it myself, or even drove over it to check the depth, but i heard a rumor of that hole. pretty sure it is a result of last years dredging. a friend of mine did attempt at spider rigging it one time last summer with no luck. i had high hopes of trolling some crank baits late winter/early spring over there looking for toothy critters and that hole. but time didnt allow for it.


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## firemanmike2127

Ryan, don't forget about a couple of other areas nearby. The basin north of the ramp is getting deeper daily since the dredge is presently operating there. Also, the mouth of Coldwater Creek got quite a bit of attention last fall. Mike


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## crappiedude

Fishing deep is always a relative term. In some lakes or even parts of lakes fishing deep may only be depth adjustment of a few feet while in others it may be an adjustment of 10-20'.
Yesterday we had another decent day and although we had some 30'+ water near by these particular fish moved onto an under water point that sits about 5' deep on the top and drops into about 12' deep along most of the sides & front. Most of the fish we caught were about 7-8' deep.


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## Salmonid

From a catfish point of view ive fished tons of dredge holes and all the deepest holes of the lake and can tell you that the catfish in glsm just do not relate to them any any time of year. Cant figure it our. At indian there loaded in the deep holes just not at glsm. Our catfish here are not like any other lakes. Lol


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> This thread has such a diverse following from all parts of the state who fish a variety of lake types plus the fact that Zara seems to welcome a sharing of info on his thread I decided to post this here.
> 
> With the spawn clearly winding down and the water temps climbing higher it's time to start looking beyond the shallow water haunts for crappie. I don't fish the shallow waters of GLSM but crappie are crappie no matter where they are. In the last few weeks, the size of our shallow catch has diminished greatly on the 4 lakes we routinely fish.
> Just like I usually do this time of year I started fishing shallow spawning areas with not very good results lately. I'd get a few short fish and plenty of catfish but the larger crappie were no where, at least where I was looking.
> For the past week I still started shallow and on lake #1 I never got a fish on the bank so after 3 hours of fishing several spots I moved off shore and went to several areas in open water. I fished each spot for about 45 minutes. As I suspected all the spots not only held some fish but they all held some better sized fish.
> A friend of mine fished lake #2 with his cousin and pretty much found the same thing as I had the previous day. On this lake we killed the fish about 10 days ago on jig & cork against the bank. Since he was striking out shallow he backed off the bank a little and started looking in 7-8 fow and found his best action of the day ending with a dozen over 10" for the skillet. Big fish was just a touch over 13".
> Lake #3 we fished yesterday and we headed straight for some deeper stumps. To our surprise, nothing...not even a bump. We moved shallow for the next spot, same results here with maybe a few gill bumps. The third spot was deep again but the results were still the same with no fish. Now we're 2 hours into the day and not caught 1 fish. The fourth spot we went to was shallow but it held some short fish, this spot is normally one of our go to spots so we're baffled. The fifth spot was some submerged trees just 50 or 60 yards out off the bank from the last spot and BINGO!
> We stayed on fish for the next 3 hours and managed 25 fish over 10" for the skillet. Threw another 10 or 15 keepers back plus a bunch of short fish. The better fish were holding deeper in the cover. The fact that only 1 of the 3 deep spots held fish tells me the crappie are still in transition off the banks and the fishing will improve over the next few weeks.
> Morale is if you aren't catching...keep looking, their life cycle is changing.
> View attachment 263472
> View attachment 263473
> View attachment 263474
> 
> Lures of choice were BGBS in either Key Lime or Monkey Milk and tube jigs in orange/chart or purple/chart. I'm not too sure color mattered that much but we switched as bodies wore out and needed to be changed just to give the fish a little different look.


Really good report, C-dude! You guys solved the puzzle that day.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> GLSM has a unique event going on up there.....dredging. (more)Deeper water is being added every year. One problem I can see is since it isn't old established water is the possibility of a lack of cover in the newly formed depths. I would think if that's the case a few strategically placed crappie condos to sweeten the spot would do wonders to attract and hold the fish.
> I was fishing with a guy one day and he promptly went to a point and started fishing off to one side. When I asked if he like fishing points he said "Not really but I placed a few limbs in here last week" Even with the cover in there on this spot that short time we managed to catch a few that day.


C-dude.......dredge guys say 2-4' is typical change in depth. To be specific my channel was dredged in 2016 or 2017. Deepest water went from 4.5' to 6.5'. As dredge arm sweeps from side to side, I believe arm pushes cover to the sides. The resulting trench is left barren of cover. State focuses on volume of sludge removed, covering a lot of area, not on sitting in one spot and creating depth. Not that I'm complaining. Additional couple feet of water helps to hold fish in the area.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> I find more crappies in shade then i do open deep water on buckeye in the summer...
> But i dont chase them to often that yime of year at buckeye....


Absolutely, agree!


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> Well, I stand corrected since I found some 16- 20' deep water today off of of the west bank of GLSM. I was running a little 13' Boston Whaler with an old customer & he had a small Garmin graph that had CHIRP technology, so I'm assuming that it was accurate. 20.2 FOW was the deepest point I found. Mike


Love to see someone pull a decent fish from that hole. In 2009 and 2010 when I was dedicated to finding those 60 million walleye stocked in GLSM, I easily racked up 20 hours of fishing that hole. Depth ran as deep as 18.5' in spring to 16' in fall. Occasionally got into a good fish there, cat or snagged carp. Never an eye. Used to be a log/limb in middle of it.
Recently thought it might be a perch hole, but haven't tried it.


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## fishwhacker

Spent the day with my son participating in the windy point kids derby today. What a great event they put on every year to get more future sportsmen and all for free. My son was fairly successful with some big slabs along with other little fisherman. Most were about 3 ft off the bank and 8 inches deep


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Spent the day with my son participating in the windy point kids derby today. What a great event they put on every year to get more future sportsmen and all for free. My son was fairly successful with some big slabs along with other little fisherman. Most were about 3 ft off the bank and 8 inches deep
> View attachment 263719


What a joy that little guy is!


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## Saugeyefisher

fishwhacker said:


> Spent the day with my son participating in the windy point kids derby today. What a great event they put on every year to get more future sportsmen and all for free. My son was fairly successful with some big slabs along with other little fisherman. Most were about 3 ft off the bank and 8 inches deep
> View attachment 263719


That is awesome! Great stuff!
An man on a different but simaler note,seams the spawn really hung in strong out there for u guys! An still some going i see!


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## fishwhacker

Saugeyefisher said:


> That is awesome! Great stuff!
> An man on a different but simaler note,seams the spawn really hung in strong out there for u guys! An still some going i see!


As far as my personal experience we are on week 4 or 5 of the spawn. While it has slowed the last couple weeks can still find several per outing.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> That is awesome! Great stuff!
> An man on a different but simaler note,seams the spawn really hung in strong out there for u guys! An still some going i see!


Very cool that fish hung around for kids. Surprises me as well that crappie males still showing spawn war paint as you see in whacker's photo. It's a good reminder that GLSM is a big lake and fish do not behave in concert lake-wide. 
In my area spawn was on air 8-10 days ago. Got here last night at 9pm and squeezed in 20 minutes of fishing before dark. Only 1 bite for me and 1 crappie, and it looked just like the one in whacker's photo....still wearing spawn colors.


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## RMK

Sunday- first half of the day-
End result was 6 legal crappies (2 more keepers lost on their way in) Longest fish was in the 12.5 to 13 range. A very dark but skinny male sitting under a dock on a metal post in deeper water. Second longest fish- a 12" skinny spawned out female. She was up shallow just off of rocks but also close to a metal post under a dock. 2 keepers off of a rocky shoreline with some light wood structure scattered along it. 2 keepers pulled out from under pontoons. A couple shorts, a baby bass, and a sheep head added to the days catches. Water temps 78 to 80. Monkey milk and black and chartreuse tied today.


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## zaraspook

A high school fishing buddy joined me Sunday just before noon. We fished my channel from bank several times, usually 30-40 minute sessions. Bites were infrequent but the few we had usually produced a crappie. That translates into "fish would eat your bait when you found one".
I trailed all day in the catching department, but managed to tie the competition by end of day. Each of us caught 5. 4 keepers for me, buddy Jeff with 3 keepers, my 11.5" the biggest. Jeff was stubborn and never strayed from Monkey Milk. My 2nd rod had acid rain/June bug hot grub tied on. I used it often but Monkey Milk caught all fish, including a small bass for each of us and 1 gill.

We went back at it Monday morning for one session. Catching did not warrant sticking around. We broke camp and headed home. Guess I should confess I got whipped Monday. My buddy caught 2 crappie, one for me. The home team suffers a loss 7-6. Water temps were 79 to 81 degrees. Water level is on a slow decline by 1-2" a week.
Best tip this trip - Moeller Brew Barn in Maria Stein brews some outstanding offerings!


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## zaraspook

Friday 1pm made it to GLSM. A quick walking tour of 4 spots produced 5 crappies, 3 keepers in an hour. Encouraging to know that if you find them they would eat a bait. In this case the bait is Monkey Milk Baby Shad. Next round didn't come until 8pm. 5 spots produced nothing, no bites, nada going on. Glad I had a 6th spot in mind. Finally, 3 crappies at that spot with 2 keepers. 
Saturday morning had just one hour before heading home for baseball games. Better bite.....5 including a 12.25" among 3 keepers.
If you're patient you can catch a few.


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## fishwhacker

Zara, sounds like the spawn is over and they have moved to the main lake. Time to experiment and see if someone can figure out there summer pattern this year, or wait till fall.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, sounds like the spawn is over and they have moved to the main lake. Time to experiment and see if someone can figure out there summer pattern this year, or wait till fall.


Absolutely agree spawn is kaput at least in my channel. Tried Sunday morning. No bites first 45 minutes. Kept moving. Decided to "go deep" at a spot where I sank a Christmas tree that lays horizontal in 4' of water. Fished 4' deep and pulled 3 keepers, 2 better than 11" from the cover before they quit and I followed suit. Tried that same "deep" tactic in the evening, same spot as well as couple other spots. No dice.


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## zaraspook

Still at GLSM Monday morning so wet my line from 8:30 - 10am. After a couple of dry holes moved to my most consistent spot lately. 20 minutes later I'm still looking for 1st bite, let alone 1st fish. Move bobber a little deeper and make many more passes......the fish are silent. I was absolutely certain there were fish down there.....just a matter of figuring it out. Bobber adjusted to 4' depth in 4' of water, same spot. Next 25 minutes produces 4 crappie with 3 keepers! Deep tactic prevails again. Fish were there the entire time, they just refused to come up and chase my bait. No problem with them eating my bait but they weren't willing to work hard for it.
Caught 3 more from other spots. 4 keepers from the 7 caught.

Photo below is one of the 11.5" fish fro Sunday morning. Any one want to venture a guess as to the winning plastic today? 




  








IMG_20180610_095920471




__
zaraspook


__
Jun 12, 2018




6-19-18 Grand Lake St. Marys


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## Salmonid

Anyone else gonna fish the 3 day catfish tourney this weekend?? Im planning on coming up Saturday since i gotta do a test run on the new axle on the trailer.


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## zaraspook

That's good to know. Thanks, Mark


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Anyone else gonna fish the 3 day catfish tourney this weekend?? Im planning on coming up Saturday since i gotta do a test run on the new axle on the trailer.
> View attachment 264449


Assume you fished Saturday, Salmonid. How did you do? I was at GLSM mid-Friday until Sunday late afternoon. Saw a lot of bank fisherman along the East Bank, presumed they were entrants into the cat tourney. Did you hear of any whoppers taken?


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## CHOPIQ

Biggest I heard was a 9 pounder, but that was Friday. I heard as of Friday a 4 pounder was still in the money but I doubt if that lasted.


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## dcool

I heard that 10 lb. 6 oz. was big fish


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## zaraspook

Previously stated I was at GLSM Friday noonish to Sunday late afternoon. Dang it was hot! Water temp Sunday was just under 83 in my channel, probably 2-3 degrees lower in main lake. We had about 10 over-night guests Friday, same number for Saturday night, and 40-50 people Saturday for my wife's birthday party. It was one of those "big number" birthdays......wife doesn't appreciate me revealing which big number it was.

I never really made it far enough down my "to do" list to get to the "fishing" entry. But before any arrivals Friday I managed 30 minutes of chasing crappie 1pm and another 20 minutes Friday evening. Caught 1 crappie each time, not enough action to merit pursuing further. That was it until Sunday about 2pm, down to our last pair of remaining guests, grabbed my rod for and sneaked away for 30 minutes. Half way into the 30 minutes a bite caught me by surprise, and the float disappeared with acceleration not typical for crappie. The pull suggested this was likely a small bass, probably 11-12" (you can't see your catch in in GLSM's murky, summer green waters until the fish breaks surface). Nope, not a bass, but a feisty 12.5" crappie! Nice surprise, especially since the area I fished was in full sun, no shade. That is "no shade" on the water surface, but the structure I fished submerged below surface provided ample shade for a crappie or two. No more bites during the remaining time fished.


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## zaraspook

Back to GLSM Wednesday evening with 2 hours to make a serious attempt at luring a few crappie out from summertime hiding. After the last of 4 rain cells dumped cloud bursts, grabbed a rod and hoofed to the first of five spots on my planned walking tour.

Initial observations during my first few dips were 1) water level was up 2 inches maybe 3, and 2) water clarity took a hit from recent heat. What was heavy levels of suspended green matter not long ago is now pea soup and zero clarity. That's not new, nonetheless a sad admission that zero clarity is the "norm" for summer.

No bites fishing the GLSM standard 16-18" under bobber, I adjusted depth to my standard 30" depth and eventually to 36". Finally detected a first bite right at the seawall , a pick up and heavy tension on line, 2 gentle tugs from below, and the fish went nowhere. That's not really a typical crappie bite, but it does happen. Line still has tension/weight to it so I set hook. Fish responds with a quick thrust straight out from seawall heading toward middle of the channel. My drag is set fairly light so it's stripping off some line when I adjust drag and turn it 18' off the bank. Although I saw the wake from the fish heading away from me, still no ID of it due to murky waters. 10 seconds later fish is on the bank, a 13" LMB. Not spectacular but fun. 

In case you're wondering how I remember all the nitty-gritty details, it's not difficult when it's your only catch (other than a dink gill) of the day. No crappie from very few bites as I fished the 4 other spots and surrendered after 90 minutes.


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## crappiedude

I was just thinking some of these recent rains may have helped you out.
I've been doing a little bank fishing myself down here and the bite has slowly declined over the last 10 days or so. Wednesday I had 2 hits and 1 small crappie, 2 weeks ago 20-30 fish were common on every trip.
I don't like just sitting around in the morning so with some over night rains finally moving out I headed to the lake for 1 1/2 hours this morning before I have to leave for the day. Sky stayed overcast but rain held off. Bite was slow at the start but after moving a few times I finally got a "tap". Of course one of my infamously crappy knots came untied on the hookset so I lost that one but I caught 2 bass on the next 3 casts, biggest about 14". Over the next hour I got into a nice school of crappie and caught about 20 fish or so with the biggest probably just over 11". The last 10 minutes I fished the bite just died so I used that as my cue to leave. Not a bad morning and even if I didn't catch anything it was better than watching tv.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> I was just thinking some of these recent rains may have helped you out.
> I've been doing a little bank fishiNot a bad morning and even if I didn't catch anything it was better than watching tv.


You did well, c-dude!I stayed over at my place Weds night, fished the bank again Thursday morning. I lasted only an hour with only a few gill bites. Not a whiff of crappie bite again. That's pretty much how the crappie bite goes during summer at GLSM. If I catch any crappie, bulk are from shooting toons. Sun wasn't out Thursday morning at GLSM so toon bite wasn't there. Rain started before noon and persisted until I left at 3pm, heading to my grandson's baseball game in Eaton, OH. Half hour into my drive, I got a call.......grandson's game rained out! One of those wash-out days. At least the Reds won 4th in a row.


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## crappiedude

Lake went up a foot last night from all the rain we've had but again the showers dropped off this morning and I had a little time to kill. Again the fish were eager to play if I stuck a bait in front of their nose. I got 1 bass and maybe a dozen or so crappie, the bite started quick and ended quick. I was swimming the jigs and if the bait was more than 12" off the bottom it wouldn't get touched.
Slow and deep is what the wanted. It really surprises me these fish are here because most of my other shore bound spots had dried up with the end of the spawn.
I would think those toons and the docks up there would be a key factor on that lake during the summer months. With my (lack of) skill shooting docks & toons all the fish would be safe from me but I would have jigs stuck in every rope, deck board, boat seat ect. in sight. It wouldn't be pretty.
I know this is a fluke rainy day bite or some other weird event bringing the fish to this spot and I hope it holds a few more days so I can finish a few things I want to do to the boat over the weekend.
I seen the Reds won again tonight... they're 8 & 2 for the 10 games.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Lake went up a foot last night from all the rain we've had but again the showers dropped off this morning and I had a little time to kill. Again the fish were eager to play if I stuck a bait in front of their nose. I got 1 bass and maybe a dozen or so crappie, the bite started quick and ended quick. I was swimming the jigs and if the bait was more than 12" off the bottom it wouldn't get touched.
> Slow and deep is what the wanted. It really surprises me these fish are here because most of my other shore bound spots had dried up with the end of the spawn.
> I would think those toons and the docks up there would be a key factor on that lake during the summer months. With my (lack of) skill shooting docks & toons all the fish would be safe from me but I would have jigs stuck in every rope, deck board, boat seat ect. in sight. It wouldn't be pretty.
> I know this is a fluke rainy day bite or some other weird event bringing the fish to this spot and I hope it holds a few more days so I can finish a few things I want to do to the boat over the weekend.
> I seen the Reds won again tonight... they're 8 & 2 for the 10 games.


Keep it up, c-dude!
Reds management seems to be hinting at another total rebuild, starting over. Maybe we aren't as bad as pundits claim ? Heard that since Riggleman's initial series loss/sweep, Reds have played .500 for him. Getting back pitchers who were on DL first 6+ weeks like Hernandez and Desclafani has plugged some leaky holes in pitching and Suarez leading league in rbi's despite missing 1st 16 games! Schaeffer also missed first 3-4 weeks. Easy to make a case Reds may be couple players/pitchers away.


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## crappiedude

Bite has slowed as expected in this area today but I did manage about 6 or 7 crappie this morning. Not much size but still better than TV. Lake rose another foot or so too.
I'm a closet Reds fan. Always looking in the back ground, listening on the radio on occasion and watch the sports each night to see results but rarely sit down to watch a game. Other stats were some thing like 8 & 27 for the 1st 35 games, I think it was 22 & 18 (or vice versa) for the next 40 and the 8 & 2 I mentioned. Total rebuild doesn't make sense. Lots of rookies, lots of injuries not an easy start to the season. Winning teams are developed over time.


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## zaraspook

Streak sneaks to 7 in row. Reds are making us look like prophets, c-dude! Amazing how confidence can alter performance (even in the world of fishing). If we could just get Homer B to pitch halfway like the $20 mil per year pitcher he is. His Saturday rehab start in AAA Louisville.....6 innings, 10 hits, 7 runs. He's always been a headcase. The boy needs some of that confidence from the rest of team to rub off on him.


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## Saugeyefisher

Every time i here the name homer baily i get a sick feeling!!! I got the flu when he got that contract!!!


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Every time i here the name homer baily i get a sick feeling!!! I got the flu when he got that contract!!!


Hard to believe Homer has 2 no-hitters to his credit.........


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## fishwhacker

You know the fishing is bad when the talk turns to baseball lol....not that i am doing any better got a great gill spot going right now but other than that one spot been slow everywhere else i have tried


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## zaraspook

I had the same thought, clearly crappie aren't jumping in the boat. I was at GLSM Saturday evening, didn't wet a line. Still too much cottonwood flying around and coating the water surface. But I did fish Sunday morning and Monday morning for an hour each day. Very few bites and can't confirm that any of those were crappie. Caught 2 respectable gills.


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## fishwhacker

Must be that summer pattern no one is figuring out or at least not sharing


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Must be that summer pattern no one is figuring out or at least not sharing


Part of that summertime pattern is shooting toons. Surprisingly, it hasn't been a productive tactic for me. On my land-based circuit, toons to shoot are scarce, but enough available to test the waters. Fish aren't there in my trials.


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## zaraspook

Fished Thurs evening 8pm. Thought maybe the full moon would stir up any crappies that might be lost in my channel. I guess it worked. After 4 or 5 consecutive crappie skunks I caught 2. One a keeper, barely 10" and the other probably 8". Water temp 77.9.......I expected 80+. Water level off my seawall is 42", up a little and pretty good for this time of year. Alternated a twister tail and Monkey Milk shad body. No bites on the twister tail. Actually had more than a dozen bites on on the shad body but assume the bulk of those were puny gills too small to eat the plastic. I'll take 2 over a skunk any day.


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## zaraspook

Just came in from my morning walkabout. Bested last night's round by 50%.......3 crappie this this time. One keeper but the other 2 were probably legal. One fish taken near a submerged Christmas tree. Other 2 were 10' off the bank hanging near submerged PVC plastic crappie attractors in 4' of water. Used only Monkey Milk today.


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## zaraspook

Was at GLSM Saturday evening thru late afternoon Tuesday. Water temp Tuesday was 84.6 in the channel. Fished Sunday and Monday early and late. Tuesday only fished the morning shift. Caught 2 crappies Sunday. Monday and Tuesday were skunkaroo days with a few gill bites but nothing that resembled a crappie tug. 

Lack of fish did not keep crappie off the menu. As is our tradition for 4th of July holidays, delectable crappie tacos were the main dinner entree. These were ones caught in March and cleaned by one of GLSM's crappie cleaning wizards. Wonderful treat!


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## zaraspook

86.7 degree water temp Fri night at 9 pm. Water levels down 2-3" in last week or so. Fished an hour 8-9pm. Not that the crappie in photo is bragging size, but at least it was "legal" (9 inches) and wasn't sure my camera on phone still worked. Very few crappie in last 5 weeks. I did catch 1 more, but short. Monkey Milk.


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## Gillion

Hello there. I just want to apologize for previous posts....... Sorry to those close neighbor s I may have ditched upon their waters. I enjoy reading your posts and check your reports frequently......thank u for reporting and I hope to contribute.........sorry for being foolish.


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## fishwhacker

Well took the little guy out today for an hr. Found around a dozen nice gills tipping a hand tied split tail with a hunk of crawler. He did manage one fish o.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Well took the little guy out today for an hr. Found around a dozen nice gills tipping a hand tied split tail with a hunk of crawler. He did manage one fish o.
> View attachment 268361


Nicely done. That gill is a brute.


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## fishwhacker

Big enough that if it were a crappie it would have been legal lol


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## zaraspook

Tuesday evening in 2 hours from bank caught 2 crappies, one of the pair legal on chartreuse/pepper Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad. A buddy with me blanked. 84.5 degree water temp. October seems like an eternity........


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## firemanmike2127

Zara, thanks for keeping the thread updated with your ongoing reports. I have done very little fishing locally for the last 4-5 weeks....just the occasional pond session to satisfy the sportsman in me. Hopefully I can get out to shoot some docks, lifts, & pontoons soon. I did get to fish some lake & river water in the Tahoe basin area of eastern California on a recent trip to see my grandkids. My wife hooked the first fish each day & had me covered for the total # of fish caught. I did however manage to catch the largest rainbow trout each day we had time to get out. We grilled a pair of average size eaters & they were delicious. I haven't even held a crappie for about 6 weeks now. Mike


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> October seems like an eternity........


I was thinking that exact same thing the other day. The shallow bite is pretty non existent on any of our lakes we fish down here.


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## zaraspook

This time of year the best chance to improve the anemic bite is cooler water temps. It's happening now. Little sun/mostly cloudy conditions like we see with this low pressure system can result in water temps dropping 3-4 degrees daily. It was 84.5 my last time at GLSM on Weds. Likely water temp is 75-78 range now. No real heat in the 10 day forecast. Low temps at night forecasted upper 50's to low 60's. Those temps don't support retaining water heat. Water temps should further fall, maybe to low 70's and fish should be more active until daily heating/cooling pattern changes.


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## zaraspook

So my theory on GLSM water temps flat out didn't happen. Made it to lake Monday night at 8pm, just enough time for an hour of fishing. Caught nothing. Checked water temps (remember I expected 75-78 range?). Ha! 85.4 degrees! Whereas at my house in Richmond we saw virtually no sun Thurs/Fri/Sat, temps barely above 70, and a couple inches of rain, it wasn't that way at lake according to my neighbors.

Water temp this morning(Tues) was 80.4 degrees. Caught 2 crappies, one I mistook for a small bass because it pulled so hard. Was only 11".....haven't had an 11" on for a while. Also caught one gill and a 16" channel cat with a grapefruit sized belly from feasting on swarms of small shad. All 4 fish tried to eat a chartreuse pepper Tiny Shad/Panfish Assassin.


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## zaraspook

Met up with T04DF15H Weds morning. Big full moon coming which I thought might goose the crappie bite, plus had an itch to fish moving water, something with current. Decided to try the spillway even though it hasn't been restocked in weeks.

T04DF15H scored first with a cute channel cat, and scored 2nd with a decent LMB. Then I caught two crappies, neither was a keeper, before T04DF15H got on the crappie board. His crappie might have pushed the legal line. Not bad action for 45 minutes. Smart guys that we are, we decided to move to different spillway location. Next 45 minutes was slow.......one short crappie each. Sun was getting high in the sky and we both had other commitments upcoming so we called it a day. While T04DF15H caught the most fish (4), I nudged him on the crappie count (3-2). 

Spillway is almost always good for a little action........my 3 crappies in 1.5 hours is way better than I would have done from my channel. Plus, you never know what's on the end of your line at the spillway proven by T04DF15H's LMB and channel cat. We had fun.

Celina Lake Festival going on tonight thru Sunday. Bands and events daily/nightly. Fireworks tonight - Fri. GLSM is going for a new World Record regarding the largest gathering of amphibious cars. Current record is 78, I believe. Lake is shooting for 78+ to splash in the water Saturday evening!


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## zaraspook

Amphicars - https://www.dailystandard.com/archive/2018-07-26/stories/35485/one-for-the-record-books


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## zaraspook

Wife and I did view the fireworks Friday night from our pontoon. It's a 7 mile leisurely ride from my place NW to Celina fireworks site. Always my preference to slip closer each trek......get close enough to feel the percussion of exploding aerials. Trip over is easy. Return trip can be complicated by full darkness plus several hundred boats competing for space and direction. Predictably, you'll find at least one crazy boat captain, busting at wide open throttle in confined spaces. Vast majority kept their cool and exit was orderly. Fireworks were excellent. Full moon aided the late night navigation home.....docked at 11:30 pm.

My fishing was restricted. The lake festival brings out the crowds, lots of home owners "up" for the weekend with family. Normal fishing spots were unavailable. I fished Saturday morning and evening for 30 minutes each, and again Sunday morning. Managed just one crappie from the 3 stints......that one was Saturday evening. Full moon did nothing for the crappie bite although gills were active.

Water level is holding decent compared to most years in late July........35" depth off my seawall. It was 36" prior week. Water temp measured just under 80 degrees in my channel, cooler than most years. According to a recent longer term forecast I viewed, an "El Niño" is forming in the Pacific. Normal effect for the Midwest is a milder/warmer winter. Could equate to extended open water .....


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## zaraspook

Fished Weds evening 7:45 until 9pm and found the crappie bite window was cracked open a bit. 4 crappies in that hour + on my normal walkabout. Hadn't caught 4 in a session since some time in June. So what happened? Water temp took a nose-dive. Heavy cloud cover and cool air temps pushed my channel temp down 5 degrees since Sunday and more than 10 degrees in a week. Crappies have to be more comfortable in 74.4 degree water today than 85-86 range 8 days ago. Anyway, that's my theory. 

Channels tend to heat or cool faster than the main lake....probable they are even cooler than main lake at the moment. It won't last long, warmer water volume of main lake will even things out quickly plus any sunshine beating down will erase the differential in short order. Thanks Mother Nature for the minuscule weather break and temporary uptick in the bite.

Photo is the first and biggest of the group.....just 10". Next 3 got shorter as time progressed. Monkey Milk caught all even though Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad got half the fishing time. Shad schools of 2-2.5" fish are dense and everywhere. With abundant bait fish to dine on, very fortunate that fish make an effort to eat your plastic.




  








IMG_20180731_194417856_HDR




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zaraspook


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Aug 1, 2018




7-31-18 GLSM Black Crappie 10"


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## zaraspook

Weds morning caught 4 crappie again, but no keepers among them. It was the Panfish Assassin today that turned the trick for all 4 fish. Water temp 73.6, decreased just a bit more from Tuesday. 

Weds evening wasn't kind to me......struck out! Very little surface action compared to Tuesday evening and Weds morning. It happens....


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## zaraspook

Water temp 81 today(Weds). Looked for crappie for an hour starting at 9am. Found one at 3rd spot and admit my expectations were so low I was very surprised to catch even one. Not that it was huge but a solid 10" per below.




  








IMG_20180815_085724106_HDR




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zaraspook


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Aug 15, 2018




8-15-18 GLSM 10"






Ventured on to one more spot. Caught another 10" there.




  








IMG_20180815_091320253_HDR




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zaraspook


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Aug 15, 2018


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2



8-15-18 GLSM 10 inch





Though recent odds of pulling multiples from a spot have been poor, I stayed on that spot the rest of my hour and was rewarded. Caught 5 more crappie, all but one legal before my Chartreuse/Pepper Tiny Shad was beat up and wouldn't stay on jig. I put it on upside down, usually a workable solution, but fish decided to pass. Tried a Monkey Milk I had on my 2nd rod, but fish weren't buying it or bite was done.

Walked back to my place and finished my morning coffee. 6 legal ones from 7 caught in an hour is a solid result right now at GLSM.


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## zaraspook

A little icing on the cake during my Weds evening session. It was an hour in the rain, though not heavy. Caught 4 more crappie, all legal, and included an 11" and a 10.5". Totally caught me off guard to catch 11 in 2 hours today with 10 legal! Also, surprising that they were all chunky dudes, putting on significant weight, eating well. Should mention I also caught 2 small bass this evening. Who knows why the sudden action but take it and run.

Sorry, no photos but phone was left behind for an emergency charging. Chartreuse/Pepper Tiny Shad Panfish Assassin took all. Can't explain the Tiny Shad's attraction....as one guy said it has very little action/motion to it. That doesn't bother me since I normally "swim" my plastics and supply my own motion non-stop. But, it attracts fish and I think they like the squat body shape. Easy for crappie to eat it and they hang on. Probably has the highest hook-up rate of any body style of plastics I use. 

Fish were relating around wood but not necessarily in it. Water depth where I caught all was 3' max and several caught in water 18" or less. Fun day. Hope there are more in the not too distant future.


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## Lewzer

I have some of those Panfish Assassin and Bobby Garland baby shads and have used them this summer. But, I find that I catch way more crappie with a minnow under a slip bobber than with plastics. I love the plastics, no minnows to deal with but....


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## crappiedude

Good to see your shallow bite picking up Zara. I'm looking forward to the return of our shallow bite down here but I think we have to wait a while. I went out early one day last week and tried shallow for 3 hours and never had a hit, moved out over 25 fow and caught a 12" black on my 1st cast. Caught another 20 or so over the next 2 hours but most were dinks.
One thing I have noticed over the last week is a lot of those deep fish that have been hanging over 15-25 fow have moved up in the 9-12 fow. Bites is good with plenty of fish every time out. On a normal morning we fish from 7:00am till noon. It's funny but the bites is always slow until a little later in the morning and it's usually still going strong when we leave. 
Results have been pretty consistent over the 4 lakes we normally fish. 
I've been wondering if the fish moved up a little due to all thus rain we're having or if it's for another reason.

About the minnows vs plastics...
When I fish by myself I will normally just use plastics.
When I have a partner (friend or wife) I will normally have minnows.
Even when I do have minnows along, I only fish 1 rod with minnows and 1 rod with jig.
On most days I find the results to be very similar between the 2 baits but there are those times when one bait will out-shine the other. Most days...results are similar.
During this time of year we find that crappie nibbles will up your results tremendously.


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## zaraspook

Lewzer said:


> I have some of those Panfish Assassin and Bobby Garland baby shads and have used them this summer. But, I find that I catch way more crappie with a minnow under a slip bobber than with plastics. I love the plastics, no minnows to deal with but....


Lewzer.......most years I'd guess you would never find a live minnow on the end of my line. Having said that, 95% of the time my plastic will be some form of a minnow imitation. Someone once said "imitation is the highest form of flattery". The artificial bait makers are making millions trying to imitate the only real thing, _live minnows_. Minnows flat out work, not just for crappie but for most fish species. In no way will I knock, downplay live minnows as effective fish catchers.

For me plastics are convenient.......I can carry a week's supply in my pocket. I'm not limited to the size, shape, color the bait shop has in it's minnow tank.......more choices. The plastic doesn't care if I leave it out of water for a couple hours, or a couple weeks until the next time I fish. If I choose to do an impromptu fishing walkabout, an hour or two when the urge arises, no planning required around bait shop hours.
The bottom line is "minnies" catch fish. Plastics catch fish and are convenient. I'm glad fishermen have options to choose either or both.


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## zaraspook

Thursday fished GLSM for an hour in the morning. Wind was 10-15mph and out of the east. Bite was not as vigorous as Weds morning but a few were to be found. First crappie was a little short. Next two went 12" and 11" (pics below). Interesting that the 2nd fish was an inch shorter but felt heavier. After that pair of good crappie the bite fell off other than a nice gill by GLSM standards.





  








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zaraspook


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Aug 17, 2018




12" GLSM 8-16-18









  








IMG_20180816_091258909_HDR




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zaraspook


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Aug 17, 2018




11" GLSM 8-16-18






Since I wouldn't be around for evening session, went back out for an hour around noon. Changed baits, actually same Tiny Shad Panfish Assassin bait but Chartreuse Sparkle color instead of of Chartreuse Pepper. Caught 3 more in the 10.5" range. Tally was 6 total for the day of which 5 were keepers. Compared to the previous 2 months at GLSM, these results are really good and a step-up in size of fish. 

A thought......my Monkey Milk Baby Shad baits have attracted almost no hits at all. To my eyes those MM Baby Shad baits look almost identical to the gazillion shad everywhere in my channel. The Tiny Shad Panfish Assassins baits look nothing like the current shad baitfish swarms. Maybe the reason Panfish Assassins are working while Garland Baby Shads aren't working, is the fact the Panfish Assassins look like a viable meal but doesn't look like the same shad fish are eating over and over? Maybe fish get bored of a McDonald's cheeseburger every meal, and are willing to take a swipe at a taco supreme from Taco Bell? Who says you always need to match the hatch?


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## Lewzer

I with you zaraspook and totally understand. From what crappiedude said, maybe it's a confidence thing, my technique and the way I fish them. Or maybe it's because I work and mainly fish the weekends and not the times when the crappie are in a aggressive bite. Who knows?
One thing I do know, when crappie fishing, I'm not after 5 or 10 fish. I'm looking for numbers 30, 50 or a hundred or more.
One evening a couple of weekends ago me a friend were night time crappie fishing. We were pulling them in pretty good. As an experiment, I changed from my tru-turn hook and put on a jig and baby shad. My catch rate slowed way down. I pulled in maybe 3 crappie in a half hour while he was still bringing them in the boat. I switched back to a hook and minnow and easily tripled or quadrupled my catch rate.
I would be very interested in how you, crappiedude, bobberbucket and others who are plastics guys fish those jigs and BG, PA and other plastics for crappie. My ears are always open to learning something new.
The guys who push for crappie like deerfarmer always seem to be using minnows too.

Other successful crappie guys I know of secretly sink their structures and regularly fish those same spots...


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## crappiedude

Lewzer said:


> I would be very interested in how you, *crappiedude*, bobberbucket and others who are plastics guys fish those jigs and BG, PA and other plastics for crappie. My ears are always open to learning something new.


This time of year I'm normally swimming the jigs and generally I will be using a 3/32 oz jighead.
If I can find some fish a little shallower I may switch to a 1/16oz. Besides the shad bodies I also have been using twister tails a little more the last few years. It's not my go to but they do have their place. If swimming doesn't produce, a lift & drop retrieve will trigger a lot of hits.
Like you Lewzer, I'm look for quantity. On a normal morning trip I'd have to say we will get 40/80 fish between 2 guys fishing. Of those fish we will have 10-30 fish 10"-12". I never keep count so it's hard to be exact with numbers and since I generally don't keep many fish it's hard to keep track of the keepers also. If I do keep fish I only keep fish 10" or better.
For guys pushing minnows, it is a very effective method and if all I wanted to do was put numbers in my boat I would do it more often. I can't think of any method that keeps your bait in the strike zone for a longer period of time.
For me, I like feeling the "tic" when fishing jigs and if I catch a few less fish I'm okay with it.
I have seen days where the fish would just not commit to taking a jig and minnows out performed. I've also seem days that jigs will out fish minnows.
In the cold water months I almost never use minnows. Beside the live bait being hard to come by I don't like putting my hand in that cold water.


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## crappiedude

Oh yeah...as I said earlier, adding a crappie nibble can make a big difference some days. I had a day a few weeks ago. I was getting hit after hit and no hook-ups. Started adding nibbles and caught 8 fish on the next 10 casts. Some days it just doesn't matter but some days it makes a big difference.


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## Lewzer

So generally you do not use a slip bobber or any other type of bobber when using plastics? You cast and retrieve like a beetlespin?
I have an old jar of crappie nibbles. I don't use them all that often. I'll have to pick up a fresh jar and try them out. When using them I usually let 4 or 5 sit out and let them harden a bit before putting them on a hook.
Your jigs seem to be on the heavy side. 3/32 or 1/16th... I would typically use a 1/32 or smaller. Do you use something like a mini foo jig or standard cheap ones and then just add your choice of plastic?


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## crappiedude

I fish jigs a variety of ways and depending on time of year, water temp, fish location and mood of fish I will vary my approach.
Right now during the summer months, on a normal day I do not use a float. At this time I am fishing open water. I'm looking for crappie following schools of shad. Speaking in general terms of course, I find most of these schools in 10-25 fow. Just from reading their posts I would guess that is what deerfarmer & polebender are doing also. Most years I bounce around between 4/5 different local lakes and I find similar results in all of them. One exception to this is I find in the Ohio River creeks and those crazy fish will sometimes be in 2 fow on the hottest days. I fish jig and cork or I'll switch to a 1/32oz head for swimming the bait.

I use jigs from 1/32 to 1/8 oz for crappie, I prefer a #2 hook also. That doesn't mean I don't have or use jigs with a #4 or #6 hook. If I'm fishing in heavy cover I use weedless jigs.
I view jigs as tools. A lot will depend on water depth or technique as to size of jig I use.
The fish are a little deeper now so using a little heavier head is important. Besides the fact that it takes forever to sink, it is extremely hard to keep a 1/32 oz jig down in the strike zone (lets say 10' deep) once you start a retrieve.
When the fish are very active and shallow I may use a 1/32 oz head.
Look at the guys who are slow trolling the double minnow rigs. Most of the guys I talk to are using 3/4 oz weights in order to keep their baits in the strike zone. Why 3/4 oz weight ? Cause a 1/2 oz weight isn't heavy enough.
Why use a 3/32oz jig? Cause a 1/16 oz jig isn't heavy enough.

By the term swimming a jig I mean I will cast and retrieve with out using a float for depth control. I don't mean I will just cast and crank. I try to find what speed is working and then do that. Ever watch a school on minnows? They aren't going at a steady, medium speed. They seems to glide through the water, mimic that. One thing I like to do is lift and drop the bait, the hit will often come on the fall.

I too will dry the nibbles out a bit before using them. I like to split a new jar in half by using an old jar. Like you, I pull some out to let them air dry a bit and toughen up but I will leave the lids off the jars to let the rest of the jar air dry a bit also. They are just too soft straight out of the jar. If you have old nibbles just pour some new fresh nibbles in with them, they will absorb some of that moisture and scent.

I love using a jig and cork and once the water cools and the fish moves a little shallower I will fish that way again. Again I let the fish tell me what they want. I'll use a cork anywhere from 8" deep down to about 8' deep if that's what the fish want.


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## Salamander

crappiedude said:


> I fish jigs a variety of ways and depending on time of year, water temp, fish location and mood of fish I will vary my approach.
> Right now during the summer months, on a normal day I do not use a float. At this time I am fishing open water. I'm looking for crappie following schools of shad. Speaking in general terms of course, I find most of these schools in 10-25 fow. Just from reading their posts I would guess that is what deerfarmer & polebender are doing also. Most years I bounce around between 4/5 different local lakes and I find similar results in all of them. One exception to this is I find in the Ohio River creeks and those crazy fish will sometimes be in 2 fow on the hottest days. I fish jig and cork or I'll switch to a 1/32oz head for swimming the bait.
> 
> I use jigs from 1/32 to 1/8 oz for crappie, I prefer a #2 hook also. That doesn't mean I don't have or use jigs with a #4 or #6 hook. If I'm fishing in heavy cover I use weedless jigs.
> I view jigs as tools. A lot will depend on water depth or technique as to size of jig I use.
> The fish are a little deeper now so using a little heavier head is important. Besides the fact that it takes forever to sink, it is extremely hard to keep a 1/32 oz jig down in the strike zone (lets say 10' deep) once you start a retrieve.
> When the fish are very active and shallow I may use a 1/32 oz head.
> Look at the guys who are slow trolling the double minnow rigs. Most of the guys I talk to are using 3/4 oz weights in order to keep their baits in the strike zone. Why 3/4 oz weight ? Cause a 1/2 oz weight isn't heavy enough.
> Why use a 3/32oz jig? Cause a 1/16 oz jig isn't heavy enough.
> 
> By the term swimming a jig I mean I will cast and retrieve with out using a float for depth control. I don't mean I will just cast and crank. I try to find what speed is working and then do that. Ever watch a school on minnows? They aren't going at a steady, medium speed. They seems to glide through the water, mimic that. One thing I like to do is lift and drop the bait, the hit will often come on the fall.
> 
> I too will dry the nibbles out a bit before using them. I like to split a new jar in half by using an old jar. Like you, I pull some out to let them air dry a bit and toughen up but I will leave the lids off the jars to let the rest of the jar air dry a bit also. They are just too soft straight out of the jar. If you have old nibbles just pour some new fresh nibbles in with them, they will absorb some of that moister and scent.
> 
> I love using a jig and cork and once the water cools and the fish moves a little shallower I will fish that way again. Again I let the fish tell me what they want. I'll use a cork anywhere from 8" deep down to about 8' deep if that's what the fish want.


Awesome reply crappiedude, great information!


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## Lewzer

> Awesome reply crappiedude, great information!


Yep. Thank you! I been findng them up here in NEO 1-12fow and mostly < 7fow. I'll have to cut that ol'e slipbobber off and try some deeper water next time I'm out.

Now back to zara and GLSM! How's the algae out there on GLSM this year? I haven't heard anything in the news.


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## zaraspook

Lewzer said:


> Yep. Thank you! I been findng them up here in NEO 1-12fow and mostly < 7fow. I'll have to cut that ol'e slipbobber off and try some deeper water next time I'm out.
> 
> Now back to zara and GLSM! How's the algae out there on GLSM this year? I haven't heard anything in the news.


I loved the back and forth between you and C-dude.....great discussion and learning/teaching moments. Discussion reinforced the stark lines of demarcation between super shallow water bodies and those that offer deeper water tactical options.

Regardless of the water depth you fish, there are crappie opportunities out there. Baits that work shallow can be equally effective in deeper applications. At GLSM, especially in summertime, be prepared to run-and-gun, similar to fishing for LMB. If you catch one in a spot, assume more crappie are around, stay longer on the spot but be happy you caught one. If you expect to catch 30-60 fish during summer, you should go to another lake, or invest your time locating a big school on the main lake. It's a tough task that GLSM regulars rarely succeed at. 

Not a secret that I like plastics and particularly crappie size swim baits (1.5 to 2.25"). Their best attributes come into play when moving, therefore I swim them 99% of the time. Swim speed is variable......sometimes constant speed, most times variable, including lifting the plastic higher or lowering rod in the water column. In heavy cover or brush I'll vertically jig the plastic into every nook and cranny of the cover. 

Typically I'm using 1/32nd unpainted ball jig-heads without a retaining barb with a #4 sickle hook. By this time of the summer I'd usually switch to 1/16 oz jighead, but now stick with 1/32 oz unless fishing under pontoons, docks, etc. or in significant wind. Normally I'm using a long rod, 9'6", with 10-11' of line out, and lifting the rod or flipping the bait out to a total distance of 18-20' away(rod length + line out =distance). Jig head/plastic is usually 2-4' under a fixed cork/bobber. I do not reel in the bobber, but lift my rod to lift the bobber off the water surface and draw/swim the bait towards me. I keep the bobber 4-8" above water surface as bait swims/drifts back toward me. Since the bobber never touches the water during the retrieve, I'm tightline with the jig/plastic to feel every "tic" from a fish or from bumping structure. A high percentage of hits/bumps come after I sense submerged structure and lift the bait over the structure to drop it on the other side of the object.

If I choose to cast out beyond 15-20', it's not possible to lift the bobber above the surface as a retrieve. After a cast of 30-40' my retrieve will normally be to drag the jig/plastic 1-2', pause for 1-2 seconds while reeling in slack before the next 1-2' drag. Once the bobber is within 15' I can lift the bobber and swim bait with bobber above the surface. Although lifting bobber to swim a bait towards me works well in shallow water like GLSM's typical 3-5' depth, the technique is probably useless fishing in deep water (never tried it).

If a guy fishes clear water all the time, fishing from 5-15' away may spook most fish. At GLSM, green and low visibility water, you can get away with standing right on top of them. Three feet away fish don't see me and vice versa.


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## crappiedude

So Zara...after your reports of some success from your shallow lake shore bound fishing I decided to give a few of my shore bound spots a try a few times this past week.
Sunday I only fished for maybe 15 minutes with a quick stop at the lake around noon but I did manage to catch 3 fish in that short time, the largest being a surprising 11" white.
On Tuesday I had to take a friend to cataract surgery so after he was safely back home I headed over to the lake around 10:30 and fished for about an hour. I started at the same spot I fished Sunday and caught my only lone hit so after 20 minutes I made a move. I wasn't expecting much from spot #2 because it was being pounded by a steady wind and the water was churned up pretty good. Water was colored up pretty good from a muddy bank. Spot #2 was on fire!!! Probably caught 15-20 fish and missed maybe a dozen more. All these fish were 3-4' deep, no big fish but it was fun.
I tried that spot again yesterday for about an hour and managed to catch 8 or 9 fish again. Bite was slower compared to Tuesday. Again nothing big, mostly 8-9" fish.
Now I haven't caught a fish at these 2 spots in probably 6 weeks but your posts of success inspired me to at least give it a try.


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## Saugeyefisher

crappiedude said:


> So Zara...after your reports of some success from your shallow lake shore bound fishing I decided to give a few of my shore bound spots a try a few times this past week.
> Sunday I only fished for maybe 15 minutes with a quick stop at the lake around noon but I did manage to catch 3 fish in that short time, the largest being a surprising 11" white.
> On Tuesday I had to take a friend to cataract surgery so after he was safely back home I headed over to the lake around 10:30 and fished for about an hour. I started at the same spot I fished Sunday and caught my only lone hit so after 20 minutes I made a move. I wasn't expecting much from spot #2 because it was being pounded by a steady wind and the water was churned up pretty good. Water was colored up pretty good from a muddy bank. Spot #2 was on fire!!! Probably caught 15-20 fish and missed maybe a dozen more. All these fish were 3-4' deep, no big fish but it was fun.
> I tried that spot again yesterday for about an hour and managed to catch 8 or 9 fish again. Bite was slower compared to Tuesday. Again nothing big, mostly 8-9" fish.
> Now I haven't caught a fish at these 2 spots in probably 6 weeks but your posts of success inspired me to at least give it a try.


When im fishing a deeper lake in the summer i love swimming jigs through mudlines,or any dirty water created bye wind or boat traffic.... i think the crappie feel more at ease in the dirty stuff....

And to everybody, great stuff posted as usual! Id chime in but not much to be added,an ive only skimmed through most of it an dont wanna duplicate what someone else has already said...
.zara,congrats on the recent summer success!!!


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> So Zara...after your reports of some success from your shallow lake shore bound fishing I decided to give a few of my shore bound spots a try a few times this past week.
> Sunday I only fished for maybe 15 minutes with a quick stop at the lake around noon but I did manage to catch 3 fish in that short time, the largest being a surprising 11" white.
> On Tuesday I had to take a friend to cataract surgery so after he was safely back home I headed over to the lake around 10:30 and fished for about an hour. I started at the same spot I fished Sunday and caught my only lone hit so after 20 minutes I made a move. I wasn't expecting much from spot #2 because it was being pounded by a steady wind and the water was churned up pretty good. Water was colored up pretty good from a muddy bank. Spot #2 was on fire!!! Probably caught 15-20 fish and missed maybe a dozen more. All these fish were 3-4' deep, no big fish but it was fun.
> I tried that spot again yesterday for about an hour and managed to catch 8 or 9 fish again. Bite was slower compared to Tuesday. Again nothing big, mostly 8-9" fish.
> Now I haven't caught a fish at these 2 spots in probably 6 weeks but your posts of success inspired me to at least give it a try.


Good for you C-dude! Maybe gives you some other options for the future. too.


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## zaraspook

Made it ti GLSM 7:30pm Tuesday evening. Fished an hour before dark. Found 3 crappie with 2 keepers that evening. Weds morning was more active and caught 8 in first hour from 2.5' of water or less. Finally got to double digits.......the last 2 required another 45 minutes and were found in 4' of water. 9 of the 10 were 10" or better but none over 11".

A few of Weds fish are in photos below. Fish came on Tiny Shad PA's', about equally on Chartreuse Pepper and Chartreuse Sparkle. Included one of the pictures just because it showed the chartreuse pepper bait (barely lip hooked). Water temp was 75.3 Weds AM after 78 Tuesday evening.

Some people may wonder if 10 keepers from 13 fish is normal at GLSM. In the summer keeper rate may drop to to 40-50% level, but rest of year 65-75% is the norm. And, they are fat, feeding well on shad.




  








IMG_20180822_092218939




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zaraspook


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Aug 23, 2018




GLSM 8-22-18









  








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zaraspook


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Aug 23, 2018




GLSM 8-22-18









  








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zaraspook


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Aug 23, 2018




GLSM 8-22-18









  








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zaraspook


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Aug 23, 2018




GLSM 8-22-18


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## zaraspook

Lewzer said:


> Yep. Thank you! I been findng them up here in NEO 1-12fow and mostly < 7fow. I'll have to cut that ol'e slipbobber off and try some deeper water next time I'm out.
> 
> Now back to zara and GLSM! How's the algae out there on GLSM this year? I haven't heard anything in the news.


Lewzer........guess I didn't respond to your question about algae at GLSM. My opinion is water clarity is better this August than any August since the 2010 blowup. August is usually as bad as it gets. No argument that it's plenty green, but the green is less dense.......you can see your bait further down in the water column. I'm not talking feet, but inches. That's progress.

The State has been dredging like crazy to make a dent toward removing legacy/ existing phosphorus, the food of algae. Farmers are complying with stiffer regulations for application toward reducing new phosphorus that enters like with any rain/runoff event. Each year new natural treatment trains come on line to reduce phosphorus levels in streams that feed GLSM. In theory total lake phosphorus/nitrogen falls equating to less food for algae.

I haven't seen or heard of algae blooms at GLSM. No fish kills I'm aware of. I believe new water level management rules for 2017 and this year have been a factor in lower algae density. Water levels are maintained approximately 1 foot higher now than the preceding 4 years. If the average lake depth used to be 4', now it's about 5'. That's 25% more water. Anything dissolved in 4 gallons of water will be 25% less concentrated in 5 gallons of water. Unfortunately, no quick cures available.


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## zaraspook

Cruised into my lake place Saturday in time for an hour of fishing before dark. Evening bite wasn't good.....2 crappie and both just short of legal, not really the same quality of fish as some that were showing up lately. Hit 5 spots, water temp 74.8 degrees. At least no skunk and figured the morning bite would be better. With the full moon Monday had hoped to run into active fish.

Morning bite was indeed better. Hit the same 5 spots as Saturday evening. This time each spot gave up decent fish. Ended my hour and 40 minute tour with 7 keepers from 11 caught. 11 is my best session since bite began to perk up in last few weeks. Both rods were rigged with Tiny Shad Panfish Assassins. Hadn't changed baits since Weds trip.........Chartreuse Sparkle on one and Chartreuse Pepper on the other. Chartreuse Pepper caught the first 3 fish then went silent so I switched rods. Chartreuse Sparkle caught remaining fish but "pepper" might have done fine if I'd switched back.

2 of this morning's catch were 11"+. First 3 crappie were in 2' or less of water hanging around floating logs. Last 2 were in 4' of water near pvc plastic stake beds. Other 6 were around submerged wood I sank 3 years ago.....water is about 3'. Regardless of water depth my jigs are swimming about 6" or less off the bottom. I might hang around for evening bite even though it's been soft. You just never know with a full moon......




  








IMG_20180826_083820131




__
zaraspook


__
Aug 26, 2018




11" GLSM 8-26-18


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## zaraspook

Glad I stuck around fir Sunday evening fishing. It wasn't crazy but worthwhile. A few of the crappies I caught acted like they were really wound up with energy to burn, similar to the spring time males gushing with testosterone. Between 7:30 and 8:30pm caught 6 with 5 keepers at 10" or better. None over 10.75" but shoulders are thick and bellies round from shad swarms that are everywhere.

Chartreuse pepper again caught the first 2 while I was waiting on super glue to dry on a repaired and reattached chartreuse sparkle P/A. Full moon Monday night.........fish should have Adrenalin flowing. 17 total today in roughly 2.5 hours fishing. Nice pace particularly when keeper ratio is GLSM generous.


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## crappiedude

Good to see your fish has picked up at a pretty nice pace over the past few weeks. The decent size seems to be an added bonus for some decent summer crappie.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Good to see your fish has picked up at a pretty nice pace over the past few weeks. The decent size seems to be an added bonus for some decent summer crappie.


Thanks for kudos. Arrived at conclusion that biggest influence is simply more water in channels to hold fish. It's running 8-10" higher this Aug. Pulling fish from 2-3' of water that last year was 1-2'. Levels support more bait fish, always a good development to bring predators.
Couldn't resist hanging around for one more morning bite session from this full moon cycle. One hour session netted another 8 crappie with 6 at 10"+ keepers. Biggest was 11 and a quarter in photo. Same baits and same spots as before.


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## fishwhacker

Oldests 1st day if preschool so took the day off he replied i dont want to go to school i want to go fishing lol. Since he couldnt go i went after some gills. Caught quite a few gills and some zara fish.


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## zaraspook

"Zara fish"........I like that!
Gills have been very active but GLSM gills give new meaning to the word "dink".


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## fishwhacker

Most of the gills were in the 5 to 6 inch range but had a couple smaller ones. I was suprised to catch those crappies 3ft deep, they had nose in the mud


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## RMK

fishwhacker said:


> Oldests 1st day if preschool so took the day off he replied i dont want to go to school i want to go fishing lol. Since he couldnt go i went after some gills. Caught quite a few gills and some zara fish.
> View attachment 273809
> View attachment 273811
> View attachment 273813


were the zara fish taken off the seawall or the wood across the channel if you dont mind?


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## fishwhacker

Off the seawall,in the afternoon it casts a shadow and they were all under the shade. I didnt even try to cast to the other side, but im sure they would be there also.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Most of the gills were in the 5 to 6 inch range but had a couple smaller ones. I was suprised to catch those crappies 3ft deep, they had nose in the mud


If you were surprised to catch crappie at 3' depth, where were you expecting they would be?


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## fishwhacker

Given that crappie mostly feed up and i was dragging my jig in the mud i thought i would be below them. I wouldnt have been surprised if i was in deeper water but i was only fishing in 3' of water to the point by bobber was floating sideways.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Given that crappie mostly feed up and i was dragging my jig in the mud i thought i would be below them. I wouldnt have been surprised if i was in deeper water but i was only fishing in 3' of water to the point by bobber was floating sideways.


whacker.......store your new found knowledge for your future benefit. The operative word in your phrase "mostly feed up" is the first word. Especially in shallow lakes like you and I frequent, my opinion is crappie spend a lot more time on the bottom than we suspect. Just because a potential meal comes along that is 2" below eye level does not mean they won't sense/see it and react.
Particularly on days when bite is tough and fish are not aggressive enough to move/chase a bait, they will take an opportunity to suck in a target that hit's them in the nose. While you won't slay them, you'll catch some while those around are scratching their heads.
At GLSM crappie fishermen should worry more about fishing too high in water column than too low.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> crappie fishermen should worry more about fishing too high in water column than too low.


I think that's often true in the deeper lakes as well.
Even though we will find some massive schools of fish out chasing shad in open water, more often than not I will find those bigger fish holding so tight to bottom they won't always show up on electronics. Most times the schools will show up looking to be suspended 3'-5' off the bottom.
If all we're getting is dinks, then this is the time to really slow things down and drag that bait along the bottom.
Who ever said crappie always feeds up, needs to get out on the lake a little more often.


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## fishwhacker

Took the little guy with me tonight for 40 minute trip. Gills were biting good and had 4 zara fish. Missed quite a few more as i was letting the little guy do most of the reeling.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Took the little guy with me tonight for 40 minute trip. Gills were biting good and had 4 zara fish. Missed quite a few more as i was letting the little guy do most of the reeling.
> View attachment 274143


A Superstar in the making! Were zara fish sitting down low?


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## fishwhacker

Fish were deep again. Got out again today. Started off good until a sheephead wrapped me around the tree i was doing good on and disturbed my spot. Only one zarafish today before my spot disruption. I have been only using a 1/64 oz split tail jig so i imagine if i actually used a crappie bait i would get into more, but i like targetting gills.


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## crappie4me

zs you wasn't kiddin when you said they fattened up...nice summer slabs fw.


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## zaraspook

Last fished GLSM Mon AM. Got out Sat AM for 90 minutes and happy to report channel bite from shore remains very surprising. First 4 crappie were in less than 2' of water. Next 2 were in 3' of water, very close to seawall. Final 8 came from a spot that produced nearly nothing since end of May. Depth runs 3.5-4.5'. My Tiny Shad PA's were running within a foot of bottom and nabbing fish as close as 2' from seawall and out as far as 12'. The 8 crappie from the spot came within 30 minutes and included 3 better than 11". Action this morning similar to spring spawn bite and 10 of 14 were keepers.


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## crappiedude

Very impressive shallow summer bite.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Very impressive shallow summer bite.


You are right, impressive to experience it. Not at all typical to have this much water depth in channels at this time of year to attract and hold massive concentration of baitfish. Crappies have followed shad in. While it lasts, just a higher crappie population for my jigs to run into.


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## zaraspook

The beat goes on........after catching previously reported 14 crappie in 90 minutes Saturday, I also fished the final hour of Saturday daylight. 8 during that hour but a different caliber of fish as far as size. Just 3 of those keeper class. Total for Saturday was 22 with 13 keepers.

Only fished the morning session on Sunday and it lasted but an hour. We'd had overnight guests and it was my turn to cook breakfast. Plus the holiday weekends bring some property owner who normally aren't around. Therefore, one of my prime spots of late was not available to fish. Caught 11, 7 keepers and photo below of the biggest. It was a Fish Ohio 13", my first FO crappie since May.




  








IMG_20180902_084708808




__
zaraspook


__
Sep 4, 2018




13" Fish Ohio 9-2-18 Grand Lake






Monday fished just the morning bite before heading home mid-afternoon. 60 minutes produced 10 crappies, could only find 4 keepers today and after catching biggest of the morning, 11.25" in photo below, I quit. Though the bite was still going pretty steady, the size was off again, plus the spot unavailable to me Sunday continued to be off the target list.




  








IMG_20180903_084758593




__
zaraspook


__
Sep 4, 2018


__
1



11.25" Grand Lake 9-3-18 Black Crappie





By the way the water temp has been comfortably in the mid-70's the last few weeks. Spiked to 80.6 degrees today/Monday. I'm hoping the crappie stick around and shad, too. This spate of a good shallow crappie bite has been a great surprise. My numbers my not compare well with the guys who fish deeper lakes, but keep in mind my fishing is 60-90 minutes in the am, and sometimes another 60 minutes before sunset.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> My numbers my not compare well with the guys who fish deeper lakes, but keep in mind my fishing is 60-90 minutes in the am, and sometimes another 60 minutes before sunset.


I think those numbers are pretty darn impressive as I stated earlier. That size is nothing to balk at either especially considering the limited amount of water you actually cover.

I was out today for about 3 1/2 hours. Even though we have the depth to fish those deep water fish have just scattered since those 2 cool days we had 2 weeks ago. I tried my old spot and after only 2 shorts in 16-18 fow in the 1st 90 minutes I gave up. Next spot had a ton of fish in 8-10 fow but the bite was slow but steady. 









There must have been a stump or something down there that held some of the better fish because if I could drag a jig across this one spot I would get a decent fish every 10 or 12 casts.









I kept a few for a photo but it was just so hot I was afraid to keep too many. Everything was returned for another day. 10 1/2" -12 1/2"









All total I may have caught 20 or so plus 5 or 6 catfish. I had 1 catfish on for a few minutes and I'm not sure he even knew he was hooked. I never saw him, heck I never turned him.

Again Zara those numbers look good to me!


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> I think those numbers are pretty darn impressive as I stated earlier. That size is nothing to balk at either especially considering the limited amount of water you actually cover.
> 
> I was out today for about 3 1/2 hours. Even though we have the depth to fish those deep water fish have just scattered since those 2 cool days we had 2 weeks ago. I tried my old spot and after only 2 shorts in 16-18 fow in the 1st 90 minutes I gave up. Next spot had a ton of fish in 8-10 fow but the bite was slow but steady.
> 
> All total I may have caught 20 or so plus 5 or 6 catfish. I had 1 catfish on for a few minutes and I'm not sure he even knew he was hooked. I never saw him, heck I never turned him.
> 
> Again Zara those numbers look good to me!


C-dude.....nice day for you and I really enjoyed photos of the pretty whites! Becoming really rare for me to land whites at GLSM. Only 2 this year that I suspected from the vertical stripes and then confirmed by counting dorsal splines. However 3-4 years ago I decided for several weeks to count splines for most crappie I landed, regardless of my impression as to whether fish was a black or white. It surprised me that 10-15% had a 6-count, indicative of a white, even though markings were mottled as expected for blacks.

Several guys around here insist that white/black demographics were more 50/50 10-20 years ago. I suspect a significant portion of the GLSM crappie population is hybrid/mixed.
Thanks for posted photos!


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## zaraspook

Pulled in to my GLSM lake place about 11pm Thurs night with a plan to hit the Friday AM crappie bite. Slightly delayed so didn't wet a line until 8:30 but stayed out 2.5 hours. The reason for an extended session wasn't due to a fantastic bite. Rather, full cloud cover, the lack of sun makes more of my spots attractive longer.

Not that the bite was bad, it was steady. 21 crappie for the session with 14 legal, 11 keepers 10-11.25". I still haven't removed the Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad from either rod I carry. Chartreuse Sparkle pattern continues dominant, although Chartreuse Pepper catches fish, too. Fish seemed to be chasing and put up good resistance, therefore, the presence of crappie over the last several weeks is holding. Fish continue to be taken from water as shallow 18" and as deep as 4'.........typical bank fishing conditions. Water level is stable since last Monday holding at 36" off my seawall, although that's a few inches higher than Septembers. Water temp that was 80.6 on Monday is 79.7 degrees today/Fri, virtually unchanged. According to next 3-4 day forecast, water temp should fall and water level should be heading up.
Go Bucks!


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## zaraspook

Friday late day session produced 14 more crappie with 8 keepers, but took 2 hours to get them. Total for Saturday was 35 caught, 22 keepers, best results since May.

Saturday fished 2 hours late morning......14 with 7 keepers. Rained the whole time, bite was solid when you found fish, but finding them was the tough part. Switching baits to Monkey Milk Baby Shads on 2nd rod was helpful as it caught 4 of my last 5 crappie.

Just completed a Sunday 10am-Noon session, again in the rain. There won't be a 2nd session today. Need to get home and make an appearance. Water temp this morning was 70.6......a 9 degree fall since Friday. You'd think from all the rain water levels would be up and muddy, at least stained. Not the case, up only an inch, and clarity not changed....unusually good for GLSM (although my channel is not creek fed). 
Fish weren't bashful about eating my plastics but were really tight to cover, not chasing. Did my best to catch just 13, 8 keepers, but some really thick, heavy 11-12" among the keepers. The bigger fish were usually within 3-4' of bank/seawall and in water as shallow as 18-24". Monkey Milk Baby Shads outdueled chartreuse PA Tiny Shads and caught most of the bigger fish. Last fish of the day is in photo below, just a bit over 12".




  








IMG_20180909_114700087




__
zaraspook


__
Sep 9, 2018




9-9-18 12" GLSM Crappie


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## crappiedude

Outstanding report Zara and now I'm really jealous. It's going to be a while before I get on EF again, internet said it was up 6' at 6:00am. I bet it's up 10' by now.
There was a bass tourney over there this morning and by the time they had their weigh-in at 11:00 the ramp was almost completely submerged. I felt sorry for one guy who quit pretty early, he was wet & cold and just looked miserable.
This just might be the week I go do some treestand work that I've been trying to avoid for the last few months.
Or...maybe a trip to Cowan is in order.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Outstanding report Zara and now I'm really jealous. It's going to be a while before I get on EF again, internet said it was up 6' at 6:00am. I bet it's up 10' by now.
> There was a bass tourney over there this morning and by the time they had their weigh-in at 11:00 the ramp was almost completely submerged. I felt sorry for one guy who quit pretty early, he was wet & cold and just looked miserable.
> This just might be the week I go do some treestand work that I've been trying to avoid for the last few months.
> Or...maybe a trip to Cowan is in order.


Amazing how fast EF goes bananas. But, also amazing that GLSM had not yet bloated from rain. I admit, it's doubtful GLSM got anything like your drenching but should have shown more than an inch or two rise. Might be that the pace of water inflow, steady 3-4 day rain rather than a gusher of 3 inches in an hour, was effectively handled by the spillway. I'm scratching my head why GLSM seems to have handled this event.

I'd thought about hitting Brookville Lake this week.......may have to reconsider.


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## crappiedude

I don't know our rain total from the weekend but on Friday evening we had 1.7" and on Saturday the gauge which holds 5.5" had overflowed at sometime during the night so at a minimum we had 7.2" and my guess is the total is probably even more. That's a lot of rain in an 36 hour period. EF is up almost 16' this morning.
I'm not sure why but EF does seem to be effected more than the other lakes. I hope the pull it down hard because I'm supposed to fish with my grandson the coming weekend.
You may be okay going to Brookville if you give it a few days to settle down it never goes up as crazy as EF.
I don't know if you have this but here's a website to check the water levels before heading out to various lakes.

http://www.lrl-wc.usace.army.mil/reports/lkreport.html

I feel a dove hunt coming on while the water levels settle down.


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## NotAWhopper

I hit a couple of channels on Grand lake st marys this morning in the mist left over from hurricane Gordon. Managed to get 5 keepers, 3 came home for the skillet that were 9.5" to 11". Lots of small gills, a few small bass and a small carp. All on rocks or tight to brush on orange twin tail on 1/32nd oz yellow head. One channel was flowing pretty good with chocolate milk, skunked there. Throw back crappies were still 8". Fished a total of about 2.5 hours.


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## mosquitopat

NotAWhopper said:


> I hit a couple of channels on Grand lake st marys this morning in the mist left over from hurricane Gordon. Managed to get 5 keepers, 3 came home for the skillet that were 9.5" to 11". Lots of small gills, a few small bass and a small carp. All on rocks or tight to brush on orange twin tail on 1/32nd oz yellow head. One channel was flowing pretty good with chocolate milk, skunked there. Throw back crappies were still 8". Fished a total of about 2.5 hours.


thanks for the report "Whop"


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## zaraspook

NotAWhopper said:


> I hit a couple of channels on Grand lake st marys this morning in the mist left over from hurricane Gordon. Managed to get 5 keepers, 3 came home for the skillet that were 9.5" to 11". Lots of small gills, a few small bass and a small carp. All on rocks or tight to brush on orange twin tail on 1/32nd oz yellow head. One channel was flowing pretty good with chocolate milk, skunked there. Throw back crappies were still 8". Fished a total of about 2.5 hours.


NotAWhopper........very much appreciate your report. I 2nd your motion about the small gills.....they are really active right now and occasionally you catch a good one. After reading your post and reflecting on my catches, rocky bank was frequently a common element, and the 12" Sunday in photo I picked up on a rocky shore line, 2-3' out. Good call.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> I don't know our rain total from the weekend but on Friday evening we had 1.7" and on Saturday the gauge which holds 5.5" had overflowed at sometime during the night so at a minimum we had 7.2" and my guess is the total is probably even more. That's a lot of rain in an 36 hour period. EF is up almost 16' this morning.
> I'm not sure why but EF does seem to be effected more than the other lakes. I hope the pull it down hard because I'm supposed to fish with my grandson the coming weekend.
> You may be okay going to Brookville if you give it a few days to settle down it never goes up as crazy as EF.
> I don't know if you have this but here's a website to check the water levels before heading out to various lakes.
> 
> http://www.lrl-wc.usace.army.mil/reports/lkreport.html
> 
> I feel a dove hunt coming on while the water levels settle down.


Thanks for link.....have used it before but can never find it when needed.


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## zaraspook

Reliable, steady, predictable crappie bite of last 2 weeks wasn't going to last forever. It ended Tuesday with a whimper. A 1 hour session at noon produced just 4 with 2 keepers. Two hour session in evening was skimpier.....3 dink crappie. On the positive side of things, water temp 68.7 is good news. First fish of the day was a 13.25" toad in photos. It was a great start!


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## zaraspook

Elusive bite Weds AM, 2 keepers from 6 fish in 2 hard hours. Cut grass and blew leaves for 2 hours, made lunch. Scratching my head over the poor bite and sudden appearance of 5" crappie. I remembered I hadn't tried under my pontoon for ages, mainly because bite was so good elsewhere. That was a stroke of divine providence.....14 crappie with 8 good keepers. It kept me busy for 2 hours until an unforced error. Due to an errant cast I had to step onto the pontoon to unsnag my jig. Rocking the boat spooked the fish below, never got another bite there. Evening bite was futile....11 crappie, all under 6" except for one keeper.








Photo is one of the pontoon fish at 12.5".


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## zaraspook

Friend and I fished Tues evening, Weds off and on, and Thurs in AM and midday. Although we were catching a few, only pattern seemed to be they were small. Keepers were under 10.5" and scattered while not aggressive. My partner wouldn't agree, but I felt the Thurs morning bite showed promise, though fish were still smallish.

About 11:30 am Thursday I tested a pontoon that had provided most of our keepers Tues and Weds. I found the grownups! We had a nice run there for an hour and a half. 11 of my 14 fish from that toon were keepers . Biggest was 12.5" and only one to top 12", but several others 11.5-11.75". We would have fished longer but homeowner arrived with family and kids. Decided to use his pontoon for a long ride. I hate when that happens........

Water temps for the 3 days was 79-84 degrees. Last year at this time temp was in lower end of the 60's.


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## Saugeyefisher

We fished buckeye today from 2:30-7
1/2 crappie fishing 1/2 tossing saugeye/wiper baits. 
I found one 11"crappie way under a pontoon an tons of gills including a dozen big ones all on electric chicken 2' under a float 
My buddt hit the mother load pontoon an pulled 12 crappie s 9-11" with a cricket 2'below a float the difference in this pontoon is it had fresh water dumping into the lake flowing under the shaded pontoon.
No eyes,a few small wipers an largemouth rounded out the trip weather was awesome


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> We fished buckeye today from 2:30-7
> 1/2 crappie fishing 1/2 tossing saugeye/wiper baits.
> I found one 11"crappie way under a pontoon an tons of gills including a dozen big ones all on electric chicken 2' under a float
> My buddt hit the mother load pontoon an pulled 12 crappie s 9-11" with a cricket 2'below a float the difference in this pontoon is it had fresh water dumping into the lake flowing under the shaded pontoon.
> No eyes,a few small wipers an largemouth rounded out the trip weather was awesome


Saugfish.....Nice work! Any chance you read water temp at B-eye? GLSM was 83-84 Thurs and 72 today/Sun. I would expect B-eye and GLSM to run similar temp tracks. Clearly toons are a hot spot at both.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Saugfish.....Nice work! Any chance you read water temp at B-eye? GLSM was 83-84 Thurs and 72 today/Sun. I would expect B-eye and GLSM to run similar temp tracks. Clearly toons are a hot spot at both.


No temp taken but water felt colder then the air,i was guessing 65-70


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## zaraspook

Sunday AM bite at GLSM was OK......first fish a beefy 11.5". Last of 7 fish in the morning hour was better but failed to crack 12" by a quarter of inch. 5 of 7 keepers. Had relatives all day for a "going away" party but slipped out for 40 minutes of the evening bite. Caught 6 but all dinks. Hope to get into Monday morning bite tomorrow. Monkey Milk is the only bait used today for all 13 crappie.


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## Gillion

zaraspook said:


> Sunday AM bite at GLSM was OK......first fish a beefy 11.5". Last of 7 fish in the morning hour was better but failed to crack 12" by a quarter of inch. 5 of 7 keepers. Had relatives all day for a "going away" party but slipped out for 40 minutes of the evening bite. Caught 6 but all dinks. Hope to get into Monday morning bite tomorrow. Monkey Milk is the only bait used today for all 13 crappie.


I love your detailed reports. Saving time off work for lake temps to get into the 60s. Seems like it won't be a long window.....do u have recipes other than frying all those fish?


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## zaraspook

Gillion said:


> I love your detailed reports. Saving time off work for lake temps to get into the 60s. Seems like it won't be a long window.....do u have recipes other than frying all those fish?


Thanks for the kind words, Gillion. Water temps cracked into 60's yesterday at 69.4.

Unfortunately, no exciting recipes for you. I've always been a catch and release guy, although 3-4 times a year a companion might keep 15-20 fish and I'd contribute to the haul. In exchange for fishing privileges, about 3 years ago a dear friend gave me a beautiful bag of meticulously cleaned and frozen GLSM crappie fillets. We turned those into luscious crappie tacos for a group of 15-20 guests at my lake place. It started a tradition.......we now do crappie tacos 2-3 times a year, but fillets always deep fried. 

That friend who supplied crappie fillets for 2 years passed away last year. To continue the crappie taco addiction of my guests, it forced me to clean my first crappie in over 20 years. I kept, cleaned a couple batches of crappie this spring. Need to restock this fall. Otherwise, I'm still catch and release.

By the way the key to world class crappie tacos is the slaw. Most fish tacos are topped with a slaw along with all the other typical taco toppings. Our guests prefer an Asian slaw dressing we mix......soy sauce based, slight sweetness, sesame enhanced, and a zing of heat that creeps up on you.


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## zaraspook

Ooops, forgot to mention results of Monday morning crappie hunt. First dip of my jig found a quickly disappearing bobber, followed by a hookset into weight and powerful run to make it clear this was no crappie. First, second, and third order of business was to deny the fish's drive from the front, middle, then the back end of a nearby floating 15 foot log. Having cleared those immediate obstacles into open water, the fish's ID was confirmed as suspected as a channel cat. No monster, just a 2.5 pound whiskered friend, but plenty of fight for my crappie long rod.

Crappie were into one of those moods to bump the bait, not eat it, and not return to it. Eventually I caught 11, 5 keepers, but took 2 hours to get there. The last 3 were all 10.5-11.5" keepers from under a pontoon. Headed back to Indiana early afternoon.


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## zaraspook

GLSM gave me 27 crappie today/Thurs, 13 keepers. 22 of 27 fish came from waters under pontoons as did 12 of the 13 keepers. Monkey Milk was the pattern but probably didn't matter.
No real monsters but it seemed like every fish was a midget 5" or a good 11". Photo is a fish just a tad over 11", not the longest but was the fattest keeper at .92 pounds (carried my digital scale with me today). 66 degree water temp.


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## Saugeyefisher

Im glad they are going strong for you. At this rate you should have a really good fall,hopefully!!!


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Im glad they are going strong for you. At this rate you should have a really good fall,hopefully!!!


Saugfish.....hoping your fall prediction is spot on. First week of Nov 2017 I hosted a crappie fishing weekend for 5 guys from my grade school to high school neighborhood. Confident we downed 3 beers for every crappie caught...fish were reluctant. Pontoons were best source even at that late date. Too bad we could locate only one toon still on the water. Already this year toons are disappearing weekly by the dozens. As long as they last toons should be a top target.


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## RMK

Fished last friday, sunday, and today. Big change in water temps in the last week. Very close to 80 last friday, 72 sunday, and 63 at launch time late this morning. Last friday- 2 keepers out of 2 caught. Sunday, with Scotts help, 10 keepers out of around 20 fish. Today 9 keepers out of 9 fish. Started out struggling to find a crappie. I hooked up with a good catfish, followed by a handful of bluegill targeting deep wood. Next stop docks and a couple pontoons finally produced 1 crappie and some more gills. Headed back for the ramp and decided to turn into a channel I ve never been in before and discovered a couple of productive pontoons. Quickly pulled 4 keepers from each including a couple better fish. One pictured below that with its mouth open, stretched a little, and camera angle just right-13" haha! Either way a solid 12.5. Nice weather and enjoyable time on the water. Hope to get into some better size and numbers soon.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Fished last friday, sunday, and today. Big change in water temps in the last week. Very close to 80 last friday, 72 sunday, and 63 at launch time late this morning. Last friday- 2 keepers out of 2 caught. Sunday, with Scotts help, 10 keepers out of around 20 fish. Today 9 keepers out of 9 fish. Started out struggling to find a crappie. I hooked up with a good catfish, followed by a handful of bluegill targeting deep wood. Next stop docks and a couple pontoons finally produced 1 crappie and some more gills. Headed back for the ramp and decided to turn into a channel I ve never been in before and discovered a couple of productive pontoons. Quickly pulled 4 keepers from each including a couple better fish. One pictured below that with its mouth open, stretched a little, and camera angle just right-13" haha/QUOTE]
> 
> 
> You guys had a smorgasbord going....fish variety and a 12"+ crappie is always a great catch. Not that you won't find crappie elsewhere, but toons are magnets, draw fish in good numbers, and usually concentrations of bigger ones. Nice work and report!


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## zaraspook

You guys had a smorgasbord going....fish variety and a 12"+ crappie is always a great catch. Not that you won't find crappie elsewhere, but toons are magnets, draw fish in good numbers, and usually concentrations of bigger ones. Nice work and report!


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## zaraspook

Today/Friday was almost a replay of Thurs. I fished standard cover spots for an hour in the morning and found the bite on life support. Just one keeper from 5 crappie. Quit fishing, did some chores, lunch, decided to fish a pontoon. Stayed on that one toon for 2.5 hours with a couple 15 minute breaks. Ended after catching the 25th crappie from the same pontoon. 11 keepers were mostly 11-11.75" and biggest weighed .95 pounds.
Total for the day was 30 caught, 12 keepers. A lot of those short fish were the 5" guys. Water temp 64.4 degrees at 11am. Also caught an 11-12" bass during morning session. Fun day!


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## zaraspook

Those perchy things.........personally haven't stumbled into a perch since early spring, nor have I heard of any random perch catches during the summer. Also, found it odd that I'd heard nothing regarding a GLSM perch stocking during 2018. Did a little digging for GLSM perch stocking info with these results. 2018 perch stocked in GLSM.............zero fingerlings/zero fry. Initial rumored explanation was that perch brood stock had been decimated by cormorants feasting in the hatchery brood pond. That rumor sounded a little "fishy" since I was at the hatchery in the first few days of harvesting fertilized perch eggs. We saw some gorgeous, piggy perch breeders doing their thing. That day no mention was made of cormorants and depleted breeder numbers. A subsequent later explanation from the hatchery itself, explained the problem was due to a poor yield/survival rate of fry post fertilization. The ribbons of fertilized eggs are initially maintained in well water......well water is void of nutrients for fry to consume. There is a critical time frame to transfer newly hatched fry into lake water, which is rich in nutrients for fry survival. GLSM experienced a late cold snap which produced cold pond temperatures and skim ice, neither of which are desirable for the newby hatched fry. Fry survival was something like 3-4%, one-tenth of norm. Walleye and saugeye fry production were similarly impacted.

Cormorants have been a problem, but Mother Nature a bigger problem in this year's hatchery operations. Fortunately, the State has authority to protect its resources from predator threats. Last I heard the number of cormorants permanently removed from eating out of the cookie jar was nearing triple digits.


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## zaraspook

Chased crappie Tuesday, morning and evening sessions, with lukewarm luck. Not much of a bite where and how I approached them. Even under pontoons failed to provide much cooperation. Tally for the day was 14 caught with a skimpy 4 keepers. Water temp just below 70 at 69.8 degrees.

Today/Weds was no dance in the end zone either. Actually caught fewer fish today (11), but better quality with 6 keepers. Pontoons were still stingy but provided all but one of the keepers. 68.5 degree water at 10 am.

Just a note, on this date last year my channel water temp was 60.2 degrees. Get this, on the final day of October in 2017 water temp was 43.1 degrees!


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## Greyduck

zaraspook said:


> Chased crappie Tuesday, morning and evening sessions, with lukewarm luck. Not much of a bite where and how I approached them. Even under pontoons failed to provide much cooperation. Tally for the day was 14 caught with a skimpy 4 keepers. Water temp just below 70 at 69.8 degrees.
> 
> Today/Weds was no dance in the end zone either. Actually caught fewer fish today (11), but better quality with 6 keepers. Pontoons were still stingy but provided all but one of the keepers. 68.5 degree water at 10 am.
> 
> Just a note, on this date last year my channel water temp was 60.2 degrees. Get this, on the final day of October in 2017 water temp was 43.1 degrees!


You are making me want to head to the lake Zara!


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> You are making me want to head to the lake Zara!


GD......Glad to hear you're getting the itch! We need you there to help figure out the bite at GLSM. Realistically, you probably aren't missing much until water temps break into 50's. Doubtful that happens until mid or late October unless we get heavy cloud cover everyday.


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## zaraspook

Thursday results much like Weds. Definitely another sparse bite day. Very few hits other than the 11 crappie I landed. Just 2 keepers.....really poor ratio, especially from GLSM. I usually don't take photos unless at least 12". My biggest wouldn't stretch to 12, but a close 11 and 7/8". It was definitely heaviest fish of late. Weighed in at 0.99 pounds and coaxed it from beneath a pontoon.


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## zaraspook

Cooler weather pattern due by Thursday. It calls for daytime highs mostly 50's and nightly lows in 30's-40's. Water temps heading into fall favorable numbers!


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## firemanmike2127

Kinda wondering what the sling is all about ? Did you wear out that R arm hoisting all those GLSM crappies you've been catching this year ? Mike


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> Kinda wondering what the sling is all about ? Did you wear out that R arm hoisting all those GLSM crappies you've been catching this year ? Mike


You're an observant guy, FM. Thanks for asking. Bummed up my right shoulder 6-8 weeks ago. Decided to ignore it until after fall fishing season. It seemed a workable solution until I tore or strained another muscle in there that was over-worked by compensating for initial shoulder issue. At that point could no longer lift even a 6" crappie from water. Decent improvement after 2-weeks of sling and anti-inflammatory, Doc's finally decided to schedule MRI this Friday for better diagnosis and decide between therapy, knife, or both.

I'm a right-hand rod and left-hand reel guy. Doc told me no fishing during 2 weeks of sling/anti-inflammatory so I switched to left-hand cast and right hand reel option. That's worked out OK other than casting beneath toons which have been best targets. Left handed casting is showing progress. Pretty soon I'll be ambidextrous!


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## harrison08

Hopefully you have a speedy recovery Zara!


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> Hopefully you have a speedy recovery Zara!


Much appreciated! Arrived at lake today about 2:30pm for some mental therapy. Pulled 7 crappie from under my pontoon, an 11.75" the first one. Moved to another toon, usually the better of the two for catching. Only one from the 2nd toon. Of the 8 total, 5 keepers in roughly 2.5 hours. Slow day in water temp that is back up to 73. Good chance this week is the last of 70 degree water at GLSM for 2018. I'm ready for fall to kick into gear. All caught on Monkey Milk.


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## zaraspook

Today/Weds it went this way, so far. 10:30-11:30am lucky to get 3 dink crappie from my normal bank walking circuit. Took a break including lunch then worked 2 pontoons, alternating back and forth from 12:30-3pm. Caught 23 more crappie with 11 keepers from the pair of pontoons. One toon gave up just 2 crappie, no keepers. 21 crappie with all 11 keepers from 2nd boat which is 25 feet from first one. Go figure!

The size of fish in general was not on par for expectations at GLSM. Biggest 11.5" and only 3 made it to 11" mark. Quantity kept it interesting though. A few sprinkles while fishing but nothing that lasted more than 10 minutes. Depending on weather I may try again later today.


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## zaraspook

Fishing friend pulled back to back toads from under my pontoon this morning. Longest was 13.5" Fish Ohio and next fish another Fish Ohio 13" but slightly heavier than first one.......2.5 pounds of crappie between the pair! Pretty sure he caught 8-10 fish, including a 12", before I even wet a line. Water temp 69 as compared to 73 degrees on Tues.
Take a peek......




  








13.5 Inch GLSM 10-11-18




__
zaraspook


__
Oct 11, 2018


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Fishing friend pulled back to back toads from under my pontoon this morning. Longest was 13.5" Fish Ohio and next fish another Fish Ohio 13" but slightly heavier than first one.......2.5 pounds of crappie between the pair! Pretty sure he caught 8-10 fish, including a 12", before I even wet a line. Water temp 69 as compared to 73 degrees on Tues.
> Take a peek......
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 13.5 Inch GLSM 10-11-18
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> zaraspook
> 
> 
> __
> Oct 11, 2018


awesome fish! congrats to your friend. i ll be in search of some of those the next few days.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> awesome fish! congrats to your friend. i ll be in search of some of those the next few days.


My pontoon and neighbor's toon are still in the water. Interesting that the 13.5" weighed 1.2# and shorter one at 13" tipped scale at 1.3#. Good luck!


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## RMK

crappie catching was what I would consider pretty good over all this weekend. Fished 3 channels saturday. First stop on the north side fishing brush I got skunked. Off to the south side... quickly pulled a couple at the front of the channel. No luck the rest of the way back. Around the corner no more crappie but hooked up with a very nice large mouth on a seawall. Last stop of Saturday I came across a channel i ve never been in before packed full of shad like I ve never seen before. 3-4 inch shad balls rolling every where. Seemed like every piece of structure pitched to produced a crappie bite and often a crappie landed. a couple pontoons in same channel were also very productive. 3 or 4 shorts to 1 keeper and best fish around 11". Sunday started off in the shad filled channell. Had 8 legal fish and probably 10 shorts in the first 45 minutes from some stake beds and a productive pontoon. 6 more stops looking for some bigger fish. 5 of 6 spots produced crappie. 4 of 6 produced bigger fish but not by much. Best fish of the day was 1.21lb 12.5" fish. Found a lot of 4" to 7" crappie in the two days. Good sign of things to come I d say. Fun couple days on the water.


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## RMK

water temps as low as 57 and up to 61 if i remember correctly


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> water temps as low as 57 and up to 61 if i remember correctly


Nice going and good report! The bass looks well fed and a tubby one. Congrats on the 1.21 crappie. I see the Monkey Milks caught a few.


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## Greyduck

Nice catches Zara.... I think that's a fishing machine you was fishing with.


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## zaraspook

Greyduck said:


> Nice catches Zara.... I think that's a fishing machine you was fishing with.


No doubt about it, GD!


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## zaraspook

Yesterday/Weds fished GLSM for 2.5 hours. The lake was stingy, rare bites giving me just 6 crappie with 4 of those keepers. Eleven and a quarter inches was the biggest coming from 53 degree water. A side note......7 days ago water temp was 69. A 16 degree drop in such a short time frame is a bit much for the fish to handle. May take them a few days to acclimate. However, next 10 day forecast has nothing in it to stabilize temps at 53. In general high in 50's and nightly lows in 30's means water temps will continue to slip. I'd hoped we'd spend a week or two in the 50's. Nope. Water temp heading into 40's within 2-3 days.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Thurs morning........all said maybe 2 hours total. Pretty much a disaster. I thought Weds was shiddy. One crappie only, and a short one at that. It came from under a pontoon. School must have been out since none of his buddies were hanging around with him. Water temp 51.4 degrees continuing the downward trend.


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## zaraspook

Water temp 51. 6 Saturday. Interesting my channel water temp held steady rather than falling further. Believe it's due to channels cooling faster, main lake a bit warmer. Warmer water in main lake mixes with cooler channel to even out thermally. Made it here Saturday to fish 90 minutes before 30-40 mph wind and inactive bite wasn't fun. Caught just 4 crappie, 1 keeper. The fish are a puzzle right now. Haven't figured them out. Gills are definitely hungry though, aggressive, and better size than typical for GLSM. Maybe tomorrow the puzzle pieces will fall into place?


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## Lowell H Turner

Well done over all sir ! Managed to fish CJ Brown several hours today on the Main Boat Ramp until sunset, a pair of bullheads and was out fished by a friend with 3 and a crappie all on or just above the bottom.


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## RMK

We ventured out in the wind Saturday late morning until mid day. Roughly 6 keepers out of 30ish fish caught. a pontoon that had been recently good to us must have gone to its winter home. Some near by steak beds still held some fish. Shad still piled up in the channel. Size didn't seem to be there. Fished a couple more new to us channels and picked up a few. Best fish of the day hooked but not landed came from a shaded seawall. I tried out some different jigs and plastics than my normal and had some success. Jenko fishing jigs and plastics. Very quality looking jig with a nice cicle hook. I also like the looks of their mermaid tail plastics. Time will tell if they can compete with the bg baby shads.


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## trailbreaker

I'm not going to GLSM because of the toxic algea


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> We ventured out in the wind Saturday late morning until mid day. Roughly 6 keepers out of 30ish fish caught. a pontoon that had been recently good to us must have gone to its winter home. Some near by steak beds still held some fish. Shad still piled up in the channel. Size didn't seem to be there. Fished a couple more new to us channels and picked up a few. Best fish of the day hooked but not landed came from a shaded seawall. I tried out some different jigs and plastics than my normal and had some success. Jenko fishing jigs and plastics. Very quality looking jig with a nice cicle hook. I also like the looks of their mermaid tail plastics. Time will tell if they can compete with the bg baby shads.
> View attachment 280231


RMK......Not saying I don't use the Bobby Garland Baby Shads any more, but haven't purchased any since Spring this year. I ordered Monkey Milk Baby Shad from Chuckanddeb's and thought they were Bobby Garland. A 50 count bag was like $5.25, about a dime per unit versus buying BG's for $3-3.50, 15 baits per bag, or $.20+ per bait. After using them for months a fishing friend asked me where to get the 50 count bags. I told him, he ordered and after receiving them, friend told me they were actually Southern Pro brand and advertised as Southern Pro on the website. I never noticed the brand name when I ordered from picture of the bait. I've ordered 5 more bags during the year. They are identical color, actually slightly more durable than BG's, and Southern Pro calls them shad stingers. Just saying, if anyone prefers to pay less than 1/2 price for baits............


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## RMK

most of my "baby shads" are actually southern pro shad stingers as well. unless i m in a pinch and pick some up last minute at the outdoorsman


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## Saugeye Tom

trailbreaker said:


> I'm not going to GLSM because of the toxic algea


TRAIL BREAKER. WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN!!!!


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## trailbreaker

Facebook


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## zaraspook

Actually, you get 18 Baby Shad's in a bag from Bobby Garland for $3.25 last time I bought. 50 count bag in photo is Southern Pro version for $5.50. Baits are identical appearance, at least in the Monkey Milk pattern.




  








IMG_20181023_215504743_HDR




__
zaraspook


__
Oct 24, 2018




Monkey Milk Baby Shad Bobby Garland vs Southern Pro


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## zaraspook

Quick summary of my visits to lake. After a scant bite and 4 crappie Saturday, Sunday results slid to 2 dink crappies. Monday, just there till noon since my grandson had Mon evening soccer game, improved to whopping 3 crappie, but at least they were all decent keeper fish(2 biggest hiding under my pontoon). Back to the lake Tuesday about 2pm for another sucky performance of 2 crappies. By the way water temp in channel slipped below 50 on Monday to 49 degrees. 

Summary is the bite pretty much disappeared in my channel. Bites are rare, fish are few, and size mostly dinks. Makes me think fish have schooled up but I can't confirm since I haven't found a school, never more than 1 fish from any of my spots. Weds the bite improved somewhat, at least the best I've seen for 7-10 days. Only fished in the morning Weds, initially venturing to Anderson's. Just caught 1 dink there, came back to my channel and in the remaining 90 minutes caught 6 crappies, 4 keepers. For reasons unknown, those keepers all quality fish of 10.5-11.5", returned. Most of those fish were pulled from pontoons. Pontoons haven't been good for the prior few days. Maybe fish have acclimated to cooler waters (48 degrees Weds), maybe the full moon was a catalyst for the bite, maybe I still don't have a clue?

My belief is we haven't yet seen the best of the fall bite. I'll be out there chasing the critters while it all plays out. After a series of reschedules, I finally see an orthopedic surgeon today for my shoulder. Hoping he doesn't pull me out of the fishing game before the fall bite gets good.

Remember, I frequently maintain while the fishing may not be good for you at any time, you can bet someone on the lake is having a great day. While I caught but 2 on Tuesday, a fishing friend filled his bucket that day, got his limit of 30!


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## zaraspook

Action better Friday. Fished off and on from 1pm to near dark. 9 keepers from 17 caught. At one point 8 of 12 were keepers which means 4 of last 5 were dinks.
Water temp 46. I tried 3-4 different plastics or colors, only Monkey Milk produced fish. Pontoons provided best action while other cover gave up a few crappie. Interesting that one pontoon held only keeper size fish. At another toon fish were almost all short ones. My channel has been extremely stingy last few weeks but a reversal of fortunes Friday.


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## fishwhacker

I was out this afternoon gill fishing and kept seeing crappies bustin shad. I tied on a crappie tube and caught a few, but better than that the quality of the gills improved. Favorite time of the year. Last pic not from glsm


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> I was out this afternoon gill fishing and kept seeing crappies bustin shad. I tied on a crappie tube and caught a few, but better than that the quality of the gills improved. Favorite time of the year. Last pic not from glsm
> View attachment 280741
> View attachment 280743
> View attachment 280745


Nice pile of eyes there, fw!


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> Nice pile of eyes there, fw!


Thanks! I love this time of year. Everything has the feedbag on.


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## zaraspook

Got in a couple hours crappie fishing Monday afternoon. In my channel one trend that changed is water temp. Nothing but down ticks on the thermometer for last 2+ weeks......today's water temp pushed up.....48 degrees. Warmer water in the main lake mixing with the cooler water in channels this time of year.

My normal walking circuit continues to be unproductive. The route includes some wood, some plastic. Bites have been rare and anemic. That same trend held true today, just 3 dinks.

Pontoons have been best for action. Only 2 toons remain in the water. The trend has been my pontoon produces fewer fish and reliably bigger ones......rarely a short fish. The 2nd toon kicks in more crappie, but rarely keepers. Pontoon #2 was dead on it's trend. 10 crappies, only 2 keepers. Best was just short of 12". My pontoon disappointed. It produced fewer fish as expected, but zero fish is not fun!

Total count today was 13, 3 from normal cover, 10 from toons. Two keepers from 13 earns a big Halloween *BOO*!
On a positive note, a gill guy was fishing one of my normal circuit spots. He had 9 nice gills in his bucket and as we talked he pulled in a perch. It's a spot where I've caught most of my GLSM perch, so it wasn't a total surprise. But that was the first perch I've seen this fall.


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## bigbass201

Nice job. It's been many years, but I fished from shore there before too. The channels on the south end seemed to hold the crappies. The spillway I caught some nice catfish too. Great job on the crappies!


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## zaraspook

Tues water temp 47.1, down a tad. Otherwise, catching was almost a mirror image of Monday. Caught 14 (1 more than Monday). Only 2 keepers just like Monday. 9 of the 14 came from toons vs 10 on Monday. 

I've been concerned over the sudden absence of keeper quality fish. Size is normally not a complaint at GLSM. But I had a few missed opportunities Tuesday, my first bite of the day an example of an "operator error". They don't call "no net Zara" without cause. That first bite was a toad of a crappie and likely may been my best of the year. Took my time, walked it in to the seawall, hook seemed firmly in the roof of its mouth. Had it hoisted just above the seawall 2' above the water when it did a shake and plopped back into the lake........with my jig still in its mouth. Not a lip hooked incident, nor a knot coming loose, rather the line breaking a foot below the bobber and 2' above the jig. Probably an abrasion or nick in the line.......one of the hazards of casting a hundred times under pontoons. Many metal edges, metal surfaces, welds under pontoon boats to get hung up and nick lines. A couple hours later lost another piggy, same spot as the first one, but a lip hooked fish that may have been salvaged with a net. I bet I remember my net the next 1 or 2 times while bank fishing, but beyond that it's hard to make behavioral changes.

It was a decent day.........temps into 60's won't be common in the next few months.


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## nschap

zaraspook said:


> Got to GLSM at 8:30AM Saturday morning. Air temp on my thermometer was 28 degrees. Gotta say this was one my best crappie days in recent years at Grand Lake. By 9:30 I took a break to make some sausage an eggs. Caught 13 in that first session......damage could have been more severe but lost an unusual number of lip-hooked slabs lifting them from water to bank. Fish were too heavy for those paper mouths.
> 
> Went back to fishing about 11am. I was bouncing between two spots about 75 yards apart and fishing a bit shallower than I had since September. Odd that even though cover was similar, one spot produced all black crappies, the other was mostly whites by a ratio of 3:1. Stopped at noon to watch the Buckeyes. Crappie count was up to 29 now. Fished during 1/2 time and had to shift a little deeper when the bite slowed a bit.
> 
> With the Buckeye game over it was back to serious fishing (and catching). Stayed a one spot 'til 4:30 and at one point caught 9 consecutive blacks between 9.5-10.5". Tally was now 50, a good number to quit on, so stopped to do dishes and straighten up my place before heading home. Car loaded, decided to take one more shot at it and grabbed my crappie rig for a final 20 minutes. Six more crappies before leaving. Water temp was 48.3 degrees Saturday.
> 
> Of the 56 crappies 4 were 11"+......33 were legal size and most of those right around the 10" mark. Great fun it was.....all fish caught on twister tail grubs. Each time the fishing slowed I fished a bit deeper and the bite picked up. I didn't tip the grub....no meat. Also caught 8 nice bluegills.
> 
> Great class of fish at St. Mary's.......next year could be awesome for 12"+ slabs.


Have you tried cickle hooks yet. I started using them a few years ago, now I won't use anything else catch to lose ratio improved by 75% especially on larger fish.


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## RMK

you know we are relatively new to glsm crappie but we found more small fish this last month or two than we did total in the last 2 or 3 years. and not as many big fish this year as passed years. maybe 2 13s this year compared to a handfull of 13s and at least a couple close to 14 last year. i was contributing our recent run of short fish to location more than something going on with the overall average size of fish but time and trying more areas will tell if this is true or false. i was a little puzzled how we didnt luck into as many big fish this year as we have in the past.


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## zaraspook

nschap said:


> Have you tried cickle hooks yet. I started using them a few years ago, now I won't use anything else catch to lose ratio improved by 75% especially on larger fish.


nschap........I'm with you on sickle hooks and use them exclusively for last year and a half. Agree with you whole heartedly that unzipped fish are significantly reduced. But, sickle or no sickle, if you hook a good fish barely in a top lip, fish's weight will rip thru.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> you know we are relatively new to glsm crappie but we found more small fish this last month or two than we did total in the last 2 or 3 years. and not as many big fish this year as passed years. maybe 2 13s this year compared to a handfull of 13s and at least a couple close to 14 last year. i was contributing our recent run of short fish to location more than something going on with the overall average size of fish but time and trying more areas will tell if this is true or false. i was a little puzzled how we didnt luck into as many big fish this year as we have in the past.


Interesting observation and really hadn't thought about it. Personally, my 13+" catches are down, too. I think 8 last year, maybe 4 or 5 this year but don't have my log with me.

Small fish I'm seeing in numbers right now are 5", maybe 6". I think they are first year fish.......DNR said 5-6" in first year is common. This is time of year fish that size is in greatest numbers so it makes sense we see more that size in last couple months. In the spring I was very bullish, felt like avg keeper this year was 10.5-11" as compared to 10-10.5" last year. Whereas my 13+" are down, I think 12" for 2018 are up. Regardless, I think GLSM crappie population is in good shape. Plus, you and I aren't the only ones hit with the small crappie syndrome of late. Others recently mentioning increases.


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## RMK

i didnt know the age class, but yes those 4"-6" fish are the ones i was finding in numbers also


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## fished-out

Crappie go thru cycles that can last 10-15 years, tied to spawn, predators, population, etc. As an example, when I first started fishing St Mary's around 10-12 years ago, it was in a down period--small fish, not many, etc. Last 5 years, it's definitely been up. East Fork, another SW Ohio lake about 30 minutes east of Cincy, was in an up cycle 10-12 years ago, but for the last 3 years or so has been in a major down period--20 dinks for every keeper. Regardless, enjoy it while it's there, switch lakes when it stops.


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## nschap

zaraspook said:


> Got to GLSM at 8:30AM Saturday morning. Air temp on my thermometer was 28 degrees. Gotta say this was one my best crappie days in recent years at Grand Lake. By 9:30 I took a break to make some sausage an eggs. Caught 13 in that first session......damage could have been more severe but lost an unusual number of lip-hooked slabs lifting them from water to bank. Fish were too heavy for those paper mouths.
> 
> Went back to fishing about 11am. I was bouncing between two spots about 75 yards apart and fishing a bit shallower than I had since September. Odd that even though cover was similar, one spot produced all black crappies, the other was mostly whites by a ratio of 3:1. Stopped at noon to watch the Buckeyes. Crappie count was up to 29 now. Fished during 1/2 time and had to shift a little deeper when the bite slowed a bit.
> 
> With the Buckeye game over it was back to serious fishing (and catching). Stayed a one spot 'til 4:30 and at one point caught 9 consecutive blacks between 9.5-10.5". Tally was now 50, a good number to quit on, so stopped to do dishes and straighten up my place before heading home. Car loaded, decided to take one more shot at it and grabbed my crappie rig for a final 20 minutes. Six more crappies before leaving. Water temp was 48.3 degrees Saturday.
> 
> Of the 56 crappies 4 were 11"+......33 were legal size and most of those right around the 10" mark. Great fun it was.....all fish caught on twister tail grubs. Each time the fishing slowed I fished a bit deeper and the bite picked up. I didn't tip the grub....no meat. Also caught 8 nice bluegills.
> 
> Great class of fish at St. Mary's.......next year could be awesome for 12"+ slabs.


Have you tried cickle hooks yet. I started using them a few years ago, now I won't use anything else catch to lose ratio improved by 75% especially on larger fish.


zaraspook said:


> nschap........I'm with you on sickle hooks and use them exclusively for last year and a half. Agree with you whole heartedly that unzipped fish are significantly reduced. But, sickle or no sickle, if you hook a good fish barely in a top lip, fish's weight will rip thru.


No doubt about that.


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## zaraspook

6 of us did our semi-annual Grand Lake St. Mary's crappie fishing outing. The first year the event was a Spring outing only. Now we do a Spring and Fall outing.......crappie fishing, poker, beer, a lot of bad jokes, camaraderie, and reminiscing. 0ur group grew up in the same neighborhood, attended same church, elementary, middle schools, and high school.

All arrived at my lake place by 2pm Friday 2nd and fishing competition ended at noon Sunday. Rain the better part of Weds and Thurs pushed GLSM water levels +9". Lake is highest I can remember for November. In general water temps still falling, but 46 degree range. Hardly a bite at all on Friday. Some improvement by Saturday afternoon, Saturday being our only full day to fish. Sunday morning we caught almost as many crappie as we did all day Saturday. 55% of fish made our 10" minimum requirement as a keeper, but it wasn't pretty. Dinks ruled the roost until late Saturday. Only 1 12" fish for us, although we had good representation of specks 11.5-11.75". We actually handily beat the catch from prior Fall event in 2017. I usually out-catch the total from other 5 guys. Not the case this year. They use my techniques, my baits, know all my spots, and a couple of them are more persistent than me. 

I stayed over Sunday night and got in the Monday morning bite. It was nothing to speak of, just 5 crappie. At 11:30 am, fishing boat was hooked to my loaded truck and ready to go. Before putting away my rod, thought I'd try under my pontoon. Didn't roll out of there until 1:30. Caught 9 more keepers among 14 fish from beneath the pontoon. Best action of the entire stay.

Great weekend!


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## Lowell H Turner

If possible avoid appendix surgery, it will politely put interfere with any planned fishing...


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## fishwhacker

Lowell H Turner said:


> If possible avoid appendix surgery, it will politely put interfere with any planned fishing...


Been there, had mine burst a couple years back. Hope you heal and get back for the fall feedbag bite.


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## chaunc

Looking forward to fishing there next spring with my buddy Mike West.


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## fishwhacker

Ive known Mike a long time, he will get ya on them.


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## zaraspook

Back to GLSM Tues after voting in Indiana(home). Had to make arrangements to pull the pontoon which I dreaded. It's been one of the few spots to consistently yield quantity and quality of crappie over the last 6 weeks. As much as I hate to remove the "hot spot", lows in the 20's are in the forecast for an extended period. That hardwater stuff likes to visit us with lots of lows in the 20's. Not my intention to get caught with boat still sitting in water. Fished from bank.....pontoon gave me nothing that day and made it easier to go thru with pulling it out.

Caught 5 crappie in my first session, just one keeper, not much of a bite. Later in day I hit the other pontoon remaining in water. Found 5 crappie hiding below, 4 keepers. I should mention Monkey Milk shad body stingers had lost their magic over the weekend. Also, from Southern Pro the same baby shad bait is available in a chartreuse color with blue on the top surface. This one gained favor during my junket with the neighborhood guys. The chartreuse/blue continues its good run.

Like I said my pontoon was a dry hole......scheduled to come off the water Weds. Water temp was actually up a bit.....48.6 degrees and it won't last long there.


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## zaraspook

Weds water temp 47.3 degrees. I'm in mourning.....my pontoon on land. Caught 13 crappies today, only 3 keepers, and most of those beneath the last remaining pontoon in my channel. Bite was slow, only 2 in the morning. When I made it to the other pontoon in the afternoon, the chartreuse baby shad bait couldn't produce a single bite. After a dozen casts, switched to Monkey Milk color and caught fish on first 2 casts and continued active. Other than the pontoon fish Weds, fish were tight to cover and at the bottom in 5-6' of water.


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## zaraspook

Thurs was first time for water temp to fall to 45. Definitely heading downward fast over the next week. Could be hard water in channels soon. Fished just one session Thurs for 9 crappie, 3 keepers including the 12.5" in photo. It tried to eat my Monkey Milk Baby Shad, as did the other 8 fish. No more pontoons remaining in water in my channel. Last one dry-docked Thurs. Crappie will be schooling soon, if not already.


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## crappie4me

wadda chunk


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## zaraspook

Worth mentioning.....2 weeks ago I reported a gill fishing friend caught a perch while I was talking with him. Same guy caught another perch last Weds. For gills he uses very small plastics year round, tiny jigs, and always tips with wax worms. I put him onto the spot 3 years ago and between us we've pulled approx 15 perch from it. The cover is several wood limbs I bundled together, weighted, and I sank it no more than 3-4' of the seawall. I fish it for crappie, he fishes it for gills, and we both catch a perch or 2 from it upon occasion. Seems like the perch, crappie, and gills all occupy the same space without issue.


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## zaraspook

The leader (not me) of the green bucket brigade just goes out and does what he does. He gets his limit - just another day at the office. See photo.

Today it was all I could do to get 8 keepers from 14 caught. Water temp 39 tepid degrees! It won't take much to generate ice....could show at any time in channels. For me I wanted to determine if GLSM crappie were in and on cover or schooled up and out in open water. It took about an hour to determine big fish were out and mostly in open water. The fish in close on cover were usually short ones. Too bad I didn't recognize early that the big ones out in the channel really were BIG ones. Lost my first two, both at least the size of others in photos, horsed them a bit and lost them hoisting up the seawall. Of course no net with me. Before making another cast I called time out, hustled to my place and returned with landing net. No lost fish thereafter. The photo with tape measure shows the next 2 fish, 12"+ and 13". The other 2 photos were 12 and 12.5", respectively. 4 of the 8 keepers were 12-13", not a common occurrence. Great to catch and even lose a few more toads like those.


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## dcool

Nice job Zara, those are some nice crappie.


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## Lewzer

Nice, very nice crappies.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> The leader (not me) of the green bucket brigade just goes out and does what he does. He gets his limit - just another day at the office. See photo.
> 
> Today it was all I could do to get 8 keepers from 14 caught. Water temp 39 tepid degrees! It won't take much to generate ice....could show at any time in channels. For me I wanted to determine if GLSM crappie were in and on cover or schooled up and out in open water. It took about an hour to determine big fish were out and mostly in open water. The fish in close on cover were usually short ones. Too bad I didn't recognize early that the big ones out in the channel really were BIG ones. Lost my first two, both at least the size of others in photos, horsed them a bit and lost them hoisting up the seawall. Of course no net with me. Before making another cast I called time out, hustled to my place and returned with landing net. No lost fish thereafter. The photo with tape measure shows the next 2 fish, 12"+ and 13". The other 2 photos were 12 and 12.5", respectively. 4 of the 8 keepers were 12-13", not a common occurrence. Great to catch and even lose a few more toads like those.
> 
> View attachment 282653
> View attachment 282655


WOW!! great job by you and the the leader of the green bucket brigade. great fish


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## zaraspook

And wouldn't you know, Weds was a total reversal of fortunes! Woke up to 80% ice cover of my channel which included 100% of my spots. After just 1 dink crappie in the morning, switched from fishing to breaking ice mode. The idea being to help thawing in strategic places. By 3pm those spots were open enough to fish.
Found a few dink crappie in close, couldn't locate decent fish. At 5pm in my only bite of the day off my seawall, an 11" crappie found my jig. Of 8 crappies it was the only keeper. Humbling day. Water temp 38.1 vs 39 Tues.


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## zaraspook

Ice made it interesting Thursday but the right kind of ice......on land not on the water. My channel 99% ice free, yielding yielding fishing to all my spots. First fish was a 10.5" keeper 10 minutes in, but other wise the first hour was a dud. Took a break to run some errands right as the freezing rain changed to fluffy white stuff.

My normal Monkey Milk and other color baby shad stingers just weren't generating bites. Took a tip from a fellow angler, changed strategy, and downsized plastics to a Bobby Garland Itty Bit Swim R. I'd purchased a couple bags 3-4 months ago to try on slow days. This morning's anemic results seem to fit the intended use.

Itty Bits were just the right medicine for my ills. In my afternoon session the first 3 casts produced 2 crappie. The action didn't hold at that level, but bites were steady. For the day I ended up catching 14 with 5 keepers. I was worried about the tiny 1.25" plastic attracting bigger fish. Not to worry, the keepers included one just 1/8th inch shy of 12 inches. Shortest keeper was 10.5" . 

Thanks for tip, JM.


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## zaraspook

dcool said:


> Nice job Zara, those are some nice crappie.


Thanks for the kudos. I had fun catching them.


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## zaraspook

Lewzer said:


> Nice, very nice crappies.


They were sweet to catch! Thanks for the comments.


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## zaraspook

Fished Friday, morning only. Bite was ultra-timid, likely due to 36.5 degree water temp but you never know. Quantity was decent with 16 crappie, while quality started great but sank like a rock in the 2 hours I was out. First fish was a chunky 11", followed by toad at 13.25". After 1st hour 5 0f 8 were keepers. 2nd hour only 1 of 8 were keepers as 4-6 inchers took over. The bite was really weird..........no fish took the bobber under more than 2".

BG Itty Bit caught all 16 though I didn't try larger plastic after the first 30 minutes. Color for me on Friday was Bluegrass, however, my inventory of Itty Bits is small, just 2 colors in my arsenal. That 13.25" crappie is at least my 4th Fish Ohio this fall and I witnessed 2 other 13"+ (those 2 were back to back catches by a Green Bucket brigade guy-duh).


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## crappie4me

killer slab....Iu????


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## bigbass201

zaraspook said:


> Fished Friday, morning only. Bite was ultra-timid, likely due to 36.5 degree water temp but you never know. Quantity was decent with 16 crappie, while quality started great but sank like a rock in the 2 hours I was out. First fish was a chunky 11", followed by toad at 13.25". After 1st hour 5 0f 8 were keepers. 2nd hour only 1 of 8 were keepers as 4-6 inchers took over. The bite was really weird..........no fish took the bobber under more than 2".
> 
> BG Itty Bit caught all 16 though I didn't try larger plastic after the first 30 minutes. Color for me on Friday was Bluegrass, however, my inventory of Itty Bits is small, just 2 colors in my arsenal. That 13.25" crappie is at least my 4th Fish Ohio this fall and I witnessed 2 other 13"+ (those 2 were back to back catches by a Green Bucket brigade guy-duh).



That sure was a fat chunk! Congrats!


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## zaraspook

crappie4me said:


> killer slab....Iu????


I'm conflicted. Born and raised in Ohio, but now a longtime Indiana resident. My 2 daughters are both IU grads. With all the tuition I paid to Indiana Univ, I root for IU except when they play my beloved Buckeyes.


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## zaraspook

Monday Fishing report at GLSM....water temp 38 in my channel, rising a bit as the colder channels are "warmed" by main the warmer main lake temps.

First session Monday 2-3:30pm caught 10 crappies but it was dink city. One keeper was it. Bright spot was crappie seemed to be more willing to chase, preferred the jig/plastic moving, however once they find the bait they show no energy to do anything with it.

Second session 4:30-5:30pm caught 15 crappie....that's really good action for an hour. 5 keepers this round, much better. Bite got better and better as we lost daylight, plus bigger fished joined the party the later it got. Fish seemed more committed to eating the bait and again, preferred bait moving. 25 crappie from 3 spots in 2.5 hours is fun. BG Itty Bits in 2 colors, small bait, caught 23 of 25 fish today. Monkey Milk Baby Shad lured the final two.


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## fishwhacker

Zara, i found similiar action with bluegills and crappies sunday. Fast jig but not a whole lot of horizontal movement would trigger them. On the crappie side of things had all shorts but was fishing bluegill jigs like always.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, i found similiar action with bluegills and crappies sunday. Fast jig but not a whole lot of horizontal movement would trigger them. On the crappie side of things had all shorts but was fishing bluegill jigs like always.


The vertical jigging, little horizontal movement like you had Sunday, has been the pattern for a while. The change Monday, when I described "chasing", was a change to horizontal movement. We haven't seen crappie for a while willing to hit and eat a bait that's moving steadily horizontally. Monday I was swimming baits constantly and fish cooperated.


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## zaraspook

Sunday/today at GLSM arrived about noon. Water temp 39.2 and down 4" from when State started a draw down Monday 19th. Crappie were hungry if you could find them. I found lots of them, caught 34, though just 7 keepers. One big difference today, after weeks of catching them on the bottom, was fishing up in the water column. 24-30" under bobber. Bite was anything but energetic and fish went nowhere, requiring a lot of guesswork of when you had a bite. No photo worthy fish today......best was just over 11". Fish slow and downsize your plastics.

Here's a photo of a 12.5" from last Tuesday. I caught 20 that day to get 5 keepers. Water temp then was 38 degrees.


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## zaraspook

Fished 8:30 to 10am Monday at GLSM, as always from the bank. Precipitation went from rain when I started, quickly changed to sleet, and soon after snow. Bite was slim though I did catch 10, it produced only 2 keepers. First and biggest was this 12" in photo. In general today I fished 30-36" under bobber in water ranging from 3-5' deep.Tiny Shad Panfish Assassin worked best today although the 12" grabbed a Bobby Garland Itty Bit in Bluegrass pattern. Wind was a beast.


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## Saugeyefisher

Good job Zara! I'm bout ready for some slab action,but the saugeyes is chewing!!


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Good job Zara! I'm bout ready for some slab action,but the saugeyes is chewing!!


Going for the eyes is an easy choice and would do same. About time for you to get a bruiser! Keep your line wet......


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## fishwhacker

I was out doing my normal search for giant bluegills and stumbled upon a nice school of the zara variety. I was fishing a pink and white 1/64 oz hair jigs about 5 ft deep and 15 ft away from the bank. It was a very lite bite, but good fight out of them. Most were right at the 12 inch mark.


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## zaraspook

Absolute chunk, whacker! Nicely done and amazing how they favor smallish and light baits worked at a snail's pace. By the way, since I'm using dinky baits, I'm getting into some very impressive fishwhacker variety. A couple gills yesterday were easily biggest I've ever pulled from GLSM and gorgeous specimens.


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## NotAWhopper

I went on what is hopefully my last Grand Lake softwater adventure today. Fished a muddy channel that about made me go seek cleaner water. Stuck it out and pulled a 12" crappie on white 1/32 oz jig in the first few minutes. Barely moving the jig and set about 8-12" deep. A few Gill bites that I did not set the hook on because I did not want to get my hands wet at 32 degree temps. Ended up with 5 keepers and 2 throw backs. Nice overcast and nearly windless day to be out. Only gone for under two hours and spent some of that time exploring and picking up trash that others left behind. Now I am ready for some ice!


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> Absolute chunk, whacker! Nicely done and amazing how they favor smallish and light baits worked at a snail's pace. By the way, since I'm using dinky baits, I'm getting into some very impressive fishwhacker variety. A couple gills yesterday were easily biggest I've ever pulled from GLSM and gorgeous specimens.


Zara, i heard that same comment made by others this weekend that the gills have been the biggest they have ever seen. They are bulking up for winter.


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## zaraspook

NotAWhopper said:


> I went on what is hopefully my last Grand Lake softwater adventure today. Fished a muddy channel that about made me go seek cleaner water. Stuck it out and pulled a 12" crappie on white 1/32 oz jig in the first few minutes. Barely moving the jig and set about 8-12" deep. A few Gill bites that I did not set the hook on because I did not want to get my hands wet at 32 degree temps. Ended up with 5 keepers and 2 throw backs. Nice overcast and nearly windless day to be out. Only gone for under two hours and spent some of that time exploring and picking up trash that others left behind. Now I am ready for some ice!


Glad to hear you got out and someone other than me is crazy enough to test waters.

Speaking of your "white" jig success, I fished GLSM Sunday afternoon. I heard a lot of negative reports the whole week so my expectations were low. Within 10 minutes pulled an 11.5" in the photo below and was elated. Followed it up with 6 more crappie, but none of those keepers. Still, based on the results I'd heard all week, I almost believed I must be pretty good, so hung around at my place to try Monday. Water temp was 38, stained from the recent rain but not yet muddy. I'll get to the "white" jig tie in soon.

Monday morning bite was more anemic than Sunday. Caught 5, 2 keepers with a barely 11" the biggest. But, after an hour the bite flat out quit. Even my dinkiest baits couldn't buy a nudge from a crappie. Retreated to warmth inside, warmed up with coffee, and downed some great chili I'd brought along, but not before adding a pile of chopped jalapenos. Really hadn't planned on going back out, but decided what the heck. Hadn't tried targeting perch this fall, why not? This is where the white jig part fits into the story. Tied on my most productive GLSM perch bait. It's 32nd oz pink jig head with an undersized white curly tailed grub. Not that I've caught a pile of perch on it, but of the 15 or so perch in the last 3 years, this pink jig/white grub combo caught at least 2/3's of the 15. First 2 casts produced fish! No, not perch as was the plan, but crappie. In 45 minutes I caught 6 crappie, one respectable at 10"+, and a very nice gill. Here I am trying to barely move stinger type baits all morning, while a curly tail in white, which I moved fairly aggressively to keep that tail fluttering, gets the crappie chasing and eating the heck out of the bait. Figured I was on to something so moved to 2 more spots. A couple of bumps resulted, but no crappie, and no perch. I guessed wrong about being onto something.


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## zaraspook

Most locals know the State initiated the fall drawdown Nov 19th. Drawdowns always breathe life into the spillway waters below. Result is a restocking event, a sudden super repopulation of the Beaver, dumping high numbers of crappie, other fish, and especially "eyes" into a small volume of water. Concentrations of fish, population of species reaches incredible density. Fishermen know the routine. For a short time frame the opportunity to catch trophy fish is off the charts. Jumbo eyes are showing up.

Might also be of interest to some that the p-word, perch, has been tossed around more in the last 3-4 weeks. Not specifically at spillway but various lake locations from the mouths of crappie and gill guys. I've heard reports from single perch to catches of as many as 10 perch, and size up to 13.5". Good to hear those perch reports, especially since no perch were stocked this year. Hatchery yields were not good in the spring. My fingers are crossed the ice guys will find perch this year and we'll see perch in creels soon in 2019.


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## Lowell H Turner

Sir, if they have horizontal cover to drape heir eggs upon this spring they have a 95% hatch rate vs about a 5- 10% if they are laid on a muddy bottom...


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## zaraspook

Those p-word things.....


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## Saugeyefisher

Beautiful!!!!


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Those p-word things.....


I see a green bucket in that pic 
Recent?
As cold as it's been I'm surprised you guys aren't iced in.


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## zaraspook

One photo of perch was Tues, other from Thurs. Neither were caught by me. I haven't been to lake since Monday but hear in general ice was forming Thurs, my channel locked up today.

I left lake Monday since my right shoulder rotator cuff surgery was scheduled for Weds. Surgeon postponed procedure, now set for 12/19. Not happy with delays but partly my fault.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> in general ice was forming Thurs, my channel locked up today


I figured the ice was forming up that way. I've been seeing some ice on shallow ponds down here in the morning but it melts off during the day. We still have mid-40's water down here and I'm hope this weather changes to the warmer. I could skip the ice this year, it's rare for it to be safe. I finally got down out of the trees from hunting. I'm ready to fish.

Good luck with that shoulder surgery. Both of mine are shot but my doc keeps telling me he thinks I shouldn't get it done. That really sucks having the surgery postponed, I had heart surgery 10 years ago and the doc's office called me the night before and had an emergency procedure that came up and pushed me back for 2 weeks...good for the other guy and I'm glad they could help him but that was a long 2 weeks. The timing is pretty good for you though, maybe you'll be ready by spring.
Do whatever they doc tells you with rehab and don't push it. My daughter had her shoulder operated on twice last year. After the 1st time she pushed it too hard right after her release. Screwed it up worse for the 2nd operation. Slowed her down big time and she's taking it easy this time.

Good luck with it.


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## trailbreaker

where'd you catch the p-words at and what on


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> Those p-word things.....


Those are some nice ones too.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> I figured the ice was forming up that way. I've been seeing some ice on shallow ponds down here in the morning but it melts off during the day. We still have mid-40's water down here and I'm hope this weather ch
> Good luck with it.


C-dude, appreciate well wishes and advice. Shoulder actually feels pretty good right now, better than in several months. I've had thoughts.......gee, I'm up to about 50-60% motion in shoulder and pain is really manageable. But then I had to quit anti-inflammatory meds a week in front of the surgery. 3 days off the meds and shoulder was aching 90% of time. Motion/movement was no longer pain free. It was clear shoulder needed to be fixed. One tendon is completely severed. Another is torn but not completely. When your right arm can't lift a decent crappie out of the water, you have a problem.


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## zaraspook

trailbreaker said:


> where'd you catch the p-words at and what on


TB
I don't think you really intend to fish at GLSM, therefore where the perch were caught and on what bait doesn't really matter. Doubt you've forgotten them but here are your 3 most recent posts on this thread.

_Oct 23, 2018 - I'm not going to GLSM because of the toxic algea_
_Oct 11, 2017 - _
_When last month down by _
_St Mary's East Bank Marina it was real bad and it stunk like a sewar_

_Oct 11, 2017 - well i have other places to go... beside i wouldn't eat the fish there if you paid me
_
I did not catch the perch. Pics were provided just to support claims that perch were showing up with frequency. Merry Christmas to you!


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## dcool

Zara, I had my shoulder done a little over a year ago. The surgery isn't bad, its the healing part that takes so long. Do therapy and listen to doctor and your shoulder should be ready for spring fishing. Good Luck!


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## fishwhacker

How are the channels looking? Any iced over? I am going to be limited on how long i can fish this weekend and dont want to waste time looking for open water


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## trailbreaker

Zara i have fished GLSM even with algea i stopped going because of that


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> How are the channels looking? Any iced over? I am going to be limited on how long i can fish this weekend and dont want to waste time looking for open water


I'm not there so can't say first hand about ice. My south side channel locked up Friday per a neighbor.


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## zaraspook

dcool said:


> Zara, I had my shoulder done a little over a year ago. The surgery isn't bad, its the healing part that takes so long. Do therapy and listen to doctor and your shoulder should be ready for spring fishing. Good Luck!


Gracias.


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## RMK

fishwhacker said:


> How are the channels looking? Any iced over? I am going to be limited on how long i can fish this weekend and dont want to waste time looking for open water


sunday- i saw quite a bit of ice on the main lake east end. looked to have blown broken ice to the east and possibly refroze. otterbein and little chickasaw were froze. didnt get a chance to see how thick. i would assume still froze. my pond is froze. a friends pond was up to 2"-2 1/2". end of the week warm up and rain.


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## RMK

awesome to see the perch zara!


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## zaraspook

A little birdie said there were hardwater guys out today doing what hardwater guys do.......ice fishing. Birdie said a few were on the ice at GLSM and I saw photo of ice guys on Loramie. Tonight may be the last ice building night for a while. If the ice is safe, enjoy while you can. PS.....take photos of those perch!


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## Sappy

Here's one from a few weeks ago


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## zaraspook

Sappy said:


> Here's one from a few weeks ago
> View attachment 285635


Pretty one, Sappy. More evidence they are showing up, more guys getting them here and there. Now if we can just figure out where/how to get them in numbers. Seems like they are mixed right in with crappie and gills. One guy I know caught 8 in a single setting/spot and heard of another guy who did the same. Otherwise, 1-2 a day seems to be the rule. Keep the reports coming.......eventually we'll get a recipe for success.


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## zaraspook

GLSM is is pretty much in that dreaded "no fishing" mode. Ice too thin to safely fish, but too thick to yield open water. The last oasis, the spillway, bit the dust Weds when State closed the tubes and ended the drawdown. With little water flow, surface ice sealed it off within hours. Perhaps a few ice-free pockets out there somewhere but traditional GLSM options are gone temporarily. 
I do know of one diehard who tested the ice Thurs. He found a good number of gills, couple of bass, 1 crappie for his efforts. He indicated he wouldn't repeat today...marginal ice.


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## Lewzer

Hoping by Sunday I can hit my local reservoir(s) docks for crappie.


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## Lowell H Turner

without any prompting please allow me to personally politely but yet again nag everyone mentally challenged enough to venture upon somewhat questionable ice to at least wear their PDF and tie off, have a change of warm clothes and wool blanket in their vehicle, cats claws actually WITH them, take a friend/ witness to snap pictures and call 911, ect. Happy Holidays to all and please be SAFE...


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## zaraspook

So.......Monday was my last fishing venture for 2018. Surgery for my rotator cuff is Weds - 19th. Heard reports of open water at lake and in channels so was optimistic about open water fishing. Arrived about 11am, took a quick survey of my spots, and found 100% bad news. Total locked in ice cover of 1-2". Bummer.

Spent nearly 2 hours busting ice, hoping to create decent areas of open water, fishable by maybe 3pm. That wasn't a very fruitful endeavor. Had a few spots where you could fish up to 3' from seawalls/bank. And, busting ice wasn't a smart workout for the shoulder. What the heck..........surgeon has to fix shoulder anyway.

T04DF15H dropped by and we sampled 3 spots I'd opened. No action at first 2, but he caught a crappie and 4-5 gills from a spot I fished first without a bite. Don't you love it when that happens? I was using small plastic while he used a small ice jig tipped with a waxie. What can I say other than fish wanted meat? We fished 45 minutes, maybe hour.

I ventured back out an hour later. No dummy, I stayed with small plastics but tipped with wax worms leftover from an early November junket. Caught 10 gills but couldn't find a crappie from the small strips of open water along seawalls. T04DF15H caught the only crappie for the short time we fished. Hope I can get into 2019 fishing early and often!


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## firemanmike2127

Zara, Thanks for all the good quality reports this season & your efforts to maintain this thread. Good luck with the shoulder procedure....I'm certain the drive to do some spring crappie fishing will have you sailing through the post-op rehab. Merry Christmas to you & all the great people on this site. Mike


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## RMK

good luck with the surgery zara. hope all goes well. best advice i can give you is do all of the rehab and do not over do it to quick afterwards. rotator cuff is quite a recovery and is worse when you dont do it how they tell you to and even worse when you rush it. i ll be glad to come over and you can tell me where to drop my bait and you can watch me catch fish for you if you need me too. haha


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## crappiedude

Good Luck Zara. I hope the surgery goes well and the recovery goes quickly.
Good timing on the surgery though...going to be tough fishing for the next few months with ice covering all your spots.


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## brad crappie

Good luck on the surgery , hopefully someone else will keep some st Mary’s reports coming!


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## Lowell H Turner

Best wishes for a speedy recover, Sir and a wonderful Holiday Season to yourself and family as well as all whom post here ! and uh, yeah, you might want to do exactly as the doctors 'suggest'... would like to fish with you this spring !


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## Saugeyefisher

Same as everyone else zara,hope you have a speedy recovery!!!! Gonna miss your weekly reports of fish catching. I have learned soo much from this one thread alone. Best (well maybe 2nd best but I'm biased) running thread on ogf ever!!! You are a ogf og lol..... 
Merry christmas everyone!

I've been putting off hip replacement in fear of missing a hot bite... doc told me back last summer the pain will be to unbearable for you to put off replacement until next year... well doc doesn't know the power of the fall/early winter saugeye bite does he!!! 

Get well soon zara!!!!


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## crappie4me

gonna miss you're reports for a while z...good luck and the crappies will be waiting for ya.


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## T04DF15H

Merry Christmas to all on OGF.


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## zaraspook

Rotator cuff surgery on 12/19/18 keeps me from chasing crappie fishing. Doesn't mean I'm totally out of the loop though. I heard of some open water success.......a good portion of that seemingly from Southside locations. Hard to believe State continues to pull water at spillway but lake levels still running higher than target. Fish will bite if you find 'em.


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## fishwhacker

Zara, glad to hear some success is still being had got out for 2hrs yesterday for the 1st time in 3 weeks and not a bite to show for it....ready for hard water to chase some perch.


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## crappiedude

A little crappie porn for ya Zara...get better soon.








Our starts most mornings have been in the 20's but usually not much wind so it's not too bad out.
Depending on which lakes we visit ice hasn't been to much of a problem but even in the deeper lakes down here the ice is starting to show up in the upper most sections. Luckily it warms enough for it to melt later in the day.








I love getting out this time of year and fish 3-4 times a week if I can.
Got a good solid dink bite going on in most of these lakes but some lakes are putting out some better fish too.















Hope you enjoyed it.
By the time your shoulder gets better the weather will be warming and the bite will be going strong again.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, glad to hear some success is still being had got out for 2hrs yesterday for the 1st time in 3 weeks and not a bite to show for it....ready for hard water to chase some perch.


Hope you are the first to show us a mess of pretty perch pulled thru the hard stuff.


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## zaraspook

zaraspook said:


> Hope you are the first to show us a mess of pretty perch pulled thru the hard stuff.


Great photos, c-dude. Some very nice whites. Almost forgot how pretty the whites can be. As we discussed before rarely catch white crappie anymore from GLSM. Thanks.


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## Redhunter1012

Tubes closed yesterday. All the fat eye pics should start popping up on The Facebook soon


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## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> Tubes closed yesterday. All the fat eye pics should start popping up on The Facebook soon


Don't you feel at some point these eye events will show diminishing returns, fewer fish at spillway?


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## ohiostrutter

zaraspook said:


> Don't you feel at some point these eye events will show diminishing returns, fewer fish at spillway?


I was wondering the same Zara. Unless the stocked walleye are reproducing at a healthy rate. When was the last walleye stocking? I googled it to death but couldn't find much.


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## Redhunter1012

zaraspook said:


> Don't you feel at some point these eye events will show diminishing returns, fewer fish at spillway?


Good question. I've stated my opinion thaI thought they were walleye. You see lots of different sized fish in there. I imagine somewhere along the line they figured out the best area to spawn in there and maybe have success. Thats all only possible if they are walleye. If their saugeye, then yea, it should stop


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## Redhunter1012

Im fairly new to fishing there. Do any of you know how long they've gotten eyes from there?


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## ohiostrutter

I did just find an article that walleye were stocked from 1999-2009. And I believe the Saugeye were not stocked like they planned due to Erie issues. Someone correct me on that if I'm off


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## fishwhacker

I dont think they are reproducing as i have never witnessed anything under 20 inches caught....ever. These seem to be old fish, and that is why it gets crazy when they are found, myself included. If you look at my avatar those are two from last year and all caught are around that 10+lb region no 2 to 5 lbers get caught or snagged just trophies. I would assume at some point it will end, just no guess as to when.


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## Redhunter1012

A buddy and me got 8 legals and threw back probably twice that many snagged back in March one day. 7 of the 8 were over 28". The smallest was 25"


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## Fishbaughzach

Redhunter1012 said:


> A buddy and me got 8 legals and threw back probably twice that many snagged back in March one day. 7 of the 8 were over 28". The smallest was 25"


I snagged and released a 14"er yesterday and have seen multiple in the 15-20" range in the past year or so. I agree most are really big but there are some just keeper size fish in there. I guess that just suggests that some may be successfully spawning.


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## Saugeyefisher

You also can't over look the fact that the state will "secretly" dump fish in lakes w/o telling anyone. Why? Idk? But they will do this. 
There could be a few eyes mixed in with the perch when they was stocking them.
Or it could be that a small population of the fish are actually spawning....


----------



## zaraspook

Fishbaughzach said:


> I snagged and released a 14"er yesterday and have seen multiple in the 15-20" range in the past year or so. I agree most are really big but there are some just keeper size fish in there. I guess that just suggests that some may be successfully spawning.


Fishbaugh.......your report of recent 15"-20" "eyes" is the first I've heard in about 4 years. Like fishwhacker said in his post, the general thinking has been all fish were big and either old walleyes from 1999 to 2008 stocking, or saugeyes which were stocked in 2009 and 2010 only. Your 14" eye could only be the off-spring of walleye-walleye mating, walleye-saugeye mating, or saugeye-saugeye mating. As a rule, saugeye are considered sterile, at least 96-97%. Saugeye stocked in GLSM were triploid sterile, a pressure shock treatment, that requires fertilized eggs go into a pressure shocker within 5 minutes of fertilization. Eggs remain in the shocker for 10 minutes. Survival rate into fry is ridiculously low. It's expensive, requires a lot of eggs, requires a lot of manpower, and a $28k pressure shocker. State managed only 23,000 triploid saugeye fingerlings in 2009, followed by 230,000 triploids in 2010. None stocked since. After the GLSM algae blow up in summer of 2010, no politician on the planet would have continued expensive triploid saugeye production at GLSM.

If anyone catches a walleye or saugeye shorter than 18", it could be evidence that the 9-year walleye stocking program actually did yield a reproducing walleye population. Snap a photo, even if snagged, it's probably a walleye! State claims virtually all of the "eyes" caught through ice or at spillway for last 5 years are saugeyes. State claims they did DNA testing of carcasses.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> You also can't over look the fact that the state will "secretly" dump fish in lakes w/o telling anyone. Why? Idk? But they will do this.
> There could be a few eyes mixed in with the perch when they was stocking them.
> Or it could be that a small population of the fish are actually spawning....


My bet is the 9-year, 60+ million fingerling/fry stocking program, has generated a small population of reproducing walleye.


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## Fishbaughzach

I have not heard confirmation that the fish being caught are saugeye but it makes sense as they appear to look more like saugeye to me than walleye. By the way the size of these saugeye is truly amazing if they are all saugeye. I wish I could have snapped a picture of the short I caught. Don't think to take a picture of snagged fish to often, but by the coloration it truly did look more like a walleye than saugeye.


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## Redhunter1012

If they are truly Saugeye, it wouldnt shock me if a State Record is caught there


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## Fishbaughzach

Redhunter1012 said:


> If they are truly Saugeye, it wouldnt shock me if a State Record is caught there


Was literally thinking the same thing when I heard they were saugeye. I have seen a few pushing 12 lbs so I wouldn't be surprised to see one a few lbs. bigger.


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## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> If they are truly Saugeye, it wouldnt shock me if a State Record is caught there


Remarkable isn't it? State Record is possible and only stocked GLSM 2 years with saug fingerlings! Last stocked 9 years ago. In a way it's a sad story.


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## zaraspook

By the way, spillway tubes that were closed earlier this week are closed no more. About noon Fri spillway is flowing again. USGS website shows 300 cubic ft per second which usually means one tube open. Spillway being replenished with state record caliber saugs!


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## fishwhacker

Does anyone know where to get live wax worms this time of year in montezuma or Celina? I am usually limited to 2hr fishing sessions and when i have to go to the outdoorsmen or grand lake bait it really cuts into my fishing time.


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## firemanmike2127

The Outdoorsman just got a fresh batch in on the 2nd. The Boathouse & Lakeview Carryout don't stock them this time of year. Mike


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## fishwhacker

Thanks Mike, i used to drive past the outdoorsman on the way to work so it was no biggie but now i live in coldwater so dont get that way too often. I will probably have to sacrifice an hr of fishing time and get a bluetub worth to hold me over a couple weeks. Wish shell in zuma or kozy campground kept them fresh year round.


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## fishwhacker

Took my son out today....he lasted a whole 30 minutes (only 4 so ill take it). Had 2 nice gills. Crappie guys said it was decent earlier in the day but had slowed by the time we got to the lake.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Took my son out today....he lasted a whole 30 minutes (only 4 so ill take it). Had 2 nice gills. Crappie guys said it was decent earlier in the day but had slowed by the time we got to the lake.


Always worth it when partner is your son. Take care of those waxies.


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## RMK

not much of a report but i was able to get out and gave it a shot yesterday evening for about an hour an a half before dark. headed to a non feeder channel and found stained, not muddy like the rest of the lake i saw, water. guy along for the boat ride pulled 3 gills pretty quick using much smaller baits than my normal and tipped with waxworms. he likes his bluegill but was hoping to see some crappie. i didn't help him with that. hope to get back out soon in search of the winter crappie. 

hope the recovery is going well zara.


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## Saugeyefisher

Man as soon as I start getting a crappie itch the weather's bout to turn. I've been getting a couple an sewing a couple caught at night on stickbaits why saugeye fishing buckeye. Was planning on trying some spots this weekend but not sure conditions are gonna agree. 
Wanted to mention to the winter crappie chasers out there,dont over look the nite bite! I've stumbled upon some great crappie action at night in the middle of the winter. Before. Normally in lit up channels lined with rocks. And lit up mainlake areas with riprap.. .


----------



## zaraspook

RMK said:


> not much of a report but i was able to get out and gave it a shot yesterday evening for about an hour an a half before dark. headed to a non feeder channel and found stained, not muddy like the rest of the lake i saw, water. guy along for the boat ride pulled 3 gills pretty quick using much smaller baits than my normal and tipped with waxworms. he likes his bluegill but was hoping to see some crappie. i didn't help him with that. hope to get back out soon in search of the winter crappie.
> 
> hope the recovery is going well zara.


RMK.....good to hear you got out. I envy you. Up until couple weeks ago, I know at least a couple guys with frequency were still doing well with crappie. Smaller baits than you and I use. One of those guys never tips, the other occasionally tips. Last 2 weeks turned slower, or they found crappie but few keepers. These guys keep moving, north and south locations.
My shoulder surgery was 3 weeks ago. Released to start therapy late next week. Procedure was a bit more complex, requiring rehab delay, less aggressive rehab, and full 6 weeks before I escape 24/7 use of arm sling. I suck at being a lefty for everything!


----------



## dcool

zaraspook said:


> RMK.....good to hear you got out. I envy you. Up until couple weeks ago, I know at least a couple guys with frequency were still doing well with crappie. Smaller baits than you and I use. One of those guys never tips, the other occasionally tips. Last 2 weeks turned slower, or they found crappie but few keepers. These guys keep moving, north and south locations.
> My shoulder surgery was 3 weeks ago. Released to start therapy late next week. Procedure was a bit more complex, requiring rehab delay, less aggressive rehab, and full 6 weeks before I escape 24/7 use of arm sling. I suck at being a lefty for everything!


Zara, I feel for you brother. When my shoulder was done, I started therapy two days later and thought that was totally brutal. I can't imagine starting therapy three weeks after surgery. Like I said earlier, it is a long recovery time, but worth it in the end. I feel for ya, and get well soon.


----------



## zaraspook

dcool said:


> Zara, I feel for you brother. When my shoulder was done, I started therapy two days later and thought that was totally brutal. I can't imagine starting therapy three weeks after surgery. Like I said earlier, it is a long recovery time, but worth it in the end. I feel for ya, and get well soon.


Dcool.......been following your advice in prior post. Much appreciated. Keeping faith that long term gains are on the horizon.


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## BuckeyeCatDaddy

It's only January and I cannot wait for the spring!! GLSM here we come!!


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## zaraspook

Dropped by my lake place on Thurs to check it out. 3.5 weeks since last visit. Stunned by water level down 15+ inches. Very little ice except growing sheets in backends. Water seemed stained, not muddy in my channel. I could have fished majority of my spots if my surgically repaired shoulder was ready to go. When my 24/7 sling comes off in 3-4 weeks I hope to fish then.


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## Redhunter1012

Tubes are open as of 10 pm last night. If you go through The Facebook, you'll see pics from over the weekend of eyes being caught. Mostly large but some smaller as well


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## zaraspook

Walleyes pulled from spillway at least since early to mid 2000's. Big problem was spillway was about the only place with frequent eye catches!


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## fishwhacker

Spillway tubes were closed and everything froze over when I drove past this afternoon....getting close to chasing the perch down.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Spillway tubes were closed and everything froze over when I drove past this afternoon....getting close to chasing the perch down.


Do it, whacker! Better take a couple buckets to carry all the perch!


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> Do it, whacker! Better take a couple buckets to carry all the perch!


I meant a perch as in a single one would be a success lol.


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## zaraspook

K


Redhunter1012 said:


> Tubes are open as of 10 pm last night. If you go through The Facebook, you'll see pics from over the weekend of eyes being caught. Mostly large but some smaller as well


Redhunter.....played on FB a good while looking at recent eye catches from spillway. Not as many pics as I expected and seemingly all piggies. I don't recall any photos of eyes 18" or less, that might be the result of successful reproductive cycle in last 5-6 years. If anyone gets into an eye less than 18" from GLSM or spillway, please snap photo and post.


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## zaraspook

Since Weds ice thickness on northside channels are consistently reported at 2-2.5 inches. Temperatures haven't been of the variety to add to ice thickness. A few are hardy enough to test the ice. An Anderson's fisherman was reported to have gone home wet. At least he went home. No info coming from southside locations. Doubtful those channels are any better. Beginning Saturday night the next 7 days show lots of single digit number for low temps...........game on!


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## zaraspook

Super Blood wolf total lunar eclipse Sunday night. Don't miss it - fish may like it too.


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## RMK

View attachment 290961







Report from a local farm pond....

Ice much better than one week ago. Last Friday 2"-3" of soft white ice. Today a much more solid 5"-6". Rain followed by a deep freeze did the trick. Fished roughly 2pm to 4 pm. Fish were hungry. Crappie bite was slower and farther between bites than the bluegill. Crappie liked a hair jig with pink head and white tail tipped with a minnow. Bluegill ate a purple spider ice jig tipped with waxworms. I fished the crappie rod at roughly 4 feet and the bluegill rod down a little deeper around 6 to 7 feet.
3 Zara fish,11 whacker fish, and a bass


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## RMK

I m struggling a little with my floats. Today I used the same corks I use when crappie fishing on the lake. Instead of pinning them with a tooth pick I put a bead above the cork with a string stop above the bead. Basically just made a slip bobber out the traditional glsm foam crappie cork. The line didn't flow through the cork very well and the hole thing ended up icing up and didn't work very well at all. Last year I used actual thil (spelling and can't remember brand exactly) slip bobbers. And I don't know if it was the cold temps or what but they wouldn't float. I have a couple old schully rods with a spring bobber at the end of the rod. I didn't love them but it was a lot less hassle using them than trying to get a float to work. What are you expierenced ice guys using for floats or do you even use one?


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## fishwhacker

RMK said:


> View attachment 290961
> View attachment 290965
> Report from a local farm pond....
> 
> Ice much better than one week ago. Last Friday 2"-3" of soft white ice. Today a much more solid 5"-6". Rain followed by a deep freeze did the trick. Fished roughly 2pm to 4 pm. Fish were hungry. Crappie bite was slower and farther between bites than the bluegill. Crappie liked a hair jig with pink head and white tail tipped with a minnow. Bluegill ate a purple spider ice jig tipped with waxworms. I fished the crappie rod at roughly 4 feet and the bluegill rod down a little deeper around 6 to 7 feet.
> 3 Zara fish,11 whacker fish, and a bass
> View attachment 290959
> 
> View attachment 290967
> 
> View attachment 290969


Grear job, those look like some nice ones. As far as the bobber question i always just pin the normal glsm bobber with a toothpick. I know as far as slip you need to have bobbers with metal grommets to allow easy line flow. I agree anytime you are dealing with a bobber while ice fishing it is a pain. Sorry no good solutions. Going to be tying some purple spider jigs today.


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## firemanmike2127

Ryan, I don't do much ice fishing these days but have some experience with the Thill floats you mentioned. I've experimented with a variety of the many styles available through that company. I'd suggest looking at the Thill Mini-Stealth slip float. That style has a short stem on the bottom of the float & the hole for the line to pass through is on the bottom tip of the float. This style would probably work best for more of a ''static' presentation since that style of slip float will lay on it's side when you lift your jig. I'm not sure where those are available locally but if you stop by I can hook you up with some to try. Mike Bruns 419-305-8111


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## firemanmike2127

Thill also makes a Pro Series slip float with a metal grommet in the too of the stem but the smallest size they offer in that type would need to have some split shot added to the line above your jig. I have some of those floats as well. Chuck in Ohio City had the Pro Series slip floats in stock.....don't remember if I've seen the Mini-Stealth over there though. Mike


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## ohiostrutter

Has anyone hit the beaver through the ice? There is zero flow out of the tubes into the creek, so I'd say there will be some safe areas. Spud out as you go of course


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## crappiedude

RMK said:


> I m struggling a little with my floats


I haven't ice fished much the last few years but I never had much luck with slip floats when I did. I usually had too much ice form on my line or in my float for them to be effective, everything froze together. I always used the smallest peg float I could get by with for my set up.
Even at that and using that tiny little float some of the hits we'd get would be so light they would barely move.


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## fishwhacker

firemanmike2127 said:


> Thill also makes a Pro Series slip float with a metal grommet in the too of the stem but the smallest size they offer in that type would need to have some split shot added to the line above your jig. I have some of those floats as well. Chuck in Ohio City had the Pro Series slip floats in stock.....don't remember if I've seen the Mini-Stealth over there though. Mike


Mike, is Chucks store back open? Heard it was online only for awhile. Just got a big order from him this week.


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## firemanmike2127

Yes, he is maintaining regular store hours now. I haven't been over there recently but one of my friends stopped in the other day to pick up a few things. Chuck is still handling some bass tackle but intends to focus primarily on the panfish & walleye market. Mike


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## RMK

Thanks for your replies and help guys. I cut off my corks and retied with the smallest thill floats I had and removed the weight from the bottom of them. Added split shot above my jig. This got the jig down half way good but not great. Going to have to look into those mini thills you mentioned mike.


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## fishwhacker

Well after a long search in Celina to find live bait, ended up getting butter worms at walmart, drilled my first holes of the season. I was on the west side of the lake, had over 6 inches of cloudy ice. After taking so long to get bait and gear out for the 1st time only fished for 40 minutes. Drilled 6 holes and not a bump to show for it. Can only get better right?


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## Lowell H Turner

fishwhacker, the fish are always right until they bite. everything else being equal wind chill allowing have had some success with an ice bobber holding as much vegetable oil thru it (no peg) and on it, works fairly well but wont submerge. often work the bait/ jig downwards slowly and rest it on a curl in the line. can easily twirl the bait by minutely twirling the line. plus helps keep it from icing.


----------



## fished-out

RMK said:


> Thanks for your replies and help guys. I cut off my corks and retied with the smallest thill floats I had and removed the weight from the bottom of them. Added split shot above my jig. This got the jig down half way good but not great. Going to have to look into those mini thills you mentioned mike.
> View attachment 291153


I never much cared for floats at all, especially for bluegill. Spring bobbers were always the best for me, worked really well for light biters.


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## Lowell H Turner

please have your cats claws, rope and a friend WITH you. a spare change of clothes and a space blanket can be life savers in your vehicle. be SAFE !


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## james.

Lowell H Turner said:


> please have your cats claws, rope and a friend WITH you. a spare change of clothes and a space blanket can be life savers in your vehicle. be SAFE !


Be very careful I found ice today any were from 2inchs to 10 inches the 2inchs was at Harmans


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## fished-out

Yep. I don't go much any more, not much safe ice in Cincy, but lived in NE Ohio for many years and there were 10-15 large lakes within an hour of my house. Spent alot of time at Mogadore and the Portage lakes. I was a first ice guy. Always had ice picks (Just a pair of 7" broom stick pieces with sawed off nails in the ends, covered with a cork; small eye bolts in the other ends, connect both with a cord about 20-24" long, and drape it from your neck). For really squirrelly early and late ice, had a 6-7 foot 1 x 6 with a hole in the middle of the board--tied a 10' piece of rope through the hole and around my waist, and would drag it behind me as I shuffled along. Only had one friend ever had to use one, and it saved his life. Lost another friend, who didn't have one. Young and dumb, arguably smarter now


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## crappiedude

fished-out said:


> Always had ice picks (Just a pair of 7" broom stick pieces with sawed off nails in the ends, covered with a cork; small eye bolts in the other ends, connect both with a cord about 20-24" long, and drape it from your neck).


Back in the day everyone I knew who ice fish had a pair of homemade pics, maybe early 80's.
It was years later before I ever saw any in a store.


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## fished-out

Yep. No need to buy an ice rod for shallow water either, at least not for bluegill or crappie. Again, a piece of broom stick 6-8" long, a broken rod tip (I always seem to have a few) with the end eye in tact, and a small plastic fishing line spool, and you're in business. Drill a hole in the end of the stick, glue the rod tip in, screw the spool to the stick at the center as a line keeper with enough friction so it doesn't just free spool but you can still pull the line out, and you're in business. Never made sense to me to "wind" in bluegill, I just hand lined them out, then dropped the rig right back in the hole. Never had to worry about loosing the depth that way. Besides, the fish always seemed to come through in waves and you had to be quick to take advantage. With two rods at a time, doubles were common and it was those moments that made me love it.


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## Saugeyefisher

fished-out said:


> Yep. No need to buy an ice rod for shallow water either, at least not for bluegill or crappie. Again, a piece of broom stick 6-8" long, a broken rod tip (I always seem to have a few) with the end eye in tact, and a small plastic fishing line spool, and you're in business. Drill a hole in the end of the stick, glue the rod tip in, screw the spool to the stick at the center as a line keeper with enough friction so it doesn't just free spool but you can still pull the line out, and you're in business. Never made sense to me to "wind" in bluegill, I just hand lined them out, then dropped the rig right back in the hole. Never had to worry about loosing the depth that way. Besides, the fish always seemed to come through in waves and you had to be quick to take advantage. With two rods at a time, doubles were common and it was those moments that made me love it.


Lol we was pretty much doing the same with saugeyes last week. Got lazy an quit clearing the ice from my lines an it would get stuck. Luckily was in 5' of water. Lift the rod up an the fish was at the hole! Gotta love these shallow lakes for ice fishing!


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## zaraspook

In 2018 there was growing sentiment that the GLSM crappie population was "off". Particularly in the fall of 2018, grumbling was more frequent and louder, "that crappie were hard to come by". And even worse, when you got on them, fish were "unusually small". Rather than the typical "10.5-11.5" crappie dominating your bucket, size was off as well........fewer keepers and average length of those less than expected.

Most of you know I maintain a daily fishing log. Nothing too fancy, just the date, number caught, number of keepers, frequently the water temperature, and less frequently I record water depth off my seawall. I also track numbers of Fish Ohio crappie caught, that is the number of crappie 13" or better. Rather than speculating as to GLSM's crappie population, why not dive into the data? Allow the numbers to speak for themselves.

By month my crappie catches are listed below for all of 2018 and 2017. The format is number caught during the month in 2018, then a forward slash (/), followed by the number of keepers for that month. if this displays properly 2017 caught and keeper numbers are to the right of 2018 numbers.
Jan-- 0/0.................19/3 
Feb-- 70/30.............164/113 
Mar-- 254/119............324/205
Apr-- 173/95..............280/198
May-- 282/172.............282/167
Jun-- 0/0...................49/29
Jul-- 16/6.....................9/5
Aug-- 61/43.................22/11
Sep-- 298/142.............108/64
Oct-- 146/57................90/59
Nov-- 219/74...............139/77
Dec-- 18/4..................35/17
Tot-- 1537/742..........1521/948

Conclusions? Total crappies caught were nearly identical both years. Keeper numbers fell by 22% during 2018. Fall fishing 2018 was probably the best fall I've experienced at GLSM. I'll revise this post once I get the numbers on Fish Ohio crappies. Don't get me wrong. I don't get a pile of 13"+ crappies.........several a year is more like it.


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## firemanmike2127

All I can say is WOW !! You sure have caught a pile of fish the last 2 years. It's no wonder your shoulder needed some repair work. Thanks for compiling your stats....I found it quite interesting. Hope the rehab is progressing well. I discovered that the staff @ Physical Therapy are all VERY NICE people....that make you HURT !! Mike


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## firemanmike2127

All I can say is WOW !! You sure have caught a pile of fish the last 2 years. It's no wonder your shoulder needed some repair work. Thanks for compiling your stats....I found it quite interesting. Hope the rehab is progressing well. When I injured my knee I discovered that the staff @ Physical Therapy are all VERY NICE people....that make you HURT !! Mike


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> All I can say is WOW !! You sure have caught a pile of fish the last 2 years. It's no wonder your shoulder needed some repair work. Thanks for compiling your stats....I found it quite interesting. Hope the rehab is progressing well. When I injured my knee I discovered that the staff @ Physical Therapy are all VERY NICE people....that make you HURT !! Mike


That's hilarious, FMM! Wish I could blame the lame shoulder on a good cause like lifting toad crappies ashore. I know better. We're in agreement.......PT people are all nice. Also, agreement on part 2.......they make you hurt!


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## zaraspook

My tally of 13" or better Fish Ohio crappie numbered 4 in 2018, which is two more than 2017. However, while I was fussing around an October day last fall, a friend stopped by. I encouraged him to fish my seawall, specifically under my pontoon. While I was fussing around my friend pulled back to back Fish Ohio crappie from under my pontoon. If I recall correctly, I think he had 7 keepers before I could wet a line.

I do catch my share of crappie, but for the record I'm basically a catch and release guy. I keep about 50-60 fish a year, just enough to provide crappie tacos for 4 events thru the year. 

The DNR electro-shocking events showed GLSM in a bit of decline the last year or two. Overall crappie population was basically rated as fair. For bigger fish the outlook/ratings were above average........lots of 12" crappie for the population. Final note, in 2018 I caught 4 perch. All were caught in March. All were caught in the same week. No more the rest of 2018. 

My rotator cuff surgeon says I should be ready to fish in April. Hope so........


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## RMK

my total numbers of fish dont come close to zaras but i think i mentioned it a little bit earlier last year.... my 2018 produced more small fish (4"-6") and less 13"+ fish than 2017. i ve already started it for 2019 and i m going to try to do a better job of keeping written records of the where, when, how many, conditions, etc....


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## crappiedude

I'm impressed anyone could actually keep and tally all that info from a year and especially for multiple years. I can't do it for a day.
I bring my little clicker and it's rare that I make it to 10 before I start forgetting to count them or I start counting them twice.
I simplified things to suit my style. Now I have 3 choices to detail my days catches ...a few, did okay and a bunch.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> I'm impressed anyone could actually keep and tally all that info from a year and especially for multiple years. I can't do it for a day.
> I bring my little clicker and it's rare that I make it to 10 before I start forgetting to count them or I start counting them twice.
> I simplified things to suit my style. Now I have 3 choices to detail my days catches ...a few, did okay and a bunch.


My son started the journal about 2008 or 2009. He's uber competitive. It's easy to keep track of the count when you do it a few times, like 3/5 means 3 keepers, 5 total. I usually record water temp, occasionally record water depth off my seawall. Both water temp and water depth are big factors for where and how I fish my channel. Journal is nothing more than a calendar with a separate page that flips for each month. Works for me.....


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## fishwhacker

Restocking has begun for another season of big bluegills, giant crappies and maybe the elusive glsm perch







also weeks ago i did manage to chase some eyes at glsm and to my suprise a non giant eye. Maybe there is hope they are spawning


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## firemanmike2127

Hmmm. Interesting photo.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Restocking has begun for another season of big bluegills, giant crappies and maybe the elusive glsm perch
> View attachment 293741
> also weeks ago i did manage to chase some eyes at glsm and to my suprise a non giant eye. Maybe there is hope they are spawning
> View attachment 293743


Very cool! Unlike humans those fishy creatures don't tend to have babies one at a time. Should be more from that hatch. What was length of short one?


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## fishwhacker

If i had to guess between 18 and 20 inches, not a baby but small compared to the normal giants


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## zaraspook

Compared to your "normal" eye, short one looks like a midget. Did you get weight or length on the piggy?


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## fishwhacker

I did not get a length on the big one. Need to start carrying a tape measure.


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## zaraspook

I was at GLSM for a brief time Weds afternoon. Purpose was not fishing - shoulder doesn't permit having much fun yet. I was surprised to find open water at boat club, Freedom Marina, East Bank bulkhead, Otterbein, Barnes Creek/Rustic. Zero open water at my place but I didn't want to be tempted anyway. Open water isn't the best clarity. It wouldn't take much to open more areas but forecast isn't too generous yet.

Last year on Feb 20th I was at Duckfoot with open water galore. Caught 50 crappies, kept 22 though many more were keepers. It was 72 degrees that day! Chances are slim for a repeat this Feb 20.


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## zaraspook

Was at GLSM Weds for a few hours. Just checking on my lake place and a leisurely drive around the lake to assess chances for open water near term. Not that I can fish yet. Still weeks away for my right shoulder to lift even a cane pole.

Ice sure looks of shitty quality but I hear about 6" and plenty sturdy to fish. Didn't stop at Anderson's but a source related one ice guy there, catching a few gills, no crappie. Whereas a week ago Friday there were pockets of open water in a number of channels, no such pockets this time. We're going the wrong direction for open water fishing. However, particularly off the north side of main lake, you could see vast areas of open water stretching most of the west to east length of the lake. None of that open water was much closer to the bank than 50-100 yards out. Any stiff winds and resulting wave action could eat away quickly at main lake ice. But, near term prospects suck for fishing open water in channels. Maybe by St. Patrick's Day? For the curious,, St. Pat's Day is Sunday March 17th...........24 days away.

Spillway was flowing........4 fishermen there during my quick drive by on SR 127. Heard a report of a few crappie from the spillway earlier this week. Also a 30"+ toad of an "eye" apparently snagged at spillway, returned to the Beaver for a future tug of war. It's the best open water opportunity at GLSM, for now.


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## zaraspook

Doesn't take much open water to get the crappie catching fired up at GLSM. Wish I could claim as my own but this bucketful today from a Green Bucket Brigade guy with a regular habit of getting his 30. I'd forgotten what a bucket of 30 GLSM chunks look like.


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## brad crappie

What’s he do with all those fish? I fish a lot I keep fish about 10% of the time


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## Wadin'Dave

brad crappie said:


> What’s he do with all those fish? I fish a lot I keep fish about 10% of the time


Same here. I especially don't keep them when I've worn myself out fishing all day (I tend to do that when I'm not catching). After taking a few home twice when I just was too burnt out to clean them....and WASTING them....I promised myself "If you're worn out to hell, let them go".

I hope I'm not the only guy that ever did that, but at least I fixed it.


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## brad crappie

St Mary’s has a class a crappie fisherie but I catch bigger at other lakes! Need to put a 20 fish limit there for bigger fish! Period


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## Jacob Carsner

brad crappie said:


> St Mary’s has a class a crappie fisherie but I catch bigger at other lakes! Need to put a 20 fish limit there for bigger fish! Period[/QUOTE


Does anybody know if there is still ice or is there enough open water to fish?


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## RMK

Jacob Carsner said:


> Does anybody know if there is still ice or is there enough open water to fish?


quite a bit of ice. a couple people have found open water the last couple days but i dont know where. my friend checked a few south side spots today. all ice. extended forecast doesnt look good for soft water


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## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> What’s he do with all those fish? I fish a lot I keep fish about 10% of the time


bc.......hard to find guys like him. He cleans all he takes home and is meticulous with his care and preparation of the fillets. Loves crappie fillets and has a long list of friends who graciously look forward to a package of expertly cleaned fresh fillets. Not many who will catch and clean them for you.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> quite a bit of ice. a couple people have found open water the last couple days but i dont know where. my friend checked a few south side spots today. all ice. extended forecast doesnt look good for soft water


On Monday the new ramp near your in-laws had substantial open water, rmk. Last fall there were some active sessions at that ramp. Harmon's Landing was about 1/2 ice free same day. There are other pockets of open water scattered about. Agree with you, soft water may vanish with those single digit temps next week.


----------



## RMK

zaraspook said:


> On Monday the new ramp near your in-laws had substantial open water, rmk. Last fall there were some active sessions at that ramp. Harmon's Landing was about 1/2 ice free same day. There are other pockets of open water scattered about. Agree with you, soft water may vanish with those single digit temps next week.


likely a warmer channel from the inflow of the creek at the end. also muddier. right when that started to open up there i saw quite a bit of shad activity in the back of the channel. I never got the chance to test what might have been lurking below those shad.


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## firemanmike2127

Zara, How is that shoulder coming along ? It'll be time to chase those early spring crappies soon. Setting the hook on some GLSM slabs sounds like an excellent form of 'therapy'.....


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## Wadin'Dave

By reading this thread and another couple of other sources I have gotten decent at catching crappies...which is mostly about FINDING them .....over the past couple of years. This thread is golden for learning about crappie fishing in lakes, thanks to regular contributors like Zara.

A question I still have, though, is about finding crappie on rivers locally. I've done a TON of wade-fishing and kayaking for smallies and can't recall a single crappie caught--even by accident-- on the GMR or LMR. Does anyone target crappie on local rivers?

I think crappies aren't targeted on the rivers as much because the bite is so much better in cooler climates/times of year, when kayakers and waders like me aren't as enthusiastic about getting into the water. Plus maybe there just aren't a lot of river crappie, locally. 

I'm also thinking that the bite on rivers might not be as good as lakes, but it may be more consistent, in that there are normally more cool spots from shade and less volume to go deep and hide in during the hot Summer months....

Does anyone have any tips about types of structure, current etc, and maybe just name a river or two that might be good ones to start exploring? Now that I can generally find crappie on lakes, I'd like to make a project of finding a few holes of my own on local rivers.


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## Saugeyefisher

The only river advice I can give you is look below spillways and any deep slack water areas you can find. Maybe oxboows or any harbors or marinas off a main river....


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> Zara, How is that shoulder coming along ? It'll be time to chase those early spring crappies soon. Setting the hook on some GLSM slabs sounds like an excellent form of 'therapy'.....


Surgeon told me Monday my shoulder mobility/range of motion is really good, especially considering the "massive" tendon tears he repaired. However, no muscle strengthening therapy for another 2 weeks. Still exercising caution.......I'll be doing stuff at 12 weeks that most rotator cuffs jobs are doing as early as 6 weeks.

With Thurs the last day of validity for our 2018 fishing licenses, and 90 minutes to burn at 2:30pm Thurs, seemed like an opportune time and last chance to use my license. Grabbed 2 rods and went to a spot a short drive away where I noted open water earlier in the day. I hadn't asked my surgeon if fishing was an approved "therapy", but he didn't suggest "no fishing". What the heck? Fishing with the left shoulder isn't a big deal. I'd fished left-handed all fall before surgery. My need for mental therapy finally won out over last minute doubts about the physical aspects.

Hadn't fished this place before but started on a couple docks. 20 minutes convinced me the docks weren't the ticket. Time to just cast open water, try a few baits. Ooops. Forgot to bring my box of favorite plastics. Guess my offerings would be limited to the pair of plastics already tied on each rod. 15 casts of the first bait found no interest. Switched to 2nd pole and almost peed my pants when the 5th cast showed signs of a fish moving off with my bait. Whoa! Caught a keeper crappie (photo)! Caught 2 more about 10 minutes apart, one short and the next legal size but not a keeper. Another 1/2 hour of casting yielded no more.

First time to fish this year and since Dec. 3rd. First crappie of the year is in the book. Mission accomplished. Mental therapy was perfect.


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## Saugeyefisher

Very nice! Glad you got to fish! 
I snuck out today from 2-6 on my favorite shallow lake near columbus.caught 15 crappie 8-12" 20-25 gills and 3 small bass. Smaller skinny channels off a big cove produced best. Metal lifts on wood in those channels held them the best. A brushpile jig with a chartreuse body and clear glitter tail caught them the best.wax worms didn't help any. Fishing about 3' of water 18" below a float. 
Didn't really pattern the crappies till the last hour.
Took home about 10 fish to clean up with some saugeye I got a few nights ago.
View attachment 295501


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Very nice! Glad you got to fish!
> I snuck out today from 2-6 on my favorite shallow lake near columbus.caught 15 crappie 8-12" 20-25 gills and 3 small bass. Smaller skinny channels off a big cove produced best. Metal lifts on wood in those channels held them the best. A brushpile jig with a chartreuse body and clear glitter tail caught them the best.wax worms didn't help any. Fishing about 3' of water 18" below a float.
> Didn't really pattern the crappies till the last hour.
> Took home about 10 fish to clean up with some saugeye I got a few nights ago.
> View attachment 295501
> View attachment 295503


Nicely done, sf! Speaking of saugeyes I saw photos of a12# 8oz, 12# 6oz and12#2 oz pulled from GLSM spillway yesterday and Friday. Crazy!


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Nicely done, sf! Speaking of saugeyes I saw photos of a12# 8oz, 12# 6oz and12#2 oz pulled from GLSM spillway yesterday and Friday. Crazy!


That is sooo crazy! I really wish the state would recognize this an put fish with teeth back in there!


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, don't over do it and finish healing up. please DO whatever the doctor tells you to...


----------



## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> That is sooo crazy! I really wish the state would recognize this an put fish with teeth back in there!


Saugfish.........plenty of support I think at Sate decision-making level to go forward with GLSM saug stocking. However, it's contingent on keeping saugfish from migrating to Lake Erie via St. Mary's River. East end of GLSM pushes water into St. Mary's River. They could block flow today, but towns/villages along ancient Ohio-Erie canal system don't want their historical waterways to dry up. But, US Army Corp has responsibility to close all potential paths of Flying Carp into Lake Erie. Once State/Army Corp commit to one of carp blocking proposals now on table, saugfish stocking at GLSM could start thereafter. 

I had a nice discussion about this 3-years ago while a State conservation officer was checking my fishing license. The officer said "decision is imminent. Saugs will be restocked within 2 years". 3 years later.........rumors are similar "imminent decision, restocking within 2 years". Personally, a sustained saugfish presence is exciting. I do have concerns about saugfish long term impact on the crappie population. Plus, we're 7 years into re-establishing a perch population at GLSM. Have we thought thru the unintended consequences of a new predator that loves perch? It's way above my pay grade to know the answers.......just hoping there's a long term plan about all fish populations in GLSM.


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## fishwhacker

I was able to get out Friday night. Really wish it wouldnt have frozen over so quickly. Tape measure again left in the vehicle.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> I was able to get out Friday night. Really wish it wouldnt have frozen over so quickly. Tape measure again left in the vehicle.
> View attachment 295735
> View attachment 295737


Outstanding, my man! You must have some great fillets in your freezer. I'm jealous. What was the winning bait?
Saugeyefisher will choke when he sees your photos!


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> Outstanding, my man! You must have some great fillets in your freezer. I'm jealous. What was the winning bait?
> Saugeyefisher will choke when he sees your photos!


 just a chartreuse twister tail on 1/16oz pink leadhead. Every now and then i get lucky


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> just a chartreuse twister tail on 1/16oz pink leadhead. Every now and then i get lucky


luck gets you one maybe. 3 takes skill. Modesty will get you know where.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> just a chartreuse twister tail on 1/16oz pink leadhead. Every now and then i get lucky


Luck gets you one maybe. 3 takes skill. You're too modest.


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## zaraspook

Intended to post a wimpy crappie report until I saw whacker's triple eye post. Enough time passed now I can site my puny crappie results from Sunday. 90 minutes midday on Sunday produced 2 decent keepers before breaking for a late lunch. Returned to same spot at 3:30pm and was getting skunked. Went back to a Monkey Milk shad bait that produced my first fish earlier in the day. Caught 5 crappie, 3 of those keepers after 2 short ones. Coulda, woulda, shoulda changed earlier. Other colors tried unsuccessfully earlier were chartreuse, orange, jelly bean, bluegrass. Pink jig head with small white curly tail, what I call my perch bait, did catch a keeper crappie in the earlier session.

All fish caught "out" in open water, no known cover, 28-36" under bobber in water I'm guessing was 3-5' deep. Water stained and skim ice advancing thru the afternoon. Shoulder doing fine but I continue to cast and retrieve only with left arm/shoulder. Repaired shoulder couple months away from service.


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## crappiedude

WTG Zara...where there's a will, there's a way.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> WTG Zara...where there's a will, there's a way.


Amen!


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Outstanding, my man! You must have some great fillets in your freezer. I'm jealous. What was the winning bait?
> Saugeyefisher will choke when he sees your photos!


Shew you ain't lieing! Those things our monsters!


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## zaraspook

By the way the 3 saugs from fishwhacker are not the 3 saug hogs I mentioned in earlier post for 12#-8oz, 12#-6oz and 12#-2oz. Fishwhacker did not provide a weight for his.


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## fishwhacker

I have no clue how much those fish weigh, they are all giants except the one i posted a couple weeks/months back had one that was high teens low 20 inches, other than that only monsters. I lost a giant by even spillway standards last year, if i caught one in that class again i would consider keeping and weighing. Dont know why but in my head since they are spillway fish i dont count them as awesome as if they were open water. They are cool but for some reason in my head not as challenging as finding a monster in open water. Not taking away from anyone who mounts these as they are incredible specimens.


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## Saugeyefisher

fishwhacker said:


> I have no clue how much those fish weigh, they are all giants except the one i posted a couple weeks/months back had one that was high teens low 20 inches, other than that only monsters. I lost a giant by even spillway standards last year, if i caught one in that class again i would consider keeping and weighing. Dont know why but in my head since they are spillway fish i dont count them as awesome as if they were open water. They are cool but for some reason in my head not as challenging as finding a monster in open water. Not taking away from anyone who mounts these as they are incredible specimens.


Haha,as long as I've been chasing saugeye an still haven't caught a 10lb+ fish I'd take it anywhere I can get it,lol. Good fish man!


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## fishwhacker

Saugeyefisher said:


> Haha,as long as I've been chasing saugeye an still haven't caught a 10lb+ fish I'd take it anywhere I can get it,lol. Good fish man!


Take the trip to GLSM sometime when the bite is on and get ya one lol. Issue is its shoulder to shoulder 90% of the time unless your timing is lucky enough to drop everything and go as soon as the first fish is caught. People monitor that from a busy highway so as soon as two cars are parked there, there will be 20 in hours.


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## Saugeyefisher

fishwhacker said:


> Take the trip to GLSM sometime when the bite is on and get ya one lol. Issue is its shoulder to shoulder 90% of the time unless your timing is lucky enough to drop everything and go as soon as the first fish is caught. People monitor that from a busy highway so as soon as two cars are parked there, there will be 20 in hours.


Lol not my thing. Stopped fishing sooo many areas that get like that over the years.... haha have thought about making a couple midnight-sunup trips trying to beat the crowd


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## fishwhacker

Saugeyefisher said:


> Lol not my thing. Stopped fishing sooo many areas that get like that over the years.... haha have thought about making a couple midnight-sunup trips trying to beat the crowd


I definitely can relate. When there are a bunch of cars i am generally going to be driving past. Got lucky last time and went at night before word was out and there were only 2 other groups out, doesnt happen often.


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## dcool

Saugeyefisher said:


> Lol not my thing. Stopped fishing sooo many areas that get like that over the years.... haha have thought about making a couple midnight-sunup trips trying to beat the crowd


Been by there many times when it is fishable and it looks like a zoo. Would like to catch one of those big ones myself, but that is not my type of fishing.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> likely a warmer channel from the inflow of the creek at the end. also muddier. right when that started to open up there i saw quite a bit of shad activity in the back of the channel. I never got the chance to test what might have been lurking below those shad.


RMK,
I fished that spot last Sunday. It was thick with 12-16" shad. A catfishing friend of mine frequently mentions when cast netting for shad he often gets chunk crappies mixed in with the big shad. Not like I hit the mother load, but did pull 5 keeper crappies.


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## Redhunter1012

Tubes opened again today. I don't mind fishing there. I've been conditioned to it by fishing the maumee during the walleye run for 25 years. If I was 100%certain those were saugeye, I would mount one. There are dozens of spillways around the state that load up with saugeyes after big pushes of water. Not a single one produces that many fish that big as often as Beaver Creek. I'm in awe of the size of the fish.


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## Saugeyefisher

Redhunter1012 said:


> Tubes opened again today. I don't mind fishing there. I've been conditioned to it by fishing the maumee during the walleye run for 25 years. If I was 100%certain those were saugeye, I would mount one. There are dozens of spillways around the state that load up with saugeyes after big pushes of water. Not a single one produces that many fish that big as often as Beaver Creek. I'm in awe of the size of the fish.


Ya I always wondered about the saugeye vs. Walleye thing. But then I seen fishwhackers last two posted up... them things look an awfull lot like saugeyes to me....


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## fishwhacker

Here are some previous picts, not recent catches but can help the idenity discussion. Went there today and my buddy got one but i settled for a couple carp lol. Saw one other eye snagged by the tail. The fisherman quickly put it in his truck and sped off as soon as another fisherman pulled out there cell, assumed calling the game warden.


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## fishwhacker

Hard to tell as they have a white tip on their tail but the spots of a saugeye but no dots. I struggle to tell the difference.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Hard to tell as they have a white tip on their tail but the spots of a saugeye but no dots. I struggle to tell the difference.


For me the most important fish is the short one lying beneath the toad in the bottom photo. The photos I see are always giants, except for that short one in your photo. Saugs haven't been stocked at GLSM in 9 years. Was that one a runt saugeye, or is it an offspring born in GLSM? As hybrids saugs are supposed to be sterile. The stocked fry and fingerlings put in GLSM went thru an additional highly expensive process to make them triploid sterile. Odds are stacked against being a male saug to female saug offspring. Odds are minimally better it's the offspring of a saugeye to walleye union. Odds that the short fish is from a walleye to walleye union, therefore a walleye offspring, are the highest probability.

Walleye haven't been stocked since 2008. That short fish, if a walleye, is likely 4-5 years old (walleye don't grow as fast as saugs), assuming it's around 18". Probably born 2013-2014 time frame. The 2008 class of stocked walleye should have been 5-6 years old then. All we can do is speculate. However, if someone catches an "eye" under 18", it's likely an eye born in the lake, not stocked. I think the State would have an interest in getting a carcass or DNA from any short eyes......to determine which kind of eye it is. Maybe those 55 million stocked walleyes from 1999 to 2008 are reproducing in minuscule numbers.


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## fishwhacker

I agree zara and i have heard more "small" eyes have been caught this year than previous, dont know why the sudden change, but would say a small portion is reproducing.


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## Redhunter1012

I believe mst saugeye lve 4-6 yeas. I know I read that somewhere


----------



## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> I believe mst saugeye lve 4-6 yeas. I know I read that somewhere


It would appear GLSM ones are 9-10 yrs old. None stocked since 2010. Very rare to see anything other than those 9-12# toads. We'd like to think they are reproducing but no firm proof of that.


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## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> I believe mst saugeye lve 4-6 yeas. I know I read that somewhere


Wish someone would offer a small eye carcass for State to determine DNA. I think State guys would have an interest.


----------



## conley14

Anyone catching any Crappie?


----------



## Redhunter1012

I fished there with a buddy today for a few hours. No legals, but we did snag 5. I took a pic of this small, maybe 16" eye that I snagged. Seen 3 other smaller ones caught.


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## zaraspook

At GLSM Monday arriving about noon. Fished an hour at a boat ramp, one of the few spots nearby with open water. No bites.......water was chocolate milk. After lunch and a couple of chores, headed out in search of ice free water elsewhere. First choice had a small area of open water. It also had 12 anglers so I kept on the move. Fished a popular northside spot, lots of docks, 50% ice free, water not muddy, and only one guy fishing there. Had one bite and caught 1 dink crappie (No Skunk!). Half dozen other anglers came and went during the hour I was there. Did not see any other fish caught. 

Called it a day. My channel remains locked up. Ice is 2-2.5" of soft ice along the edges. By Friday chances are good for at least some open water. As open water spreads reports of catches will rise. If you can find them, get to them, they will eat! Better days are near.........


----------



## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> I fished there with a buddy today for a few hours. No legals, but we did snag 5. I took a pic of this small, maybe 16" eye that I snagged. Seen 3 other smaller ones caught.
> View attachment 296777


Redhunter........thanks for report and photo. 4 smaller eyes while you were there a few hours is sure an indicator something is going on. If your 16" eye was a saug, it isn't the size/maturity of the majority of saugs we see. No saugs officially stocked since 2010. Saugeye to saugeye reproduced even though they were triploid sterile? Saugey to walleye breeding? Maybe the short ones are all walleye? Here's a link to a nice 2014 article about GLSM saugs and excitement created http://www.fordabirdsoutdoors.com/saugeye-stocking-at-lake-st-marys-is-possible/


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## Redhunter1012

Shoulda took pics of others, but we've all seen the 10-12 pounders by now


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## Redhunter1012

Seen a crapload, maybe 100 crappie caught too. Maybe 20 or so were keepers


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## Saugeyefisher

Redhunter1012 said:


> I fished there with a buddy today for a few hours. No legals, but we did snag 5. I took a pic of this small, maybe 16" eye that I snagged. Seen 3 other smaller ones caught.
> View attachment 296777


Man that looks like a saugeye.....


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## Redhunter1012

Saugeyefisher said:


> Man that looks like a saugeye.....


I know the pic looks more like it than it did holding it. Fairly sure its a walleye. There are a good number of them little ones in there. Forgot my buddy took a pic of this one he got. Looks like a river walleye to me. BTW, Game Warden was there for a few hours watching today. He was there yesterday too


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## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> I know the pic looks more like it than it did holding it. Fairly sure its a walleye. There are a good number of them little ones in there. Forgot my buddy took a pic of this one he got. Looks like a river walleye to me. BTW, Game Warden was there for a few hours watching today. He was there yesterday too
> View attachment 296829


What length would you guess for this one?


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## Redhunter1012

The short one, maybe 15.5" - 16". The larger one was 27"


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## fishwhacker

Got out a for about 1 1/2 hours Sunday night. Gill bite was slow and steady, had 12 nice ones but the big surprise of the night was the rarely found fish below. A tanker to boot, too bad as is all to common no friends with him.


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## zaraspook

FW........nice fish, photo, and report. Looks like a pink or jelly bean stinger did the trick. With or without meat? 

By the way a group of us are pooling our perch catching experiences. We are aware of only 1 perch that was caught from a northside location. Turns out all others we've caught were pulled from southside of lake or spillway. Not like we're giving away secrets, but did your pretty striped guy join the masses, or is it a partner to the one? We're not hypothesizing why the pattern is what it is, though fishermen are never short of opinions.


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## zaraspook

High school friend and I attempted crappie fishing at GLSM the past weekend. The operative word in that sentence is "attempted". My channel which was still 95% ice on Tuesday, was virtually all open water by Thursday. My channel was stained, not muddy, and slightly improved over the weekend. Water in other southside channels we tried was choco milk. Lake wide water was muddy, very few places with clean water and those were packed with anglers. Therefore, my channel was where we invested 95% of our efforts. 40.4 degree water temp Fri evening and 41.5 on Saturday.

My partner caught 1 dink crappie for the weekend. My results not much better......7 crappie with just a single keeper. Between us we caught maybe 40-45 gills. The weirdest statistic, we caught 16 bass, 8 apiece. None of the bass were respectable, all 5-10", and it's not unusual to catch an occasional bass while dipping for crappie. When you're crappie fishing and the bass tally is twice the crappie count, that's totally weird.

My takeaway......crappie schools just weren't there yet. It was good to be fishing. The catching part will soon get better. Had some very good local craft beers!


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## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> I believe mst saugeye lve 4-6 yeas. I know I read that somewhere


I read recently that it's "rare to see saugeye more than 3 yrs old in most Ohio reservoirs". Makes me wonder how long can saugeye live? With no stocking of saugs since 2010, those toads we see from spillway survived beyond the norm. You'd think numbers that show up in the spillway would dwindle, maybe it already has. Interesting phenomenon.


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## fishwhacker

Zara, perch came on a white split tail, jig in the picture was leftover from a previous fisherman. Southside perch so the trend continues. In fact all 5-6 i have caught in the last couple years were southsiders.


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## RMK

Sunday mid day I was able to make my fist soft water outing of the year 130pm to 3 pm. Water very muddy and 40 at ramp. Headed to clean water. Found that. I was able to see jumbo shad zillas cruising 10 to 12 inches below the surface. Water temp 41 in the back of the clean channel. Started of casting a rocky point hoping fish may be staging there or at least holding over it while roaming. First cast on the point.... float took off. Only bite I got there and short crappie landed. Continued to fish the shore structure and only one more bite that produced a 10 inch bass. Healthy looking little guy. Water down to 39 by the time I took out.


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## conley14

Ok , i fish St. Mary's every year but i always wait until sometime in April, so my question for all of you that fish there on a regular basis is, when do the crappie really start biting? I have always heard ice out was a great time but it doesn't seem anyone is catching much right now so when do you all predict the action will heat up?


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## fishwhacker

conley14 said:


> Ok , i fish St. Mary's every year but i always wait until sometime in April, so my question for all of you that fish there on a regular basis is, when do the crappie really start biting? I have always heard ice out was a great time but it doesn't seem anyone is catching much right now so when do you all predict the action will heat up?


To me it all depends on stable weather, muddy water or cold fronts this time of year make it tough. If you get 4 or 5 days of no rain and a gradual warmup this time of year can be great especially since they are schooled together. Early May is usually the prime time in my opinion for shallow water, but you might have to keep moving to find them as they arent so tight together. Then again, i mainly target gills so i would trust zara,rmk,mike and the other regular posters over me.


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## fishwhacker

Got out for a couple hrs yesterday until my fishing partner wanted to go home and watch power rangers. Found a few gills and some short crappies. Bite seemed slow as i talked to a lot of anglers and no one seemed to be catching. It was wierd considering everyone seemed to be on them earlier in the week.


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## zaraspook

I fished Friday late afternoon and Saturday morning plus a short spell mid-afternoon. Crappie catching is not good. Must keep in mind my channel was locked up all winter until a week ago Thursday.......roughly 10 days. Water is freaking cold, 40.6 degrees Saturday. That's actually down a degree since previous Saturday! My bet is the main lake is a couple degrees warmer. My place is about 300 yards back from main lake. No creeks pushing warmer water into it. It takes a while to equalize channel temp with main lake and give baitfish and predator fish a reason to migrate to my seawall. That's probably a couple weeks away. Until then in my channel it's scattered fish, mostly small ones, slow improvement. 

On the other hand channels that are shorter ones are great targets to get into the schools of active fish, and bigger fish. That's been going on for a couple of weeks. Almost daily you hear reports of good catches in channels that are shorter ones, or in spots near main lake. Schools of crappie and swarms of anglers are there making good catches in open water.

In my channel I caught 3 short crappie Friday, all on popsicle color. Saturday morning my first fish was a good keeper followed by 2 shorties, first 2 were on popsicle. Returned to fishing at 2pm until 3:30. In a slightly better bite caught 5 but only the last one a keeper at 11". Catching 8 is hardly an explosion in the bite, but hadn't done better than 7 since ice out. Last 6 crappie were caught on Monkey Milk. Gills and small bass will keep you attentive between crappie bites. Must have been a good LMB spawn last year. I've caught at least a dozen 5-9" bass in the last 10 days.


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## zaraspook

Our occasional "perch" discussion has new data. I'm aware of one perch caught last week to add to the northside score sheet. South side gets a bump as well, but not one that I personally witnessed, nor have a photo, nor do I know someone who witnessed the catch. The claim was a limit of 30 perch earlier in March, southside location, caught on a tiny bait that looked like a miniature Johnson Silver Minnow spoon but no taller than an M&M peanut candy. The guy tipped with the heads of small minnows. He fished it under bobber but swims the bait similar to the way I slowly swim my crappie plastics (bobber never touches the water). While fishing I run into this guy 4-5 times a month. He's one hell of a crappie fisherman and I've seen him catch a few perch from time to time. We fished together for 30 minutes last Friday, got talking about perch, and he made his claim and showed me the spoon. I lean toward believing his story but never saw evidence of it. I'd guess there are a lot of ice jigs out there that would look similar to his spoon.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Our occasional "perch" discussion has new data. I'm aware of one perch caught last week to add to the northside score sheet. South side gets a bump as well, but not one that I personally witnessed, nor have a photo, nor do I know someone who witnessed the catch. The claim was a limit of 30 perch earlier in March, southside location, caught on a tiny bait that looked like a miniature Johnson Silver Minnow spoon but no taller than an M&M peanut candy. The guy tipped with the heads of small minnows. He fished it under bobber but swims the bait similar to the way I slowly swim my crappie plastics (bobber never touches the water). While fishing I run into this guy 4-5 times a month. He's one hell of a crappie fisherman and I've seen him catch a few perch from time to time. We fished together for 30 minutes last Friday, got talking about perch, and he made his claim and showed me the spoon. I lean toward believing his story but never saw evidence of it. I'd guess there are a lot of ice jigs out there that would look similar to his spoon.


If it really happened this is the time of year I can see it happening


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> If it really happened this is the time of year I can see it happening


Right on, Saugfish. Majority of my limited GLSM stumble my way Feb-April. With no open water for me to dunk a bait from Feb to mid-March, half my perch prime time was wiped out. I need time with a wet line to find a few. It's now or probably never.


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## zaraspook

3-5pm fishing at GLSM Tuesday. Best news was water temp at 44.5 degrees! First cast keeper was an encouraging start. Not as sweet thereafter ending with 7 crappies caught, 2 keepers and 3 small bass. Last 40 minutes action vanished. One keeper crappie came on Bobby Garland Bluegrass color Itty Bit. All others caught on Monkey Milk shad stinger by Southern Pro. Better days ahead, for sure.....


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> 3-5pm fishing at GLSM Tuesday. Best news was water temp at 44.5 degrees! First cast keeper was an encouraging start. Not as sweet thereafter ending with 7 crappies caught, 2 keepers and 3 small bass. Last 40 minutes action vanished. One keeper crappie came on Bobby Garland Bluegrass color Itty Bit. All others caught on Monkey Milk shad stinger by Southern Pro. Better days ahead, for sure.....


Some bites better then no bites,wtg!
Hoping this rain holds off,was hoping to dip docks saterday


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## ohiostrutter

zaraspook said:


> 3-5pm fishing at GLSM Tuesday. Best news was water temp at 44.5 degrees! First cast keeper was an encouraging start. Not as sweet thereafter ending with 7 crappies caught, 2 keepers and 3 small bass. Last 40 minutes action vanished. One keeper crappie came on Bobby Garland Bluegrass color Itty Bit. All others caught on Monkey Milk shad stinger by Southern Pro. Better days ahead, for sure.....


Interesting Zara. I have also been having luck with the itty bitty shads this late winter early spring. Catching fish 10:1 over other plastics. Color hasn’t seemed to matter much. Using monkey milk a lot.


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## Lowell H Turner

you cant catch them sitting at home...


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## zaraspook

ohiostrutter said:


> Interesting Zara. I have also been having luck with the itty bitty shads this late winter early spring. Catching fish 10:1 over other plastics. Color hasn’t seemed to matter much. Using monkey milk a lot.


Taken me years to figure out that that if my normal plastics aren't working, go to a small bait. Most bass guys know if bite isn't there, downsize and finesse fish. Same philosophy works for crappie, although nothing works 100% of time. Surprising how those Itty Bits can catch big crappie. I have 2 colors of them but none in Monkey Milk.


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## zaraspook

43 degree water temp early Weds morning. Didn't check it later in day but might have cracked 45. As long as it keeps inching up, that's ok. In less you run into a school in the channels, fish are difficult to locate and high percentage are dinks.

My fishing from bank was 9:30-11am and a 2nd session for close to 2 hours mid-afternoon. Water is still stained but clarity is decent without the suspended chlorophyll that comes with summer. Bite was better early session with 7 crappie, 2 keepers. Actually 3 were legal and 2 more of the 5-8" bass that are prolific this spring. In the afternoon I hiked a distance to another nearby channel. Muddier water conditions than my channel. Caught 2 there, one an 11" female with a obvious egg bulge. She was definitely the heaviest crappie I landed so far this year. Photo attached. She's a little dirty from laying in the grass while I tried to locate my phone. Hiked back to my place and caught 2 more crappie, both dinks. I quit when I'd caught 7 gills in a row on 7 consecutive casts. Tha's my biggest issue with Itty Bit plastics.......gills like that smaller bait a lot.
Day ended with 9 crappie, 3 keepers. 7 of the crappie on Monkey Milk shad body, 2 crappie on Itty Bit bluegrass pattern. The 2 small bass and 7 gills helped fill my time while I'm waiting on the crappie bite to warm up. It's coming.......


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## dcool

Zara, I was fishing a private club yesterday and did basically the same as you. I was using a one inch black and chartreuse tube and the small gills and small crappie wouldn't leave it alone. I did manage to catch two very nice crappie though, but they were far and few between. With this rain and warm weather coming the bite should start heating up. Lets hope!


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## zaraspook

dcool said:


> Zara, I was fishing a private club yesterday and did basically the same as you. I was using a one inch black and chartreuse tube and the small gills and small crappie wouldn't leave it alone. I did manage to catch two very nice crappie though, but they were far and few between. With this rain and warm weather coming the bite should start heating up. Lets hope!


dcool........Appreciate the feedback that you found similar bite and results. Protects the ego!


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## Saugeyefisher

Not my report but my friend dipped some docks yesterday for 2 hours before we met up to saugeye fish. He caught 9. 7 being 10"+. The only detail I know is targeting docks and metal lifts from 4-6pm in a large cove.
I have only chased them the one time the first part of march out here on buckeye. Every free day I get is either post front,or windy/rainy. Wanted to go this morning but decided to fish saugeyes late into last nite with out much to show for,for myself. 
So far next weekends looking better for me and my kayak.. one good thing is the we have a full lake finally. After 4 years. This will open up more bank fishing for both saugeye and crappies when theres to much wind for the kayak......
Here's to better crappie catching days.


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## zaraspook

Great to hear the B-eye is running full!


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## zaraspook

Rolled into my GLSM place at 1pm Saturday. First item was to check out water temp. Yay.......48.7! Channel temp is about even with main lake temp which a neighbor told me was 49. Wet line at 1:30pm. First crappie was a short one and only one in the first 30 minutes. And, after another hour spread out at 4 spots on my walking tour, that first crappie was still my only one. Trotted back into shelter for a late lunch and to get out of my soaking wet pants. I was wearing my rain gear, jacket only, and soaked down below from steady rain.

Despite catching only one in the first session, I had quite a few bites at the initial spot I fished. Fish just weren't eating the bait (Monkey Milk baby shad). About 4:30 with a brief lull in the rain, headed back to first spot with a change in tactics. This time I carried only the rod rigged with the BG Itty Bit. Should mention my jig on that rig is only 1/64 oz. It was a fun 90 minutes. Caught 13 crappie. Only 3 keepers in the bucket but a 10" to go with a pair of 11's is decent.

Downsize, slow down, and finesse them! That 64th oz jig forces you to slow down. Bite is coming......wont be long but water temp is headed down for a couple days.


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## zaraspook

Sunday I went back at crappie again. It was cold and wind downright nasty. Early AM session produced 8 crappie, 4 keepers. Those all caught on Monkey Milk baby shad. Mid-day session #2 started ok, but bite faded within 45 minutes after catching 6. Downsized to Itty Bit plastic on 1/64 oz jighead. Very tough bait to fish in that wind but made it work and finished session#2 with another 8 caught. 14 for the session but only 2 keepers. Thought I was done for the day - even put my rods away. 4pm got the urge to try again. Went back to the Monkey Milk baby shad and added 3 more keeper crappie among the 9 I caught in session #3.

Caught 31 crappie for the day and 9 keepers. Both numbers were the best so far this year in the 3 weeks since ice disappeared. I'm fishing 24-30" deep in 3-5' of water. Though water temp probably cooled Sunday night and Monday, too, rest of this week should recover the loss and tack on 4-5 degrees. It's normal to catch short ones in my channel early spring. Bigger fish will come in slowly. We're on the up-slope to better days.......


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## Saugeyefisher

Good job on the #'s zara!


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Good job on the #'s zara!


Same basic theme on Weds. Made it to GLSM late morning and wet a line at 11am. Caught 14 in 90 minutes. 3 of first 5 were keepers, but only one more keeper from next 9. Did lunch then tried again about 2:30. 18 more crappie with just 1 keeper. Did a 3rd session around 5:30. 19 crappie for 1 keeper. Dang good day to pull 51 crappie but puny to yield only 6 keepers.

Last 5 years were all excellent ones for quality of fish. Lot of guys were complaining last fall about both quantity and quality. I didn't really notice much difference until I looked at my fall log. Percentage of keepers was off. DNR's netting numbers last year said overall numbers were off, quality still good. My catches suggest poor quality, however, it's not unusual for me to catch high percentage of dinks until water warms in my channel. Won't lose any sleep over it.....not like I can control what's there to be caught.


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## RMK

zara.... care to elaborate on the DNR's netting numbers. i didnt hear about them or see them. "numbers were off"- total number of crappie down? i saw reports from indian last year, from fisherman not dnr, about great quality of fish. i've only made one trip over there this year and didnt do any good but plan to put a little more effort into that lake for crappie this year. i m not saying anything bad about GLSM but i have heard that lakes go in cycles for crappie. and i ll also add my fishing partner caught a handful of keepers including an 11, 12, and 13 in a short time frame from shore earlier this week.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> zara.... care to elaborate on the DNR's netting numbers. i didnt hear about them or see them. "numbers were off"- total number of crappie down? i saw reports from indian last year, from fisherman not dnr, about great quality of fish. i've only made one trip over there this year and didnt do any good but plan to put a little more effort into that lake for crappie this year. i m not saying anything bad about GLSM but i have heard that lakes go in cycles for crappie. and i ll also add my fishing partner caught a handful of keepers including an 11, 12, and 13 in a short time frame from shore earlier this week.


Fishing buddy heard from hatchery guys that netting guys indicated overall crappie population was down, still good numbers of 12" fish. No really specific numbers on population. However, while I struggle with nothing but dinks, plenty of guys are doing fine. One fishing friend pulled 15 keepers each of last 3 days. Fishing should be fine, just not the easy pickings and great size of last few years. We have plenty of small ones to refill the pipe line. I know that first hand!


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## zaraspook

Needed to leave GLSM by noon, so just a morning session Thursday. Don't think I mentioned Weds water temp was back under 44 degrees, dropping from almost 49 on Saturday. Temp today at 47.5. Channels are probably withing 1-2 degrees of main lake now. Last year on April 4 water temp was 42 degrees. I caught 2 crappie that day. Last April was dang cold, I think like 3rd coldest on record, so what I'm I whining about? Water is significantly warmer than last year, I'm catching more fish, life is good.

At 9:30 this morning I walk to my hot crappie spot. From a distance I see a car and recognize the car leaving the property. Not good. Car belongs to a very good crappie guy. Homeowner tells me the guy had been there about an hour and a half. Nuts! He's not the kind guy you want to follow on a decent crappie hole........

Caught 8 in 45 minutes. One keeper, chunky 11 incher. About the same keeper ratio I've been getting lately. Could have been worse! No whining. I'm smiling.


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## Saugeyefisher

The struggle was real this morning on buckeye! Dipped docks and rocks for 4 hours this morning. 20 minutes in a skinny channel. But it was chocolate milk. Pulled the kayak an drove to the other end to a big wide cove with more normal clarity. Fished small baits,big baits,fast slow,shallow deep. Not one crappie.... the last two hours I down sized an pulled out the waxworms to save the trip. Caught a dozen small gills,3 8-14"bass,1 keeper perch,and two keeper gills,and 2 more dink perch on a black ratso om a 1/64 oz head 20" below a float. Every single one of my bites came on a wood sea wall or cement sea wall. Not the typical metal sea wall. 
Keeper perch was a female full of eggs,wanted to release her,but nicked a gill getting the swallowed bait back. An had her out of the water to long.
Soooooo hopefully I'll add to it tomarrow....


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## zaraspook

My 8 year-old grandson was on spring break this week. We normally do a day or two at GLSM. This one would be short. My shoulder therapy mid-morning on Friday means a late start. Plus, grandson Max has baseball practice at 11 AM......an hour and a half from the lake. I'm sure many have already learned this lesson......when it comes to your grandkids, take whatever you can get. 

Arrived at lake at 2pm. Quickly we grabbed our rods and briskly walked to the spot we had in mind. Stopped to chat for a few minutes to the homeowner of the spot. He warned me his brother-in-law had been camped on the site for 2 hours early morning. Told Max not to worry. His brother in law is a gill guy. He may catch a few crappies in the mix, but normally the little ones. Took a few steps toward the fishing hole and the homeowner said "Oh, one more thing......". He added that a guy we both know had been there, too, and only just left. That guy is a butt-kicker with crappie.

Don't know if the crappies were all caught, or had stinging lips from another person's hook, or maybe the bite sucked all day. Max got the first one, a keeper within 5 minutes. In the next 10 minutes I picked up 2, both short. Then it was virtually silent for 30 minutes, no bites. Max's attention span was waning......we were already at his 45 minute threshold. I persuaded him to try one more spot, also a dead zone that day. 7 minutes and Max was done. Fishing was over for the day. We worked on his throwing and catching for quite a while (longer than he fished!). Then moved on to his BB gun......a big hit with him and 2.5 hours. It was a good time. 

Fishing got another look Saturday at 8am. I caught 2 quick ones and put Max on the spot I was fishing. I moved to where he had fished and caught 2 more quick ones..........that didn't make him feel any better. He moved to my spot again.....zero. In the meantime I moved 30 feet and caught 2 more. Finally, Max got into and landed a decent gill, but we'd reached his 45 minute ceiling and fishing was done. We packed up, cleaned up and headed to baseball practice. 

As we drove Max told me we hadn't been at the lake even 24 hours.......19.5 hours to be exact. Said he had fun, especially the BB gun and passing ball. "We need to do it again for a longer stay" he said. His grand dad is beaming!


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## conley14

zaraspook said:


> My 8 year-old grandson was on spring break this week. We normally do a day or two at GLSM. This one would be short. My shoulder therapy mid-morning on Friday means a late start. Plus, grandson Max has baseball practice at 11 AM......an hour and a half from the lake. I'm sure many have already learned this lesson......when it comes to your grandkids, take whatever you can get.
> 
> Arrived at lake at 2pm. Quickly we grabbed our rods and briskly walked to the spot we had in mind. Stopped to chat for a few minutes to the homeowner of the spot. He warned me his brother-in-law had been camped on the site for 2 hours early morning. Told Max not to worry. His brother in law is a gill guy. He may catch a few crappies in the mix, but normally the little ones. Took a few steps toward the fishing hole and the homeowner said "Oh, one more thing......". He added that a guy we both know had been there, too, and only just left. That guy is a butt-kicker with crappie.
> 
> Don't know if the crappies were all caught, or had stinging lips from another person's hook, or maybe the bite sucked all day. Max got the first one, a keeper within 5 minutes. In the next 10 minutes I picked up 2, both short. Then it was virtually silent for 30 minutes, no bites. Max's attention span was waning......we were already at his 45 minute threshold. I persuaded him to try one more spot, also a dead zone that day. 7 minutes and Max was done. Fishing was over for the day. We worked on his throwing and catching for quite a while (longer than he fished!). Then moved on to his BB gun......a big hit with him and 2.5 hours. It was a good time.
> 
> Fishing got another look Saturday at 8am. I caught 2 quick ones and put Max on the spot I was fishing. I moved to where he had fished and caught 2 more quick ones..........that didn't make him feel any better. He moved to my spot again.....zero. In the meantime I moved 30 feet and caught 2 more. Finally, Max got into and landed a decent gill, but we'd reached his 45 minute ceiling and fishing was done. We packed up, cleaned up and headed to baseball practice.
> 
> As we drove Max told me we hadn't been at the lake even 24 hours.......19.5 hours to be exact. Said he had fun, especially the BB gun and passing ball. "We need to do it again for a longer stay" he said. His grand dad is beaming!





zaraspook said:


> My 8 year-old grandson was on spring break this week. We normally do a day or two at GLSM. This one would be short. My shoulder therapy mid-morning on Friday means a late start. Plus, grandson Max has baseball practice at 11 AM......an hour and a half from the lake. I'm sure many have already learned this lesson......when it comes to your grandkids, take whatever you can get.
> 
> Arrived at lake at 2pm. Quickly we grabbed our rods and briskly walked to the spot we had in mind. Stopped to chat for a few minutes to the homeowner of the spot. He warned me his brother-in-law had been camped on the site for 2 hours early morning. Told Max not to worry. His brother in law is a gill guy. He may catch a few crappies in the mix, but normally the little ones. Took a few steps toward the fishing hole and the homeowner said "Oh, one more thing......". He added that a guy we both know had been there, too, and only just left. That guy is a butt-kicker with crappie.
> 
> Don't know if the crappies were all caught, or had stinging lips from another person's hook, or maybe the bite sucked all day. Max got the first one, a keeper within 5 minutes. In the next 10 minutes I picked up 2, both short. Then it was virtually silent for 30 minutes, no bites. Max's attention span was waning......we were already at his 45 minute threshold. I persuaded him to try one more spot, also a dead zone that day. 7 minutes and Max was done. Fishing was over for the day. We worked on his throwing and catching for quite a while (longer than he fished!). Then moved on to his BB gun......a big hit with him and 2.5 hours. It was a good time.
> 
> Fishing got another look Saturday at 8am. I caught 2 quick ones and put Max on the spot I was fishing. I moved to where he had fished and caught 2 more quick ones..........that didn't make him feel any better. He moved to my spot again.....zero. In the meantime I moved 30 feet and caught 2 more. Finally, Max got into and landed a decent gill, but we'd reached his 45 minute ceiling and fishing was done. We packed up, cleaned up and headed to baseball practice.
> 
> As we drove Max told me we hadn't been at the lake even 24 hours.......19.5 hours to be exact. Said he had fun, especially the BB gun and passing ball. "We need to do it again for a longer stay" he said. His grand dad is beaming!


Do you know what the water temp. was today?


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## firemanmike2127

I saw 50.4 @ the West Bank basin this morning. The main lake was just a bit cooler. No fishing report though....I was conducting watercraft training with some of our personnel. Mike


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> The struggle was real this morning on buckeye! Dipped docks and rocks for 4 hours this morning. 20 minutes in a skinny channel. But it was chocolate milk. Pulled the kayak an drove to the other end to a big wide cove with more normal clarity. Fished small baits,big baits,fast slow,shallow deep. Not one crappie.... the last two hours I down sized an pulled out the waxworms to save the trip. Caught a dozen small gills,3 8-14"bass,1 keeper perch,and two keeper gills,and 2 more dink perch on a black ratso om a 1/64 oz head 20" below a float. Every single one of my bites came on a wood sea wall or cement sea wall. Not the typical metal sea wall.
> Keeper perch was a female full of eggs,wanted to release her,but nicked a gill getting the swallowed bait back. An had her out of the water to long.
> Soooooo hopefully I'll add to it tomarrow....
> View attachment 300207
> View attachment 300209


Perch is so fat it looks deformed!


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## Hortance

Saugeyefisher said:


> The struggle was real this morning on buckeye! Dipped docks and rocks for 4 hours this morning. 20 minutes in a skinny channel. But it was chocolate milk. Pulled the kayak an drove to the other end to a big wide cove with more normal clarity. Fished small baits,big baits,fast slow,shallow deep. Not one crappie.... the last two hours I down sized an pulled out the waxworms to save the trip. Caught a dozen small gills,3 8-14"bass,1 keeper perch,and two keeper gills,and 2 more dink perch on a black ratso om a 1/64 oz head 20" below a float. Every single one of my bites came on a wood sea wall or cement sea wall. Not the typical metal sea wall.
> Keeper perch was a female full of eggs,wanted to release her,but nicked a gill getting the swallowed bait back. An had her out of the water to long.
> Soooooo hopefully I'll add to it tomarrow....
> View attachment 300207
> View attachment 300209


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## Hortance

Thought I'd add my trips to Loramie here, next to your Buckeye stuff, on this GLSM thread...
The bite for crappie was very good two weekends ago up the creeks on Loramie, and again earlier last week after work.

Seems like the shallower lakes with shallow feeders...like GLSM and Loramie get good earlier than other local lakes.

Loramie wasn't great yesterday but I was still able to force a few fish by moving a lot and being flexible on species....

Yesterday I went up and worked the West banks of the Minster channel from 7am to 1pm. East wind, some light rain, wind was bad....still caught two nice keeper white crappies (10" each) before the wind kicked up, earlier, before 8 am, on minnows under a bobber...also caught 3 nice catfish and the bluegills (caught 3 decent ones) are starting to pick their spots. Had two that I seriously worked for a half hour apiece...holed up under structure w/in 2 ft of shore, they'd nip my jigged bait or jigs; I'd get irritated and switch baits & switch tactics until I could land them...key point is that the bluegills are sitting on structure and defending a spot, so its "on" for Spring 2019. 
Good luck to all.


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## james.

Only had one hour to fish while the wife took the kid to dance. 9 keepers all 11 threw 13inchs only got 2 short fish I'll have more time tomorrow


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## Acton Angler

Capsized boat and a deceased victim on Acton Lake this afternoon, my home lake. Please be safe on the water!
https://www.whio.com/news/local/boa...s-lake/YTltij0eGPFh8f8126HQEP/?icmp=cb_widget


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## zaraspook

GLSM fishing Sunday starting at 11:30 am. Fished at least 2.5 hours off and on. 3 bites the entire time. Water temp 52 degrees. Skunkaroo! It was as if I was fishing the Dead Sea. Not even an Itty Bit could save me from stinking it up.

Monday morning went back at it, another 2.5 hours total before leaving early afternoon. Caught 12, 6 keepers. Biggest was 12.25" and definitely a lady. She's my biggest of the Spring so far. It wasn't exactly good action but felt I was on a different planet compared to Sunday. Caught about 1/2 on Monkey Milk Baby Shad and other 1/2 on a white grub body with chartreuse stinger tail.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> GLSM fishing Sunday starting at 11:30 am. Fished at least 2.5 hours off and on. 3 bites the entire time. Water temp 52 degrees. Skunkaroo! It was as if I was fishing the Dead Sea. Not even an Itty Bit could save me from stinking it up.
> 
> Monday morning went back at it, another 2.5 hours total before leaving early afternoon. Caught 12, 6 keepers. Biggest was 12.25" and definitely a lady. She's my biggest of the Spring so far. It wasn't exactly good action but felt I was on a different planet compared to Sunday. Caught about 1/2 on Monkey Milk Baby Shad and other 1/2 on a white grub body with chartreuse stinger tail.
> View attachment 300783


Good to here I'm not the only one to struggle Sunday! I tried redeeming myself for saterdays blah trip. Lol,nope! A few gills,1 caught crappie 8". The highlight of the trip was a buckeye newbie got a nice 22" saugeye why bass fishing. The horrifying part of the trip was losing the biggest crappie I've ever seen trying to lift her in the boat. I've struggled to get past the 14-1/2-3/4" mark. But have caught alot of of them up to that size. This was a buetifull white crappie. A really dark green. She bumped my kayak after trying to flip her in.... I will be keeping a small net on me for now on. Funny fish for 4-6 hours for one 8" crappie then boom hook into "the one" I have not shaken so hard over a fish in a while..... 
Oh well had some fun in another lake today,but will leave that in it's own thread,since theres no real similarities between this lake and glsm, an already posted about it once....
.

Zara nice redemption trip Monday! Hope that big female is a sign of things to come for you!


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Good to here I'm not the only one to struggle Sunday! I tried redeeming myself for saterdays blah trip. Lol,nope! A few gills,1 caught crappie 8". The highlight of the trip was a buckeye newbie got a nice 22" saugeye why bass fishing. The horrifying part of the trip was
> Oh well had some fun in another lake today,but will leave that in it's own thread,since theres no real similarities between this lake and glsm, an already posted about it once....
> .
> 
> Zara nice redemption trip Monday! Hope that big female is a sign of things to come for you!


Saugfish.......maybe you get a shot at that pig another day! My biggest is 15" at GLSM but weird I've never caught a 14". And weird that the 15" I caught was a white which are really in the minority at GLSM. 

Me and a friend from elementary school days are planning to fish GLSM Friday and Saturday. As normal when we fish, the weather is going south. Not that it matters.........


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## fishwhacker

Got out right at dusk tonight and the crappie bite felt like it should be there so strayed from my bluegillin on 1 pole and ended up catching 6 slabs and 8 gills on monkey milk. Wish daylight would have held on awhile longer.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Got out right at dusk tonight and the crappie bite felt like it should be there so strayed from my bluegillin on 1 pole and ended up catching 6 slabs and 8 gills on monkey milk. Wish daylight would have held on awhile longer.
> View attachment 301361
> View attachment 301363


Nice!


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## zaraspook

High school buddy made a 4 hour drive to join me for a weekend of crappie fishing at GLSM. Started at 2pm Friday. Interesting afternoon and evening it was. Pretty lively bite as I caught 30 and buddy wasn't far behind at 25. Keeping with the spring trend in my southside channel, those 55 crappie yielded a meager 10 keepers. 60% were females when we cleaned them. Seems to me that's a bit out of kilter. In recent past it's been mostly males we catch this early.......70%. Just odd and wondered if anyone else noticed similar experience. Biggest of the group was 12.25". She was loaded with eggs, which didn't look "ready" but what do I know? I caught her in 18" of water, backend of a channel.

Saturday my buddy caught 36 to my 28. We had 8 in the bucket but weren't keeping anything shorter than 10.5". Sunday morning the weather wasn't anywhere near as bad as weather forecasters guessed. Much slower bite it seemed but 11 for me and 9 for fishing partner. 3 keepers apiece. If you add up the numbers we caught 139 crappie. He skinned me......70-69 . It was fun. He celebrated his victory with a spur of the moment purchase of a scratch off lottery card. Yes, it was a winner for $10,000! For real!

Water temp in general was 53 degrees in the morning and 57 degrees late afternoon. I took my boat up but we didn't use it........all fishing from bank. My partner in crime caught all his fish on a small stinger I provided, white grub body and chartreuse tail, 1/32 oz sickle jig, 30-36" under bobber in water 3.5-4.5'. 60% of my fish were pulled on same stinger bait, it's been a hot one for last 2 weeks. Other 40% of my catch came on Monkey Milk shad bodies, a standby pattern for me of the last year and half. Both of us will attest to the fact 6" crappies are widely abundant. Not great news for this spring, will be helpful this fall, and those high number of 6 inchers is a great omen for next 2020-2021. Spawn is a few weeks away........let the good bite roll!


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## Saugeyefisher

What a weekend! 70 crappies and a 10,000$ bonus!!!!!


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> He celebrated his victory with a spur of the moment purchase of a scratch off lottery card. Yes, it was a winner for $10,000! For real!


I bet you get a lot of PM's from guys wanting to fish with you


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## fished-out

Fish?? I want to take him to a casino like a big rabbits foot! Just rub his head like Aladdins lamp!


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## zaraspook

fished-out said:


> Fish?? I want to take him to a casino like a big rabbits foot! Just rub his head like Aladdins lamp!


Haha. That's hilarious!


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## RMK

Took a little trip down to Tennessee close to Nashville. Old Hickory. We did ok. Seemed like the fish were just starting to come shallow. Caught mostly whites in one end of the lake and blacks in the other. Nice getting in on a little spawning action down there. Here are some pictures for you while we wait for it to happen here.


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## fished-out

No need to go to Tenn; Fish are hitting now. These are from 3 different lakes, caught last week. Caught some big early males too, sporting a bit of color, but the females were the story, maybe 60% of the catch.


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## fishforlife

RMK said:


> Took a little trip down to Tennessee close to Nashville. Old Hickory. We did ok. Seemed like the fish were just starting to come shallow. Caught mostly whites in one end of the lake and blacks in the other. Nice getting in on a little spawning action down there. Here are some pictures for you while we wait for it to happen here.
> View attachment 301763
> View attachment 301765
> View attachment 301767
> View attachment 301769


nice fish looks like fun see you on st marys !! good luck


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM to fish the afternoon bite on Tuesday and morning bite today (Weds). 
Water temp 53 both days. Within 20 minutes I suspected and later confirmed a significant change........gone were all those 1-year old 6 inch crappies that padded my numbers for 3-4 weeks. Either pushed out by bigger fish or maybe scared off by pike as a local crappie legend tells it, it's no longer 10 to one short crappie to keeper. The price you pay for it........action is slow but keeper rate more like normal. I caught 12 which produced 6 keepers on Tuesday afternoon. Most of the short ones were 8" fish rather than 6".

Weds was similar. Another OGF guy joined me for a couple hours in the AM. We caught 4 apiece......those 8 produced 5 keepers including a 12.25". I guess it was a male. It was hefty, thick but no bulge of developing eggs. Just before departing for home in early afternoon I tried again for 35 minutes. Caught 4 more, one sole keeper but a chunk 11"+. Definitely a better class of fish ruling the waters. Transition should continue, more big'uns on the way soon. Likely 2 weeks, maybe 3 and folks will be saying "spawn is on!". It means catching more fish as population migrates to the shallows. Fun times just around the corner!


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## CHOPIQ

Zara, funny you mention it about the pike. My dad was fishing GLSM at Harmons Tuesday afternoon and did not have one crappie bite, but he did catch a 27" pike. Only bite he had the whole afternoon.


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## zaraspook

CHOPIQ said:


> Zara, funny you mention it about the pike. My dad was fishing GLSM at Harmons Tuesday afternoon and did not have one crappie bite, but he did catch a 27" pike. Only bite he had the whole afternoon.


That's cool. I usually catch 1 pike each spring. None so far this year but caught 2 last spring. Heard a report that in bass tourney in last 2 weeks an angler caught 12 lb pike. Not that I doubt the report, but have no proof either way. The guy who mentioned it to me said the fish was caught at Club Island.


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## firemanmike2127

Club island would be prime spawning habitat for a pike. Plenty of forage in that part of the lake as well. Mike


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## CHOPIQ

Here's a pic of my dad's pike he caught Tuesday night


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## zaraspook

CHOPIQ said:


> Zara, funny you mention it about the pike. My dad was fishing GLSM at Harmons Tuesday afternoon and did not have one crappie bite, but he did catch a 27" pike. Only bite he had the whole afternoon.


Maybe the lack of crappie bites was due to the presence of the pike?


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## zaraspook

DNR data says GLSM grows them bigger, faster. Comments?




  








GLSM vs State Crappie Size




__
zaraspook


__
Apr 19, 2019




GLSM vs State Crappie Size


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## crappie4me

zaraspook said:


> DNR data says GLSM grows them bigger, faster. Comments?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> GLSM vs State Crappie Size
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> zaraspook
> 
> 
> __
> Apr 19, 2019
> 
> 
> 
> 
> GLSM vs State Crappie Size


 with some of the slabs you catch im inclined to believe it.


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## fishwhacker

Thats incredible only 2 years old and they pass the 9 inch mark. Wonder why they grow bigger, extra algae lol


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## zaraspook

crappie4me.....you made my day! Thanks.


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## RMK

fishwhacker said:


> Thats incredible only 2 years old and they pass the 9 inch mark. Wonder why they grow bigger, extra algae lol


That water isn't green from lack of nutrients!


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Thats incredible only 2 years old and they pass the 9 inch mark. Wonder why they grow bigger, extra algae lol


fw.......some rumblings out there State might consider raising GLSM minimum size limit to 10". On average crappie reach 9" size to harvest before they reach reproductive age. Size limit change to protect some of those new breeders. Remarkable!

For sure an outstanding growth rate points to abundance of food to eat. Heavy shad population has to rank way up on the list of favorable factors. Undoubtedly, shad/forage fish also behind the success of saugeyes in GLSM, as well as lake's reputation as solid channel cat lake.


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## crappiedude

Like crappie4me said you get sure post a lot of pics of some pretty nice fish. Compared to East Fork, Rocky Fork, Paint Creek and Cowan Lake (where I normally fish) you seem to get a pretty high percentage of 12"+ fish.
Obviously it takes a good forage base to allow such good growth rates but our lakes down here seem to have plenty of food too so I would think there is more to it than just the shad. My guess is that the consistently nutrient rich water helps get the fry a good kick start when they start out even before they can eat shad. EF has some nasty algae blooms too but it's not every year so who knows.
I often wonder about the effects of size limits though. Personally I only keep 10" fish so a 9" limit doesn't affect me but I often wonder about the 30 fish limit. I think that's way too high. I'd much rather see them do away with the size limit all together but drop the daily limit to 15 fish. If someone is happy with 7-8" fish, why encourage them to take 9-10" fish? It will allow some people to keep small fish but I don't think the majority of people will be interested in keeping them. Especially with todays electronics, there just isn't anywhere for fish to hide anymore.
Taylorsville lake in Ky is similar to EF and a few years ago they added a 10", 15 fish limit and the lake has responded very well and it's putting up some nice fish these days.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Like crappie4me said you get sure post a lot of pics of some pretty nice fish. Compared to East Fork, Rocky Fork, Paint Creek and Cowan Lake (where I normally fish) you seem to get a pretty high percentage of 12"+ fish.
> Obviously it takes a good forage base to allow such good growth rates but our lakes down here seem to have plenty of food too so I would think there is more to it than just the shad. My guess is that the consistently nutrient rich water helps get the fry a good kick start when they start out even before they can eat shad. EF has some nasty algae blooms too but it's not every year so who knows.
> I often wonder about the effects of size limits though. Personally I only keep 10" fish so a 9" limit doesn't affect me but I often wonder about the 30 fish limit. I think that's way too high. I'd much rather see them do away with the size limit all together but drop the daily limit to 15 fish. If someone is happy with 7-8" fish, why encourage them to take 9-10" fish? It will allow some people to keep small fish but I don't think the majority of people will be interested in keeping them. Especially with todays electronics, there just isn't anywhere for fish to hide anymore.
> Taylorsville lake in Ky is similar to EF and a few years ago they added a 10", 15 fish limit and the lake has responded very well and it's putting up some nice fish these days.


C-dude......well thought out and you make some great points! I'm fine with 10" minimum and hadn't thought about change from 30 fish limit. I harvest fewer than 50 fish a year. 22 is the most I've ever kept. I suspect my fishing friends would unanimously buy size limit and resist reduction from 30 fish limit.
Regardless, GLSM should not be underestimated as a crappie fishery. Cabela's CrappieUSA tourney is next week 26-27th.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Regardless, GLSM should not be underestimated as a crappie fishery.


I wish I was a little closer, I'd love to give it a try a few time each year.


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## crappie4me

crappiedude said:


> I wish I was a little closer, I'd love to give it a try a few time each year.


me 2.


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## fishwhacker

One thing i never got on limits is why for bluegills they say release the big males so they spawn and for crappies they tell you to keep the bigger ones. Only thing i can think of is if bluegills reach sexual maturity when they are small and can stunt a population and the big gills prevent them from spawning and crappies if taken too early dont get the chance to spawn and the population will decline rather than stunt.....thoughts?


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## brad crappie

fishwhacker said:


> One thing i never got on limits is why for bluegills they say release the big males so they spawn and for crappies they tell you to keep the bigger ones. Only thing i can think of is if bluegills reach sexual maturity when they are small and can stunt a population and the big gills prevent them from spawning and crappies if taken too early dont get the chance to spawn and the population will decline rather than stunt.....thoughts?


Big gills might take 9 years to reach 9 years, u take way to many mature gills that’s when satlite males that’s stunted small gills the opatunity to spawn and spread their bad dna! In the north fish grow slower than the faster south relatives that’s another reason to protect good gill lakes up north! The state told me when I took a petition for gill limits on our good lakes they are in the process of doing it! Gettin to the crappie the lakes with good growth rates if u want bigger fish put a limit on them! St Mary’s needs a 20 or 15 limit and u would see more 13in fish! I fish mosquito , pymy , Lake Erie . Indian , and st Mary’s and any good crappie waters! St Mary’s has great crappie fisherie but I catch a lot bigger fish at these other lakes! I have not fished Indian lately so am not sure about their! Look I fish so much I don’t keep fish to many times any more! I would rather keep 9 to 10 in craps over big ones any time! Better tasting! On the other hand I want gills or perch over crappie for eating but I target crappie the most!


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## zaraspook

Already posted this once. That was about 15 posts ago and recent viewers may have missed the DNR chart comparing GLSM crappie growth rates to rest of state.




  








GLSM vs State Crappie Size




__
zaraspook


__
Apr 19, 2019




GLSM vs State Crappie Size


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## fishwhacker

brad crappie said:


> Big gills might take 9 years to reach 9 years, u take way to many mature gills that’s when satlite males that’s stunted small gills the opatunity to spawn and spread their bad dna! In the north fish grow slower than the faster south relatives that’s another reason to protect good gill lakes up north! The state told me when I took a petition for gill limits on our good lakes they are in the process of doing it! Gettin to the crappie the lakes with good growth rates if u want bigger fish put a limit on them! St Mary’s needs a 20 or 15 limit and u would see more 13in fish! I fish mosquito , pymy , Lake Erie . Indian , and st Mary’s and any good crappie waters! St Mary’s has great crappie fisherie but I catch a lot bigger fish at these other lakes! I have not fished Indian lately so am not sure about their! Look I fish so much I don’t keep fish to many times any more! I would rather keep 9 to 10 in craps over big ones any time! Better tasting! On the other hand I want gills or perch over crappie for eating but I target crappie the most!


Thats what i struggle with, why not cap crappies to say keep 20 to 30 any size smaller than 11 inches and allow 1 ocer 13 inches. to get people to keep the smaller ones but keep a healthy brood stock? Just dont get why the encourage keeping big crappies and releasing big bluegills. Whats the difference between the species? Are big old crappies not as good for the spawn as 3 to 4 year old fish?


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## zaraspook

Gonna fish Monday. Arrived GLSM 8:30pm Sunday. Not enough daylight to fish but I water level definitely bumped up. Measured off my seawall at 57". That's +10" since Weds reading at 47" which is a huge bump for this shallow lake. Will be interesting to see how the CrappieUSA tourney guys handle it Fri - Sat this week.


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## dcool

zaraspook said:


> Gonna fish Monday. Arrived GLSM 8:30pm Sunday. Not enough daylight to fish but I water level definitely bumped up. Measured off my seawall at 57". That's +10" since Weds reading at 47" which is a huge bump for this shallow lake. Will be interesting to see how the CrappieUSA tourney guys handle it Fri - Sat this week.


I also think it will be interesting to see how they do after the weather that we have had. Plan on being there for the weigh in to see what grade fish they are catching.


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## brad crappie

fishwhacker said:


> Thats what i struggle with, why not cap crappies to say keep 20 to 30 any size smaller than 11 inches and allow 1 ocer 13 inches. to get people to keep the smaller ones but keep a healthy brood stock? Just dont get why the encourage keeping big crappies and releasing big bluegills. Whats the difference between the species? Are big old crappies not as good for the spawn as 3 to 4 year old fish?


Same family of species but like I said gills take longer to grow to reach trophy size! Now on your crappie limit that would probably be pretty good! I have heard older fish may produce less eggs! I would say on your crappie limit suggestion that st Mary’s would produce more 14 in fish!! I like it! Big bull gills must be protected!


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## zaraspook

This DNR chart may be tough to read the detail. Netting is done annually in the fall. A zero age fish was born in the year of the netting. One year old fish category was born year prior to netting. Chart on top of page is 2017 netting results. 2018 is the bottom chart.




  








2017 Vs 2018 Netting Comparison




__
zaraspook


__
Apr 22, 2019




GLSM DNR 2017 vs 2018 Crappie Fall crappie netting comparison






First of all, the 2018 chart confirms what most of us witnessed......the number of little crappie was out the ying yang last fall. 8.5-9.5" fish took the biggest hit from 2017 to 2018. But, 10" and bigger population did not really erode. Some of the 10"+ categories on the chart actually improved modestly. That runs contrary to many complaints last fall. The chart suggests bigger fish population really wasn't off. Personally I didn't catch fewer 10-13" fish, but I did catch more little ones. My total fish in fall was up. The increase was in little ones. Therefore, percentage of keepers fell, if that makes sense. 

The 2 charts also show that netting is not necessarily perfect. Maybe subject to the mix of fish size where netted on netting day(s)? Look at explosion in 2018 of 1 year old fish population. Those fish would have been zero age fish in the prior year(2017). But, 2017 chart shows the zero age fish as pretty dismal.....not at a level to produce the 2018 1 year-old explosion. At least that's my interpretation. DNR may have valid explanations.

While that puny 8.5-9.5" 2018 class may degrade the number of 11"+ fish this fall, charts suggest reasons to be optimistic for a few years beyond.


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## RMK

crappiedude said:


> Like crappie4me said you get sure post a lot of pics of some pretty nice fish. Compared to East Fork, Rocky Fork, Paint Creek and Cowan Lake (where I normally fish) you seem to get a pretty high percentage of 12"+ fish.
> Obviously it takes a good forage base to allow such good growth rates but our lakes down here seem to have plenty of food too so I would think there is more to it than just the shad. My guess is that the consistently nutrient rich water helps get the fry a good kick start when they start out even before they can eat shad. EF has some nasty algae blooms too but it's not every year so who knows.
> I often wonder about the effects of size limits though. Personally I only keep 10" fish so a 9" limit doesn't affect me but I often wonder about the 30 fish limit. I think that's way too high. I'd much rather see them do away with the size limit all together but drop the daily limit to 15 fish. If someone is happy with 7-8" fish, why encourage them to take 9-10" fish? It will allow some people to keep small fish but I don't think the majority of people will be interested in keeping them. Especially with todays electronics, there just isn't anywhere for fish to hide anymore.
> Taylorsville lake in Ky is similar to EF and a few years ago they added a 10", 15 fish limit and the lake has responded very well and it's putting up some nice fish these days.


i would be in favor of a 10" 15 fish limit here. i'm not a biologist and dont under stand the populaiton goals as well as the dnr either.


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## RMK

reprot from my partner this morning was a non existant bite. he talked to a couple of GLSM crappie veterans on the water that reproted 2 fish in 2 hours. my friday report was the same. we ll be in the search the rest of the week!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> reprot from my partner this morning was a non existant bite. he talked to a couple of GLSM crappie veterans on the water that reproted 2 fish in 2 hours. my friday report was the same. we ll be in the search the rest of the week!


I fished 90 minutes this morning. Could only stir up one bite and questionable if it was a crappie. Water temp 51.4 degrees. 5 crappie boats down my channel so far today. All were skunked while here.
By tourney time it will be better......they have to eat sometime.


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## Saugeyefisher

RMK said:


> i would be in favor of a 10" 15 fish limit here. i'm not a biologist and dont under stand the populaiton goals as well as the dnr either.


Same here! At least a site specific regulation like that or simaler. There are lakes around that seem to just be full of stunted fish all the time... take one or two lakes in each region an tru to make them "trophy lakes". With stricter regulations. And keep a few lakes with looser 30 fish limits for the guy that only gets out a few times a year. The guys that get to fish every week,or every day,imo a 10-15 fish limit daily is plenty. But there are people out there that cant get out alot and really do benefit from a 30 fish daily limit. 
Idk. I could be wrong. I also know that crappie populations tend to fluctuate in cycles. So things can kinda of ride them self's out on bigger lakes to....


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## rutty

fishwhacker said:


> Thats what i struggle with, why not cap crappies to say keep 20 to 30 any size smaller than 11 inches and allow 1 ocer 13 inches. to get people to keep the smaller ones but keep a healthy brood stock? Just dont get why the encourage keeping big crappies and releasing big bluegills. Whats the difference between the species? Are big old crappies not as good for the spawn as 3 to 4 year old fish?


The older crappies do not spawn as well as the littler fish, the success rate of their eggs being fertile, etc goes down with age. At least that is what I have always been told. Walleye are the same way, not sure on other fish.


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## rutty

zaraspook said:


> I fished 90 minutes this morning. Could only stir up one bite and questionable if it was a crappie. Water temp 51.4 degrees. 5 crappie boats down my channel so far today. All were skunked while here.
> By tourney time it will be better......they have to eat sometime.


I will be fishing the Crappie USA tournament. I am hoping for some stable weather here in the next few days. I am sure I will be down your channel Wednesday or Thursday in practice. There will be guys that find the big fish, they just won't be shallow yet I don't think.


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## fishwhacker

rutty said:


> The older crappies do not spawn as well as the littler fish, the success rate of their eggs being fertile, etc goes down with age. At least that is what I have always been told. Walleye are the same way, not sure on other fish.


So it sounds like bluegill are opposite since they want you to put the older bigger ones back.


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## crappiedude

rutty said:


> I am hoping for some stable weather here in the next few days.


I've been hoping for that since February


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## brad crappie

Rutty just fish the northeast corner it’s been on!


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## zaraspook

Arrived at GLSM at 3:30pm, fished 4-5:30pm, dinner break, then again 7-8pm. Water well stained to muddy southside.....no better than it was 2 days ago. Water level is high though down maybe 4" from Monday. Water temp 53.9 degrees. That's a little warmer than Monday but 2 weeks ago it was 57-58.

Fishing from bank, the first hour smelled just like Monday, Pepe Le Pew, the skunk. 45 minutes with Monkey Milk yielded no bites. 15 minutes with Popsicle did give up one decent bite. No more waiting....time to go small and finesse them within a foot of the bottom which was 5-5.5' down. With a 1/64 oz jig head my BG Bluegrass Itty Bit coaxed 6-7 bites and 3 crappie from the same water I'd pounded for an hour with bigger plastics. All were short, 7" range, but I proved some fish were there, they could see/find the bait, and would eat it if you put it close enough. 

After dinner for the final hour I returned to the same spot. Same jig and Itty Bit found a few bites and the only keeper, a decent 10.5". Yes, conditions are tough. Filling the bucket may not be realistic but you can catch a few by adjusting tactics.

Muddy conditions aren't going anywhere soon. It's raining medium to heavy as I type this Weds evening at 11pm. Forecast says additional 2/3's of an inch Thurs and 1/2 inch coming Friday.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Muddy conditions aren't going anywhere soon. It's raining medium to heavy as I type this Weds evening at 11pm. Forecast says additional 2/3's of an inch Thurs and 1/2 inch coming Friday.


The only good thing about this muddy water is it will help hold the heat on the sunny days. I keep trying to convince myself that every new major rain event will be our last one for this spring and conditions will return to normal soon but then a few days later we get another rain. The other night the weatherman on the local news was saying our normal year to date rainfall total was about 12" and we are at 22".

Surprisingly East Fork, even with the lake being up 7' or so we have normal water color in parts of the lake. With the water being this high the males seem to be holding in the newly flooded shoreline cover and the females are holding offshore 6'-8' deep. The COE has been pulling the lake down about 2' per day this week but the males are staying shallow and some are getting their spawning colors. One of the biggest problems we're having is being able to find a launch ramp that is open. With all this high water most or all of the ramps get closed. Right now most ramps are open but if we get the 2" of predicted rain it could put the lake in the parking lots and the ramps get closed again. Unfortunately shoreline access is poor so it mostly closes the lake in all but a few limited places. I'm really hoping it doesn't get to that...again.

Like you guys I'm looking to see what the Crappie USA guys do. My guess is a few guys will do well fishing in your channels off shoreline cover but holding nearby, waiting for the big dance to start. I would also think the channels without significant inflow and a little clearer water may be the better ones too. 

I told a friend of mine one day that I always thought that when we had one of these major rain events and the water muddied up, the fish would actually move up quite shallow (even in deep water). My thought was light penetration wasn't as good so fishing shallow with dark baits just made sense to me. The fish could see them a little better. So he got a new boat last year and he added Garmin Panoptix. He calls me one day and tells me he always thought I was crazy with my muddy water theory but on that day he said he was in fact doing quite well fishing flooded timber 1' deep in 20 fow. He could see the fish holding shallow on his electronics. My point is if your water stays muddy and the fish still don't cooperate, maybe try fishing shallow (12"-15" deep) dark baits a try. Does it work every day? I doubt it but I do know it works some days.
Good luck.


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## firemanmike2127

Your muddy water/dark baits/shallow presentation concept holds fairly true in a municipal pond near my house that I fish regularly. There is no shoreline wood.....just rip-rap.The submerged weeds cover the shallower depths & provide the attracting 'structure'. When the pond is good & muddy sometimes the fish will be on the shallower outer edge.....after the water stabilizes & starts to clear up they'll be on the deeper inside edge. During the peak of the spawn the majority of the fish are holding shallow as one would expect. Mike


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## zaraspook

Close to 2 hours bank fishing this morning produced 1 crappie (11"),1 sheepshead, and 3" gill. Had a dozen crappie-like pickups but they wouldn't eat it, 2 seconds and gone. Heading home might be most productive option for the day.


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## zaraspook

7 crappie boats from Crappie USA guys practicing in my channel today. The tourney starts tomorrow. Never did see any of the boats catch a fish. Tomorrow and Sat rain should be less than any day next week..........a break for them. Wish them luck but it won't be easy.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> The only good thing about this muddy water is it will help hold the heat on the sunny days. I keep trying to convince myself that every new major rain event will be our last one for this spring and conditions will return to normal soon but then a few days later we get another rain. The other night the weatherman on the local news was saying our normal year to date rainfall total was about 12" and we are at 22".
> 
> Surprisingly East Fork, even with the lake being up 7' or so we have normal water color in parts of the lake. With the water being this high the males seem to be holding in the newly flooded shoreline cover and the females are holding offshore 6'-8' deep. The COE has been pulling the lake down about 2' per day this week but the males are staying shallow and some are getting their spawning colors. One of the biggest problems we're having is being able to find a launch ramp that is open. With all this high water most or all of the ramps get closed. Right now most ramps are open but if we get the 2" of predicted rain it could put the lake in the parking lots and the ramps get closed again. Unfortunately shoreline access is poor so it mostly closes the lake in all but a few limited places. I'm really hoping it doesn't get to that...again.
> 
> Like
> 
> Good luck.


I was having success in 12-18" of water 3 weeks ago, and they were good ones. I hit those same spots almost every time out but nothing cooking in last 10 days. Water cooled off. to 53-54 and 3 weeks ago was 57-58.


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## dcool

You can go to Crappie USA to see results from tournament over the weekend. Had to be some tough conditions to fish in, but there were some nice fish caught.


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## crappiedude

Would have been nice to see the results if the conditions weren't so tough. In more favorable conditions it would really show what the lake has to offer. In our local lakes it was tough fishing yesterday too. A friend and myself only managed about 8/10 fish in an area I probably caught 50 fish in a few days ago fishing solo. Another friend only managed 1 hit all afternoon and he's been killing them lately.


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## zaraspook

My hat is off to all teams that participated and survived the CrappieUSA event. Every boat deserves a trophy. GLSM is completely blown out. The lake is as ugly chocolate milk as I've ever seen it. White caps were prevalent. Many access roads were flooded and closed. Property damage aplenty around the lake. My seawall has never been fully breached until now. Water 7" deep above it.

Go here to view 2019 results https://www.crappieusa.com/Tournament_Results_Weigh_In.cfm?Tournament_ID=606

Go here to compare against 2018 results https://www.crappieusa.com/Tournament_Results_Weigh_In.cfm?Tournament_ID=587

Pro division winning weight for the 2 day event was 10.68 pounds. 2018 winning weight for pros was 15.66 lbs.

Amateur division winners had 8.64 lbs in 2019 compared to 14.48 lbs last year.

Big Fish this year was 1.26# compared to 1.86 in 2018. 13 pro teams weighed fish this year compared to 16 prior year. 24 amateur teams weighed fish this time around while 42 hit the scales in 2019.


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## RMK

Some tough fishing for us last Wednesday thru Saturday. Water temps as high as 57 Wednesday and around 54 by Saturday. Rain, cold, high winds, and some of the highest and muddiest water I have ever seen on the lake by Saturday morning. Even launching the boat and navigating became a task and something to consider an accomplishment. Some ramps closed and many docks under water.
A few guys still managed to do decent considering the conditions. And by decent I mean catching 7, or slightly more, keeper fish each day Friday and Saturday. If i remeber correctly thw winners of the pro side caught 8 keepers on friday and 5 on saturday. Many great GLSM crappie guys got the skunk or 1 fish one or both days. Guys doing well reported different tactics being successfull. Some fishing in 1 to 2 feet of water in brush and others 6 feet deep on the posts or deep structures. Some of those guys shallow brush fishing game amazes me. We tried a lot of shallow brush because it seems like others always do well fishing it. We got a lot of practice on fishing it but not much catching in it. I m sure more practicing in it and finding the X will definitely have good results down the road. 
Friday- 2 keepers. Both from under a pontoon. Possibly the only 2 crappie bites of the day.
Saturday-Found 1 short crappie under a pontoon about halfway through the day. The last hour and a half of the tournament was the most excitement, as far as catching, we had over the 4 days of fishing. Spider rigging double minnow rigs very close to the bottom about as slow as we could go. There is a 50 yard stretch of the channel that is a foot deeper than the rest. Fish seemed to be holding in that area and quite possibly laying right on the bottom. 8 to 10 shorts and 2 keepers to finish out our saturday. Ended up in 14th. One spot better than last year's finish and qualified for the classic at old hickory in the fall. we learned a lot and got to spend some good time exploring this lake we are lucky enough to have close to home. 
Rutty- its nice to put a face with a name and you guys did a heck of a job.


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## RMK

Zara I hope your lake place is doing ok with the high water. I know a few folks who have had some trouble's from the recent flooding.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Zara I hope your lake place is doing ok with the high water. I know a few folks who have had some trouble's from the recent flooding.


I'm good, RMK. When I left Saturday no encroachment by water into my house. 4-5 neighbors had water in crawl spaces, 2 had flooding into main floor of houses. Could have been worse. 
Congrats on moving up in your tourney finish! Saturday morning I decided to fish a bit, see if I could catch a crappie in those nasty condition. Due to high water only one spot I could get to. Was tickled to catch 3 crappie there, but didn't prove I could get a keeper. All were short, hugging cover on bottom 6' down.


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## rutty

That 


RMK said:


> Some tough fishing for us last Wednesday thru Saturday. Water temps as high as 57 Wednesday and around 54 by Saturday. Rain, cold, high winds, and some of the highest and muddiest water I have ever seen on the lake by Saturday morning. Even launching the boat and navigating became a task and something to consider an accomplishment. Some ramps closed and many docks under water.
> A few guys still managed to do decent considering the conditions. And by decent I mean catching 7, or slightly more, keeper fish each day Friday and Saturday. If i remeber correctly thw winners of the pro side caught 8 keepers on friday and 5 on saturday. Many great GLSM crappie guys got the skunk or 1 fish one or both days. Guys doing well reported different tactics being successfull. Some fishing in 1 to 2 feet of water in brush and others 6 feet deep on the posts or deep structures. Some of those guys shallow brush fishing game amazes me. We tried a lot of shallow brush because it seems like others always do well fishing it. We got a lot of practice on fishing it but not much catching in it. I m sure more practicing in it and finding the X will definitely have good results down the road.
> Friday- 2 keepers. Both from under a pontoon. Possibly the only 2 crappie bites of the day.
> Saturday-Found 1 short crappie under a pontoon about halfway through the day. The last hour and a half of the tournament was the most excitement, as far as catching, we had over the 4 days of fishing. Spider rigging double minnow rigs very close to the bottom about as slow as we could go. There is a 50 yard stretch of the channel that is a foot deeper than the rest. Fish seemed to be holding in that area and quite possibly laying right on the bottom. 8 to 10 shorts and 2 keepers to finish out our saturday. Ended up in 14th. One spot better than last year's finish and qualified for the classic at old hickory in the fall. we learned a lot and got to spend some good time exploring this lake we are lucky enough to have close to home.
> Rutty- its nice to put a face with a name and you guys did a heck of a job.
> 
> View attachment 303637
> 
> 
> View attachment 303635


It was nice seeing you out there. It was very tough conditions to say the least. We caught around 25 keeper fish on Friday in that Rain, WIND, cold, raising water but we couldn't get anything big but was still in the hunt. Then Day 2 came around and the water got muddy, water was going down and the fishing got tougher for us. We could only mustard up 5 keeper fish that day. We spider rigged Day 1, tried that Day 2 and couldn't get bit, had to move to the bobber. Toughest I have ever fished Grand Lake St. Marys!


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## zaraspook

Doubt it's possible to face tougher conditions!


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## zaraspook

Hard to believe it's May. The crappie bite suggests we're stuck in a time warp, nowhere near spawn time. Water temp at GLSM today was a puny 52 degrees. Late last week we were 54. Water level fell 10", now below top of my seawall. Muddy water, no improvement in clarity but why would it improve when it rains every day?

Two hours this morning, fishing a lot of spots I couldn't get to last week, but without positive results. Just one crappie, not a keeper, and a dink gill. Tried a lot of baits up and down in water column for maybe 1/2 dozen anemic bites.

Have a gang of 6 buddies coming this weekend for fishing outing. We normally schedule this gig in April......moved it to May to get closer to spawn. Not looking great but "they gotta eat sooner or later!". Beer and poker may get more attention this time around.


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## RMK

sounds like a great weekend regardless of catching conditions. have fun


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## zaraspook

My group of 7, hereafter nicknamed "the Magnificent Seven", struggled with crappie catching output, much as expected. High water was there, but no way an excuse. Muddy water more of an issue. We fished from 2pm Friday until tourney ended at 11AM Sunday morning. Water temps ran 55-57 degrees, best in several weeks. Friday afternoon our Mag 7 caught just 3 crappie! All 3 caught by me despite 4 of the 7 using my rods, my baits, my guidance.

Saturday plan was to use my boat early and often to get to heavy cover in shallow areas of natural bank where I hoped the critters were more prevalent. That plan was delayed when 3 crappie boats were in my channel by 8am operating under the same plan. Boat traffic did not slow down, both bass guys and crappie boats, until mid-afternoon. The tactic was successful as I played guide to 3 guests at a time in my boat. At Saturday's end everyone was off the skunk line! Sunday AM brought another boat invasion.......my group was eager to use the boat but we weren't in the mood to compete for space, didn't use boat. Must admit........caliber of fish we pulled from shallow, dense cover was clearly better by boat than efforts from the bank. While playing guide, however, my fishing efforts suffered. Newby anglers fishing heavy cover accumulate a lot of snags. Little time for me with a line in the water and my personal fishing was limited.......just 1 crappie Saturday for me.

My team of 3 got whipped at the Sunday end to our competition. The team of 4 anglers beat us by one fish. And I fell one short of of catching the most crappies, as well. 60% of our catch were 10" or better and 12.5" the biggest. Lack of hungry fish to catch did not deter the Mag 7 from eating like kings, drinking like the young kids we used to be, nor diminish trash talk, reminiscing about days gone by, and good camaraderie among our group of long-time friends since elementary school. It was a good weekend with more memories to add to our already overloaded memory banks. Saturday crappie tacos stole the show once again as the favorite weekend cuisine!

Can't say for sure the spawn is on. Males are taking on some war paint but not yet truly in tuxedos. Spawn is at least very close and next 2 weeks should be as good as the spawn will get for 2019. Get out if you can!


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## james.

We invaded your channel Sunday morning 0 Crappies to show for it. Went acrossed the lake ended the day with 8 keepers all 10 -12 inchs 2 of witch were big females still full of eggs all fish are still swimming. Water was much cleaner on the north side of the lake


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM 4:30pm Tues and line wet by 5pm. Caught 8 of which 5 were legal, best an 11.5" lady with decent load of eggs. All returned to spread a good spawn. The males were showing war paint as I call it. Darkening nicely but no where near the black coloring that is to come. The bite was disappointing, but I attribute most of the failings to carp mating dance that was big time in the shallows and near banks. My opinion that crappie really aren't comfortable with the carp mating turmoil. They may not move far, nonetheless crappie will move, get away from the bruiser carp action.

The big news is two-fold......water clarity made a lot of progress in 2 days. It isn't muddy at all, except where carp are stirring the pot. Secondly, water temp was 65 late Tuesday! That's plenty warm for the party to start. I thought my thermometer must be wacky. No way it could bump 8 degrees since Sunday. I asked a bass boat in my channel what water temp they were showing. A response of 66 confirmed my thermometer wasn't on the blink. should have a couple weeks ahead of the 2019 spawn. You never know how long it will last, but the clock is ticking! Make some time to it enjoy it fellas......


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## nschap

zaraspook said:


> Made it to GLSM 4:30pm Tues and line wet by 5pm. Caught 8 of which 5 were legal, best an 11.5" lady with decent load of eggs. All returned to spread a good spawn. The males were showing war paint as I call it. Darkening nicely but no where near the black coloring that is to come. The bite was disappointing, but I attribute most of the failings to carp mating dance that was big time in the shallows and near banks. My opinion that crappie really aren't comfortable with the carp mating turmoil. They may not move far, nonetheless crappie will move, get away from the bruiser carp action.
> 
> The big news is two-fold......water clarity made a lot of progress in 2 days. It isn't muddy at all, except where carp are stirring the pot. Secondly, water temp was 65 late Tuesday! That's plenty warm for the party to start. I thought my thermometer must be wacky. No way it could bump 8 degrees since Sunday. I asked a bass boat in my channel what water temp they were showing. A response of 66 confirmed my thermometer wasn't on the blink. should have a couple weeks ahead of the 2019 spawn. You never know how long it will last, but the clock is ticking! Make some time to it enjoy it fellas......


Great information. Thanks so much.


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## zaraspook

Weds water temp 67 and clarity improving. Caught 13 with 6 keepers. Rip rap was most productive cover between bank and 3' out. Two biggest were females at 11". All returned to make babies.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Weds water temp 67 and clarity improving. Caught 13 with 6 keepers. Rip rap was most productive cover between bank and 3' out. Two biggest were females at 11". All returned to make babies.


Awesome! that might be the best GLSM crappie news i ve heard this year. rain today and cold friday.... whats it going to do the catching on saturday? i m guessing not a potisitve. but still sounds like it should be on after that. warm and consistent after this cold front. hope the weather holds out


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## Saugeyefisher

RMK said:


> Awesome! that might be the best GLSM crappie news i ve heard this year. rain today and cold friday.... whats it going to do the catching on saturday? i m guessing not a potisitve. but still sounds like it should be on after that. warm and consistent after this cold front. hope the weather holds out


We have not done to bad at buckeye after these fronts that seem to come thru every single freaking weekend!!!!!!!!,lol....
I think alot of fish are spawning as I type at buckeye. Imo they will stay put during this next front. To far along to back out


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## RMK

thats what i was hoping to hear! we re going to give indian another shot saturday. then back to GLSM next week.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Awesome! that might be the best GLSM crappie news i ve heard this year. rain today and cold friday.... whats it going to do the catching on saturday? i m guessing not a potisitve. but still sounds like it should be on after that. warm and consistent after this cold front. hope the weather holds out


RMK........my viewpoint is you always have daily weather/pressure changes that effect bite. That won't change. Regardless, you have more fish populating channels and shallows bent on spawning. Therefore, because of fish coming to spawn, more fish available for you/me to catch. More fish available can turn a bad day into a decent day, or decent day into a good day, and good bite into a crazy bite! Spawn isn't full swing but males are moving in with more to come, their war paint getting darker daily. A few days of cooler weather might move fish off the banks for a day or two, but they will hang around not far away. Males may not even leave the nests they create and they will aggressively hit baits that trespass into the territory they stake out.

Saturday prediction......it will be better, more fish are around with intent to spawn, than it would be without presence of spawning fish.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> thats what i was hoping to hear! we re going to give indian another shot saturday. then back to GLSM next week.


Some pigs being taken at Indian. 2 weeks ago I saw photo of a GLSM guy, at Indian where he'd caught 12 keepers that included a 15" and 2 others over 14". Impressive! Good luck.

With 2 bass tourneys at GLSM this weekend you really don't want to be among all the boat traffic.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Some pigs being taken at Indian. 2 weeks ago I saw photo of a GLSM guy, at Indian where he'd caught 12 keepers that included a 15" and 2 others over 14". Impressive! Good luck.
> 
> With 2 bass tourneys at GLSM this weekend you really don't want to be among all the boat traffic.


Bass tournaments..... lmbo..... I dont mind them,I dont fish them,shoot I really dont even mind them casting the same spots with me,within reason. And I really like it when they ask me if the crappies are biting and i respond,"id catch alot more if the bass would leave me alone...............................
But man,I was spoiled the last 4 years at buckeye!! During the drawdown for dam repairs. Most days my friends an I were the only ones floating in the areas we were fishing. Might of seen a local here an there that we normally knew anyways. No competition at all except for shoreline saugeyes in fall-spring. And even that crowd was smaller then normal until last fall when the bite blew back up for saugeye. 
Now theres 4-12 bass boats per cove on the weekends. Its crazy. I never thought about the amount of pressure these fish get year in and year out! It's amazing the bass still react to lures. Lol the banks are being pounded this year!!! Going to be a good drawdown searching for snagged baits that's for sure.....

How is the bass fishing on glsm? Buckeye has always been decent to good. But has been really good this spring. And I imagine will continue to be good the next couple years until the pressure catches back up......


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## crappie4me

here's almost 15" for ya zara....note the hat


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## RMK

crappie4me said:


> here's almost 15" for ya zara....note the hat


Awesome fish! Congrats


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Bass tournaments..... lmbo..... I dont mind them,I dont fish them,shoot I really dont even mind them casting the same spots with me,within reason. And I really like it when they ask me if the crappies are biting and i respond,"id catch alot more if the bass would leave me alone...............................
> But man,I was spoiled the last 4 years at buckeye!! During the drawdown for dam repairs. Most days my friends an I were the only ones floating in the areas we were fishing. Might of seen a local here an there that we normally knew anyways. No competition at all except for shoreline saugeyes in fall-spring. And even that crowd was smaller then normal until last fall when the bite blew back up for saugeye.
> Now theres 4-12 bass boats per cove on the weekends. Its crazy. I never thought about the amount of pressure these fish get year in and year out! It's amazing the bass still react to lures. Lol the banks are being pounded this year!!! Going to be a good drawdown searching for snagged baits that's for sure.....
> 
> How is the bass fishing on glsm? Buckeye has always been decent to good. But has been really good this spring. And I imagine will continue to be good the next couple years until the pressure catches back up......


Bass fishing is good at GLSM. Last Saturday my Mag 7 fishing buddies witnessed three 5# LMB caught in my channel by tournament guys. Plus, one of my Mag 7 crappie guys hooked and lost what was easily a 4# LMB. He was using one of my crappie rods and I hastily attempted to grab the landing net. Fish wcame unzipped before I got a shot at it.
One of FLW bass tournament guys told me he expects it will take 15-16# bag to win their GLSM tournament Saturday/tomorrow. 5 fish limit.


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## zaraspook

Arrived at GLSM Sunday evening 6pm. Fished in drizzle from bank for close to hour and a half. Caught 7 crappie with 5 keepers. Two 11"+ in the group, a male and a female. The lady looked to be spawned out. Several males were squirting joy juice. Makes me think spawn may be further along than I thought, hoping to be wrong on this issue.

Water temp 57.3 degrees, a 10 degree drop since Thurs. I expected temp to fall, but not this far this fast. With forecast only for 54 degree high on Monday and no sun, not good odds water temp will recover soon. Best outcome would be that spawn slows down rather than shuts down. 

I'm not finding fish anxious to jump on bigger plastics. Smaller ones like Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad generating most of my hits. Chartreuse Pepper pattern caught all 7 of my crappie, as well as the 1/2 dozen or so gills. Did not catch anything more than 4 ft from bank. 5 of crappie were off natural bank. The 2 largest fish were in slightly deeper water, both holding close off a seawall where water was 3.5' depth. Plan to fish again in the morning before heading home.


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## zaraspook

Oooops. Hard to tell by me that crappie are spawning. I followed up my Sunday 1.5 hour of catching 7 with a measly 5 crappie of which 3 keepers this morning/Mon. Took me 2.5 hours today to catch fewer fish. Bite was tough....not like the bite should be. Surprised me that water temp was 57.2, essentially same today as yesterday evening. Just one of my fish today was a female, and she was another that looked like her load was already gone. That's a bit scary, that is all these females appearing spawned out. Sure seems the party just started last week.......maybe it started sooner and I didn't get invited?


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## crappiedude

This has been one of the goofiest springs that I can remember. Our water temps have been holding up pretty good, on Sunday it was still mid 60's. I've been catching tons of small males on the bank. No females up there. The girls are hanging out suspended over deep water anywhere from 5'-15' deep over 20+ fow and the big girls are just tough to come by consistently.
I think it was easier to catch a mess of good fish a month ago than it is now. Our water levels have been fluctuating 1'-2.5' per day since back in February.
I thought by mid May we'd be catching em pretty good.


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## BoxingRef_Rick1

Yes sir, I agree. 
All of those I've caught are males the last week or so.

Hopefully a warm burst will push more females up on the bank.
Be safe all.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> This has been one of the goofiest springs that I can remember. Our water temps have been holding up pretty good, on Sunday it was still mid 60's. I've been catching tons of small males on the bank. No females up there. The girls are handing out suspended over deep water anywhere from 5'-15' deep over 20+ fow and the big girls are just tough to come by consistently.
> I think it was easier to catch a mess of good fish a month ago than it is now. Our water levels have been fluctuating 1'-2.5' per day since back in February.
> I thought by mid May we'd be catching em pretty good.


Although I always wish you the best at catching, good to know others struggling, too. Definitely was easier to catch numbers weeks ago.


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## nschap

crappiedude said:


> This has been one of the goofiest springs that I can remember. Our water temps have been holding up pretty good, on Sunday it was still mid 60's. I've been catching tons of small males on the bank. No females up there. The girls are hanging out suspended over deep water anywhere from 5'-15' deep over 20+ fow and the big girls are just tough to come by consistently.
> I think it was easier to catch a mess of good fish a month ago than it is now. Our water levels have been fluctuating 1'-2.5' per day since back in February.
> I thought by mid May we'd be catching em pretty good.


You must not be fishing grand lake.


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## nschap

I was out today. Caught one 13" er several 10 "ers probably 30 gills and a 14" bass. Not bad for an hour.


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## crappiedude

nschap said:


> You must not be fishing grand lake.


No, I'm farther south.
Normally I fish East Fork, Rocky Fork and Cowan. Also Paint Creek if it's not flooded.


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## zaraspook

Hit GLSM hard on Weds. A friend and I fished by land in the morning, then by boat in the afternoon. Didn't seem to matter which approach, fish were not buying it. We invested a good 5 hours for a total of 12 crappie, 8 for me and 4 for my cohort. Four good ones in the bucket/livewell, but not enough for me to clean. Two slightly over 11". 

It was a bluebird day, virtually no wind, and water temp 66-68 degrees. To this point the spring spawn hasn't changed catching results. Hope others are doing well at GLSM, but most I hear from share my sentiments.


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## james.

8 keepers this morning didn't keep nothing under 11 inch's.2 fish ohio small one was 13 inch big one was right at 15 all were females still full of eggs


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## fishwhacker

Proud papa moment yesterday. My 4 year old out fished me, might have had something to do with tangles, rebaiting, opening drinks,etc. Only fished yesterday 45 minutes before the rain moved in but had around 15 nice gills with him catching easily 10 of the nice ones and 20+ smaller fish. Love when i hear him say can we go fishing.


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## Hortance

fishwhacker said:


> Proud papa moment yesterday. My 4 year old out fished me, might have had something to do with tangles, rebaiting, opening drinks,etc. Only fished yesterday 45 minutes before the rain moved in but had around 15 nice gills with him catching easily 10 of the nice ones and 20+ smaller fish. Love when i hear him say can we go fishing.
> View attachment 306873


Looks like a great spot. Love that stuff!

For anyone else, the best predictable bank fishing ....I've been to Ft Loramie a few times when I don't feel like getting the boat out....banks around the NW end are flat, easily accessible by car and on foot, flat topography. Pretty shallow for hot weather, but dependable for crappie, bluegill and cats in Spring-to-Summer. Not just for kids, either. My Dad is in his 70s now and always gets seasick on a boat. Good location for grandpa if he has difficulty getting around. Find your own honey-hole, its easy enough to get around that I'd be cheating you to offer a spot.


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## RMK

james. said:


> View attachment 306603
> 8 keepers this morning didn't keep nothing under 11 inch's.2 fish ohio small one was 13 inch big one was right at 15 all were females still full of eggs


mind sharing how deep?


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## RMK

fishwhacker said:


> Proud papa moment yesterday. My 4 year old out fished me, might have had something to do with tangles, rebaiting, opening drinks,etc. Only fished yesterday 45 minutes before the rain moved in but had around 15 nice gills with him catching easily 10 of the nice ones and 20+ smaller fish. Love when i hear him say can we go fishing.
> View attachment 306873


thats a good day right there.


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## james.

RMK said:


> mind sharing how deep?


6 feet of water holding tight to the bottom


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## RMK

Friday-looked for cleaner water on the north side. That was more difficult to find than expected. I blamed the muddy water on surface run off directly into the channels. Water temps 59 to 64. Caught a few short but very nicely colored males on rocks in cleaner water. Fished 10" deep and fished seemed to be off the shore 4 to 6 feet in 2 to 3 feet of water.
Saturday-short morning search on the south side. Found cleaner water in non feeder channels than I saw the previous day in the north side channels. Temps started off at 60 and found water slightly above 70. Focused on natural brushy and rocky banks. Again found a few. Around 6 legal fish and a few shorts. All males.
Sunday- started off in our most productive spot from Saturday mornings search. We gave this small section of rocky/brushy 45 minutes and not a bite. Only thing I can think is that some shore anglers that were fishing close to us saturday hit it pretty hard the rest of the day after we moved out. Don't know but the fish weren't there. Moved a short distance away to stretch of rocky bank and natural bank and it was on! Started off pitching to the bank bg monkey milk 6 to 8 inches under the cork. This produced sunfish, small bluegill, small crappie and a few legal crappie. It seemed like bigger fish were slightly deeper and slightly farther off the bank -5 to 8 feet off the bank and 2 to 2.5 feet deep compared to the smaller fish from the shoreline out to 3 feet in 0 to 2 feet of water. Probably close to 150 fish caught, around 50 keeper crappie. Only a handful of female fish caught and of those females caught all were spawned out. Definitely not saying the spawn is over but it is much farther along than I would have guessed. I m sure this will also very by location. Best 8 fish-14, 13, 2 12s, and 4 11.5s. All males. And 1 GLSM perch finally got to see the inside of my boat before getting tossed back. I still haven't caught one but now I can say my boat has.... perch came on a minnow and gold hook fished the same as my plastics.


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## firemanmike2127

Nice catch Ryan (& your partner) ! How long was that healthy looking perch ? Mike


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## RMK

firemanmike2127 said:


> Nice catch Ryan (& your partner) ! How long was that healthy looking perch ? Mike


we didnt measure it. debated for about 10 seconds weather or not to keep it before he tossed it back. guessing right around 10"


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Friday-looked for cleaner water on the north side. That was more difficult to find than expected. I blamed the muddy water on surface run off directly into the channels. Water temps 59 to 64. Caught a few short but very nicely colored males on rocks in cleaner water. Fished 10" deep and fished seemed to be off the shore 4 to 6 feet in 2 to 3 feet of water.
> Saturday-short morning search on the south side. Found cleaner water in non feeder channels than I saw the previous day in the north side channels. Temps started off at 60 and found water slightly above 70. Focused on natural brushy and rocky banks. Again found a few. Around 6 legal fish and a few shorts. All males.
> Sunday- started off in our most productive spot from Saturday mornings search. We gave this small section of rocky/brushy 45 minutes and not a bite. Only thing I can think is that some shore anglers that were fishing close to us saturday hit it pretty hard the rest of the day after we moved out. Don't know but the fish weren't there. Moved a short distance away to stretch of rocky bank and natural bank and it was on! Started off pitching to the bank bg monkey milk 6 to 8 inches under the cork. This produced sunfish, small bluegill, small crappie and a few legal crappie. It seemed like bigger fish were slightly deeper and slightly farther off the bank -5 to 8 feet off the bank and 2 to 2.5 feet deep compared to the smaller fish from the shoreline out to 3 feet in 0 to 2 feet of water. Probably close to 150 fish caught, around 50 keeper crappie. Only a handful of female fish caught and of those females caught all were spawned out. Definitely not saying the spawn is over but it is much farther along than I would have guessed. I m sure this will also very by location. Best 8 fish-14, 13, 2 12s, and 4 11.5s. All males. And 1 GLSM perch finally got to see the inside of my boat before getting tossed back. I still haven't caught one but now I can say my boat has.... perch came on a minnow and gold hook fished the same as my plastics.
> View attachment 306913
> 
> View attachment 306915
> 
> View attachment 306917


Great report, photos, results, RMK! Hooray for the perch! Could not agree with you more that we're in the back half of this spawn, and progress may vary location to location. I didn't get to fish as much as I would like on Sunday, 5 keepers of 7 caught. 2 females among the keepers were spawned-out ladies. Probably a dozen gills with an occasional good size one. My most productive spot for spawn was occupied for 5 hours solid by a crappie boat with 2 anglers aboard. A neighbor talked to them as they were leaving.......said they kept 60 crappie.

Monday/today hit the virtually the same spots as Sunday catching 15 with 9 keepers over 2-2.5 hours. None over 11.5", only 2 ladies today and neither appeared to be egg-laden. Fish were virtually on the bank, don't think I hooked any more than 3' from shore. As RMK said.......natural bank (not seawalls), with brush, rock/stone. Monkey Milk Baby Shad caught about 1/3 of mine, other 2/3 came on 2 different patterns of Tiny Shad Panfish Assassin. Of note - "they" say the white crappie spawn after the blacks. I had my first known hook up this year with a white crappie today. It flopped off while lifting from water but I had a clean look at vertical markings. Water was 68 both days, more milky than muddy on Sunday, and cleaner today.


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## Saugeyefisher

Crazy how fast these females can move in and do there thing... fishing a deeper lake just north of cbus saterday I hit a couple spawned out females and zero females with eggs,and seen fry scattering/popping around everywhere I went. It was a tuff spring for me up until the last 3 weeks.... should be a fun post spawn bite now till things get really hot!


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Proud papa moment yesterday. My 4 year old out fished me, might have had something to do with tangles, rebaiting, opening drinks,etc. Only fished yesterday 45 minutes before the rain moved in but had around 15 nice gills with him catching easily 10 of the nice ones and 20+ smaller fish. Love when i hear him say can we go fishing.
> View attachment 306873


Love how your son seems to be examining every square millimeter of that gill. Very intense and purely delighted with his catch. Priceless!


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## zaraspook

Returned to GLSM today in time to fish 5:30-7pm. The 2 best spots from Monday were barren except for one dink crappie which took the skunk line out of play. Seems like a logical time to mention water temp was 62, down 6 degrees in a day. The next 3 spots on my walking tour accomplished nothing.....zero crappies. That one early dink crappie is growing in importance. One final spot to go but first a potty break as I detour for a pit stop at my lake place.
Almost at the last spot and I notice I forgot my bucket. How vain is that? One dink crappie in an hour and I'm worried about my fish bucket? Get real. Lo and behold after 5 minutes I do stumble into another dink male, quickly followed by a dink female. Then surprise, I get into a chunk crappie that comes unzipped. Good thing I ignored the urge to turn around to get the bucket. A few minutes later I get into a heavy fish...before it snaps my line I see it's a 2-3 pound LMB. A quick re-tie and I dip at a nearby floating log. Bobber immediately disappears under the log. First keeper is an 11" male. The same general area gives up 3 more keepers.....biggest an 11.5" spawned out female. When this 25 minute flurry ends my last stop produces 8 crappie with 4 keepers before going silent. Could have used the bucket, but if I'd gone back for it would I have missed all/part of the action?
By the way GLSM water clarity is remarkably good for 3rd week of May. This cycle of high water, muddy water, slow warmup has been great for keeping down green matter in the water column. It won't last but great to see your catch while fighting the fish. Unusual to do that this late into spring. Perhaps it's a glance into what may be a new norm someday.


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## zaraspook

Memorial Day weekend fished on average 2 hours Sat thru Monday. Surprised me that water temp failed to crest over 68.5 degrees. Bite was actually decent, post-spawn, caught 9 crappie Saturday, 9 again on Sunday, and 12 on Monday. No real change of baits........mostly Tiny Shad Panfish Assassins in some mix of chartreuse and Baby Shad which were Monkey Milk. Fish were very shallow, usually 2.5 feet of water or less.

Mix was 80% males or what appeared to be males, still wearing war paint to varying degrees.


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## zaraspook

Anyone else run into snow covered water today?


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## dcool

That cottonwood is everywhere right now. Makes it darn near impossible to fish.


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## RMK

Friday thru sunday- 1st half of the days.
Friday water temps 70 to 71 up to 75 saturday and stayed there for Sunday. Our bite went from pretty good Friday with around 20 keepers and a couple 12s, to ok saturday with 6 keepers and probably that many shorts while moving around alot to struggling to catch crappie period on Sunday fishing the same spots we caught fish friday and saturday. 6 legal fish sunday and best fish 10.5" we caught more bass, from 2" to 13", than we did crappie. A little storm saturday night and small cold front is what I used as our excuse. Water pretty clear overall. We targeted rocks and natural banks. Fishing 6 to 8 inches deep and pitching to the rocks and working baits away from bank. Sunday tried from 6" deep to 2.5' deep in front of the rocks and never really found them. Guys doing better than us also reported rocky/and natural banks holding size and numbers of fish. Just a matter if being on the right stretch at the right time. I m not positive but I m pretty sure I have seen the spawn come and go in 3 different spots now. If you are lucky enough to have a spot still spawning you better enjoy it. I don't think it will be there much longer.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Friday thru sunday- 1st half of the days.
> Friday water temps 70 to 71 up to 75 saturday and stayed there for Sunday. Our bite went from pretty good Friday with around 20 keepers and a couple 12s, to ok saturday with 6 keepers and probably that many shorts while moving around alot to struggling to catch crappie period on Sunday fishing the same spots we caught fish friday and saturday. 6 legal fish sunday and best fish 10.5" we caught more bass, from 2" to 13", than we did crappie. A little storm saturday night and small cold front is what I used as our excuse. Water pretty clear overall. We targeted rocks and natural banks. Fishing 6 to 8 inches deep and pitching to the rocks and working baits away from bank. Sunday tried from 6" deep to 2.5' deep in front of the rocks and never really found them. Guys doing better than us also reported rocky/and natural banks holding size and numbers of fish. Just a matter if being on the right stretch at the right time. I m not positive but I m pretty sure I have seen the spawn come and go in 3 different spots now. If you are lucky enough to have a spot still spawning you better enjoy it. I don't think it will be there much longer.
> View attachment 308927
> 
> View attachment 308923
> 
> View attachment 308925


RMK.......Your statement "if you're lucky enough to have a spot still spawning you better enjoy it." is spot on! Had a discussion with a long-time crappie expert Saturday. I was expressing same conclusion you expressed while he was more optimistic, citing "still areas where spawn is still running". I'd caught 7 Saturday AM with 3 keepers in 90 minutes from bank. Tried again late evening which lasted 30 minutes, 2 caught without a legal fish. A couple of the spots I'd like to hit weren't available due to homeowners present. Didn't wet a line Sunday. Had some early chores to take care of and watched enough crappie boats down my channel to know bite was tough.

Saturday water temp in my channel was 77. Temps like that will be favorable to persuade those that haven't spawned to drop their loads. I really don't recall catching a female......pretty much all males still wearing war paint to some degree. The mere fact the males are still in color might suggest spawn still has legs....I'm not really buying it.

Nice photos and report from you. Thanks. By the way my limited success related to rocks/rip rap.


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## RMK

interested to hear others thoughts....
here are my GLSM spring crappie observations. Cold water temps held on late into the spring. High and muddy water during alot of that time frame. Water temps basically skipped the 60s. One weekend it was 59 the next it was 70. April 27th caught a handful of 6"-9" females with eggs on the bottom in the middle of a deep channel. May 19th caught good numbers of fish shallow on rocks. big fish were males. a few 10"-12" females spawned out. May 31st- June 2nd. Decent numbers of fish, a few big males, mostly small males, and 1 or 2 decent spawned out females. Overall no "big females" caught full of eggs. i remember a few more decent females half full of eggs in that this time frame. out of 4 tournament results over the past 2 months all doing well were weigting in big males. i dont think a big female full of eggs accounted for any of those fish.

i think it was james that shared some pictures of big females caught 6' deep a few weeks ago. 
do you think they actually dropped their eggs that deep or do/did they just come shallow for very short window and squirt eggs and head back down? i know location is a big part of it but we fished quite a few different areas and never found big females full of eggs.


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## nschap

zaraspook said:


> Anyone else run into snow covered water today?
> View attachment 308451


Everyone is.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> interested to hear others thoughts....
> here are my GLSM spring crappie observations. Cold water temps held on late into the spring. High and muddy water during alot of that time frame. Water temps basically skipped the 60s. One weekend it was 59 the next it was 70. April 27th caught a handful of 6"-9" females with eggs on the bottom in the middle of a deep channel. May 19th caught good numbers of fish shallow on rocks. big fish were males. a few 10"-12" females spawned out. May 31st- June 2nd. Decent numbers of fish, a few big males, mostly small males, and 1 or 2 decent spawned out females. Overall no "big females" caught full of eggs. i remember a few more decent females half full of eggs in that this time frame. out of 4 tournament results over the past 2 months all doing well were weigting in big males. i dont think a big female full of eggs accounted for any of those fish.
> 
> i think it was james that shared some pictures of big females caught 6' deep a few weeks ago.
> do you think they actually dropped their eggs that deep or do/did they just come shallow for very short window and squirt eggs and head back down? i know location is a big part of it but we fished quite a few different areas and never found big females full of eggs.


rmk........I think you're on to something. The ladies were conspicuously absent over the month of May. In April I was finding a few, not great numbers, but a few. I only keep fish a couple times a year and needed about 8 nice ones for crappie tacos when my fishing buddies visited first weekend in May. My rules for cleaning is 10.5" minimum, no females that close to spawn, and I won't clean fewer than 8. Those rules worked great in 2017 and 2018 I was having real problems getting to 8. The 10.5" minimum knocked out most fish. Then I'd catch a female, be tempted to keep but would let her go. I'd never get to the magic number 8 and release them all. It took several weeks before one day I finally made it to 8.

Then in early May I reported catching a few females, bigger ones, but commented it was weird that the females appeared spawned out. Didn't think much about it at the time, but maybe the big ones spawned early May during the flood. The lake was hard to fish then. Crappie like to spawn in 23' of water. Maybe I should have been fishing in my neighbors front yards that held a couple feet of water?

Can't say I have any answers for you. There were some signs spawning might have started before the Crappie USA event. The flood may have interrupted the normal cycle, pushed it to areas unknown, or prevented aspects of it. Maybe what we saw in mid to late May was just the back half of the spawn when the smaller fish get a turn. The only certainty is the 2019 spawn was screwy..........nothing normal about it. The DNR's annual netting survey of fish demographics may give us some answers in about 2 years.


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## zaraspook

By the way I fished Weds morning, 77 degree water, catching 2 dinks in 90 minutes. 30 minutes Weds evening was 1/2 as good producing just 1 more dink. 

Thursday morning bite improved by 33% over Weds. That equates to catching 4 instead of 3!  On the bright side, the 4th fish was a keeper..........pulled from under my neighbor's pontoon.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Maybe I should have been fishing in my neighbors front yards that held a couple feet of water?


You now when it floods down here the crappie will sometimes move way up on the bank into the flooded timber. I caught a lot of shallow fish this spring up in areas that are normally dry and 8' up on the bank.



zaraspook said:


> The only certainty is the 2019 spawn was screwy


Yes it was and the lake is still screwy. In areas I was catching a bunch of fish from the shore last year its almost void of fish this year.


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## fishwhacker

Bluegill bite has been a good opportunity to get my youngest started and practice with my oldest. They might end up giving bluegills nightmares as they get older lol. Proud papa that they want to go.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Sunday evening for maybe 90 minutes. Extremely puny bite, perhaps 5 hits the entire time. 2 gills and a keeper crappie very late in the session saved my butt from a skunk.

Tried again for 90 minutes late morning on Monday. Disappointing that the action was actually slower than previous night. 2 gills but never found a crappie to keep me off the skunk line. As pathetic as it was, not so abnormal for my channel in June. Last year I caught zero crappie in June! That soothes the ego for a minute or two. Water temp was 71.3 degree. Water clarity remains way better than most Junes.


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## zaraspook

Had a fishing buddy at GLSM Weds/Thurs this week. Water temp was 70.3 degrees and water clarity still remarkable for GLSM. Crappie bite lately hasn't been attractive but "hey, the fish have to eat sometime" right? An hour and a half into Weds AM fishing we decided enough was enough. Other than 1 keeper crappie for me, nothing hinted that the bite was getting any better. A short lunch break and we headed to Fort Loramie.

Cannot say we loaded the bucket at Loramie, but we had some fun catching. In 2.5 hours I landed 19 crappie, 3 cats, 2 good gills, and 3 saugeye. That equates to a fish about every 5 minutes, decent entertainment in my book. My buddy caught similar quantities but didn't run into any saugeyes. My 3 eyes were all dinks of the 10-14" variety. Doubt we had more than 4 keeper between us. 

Wed's entertainment was good enough to make a return trip to Loramie Thurs morning. The bite was well off prior day results.......3 crappie for me and 2 for my sidekick. One keeper apiece. No eyes Thurs for either of us, another nice channel cat for me. Water clarity at Loramie was well stained in my opinion. A local Loramie regular confided clarity was pretty much normal for the lake. My buddy said he had a good time......that's good enough for me. 

By the way we dined at the new restaurant at Moeller's Brew Barn. We both found fresh brews to our liking and the food was good. Portions were ample, service very responsive but I should clarify that the crowd was light, not a true challenge to judge service and wait times. We wouldn't hesitate to go again.


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## crappiedude

A fishing report and a restaurant recommendation...just doesn't get any better than this.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> A fishing report and a restaurant recommendation...just doesn't get any better than this.


Might do a few movie reviews soon! Stay tuned.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM in time for evening fishing. Haven't been able to find crappie at all last several weeks. As I mentioned before........that's not an unusual phenomenon for me at GLSM in June. Last year I caught ZERO crappies in June! True to form......zero crappie, 2 gills, 1 bass in 45 minutes Tues evening. Water clarity surprisingly good for GLSM and water temp 71 degrees. Those are good conditions for fishing, so where the hell are the crappie?

Weds morning I waited until mid-morning to start. Why rush out for such an uninspiring bite? Hit my walking route. The same song was playing.......no hint of a crappie bite. A couple gills but better gills than normal. Clearly my thinking is incorrect. My tactics are off the mark. Cover I'm fishing is holding nothing that will bite. Strolled back to my place for a fresh cup of coffee and regrettably, after just an hour fishing, I'm facing chores rather than linking up with slabs.

Sipping the coffee, I thought I'd just drown a plastic bait off my seawall for a bit. My seawall has been the Dead Sea all spring. Seriously, for the year.......maybe 4 crappie for the year from my seawall. Both ends of my seawall butt up to natural bank for a 10-15' stretch, miscellaneous types of cover, and water depth is mostly a foot or less for several feet out. My first dip is along a horizontal board from an old dock in water 10". Immediately a fish picks up the plastic, moves with determination away from the bank toward 3' of water and my hookset interrupts his flight plan. Haven't had this kind of resistance for a while......too few fish and too many dinks. On shore I measure and snap a pic of the 11.75" black crappie. Yep.......my photos usually require 12"....it's short but I thought sure it was at least 12" since I haven't met many lately.

Over the next hour and 15 minutes I caught 6 crappie, 5 solid keepers, at least 12 gills with 1/2 of them nice specimens, and a 1.5-2# channel cat. All were within 2' of the bank........none were caught off seawall, natural bank only. The area was well shaded, virtually no sun. I noticed small schools of fry, less than 1" length, closer to 1/2" in size fry that I couldn't identify. My theory is the crappie, gills, and cat were feeding on the fry.

If heavy downpours hadn't washed out the remainder of Weds afternoon and night, I would have tried to duplicate my discovery of where the crappie could be found. By Thurs morning the lake was blown out of it's bank, breaching all but the tallest of seawalls, and choco milk everywhere.

This June I learned something. Was it just lightning in a bottle dumb luck, or something I, or anyone else, can use to locate crappie in June when fry/fingerlings from recent spawns are abundant? Maybe the formula will work for you?


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## zaraspook

Lots of diversions last week my lake place never made it to the priority list last week. Finally made it to the lake late Saturday 29th. My yard was no longer flooded, therefore cutting 10" tall grass demanded immediate attention. A fishing break followed. 40 minutes on my walking route convinced me fish weren't anxious to cooperate. Avoided a skunk with one keeper crappie from beneath my pontoon.

Sunday morning I did find a better bite. Caught 10 crappie, just 2 keepers from the lot along with a decent channel cat and nice gill. Water temp was a sizzling 86 degrees just before dark Sunday. Water clarity took a big hit. GLSM, at least in the channels, quickly returned to it's pea soup appearance that unfortunately is normal in summer. Water is not muddy. Water levels backed off significantly, remain high and above a few sea walls. My guess is water is 6-8" above where it traditionally is in early July.

I have heard reports of some bigger crappie taken at spillway in last 10 days, as well as a few nice eyes.


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## zaraspook

Really a good 4-day Thurs-Sunday 4th of July at lake. Lots of grilling and chilling with family, friends, and other guests. Saturday night fireworks on the Celina end of lake were terrific although boat traffic gets dicey after the finale. 7-mile trek in the dark back to my place is fun with 11 guests on the pontoon.

Fishing time was sorely limited. Fished all 4 mornings for 1.5 -2 hours. Keepers were few and far between. Thursday caught 11 crappie to find just 2 keepers. 19 crappie on Friday produced 3 keepers. Saturday's numbers fell to just 7 crappie for 3 keepers. Sunday's yield was 3 keepers from 12 caught. All fish were not from GLSM, but caught at Lake Loramie. Should mention each day I got into at least one channel cat, biggest about 4#, and Thursday caught a short saugeye of about 12". After all guests departed on Sunday I did fish GLSM for 30 minutes......no takers.

Holidays are a joy but hosting a crowd isn't a good recipe for serious fishing. Thankfully, plenty of other days to fish.


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## zaraspook

Impromptu decision to come to GLSM Tues nite - actually arrived after midnight. With sparse bite in my channel decided to make the 20 minute drive to Loramie to fish Weds morning. Loramie crappie bite was anemic but caught 9 crappie during the hour and 45 minute bank fishing. 2 of first 3 fish were keepers, no more keepers among final 6. Monkey Milk Baby Shad was only bait to land fish. Also threw a twister tail which managed a few hits but they wouldn't eat it.
Just before dark Weds night did my normal walking tour at GLSM. Not a bite at first 3 stops. Did get 3-4 hits at final spot but skunked, caught none. Can't speak for the entire lake, but my channel seems like the Dead Sea. If fish are there, I don't have a recipe that works. If crappie are around, I can usually coax a few to eat something.


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## zaraspook

Spent some extended time at my GLSM lake place last weekend. Mostly an agenda of work/chores in the heat but mixed in a trio of 3 fishing sessions of 45 minutes each. It wasn't pretty. Two crappies total, no keepers. Most fun was a 4-pound channel cat on my crappie rig. Those channel cats are worthy opponents in a tug-of-war. 

Surprised that water temp was only 82. Looking ahead for some October action.


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## RMK

how is the shoulder doing zara?


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> 3 fishing sessions of 45 minutes each. It wasn't pretty.


My shore bound fishing has been horrible this summer too.
We can catch plenty out in the boat but it's been tough from the bank.
Definitely been a weird year. It can only get better this fall.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> My shore bound fishing has been horrible this summer too.
> We can catch plenty out in the boat but it's been tough from the bank.
> Definitely been a weird year. It can only get better this fall.


You should be glad you have the option of getting them boat/deep water. At GLSM and most shallow lakes there is no deep water option. Most guys hang up their crappie rods until fall, switch to other lakes, or switch species. To each his own......can't find fault with any of those.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> how is the shoulder doing zara?


Thanks for asking, RMK. Shoulder is getting there. 7 months post surgery and 53 therapy sessions have me back to 50-60%. Progress is slow but steady. Casting right handed again for last month or so. Rotator cuff surgery/recovery requires patience, much like fishing.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> You should be glad you have the option of getting them boat/deep water.


It is good to be able to get to deep water and if you can find them the fish are more than eager to play.
My wife doesn't always like to go in the boat all the time so we've been taking the kayaks to some smaller lakes. I don't have any electronics on it so for me I'm kind of lost but I went back old school and looked for areas with any surface activity before I'd fish. We've been out 2 times doing this and so far we've managed a couple dozen fish (mostly crappies) each time but size was pretty small. Most of this water we fished seemed to average probably 3' to maybe 8' deep that we fished. I'd just drop my bait to the bottom and lift my rod tip to check the depth on occasion.
It did seem if we could locate any surface activity at all we would find some fish. We mostly fished Bobby Garland's (Monkey Milk) in a 1/16 oz jig head, fishing mostly open water without much cover. My thought was we're looking for crappie following shad or fry schools.
Shallow water is a whole new ball game...that's for sure.


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## dcool

zaraspook said:


> Thanks for asking, RMK. Shoulder is getting there. 7 months post surgery and 53 therapy sessions have me back to 50-60%. Progress is slow but steady. Casting right handed again for last month or so. Rotator cuff surgery/recovery requires patience, much like fishing.


Hang in there Zara. When I had my shoulder done, my doc told me it would take a year to heal. Rotator surgery is a piece of cake, it's the healing part that is tough. Glad to hear you are doing well.


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## Saugeyefisher

crappiedude said:


> It is good to be able to get to deep water and if you can find them the fish are more than eager to play.
> My wife doesn't always like to go in the boat all the time so we've been taking the kayaks to some smaller lakes. I don't have any electronics on it so for me I'm kind of lost but I went back old school and looked for areas with any surface activity before I'd fish. We've been out 2 times doing this and so far we've managed a couple dozen fish (mostly crappies) each time but size was pretty small. Most of this water we fished seemed to average probably 3' to maybe 8' deep that we fished. I'd just drop my bait to the bottom and lift my rod tip to check the depth on occasion.
> It did seem if we could locate any surface activity at all we would find some fish. We mostly fished Bobby Garland's (Monkey Milk) in a 1/16 oz jig head, fishing mostly open water without much cover. My thought was we're looking for crappie following shad or fry schools.
> Shallow water is a whole new ball game...that's for sure.


This is how I fish for crappies alot on my home lakes that are ddeeper. Imo it's very rewarding finding fish out of my kayak with no eleectronics...


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## zaraspook

A fishing buddy and I decided to mix things up a bit. Thurs we put my boat in at Brookville Lake to chase smallies and walleye. The lake is only 35 minutes from my Indiana residence. We were on the water early AM with water temps ranging from 81-84 degrees. 

My shoulder got a good workout during 5 hours of fishing, casting 60% and 40% trolling. Results weren't great but pretty much in line with my previous mid-summer treks to Brookville. My partner in crime caught one walleye (first cast of the day) and barely a keeper, one crappie, and a LMB of 14". A pair of walleye for me, a crappie, one white bass, and a 12" smallmouth. 15" was my biggest walleye. All fish were taken early.....don't recall a single strike during the last 90 minutes. All fish returned to fight again some day.

Good camaraderie with my long time friend. Fishing pressure was light and pleasure boater traffic increased all day.


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## fishwhacker

Zara,
Did you get your eyes trolling or casting? I love fishing Brookville but it is about a 2hr drive for me.


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## zaraspook

First walleye was caught casting. My pair resulted from trolling. I borrowed a page from the Central Ohio saugeye guys. Figured if saugeye like flicker shads as much as Central OH guys say, walleye should eat them, too. It worked as all 3 walleye came from f-shads.
I share your enthusiasm for Brookville. It's picturesque, deep, and nice variety of sportfish I can't get at GLSM. Usually do better there on smallies than eyes, but not this trip.
When you fish Brookville what bait do you like for walleyes?


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## zaraspook

For those who haven't heard, GLSM water quality is running microcystin toxin levels at a 7-year low. If the numbers were running at a 7-year high, media would be all over it. Progress!
https://lakeimprovement.com/glsm-microcystin-levels-at-7-year-lows/


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> For those who haven't heard, GLSM water quality is running microcystin toxin levels at a 7-year low. If the numbers were running at a 7-year high, media would be all over it. Progress!
> https://lakeimprovement.com/glsm-microcystin-levels-at-7-year-lows/


Funny how they love to show the bad in things


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## firemanmike2127

I am going to call the Columbus Dispatch to see if they have any interest in writing an article about the positive results all the water quality initiatives are producing. Not sure I'll get anywhere with this effort but I still have a bitter taste about all the articles they published that had negative things to say about GLSM. Mike Bruns, Lake Improvement Association member.


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## RMK

good stuff! and how the negative news is always released right before a busy holiday weekend.


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> First walleye was caught casting. My pair resulted from trolling. I borrowed a page from the Central Ohio saugeye guys. Figured if saugeye like flicker shads as much as Central OH guys say, walleye should eat them, too. It worked as all 3 walleye came from f-shads.
> I share your enthusiasm for Brookville. It's picturesque, deep, and nice variety of sportfish I can't get at GLSM. Usually do better there on smallies than eyes, but not this trip.
> When you fish Brookville what bait do you like for walleyes?


Zara,
We get most of ours early May with mainly a leadhead and a hunk of crawler. We cast towards shore and hop it back but this year we did better with marabou jigs and a hunk of crawler. We have tried twisters, vibes, harnesses, spoon, etc but always end up with a jighead and crawler. Of course, we are outta float tubes and not a boat so we kind of have to pick an area and work it to death rather than run and gun.


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## zaraspook

Whacker....I 'd forgotten you guys were fishing from tubes but recall you mentioned maribou jigs last time. Crawler chunk on jig appears to be a popular presentation at B-ville. We've had some success with jig tipped with 4" Gulp minnows but not most recent trip. Thanks.


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## zaraspook

Fished around my GLSM place Mon evening for 45 minutes. Caught one crappie, 8-incher. Water temp 84. Went back at it for 90 minutes Tues morning. Immediately noticed more shad activity on the surface than I 've seen in last 6-8 weeks. Caught 4 crappie with a pair of keepers. No, 4 fish isn't a haul but hadn't seen it since early June.
I'm optimistic. Shad activity is a good thing. Predators will come if dinner is nearby. Water has been hot for some time. Fish are acclimated, unlikely Mother Nature can serve up now anything they haven't already seen. Water levels now near normal after months of high water. Not that I expect a tremendous bite near term. That's not coming soon, but a few fish from spots that should hold them is what I expect. Photo is an 11.5" that was among my 4 caught Tues. Nice to know some slabs are still there. It took a Tiny Shad Panfish Assassin, Chartreuse Pepper, 3.5' under bobber in 4' of water around 6' from bank.


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> I am going to call the Columbus Dispatch to see if they have any interest in writing an article about the positive results all the water quality initiatives are producing. Not sure I'll get anywhere with this effort but I still have a bitter taste about all the articles they published that had negative things to say about GLSM. Mike Bruns, Lake Improvement Association member.


 Lima, channel 8 deserves credit for running a mostly positive piece at link below

https://www.hometownstations.com/ne...cle_61325f24-b642-11e9-86de-5f98b051ff77.html


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## Lowell H Turner

DREDGE, baby, DREDGE ! they aint done quite yet, hopefully ! any word on how far the wetlands restorations are going ? am glad for the positive news !


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM for 90 minutes Fri morning. Caught 2 gills but no crappie to be found on my walking tour.. Boo!


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> DREDGE, baby, DREDGE ! they aint done quite yet, hopefully ! any word on how far the wetlands restorations are going ? am glad for the positive news !


LHT.........haven't heard a recent update. All the tributaries in the watershed were planned for varying forms of wetland filters and/or treatment trains. Several are completed and progress on most of others. Creeks which generated heaviest loading of nitrogen and phosphorus were priorities. In addition all ag /animal operations in watershed are under soil testing and manure spreading restrictions. As I understand it, some accommodations made this year to farmers. 
The lower readings for toxins surprised most folks. With all the rain/flooding this year runoff from fields was expected to raise, not lower algae levels. I've mentioned numerous times that water clarity had been unusually good. It's true the lake had record level inflow. But the record inflow generates record outflow, or as I like to call it, record flushing of the lake. People forget part of GLSM's problem is lack of flow period. It takes 2.6 years for the lake to turn over its water volume one time. This year 2 floods in consecutive months probably turned the lake over within 5-6 weeks. I bet a lot of legacy phosphorus/nitrogen was flushed out. Hopefully a lot more contaminant flushed out than came in. Time will tell.


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## Muddy

The heavy rains started early and continued into typical planting dates. The heavy rains prevented farmers from getting into the fields to apply fertilizer. So run off had less nutrient loading than typical years.


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## Muddy

These algae problems are pretty scary. It’s popping up everywhere now. GLSM is a canary in the coal mine. What’s going to happen when we don’t have potable fresh water ? I’m pretty happy that my drinking water comes from a well 150’ deep in pure limestone. I’m safe-for now.


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## RMK

Not much of a fishing report as I haven't been out for a while.... but I came across an interesting floater while I was giving nieces and friends kids jet ski rides. Victim of old age or warm summer stress......?? Either way it was a chunky eye to say the least.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Not much of a fishing report as I haven't been out for a while.... but I came across an interesting floater while I was giving nieces and friends kids jet ski rides. Victim of old age or warm summer stress......?? Either way it was a chunky eye to say the least.
> View attachment 317855


We will never know if it was a wally or Saugfish.


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## zaraspook

Fished Weds evening an hour before dark. Caught 4 crappie with 3 keepers. Keepers 10-10.5" and rather chunky, all caught with Monkey Milk though I tried other colors. Walking, 2-2.5" under bobber in 3-3.5' of water, and all came from one spot. Caught zero at 3-4 other spots. Shoulda stayed at the first spot! 4 in an hour is not bad for August.


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## zaraspook

Skunked this Thurs AM in a 45 min session followed by another 30 minutes invested under a couple of toons. Only winning spot last night was a dry hole today. Mouths of those 4 must still be stinging from my hook. Oh well......better days ahead.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM Sat evening to fish an hour before dark. Doing my bank walkabout got skunked with 3-4 uninspiring bites. Sunday morning repeated my performance from the night before. This skunk was slightly more entertaining....maybe 8 whispers of a bite. A glutton for punishment perhaps I hit the walking tour again Sunday evening. Whoa! 2 crappies, neither a keeper but not far off. Fish must have been juiced by the approaching rain. Whatever the reason, I'll take it. No skunk!

Monday fished twice for a total of 3 hours in the light to medium rain that fell most of the day. Caught 7 crappie with 4 keepers, a couple of nice gills to boot, and felt I'd hit the mother-lode! This morning, Tuesday, GLSM was back to it's normal, very tough, summertime crappie bite. Caught a couple of gills but no crappie.

Water temp 71 degrees. About half my fish came from under pontoons. The remainder were usually on the bottom, tucked in submerged cover in 4' of water. Monkey Milk hasn't been productive at all. Chartreuse patterns caught all my fish. Cooler days ahead......


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## zaraspook

Entertained guests at GLSM from Friday afternoon thru Monday Memorial Day. It was fun but glad Memorial Day 2019 is in the history books. I managed to work in at least one half-hour walking fishing session each day, sometimes two sessions but never more. Water temp is relatively steady, holding in the 70-71 degree range. Water level is lower than I'd like but most of my submerged cover is still fully hidden which means at least 2-3' FOW, about normal for this time of year.

For the last 3 months I'd caught zero crappie from 4 of my 6 best spots, just no evidence of fish at those locations. Pleased to report 3 of those 4 fishless spots are back in play. No windfall at any spot, but managed to pull at least one crappie from 3 of those locations. Guessing I fished a total of 4 hours during the holiday, all from the bank. Caught 12 total with 7 keepers. Biggest were a pair at 11.5". 7 keepers from 12 fish is way above what I've seen thru the summer. It "felt" like my channel had more fish, better quality........a good sign as water temp descends for fall fishing.

Fish were scattered, lone wolves. 2 of 12 caught on Baby Shad plastics in bluegrass color, bulk came from Tiny Shad Panfish Assassins in chartreuse speckle pattern. Majority were pulled 30" under bobber from 3-4' of water. I usually expect the bite from under pontoons to heat-up about the time college football starts. Toon bite wasn't good. Just 2 fish from toons, however, sunshine wasn't abundant over the weekend at GLSM.


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## Saugeyefisher

Nice! Nice! I'd like to think youd put some good numbers on the bank if u hit it longer then 30 minutes each day. Not to shabby! 
I might just go check out some of my crappie spots this weekend.


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## crappiedude

Not too bad Zara. My bank fishing spots are still dead. Generally a couple of 8-9" and that's it. My bank fishing trips seem to be fairly short in nature too this time of year. It's hard to fish more than 30-40 minutes when the action is so slow.
I have noticed an improvement on the size of the fish on some deeper (10 fow) spots out in the main lake. Usually mid Sept-early Oct is tough for me with the turnover coming on but once the fish start to transition back into shallower water, then it's game on.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Nice! Nice! I'd like to think youd put some good numbers on the bank if u hit it longer then 30 minutes each day. Not to shabby!
> I might just go check out some of my crappie spots this weekend.


Saugfish.......holidays at lake are rarely good fishing opportunities for me. Too many guests, few are fishing advocates, and time consumed by entertaining. Even if I had more time, I doubt there would be meaningful improvement in results. A month or so from now should better suit my short attention span.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Saugfish.......holidays at lake are rarely good fishing opportunities for me. Too many guests, few are fishing advocates, and time consumed by entertaining. Even if I had more time, I doubt there would be meaningful improvement in results. A month or so from now should better suit my short attention span.


Lol ya I get ya on the holiday time! I guess I'm just building myself up to go . 
I wouldn't mind catching 24 with 14 keepers in a 8 hour trip this time of year at all if I got out dipping shallow cover.


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## Hortance

Zara--Just wanted to give you a shout out/props/whatever-the-kids-are-saying-now...For maintaining this thread for as long as you have. 

I have recently been going through old posts from prior years at the same point in the season, like looking at early Sept threads from 2017 and 18 prior to crappie hunting this past weekend. Didn't catch anything this weekend, but thats on me. This whole thread is a gold mine. Thanks.


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## zaraspook

Hortance said:


> Zara--Just wanted to give you a shout out/props/whatever-the-kids-are-saying-now...For maintaining this thread for as long as you have.
> 
> I have recently been going through old posts from prior years at the same point in the season, like looking at early Sept threads from 2017 and 18 prior to crappie hunting this past weekend. Didn't catch anything this weekend, but thats on me. This whole thread is a gold mine. Thanks.


Appreciate kudos from you, Hortance. This thread has been the work of many great contributors.


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## zaraspook

Arrived at lake Weds evening at 8pm. After unloading truck had just enough light to try fishing for 20-30 min. Only landed one but it was another nice 11.5".....very well fed. 

Back at it Thurs morning. Few bites, pretty dead and could only land one in an hour, but a chunky 10". Mid afternoon pulled 2 from under a neighbor's pontoon. One was a keeper but after 90 minutes on 4 different toons, 2 crappies is disappointing. Put in another hour before dark. By no means great action but best activity of the day. Caught 3, all keepers, biggest measured 11". Had 2 more flop off lifting over the seawall and whiffed on a few others. 6 crappie I caught Thursday, 5 keepers.

Friday morning was a repeat of recent morning sessions. About an hour of scant bites, one crappie, at least it was another keeper. Probably won't hang around to sample the evening bite today but trend indicates evenings are better. Water temp today/Friday remains at 71. No impact from these cooler nights, but we've had lots of sunshine Weds/Thurs. I suspect lake is cooler and with some wind to mix it up channels will realize some cooling.

In general I'm fishing 6" from the bottom when I get bites and water depth usually 3-4.5' deep. Higher in the water column gets no response. Tiny Shad in chartreuse sparkle is the only reliable bait I've used that produces. The few I catch seem to be sitting on the bottom, close to cover, and show no motivation to move very far to chase my bait.


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## Saugeyefisher

I'm gonna try buckeye tomarrow afternoon to dark. Mainly a saugeye/wiper recon,but I'll have the crappie gear close bye a few trys. If I find any shallow water patterns I'll passem on


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## zaraspook

Never did read a public announcement on the 2019 GLSM perch stocking. A friend heard from a GLSM hatchery source 2019 stocking was 200k perch fingerlings and 2.5 million perch fry. Prior year no perch were stocked. Hatchery had a bad yield and late ice that year took a toll on fry in the hatchery perch pond. I usually catch a few perch while crappie fishing but zero perch this year. Glad the DNR stocks them but cannot personally attest to any impact on GLSM's perch population.


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## Saugeyefisher

Welp,didnt make it to buckeye. Got my arm twisted into a river float. Very peaceful! So much so the fish didnt even want to interrupt


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## RMK

the outdoorsmans crappie tournaments start back up on Sunday. Dang its hot! it will be interesting to see how folks do.


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## BuckeyeCrappie1965

What are the outdoorsmans Crappie tournaments?


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## RMK

BuckeyeCrappie1965 said:


> What are the outdoorsmans Crappie tournaments?


its a local crappie series. usually 3 or 4 spring tournaments and then 3 or 4 fall tournaments and a classic. cant remember exactly how it works but something like the top 20% in the points qualify for classic. $50 entry fee per team per tournament. open to anybody. all tournaments on GLSM. sign up forms are at the outdoorsman bait shop NE corner of the lake.


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## BuckeyeCrappie1965

Thanks for the info. Would love to fish it but my health right now isn’t good enough. Maybe 2020


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## zaraspook

Thursday at lake with a fishing buddy for couple hours in the morning and 90 minutes in the evening. First time I've cracked double digits in 3 months. Caught 10 with 8 keepers. Fishing friend caught 3, all keepers. In his defense, despite fishing 3 hours longer than me and cycling thru a dozen different baits and color combos, he was on the skunk line until he accepted my offer of the identical bait as mine. He's a 50 year fishing friend and we share the same trait for stubbornness.
No jumbos for us but keeper rate is high and fish are fat. Biggest in photo was 11.5".


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## RMK

Friday saturday and sunday-early morning to early afternoons: water temp 79 at ramp at friday mornings launch. 75 saturday morning and down to 74 sunday morning. Fridays search covered 4 channels. Skunked in 2, 3 keepers in the 3rd, 2 in the 4th. I targetted different depths and structures not knowing where fish would be. Pontoons were what produced fish for me. 5 keepers for Friday. Best 11.5. Shortest 9.5. Saturday pulled into deeper water to start the second days search. Click click went the trolling motor with no movement. That put a damper on saturday using the big motor and a paddle to get around. Managed a couple bites on metal in deeper water but no fish landed. Next two channels produced a couple shorts. Got home and found the loose wire. Good to go for Sundays adventure. Started the morning out fishing deep under float producing one keeper on metal. Off to shoot pontoons. Skunked in the next 2 channels and the 3rd we found a couple productive toons. Quite a few 7 to 8 3/4 fish with enough 9 to 11.5s mixed in to keep us interested. Ended Sunday with 10 keepers and probably around 15 shorts. A couple expiremnments with color didn't seem to make much difference. Location however did. Lots of monkey brains out there. Looking forward to cooler temps!


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## RMK

another interesting theory for ya.... i know size and numbers very by location, but last fall i remember catching a large number of 4"-5" shorts. wondering if those are the 7"-9" shorts we found in a small abundance on Sunday. good numbers of 10-12s next year?? we will see


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> another interesting theory for ya.... i know size and numbers very by location, but last fall i remember catching a large number of 4"-5" shorts. wondering if those are the 7"-9" shorts we found in a small abundance on Sunday. good numbers of 10-12s next year?? we will see


Good report and theory as well. I haven't caught any 4-5" fish this season, but then again crappie of any size are to come by last few months. Between an AM and PM session Friday I caught but 5, all were keepers, and got my first 12" since spring.

I think the uptick in water temp turned crappie off. They got "comfortable" with temps 69-71 for several weeks and bite was improving for a while. Also, continuously falling water level, no rain, is making several of my crappie spots difficult. Not much we can do about it other than "adapt".


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## crappiedude

The crappie down this way are still out in deeper water. They seemed to have moved some though. They are still following shad but rather than holding in the July/August spots, they're more in the June spots. In July/August you could fill the boat with 7-8" fish, now I'm seeing a lot more 9 -9 1/2" fish. Those 11"-12" fish down here are pretty few and far between. Every year I think, next year is the year.
Back in August when we had that really hot 90 degree stretch I had one little spot in 3-6 fow that held some really nice fish. It was only 2 logs out of about 5 or 6 in the general area that seemed to produce. If they weren't on one of those 2 logs it was a waste of time to fish the others.
Today I noticed a little more activity fishing from shore, lot's of fish have moved in. Now we just need some of their bigger friends to show up.
Even with these temps still holding in the mid-upper 80's as the season goes on it's going to have less of a effect because it's edging lower in southern the sky. Since most days I'll eat my lunch out on the deck, the last 2 weeks I've noticed how the umbrella isn't as effective blocking the sun. I have to sit on the north side of the table if I want shade now. With the sun getting lower every day it is just a matter of time before the temps follow that trend too.
It won't be long.


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## brad crappie

W


crappiedude said:


> The crappie down this way are still out in deeper water. They seemed to have moved some though. They are still following shad but rather than holding in the July/August spots, they're more in the June spots. In July/August you could fill the boat with 7-8" fish, now I'm seeing a lot more 9 -9 1/2" fish. Those 11"-12" fish down here are pretty few and far between. Every year I think, next year is the year.
> Back in August when we had that really hot 90 degree stretch I had one little spot in 3-6 fow that held some really nice fish. It was only 2 logs out of about 5 or 6 in the general area that seemed to produce. If they weren't on one of those 2 logs it was a waste of time to fish the others.
> Today I noticed a little more activity fishing from shore, lot's of fish have moved in. Now we just need some of their bigger friends to show up.
> Even with these temps still holding in the mid-upper 80's as the season goes on it's going to have less of a effect because it's edging lower in southern the sky. Since most days I'll eat my lunch out on the deck, the last 2 weeks I've noticed how the umbrella isn't as effective blocking the sun. I have to sit on the north side of the table if I want shade now. With the sun getting lower every day it is just a matter of time before the temps follow that trend too.
> It won't be long.


why do think those craps are not growing good down there?


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## crappiedude

brad crappie said:


> why do think those craps are not growing good down there?


I have no idea but it's not for lack of food. Plenty of shad.


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## crappie4me

326000 views...z i think you should have a party for everyone who has viewed.glsm will never be the same...you started something you should be proud of..you definitely helped me out with a few tips.


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## zaraspook

crappie4me said:


> 326000 views...z i think you should have a party for everyone who has viewed.glsm will never be the same...you started something you should be proud of..you definitely helped me out with a few tips.


We have a ton of OGF guys who feel they can post on this thread, add their 2 cents worth, and not get castrated by others. It makes for a fertile environment to share experiences, pick and choose ideas, harvest concepts to add to your personal game. Hats off to the many who maintain our civil discourse.

With 326000 views we might need to borrow THE SHOE in Columbus to hold a party!


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## zaraspook

Stilll a struggle to get into crappie at GLSM. Was at my lake place last Weds afternoon. Fished a couple of sessions from my normal bank places. Skunked, very few bites and nothing that resembled a crappie bite.

Thursday morning went at it again. Same results in the AM and crappie skunk continued thru the evening, though I did catch a few gills Thursday. I'm thick skinned so tested the waters again on Friday. In 2 hours I caught 10 crappie, 5 keepers, a cat, and 3 gills. Go figure! Same spots as the prior 2 days, same plastics, but ran into a few fish that were interested in eating. Biggest was 11" from under a toon.

Water temps are still elevated, 70-73 range. Water levels are down significantly. Friday AM was only the 2nd time I caught double digit numbers of crappie since June. 

So far this September I've caught just 42 crappie, compared to 196 thru the same day of September last year. Keeper rate is higher so far this Sept (32 of 42). 2018 keeper rate was just under 50% to date. I've been blaming warm water temps this year but erroneously since water temps are about the same. Water levels aren't a culprit either....2019 depth is 36" off my seawall compared to 37" in 2018. I don't have a simple solution to hang my hat on. However, for whatever reason my 2018 Sept was the best ever by a long shot. Fish were in my channel in great numbers last year, this year "not"!


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## RMK

Fri thru sunday. First parts of the day. Water temps holding in the upper 70s. Spent this weekend in 4 different areas than last weekends spots. Pontoons still our main target. Bite and concentration of fish seems to be increasing despite what I would consider warm water temps. Best numbers day was sunday with around 20 keepers and 6 to 8 shorts mostly in the 7" to just under 9" range. Big fish for the weekend went to Scott with a very healthy 1.23lb 13" fish that somehow I dont have a picture of. 3 12s and a handful of 11+. We also got to see 2 whites on saturday. One might ve been a legal fish other just short.


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## crappiedude

I tell you what's weird down here...the sunnier and brighter it is, the better the bite is.
All open water with no cover around.
Cloudy out today and the bite was pretty dead.


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## Acton Angler

Fished Acton Lake Tuesday evening and pulled a couple 11+" whites that were down 10' but action was slow so I moved more shallow. Swimming a jig under float in the shallows provided the most fast-paced crappie action I've experienced since spring, but the shallow fish were ALL dink 4-7" crappie. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come! Water was still 76-77" and water level was actually down a bit from normal.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Fri thru sunday. First parts of the day. Water temps holding in the upper 70s. Spent this weekend in 4 different areas than last weekends spots. Pontoons still our main target. Bite and concentration of fish seems to be increasing despite what I would consider warm water temps. Best numbers day was sunday with around 20 keepers and 6 to 8 shorts mostly in the 7" to just under 9" range. Big fish for the weekend went to Scott with a very healthy 1.23lb 13" fish that somehow I dont have a picture of. 3 12s and a handful of 11+. We also got to see 2 whites on saturday. One might ve been a legal fish other just short.
> View attachment 323427
> View attachment 323429
> View attachment 323431
> View attachment 323433
> View attachment 323435


Way to go, RMK. I fished Thursday mid-morning and evening. The lake was stingy. Caught but 6 in 3 painful hours. Just 2 keepers among them. Short ones were the 7-8" range except for a 3" over-achiever that totally ate my Monkey Milk BG and ball of the jig head. 4 of the 6 were from toons. I'll be around Friday so off and on I will test the waters.


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## zaraspook

Friday was virtually a replay of Thurs. 6 total but 1 more keeper than the 2 from day before. Water temp Friday was 69. Sat urday morning water temp was 68.5......inching down in right direction. Fished only an hour before heading home in Indiana. Visitors coming. That one hour of fishing was dead silent until the last 10 minutes when back to back casts at one spot produced 2 keepers before returning to silent mode. Chartreuse speckles/glitter still the bait of choice for the few fish that cooperated. They were on wood, within 2' of a seawall, in about 3' of water. 4 other spots were quiet. Didn't have time to fish pontoons that morning........pontoons produced about half the fish caught Th and Fr.


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## zaraspook

Stunning reversal of fortunes today at GLSM......fortunately for the better. Arrived to try my bank fishing circuit from 2-4 pm. Recent results suggested it would be a struggle to stay off the crappie skunk line, but that I'd eventually get a couple. The 2-hour stint produced 10 keepers from 15 caught. I was in pig heaven! Quit for dinner and went out again at 6pm. Geez! Hit one spot and stayed there for the entire hour. Caught 9 more with 4 keepers. Actually, caught 6 in the first 10 minutes. 24 caught in 3 hours today is about 1/2 the number I totaled for all of September.

No explanation.....maybe the fact I changed deodorant brands today? Water temp was up 5-6 degrees from last week to 74. I fished 6 spots.....all of which produced at least one crappie. First time for all spots to provide action since May. Chartreuse glitter Panfish Assassin was the top plastic bait today, though Monkey Milk shad stingers caught fish. If I had used Monkey Milk as much as the Chartreuse bait, it likely would have worked as well. Most of the time I fished 2-3 ft under bobber depending on water depth.

Biggest fish were photos here. One was 11.5" and the other 11.75". Most of keepers were 10-10.5". Fun day!


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Stunning reversal of fortunes today at GLSM......fortunately for the better. Arrived to try my bank fishing circuit from 2-4 pm. Recent results suggested it would be a struggle to stay off the crappie skunk line, but that I'd eventually get a couple. The 2-hour stint produced 10 keepers from 15 caught. I was in pig heaven! Quit for dinner and went out again at 6pm. Geez! Hit one spot and stayed there for the entire hour. Caught 9 more with 4 keepers. Actually, caught 6 in the first 10 minutes. 24 caught in 3 hours today is about 1/2 the number I totaled for all of September.
> 
> No explanation.....maybe the fact I changed deodorant brands today? Water temp was up 5-6 degrees from last week to 74.I fished 6 spots.....all of which produced at least one crappie. First time for all spots to provide action since May. Chartreuse glitter Panfish Assassin was the top plastic bait today, though Monkey Milk shad stingers caught fish. If I had used Monkey Milk as much as the Chartreuse bait, it likely would have worked as well.
> 
> Biggest fish were photos here. One was 11.5" and the other 11.75". Most of keepers were 10-10.5". Fun day!


nice! great looking fish. fat ones too


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## brad crappie

zaraspook said:


> Stunning reversal of fortunes today at GLSM......fortunately for the better. Arrived to try my bank fishing circuit from 2-4 pm. Recent results suggested it would be a struggle to stay off the crappie skunk line, but that I'd eventually get a couple. The 2-hour stint produced 10 keepers from 15 caught. I was in pig heaven! Quit for dinner and went out again at 6pm. Geez! Hit one spot and stayed there for the entire hour. Caught 9 more with 4 keepers. Actually, caught 6 in the first 10 minutes. 24 caught in 3 hours today is about 1/2 the number I totaled for all of September.
> 
> No explanation.....maybe the fact I changed deodorant brands today? Water temp was up 5-6 degrees from last week to 74. I fished 6 spots.....all of which produced at least one crappie. First time for all spots to provide action since May. Chartreuse glitter Panfish Assassin was the top plastic bait today, though Monkey Milk shad stingers caught fish. If I had used Monkey Milk as much as the Chartreuse bait, it likely would have worked as well. Most of the time I fished 2-3 ft under bobber depending on water depth.
> 
> Biggest fish were photos here. One was 11.5" and the other 11.75". Most of keepers were 10-10.5". Fun day!


Leave some for the crappie USA tourney next May!!! It was to muddy in there last year! Just think if st marys had a 20fish 10in limit it would probably be the best in the state


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## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> Leave some for the crappie USA tourney next May!!! It was to muddy in there last year! Just think if st marys had a 20fish 10in limit it would probably be the best in the state


Haha! I specifically had the Crappie USA tourney guys in mind as I released each fish back to grow, repopulate, and be caught again.


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## RMK

fish structure event this saturday. they are meeting at the new ramp on the little chick at 830. supposed to go until 1:30. cant remember the organization that is putting it on but they hooked up with the state and are placing a bunch of steak beds. i dont think i m going to be able to make it but sounds like a good cause to me. fish fry afterwards. bring a life jacket.


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## fishwhacker

Zara truly unusual to catch that many this time of a year wearing a t-shirt. Usually doesnt get that good until a forecast of snow on the horizon. Great job!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> fish structure event this saturday. they are meeting at the new ramp on the little chick at 830. supposed to go until 1:30. cant remember the organization that is putting it on but they hooked up with the state and are placing a bunch of steak beds. i dont think i m going to be able to make it but sounds like a good cause to me. fish fry afterwards. bring a life jacket.


RMK.......heard about the stake bed project. Piles of 2x2's to make the stakebeds appearing at various spots around the lake, like at Windy Point, though I haven't seen firsthand. Also heard there are white stakes in the water to mark locations where stakebeds will be sunk. Presumably, when project is completed, the State will provide info/maps of all stakebed locations. 

Your report is the first I've heard about when/where and apparently they need volunteers. I'm going home Friday and will miss the event, not returning until Tues. Wish it was better publicized, would love to learn the process.


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## zaraspook

Yesterday's good crappie bite continued today/Thurs. Confess that I went to Loramie this morning, trying my undeveloped saugeye skills. Did catch 6 saugeye. Did not catch a keeper, all dinks. Also caught 7 crappie. A similar tune, none of the 7 were keepers. Returned to GLSM in time for a 90 minute session early afternoon followed by another 90 minutes at 5pm. Early afternoon caught 8 crappie with 4 keepers. 5pm session caught 12 more with 11 keepers. 

For the day total was 27 crappie, 15 keepers. Let me tell you we have a nice class of 10 and 11' fish this fall. They are thick, nice shoulders, chunks. None today were over 11.25" but I randomly weighed one that was right at 11". Weight was 0.98 pounds, well fed, and almost too thick for my slabmaster measurer.

Monkey Milk shad bodies were very good today. Caught some fish on Chartreuse Glitter Panfish Assassins, but Monkey Milk an easy winner today. Pontoons were good, but I have only 2 accessible on my walking tour. Have to find fish in other spots to keep busy. The six spots I hit each provided at least one crappie. I like it when the fish cooperate on multiple types of cover. They weren't shy, ate baits with enthusiasm, and show plenty of spunk in the fight. Fish were caught in as little as 18" of water but most in 3-4' and usually 24-30" under bobber.

51 crappie so far in October is within 5 of total for the entire month of Sept. Get 'em while you can!


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## zaraspook

Started fishing earlier Fri morning than normal since I needed to head home by mid afternoon. 20 min later I quit. It was clear the bite had changed from Weds/Thur so ran an errand and gave the fish an hour and a half to get hungry. Bite was better when I returned. Caught 9 with 8 keepers in 90 minutes. Cleaned up, packed up then grabbed my rod for one last shot targeting toons. Action under toons wasn't good. Caught 3 but all were short in 45 minutes.
About 1/2 my spots did not give up fish on Fri. Tried plastics other than Monkey Milk but none worked.
Cooler temps and overcast skies should produce a 6-8 degree drop of water temps. That should set up a good couple of weeks of decent crappie fishing.


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## zaraspook

GLSM water temp 60.4 degrees today. 9 days ago lake temp was 74 and a year ago on this date water temp 69. I'd say crappie should be getting a favorable signal to put on the feed bag. Good news.
Actually, a friend and I came to GLSM Tues afternoon, and leaving today/Thurs. We fished couple hours Tues afternoon. Quantity of our catch was off a bit, but can't complain about quality. I caught 11 with 9 keepers. 10.25" was the smallest we cleaned with my biggest a 12.5" chunk. Tougher bite Weds. Though we probably fished twice as long, my catch dwindled to 8 with just 3 keepers. Today I got 5 with 5 keepers late morning. Hope to get out again an hour before leaving for home but not sure it will happen.

Monkey Milk Baby Shad tagged 70% of our catch with Bluegrass pattern getting the rest. Consistent with last few months, most fish we catch are pretty tight to cover, in 3 to 4' of water and down on the bottom. Bank fishing only. With low temps heading our way in the 30's, channel water temps should soon be in the 50's. Should be good for the bite!


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara truly unusual to catch that many this time of a year wearing a t-shirt. Usually doesnt get that good until a forecast of snow on the horizon. Great job!


whacker ......if you get the chance, Friday and Saturday should be active crappie days. A nice mix of the approaching front, plus full moon, should stir them up. They've been slow this week. My grandkids have soccer games tonight, Saturday AM, and another Sunday, otherwise I'd be fishing right now. They showed signs yesterday of raising the activity level.


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> whacker ......if you get the chance, Friday and Saturday should be active crappie days. A nice mix of the approaching front, plus full moon, should stir them up. They've been slow this week. My grandkids have soccer games tonight, Saturday AM, and another Sunday, otherwise I'd be fishing right now. They showed signs yesterday of raising the activity level.


I definitely will be out. Ill have to switch out my bluegill jigs for some monkey milk at least for awhile. Im out most weekends but tend to stick to bluegill/eye fishing but definitely not opposed to sticking some crappies especially in the fall. Baby number 3 on the way in November so need to get it in before she shows up. I will report back on the attempts.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> I definitely will be out. Ill have to switch out my bluegill jigs for some monkey milk at least for awhile. Im out most weekends but tend to stick to bluegill/eye fishing but definitely not opposed to sticking some crappies especially in the fall. Baby number 3 on the way in November so need to get it in before she shows up. I will report back on the attempts.


Good luck with impending birth of child #3. Just think..........2 more and you have enough to put a basketball team on the court!


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## fishwhacker

Got out with the boys and had about a dozen nice gills in about 2hrs....didnt try for crappies this round as i was in more of a scouting mode. Saw 1 guy that had a 9 inch crappie so must have been slow where i was, hoping to get out more this weekend


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## zaraspook

Felt badly that I suggested getting out Friday or Saturday with cold front and full moon combo coming, yet I couldn't make it myself with grandkids Fri/Sat/Sunday soccer games getting priority. Sooooo, after grandson's Saturday game match I buzzed up to the lake, fished a couple hours before dark, then fished again Sunday morning. Total time at lake was less than 24 hours but made it back for my granddaughters 1:30 Sunday soccer match.

Crappie fishing late Saturday was a bust. Caught but 2, 1 a keeper, and found the bite really sparse. Morning fishing Sunday was much earlier than I prefer, but results much better than expected. Caught 12 with 10 keepers. No, the fish weren't really "active". I caught 3 quick ones within 20 minutes, but then it was dead. Rather than moving to the next spot, decided to thoroughly stay on the same cover. I slowed down, working every square inch of the known cover, dropping my jig vertically all the way to the bottom (4' of water), doing my best to work vertically thru cover that was out 14-16' from me on the bank. It paid off with 7 more crappie from that area. Fish were down there, in the cover, but not actively chasing nearby baits. Pulled the final 2 from a spot I last week added to the existing cover. Total fishing time Sunday was almost 2 hours. Monkey Milk baby shad was the only bait I tried Sunday. Water temp was 58.3 degrees Sat evening.

Made it to the Sunday match and wouldn't you know the granddaughter was the star of the game? It ended in a 0-0 tie. Two overtime periods later the score remained 0-0. After a 5 player shootout round, still a tie at 2-2. Next 5 player shootout round my granddaughter put her shot in the net for a 3-2 lead. We scored one more goal with our final player/shooter to win 4-2. Her first goal of the year in the championship match and final game of season! Good confidence boost for her. Proud granddad!


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## RMK

Thursday through sunday- water started out at 65 thursday and down to 59 sunday. Best numbers day on Sunday with around 30 keepers and a handful of shorts. Caught some spider rigging double minnow rigs in 2 different locations covering the water column and catching fish both deep and shallow. Pontoons still holding fish and produced the most action for mid day Sunday. Some pontoons that had been productive shut off. It was fun to catch some spider rigging. We caught better sized fish while doing it Friday than we did sunday. Stumbled across several of the newly placed stake beds. Wow they are big! Can't miss em. Haven't tried any of them yet but I m sure they will produce some fish at some point.





























Any expierenced sonar guys care to chime in..... I m guessing shad because I slow trolled minnows through it and not a bite. But even if they are shad ut seems like all the more reason for crappie to be mixed in the bunch. It seemed like when we found a channel that was loaded with marks like this one we didn't catch crappie. But when the marks were much fewer and farther between we would catch fish. Just trying to learn how to use my electronics to eliminate more water quicker than just trying to fish each area and find out.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Thursday through sunday- water started out at 65 thursday and down to 59 sunday. Best numbers day on Sunday with around 30 keepers and a handful of shorts. Caught some spider rigging double minnow rigs in 2 different locations covering the water column and catching fish both deep and shallow. Pontoons still holding fish and produced the most action for mid day Sunday. Some pontoons that had been productive shut off. It was fun to catch some spider rigging. We caught better sized fish while doing it Friday than we did sunday. Stumbled across several of the newly placed stake beds. Wow they are big! Can't miss em. Haven't tried any of them yet but I m sure they will produce some fish at some point.
> View attachment 325975
> View attachment 325977
> View attachment 325979
> View attachment 325981
> 
> Any expierenced sonar guys care to chime in..... I m guessing shad because I slow trolled minnows through it and not a bite. But even if they are shad ut seems like all the more reason for crappie to be mixed in the bunch. It seemed like when we found a channel that was loaded with marks like this one we didn't catch crappie. But when the marks were much fewer and farther between we would catch fish. Just trying to learn how to use my electronics to eliminate more water quicker than just trying to fish each area and find out.


Sweet, RMK! The stake bed you photographed didn't happen to be at Harmons,was it? I drove by Harmons........it's loaded with stake beds. Big ones. Majority on the west side of the road that leads back to State area.


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## RMK

picture was from little chickasaw. saw some at harmons and windy point as well


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## firemanmike2127

I think we put in 13 beds if I heard the correct total. There are 2 in the Hot Water Hole, & the one nearest to the bridge opening is somewhat smaller. Two large ones in the campground channel. Two @ Anderson's, & both of them are near the parking lot. Two more two more large ones in the basin @ the West Bank boat ramp. Thought I heard Park Grand get mentioned as well - not 100% sure on that though. Little Chickasaw, Harmon's, & Windy Point also as RMK mentioned. A couple of sledgehammers might have been added for good measure. A big thanks to the guys with the ODOW for organizing this !! I had a great time helping with this project & got to hang out with some of our local officers, park staff, & other volunteers afterwards @ the fish fry. I certainly hope we can do this again next year & create even more panfish habitat for the anglers @ GLSM. Mike


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## RMK

firemanmike2127 said:


> I think we put in 13 beds if I heard the correct total. There are 2 in the Hot Water Hole, & the one nearest to the bridge opening is somewhat smaller. Two large ones in the campground channel. Two @ Anderson's, & both of them are near the parking lot. Two more two more large ones in the basin @ the West Bank boat ramp. Thought I heard Park Grand get mentioned as well - not 100% sure on that though. Little Chickasaw, Harmon's, & Windy Point also as RMK mentioned. A couple of sledgehammers might have been added for good measure. A big thanks to the guys with the ODOW for organizing this !! I had a great time helping with this project & got to hang out with some of our local officers, park staff, & other volunteers afterwards @ the fish fry. I certainly hope we can do this again next year & create even more panfish habitat for the anglers @ GLSM. Mike


good work mike. wish i could have made it


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> I think we put in 13 beds if I heard the correct total. There are 2 in the Hot Water Hole, & the one nearest to the bridge opening is somewhat smaller. Two large ones in the campground channel. Two @ Anderson's, & both of them are near the parking lot. Two more two more large ones in the basin @ the West Bank boat ramp. Thought I heard Park Grand get mentioned as well - not 100% sure on that though. Little Chickasaw, Harmon's, & Windy Point also as RMK mentioned. A couple of sledgehammers might have been added for good measure. A big thanks to the guys with the ODOW for organizing this !! I had a great time helping with this project & got to hang out with some of our local officers, park staff, & other volunteers afterwards @ the fish fry. I certainly hope we can do this again next year & create even more panfish habitat for the anglers @ GLSM. Mike


My highest appreciation to you and others giving time to the project. Great work performed with a long lasting contribution to the fishing community. Have a question for you Mike, is there any concern with the stakes longevity, that is ice combined with rising and falling water levels to pull stakes out of lake bed? At times it seems other vertical structures show damage from thick, extended ice. Nothing is sure-fire impervious to Mother Nature. Might be showing my ignorance here.....


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## firemanmike2127

Randy, I'm certain that the winter ice cover will rough up some of the newly placed habitat. Hopefully they hold up well & don't deteriorate too much. Some of the areas where the newly placed beds are located have a great deal of silt on the bottom. For example, in the state campground channel we were shoving some of the stakes down 18" to almost 2' in some cases BEFORE we drove them in further with hammers. Interestingly enough, the beds could start to hold crappies in as early as a week was the opinion of an ODOW staff member I was talking to. Early vegetation growth on the stakes promotes the bottom of the food chain with micro-organisms, zoo-plankton, etc. which attracts the fry & small minnows to the area. One of the fisheries biologists (Mr. Nate Brown) told me that GLSM has the best growth rate for crappies in the entire state, which I thought was really cool. There have been some nice sized fish being caught lately & hopefully the bite continues for a couple more weeks. Mike


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> Randy, I'm certain that the winter ice cover will rough up some of the newly placed habitat. Hopefully they hold up well & don't deteriorate too much. Some of the areas where the newly placed beds are located have a great deal of silt on the bottom. For example, in the state campground channel we were shoving some of the stakes down 18' to almost 2' in some cases BEFORE we drove them in further with hammers. Interestingly enough, the beds could start to hold crappies in as early as a week was the opinion of an ODOW staff member I was talking to. Early vegetation growth on the stakes promotes the bottom of the food chain with micro-organisms, zoo-plankton, etc. which attracts the fry & small minnows to the area. One of the fisheries biologists (Mr. Nate Brown) told me that GLSM has the best growth rate for crappies in the entire state, which i thought was really cool. There have been some nice sized fish being caught lately & hopefully the bite continues for a couple more weeks. Mike


Thanks. Good info on the new beds. Somehow I'm not surprised that silt/muck on bottom up to 2' in places.


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## zaraspook

Made it to lake at 10:45am Tues and line wet by 11am. Late start but still a good day on my walking route. First 90 minutes hit 3 spots. Caught crappie at each spot. The 10 I caught included 5 keepers with biggest 11.23". After lunch I tried the 2 remaining toons on my channel. In 90 minutes when bite disappeared caught 13, lots of short fish though. Only 2 keepers but good entertainment. Could not put off chores any longer so worked on the never-ending fall problem of leaves everywhere and cut grass.

Rewarded myself with another fishing stint for an hour at 6pm. The evening bite has not been kind last few weeks. Probably related to the cold front coming in, the bite was decent this time, lots of surface action, and fish seemed to be chasing baits a bit more. Caught 8 more, 3 keepers, working the same 3 spots I hit earlier in the day.

The day ended with a total of 31 crappies caught.....best day of the fall though keeper rate disappointing. Water temp was 55.5 degrees from 58.6 on Saturday. Chances are good water temp will crack below 50 in channels by early next week. Just looked at my 2018 log......last year my channel broke into the 40's on Oct 21. Don't be dissuaded from fishing. I caught more crappie in November last year than in October.


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## zaraspook

Challenging conditions today. Temp and winds providing a strong reminder of days to come. An hour at a time is about all I could handle. Bites were sparse. Caught 3 in my morning session. Same number in early afternoon. Evening session was slightly better with 5. 5 of the day's 11 were keepers and several 11" fish among the catch. By the way some really nice gills have been showing up and it seems I catch at least 1 LMB every day (none bigger than 12"). If it weren't for the Monkey Milk Baby Shads I wouldn't be catching crappie. No other baits I've tried are turning the trick.


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## Tom 513

I like that Monkey Milk color too, im wondering if the water was on the clear side?

Sent from my SM-J727V using Tapatalk


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## zaraspook

Tom 513 said:


> I like that Monkey Milk color too, im wondering if the water was on the clear side?
> 
> Sent from my SM-J727V using Tapatalk


Tom......we can only wish for "clear" water conditions at GLSM. Water is very green currently. Lots of green matter/chlorophyll suspended throughout the water column. That green stuff gets more dense with drought conditions. Water evaporates, no rainfall to replace it, green stuff gets more dense with less water. Regardless, crappie seem to see/find monkey milk even in dirty water.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM just an hour before heading home on Thurs. Caught 2, both keepers. Bigger one couldn't stretch to Fish Ohio 13" no matter how I tried. 12.75" was the verdict.


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## zaraspook

Has anyone tried the new stakebeds put into GLSM by Div of Wildlife couple of weeks ago? FishermanMike reported he was told the locations would hold fish in as little as a week. From my personal experience, I've caught crappie from new habitat within a few hours of placement. Just wondering if anyone has favorable/unfavorable experience to report........


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## crappiedude

From what I understand from a few guys who have planted cover, crappie will use it almost immediately. Normally in a few days some fish will be holding on it.


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## Saugeyefisher

I'm also in the camp they will hold to it immediately. I often seek out newer looking docks or manmade wood structures because it seems most people beleive it takes a while for fish to hold to them. I've even read articles talking about how it takes a few years. I get that it takes a couple few years for moss to start growing and starting a food chain off of them,but I find the fish still use them for shade,and protection. And honestly just the fact that it something for them to relate to. 
Pit a PC of black paint on the bottom of a structure less tank an the fish relate to it....


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## fishwhacker

Got out for about an hr and half sunday evening. Tried some of the newly laid stakebeds with no avail using a monkey milk bait. Changed locations and baits to my normal 1/64 oz split tail gill jigs and ended up with 4 legal crappies and around 8 nice gills. Must of wanted the downsized baits.


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## zaraspook

In advance of my annual fall crappie outing with 6 guys from my teenage/elementary neighborhood, I fished Thursday from bank. It was one of those bluebird days, no wind, perfect for playing golf but usually a struggle for crappie fishing. Caught 6 off my seawall in an hour, then another 6 from spot #2 in roughly 2 hours with 5 of the total as keepers. It left me with a confident feeling that I'd be able to put my fishing buds on some fish during the 48-hour guys outing. Confidence took a hit later in the day, however. Caught 6 more, but all short and it took 2 hours, plus the bite was clearly less active.

Our fishing outing started about 3pm Friday running to 11am Sunday........not quite 48 hours. The group caught 32 crappie Friday in 4 hours. Saturday's total was 30 though we easily spent double the hours in an all day rain to get them. We kept 13 of the crappie Saturday and cleaned for evening crappie tacos. 2 of those fish were 12.25-12.5". Should mention we also cleaned a lone perch I caught Saturday. First perch for me since March this year. It was tasty. Just a 9-incher.

Sunday morning the fishing was absolute crap! Our group hustled to catch only 10, 4 of those were mine and 3 from one of my team mates. My team trailed by 6 fish after Friday, and still down by 2 crappie by the end of Saturday. Thanks to our Sunday rally of 7 fish we regained our championship crown (lost by 1 fish in Spring outing)!

Food, beer, and competitive juices flowed freely. Camaraderie was outstanding! Poker was what poker always is. And no one fished midday Saturday as the Buckeyes pounded Wisconsin! Could not ask for a better weekend among friends you've known since the age of 8.


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## T04DF15H

Awesome report!


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## Wally Diver

zaraspook said:


> Fished a little over two hours Saturday morning and found a better crappie bite than previous weekend. Caught 11 crappies, 6 were legal size and a few bluegills. Three hours more fishing on Sunday produced 19 crappies with 12 over the 9" minimum. For the two outings 18 of 30 fish legal size......that's a great ratio and consistent with the fall class of fish. Most are 9.5-10.5 length. Biggest one this weekend was 11.25.
> 
> It was a subtle bite........fish would take the grub and barely move, very slowly if at all. The majority of fish were taken on a triple tip grub.....color called "motor oil". When the bite slowed down on Sunday I up-sized baits after noticing the guys throwing really small baits weren't catching much. About 10 of the 19 were caught on a Southern Pro "hot grub", which is a a bit larger than the triple tips. The color I used was ugly.....I think called June bug/acid rain.


Where are all the perch the DNR has stockef yhe last 4 yesrs


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## fishwhacker

Wally Diver said:


> Where are all the perch the DNR has stockef yhe last 4 yesrs


If you knew that you would have 1000 new best friends, myself included lol. Keep thinking im going to find a school ice fishing, maybe this year with my newly purchased striker 4 electronic i can explore more. I also just havent heard of anyone dedicated to find them. Most people i talk to are like me and try a couple times a year and go back to crappies or gills.


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## dcool

zaraspook said:


> In advance of my annual fall crappie outing with 6 guys from my teenage/elementary neighborhood, I fished Thursday from bank. It was one of those bluebird days, no wind, perfect for playing golf but usually a struggle for crappie fishing. Caught 6 off my seawall in an hour, then another 6 from spot #2 in roughly 2 hours with 5 of the total as keepers. It left me with a confident feeling that I'd be able to put my fishing buds on some fish during the 48-hour guys outing. Confidence took a hit later in the day, however. Caught 6 more, but all short and it took 2 hours, plus the bite was clearly less active.
> 
> Our fishing outing started about 3pm Friday running to 11am Sunday........not quite 48 hours. The group caught 32 crappie Friday in 4 hours. Saturday's total was 30 though we easily spent double the hours in an all day rain to get them. We kept 13 of the crappie Saturday and cleaned for evening crappie tacos. 2 of those fish were 12.25-12.5". Should mention we also cleaned a lone perch I caught Saturday. First perch for me since March this year. It was tasty. Just a 9-incher.
> 
> Sunday morning the fishing was absolute crap! Our group hustled to catch only 10, 4 of those were mine and 3 from one of my team mates. My team trailed by 6 fish after Friday, and still down by 2 crappie by the end of Saturday. Thanks to our Sunday rally of 7 fish we regained our championship crown (lost by 1 fish in Spring outing)!
> 
> Food, beer, and competitive juices flowed freely. Camaraderie was outstanding! Poker was what poker always is. And no one fished midday Saturday as the Buckeyes pounded Wisconsin! Could not ask for a better weekend among friends you've known since the age of 8.


Great story Zara. Nothing beats a great time with old friends!


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## zaraspook

Wally Diver said:


> Where are all the perch the DNR has stockef yhe last 4 yesrs


Purely urban legend that perch were stocked in GLSM.  I know one guy who "claims" to bucket a perch limit 2-3 times a year at GLSM. False claim maybe, no proof provided.
Actually, believe first year for perch stocking was 2012. Stocked every year but 2018 since program started. Skipped 2018 because yield of fry/fingerling at hatchery was so low......none to stock.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM before noon Weds. To put it mildly, it was WET! Caught 7 pretty quickly but no keepers. Improved somewhat and ended the day catching 27 with 6 keepers. Best part of the day was fishing with T04F15H for a couple late-afternoon hours. We didn't kill them but caught enough between us (15-20) to keep it interesting. If I recall he had 5 good ones in the bucket when he left. 

Thursday I went back at it starting at 11am. At least the rain was mostly done, just some drizzle for the first hour. Wind was tough. Fished three 90 minute sessions for 26 crappies caught and 11 keepers. A bonus......I caught another 9" perch and again it was on Monkey Milk baby shad. This perch came from the same channel as last Saturday's perch but I was on the opposite bank of the channel. I had a 2nd rod in the water all day. It's baited with cut bait(perch strips). No perch from it today but it's a learning tool. One of my short crappie today succumbed to the perch strip, plus a 2.5-3# channel cat sucked in the perch niblet and gave me all I could handle on my crappie rod. It was spitting snow the last 1/2 hour of my fishing day and wind howling in the 30+mph range. Fun day........never saw another angler. May have had the entire 13,500 acre lake to myself. Love fall fishing!


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## zaraspook

Stayed at GLSM until Friday afternoon. Expected since the front was finally through that bite might back off. Wasn't the case Friday at all though crappie bite wasn't as aggressive as prior 2 days. Caught 30 and trend of short fish 7-8" continued. 7 keepers among the 30 caught is a pretty low percentage for GLSM. Same bait as Weds and Thurs......Monkey Milk Baby Shads although I'm not using Bobby Garland brand anymore. Might have mentioned this before. Southern Pro makes an identical plastic but just called a shad stinger. Baits cost approx 1/2 the price of BG's. I buy in bags of 50 pieces.

Kept a 2nd pole in the water baited with the "perch niblets" hoping to get into some perchy things. It didn't happen but the rig with cut perch strips again attracted a decent channel cat, smaller than the day before at 2#'s. While working my main crappie rod along a seawall, I heard a "splash". Looked in that direction and noticed my perch niblet rig was gone, no longer on the seawall 30' away. Ooops! Hustled to the scene of the crime and luckily the tip of my 9' rod was sticking up maybe a foot above the water surface, but 25' out in the middle of the channel. Water there was maybe 4' deep and as the cat was pulling my rod out to sea, the reel was dragging the bottom below. Cast my crappie jig hoping to snag the line or rod that was heading north. Fishing gods were with me......snagged the line 1st cast, pulled in rod, salvaged rod, reeled in the cat still securely hooked! Got to remember to leave bail open on my unattended rig to reduce risk for losing a rod. 

Water temp was 46.5 degrees! Game on! Those crappie will be banging the dinner bell with high commitment level to eat. Fun times if you get out........


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## Saugeyefisher

I like the added twist to your reports,with the perch pcs! I have seen a better then normal number of perch caught out at buckeye this fall,none by me. But the majority I've seen caught have been on minnows,and one that I know of on a swimbait. 
They have all been caught in a large shallow bay with alot of green lily pads still around. Prolly 2-4' of water and not quite a muck bottom,but more sandy with some scattered gravel,muck areas. 
There is also a small feeder running into the area,and the water doesnt get near as green as the rest of the lake......
Just a little info from a relatively shallow lake,where the perch can be very tuff at times........


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## zaraspook

Arrived at GLSM to fish from 2:30-5pm. Water temp 46.2 degrees in channel, relatively no change fro m Sunday. I like that temp hasn't dropped further. Like it to stabilize here for a good while but forecast suggests temp will slip more in next 4-5 days. A year ago om this date water temp was 47.

Expected a decent bite and that was pretty much what I found. Caught 24 in 2.5 hours, a rate to keep you happy. 10 keepers among the 24....that's ok, but none longer than 11". Monkey Milk caught all crappie. My perch strip on 2nd rod nailed another nice channel cat in the first 10 minutes. It was about 4#, unfortunately like broke when lifting the pot-bellied fish over the seawall. I didn't retie the rod. Bites were frequent, but timid. Definitely not inhaling the plastic and were not in a hurry to go anywhere with it. Lost an unusual number of fish just lip hooked. I found fish at 4 of the 5 spots I fished, but one of good spots was empty, and another gave up just 2 dinks. I was fishing in water 2-4 feet deep.

If you have the time to fish, you will catch some. Fall bite is likely as good as it gets now.


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## RMK

good job zara! hoping to make it out friday. hope the post cold front doesn't slow them down. we ll see!


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## zaraspook

Pre-cold front today was stinky. No fishing this morning while getting pontoon out of water, cleaning, winterizing, blah, blah, blah. Fished 90 minutes after lunch. Caught 5, 2 keepers, bite was pathetic. Bumps but no follow thru to eat the bait. Back at it at 4pm. Didn't think it could get worse. Oops! Caught 3, 1 keeper. Monkey Milk let me down.....just one fish. Black/chartreuse got the rest. I caught more gills than crappie....rare! 
I should have gone to small ball tactics. A gill guy was doing ok with gills but great on the crappie. 1" bait and wax worm.


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## zaraspook

Thursday fishing better than yesterday, but still off from last week to 10 days. Wind was difficult. Water temp 43.6 which is down 3+ since Tuesday. Slower bite might be temp related,fish not yet acclimated.

Followed my own advice, downsized from the opening bell. Didn't even bother with Monkey Milk. Used black/chartreuse the entire 2.5 hours. Actually the color is called Texas Avocado in Panfish Assassin colors.









Caught 14, 5 keepers. Fish were lethargic but would grab the bait and eat it instead of grab and drop. Biggest was a tubby 12.75" in photo if my phone cooperates. Be patient. Most of the time I fished 30" under bobber in 3-4' of water, but pulled a few fish from cover in 2.5' of water. Fished any wood I know of and some pvc stake beds. The pvc was not as good as most days but the 12"+ fish was parked in it when I hooked him.

I'm hoping water temps don't go to 39 degrees for another 3-4 weeks. Once they get to 39 in the channels 1-2 nights in the teens will put ice on the channels. Too early for that hard stuff.


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## zaraspook




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## Lowell H Turner

nice save with the pole ! learned a long time ago that the fastest way to lose a rod and reel is to leave the bail closed. as far as fish gathering on cover have literally helped drop " C " trees in early March, come back with more in less than 30 minutes and they are already on it as if by magic...


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## james.

I had the exact opposite experience fishing Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday they were smashing 1.75 stinger tail jig (monkey milk with pink tail) went 15 with 8 keepers in a hour and half after work. Thursday got 2 crappie 1 keeper 1 short same hour and half both fish came on small hand tied fly will report how weekend goes good luck everyone See ya out there


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## RMK

Friday- late morning to early afternoon. Water 41 at launch time. Down to high 38s-39 at take out. Skim ice was present on one shallow protected cove on the south side and another on the north side. 3 south side spots and 2 north side spots fished. Caught fish at 3 of the 5. Not much for size or numbers. 5 keepers and around 10 shorts. Best fish around 11.5". Man placed structure, docks, a laydown, and pontoons produced fish. Quite a few bites under pontoons but short light bites that were hard to hook up. I stuck with the bigger bg baby shad most of the day. Black/silver sparkle tipped with wax worm. Downsized towards the end of the day to match the guests in the back of the boat that were







catching slightly more than me.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Friday- late morning to early afternoon. Water 41 at launch time. Down to high 38s-39 at take out. Skim ice was present on one shallow protected cove on the south side and another on the north side. 3 south side spots and 2 north side spots fished. Caught fish at 3 of the 5. Not much for size or numbers. 5 keepers and around 10 shorts. Best fish around 11.5". Man placed structure, docks, a laydown, and pontoons produced fish. Quite a few bites under pontoons but short light bites that were hard to hook up. I stuck with the bigger bg baby shad most of the day. Black/silver sparkle tipped with wax worm. Downsized towards the end of the day to match the guests in the back of the boat that were
> View attachment 329695
> catching slightly more than me.


Good job, RMK. Interesting that photo is a white. 40.2 degree water in my channel Fri morning. Caught just 4 before heading back to Indiana. Most bites were single bump with no follow up. Never know if those are gills, small crappie, or bigger ones not interested in eating but will take a swipe at at a nearby opportunity. Still my opinion channel ice will be widespread very soon, maybe this morning. My local gill guy caught about 50 gills Fri am. Only kept 10 and caught approx 12 crappie........1 inch plastic plus wax worm.


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## zaraspook

james. said:


> I had the exact opposite experience fishing Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday they were smashing 1.75 stinger tail jig (monkey milk with pink tail) went 15 with 8 keepers in a hour and half after work. Thursday got 2 crappie 1 keeper 1 short same hour and half both fish came on small hand tied fly will report how weekend goes good luck everyone See ya out there


Good job, James. Guaranteed no matter how bad any of us do on a given day, somewhere on the lake someone is lighting it up. Keep reports coming.....


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## zaraspook

Arrived at lake Tues late morning. Roughly 3" of snow on ground, roads icy, but no ice on any channels I viewed. Tested the water temp at 36 degrees. Made it obvious with overnight lows expected in single digits, Tuesday's ice-free condition would be short-lived. Whatever open water fishing I would get done had to be done on Tues. It wasn't a good day for me but a single crappie kept me off the skunk line.

Amazing Weds morning that overnight the entire channel transitioned to hardwater! Usually ice starts in areas sheltered from winds and creeps broader in it's transition to spread. This was overnight "kaboom"! Virtually all channels around the lake completely iced over as were some expansive areas of the main lake. Weds morning I broke ice along one area of the seawalls, hoping it would clear enough for me to fish later in the day. The ice was 3/8 - 1/2" in places I could handle, thicker in other places. Intentions were good, but Mother Nature didn't cooperate. Little of the area was later clear to fish beyond one foot off the seawall. I fished about 20 minutes, nobody home. Hoping that Lake Loramie might offer some open water, headed there. Ooops! At best that was wishful thinking. For the most part Loramie frozen everywhere along the bank . No opportunity to fish Loramie although I knew some guys had good success there Tues, the day before. Went back to the lakehouse and painted.......started painting interior walls the last trip.

Thursday decided since my fishing efforts were dead-end I would head home later in the day. Took time to break ice again at the one spot I tried to open Weds. New ice was not bad, easier to clear than on Weds. Revisited the spot a couple hours later, noonish, to catch 3 crappie and a couple of gills. Glad I had downsized baits. If you've used the Bobby Garland Itty Bit Swim 'R plastics you know what I mean about downsizing. Returned to same spot at 3:30pm to catch 3 more crappie, one of those a legal keeper, and couple more gills.

Catching 6 crappie Thursday seemed to be very satisfying after the puny results from Tues-Weds. It shows fish are still there and will bite if you can get to them. I'll try again early next week........open water should be plentiful by then.


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## james.

Went fishing tonight ended up with 7 only one keeper to show for it. Bunch of gills kept me busy. I found a tackle box if you lost one message me description I'd like to get it back to the owner


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## zaraspook

Was at GLSM from Tues afternoon until 3pm today/Thurs with a long time fishing friend. Tues was tough. My buddy caught 1 crappie to avoid the Pepe Le Pew syndrome. I managed 3 keepers from 8 caught. Majority of fish were 7-8", very finicky, timid biters abd caught 30-36" down. Plastics they'd hit were very small such as 1" Itty Bits.
Weds we ran down to Loramie. Fishing buddy caught 3 crappie and a nice channel cat. I was skunked at Loramie, not a single bite in nearly 2 hours at 3 different spots. Came back to GLSM to fish late afternoon. I caught 6 while buddy got 2. In a come from behind squeaker I eeked out a 6-5 win for the day.
Today we stayed at GLSM. By far the bite was more aggressive and the fish willing to chase. I caught 20 with 8 keepers while my friend had 2 keepers from his 5 caught. I should disclose he left before me and at that time I led 14 to 5. He also landed a 16" LMB, always fun on a crappie outfit.

Water temp today was 40 degrees, +4 from 9 days ago. In the last couple of hours I heard some great reports from guys fishing southside locations. A couple of reports of limits being taken. Good time to crappie fish!


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## james.

Got on a good bite this morning. Took some time to find them but when I did it was on. Ended the day with 27 keepers 2 big gills. If it wasn't for Thanksgiving at 2 I'm sure I would of got my limit. The wife wouldn't of been to happy if I would of made her late. Took all the will power I had to leave biting fish! Will be back at it frist thing in the morning good luck ladies and gentlemen there hungry if you can find them.


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## zaraspook

james. said:


> Got on a good bite this morning. Took some time to find them but when I did it was on. Ended the day with 27 keepers 2 big gills. If it wasn't for Thanksgiving at 2 I'm sure I would of got my limit. The wife wouldn't of been to happy if I would of made her late. Took all the will power I had to leave biting fish! Will be back at it frist thing in the morning good luck ladies and gentlemen there hungry if you can find them.


Well done, James! Always important to "keep Momma happy".


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## zaraspook

Made a run to lake and back Tuesday to bring home a few items we needed for family Thanksgiving. It gave me an excuse to fish 2 hours. Found a reasonable bite at 2 laces but fish I caught were a different size class than normal. Caught 16, 7 were "legal", but none were the 10"+ size we keep. Small plastics that day. Water temp 39.


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## fishwhacker

Got out this afternoon for about 1 hr with the boys. Had another little one last weekend so was itching to get out. Gills provided lots of action and had 1 small crappie. All were about 18 inches to 30 inches deep 2 to 4ft away from the bank. Had the pleasure of meeting James also. Hope it picked up for you after we got of the honey hole.


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## james.

Not to much to speak of ended the day with 4 crappie 3 shorts 1 keeper. Nice meeting you as well. Congratulations on the new little one.


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## RMK

fishwhacker said:


> Got out this afternoon for about 1 hr with the boys. Had another little one last weekend so was itching to get out. Gills provided lots of action and had 1 small crappie. All were about 18 inches to 30 inches deep 2 to 4ft away from the bank. Had the pleasure of meeting James also. Hope it picked up for you after we got of the honey hole.


congrats on the little one whacker! we added a new little boy to our family back on the 19th as well!


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## RMK

Mom needing some alone time with new baby ment me and the little girl got to get out and practice a little!


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## fishwhacker

Little guy and I got out while older brother was in school today. Gills continue to bite with a few crappies mixed in.


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## Salmonid

Hey Zara. I’m just checking in here after a long hiatus. Tough year for me on the whispered front and I didn’t fish glsm 1 time this year with so many other tourneys around. I’m glad your still wearing those guys out up there. I’m hoping to make a bait run up there this weekend and may bring the light rods for an little action if I can find the bait quickly. 
If I do I may give you a shout. Not sure what day but prob Sunday mid morning.


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## james.

Got out after work today. Ended up with six crappies all were keeper size biggest was just shy of 12inchs. More gills then I could count one large mouth bass just a little guy but gave me a fit. All are still swimming got plenty of fish in the freezer no need to keep any.


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## zaraspook

RMK and Whacker........congrats on the additions to your families! Kids are fun and precious. My two daughters were never into fishing, but we didn't have a lake place then. My son caught the fishing bug and thankfully a good fishing partner, lots of memories there.


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## zaraspook

Got in several fishing rounds this week between Tues and Friday. Just fished in my channel though I'd heard some great reports around the lake. Water temp was 37.7 on Tues, 37.5 on Weds, which is a temp that almost always will ice over the channel if a nightly low gets into mid to upper 20's. 

Tues arrived in the late morning and caught 23 with 9 legal crappie. Just 4 met my personal minimal keeper size of 10". Weds a fishing buddy, Jeff, drove to the lake from Athens, OH to join the late season fun. I nudged out a victory Weds catching 33 to Jeff's 30. 60 of the 63 we caught came from one spot. Just under 50% were keepers though we released all. Small plastics......specifically BG Itty Bits in key lime pie pattern and/or bluegrass pattern caught all fish. Thursday morning the channel we fished was 50% ice covered, but the back end of channel ice-free. We caught 53 Thursday. Buddy put a licking on me, catching 33 to my 20. Bite was tougher and fish ran smaller with 22 keepers for us. Friday morning, no ice but the door to the bite was closed. We each caught 4, 3 of the 8 keepers before heading home by noon. 

We fished 24"-36" deep, depending on water depth, the entire time. Fish were "out" in schools, not really relating to cover. None of the water we fished is more than 4' deep right now. Best retrieve technique was drag the bobber a foot and pause 3-10 seconds before the next drag. If the bite is good the speed of the drag and length of pause may not matter. Thursday we had to slow the drag and lengthen the pause. Friday was super slow drag to entice any fish at all. 

Good time this week. Betting a lot of channels have ice this morning. Warmer temps Sun and Monday should keep ice away. Ice likely to return Weds-Fri and may last a while. Open water days are numbered.


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## fishwhacker

Zara wasnt lying had to search for open water this afternoon. Ended up busting ice along a seawall. Had around 20 gills, mostly smalls, hope it opens up tomorrow


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## Salmonid

I went up Sat morning looking for shad, launched at Montezuma, skim ice there but got thicker halfway to the lake was a measured 1/2", Boat and tranducers took a beating as we crawled out to main lake to open water, water was 36.5 on the main lake, first spot I marked a bunch of bottom fish and started throwing the net, ended up with about 15-18 drum all from 5-10", no shad, had to work all around the goose/duck hunters as they were everywhere I wanted to go, ( Grrrrr) 2nd spot I worked my in to shallower water and started getting net fulls of 3-5" shad but no bigger ones, so went to a 3rd spot and once again marked nice fish on the bottom but they were all jumbo schools of 3-5" shad, Im sure I easily netted 20,000 of these guys ( seriously) so there will be plenty of food for next year, but not a jumbo shad, bluegill or crappie in 4 hrs of throwing the net??? weird. went back to Zuma where we launched hoping the ice had melted some but nope, just the 6 ft wide swath we made coming out of there. Frustrating as everywhere I wanted to throw was a hunter set up or under ice... so pretty much the whole day was a big waste of time and gas. Sums up my year pretty much as well. Glad you guys are still finding some crappies, I spoke with some guys on shore who said all there spots iced up overnite and they were fishless and couldn't find any fish in the spots that had open water, they had already been all the way around the lake 1 time and were headed around a 2nd time to hit the spot that would hopefully be open.

Salmonid


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## harrison08

Made the trip up to GLSM this past Sunday with my brother and father, who has been taking us fishing our whole lives (40+ years). It is always a great day of fun and laughs, even if we do not catch fish. However, that was not the case on Sunday. We hit a southwest corner spot at 7:20 ish and didn't leave that spot until after 10:30. The channel was mostly skimmed over with ice. The wind was pushing the ice pretty well and an area of open water soon formed. The fish were not too picky about what they would hit. I was using red/chartreuse, my brother: purple/chartreuse, and my dad: light pink. We caught well over 60 fish, with several throwbacks. Keeper wise, we caught somewhere around 45 from that spot. When the ice melted or was pushed out, the fish were gone as well. We hit a couple more spots with minimal success. The marina produced fish, mostly which were throwbacks. The sailboat club was basically unfishable. The last stop was Anderson's which again produced some fish, most of which were throwbacks. All in all, between the three of us we had 51 keepers, with a couple really nice 12+ fish.


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## T04DF15H

harrison08 said:


> Made the trip up to GLSM this past Sunday with my brother and father, who has been taking us fishing our whole lives (40+ years). It is always a great day of fun and laughs, even if we do not catch fish. However, that was not the case on Sunday. We hit a southwest corner spot at 7:20 ish and didn't leave that spot until after 10:30. The channel was mostly skimmed over with ice. The wind was pushing the ice pretty well and an area of open water soon formed. The fish were not too picky about what they would hit. I was using red/chartreuse, my brother: purple/chartreuse, and my dad: light pink. We caught well over 60 fish, with several throwbacks. Keeper wise, we caught somewhere around 45 from that spot. When the ice melted or was pushed out, the fish were gone as well. We hit a couple more spots with minimal success. The marina produced fish, mostly which were throwbacks. The sailboat club was basically unfishable. The last stop was Anderson's which again produced some fish, most of which were throwbacks. All in all, between the three of us we had 51 keepers, with a couple really nice 12+ fish.
> 
> View attachment 333257


Glad that you ran into some fish on this trip up north.
I was the guy that came up and talked to you guys just before you packed up to head home!


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## harrison08

T04DF15H said:


> Glad that you ran into some fish on this trip up north.
> I was the guy that came up and talked to you guys just before you packed up to head home!


Awesome! It was nice to meet you. We had a really good time. We definitely could have stayed and sorted through some smalls to get more, but that's a long trip back home.


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> Made the trip up to GLSM this past Sunday with my brother and father, who has been taking us fishing our whole lives (40+ years). It is always a great day of fun and laughs, even if we do not catch fish. However, that was not the case on Sunday. We hit a southwest corner spot at 7:20 ish and didn't leave that spot until after 10:30. The channel was mostly skimmed over with ice. The wind was pushing the ice pretty well and an area of open water soon formed. The fish were not too picky about what they would hit. I was using red/chartreuse, my brother: purple/chartreuse, and my dad: light pink. We caught well over 60 fish, with several throwbacks. Keeper wise, we caught somewhere around 45 from that spot. When the ice melted or was pushed out, the fish were gone as well. We hit a couple more spots with minimal success. The marina produced fish, mostly which were throwbacks. The sailboat club was basically unfishable. The last stop was Anderson's which again produced some fish, most of which were throwbacks. All in all, between the three of us we had 51 keepers, with a couple really nice 12+ fish.
> 
> View attachment 333257


Good to hear from you, harrison08. Glad you found fish and nice report.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> I went up Sat morning looking for shad, launched at Montezuma, skim ice there but got thicker halfway to the lake was a measured 1/2", Boat and tranducers took a beating as we crawled out to main lake to open water, water was 36.5 on the main lake, first spot I marked a bunch of bottom fish and started throwing the net, ended up with about 15-18 drum all from 5-10", no shad, had to work all around the goose/duck hunters as they were everywhere I wanted to go, ( Grrrrr) 2nd spot I worked my in to shallower water and started getting net fulls of 3-5" shad but no bigger ones, so went to a 3rd spot and once again marked nice fish on the bottom but they were all jumbo schools of 3-5" shad, Im sure I easily netted 20,000 of these guys ( seriously) so there will be plenty of food for next year, but not a jumbo shad, bluegill or crappie in 4 hrs of throwing the net??? weird. went back to Zuma where we launched hoping the ice had melted some but nope, just the 6 ft wide swath we made coming out of there. Frustrating as everywhere I wanted to throw was a hunter set up or under ice... so pretty much the whole day was a big waste of time and gas. Sums up my year pretty much as well. Glad you guys are still finding some crappies, I spoke with some guys on shore who said all there spots iced up overnite and they were fishless and couldn't find any fish in the spots that had open water, they had already been all the way around the lake 1 time and were headed around a 2nd time to hit the spot that would hopefully be open.
> 
> Salmonid


Good to hear from you, Mark. Was up there late Weds and today. Ice about quarter to half inch thick yesterday in channels and today main lake looked to be totally iced over. Found one small open area in my channel........fished it yesterday for 20 minutes with no sign of life. Oh, I take that back. One sign of life was a 15" shad swimming slowly........didn't act very healthy.


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## zaraspook

With abundant ice at GLSM today(Thurs), I painted instead of fishing. A friend fished through the ice, kept 8 from 16 total crappies (photo) and also caught 15 gills. He's one of those green bucket guys but had a white bucket today.


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## Lowell H Turner

Happy Holidays to all whom post here and Thank You Zaraspook !


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## Saugeyefisher

Lowell H Turner said:


> Happy Holidays to all whom post here and Thank You Zaraspook !


Back atchya lowell!


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## RMK

well i m giving up on hoping for safe ice for the time being.... is it going to open completely back up before the big freeze? saturday/ sunday? sooner?


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## zaraspook

I'd bet on complete thaw before fishable ice. Forecast looks wimpy, no big freeze in near term. Since I'm not up there don't know current conditions. Maybe I will get to open water fish on the weekend.


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## harrison08

Are we looking at any open water?


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> Are we looking at any open water?


Report I heard couple hours ago was.,...very few spots of open water in channels. However, guys are very optimistic for Friday and weekend. Roll the dice!


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## RMK

I took a short drive around the north east and east sides late this morning. Saw a lone fisherman fishing the downside of the east spillway. Solid ice cover everywhere else I looked. Doubtful I ll be getting the boat in this weekend but I would bet if you tried hard enough you could find an open water spot from shore.


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## zaraspook

Fished this morning with a friend. Buddy caught 11 with 4 keepers. Also 4 keepers for me out of the 5 I caught. Biggest for us 11.25. Spotty open pockets of open water.


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## zaraspook

Same friend I fished again Sunday morning for 2 hours. My channel transitioned from 90% ice cover to 5% ice overnight Saturday. Totally amazed by the quick turnabout to open water. But open water did not equate to abundant fish catching. Zero bites in my channel. Water level extremely low tho I can't say low water is reason for no biting fish.

We returned to same southside location where we found fish Saturday. It was a killer day for catching but caught 13 between us with 7 legal fish. Biggest was 10". No really dink ones.......if they were short I doubt any were under 8". Bluegill bite was crazy.

Itty Bits by Bobby Garland were most productive. We used Bluegrass or Key Lime patterns, both are chartreuse derivatives. Fished 30" deep most of the time but 24" in a few places we thought water was likely no more than 3'. Didn't see another soul fishing Sunday. Rain wasn't that bad. Wind was difficult. Temperatures were balmy! Great to have open water on Dec. 29.


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## RMK

white caps on the main lake and ice free channel by my inlaws according to report from my wife this morning. looking forward to giving it a winter shot this weekend.


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## Saugeyefisher

Good job getting them why you can zara! 
Rmk,good luck this weekend! 
I'm getting the itch to watch the float go down! I'm gonna toss my crappie gear in my van,an hopefully walk some areas at buckeye in the next week. 
I've tried for like 5 minutes here an there inbetween saugeye fishing the last few times out. With not a bite to show for. My buddy dipped an area that has been known to hold them in late december yesterday with out a bite. They gotta be out there somewhere!


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## fishwhacker

Got out this afternoon for a couple hrs with the boys and BIL. Found several bluegills with 1 short crappie in the mix. Also found 1 of the elusive prized fish below. Measured a little over 10 but was quite chunky.


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## Lowell H Turner

a fat female yellow perch loaded with eggs...


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## RMK

fishwhacker said:


> Got out this afternoon for a couple hrs with the boys and BIL. Found several bluegills with 1 short crappie in the mix. Also found 1 of the elusive prized fish below. Measured a little over 10 but was quite chunky.
> View attachment 335987


Beautiful fish!


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## RMK

Last 45 minutes of light new years day snuck out for a littke bit off my in laws dock. Little girl had 2 on and multiple good bites. Got one in close enough to see that it was a crappie. Hard to set the hook on her little ice rod. Her small black and chartreuse jig got more action than my larger jig. I had a couple bites but never felt a fish. Surface action and shad were present.


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## zaraspook

Came to lake Weds night to fish Thursday. My channel's been the Dead Sea lately so morning fished elsewhere on the southside. Caught 14 in 2 hours, better than expected. 7 legal fish crappie among the 14, mostly short of 10" but a chunky 11.25, also. Headed back to my place for lunch unsure where to try for an afternoon session.

While I'm there why not try my channel? Good decision as it worked out. Caught 16, 5 keepers. Shocked to tell you the truth. Catching 30 fish on Jan. 2 seemed to be a hell of an accomplishment, and I still had Friday to fish.

When I started Friday morning, was thinking "how sweet would it be if I could do back to back 30-fish days in early Jan?". Since the day before I'd located a school in my channel, seemed like a logical choice to begin the day. Geez! I caught 10 in the first hour from the same spot as the day before. Bite slowed so I moved for an hour to several other spots in my channel but only one for the effort. At lunch I'd caught 17 with 8 legal......better than 1/2 way to goal.

At 1pm headed again to the productive spot on my channel and decided I'd stay there. By 2pm my count is 29 and I hit a brick wall. Next hour was a skunk.....the bite wasn't terrible but few hookups and I lost 4 fish lifting them over the seawall. Doubt was creeping in.....am I going to catch another fish? Finally I hook and land #30. Guess I can quit but maybe that school is working back through here again? Next cast lands #31. Why stop while the bite is warming up. Things got crazy. In just short of an hour I make it to 46. 45 of the 46 crappie came from one spot.

For the day I had 18 legal crappie......11 of those in my bucket that were above 10" or better. A fun day and 76 crappie on Jan 2nd and 3rd! Garland Itty Bits again ruled the day, Keylime and Bluegrass were the 2 colors that worked equally. Thurs morning I fished 3.5-4' under bobber at the morning spot. It's a deeper channel. On my channel, not as deep, I was never shallower than 28" under bobber, and usually 3' deep. Fish were really timid today, would pop your bobber slightly and either sit there or move away at the speed of a box turtle crossing a road. Everything caught at least 20-40' off the bank. None of the water I fished today was deeper than 5'.
Photo is my bucket keepers, 11 that were 10" or better.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Got out this afternoon for a couple hrs with the boys and BIL. Found several bluegills with 1 short crappie in the mix. Also found 1 of the elusive prized fish below. Measured a little over 10 but was quite chunky.
> View attachment 335987


Whacker.....was that tubby perch caught Southside or Northside? Thanks.


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## fishwhacker

Zara, way to go on the crappies! Perch came on southside of the lake, wish i could find a school rather than singles but its neat everytime you get one.


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## zaraspook

Agree each perch is a joy. Not that I have a ton of perch reports as a sample size, but can say all but one was Southside. That excludes any reports from spillway. Odd, don't you think that perch catching is dominantly just a Southside activity?


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## fishwhacker

All the ones i have caught have been southside, but that is where i predominately fish. Its wierd though i always heard back in the day st marys rock piers off the beaches was the place to go along with some west side locations


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> A fun day and 76 crappie on Jan 2nd and 3rd!


That's a pretty decent mess of fish anytime of the year, good job.


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## zaraspook

Finished off my 3-day GLSM crappie junket early Sat. Morning session was 9:30-11:30 followed by another hour at 1pm. Wished otherwise but had a hard stop to head home at 2pm for a commitment.

Didn't know if fish would be in same area as prior 2 day. By 3rd cast had confirmation school shifted position, moved less than 20'. Also learned within the first hour the school was packed tighter in smaller area than Fri. A 12' diameter circle yielded bites. Outside that circle produced nothing.

The morning session gave me 17 crappie caught with 4 keepers. Short afternoon period produced 9 caught with 5 keepers. Compared to Fri the bite was more assertive on Sat and keepers included bigger fish. Biggest was 12.5" in photo. Tried my best to catch at least 30 for 3 straight days. Fell short with 26 total Sat. Just ran out time, couldn't fish as long.

102 crappies during 3 days of 1st week in January is a pleasant surprise. I'll take it! Bait was same as Thur & Fri, Itty Bits, fished 36-42" under bobber and the water fished probably 4.5 feet max depth. That may sound crazy but that's not atypical in a shallow lake like GLSM.
Crap! New phone and operator error can't upload the pic for now.


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## RMK

WOW! good job on the catching! sounds like a fun few days.


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## zaraspook

Here's a topic that isn't being talked about at GLSM. If you haven't fished lately, you might be blown away by current water clarity. It's outstanding - at least 2' and as much as 3' visibility. 
I mentioned often last year that clarity was surprisingly good. Even after the lake blew out last year twice from torrential rain/flooding, clarity remained better than norm for last 9 years. I admit the water greened substantially in July-Sept. Current clarity I'd rate as best in a decade! 

No obvious direct explanation for the dramatic improvement, but changes in last 10 years are well reported and numerous. Nice to see physical signs that wide efforts by the State, by the agricultural community, and local population may be gaining ground and turned the tide. Too early to claim success....time will tell. 

Personally I think the pair of rain events in 2019 may have a blessing and catalyst for recent clarity shift. Not long after the 2010 GLSM algae blowup, the Battelle Institute studied the lake, provided analysis, produced a report and recommendations. Lots of contributing causes noted, including lack of flow which equates to low turnover of the water volume. Flow in and out of the lake is so low on average it took 2.6 years for the lake to turnover one time. The idea to drain GLSM was debated, remove decades of muck/contaminants, refill with a new water volume......basically to flush the toilet! Not much different than changing oil on your car or draining dirty bathtub water. I believe the pair of major flooding events in the Spring of 2019 may nearly have achieved a similar outcome. GLSM may have flushed a 2.6 year water volume out of the lake in a 6-8 week time frame. Probably not a total flush, and "no" not a clean water refill, but a lot of legacy phosphates and nitrogen were carried downstream and out of the lake. At a minimum GLSM has a different water volume/chemistry than before flooding twice. Hope springs eternal!


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## Salmonid

zaraspook said:


> Here's a topic that isn't being talked about at GLSM. If you haven't fished lately, you might be blown away by current water clarity. It's outstanding - at least 2' and as much as 3' visibility.
> I mentioned often last year that clarity was surprisingly good. Even after the lake blew out last year twice from torrential rain/flooding, clarity remained better than norm for last 9 years. I admit the water greened substantially in July-Sept. Current clarity I'd rate as best in a decade!
> 
> No obvious direct explanation for the dramatic improvement, but changes in last 10 years are well reported and numerous. Nice to see physical signs that wide efforts by the State, by the agricultural community, and local population may be gaining ground and turned the tide. Too early to claim success....time will tell.
> 
> Personally I think the pair of rain events in 2019 may have a blessing and catalyst for recent clarity shift. Not long after the 2010 GLSM algae blowup, the Battelle Institute studied the lake, provided analysis, produced a report and recommendations. Lots of contributing causes noted, including lack of flow which equates to low turnover of the water volume. Flow in and out of the lake is so low on average it took 2.6 years for the lake to turnover one time. The idea to drain GLSM was debated, remove decades of muck/contaminants, refill with a new water volume......basically to flush the toilet! Not much different than changing oil on your car or draining dirty bathtub water. I believe the pair of major flooding events in the Spring of 2019 may nearly have achieved a similar outcome. GLSM may have flushed a 2.6 year water volume out of the lake in a 6-8 week time frame. Probably not a total flush, and "no" not a clean water refill, but a lot of legacy phosphates and nitrogen were carried downstream and out of the lake. At a minimum GLSM has a different water volume/chemistry than before flooding twice. Hope springs eternal!


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## Salmonid

I completely agree Zara. yearly flushes will dramatically help the stagnant water


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## RMK

curious if this "flushing" could have anything to do with why they are pulling so much water out now. seems pretty low and last i knew they were still pulling and had been for while.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> curious if this "flushing" could have anything to do with why they are pulling so much water out now. seems pretty low and last i knew they were still pulling and had been for while.


Doubt it's anything more than advertised, that is water level management in advance of winter/spring rain. I certainly wish they'd close the gates. Most of my channel is too dang shallow now to hold fish. Have one place left to fish and wouldn't surprise me if fish left it this week. If anything makes fish nervous it is constant falling water levels......they think the bathtub is going dry and don't want to get stuck there. Really ticks me off when State does this.....kills fishing.


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## fishwhacker

Interesting enough I have not heard of anyone getting into the eyes like normal when they open the tubes, unless im talking to the wrong people. Usually a picture in the paper by now and the crowd is quite small this year so assuming catch rates are small or non existent.


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## Salmonid

Its possible at this time of year the eyes are not near the gates where as in Spring, they certainly would be along the rocks/gates in a prespawn situation, they may be out in open water this time of year. just a thought...
Also the previous big floods were massive with overflows where as lately they are just keeping the lake down via the gates vs the overflow. could make a big difference and also with the amount of "pull" the gates have.


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## zaraspook

8-9 years since saugeye stocking. Population diminishes each year. Remember saugs were supposed to be sterile. Walleyes not stocked since 2008 maybe. Surely some limited reproduction but no signs of good numbers. Keeping it simple.......numbers of those "eyes" is shrinking on either side of spillway. Plus all the reasons Salmonid offers, fewer fish to catch now. The glory days for "eyes" may be over? Hope not but....


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## Hortance

zaraspook said:


> 8-9 years since saugeye stocking. Population diminishes each year. Remember saugs were supposed to be sterile. Walleyes not stocked since 2008 maybe. Surely some limited reproduction but no signs of good numbers. Keeping it simple.......numbers of those "eyes" is shrinking on either side of spillway. Plus all the reasons Salmonid offers, fewer fish to catch now. The glory days for "eyes" may be over? Hope not but....


Bunch of eye fishermen up there at the tubes this past Saturday, pre-dawn. Not much going on...the regulars who were only fishing for eyes said they aren't up here "yet"...I'd take your word on declining numbers, but I saw a few last year in a couple of trips...

Figured I'd fish for crappie after the rain...got zero, then moved over to Anderson's, caught a few, but slow. Slow-dragging minnows 3-3.5 under bobber...other guys the same using small jigs, bubblegum being the color. Fish not moving much either...caught everything in the same 10x10' area.

belowb


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## zaraspook

Fishing buddy and I had a fun day today. Wet lines at 12:30pm and quit at 4pm. He caught 45 crappie and 51 for me. Between us just 19 keepers but keepers begin at 10" for us. The backed of a channel produced all but one crappie. Water depth there 3.5 feet max. Go figure! Itty Bits our plastic, no meat, caught all 30" under bobber. If there is a better way to spend 3.5 hours than with a good friend and catching 96 crappie, it's gotta be illegal.


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## Muddy

Congrats, that’s pretty darn good for January! Did I understand you correctly that neither walleye or saugeye get stocked in the lake anymore?


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## TheKing

RMK said:


> Last 45 minutes of light new years day snuck out for a littke bit off my in laws dock. Little girl had 2 on and multiple good bites. Got one in close enough to see that it was a crappie. Hard to set the hook on her little ice rod. Her small black and chartreuse jig got more action than my larger jig. I had a couple bites but never felt a fish. Surface action and shad were present.
> View attachment 336097


 I vote this the OGF best post of 2020! Great post


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## Hortance

Salmonid said:


> I completely agree Zara. yearly flushes will dramatically help the stagnant water


I'm not sure it would have to be annual. How were they managing "turnover" in prior years? It took a while for the problems (farms etc) to accumulate to get to the crisis stage.

Maybe once the lake gets really good and flushed/turned over, they won't even have to irritate Zara by draining his channel every year...just take good advantage of rain events and keep the rate of turnover a little higher than before. Less-dramatic maintenance flushing, over a long period of time...Probably how the problem happened in the first place...gradual accumulation turned into a big problem by small amounts over a long time.


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## zaraspook

Muddy said:


> Congrats, that’s pretty darn good for January! Did I understand you correctly that neither walleye or saugeye get stocked in the lake anymore?


Muddy........correct, no eyes of either persuasion stocked in GLSM. 
Walleye last stocked 2006-2008 time frame. Saugs stocked 2 yrs only and think it was 2009- 2010 or 2010-2011. Roughly 60 million walleye fry/fingerings into lake over a 9 year span. Two year saug stocking was 23000 1st year followed by 120000 2nd year, all fingerings.


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## Muddy

That’s too bad that they quit stocking it. I would think that saugeyes would do well in the lake. Hopefully the state starts to stock it again. I know the guys up there really took advantage of the spillway fishery.


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## dcool

You would think that since they are raising saugeyes in the St. Marys hatchery they would be putting them into the lake every year.


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## zaraspook

After my buddy and I caught 96 crappie last Weds, GLSM locked up the channel with ice Weds night. Couldn't fish at all Thurs though we broke ice for couple hours to help thaw. 

Friday channel was completely open again. Bite was slow and we struggled. I caught 24 with 4 keepers, fishing partner caught 18 and zero keepers.

Buddy had to boogie home to SE Ohio Sat morning, so didn't fish. I needed to be in Kettering for grandson's basketball game requiring 11am departure. Hustled to clean my lake place and load vehicle, leaving me just an hour to fish. First spot without a bite in 10 minutes convinced me it was time to move. Within 5 minutes at 2nd spot it was clear I was on fish. Had 5 crappie, 3 solid keepers, in 25 minutes. Nearly a bite every cast, but lots of whiffs on hooksets from either smaller crappie or gills. Unfortunately, one of those whiffs lost my plastic to a pesky fish. I hadn't brought my tackle with me, nor a 2nd rig I normally carry, since I only had an hour to fish. No choice but to prematurely end the hour session. Too bad...it felt like that was school that could last hours, maybe all day. Surprising again to find fish stacked in the backend of channels with water this cool. Not saying fish are in the very back but darn close and water only 2.5 to 3' deep.


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## zaraspook

dcool said:


> You would think that since they are raising saugeyes in the St. Marys hatchery they would be putting them into the lake every year.


I'm sure hatchery would gladly spread locally grown saugeye fingerlings in GLSM if GLSM was not considered part of Lake Erie's watershed. State wants no part of messing with the Lake Erie gene pool. It's theoretically possible for any fish breed in GLSM to find it's way into Erie. Even though saugeye are considered to be sterile, Mother Nature doesn't always play by the rules. A low percentage of suags do successfully reproduce so we're told. Even the slimmest chance of a quirk GLSM saugeye mating with a Lake Erie walleye is not a risk the State is willing to take.


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## Salmonid

Hey Zara, any more talk about closing the East side lock?? then we can get our Saugeyes back....LOL I know for years they been talking about it but haven't heard anything in the past year.


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> Hey Zara, any more talk about closing the East side lock?? then we can get our Saugeyes back....LOL I know for years they been talking about it but haven't heard anything in the past year.


Hey, Mark! Last year I heard we'd get commitment/announcement within "weeks". False alarm. Latest I hear..........State's budget includes funds for "engineering study" on the East Bank issue. Can't say this suggests progress, can't say it means no progress. Can only say with certainty the issue is alive and getting funds.

Also heard State committed funds for stump removal along West Bank. As a fisherman, I wince everytime this topic comes up. Not a lot of cover out there in that big bathtub. Perhaps it's related to that project to in mass net a couple million pounds of carp from GLSM? Recall the State had a company commiitted to do it, but initial trial abandoned when nets were severely damaged by obstructions/stumps on lake bottom? I don't remember if the netting attempt was in 2019 or the year before. As a cat guy, you might not be thrilled either.


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## Salmonid

As long as they don't remove my stump beds where I do a lot of my catfishing, we will be ok, LOL , there are sections that are Miles square that are baby bottom smooth they could concentrate on , have them contact me and Ill tell them where those areas are, LOL .
and yeah, glad to see some progress in funding for the East bank study and I am sure in the next 10 years there will be an initiative to update or replace the spillway since the state now is using the lake for flood control when it wasn't designed for that, that would probably include a standard style gate and hopefully would include screens to help keep the bigger fish in the lake.


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## zaraspook

I was incorrect on the stump removal project. Target to remove stumps from trees already cut down on dam. Oooops!


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## zaraspook

Tues crappie line was decent. Hard to believe I didn't expect the widespread muddy conditions. Duh. Thankfully a piece of my channel was stained but great clarity compared to 150' closer to the lake. Started fishing just before noon. T04DF15H would join me later so my assignment was to find a bite. Nothing at the first spot so switched gears. Fishing with the normal Itty Bit found a few a the next spot, until the bait was destroyed by an 11" crappie. Darn....no plastics with me but had my 2nd rod baited with a black/chartreuse stinger. Darned if the crappie didn't hit it with a lot more enthusiasm! 

Including fish from my head start, I caught 26. 14 keepers among them......much better class of fish this day. I'd located fish....mission accomplished when confident T04DF15H arrived about that time. Pretty sure T04DF15H caught at least 15-20. I caught 26 but that includes my head start. There were 16 fish 10-12" in the bucket when he headed home after about 2.5 hours.

Bite was good early, faded several times only to revive, and very sluggish at the end. Black/chartreuse worked well, orange fared well, too. From reports we heard from others around the lake, T04DF15H and I did pretty well. Good day, good fishing partner!


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## zaraspook

Weds fished again with T04DF15H. Big question for each of us was "how muddy is the channel we wanted to fish?". Tues it was stained but no where near muddy. The answer is...yes it took a hit, but water clarity probably 50% better than surrounding waters. And the bite? 3 fish in first 5 casts and two were keepers.....the bite was good and relatively stable in our 3+ hours. We changed depths, retrieves, and baits but didn't move.

We were pretty much even up all day. We caught about 50 fish. 20 fish in the bucket that were again 10-12". The keeper tally split evenly between us. T04DF15H caught the lone 12". Jelly Bean was a good color for me, but chartreuse worked too. My black/chartreuse stinger that was hot Tues caught just 1 today. Itty Bits came on strong at the end for me when the bite slowed on everything else. Fishing depth below bobber varied from 2-3'. Both of us felt the quality of fish was better today......20 today vs 16 yesterday. We likely had another 10 fish between us that were legal but didn't make the 10" grade for the bucket.

Good time. Good company. Catching 50 crappie in open water in January......priceless.


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## zaraspook

Thurs T04DF15H and I made it 3 days in a row chasing GLSM crappie. Previous 2 days were already records for me in January. Anything Thursday is icing on the cake. Water in my channel wasn't as muddy as elsewhere though clarity degraded quite a bit. Water temp 38 degrees. Hoped fish were still there or nearby where we could find them.

Didn't take long for T04DF15H to get his first 2 and prove at least a few fish were out there. Soon after I was off the skunk line. Whereas T04DF15H was steadily getting bites and adding to his count, I was struggling to get bites, let alone fish. Time for a bait change, Jelly Bean colored stinger which was my best bait the day before. Bites and catch rate both increased. I was catching fish........but but keepers in the bucket stuck on 2. T04DF15H generously offered me one of his baits, chartreuse paddle tail smaller than my Jelly Bean shad stinger. I accepted his generosity, but decided to hold off with the bait change for a bit longer. Shoot, I was catching fish at a decent pace, but majority were 9-9.75", not qualified for our 10" or better bucket.

As it worked out T04DF15H must have caught most of the fish in front of him, while I had lots that hadn't yet seen a bait worth offering at. And since I'd already picked out all the short guys, better ones were there for me to catch. The last hour for me was really fast paced. And once he moved with some new water in front of him, T04DF15H's last 40 minutes equally hectic.

T04DF15H doesn't routinely count the number of fish he catches. I caught 43 when we ended about 12:30pm. I'm confident we were both in the 40's anyway. We had 18 in the bucket, see photo, each with 9 bucket fish. Each had one 12" fish, lower right in the photo. It was an "even Stevens" kind of day of competition.

After T04DF15H left and I had some lunch. I went back out for 45 minutes to catch 11 more, 6 keepers. For the 3 days we caught nearly 200 crappie. That's incredible to me, since I'm an open water guy and open water is usually very limited in GLSM channels in Jan. Like I say in the winter, "Find a school and you'll have fun. No school - no fun.". By the way, I never did change my bait from Jelly Bean. Great time, T04DF15H!


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## crappie4me

they need to bring back angler of the year..zaras got my vote already...id be happy with that in warm weather.


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## T04DF15H

zaraspook said:


> View attachment 337983
> Thurs T04DF15H and I made it 3 days in a row chasing GLSM crappie. Previous 2 days were already records for me in January. Anything Thursday is icing on the cake. Water in my channel wasn't as muddy as elsewhere though clarity degraded quite a bit. Water temp 38 degrees. Hoped fish were still there or nearby where we could find them.
> 
> Didn't take long for T04DF15H to get his first 2 and prove at least a few fish were out there. Soon after I was off the skunk line. Whereas T04DF15H was steadily getting bites and adding to his count, I was struggling to get bites, let alone fish. Time for a bait change, Jelly Bean colored stinger which was my best bait the day before. Bites and catch rate both increased. I was catching fish........but but keepers in the bucket stuck on 2. T04DF15H generously offered me one of his baits, chartreuse paddle tail smaller than my Jelly Bean shad stinger. I accepted his generosity, but decided to hold off with the bait change for a bit longer. Shoot, I was catching fish at a decent pace, but majority were 9-9.75", not qualified for our 10" or better bucket.
> 
> As it worked out T04DF15H must have caught most of the fish in front of him, while I had lots that hadn't yet seen a bait worth offering at. And since I'd already picked out all the short guys, better ones were there for me to catch. The last hour for me was really fast paced. And once he moved with some new water in front of him, T04DF15H's last 40 minutes equally hectic.
> 
> T04DF15H doesn't routinely count the number of fish he catches. I caught 43 when we ended about 12:30pm. I'm confident we were both in the 40's anyway. We had 18 in the bucket, see photo, each with 9 bucket fish. Each had one 12" fish, lower right in the photo. It was an "even Stevens" kind of day of competition.
> 
> After T04DF15H left and I had some lunch. I went back out for 45 minutes to catch 11 more, 6 keepers. For the 3 days we caught nearly 200 crappie. That's incredible to me, since I'm an open water guy and open water is usually very limited in GLSM channels in Jan. Like I say in the winter, "Find a school and you'll have fun. No school - no fun.". By the way, I never did change my bait from Jelly Bean. Great time, T04DF15H!


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## T04DF15H

Great time indeed. Thanks again for the opportunity!


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## zaraspook

T04DF15H said:


> Great time indeed. Thanks again for the opportunity!


Short term reward was catching a bunch of crappie. Some long term wins are we trade info, watch and learn from each other, expose the other to baits, techniques, strategies. Keeps us on our game and I'm amazed at how much we can learn in a few hours with an inquisitive mindset.


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## fishwhacker

Zara, i wanted to add to your data collection on perch. Buddy caught a rare "northen" perch. I would post the pict but want protect his spot. Another single, he did get into some crappies but only 1 perch.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, i wanted to add to your data collection on perch. Buddy caught a rare "northen" perch. I would post the pict but want protect his spot. Another single, he did get into some crappies but only 1 perch.


In the first Civil War the Confederacy fell to the Union. History not repeating itself, yet anyway, in the GLSM Perch Civil War. The North needs a few new Generals to rally the troops. Your buddy's single is a rare skirmish for Union forces. Thanks for report, fw.


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## RMK

No Zara numbers for you, but we did make it out early Friday until about noon. Ramp was full of slush and channel had patchy skim ice at launch. Ice increased as the morning went on and ended up being about 75% ice covered in the channels we visitrd by the end of the morning. Luckily open water in the spots of 2 different channels we wanted to fish. 2 keepers at the first stop and 3 with a short and a few bluegill at the second stop. Best fish 11" and thw short just shy of 9.














Got some practice in with some new electronics. I m confident we were on schools of fish. Either they didn't want to eat or we couldn't figure out what to put in front of them. First crappie of 2020 for me!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> No Zara numbers for you, but we did make it out early Friday until about noon. Ramp was full of slush and channel had patchy skim ice at launch. Ice increased as the morning went on and ended up being about 75% ice covered in the channels we visitrd by the end of the morning. Luckily open water in the spots of 2 different channels we wanted to fish. 2 keepers at the first stop and 3 with a short and a few bluegill at the second stop. Best fish 11" and thw short just shy of 9.
> View attachment 338041
> View attachment 338043
> Got some practice in with some new electronics. I m confident we were on schools of fish. Either they didn't want to eat or we couldn't figure out what to put in front of them. First crappie of 2020 for me!
> View attachment 338049


RMK.....I was pretty sure ice would be a problem Fri, so went home Thur rather than hanging around for 4th straight day. Sounds like I didn't miss much. Good report under rough conditions.


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## Lowell H Turner

catching fish at all under pretty tough conditions is a feat. getting 12 or better keepers several days running is a magnificent effort ! well done...


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> No Zara numbers for you, but we did make it out early Friday until about noon. Ramp was full of slush and channel had patchy skim ice at launch. Ice increased as the morning went on and ended up being about 75% ice covered in the channels we visitrd by the end of the morning. Luckily open water in the spots of 2 different channels we wanted to fish. 2 keepers at the first stop and 3 with a short and a few bluegill at the second stop. Best fish 11" and thw short just shy of 9.
> View attachment 338041
> View attachment 338043
> Got some practice in with some new electronics. I m confident we were on schools of fish. Either they didn't want to eat or we couldn't figure out what to put in front of them. First crappie of 2020 for me!
> View attachment 338049


An afterthought to your post of last Fri fishing, you mentioned electronics showing you were on schooled fish. When we were kicking butt Tues-Thurs, the producing area always had lots of surface action from large shad breaking water. Shad were easily 8-10", even 12" fish. It seemed the more surface action from shad, the better the bite from crappie. We felt like the bigger shad and crappie were very comfortable with each other, compatible traveling companions. I'm suggesting those schools on electronics might have been shad, maybe crappie, or maybe a mix of both.

Not sure how to use the relationship to your advantage. Ice guys talk about crappie/shad frequently running together. Guys who cast net for shad, like Salmonid, mention with frequency netting bigger shad and bigger crappie together.


----------



## RMK

We did see smaller ( 2-3 inch) shad close to the surface and just below. And even marked some of the groups of smaller fish (assuming shad) shallower in the water column say from 1 to 2.5 feet deep. The bigger marks 3 feet down to the bottom quite possibly bigger shad and crappie. We didnt see any shad zillas shallow. More practice and time on the water and hopefully we can figure out a little better what exactly we re looking for. Even though catch total was small, we marked fish and caught them. So that's a start.


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## Salmonid

Not sure how to use the relationship to your advantage. Ice guys talk about crappie/shad frequently running together. Guys who cast net for shad, like Salmonid, mention with frequency netting bigger shad and bigger crappie together.[/QUOTE]


Yes Zara, I often in the winter and early spring net the big shad and crappies together. I guess its not too far a stretch to say we get them together all year long so it may be a symbiotic relationship where the bigger shad are loaners in warm water and are often cruising suspended just like the crappies and like Crappies the shad go where the plankton is which in turn is where the bigger crappies are going to be feeding on whats eating that plankton/algae. Just my thought as shad and crappies are both wind driven in where they are located on large impoundments.


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## crappiedude

Salmonid said:


> Just my thought as shad and crappies are both wind driven in where they are located on large impoundments


Normally when fishing unfamiliar waters we look to wind blown shorelines as a place to start our search. It's rare we don't find crappie especially if the wind has been blowing from the same direction for a few days. Generally speaking if we aren't seeing shad activity...we aren't catching fish.


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## Fishbaughzach

Hey guys,

We are starting up a new crappie series on Grand Lake this year, Western Buckeye Crappie Cup. We have a couple new rules and larger payouts. We will also be implementing a 2 day classic that we are all excited about. Check out our Facebook page at Western Buckeye Crappie Cup. Hope to see some of you guys there.


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## RMK

Fishbaughzach said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> We are starting up a new crappie series on Grand Lake this year, Western Buckeye Crappie Cup. We have a couple new rules and larger payouts. We will also be implementing a 2 day classic that we are all excited about. Check out our Facebook page at Western Buckeye Crappie Cup. Hope to see some of you guys there.


 Glad you guys are stepping up and doing this. We re looking forward to it. Scott has been keeping me updated with the FB updates. I almost broke down and got FB when you guys started putting stuff about the series on there. Hope you guys get good turn outs.

Anybody thinking about joining in on these tournaments definitely should. You can learn a lot by fishing them and meet some pretty good people as well as some great crappie fisherman.


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## zaraspook

Came to GLSM Tues afternoon. Last fished on 16th and hoped to find open water despite numerous warnings otherwise. The naysayers were right, no fishing today. Broke ice in my channel for 2 hours. Ice along seawalls mostly 1-1.5 inches thick. Breaking ice won't help me wet a line in next few days, but might boost demise of ice on the weekend. Looks like at least 4 days without freezing temps starting Sat. High temps 50-58 Mon thru Tues.

Thru the first 16 days of 2020, my log shows I've caught 284 crappie, 87 keepers 10" or better. Guys I fished with on those days put up equally good numbers. Zero since 16th due to ice. Never had a January run like that before, not remotely close. Love to see same activity level in Feb, but odds don't favor it. A few ice free days, fish or no fish, would be a good start.


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## Buster24

zaraspook said:


> Came to GLSM Tues afternoon. Last fished on 16th and hoped to find open water despite numerous warnings otherwise. The naysayers were right, no fishing today. Broke ice in my channel for 2 hours. Ice along seawalls mostly 1-1.5 inches thick. Breaking ice won't help me wet a line in next few days, but might boost demise of ice on the weekend. Looks like at least 4 days without freezing temps starting Sat. High temps 50-58 Mon thru Tues.
> 
> Thru the first 16 days of 2020, my log shows I've caught 284 crappie, 87 keepers 10" or better. Guys I fished with on those days put up equally good numbers. Zero since 16th due to ice. Never had a January run like that before, not remotely close. Love to see same activity level in Feb, but odds don't favor it. A few ice free days, fish or no fish, would be a good start.


Are fish edible in GLSM.....There are so many stories out there that you don’t know what to believe!!!!!


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## crappiedude

Buster24 said:


> Are fish edible in GLSM.....There are so many stories out there that you don’t know what to believe!!!!!


No fish in Ohio are edible...go to Indiana.


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## Jim white

Well when are state and federal government lets companies dump chemicals in our water supplies and slaps their hands for it what do you expect. Look what 3M over in Illinois just did. They did the same thing in Northern Alabama and the Tennessee River system several years ago


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## Buster24

Jim white said:


> Well when are state and federal government lets companies dump chemicals in our water supplies and slaps their hands for it what do you expect. Look what 3M over in Illinois just did. They did the same thing in Northern Alabama and the Tennessee River system several years ago


this is exactly why I asked if the fish were edible and received a smart a$$ reply....my question was serious as I have heard many rumors!!!!


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## fishwhacker

From what i have read your only at risk if you eat the brain or organs. You can always catch and release into my bucket if you worried.


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## crappiedude

Buster24 said:


> this is exactly why I asked if the fish were edible and received a smart a$$ reply....


Why anyone in their right mind would ask on a public form if something was safe to eat, then take it as fact is beyond me. If you're so concerned why don't you look somewhere where you might find actual facts, like here....
https://epa.ohio.gov/dsw/fishadvisory/index
Plenty of place to look. This took all of 30 seconds to find.
Asking on here, at best you'll get maybe a little bit of fact and a whole bunch of opinion.
If you really want facts...do a little research.
or just go to Indiana where everything is safe


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## crappiedude

Buster24 said:


> I guess I am just not as IPhone savvy as you are....asked a simple question about eating fish out of a $hitty lake and get a pr*cky response from the true GLSM authorities .....believe me when I say there are many people that feel as I do about GLSM....I know many who live close to GLSM and won’t even put their boat in the water...I am done with you over inflated ego clowns....oh, I caught 280 crappies so far in January....lmao...I am impressed and also done with this $hitshow!!!!


I'm just trying to figure out why you think the info you get here is any better than the rumors you're so concerned about. Do you really think these OPINIONS are any better?
I hope the info I gave you helped you find what you are looking for.
If you don't like the lake why fish it? You are wearing rubber gloves aren't you? Your skin can absorb all those pollutants.
PS...I've never fished the lake.


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## Saugeyefisher

Hrmmm, crappie dude posted your answer in the link in his post.
Crappie dude is exactly right,your gonna get a bunch of opinions on here. The facts,in the link posted can be found by simply typing some thing like are fish in grand lake st Mary's safe to eat into any search engine you have. Not being smart at all,but just trying to lead you in the right direction. The other posts were simply jokes,is how I took them,nothing more. Sarcasm isnt all that badsometimes.
Anyways I'm really excited to here how many more crappie zara catches then me the rest of the winter(and 90%of everyone else on this forum this time of year. Not to mention how hes catching them an what hes catching them on,only trying to make it easier for the rest of us 90%ers to put 280 crappie on the bank in a winter month...


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## crappiedude

One thing I learned a long, long time ago.
Just because water LOOKS good, doesn't mean it is good (or safe). Fact is the good looking stuff can be just as bad or worse than the bad looking stuff.
Your best bet is to look under the EPA fish advisory consumption guide if you eat a lot of fish.


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## Redhunter1012

Buster24 said:


> ..believe me when I say there are many people that feel as I do about GLSM....I know many who live close to GLSM and won’t even put their boat in the water...I am done with you over inflated ego clowns....oh, I caught 280 crappies so far in January....lmao...I am impressed and also done with this $hitshow!!!!


So you know so many people who feel the same as you and wont even put their boats in there. Yet you still come to semi anonymous people and troll them? I get it. No ice, slow time of season. This is a great thread thats enjoyed by many. No need for you to muddy it up cuz you're bored


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## Popspastime

Woweee, been here looking for a minute and a half and learned,..

1. Don't ask questions.
2. Don't eat fish.
3. Don't put my boat in.
4. Don't go to Indiana.
5. Inflated ego clowns.
6. Don't believe what you read.
7. Someone caught 280 Crappie.
8. Must be Iphone savy.

OK then..


----------



## ohiostrutter

Popspastime said:


> Woweee, been here looking for a minute and a half and learned,..
> 
> 1. Don't ask questions.
> 2. Don't eat fish.
> 3. Don't put my boat in.
> 4. Don't go to Indiana.
> 5. Inflated ego clowns.
> 6. Don't believe what you read.
> 7. Someone caught 280 Crappie.
> 8. Must be Iphone savy.
> 
> OK then..


this is arguably the best thread on OGF. Many here post helpful info and give pertinent advice all the time. Everyone gets along. This is pretty comical being this stems from a grown man who got his feelings hurt by a little shop talk sarcasm. It’s all in good fun. All those with ruffled feathers need to man up. Seriously. Is this a mans fishin forum or is this a ladies hair salon?


----------



## Popspastime

ohiostrutter said:


> Is this a mans fishin forum or is this a ladies hair salon?


Hair Salon for $200..lol.


----------



## Buster24

Also.....takes much more than this to hurt my feet....not that fragile!!!!


----------



## joekacz

Popspastime said:


> Hair Salon for $200..lol.


Hey Don isn't that kinda far for glow in the dark crappies?? We can catch the ones in Mosquito,they sorta have a "aura" about them. LOL


----------



## crappiedude

ohiostrutter said:


> This is pretty comical being this stems from a grown man who got his feelings hurt by a* little shop talk sarcasm*.


That's all it was, that's was all it was intended to be.
I've seen similar reply's on OGF many, many times. It's just sarcasm meant with a humorous intent. It's winter though with gray gloomy skies so people get edgy.


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## crappiedude

I agree it's a good thread...no harm, no foul. Let's move on.


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## RMK

i m headed out Friday morning and gonna sit on some docks and kick holes in the ice and fish. Don't plan much on catching but i m gonna fish. Zara hope your ice breaking efforts equal a pile of crappie Sunday or Monday if you are around! good luck


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## zaraspook

Buster24 said:


> Are fish edible in GLSM.....There are so many stories out there that you don’t know what to believe!!!!!


Buster24..........click on the following *Ohio Sport Fish Consumption Advisory booklet.* It's a link that will take you to the Ohio EPA's listing for all Ohio water bodies and fish consumption advisories for each of them. Grand Lake is on page 13. You'll find the only consumption advisory for GLSM is for largemouth bass, not to eat more than 2 times weekly. Mercury is the contaminant. Most of us can't catch enough LMB's for 2 meals a week. LMB at almost all waterbodies in Ohio have the same advisory. That's it, no other advisories for Grand Lake. What you catch is edible/safe. How safe it is to eat largely depends on how it's handled between the water and the dinner table.

I don't feel your question is out of line. GLSM's had plenty of negative PR in the last 9 years since the lake blew up with blue-green algae in 2010. GLSM became the test tube for the world as far as toxic algae goes. It's been tested like no other lake in the State, including testing of the flesh of fish for retention of toxins called microcystins. As stated by fishwhacker.....the flesh of fish is toxin free. Toxins can accumulate in the guts, internal organs of fish, perhaps skin as well. The EPA suggests not eating the guts, skin, and fatty tissue for virtually all fish from Ohio waters.

All the negative press is the main reason I started this thread back in October of 2011. It's been a crusade to show another side of GLSM and maybe change a few opinions along the way. From the Mother of All Algae Blooms in 2010 we've come a long way. On May 15-16 this year GLSM will host it's 5th(?) consecutive Crappie USA Super Event. We've are fortunate to be one of only 6 lakes privileged to host a Super Event in 2020.

My apology to you that your experience with our thread wasn't satisfactory. Difficult task to read written messages and "hear" the tone that was intended. Good luck to you and maybe you try us again in the future.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> i m headed out Friday morning and gonna sit on some docks and kick holes in the ice and fish. Don't plan much on catching but i m gonna fish. Zara hope your ice breaking efforts equal a pile of crappie Sunday or Monday if you are around! good luck


RMK........I was at lake until 3pm Thurs. Broke ice in my channel for 3rd straight day. Fished briefly at Chick ramp Weds afternoon. In 25 casts had no bumps/skunked.......Chick ramp was 30-40% open water but a lot of slush about to turn solid.

I'm hoping next week will clear some ice. That's why I break ice. If I can keep it open along the seawalls, wind/sun/rain will work faster. It's been a losing battle each day.


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## Buster24

Zaraspook....
Finally, a voice of reason...I have worked with the EPA for years and their opinion is hard for me to accept, so why not go to the people who should know.....the fishermen.....thank you for your courteous reply and no need to apologize.....I will be back for sure!!!!!


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## RMK

Pretty sure I doubled my lifetime total of dinks today! I busted holes in the ice off the end of docks. Ice ranged from skim and slush to almost 2". Some visible open water in channels I could see from the road but can't get to by land to fish(private property) both of my stops on my shore adventure produced fish.


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## RMK

Got back out to my first dink spot Friday evening with the little girl. Success! You have to look close by i promise there is a dink gill hidden in those little gloves. Wouldnt bite tipped with a crappie nibble but tipped with a wax worm the dink fest continued. Open water is increasing quickly in the little chick. Planning on being back out in the boat on Friday.


----------



## joekacz

RMK said:


> Got back out to my first dink spot Friday evening with the little girl. Success! You have to look close by i promise there is a dink gill hidden in those little gloves. Wouldnt bite tipped with a crappie nibble but tipped with a wax worm the dink fest continued. Open water is increasing quickly in the little chick. Planning on being back out in the boat on Friday.
> View attachment 339981


RMK I sent you a PM


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Got back out to my first dink spot Friday evening with the little girl. Success! You have to look close by i promise there is a dink gill hidden in those little gloves. Wouldnt bite tipped with a crappie nibble but tipped with a wax worm the dink fest continued. Open water is increasing quickly in the little chick. Planning on being back out in the boat on Friday.
> View attachment 339981


Absolutely priceless!
Some open water plus high wind can soon become lots of open water. Hope it happens.


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## Redhunter1012

I fished the spillway from 10:30-2:30 yesterday. Landed a legal 3lb female the dirst ten minutes. Could only foul hook a few more giants the rest of the time. Seen a half dozen legal eyes kept and probably a half dozen snagged eyes kept


----------



## Saugeyefisher

Redhunter1012 said:


> I fished the spillway from 10:30-2:30 yesterday. Landed a legal 3lb female the dirst ten minutes. Could only foul hook a few more giants the rest of the time. Seen a half dozen legal eyes kept and probably a half dozen snagged eyes kept
> View attachment 340197


Thanks for the report.... been wondering myself...


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## fishwhacker

Found 1 legal friday night, 1 snagged that was returned.


----------



## Saugeyefisher

fishwhacker said:


> Found 1 legal friday night, 1 snagged that was returned.
> View attachment 340245
> View attachment 340247


Ddaannngggg! Yet another pig! Good pic! Realky let's us see the patterns....


----------



## Saugeyefisher

I dont here as much about the crappie below the spillway anymore. Is that because everybody's interest is in the eyes. Or the crappie fishing been slow down there?
It wasnt two weeks ago I was telling a friend to be on the look out for pictures of pig fish from below glsm spillway. Here they come..... 
U guys really do help motivate me this time of year to get out more then I normally would.


----------



## CHOPIQ

There was a game warden watching the spillway today. Heard a few people were keeping snagged eyes.


----------



## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> I dont here as much about the crappie below the spillway anymore. Is that because everybody's interest is in the eyes. Or the crappie fishing been slow down there?
> It wasnt two weeks ago I was telling a friend to be on the look out for pictures of pig fish from below glsm spillway. Here they come.....
> U guys really do help motivate me this time of year to get out more then I normally would.


Tubes at spillway were open for abot 3 weeks. Creek there is now fully restocked with pig eyes. Ivm sure crappie are there too but 9-13 # eyes hard to turn down. Glad to hear the formula still works, that is, "open tubes, pigs will come".


----------



## zaraspook

Speaking of lowly crappies, I was thrilled today to arrive and find not a chip of ice anywhere in my channel. Hooray for open water. Unfortunately, the school of crappie that parked there in Jan moved elsewhere for Feb. A friend and I caught just 6, 4 for me, no keepers.
On a more interesting note, my first fish today was a 10.5", very rotund perch. That's one more for the south side perch totals. Huge lead of southside perch caught over those caught from northside locations. 39.2 water temps today. Perch came on a Jelly Bean colored shad stinger.


----------



## RMK

man that thing is fat! awesome fish.


----------



## zaraspook

RMK said:


> man that thing is fat! awesome fish.


Thanks, but looks like nothing but bait in comparison to those spillway eyes.


----------



## Buster24

zaraspook said:


> Speaking of lowly crappies, I was thrilled today to arrive and find not a chip of ice anywhere in my channel. Hooray for open water. Unfortunately, the school of crappie that parked there in Jan moved elsewhere for Feb. A friend and I caught just 6, 4 for me, no keepers.
> On a more interesting note, my first fish today was a 10.5", very rotund perch. That's one more for the south side perch totals. Huge lead of southside perch caught over those caught from northside locations. 39.2 water temps today. Perch came on a Jelly Bean colored shad stinger.
> View attachment 340407
> 
> View attachment 340409


nice looking catch ‘spook’......you are the epitome of a true fisherman!!!!!


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## zaraspook

Buster24 said:


> nice looking catch ‘spook’......you are the epitome of a true fisherman!!!!!


Gracious of you to say that, B24! Thanks.


----------



## zaraspook

My Tuesday post mentioned the fat perch and 4 crappie that day. I hung around Weds and 1/2 of Thurs since channel remained ice free. Hate to admit I fished 2 hours that day. Saw maybe 5 bites to get 2 dink crappie. One fish per hour is not a decent trade-off for the cold conditions. Stayed inside and knocked out a portion of my painting projects. Confident channel would not ice up Weds night, hung around for a last try at open water fishing.
Ironic that Thurs water wasn't ice yet, but everything on land was coated with ice from sleet/freezing rain/snow system overnight. Too bad the crappie bite didn't perk up. One hour, one bite, one crappie.......but at least it was a 10" keeper, so not a total loss. Picked up, cleaned up, packed up and headed home to Indiana. I'm confident the channel is iced over Fri morning. I took advantage of Feb open water as long as it lasted.


----------



## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> I fished the spillway from 10:30-2:30 yesterday. Landed a legal 3lb female the dirst ten minutes. Could only foul hook a few more giants the rest of the time. Seen a half dozen legal eyes kept and probably a half dozen snagged eyes kept
> View attachment 340197


Redhunter, Good to hear spillway is restocked and supplying piggy eyes. Your 3# fish sparks my curiosity again in the topic of "is it a saugeye, a walleye, a product of a mixed marriage, a 2nd generation walleye-walleye, or a 2nd generation saugeye-saugeye hybrid"? Keep these dates in mind, walleye stocking ceased in 2008. Saugeye stocking started 2009 to 2010. Neither stocked since the saugs in 2010.

Growth rate tables suggest a 3# walleye is about 20-21" in length and 7 years old. Estimates would suggest your fish's birth in 2012-2013 time frame if a pure-bred walleye. 

Saug growth data is highly debated, more disputable. Ohio DNR is reported to claim growth rate as much as 6" per year for the first 3 years, then slows to roughly 3" annually. Clearly 20" in reachable in 4 years. In 2012-2013 saugeyes of 23-24" were caught. Exact age isn't critical,but sounds like a safe guesstimate to use is 4-5 years for a saugeye to reach 3# mark. Very unlikely your fish, if a saugeye, was one of the original stocked fingerlings from 2009 or 2010. Maybe it could have been the "runt of the litter", otherwise logic would say it's the result of walleye to saugeye mating, or less likely saugeye to saugeye parenthood. Complicating the issue, saugeye are hybrids.......supposedly sterile. And the saugeye stocked in GLSM were intentionally "triploid" sterile, to virtually eliminate walleye to saugeye cross breeding. The DNR was trying to insure a saugeye from GLSM would never screw up the Lake Erie walleye gene pool, if one would successfully migrate into the St. Mary's River which is in the Lake Erie watershed. The triploid process is a pressurized shock put on fertilized saugeye eggs to achieve sterilization. It's expensive to do, plus most of the fry don't survive the process. DNR could not be sure all surviving fingerlings were actually sterile. Costs and poor yield is the reason why the triploid program was halted.

Redhunter's 3# fish was probably a product of walleye mom and dad, both parents could have been stocked fingerlings between 1999-2008, however one or more of it's parents could have been born from successful walleye reproduction in GLSM. If Redhunter's fish was result of walleye-saugeye mating, not sure what to call it since saugeye are specifically female walleye and male sauger cross-breeding. Let's call it a Waugeye and it likely was born in 2014-2015 to make 3#in early 2020. Since the saugeye should have been triploid sterile, who knows the probability it actually happened. If the result of walleye-saugeye cross breeding, Redhunter's fish may have been the very definition of what the DNR wants to prevent from happening in Lake Erie. 
Also, possible is a saugeye to saugeye breeding and both would have been exposed to triploid sterilization. A final possibility, GLSM saugeye may have already produced saugeye to saugeye offspring, and one or more of those offspring a party to producing Redhunter's fish.

Crazy, makes my head spin to figure the possibilities. Redhunter, any other markings on your fish to suggest the ID of your 3#?


----------



## Redhunter1012

zaraspook said:


> Redhunter, Good to hear spillway is restocked and supplying piggy eyes. Your 3# fish sparks my curiosity again in the topic of "is it a saugeye, a walleye, a product of a mixed marriage, a 2nd generation walleye-walleye, or a 2nd generation saugeye-saugeye hybrid"? Keep these dates in mind, walleye stocking ceased in 2008. Saugeye stocking started 2009 to 2010. Neither stocked since the saugs in 2010.
> 
> Growth rate tables suggest a 3# walleye is about 20-21" in length and 7 years old. Estimates would suggest your fish's birth in 2012-2013 time frame if a pure-bred walleye.
> 
> Saug growth data is highly debated, more disputable. Ohio DNR is reported to claim growth rate as much as 6" per year for the first 3 years, then slows to roughly 3" annually. Clearly 20" in reachable in 4 years. In 2012-2013 saugeyes of 23-24" were caught. Exact age isn't critical,but sounds like a safe guesstimate to use is 4-5 years for a saugeye to reach 3# mark. Very unlikely your fish, if a saugeye, was one of the original stocked fingerlings from 2009 or 2010. Maybe it could have been the "runt of the litter", otherwise logic would say it's the result of walleye to saugeye mating, or less likely saugeye to saugeye parenthood. Complicating the issue, saugeye are hybrids.......supposedly sterile. And the saugeye stocked in GLSM were intentionally "triploid" sterile, to virtually eliminate walleye to saugeye cross breeding. The DNR was trying to insure a saugeye from GLSM would never screw up the Lake Erie walleye gene pool, if one would successfully migrate into the St. Mary's River which is in the Lake Erie watershed. The triploid process is a pressurized shock put on fertilized saugeye eggs to achieve sterilization. It's expensive to do, plus most of the fry don't survive the process. DNR could not be sure all surviving fingerlings were actually sterile. Costs and poor yield is the reason why the triploid program was halted.
> 
> Redhunter's 3# fish was probably a product of walleye mom and dad, both parents could have been stocked fingerlings between 1999-2008, however one or more of it's parents could have been born from successful walleye reproduction in GLSM. If Redhunter's fish was result of walleye-saugeye mating, not sure what to call it since saugeye are specifically female walleye and male sauger cross-breeding. Let's call it a Waugeye and it likely was born in 2014-2015 to make 3#in early 2020. Since the saugeye should have been triploid sterile, who knows the probability it actually happened. If the result of walleye-saugeye cross breeding, Redhunter's fish may have been the very definition of what the DNR wants to prevent from happening in Lake Erie.
> Also, possible is a saugeye to saugeye breeding and both would have been exposed to triploid sterilization. A final possibility, GLSM saugeye may have already produced saugeye to saugeye offspring, and one or more of those offspring a party to producing Redhunter's fish.
> 
> Crazy, makes my head spin to figure the possibilities. Redhunter, any other markings on your fish to suggest the ID of your 3#?


 So here's a pic. Fish was maybe 20", really fat. I seen 2 others caught that day that were the same size. Im 100٪ sure this is a walleye. Guess we'll never know. I don't think the DNR wants to know.


----------



## zaraspook

Redhunter1012 said:


> So here's a pic. Fish was maybe 20", really fat. I seen 2 others caught that day that were the same size. Im 100٪ sure this is a walleye. Guess we'll never know. I don't think the DNR wants to know.
> View attachment 341505


I'm surprised DNR doesn't share my curiosity about identity. I'd read another saug vs walleye identifier has something to do with the fish's cheeks. Plus, read somewhere last 2 splines on walleye dorsal fin are always solid black, saug splines are speckled with black. Don't know if any truth to dorsal spline characteristic, or details of cheek variation. Maybe someone else can clarify. The next person to catch a GLSM "eye" under 4# ought to take a good photo, look at the dorsal, and give us a report. In the absence of better proof, makes perfect sense to assume any eyes caught under 21" were born in the lake, a result of natural reproduction, and most likely walleye heritage from fish stocked 11-20 years ago. 

Until the State implements a plan to seal off the migration path from GLSM East Bank to Lake Erie, might be smart to resume limited walleye stocking. It might keep the winter eye excitement going until saugeye can be stocked again. Should be done with caution though......the 1999-2008 walleye stocking took a toll on GLSM's crappie population, and may also have depleted GLSM's glorious perch reputation in 1980's to 1990's.


----------



## Acton Angler

I'm not familiar with the river system the spillway feeds into, but can we be absolutely certain these eyes even came out of GLSM? Or is it possible they've originated from the local creeks, rivers and streams and migrated upstream until they reached the spillway?
I'm just wondering if the stocking dates and sterilization is irrelevant if these fish aren't even from the lake. The number of reported catches in the spillway vs main lake make me skeptical.


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## brad crappie

Zara there has been studies that suggest the eyes do affect craps with over eating of bait! So less bait for craps and maybe the eyes eating little craps


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## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> Zara there has been studies that suggest the eyes do affect craps with over eating of bait! So less bait for craps and maybe the eyes eating little craps


Makes great sense to me, BC. 
In 2008 there were times I heard crappie guys question "what happened to our GLSM craps?" and say "we used to have great crappie fishing". Duh! Does anyone really think loading 60 million walleye fry/fingerlings into the lake over a decade isn't going to have an impact on the population of fish species? I believe in the beginning the impact to other fish was a consideration in the stocking plan. But after 5 years, then 6 years, with no walleye showing up in the creels, those behind the decision to stock walleye were getting grief. Desperation to see the plan succeed may have pushed decision makers to double down......let's stock more and longer. Walleyes really never did prove to be catchable, at least by the average fisherman, except ending up in the spillway every time the gates/tubes opened to bring down excessive water levels in the lake.


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## Salmonid

I say bring back the Stripers...LOL I might add that the best run of big channel cats was around 2008-2010 so they may have also been responsible for the low crappie numbers not to mention the by product of 1-2 years of poor spawning conditions putting a flat spot on the cycle numbers may equally be the culprit. Just sayin.... LOL ( I like to stir the pot)


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## brad crappie

Low water has bad affect on the spawn , higher water better


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> I say bring back the Stripers...LOL I might add that the best run of big channel cats was around 2008-2010 so they may have also been responsible for the low crappie numbers not to mention the by product of 1-2 years of poor spawning conditions putting a flat spot on the cycle numbers may equally be the culprit. Just sayin.... LOL ( I like to stir the pot)


Usually multiple factors so highly probable. I'm told puny crappie catch started before 2008, but that was year I bought my place. Did not fish GLSM until 2008.


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## zaraspook

Acton Angler said:


> I'm not familiar with the river system the spillway feeds into, but can we be absolutely certain these eyes even came out of GLSM? Or is it possible they've originated from the local creeks, rivers and streams and migrated upstream until they reached the spillway?
> I'm just wondering if the stocking dates and sterilization is irrelevant if these fish aren't even from the lake. The number of reported catches in the spillway vs main lake make me skeptical.


AA........absolute certainty is a high bar. The creek at the spillway is generally 30-40' wide at spillway and less than that not far downstream. GLSM is hands down the extremely likely source and GLSM has flushed eyes into the creek for 20 years now. Take GLSM out of the equation and there would be no creek there.

Either from flooding or draw downs every time water is pulled thru the gates the creek below gets restocked. Eyes and other species are dumped into a small space, unbelievably concentrated, and the locals all hear the dinner bell ring and show up lining the banks. For a week or 10 ten days eyes will be hooked and snagged regularly, numbers dwindling as the population is thinned. Fishing will fall off and eyes caught more sparingly until the next rain event and/or need to pull water. Gates open, eyes restocked, fishing frenzy starts anew. A new cycle starts every time water flow goes up for more than a few days. Doesn't matter if it's spawning season.........what matters is water being pulled from GLSM. Cause and effect are closely tied. In my opinion, if eyes are there from any other source, it's negligible.


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> AA........absolute certainty is a high bar. The creek at the spillway is generally 30-40' wide at spillway and less than that not far downstream. GLSM is hands down the extremely likely source and GLSM has flushed eyes into the creek for 20 years now. Take GLSM out of the equation and there would be no creek there.
> 
> Either from flooding or draw downs every time water is pulled thru the gates the creek below gets restocked. Eyes and other species are dumped into a small space, unbelievably concentrated, and the locals all hear the dinner bell ring and show up lining the banks. For a week or 10 ten days eyes will be hooked and snagged regularly, numbers dwindling as the population is thinned. Fishing will fall off and eyes caught more sparingly until the next rain event and/or need to pull water. Gates open, eyes restocked, fishing frenzy starts anew. A new cycle starts every time water flow goes up for more than a few days. Doesn't matter if it's spawning season.........what matters is water being pulled from GLSM. Cause and effect are closely tied. In my opinion, if eyes are there from any other source, it's negligible.


I agree with zara. I am one of the hundreds that take advantage of the short bursts of activity. It is my belief that when they let water out that creates current in the main lake which draws the eyes down the gates. Some can remember the flurry of eyes through the ice in nearby cw creek years ago which isnt far from the spillway. If i was a betting man the walleye stage somewhere between these two known locations.


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## zaraspook

On Feb. 20 in 2018 I was among a group of many GLSM anglers who took advantage of a 70+ degree weather to pull a pile of crappie from Duckfoot, no ice on that day. If memory serves me, a few other OGF players like T04DF15H and Greyduck were heading out as I arrived there later in the day. Each and them and any others in their groups enjoyed a 30-fish limit. I stopped at 21 in my bucket that were 10.5" or bigger, plenty for me to clean. I know I caught more than 50 in about 2.5 hours. What a difference 2 years can make in the weather and ice conditions. Hoping we see similar warmth soon. Shoot! I'm not greedy. Don't need 70 degree temps. I'll take any temp as long as it's open water.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> On Feb. 20 in 2018 I was among a group of many GLSM anglers who took advantage of a 70+ degree weather to pull a pile of crappie from Duckfoot, no ice on that day. If memory serves me, a few other OGF players like T04DF15H and Greyduck were heading out as I arrived there later in the day. Each and them and any others in their groups enjoyed a 30-fish limit. I stopped at 21 in my bucket that were 10.5" or bigger, plenty for me to clean. I know I caught more than 50 in about 2.5 hours. What a difference 2 years can make in the weather and ice conditions. Hoping we see similar warmth soon. Shoot! I'm not greedy. Don't need 70 degree temps. I'll take any temp as long as it's open water.


predictions on ice cover tomorrow late morning. ??


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> predictions on ice cover tomorrow late morning. ??


RMK........can't help you with ice info. Haven't been up for 2 weeks and not happy about it! Hope you do well.


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## zaraspook

zaraspook said:


> RMK........can't help you with ice info. Haven't been up for 2 weeks and not happy about it! Hope you do well.


RMK.....did you get any info on ice?


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> RMK.....did you get any info on ice?


Just checked a SE ramp and two NE ramps on my way home from work. All locked up.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Just checked a SE ramp and two NE ramps on my way home from work. All locked up.


Boo!


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## RMK

I m predicting this will be the last of the major ice for this winter. warm up is on its way. we should be out next weekend.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> I m predicting this will be the last of the major ice for this winter. warm up is on its way. we should be out next weekend.


RMK.......you have my vote, though cannot say I'm I am as confident about it. I recall March 22-23 about 4-5 years ago struggling to find open water. Fished in between large sheets of ice flowing in my channel. Friend and I had a great day, maybe all time best crappie day. The point is it was 3 weeks into March and we were still fighting to find fishable open water. Hard to be patient, isn't it?


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## RMK

hard to be patient is an under statement. wishing for fishable hard water didnt work so i m changing my wishes for soft water and hoping that works. cold end of next week too now i see. ugh.....


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## fishwhacker

Got out with the boys for a couple hrs this afternoon and fished on the northside next to ice leaving a channel and had decent success with bluegills. Im sure crappies are right there also. As low as the water level is, bright sun in shallow areas can cause a hot bite in the afternoon. Ice out can be a great time to fish.


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## zaraspook

At my lake place Tues-Thur this week. There to do some interior painting, but my overriding objective is always to catch crappie.

Water level was up 8" or so since my last visit 3 weeks earlier. That's a good thing since winter drawdown usually leaves my channel with too little water to hold fish. Tuesday most channels were open, little ice, but the main channel I wanted to fish was 90% locked up. Weds open water in that channel grew to 30%, and was 60% by Thursday. I fished it about 60 minutes each day. Never had a single bite for my efforts. Water temp was 37.2 degrees.
On Weds I took a short ride to Lake Loramie and specifically a spot I knew produced crappie 4-5 days earlier. Actually had 2 bites at Loramie, but caught none.

Fishing was not productive. Painting was productive, but not as much fun as catching fish. State began pulling water again on 25th. These drawdowns usually go for 2-3 weeks and aren't good to fishing my channel but the spillway gets restocked with eyes. Should be hot action there soon.


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## fishwhacker

After driving around for about 45 minutes attempted a north side spot on Sunday ice free for about 15 min without a bite. Then drove to the southside of the lake and BIL busted a few holes with a spud bar next to some of the new stakebeds. Pulled mainly small bluegills but some were keepable. Probably had 30 to 40 in an hr and half. Size wasnt where we liked it to be but the bite was hot. Had we had more time probably could have dialed in the baits to keep the smalls of and only targeted the larger gills. No crappies, although shad was stacked in that channel.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> After driving around for about 45 minutes attempted a north side spot on Sunday ice free for about 15 min without a bite. Then drove to the southside of the lake and BIL busted a few holes with a spud bar next to some of the new stakebeds. Pulled mainly small bluegills but some were keepable. Probably had 30 to 40 in an hr and half. Size wasnt where we liked it to be but the bite was hot. Had we had more time probably could have dialed in the baits to keep the smalls of and only targeted the larger gills. No crappies, although shad was stacked in that channel.


Good report, Whacker. Ditto on the shad. Channels I fished earlier in week had ample shad population, though the slow swimming shad tended to be surprisingly smaller ones. I've mentioned before I like seeing active big shad when I crappie fish. Big shad and big crappie seem to cohabitate just fine.


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## zaraspook

Just noticed sometime in the last week the GLSM thread passed a milestone of sorts. We officially accumulated response number 5000! I think that's cool! But before we allow all to get too big of a head, I noticed the thread's been viewed 357,858 times. It works out to 71 views for each response. Sounds a little puny/boring when only one of every 71 views was excited enough to actually respond. We have plenty of lurkers out there who take a peak but don't chime in. Lots of fishing knowledge passing thru the thread, but it could be so much more. I promise we won't bite off any heads.......feel free to add to the knowledge base!


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## crappiedude

Congrats Zara!!! This is a wonderful thread.
A guy could learn to catch crappie if he took the time and read through all the info that's shared on these pages.


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## Wick125

zaraspook said:


> Good report, Whacker. Ditto on the shad. Channels I fished earlier in week had ample shad population, though the slow swimming shad tended to be surprisingly smaller ones. I've mentioned before I like seeing active big shad when I crappie fish. Big shad and big crappie seem to cohabitate just fine.


I have a question for those much more experienced than I (most everyone!). Fished a bunch as a kid but let life get in the way - but now that my dad is retired we have gotten back into it again the last year or so - so I am very green.

When you guys say a channel is loaded with shad - how can you tell? Is it just visual - you can see the activity? I have had many trips this fall when saugeye fishing that I have hooked small shad on my vibe or have seen a some action on the top - but most times I don't see any signs of the shad. Just curious as to what I should be looking for - would love to find some crappie this spring! Thanks in advance for the response.


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## zaraspook

Wick........can be either shad activity or visual. This time of year with these cold water temps, they aren't moving very fast. Easy to see shad in the water....they swim in slow motion.


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## bobberbucket

zaraspook said:


> Just noticed sometime in the last week the GLSM thread passed a milestone of sorts. We officially accumulated response number 5000! I think that's cool! But before we allow all to get too big of a head, I noticed the thread's been viewed 357,858 times. It works out to 71 views for each response. Sounds a little puny/boring when only one of every 71 views was excited enough to actually respond. We have plenty of lurkers out there who take a peak but don't chime in. Lots of fishing knowledge passing thru the thread, but it could be so much more. I promise we won't bite off any heads.......feel free to add to the knowledge base!


Congratulations on your milestone! In my opinion it is definitely a noteworthy milestone not many threads make it over 60 replies.

You and the others who often contribute here Show a lot of dedication to your local waters as well as the art of crappie fishing. I like that your thread always has a welcoming friendly atmosphere & people willing to help With tons of information in tips being shared. I like that lots of the information here it's about how to catch them and NOT where It's more of a learn to catch your own fish type of thread to me which I love! Cause locations don't catch fish but the info provided here does.

I've never fished GLSM I probably never wll. I did see it once it was frozen and looked huge.

I don't usually post here but I very much enjoy following the thread and this is the 1st place I come whenever I poke my head into the southwest forurm . I pay attention to your tactics paired with conditions And I try them at my local lakes. Thank you to everyone who post in this thread and makes it such an enjoyable read! 
I look forward to seeing The next 5,000 posts Because this thread is truly a treasure For those who want to learn something about the art of crappie fishing!


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## brad crappie

Bobber if u ever want to come down with me to st Mary’s u know I got a seat for u


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## crappiedude

Wick125 said:


> When you guys say a channel is loaded with shad - how can you tell? *Is it just visual - you can see the activity*?


My own personal style of fishing for most of the year is to use my electronics to look for fish and/or cover and then fish the area with jigs.
If I happen to be fishing shallow or just messing around in my kayak where I'm not using electronics *I am always looking for some type of surface activity.* It may not necessarily be shad you are seeing but it does indicated fish are in the area.
Another good thing to look for is (sea)gulls. If you see gulls diving that's a good sign that you've got sad in the area.


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## brad crappie

To me the best crappie anglers in the state grew up fishing the Indian loramie and st Mary’s lakes region! 2 of my buds that grew up fishing down there showed me the ropes


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## Wick125

Thanks guys!



zaraspook said:


> Wick........can be either shad activity or visual. This time of year with these cold water temps, they aren't moving very fast. Easy to see shad in the water....they swim in slow motion.





crappiedude said:


> My own personal style of fishing for most of the year is to use my electronics to look for fish and/or cover and then fish the area with jigs.
> If I happen to be fishing shallow or just messing around in my kayak where I'm not using electronics *I am always looking for some type of surface activity.* It may not necessarily be shad you are seeing but it does indicated fish are in the area.
> Another good thing to look for is (sea)gulls. If you see gulls diving that's a good sign that you've got sad in the area.


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## bobberbucket

brad crappie said:


> Bobber if u ever want to come down with me to st Mary’s u know I got a seat for u


I may take you up on that sometime my friend.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## RMK

bobberbucket said:


> I may take you up on that sometime my friend.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


i dont know if our lake is ready for the both of you down here. at least brad will make you throw the shorts, and possible the BIGS, back!


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## RMK

Wick125 said:


> I have a question for those much more experienced than I (most everyone!). Fished a bunch as a kid but let life get in the way - but now that my dad is retired we have gotten back into it again the last year or so - so I am very green.
> 
> When you guys say a channel is loaded with shad - how can you tell? Is it just visual - you can see the activity? I have had many trips this fall when saugeye fishing that I have hooked small shad on my vibe or have seen a some action on the top - but most times I don't see any signs of the shad. Just curious as to what I should be looking for - would love to find some crappie this spring! Thanks in advance for the response.


My opinions on shad and channels being loaded with shad-
yes its just a visual thing for me. schools of shad can me seen rolling on the surface and their shine when they roll can be seen under water. electronics also give away the shads locations. especially the shad deeper in the water column. the bigger shad, shad zillas, zara and some of the catfish bait guys have mentioned as a great sign for crappie being nearby and even mixed in. my personal experience at GLSM with large numbers of 2"-3" shad being present doesnt always mean crappie are going to be caught.
you mentioned hoping to catch some spring crappie. in the spring i would be looking more for the structure that the fish are on than the shad themselves. rocks would be a spring time spawning structure i would look for.- sometimes big rocks, sometimes old rocks, small, rock with natural bank, haven't had as much luck with new rocks. the type and location does make a difference. don't be afraid to fish to shallow in the spring. i remember a spot when i was fishing 6" deep and partner was fishing 4" deep and he was catching about 5 to my 1. same bait and color. change depths until you find them. shallow spring crappie is fun! good luck and keep us updated.


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## garhtr

zaraspook said:


> We have plenty of lurkers out there who take a peak but don't chime in.


 I'm one of the lurkers and love reading about everyone's crappie fishing adventures on St Mary's but unfortunately I never responded because I know nothing about the lake and even less about crappie fishing. 
Congratulations on the 5000 post milestone and I'm looking forward to the next 5000 but I guess until I learn something about crappie (that hasn't been posted here) or take a roadtrip to St Mary's I'll have to continue lurking  
Good luck and good fishing


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## bobberbucket

RMK said:


> i dont know if our lake is ready for the both of you down here. at least brad will make you throw the shorts, and possible the BIGS, back!


 I always throw the BIG’s back anything over 12 but under 16 1/2 gos back. 

It’s likely anything over 16 1/2 but under 19’s is going back but I have to catch one first. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Salmonid

Ok folks, as a catfish guy Ill be up tomorrow night seeking some bigger shad, just in case anyone is out in a channel and see some big uns, please drop me a PM, I promise Ill release all the crappies I cast net which is often... and youll get a personal detailed private report for your efforts. LOL thanks


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## Tom 513

Salmonid said:


> Ok folks, as a catfish guy Ill be up tomorrow night seeking some bigger shad, just in case anyone is out in a channel and see some big uns, please drop me a PM, I promise Ill release all the crappies I cast net which is often... and youll get a personal detailed private report for your efforts. LOL thanks


 Who's this new guy on Ofg?


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## Salmonid

Busted.. I am one of those lurkers Zara was posting about, I glean as much info out of the posts and rarely have the opportunity to give anything back..LOL Hopefully I ll have a decent report ( cast netting) later tonight or tomorrow.


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## zaraspook

bobberbucket said:


> Congratulations on your milestone! In my opinion it is definitely a noteworthy milestone not many threads make it over 60 replies.
> 
> You and the others who often contribute here Show a lot of dedication to your local waters as well as the art of crappie fishing. I like that your thread always has a welcoming friendly atmosphere & people willing to help With tons of information in tips being shared. I like that lots of the information here it's about how to catch them and NOT where It's more of a learn to catch your own fish type of thread to me which I love! Cause locations don't catch fish but the info provided here does.
> 
> I've never fished GLSM I probably never wll. I did see it once it was frozen and looked huge.
> 
> I don't usually post here but I very much enjoy following the thread and this is the 1st place I come whenever I poke my head into the southwest forurm . I pay attention to your tactics paired with conditions And I try them at my local lakes. Thank you to everyone who post in this thread and makes it such an enjoyable read!
> I look forward to seeing The next 5,000 posts Because this thread is truly a treasure For those who want to learn something about the art of crappie fishing!


Lot of love flowing in your post, BB. Hoping we continue to earn your trust and commentary into wherever we're headed. Thread reflects character of its contributors........on that basis we're on solid ground. As the great philosopher Annie Oakley once said "Aim at a high mark and you'll hit it".


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## bobberbucket

I got a lotta love for crappie fishing and crappie fishermen who are into it for more than just the meat. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Tom 513

Salmonid said:


> Busted.. I am one of those lurkers Zara was posting about, I glean as much info out of the posts and rarely have the opportunity to give anything back..LOL Hopefully I ll have a decent report ( cast netting) later tonight or tomorrow.


Lets all remember what our grade school teachers taught us (Sharing) and absolutely no gleaning, humm whats gleaning?


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## fishwhacker

Does anyone know any place to get wax worms this time of year in celina or montezuma? Dont want to run all the way to st marys to get bait. Last time i stopped at shell in zuma and marathon in celina neither had any.


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## zaraspook

High school friend and I fished GLSM Tues-Thurs. Early March we knew would be a risky outing, but sometimes you have to take the option you get, not the option you want. At least no ice to worry about.
Water in my channel was stained, but not bad compared to creek fed channels. Air temps were decent, not frigid. Frigid, however, was the operative word to describe the catching results. Tuesday we caught 1 crappie each, neither would come close to threaten keeper size, but kept us from falling into skunk territory. Almost hate to admit we many more bites than you'd think, but extremely timid and single bumps with no followup. We changed baits frequently without ever finding a style, color, and size combination that the fish were willing to eat. I did catch a small bass and a gill. We fished a good 3 hours in the afternoon.

Weds was pretty much a repeat of Tues. Slightly fewer bites. One crappie for my buddy. Slightly fewer crappie for me. "Slightly fewer"? What number is slightly fewer than my 1 crappie the day before? ZERO - skunk for me! I did catch another small bass and my fishing partner caught 2 gills. Thursday............not much changed. One crappie each, another drop in bites, and my partner caught 3 gills.

We fished a lot of spots, mostly in my channel. 100% of fish caught came from one spot. 90% of bites came from that same spot. Did not measure water temp until Thursday. Water temp was 42.3 in the spot that provided the few fish we caught. Water temp was 41.7 at my seawall......no bites there. 41.7 degrees is actually a couple degrees warmer than early March last year, and a degree warmer than 2018.

Looking at my past logs, our results were about normal for early March. By mid-March catch numbers begin to steadily climb as well as the size of fish. It's also not uncommon to catch as many or more small bass as crappie. Seems odd, but logs suggest not odd at all. If it helps at all, we had lots of bites on pearl, orange, or key lime colored baits......nothing worked good for actually catching.


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## crappiedude

FWIW the only thing working for us in that stained or dirty water are dark baits. With black/chart tubes leading the pack by a long shot and adding nibbles seems to help. Our water temps are similar.
A few days of sun on that water would do wonders for the fishing.


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## firemanmike2127

fishwacker, try at The Boathouse or Notal's Lakeview Carryout in Celina. I know for certain that Brenda has them @ The Outdoorsman in St. Mary's. Mike


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## Salmonid

A little late but from Last Thursday nite after work, I hit the North side seeking some bigger shad with the cast net. 1st 2 spots were empty with just a handful of smaller shad and even some skim ice still in the shady areas. 3rd spot is where I suspected would be my best spot and it was. wind had been pushing into this area for 2 days and the shad were in there, loads of 3-6" guys ( the biggest ones were plenty good for channel cat baits) but I was seeking the bigger guys for blue cats in my tournament down in Tennessee on Saturday. after a short while of throwing I started to get a bigger one in the mix every 10 throws or so and ended up with 9 from 13-17". Not monsters but perfect for what I needed. I might also mention the crappies were also there, I had about a dozen from 9-13+" on the biggest one, he was a stud! Find the shad, find the crappies...
as far as the tourney went on Nickajack Lake, we had cold front,26 when we started, highest pressure ever, Full Moon, loads of current etc and no one did well but we ended up 6th place with 2 blues that were about 19 lbs each. lost 2 other fish we had hooked. still better then being here in Ohio.

Zara, March is tough but is when you get early Bass, the occasional Pike and even a Perch or two so hang in there!
Salmonid


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## Salmonid

A little late but from Last Thursday nite after work, I hit the North side seeking some bigger shad with the cast net. 1st 2 spots were empty with just a handful of smaller shad and even some skim ice still in the shady areas. 3rd spot is where I suspected would be my best spot and it was. wind had been pushing into this area for 2 days and the shad were in there, loads of 3-6" guys ( the biggest ones were plenty good for channel cat baits) but I was seeking the bigger guys for blue cats in my tournament down in Tennessee on Saturday. after a short while of throwing I started to get a bigger one in the mix every 10 throws or so and ended up with 9 from 13-17". Not monsters but perfect for what I needed. I might also mention the crappies were also there, I had about a dozen from 9-13+" on the biggest one, he was a stud! Find the shad, find the crappies...
as far as the tourney went on Nickajack Lake, we had cold front,26 when we started, highest pressure ever, Full Moon, loads of current etc and no one did well but we ended up 6th place with 2 blues that were about 19 lbs each. lost 2 other fish we had hooked. still better then being here in Ohio.

Zara, March is tough but is when you get early Bass, the occasional Pike and even a Perch or two so hang in there!
Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> A little late but from Last Thursday nite after work, I hit the North side seeking some bigger shad with the cast net. 1st 2 spots were empty with just a handful of smaller shad and even some skim ice still in the shady areas. 3rd spot is where I suspected would be my best spot and it was. wind had been pushing into this area for 2 days and the shad were in there, loads of 3-6" guys ( the biggest ones were plenty good for channel cat baits) but I was seeking the bigger guys for blue cats in my tournament down in Tennessee on Saturday. after a short while of throwing I started to get a bigger one in the mix every 10 throws or so and ended up with 9 from 13-17". Not monsters but perfect for what I needed. I might also mention the crappies were also there, I had about a dozen from 9-13+" on the biggest one, he was a stud! Find the shad, find the crappies...
> as far as the tourney went on Nickajack Lake, we had cold front,26 when we started, highest pressure ever, Full Moon, loads of current etc and no one did well but we ended up 6th place with 2 blues that were about 19 lbs each. lost 2 other fish we had hooked. still better then being here in Ohio.
> 
> Zara, March is tough but is when you get early Bass, the occasional Pike and even a Perch or two so hang in there!
> Salmonid


Agree with your notation re:March good for those occasional glsm pike, perch, and already getting frequent small bass. Also, crappie can be excellent numbers/size....more frequent than Feb.
Clarification, please, on your cast netting......are you concluding that bigger shad and bigger craps run together, or that any size shad and craps are frequent travel companions? From my perspective, I get excited when I see lots of surface action of bigger shad, like 8" plus shad. 10", 12", 16", are even better indicators there is a good school of keeper crappie in the vicinity. I totally get why crappie have an interest in schools of 2-4" shad. I'm totally puzzled why crappie associate with big shad. Clearly big shad and big craps aren't a threat to each other. When I luck out, catching a crappie every cast kind of action, why is it often in tandem with shadzillas breaking surface in every direction?

Good job on your recent tourney. Any time you're 1 cast from good pot has to be worthwhile, keeps adrenaline flowing. Unfortunately, frustrating as heck, too. Thanks for info, Mark.


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## Salmonid

I think the general consensus is that if you find the bait, there will be crappies, it seems that most times when I am finding big shad in the spring and early summer, that the big and little shad are together mixed and that is when I often get bigger crappies in the mix. I often at all the SW Ohio Lakes am in my boat and when I mark random schools of what look like big shad I often catch both in the same net, so I assume as mid depth cruisers that once a shad is the size of a crappie or bigger, they coexist in the same areas. this would be during cold fronts and mid summer to late fall when fish are out n deeper waters but right now for the next 6 weeks there will be a mix of big and small everything in the shallows. I rarely ( like you) see the schools of big shad breaching the surface ( IE the Purple Unicorn in our business) but my time is very limited up there.
PS Looks like Ill be fishing the 1st Outdoorsman Catmasters tourney at GLSM on the 21st with my buddy Rusty ( Tin Guppy) Will post any results as we get closer.

For Zara, maybe you should change your approach to bottom bouncing minnows near wood structures for spawning Perch or do more plastic casting and retrieving for the ice out Pike, LOL

Salmonid


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## zaraspook

Salmonid said:


> I think the general consensus is that if you find the bait, there will be crappies, it seems that most times when I am finding big shad in the spring and early summer, that the big and little shad are together mixed and that is when I often get bigger crappies in the mix. I often at all the SW Ohio Lakes am in my boat and when I mark random schools of what look like big shad I often catch both in the same net, so I assume as mid depth cruisers that once a shad is the size of a crappie or bigger, they coexist in the same areas. this would be during cold fronts and mid summer to late fall when fish are out n deeper waters but right now for the next 6 weeks there will be a mix of big and small everything in the shallows. I rarely ( like you) see the schools of big shad breaching the surface ( IE the Purple Unicorn in our business) but my time is very limited up there.
> PS Looks like Ill be fishing the 1st Outdoorsman Catmasters tourney at GLSM on the 21st with my buddy Rusty ( Tin Guppy) Will post any results as we get closer.
> 
> For Zara, maybe you should change your approach to bottom bouncing minnows near wood structures for spawning Perch or do more plastic casting and retrieving for the ice out Pike, LOL
> 
> Salmonid


Mark, 
Thanks for letting me pick your brain about shad. Very informative, specifically, that shad schools are not size segregated. Not sure how I arrived at theory they were.........water clarity at GLSM usually doesn't allow for viewing what's below surface. Schools I do see in the shallows seem pretty homogenous. I know when cast netting you change locations when you don't like the size in the net.

Good luck in first Catmaster event of 2020.....your reputation is legendary on this lake, tough to live up to, particularly when the finals roll in later. Not that I am adding any pressure but you and Tin Guppy can handle it.


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## bobberbucket

I don’t know how things are at GLSM but the bite is odd in these parts. Normally around here small floats & small profile baits are the staple. However the last 3 outings here in NEO we could not catch fish unless we were using this ugly float style and pan assassin. I’m not sure what the presentation was under the surface with that bobber slapping around in the heavy chop but they loved it. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## zaraspook

bobberbucket said:


> I don’t know how things are at GLSM but the bite is odd in these parts. Normally around here small floats & small profile baits are the staple. However the last 3 outings here in NEO we could not catch fish unless we were using this ugly float style and pan assassin. I’m not sure what the presentation was under the surface with that bobber slapping around in the heavy chop but they loved it.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Bobberbucket.......I'm a big fan of Panfish Assassin baits. Not many GLSM guys use them but I'm a strong advocate and give out a few to my buds. Chartreuse pepper, chartreuse sparkle or maybe it's chartreuse glitter, plus have 3-4 other colors. I think the wide flat bottom of the bait and shorter tail make it fall differently. Kind of glides down........Haven't used that style of float.


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## bobberbucket

zaraspook said:


> Bobberbucket.......I'm a big fan of Panfish Assassin baits. Not many GLSM guys use them but I'm a strong advocate and give out a few to my buds. Chartreuse pepper, chartreuse sparkle or maybe it's chartreuse glitter, plus have 3-4 other colors. I think the wide flat bottom of the bait and shorter tail make it fall differently. Kind of glides down........Haven't used that style of float.


I used to throw a similar bait to the assassins years ago but I gave them up for other productive programs. I probably I wouldn’t have ever went back to them but after my fishing partner destroyed me with them I made sure I had some for our next outing. 

Although I’m pretty sure the float was catching more fish than anything. I experimented with the same presentation with different floats and the only one that would catch fish yesterday was that big fat ugly float.  
Half the time the fish didn’t even bury it all the way they were sinking about 3/4 and running. I could also notice lots of short strikes at the bait when that float was out there flopping around. But I couldn’t jig them into it I just had to wait.

The jig also had to remain horizontal or they would not touch it I had to reposition the jig after several casts or a fish. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Saugeyefisher

bobberbucket said:


> I used to throw a similar bait to the assassins years ago but I gave them up for other productive programs. I probably I wouldn’t have ever went back to them but after my fishing partner destroyed me with them I made sure I had some for our next outing.
> 
> Although I’m pretty sure the float was catching more fish than anything. I experimented with the same presentation with different floats and the only one that would catch fish yesterday was that big fat ugly float.
> Half the time the fish didn’t even bury it all the way they were sinking about 3/4 and running. I could also notice lots of short strikes at the bait when that float was out there flopping around. But I couldn’t jig them into it I just had to wait.
> 
> The jig also had to remain horizontal or they would not touch it I had to reposition the jig after several casts or a fish.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


So many people look at me funny because I'm constantly adjusting my line to so the knot holds the bait horizontal.
Good eye... I'm going to have to search but there is a knot out there that will help hold the jig horizontal. I'm going to search it and play around see if I can figure it out. I think it's as simple as running your line through the eye once before tying off a knot. I'll post back...


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> So many people look at me funny because I'm constantly adjusting my line to so the knot holds the bait horizontal.
> Good eye... I'm going to have to search but there is a knot out there that will help hold the jig horizontal. I'm going to search it and play around see if I can figure it out. I think it's as simple as running your line through the eye once before tying off a knot. I'll post back...


Devil is in the details......look forward to your analysis, Saugfish.


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## firemanmike2127

Saugeyefisher, I'm kinda particular about my jig holding horizontal also. Usually a quick tweak between bites or longer casts gets it back to an acceptable position when I'm float fishing. When I'm shooting docks or pontoons I've noticed that my jig needs adjusted after almost every retrieve. I use a Palomar knot for both techniques presently but planned to try a Nanofil knot on my shooting rods this year to see if the extra loop through jig eye held it in place better. Mike


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## bobberbucket

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## RMK

not saying my way is right, but i m a loop knot pegged under a small foam float 90% of the time. the other 10% would be when shooting without a cork. still a loop knot. with a weighted float i would be worried about not seeing those bites when they suck the bait in while coming up and just sit there. with these bites the small foam floats pop up out of the water and lay on their side.


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## Saugeyefisher

RMK said:


> not saying my way is right, but i m a loop knot pegged under a small foam float 90% of the time. the other 10% would be when shooting without a cork. still a loop knot. with a weighted float i would be worried about not seeing those bites when they suck the bait in while coming up and just sit there. with these bites the small foam floats pop up out of the water and lay on their side.


The "lil corkies" I use are like the best of both worlds,they are not weighted at the bottom. But are heavier then the foam fly fishing floats(which I also use). I might miss a couple bites with a weighted float but dont think i miss many, You get really used to how that float is supposed to sit with whichever size bait your using.... an kinda like B.B. said about different bobbers for different presentations.
When I am fishing in wind I wont use the foam fly fishing floats,they move around to much for me an make it hard to control.
I keep a good variety of bobbers on me at all times.
I've never used a loop knot before. For saugeye fishing I use a snap. An always liked a cinched knot for crappie so I could adjust the placement of the knot. But will try it out this year. I know of a few really good crappie fisherman now that use a loop knot.

Guys thinking back. I herd about this knot trick I mentioned at a seminar. I played around with a few knots yesterday and just cant remember it. I'll keep trying tho


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM Weds at noon. Fished 12:30 to 3:30 with hour break for a business call. Caught 18 with 9 legal 9" or better. Just one of those 10" or better went into bucket and later released. 46 degree water I'm sure a factor in good bite. That was fun!

90% came from pearl Itty Bits, 16-18" under bobber in 3-4 fow. Fish are frisky. Hitting better and pulling harder. Water stained, not really muddy where I fished. Cover that produced was 8-12' out off the bank.


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## RMK

Friday-late morning to early afternoon. Water 47 to almost 48. Started out chartreuse sparkle itty bit tipped with wax worm. 2.5 to 3 feet deep in 4.5 to 6 feet of water. This setup produced quite a few small gills. Switched to monkey millk baby shad tipped with crappie nibble and crappies started showing up. Fished 20 to 30" deep in the same water. Made a move and fished more metal. No more crappie. Last stop. Rocky bank with just a few logs in the water. The wood was holding some crappie. Fish were caught as shallow as 8" under a cork to 2' under, pitched to the rocks and worked back over the shallow wood in 3 feet of water on the deep side. One big one pushing 13" released, 6 10" to 12", 5 shorts, 1 bass, and some bluegill. Seems like fish are moving shallower and relating more to structure. Spring is getting closer.


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## zaraspook

Good report, RMK, and optimistic to hear you get into some size. From the bank Thurs morning I caught 19, 8 legal, 4 that were 10"+, but none cracked 11" or better. More 10" fish than recently, however, improvement is slow. Confirm your assessment that craps relating much more to cover.

Afternoon Thurs, tested theory of upsizing baits from Itty Bits. Inconclusive results....caught 7 with 1 10" in 1st hour. Itty Bits in final hour collected 22 caught, one 10".

Thurs total catch was 41 crappie, 6 bucket fish of 10"+, an 11" bass was fun. Didn't measure water temp Thurs but 46.5 Weds, stained water, not muddy. Fish were more aggressive, not so timid, usually 16-18" under bobber from 3-4 FOW. Entertaining bite Thursday......not one for putting meet on the table. All fish released to catch again.


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## bobberbucket

You guys have the best reports! I haven’t been pulling any fish off any wood yet out here in the NEO. But they have begun to stage very near the wood they will soon be stacked in. 

Not far off some of my favorite blow downs they are staging in sparse but growing weed beads. 

Our bite has changed a little for the better Friday was able to get off the heavy jig big float and larger plastics. And back to 80th 100th jigs little float & 1” or less plastics. 1” black shad gulp ruled the day!

I’m much more accustomed to targeting them with a super lite presentation. & it showed on Friday up against my fishing partner I was taking 3 to 4 fish to his one. Lots of shorts in the mix to sort tho the average fish where we fished Friday was 8” 90% males only a hand full of females. 

All the females caught seemed to be staged sorta off from main school and they came at random.

The last 30 minutes my buddy finally downsized and started knocking them but the damage was done. We pulled our baskets and when they Talley was done I had 14 - 9.5-11” and he had 12 - 9.5-11” had he have switched up sooner we probably would have boated 200 instead of 100. Our water temp is a little behind y’all 44-45 degrees max. 


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## Buster24

Zara....
Isn’t the hottest time to catch crappies at GLSM usually in May....I know the best time at Indian Lake most often was 2nd week of May up till the 1st week of June...during this period we would catch great numbers always using minnows...this year I plan on using the grubs under a float and maybe the spinner baits...always enjoyed the artificial baits more...just a different approach which I think is more fun....I really enjoy your reports as well as the others...you seem very knowledgeable and I already have deemed you a the walking encyclopedia of crappie fishing...keep enjoying it!!!!


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## zaraspook

Buster24 said:


> Zara....
> Isn’t the hottest time to catch crappies at GLSM usually in May....I know the best time at Indian Lake most often was 2nd week of May up till the 1st week of June...during this period we would catch great numbers always using minnows...this year I plan on using the grubs under a float and maybe the spinner baits...always enjoyed the artificial baits more...just a different approach which I think is more fun....I really enjoy your reports as well as the others...you seem very knowledgeable and I already have deemed you a the walking encyclopedia of crappie fishing...keep enjoying it!!!!


Buster........I think you have it right with your dates for catching great numbers of crappie. Those dates pretty well define the spawning period and fish are aggressive. Personally, most years my logs suggest I catch more fish in April. That's when the pre-spawn males are moving into shallows, staking out their territory, and hormones are jacking them up. Anytime from now until late May can be great days.


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## zaraspook

Friday morning was my 3rd in a row for chasing specks at GLSM. Overnight thunderstorms sure changed water clarity, already stained-muddy before the storms. But T04DF15H and I still found them in about the same numbers as Tues-Weds. T04DF15H caught 24 crappie, mostly on Key Lime Itty Bits, to beat my 18 craps on Pearl Itty Bits. Just one of mine made it into the bucket (10" minimum) to swim with T04DF15H's 3 bucket-fish.

Most fish were taken within 10' of the bank......and were not as aggressive as the day before. Water temp was a balmy 49.8 degrees, warmest I've seen, while clarity degraded to muddy at best. Fish didn't seem to mind though. Also, more spots produced fish for us than I found productive on Tues and Weds. Just before putting my rods away to head home, I couldn't pass up a few dips into cover off my seawall. In 10 minutes, very close to the bank and in less than 2 feet of water I pulled 3 crappie in 10 minutes. Those are the first fish of 2020 from my seawall. It's a reminder to all......do not overlook close in to bank and shallow water, especially on those bright, sunny Spring days.

I had fun but even more fun is close. If I can find the photo I took of Friday water conditions in my channel I'll post it. MUDDY!


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## crappiedude

FWIW I was talking to a friend about fishing muddy water.
I'm not sure why but I always felt like crappie moved super shallow in such conditions and if there is cover around they will hold tight to that cover.
My self it's a time where I'll be using dark baits a foot (or even less) under a cork. Even in deeper water I've seen this happen.
My friend never told me that day but he thought I was full of do-do....until one day when he was using his Panoptix fishing a muddy section of water when found them sitting in the upper 2' of water. The area he was fishing was 6'-12' deep.


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## crappiedude

oops double post


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> FWIW I was talking to a friend about fishing muddy water.
> I'm not sure why but I always felt like crappie moved super shallow in such conditions and if there is cover around they will hold tight to that cover.
> My self it's a time where I'll be using dark baits a foot (or even less) under a cork. Even in deeper water I've seen this happen.
> My friend never told me that day but he thought I was full of do-do....until one day when he was using his Panoptix fishing a muddy section of water when found them sitting in the upper 2' of water. The area he was fishing was 6'-12' deep.


C-dude........cannot say I'm a guru on muddy water fishing. Advice from experts is very consistent, if not universal....."use dark baits in poor visibility water conditions, like muddy water". It's foolish to go against the pros over the long haul. Best to be prepared, have those dark baits among whatever tackle caddy you carry on any given day. But, don't fear throwing tradition out the window. The objective is to catch fish.

Everyday I fish, a goal is to find a style of bait, size of bait, color of bait, presentation(depth, speed, how you work the bait), and type of cover fish are holding to. That's a lot of variables! Fortunately, I feel on any day there are multiple solutions that can work. If you find one combination that works, you can begin the process to tweak it for better results.

Whatever bait or color is tied on, I'm looking first for a bite. That's proof at least one fish could see the bait. Next step is to catch one. Observe how the fish is hooked.....hooked 1/2 way down its throat, roof of mouth hooked, or lip hooked? If you're missing a lot of fish or they come unzipped, then likely they see it, will hit it, but aren't really trying to eat it. Color of bait, style of bait, or size of bait can have an impact. Don't change after catching one, but watch for a pattern.

My point is.......lots of variables of which color is one. It's an important one, but has to be a color that feedback tells you the fish see and will try to eat. The quicker you figure out variables that work, the more fish you catch. Fishing with multiple partners can speed up solving the equation for success, especially if everyone starts with different styles of baits, sizes, colors, and techniques. If fishing alone, it may take longer but you can get there.


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## bobberbucket

I’ve gotta chime in on this muddy water talk. I love Muddy water out here in NEO I won’t even give my river spots look unless it’s high and muddy. 

Many times after heavy rain or snow melt at some of our gin clear lakes a few culverts will blow muddy water into the lake . 

It’s pretty cool to see the mud line in the clear water it stays together and extends out a long ways you can fish just outside of either side of it and catch nothing or you can fish right in the middle of the mud line and hammer fish one after the other. It’s usually no more than 10 ft wide. 

I always assumed that bugs and other food were being blown through with the mud & slightly warmer water and that’s why they come for it. When the mud stops the fish stop. 


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## Buster24

bobberbucket said:


> I’ve gotta chime in on this muddy water talk. I love Muddy water out here in NEO I won’t even give my river spots look unless it’s high and muddy.
> 
> Many times after heavy rain or snow melt at some of our gin clear lakes a few culverts will blow muddy water into the lake .
> 
> It’s pretty cool to see the mud line in the clear water it stays together and extends out a long ways you can fish just outside of either side of it and catch nothing or you can fish right in the middle of the mud line and hammer fish one after the other. It’s usually no more than 10 ft wide.
> 
> I always assumed that bugs and other food were being blown through with the mud & slightly warmer water and that’s why they come for it. When the mud stops the fish stop.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Bobber....
That makes sense and very observant on your part!!!!


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## Buster24

zaraspook said:


> C-dude........cannot say I'm a guru on muddy water fishing. Advice from experts is very consistent, if not universal....."use dark baits in poor visibility water conditions, like muddy water". It's foolish to go against the pros over the long haul. Best to be prepared, have those dark baits among whatever tackle caddy you carry on any given day. But, don't fear throwing tradition out the window. The objective is to catch fish.
> 
> Everyday I fish, a goal is to find a style of bait, size of bait, color of bait, presentation(depth, speed, how you work the bait), and type of cover fish are holding to. That's a lot of variables! Fortunately, I feel on any day there are multiple solutions that can work. If you find one combination that works, you can begin the process to tweak it for better results.
> 
> Whatever bait or color is tied on, I'm looking first for a bite. That's proof at least one fish could see the bait. Next step is to catch one. Observe how the fish is hooked.....hooked 1/2 way down its throat, roof of mouth hooked, or lip hooked? If you're missing a lot of fish or they come unzipped, then likely they see it, will hit it, but aren't really trying to eat it. Color of bait, style of bait, or size of bait can have an impact. Don't change after catching one, but watch for a pattern.
> 
> My point is.......lots of variables of which color is one. It's an important one, but has to be a color that feedback tells you the fish see and will try to eat. The quicker you figure out variables that work, the more fish you catch. Fishing with multiple partners can speed up solving the equation for success, especially if everyone starts with different styles of baits, sizes, colors, and techniques. If fishing alone, it may take longer but you can get there.


Zara....
Great report and really explains the little things that come into play in order to have success in catching crappies.....my father loved to fish for crappies and bluegills, but only used live bait....I always enjoyed fishing with anything artificial because of the options....I always tried to explain that to my father, but he felt he was right and I understood his choice....getting back into fishing and caught a few the other day at IL on jigs....also love all the tips you are putting out there....let’s keep this thread going....loaded with great info!!!!!


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## zaraspook

Bank fished an hour starting about 2pm Tues catching 15 with 6 legal including two 10 inch or better. With all the dinks decided to upsize baits in my 2nd session, maybe encourage a few more big ones to jump on my jig. In hindsight the move was misguided. Keeper ratio didn't improve, just caught fewer fish. 10 of next 12 were still short fish. Shifted from the Monkey Milk Baby Shad back to Itty Bits. Changed colors from Pearl to Key Lime to catch another 10 with 4 keepers when my 2nd session ended after an hour and 45 minutes. 37 caught with 12 keepers in about 3 hours isn't bad. All fish returned to bite another day.

Water clarity improved slightly from a few days earlier. Water temp fell from 50.1 in my channel to 45.6 degrees. Bites were timid, fish didn't move far or very fast when they found the plastic. Caught one white crappie roaming around, not near cover in the middle of the channel. The rest were lurking in or near cover from 1-12' from seawalls or rock banks. I fished 14-20" under bobber in 3.5-4.5 fow. Retrieve in general was a slow drag bobber about a foot on surface, pause for 2-8 seconds, repeat the drag. Also, most guys know I like to continuously swim the jig/plastics. I set the bobber 6" deeper than the depth I want to swim the bait. Bobber never hits the water which means the jig is tightline to the rod. To keep the bobber off the water I'm limited to fishing roughly 9-10' from the bank, the distance I can extend my 9'6" rod out and keep bobber off the water. At least half my 37 fish were caught swimming the bait, bobber not on the water but acts as a reference for me to judge jig depth. If you try this technique, you'll like feeling every twig, every twitch of the jig and sensing the run from a fish a much sooner than watching a bobber.

Fishing again Weds, I'll report.


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## crappiedude

I was out yesterday for a few hours and beside a good mix of white and black crappie I caught the ever elusive golden crappie on a jig and cork fishing 18" deep. I was using a weedless jig fishing way back in some timber.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> View attachment 347379
> View attachment 347381
> 
> 
> I was out yesterday for a few hours and beside a good mix of white and black crappie I caught the ever elusive golden crappie on a jig and cork fishing 18" deep. I was using a weedless jig fishing way back in some timber.


C-dude......haha! Caught my 1st carp of the year last Friday, not as stout as yours. Was dipping an Itty Bit, no meat, around a submerged Christmas tree 3 feet off bank in 3 feet of water. Earlier from same spot I pulled a decent LMB and thought the carp was a bigger one. What a disappointment when the carp emerged from water. Didn't put it in my report that day 'cause my fishing partner laughed at my facial expression and verbal barrage of expletives deleted to use a Watergate phrase. Hope you get more than me in 2020.


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## zaraspook

Weds GLSM fishing report.. It was a fun day. T04DF15H joined me as well as a fishing bud from Dayton. All 3 of us found some fish......most of those from the same spot. Dayton friend caught 16 but was behind all day since T04DF15H and I started about a half hour ahead of his arrival. T04DF15H and I were back and forth all day but I edged him out at the wire catching 29 to his 24. However, T04DF15H got me on bucket fish, his 6 to my 4 that were 10" or better. Itty Bits ruled the day again. Not sure but I think 90% or more of fish caught on Itty Bits, though we used 4-5 different colors, and fished generally 14-24" under bobber. Water stained, not muddy, and water temp dropped some more to 43.8 from 50 degrees on Friday 13th.

I've lamented a few times about all the small crappies, but usually I state small ones early on is not uncommon in my channel. Big ones should follow. The photo is a 12", first that size since January 3rd. Our 10 fish in the bucket also included 3-4 over 11". Bigger ones are perking up!

After my two partners left I fished a couple more hours in the rain. Caught 22 more......51 for the day. I'll take it.


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## zaraspook

Thursday fished 2 hours in the morning and another two in afternoon. Water clarity took a hit.....muddy. Did not measure water temp. Fast start at first spot on my walking tour faded fast and had to move often to pick up scattered bite/fish. Ended the AM session catching 18 with 6 legal. 

Afternoon bite continued finicky until last 40 minutes. Same plastic but different technique turned fish fish that had been one bump/no followup into ones that would grab the bait and eat it. 14 in the last 40 minutes. 18 for that session, 6 legal. 4 in the bucket over 10" were released to make babies. Lots of rain during 2nd session.


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## RMK

Thursday afternoon- headed to some cleaner water to fish submerged wood and bush. Found water temp to be 44. 2 shorts and 2 keepers pulled from the thick stuff. Rolled a really good crappie casting and retrieving with a pause working the bobby garland baby shad in monkey milk just outside of the thick cover. Hit some metal in the same area and messed with some bluegill for a little bit before leaving the area and giving some muddy water a try. Muddy water produced a few bites and 2 rolled crappie.
Friday morning- water up 4 degrees to 48. Lake level is slightly up from what it has been. stained water and and metal was the ticket. Started out with pink baby shad and Scott had on monkey milk itty bit. Bites were frequent. I was having trouble hooking up with the bigger bait and switched to an itty bit and that helped with the hook ups. Scott continued to out catch but I took big fish at around 12". 22 keepers and 25 shorts for the morning. Alot of the shorts right around 9". Pretty good bite. I was surprised at the bite as we were fishing a spring falling temperature day. Would guess It's tough out there today.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Thursday afternoon- headed to some cleaner water to fish submerged wood and bush. Found water temp to be 44. 2 shorts and 2 keepers pulled from the thick stuff. Rolled a really good crappie casting and retrieving with a pause working the bobby garland baby shad in monkey milk just outside of the thick cover. Hit some metal in the same area and messed with some bluegill for a little bit before leaving the area and giving some muddy water a try. Muddy water produced a few bites and 2 rolled crappie.
> Friday morning- water up 4 degrees to 48. Lake level is slightly up from what it has been. stained water and and metal was the ticket. Started out with pink baby shad and Scott had on monkey milk itty bit. Bites were frequent. I was having trouble hooking up with the bigger bait and switched to an itty bit and that helped with the hook ups. Scott continued to out catch but I took big fish at around 12". 22 keepers and 25 shorts for the morning. Alot of the shorts right around 9". Pretty good bite. I was surprised at the bite as we were fishing a spring falling temperature day. Would guess It's tough out there today.
> View attachment 347623
> 
> View attachment 347625


Nicely done, RMK! I confirm that quick rise you noted in water temp. Amazing how fast rain, overflow pushes temp. I had 49 in my channel which was choco milk despite no direct flow from creeks. Water level jumped 6", cresting over some seawalls, but part of water rise came from wind pushing water from west.
Those Itty Bits are lifesavers. Not saying normal 1.5-2" baits won't catch fish, but almost like fish can't/won't open jaws far enough to eat them. Yet fish will suck in the dinky Itty Bits like candy, eat it and run.
Friend and I fished Friday but less than an hour, when that line of wind/rain of cold front passed thru. We were sitting on a decent bite, caught 12 each in 50 minutes, but spot really exposed to NW wind so we packed it in. Hated to end my "sheltered in" at lake 4-day confinement, but duty called back home. Need to confine myself at lake again soon!


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## Matt Jackson

I've read several pages on this post and wanted to say hey.Im still learning how to catch them crappie here in SW,Ohio.I did have some luck at EF last week so I will share.Water temp was 48.Caught 33 brought home 23 keepers.Jig and float 6 foot deep in 10 foot of water.


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## zaraspook

Matt Jackson said:


> I've read several pages on this post and wanted to say hey.Im still learning how to catch them crappie here in SW,Ohio.I did have some luck at EF last week so I will share.Water temp was 48.Caught 33 brought home 23 keepers.Jig and float 6 foot deep in 10 foot of water.


Nice work, Matt! Is East Fork an Ohio lake with minimum size limitation?


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## Matt Jackson

Yes sir.It has a 9" size limit.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Is East Fork an Ohio lake


East Fork is my home lake as it's 1o minutes from my house. It's a COE flood control lake in Clermont County.


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## zaraspook

Took advantage of a short trip east of GLSM to mix in 3-5:30pm Monday fishing stint at my place. Water temp down 6+ degrees from last visit, 49 then and 43 degrees Monday. Water clarity muddy, about same as Friday. First hour at 2 spots produced 1 crappie at each. Not the action hoped for but that happens when water temp plummets in spring. Next 1.5 hours invested at a different spot, same plastics, better result primarily from deciding fish weren't going to move far for a meal and were on the bottom in cover. This spot only 4", occasionally 5' deep. Attempted to get plastic down to within 6-12" of the bottom. A steady bite resulted getting 15 crappie from the new tactics. When it slowed I returned to the first spot of the day where I'd caught but 1 earlier. Fished deeper this time around, in general within 6" of bottom and caught 7 more. I think the fish were there all along, just required knocking them on the nose with the bait to get them to eat it.

2 the first hour, 22 during the next 1.5 hours.........good ending. 4 keepers isn't exciting but within the Spring trend trend I've seen so far. Itty Bits still best bet for me, used key lime color and Bluegrass, too, were effective patterns.


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## zaraspook

Caught 47 Tues over 2 fishing sessions. 13 keepers with 11.5" biggest. Recipe to catch them didn't change.......Itty Bits, any color works, fish within 6-12" of the bottom. Slow, be patient, expect timid bites that go nowhere fast. Water temp 43.1 and clarity mostly muddy anywhere on Southside. Not seeing fish in 1-2' of water yet but we will when water temp climbs another 4-5 degrees. I'm bank fishing, getting fish in 3-4' of water where deepest water is 5'. Any cover within 12' of bank is a target. Great time to fish GLSM with very little competition.


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## Matt Jackson

Sounds like a good trip to me especially from the bank.Im gonna have to try some itty bits.


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## zaraspook

Weds morning T04DF15H and I decided to get after them. It kinda worked. Our competition was nip and tuck for the entire 3 hours. Bite was spotty, each of us enjoyed quick spurts of 4-5 fish to keep it close. Bite was dying fast when we amicably quit on my last fish. T04DF15H 26, Zara 26. 
It was another Itty Bit day, any color, down near bottom. Water stained to muddy, 44.6 degrees.


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## bobberbucket

zaraspook said:


> Weds morning T04DF15H and I decided to get after them. It kinda worked. Our competition was nip and tuck for the entire 3 hours. Bite was spotty, each of us enjoyed quick spurts of 4-5 fish to keep it close. Bite was dying fast when we amicably quit on my last fish. T04DF15H 26, Zara 26.
> It was another Itty Bit day, any color, down near bottom. Water stained to muddy, 44.6 degrees.


Had a very similar bite in NEO yesterday. Just little spurts my partner and I went fish for fish just like you described. They were mostly on docks and along sea walls for us couple in the weeds but not many. Really on and off bite same results in multiple locations. Our water temp was 49-51 out here once the sunshine did it’s thing it pushed them right to the banks. 

We were in a boat There were shore fishermen in a couple spots not catching anything where the fish were stacked. They were throwing too far and pulling in too soon they never realized the fish were at their feet. 


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## crappiedude

Good job guys on your catches.
I'm envious of anyone who isn't fishing flood control lakes
My home lake went up 14+' from the big rain we had a week ago. Now it's dropping 2' per day. The fish just don't know what to do. Depending if the sun is out the water temps range from low 50's to low 60's. I found some decent fish shallow on Wednesday and on Thursday I couldn't get the boat back in there because the water was too low.
The lake has fallen about over 11' in the last 6 days so hopefully it will stabilize in the next couple of days. The fish will run in the shallows for a little bit and then run back and suspend over the deeper stuff an hour later.
I've been doing this social distancing thing for the last 30 or 40 years and I fish normally 3 -5 times a week. If my wife complains now I just say I'm doing it for her health.


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## zaraspook

Friday caught 29 with 7 keepers. Saturday morning ran into 14 in the first 50 minutes with 6 keepers. Confident of a good bite, quit for awhile to ruin some errands. 2 hours later couldn't find them anywhere. Fishing off and on in afternoon I caught a grand total of 3. Not the first time that's happened, nor the last time. Sunday morning in 30-50 mph winds, 2" of rain overnight, really muddy conditions and the memory of just 3 crappie the afternoon before, no way I expected to find a bite. Dang! Caught 15 with 6 keepers. I love pleasant surprises! Bluegrass Itty Bit caught half, remainder on black chartreuse stinger fishing 6" off bottom in 3.5-5 FOW. Water temp 51.4 today.


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## RMK

Friday- first half of the day- headed to some metal that had been productive last week. Boat on that spot that was in the area and saw us catching the week before. So we continued on to his spot from the week prior where we watched him catch a few as well. Shorts, bluegill, and 1 keeper out of first channel. Small baits 2 to 3 feet down in 5 to 6 feet of water. Changed channels. A few more shorts and another keeper off the end posts of docks. Not going to great. Running out of time. One more last stop. Focusing on wood and brush at the last stop. Shallower water. 3 feet on the deep side. Last stop saved the day. Picking the thick stuff apart and dropping baby shads into any hole we could find big enough to fit the baits. Fished as shallow as 8" to 2' down. Baby shads and crappie stingers. Color didn't matter. Amazed by one paticular hole that seemed to produce a bite every time we dropped into it. 20 shorts, 13 keepers, bluegill, and a few baby bass. Scotts big fish of the day, released, pushing 13"


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Friday- first half of the day- headed to some metal that had been productive last week. Boat on that spot that was in the area and saw us catching the week before. So we continued on to his spot from the week prior where we watched him catch a few as well. Shorts, bluegill, and 1 keeper out of first channel. Small baits 2 to 3 feet down in 5 to 6 feet of water. Changed channels. A few more shorts and another keeper off the end posts of docks. Not going to great. Running out of time. One more last stop. Focusing on wood and brush at the last stop. Shallower water. 3 feet on the deep side. Last stop saved the day. Picking the thick stuff apart and dropping baby shads into any hole we could find big enough to fit the baits. Fished as shallow as 8" to 2' down. Baby shads and crappie stingers. Color didn't matter. Amazed by one paticular hole that seemed to produce a bite every time we dropped into it. 20 shorts, 13 keepers, bluegill, and a few baby bass. Scotts big fish of the day, released, pushing 13"
> View attachment 349139


Waaaaay toooo gho!


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## fishwhacker

Got put Saturday for a couple hours and fished a southside channel. At first it was all bluegills fishing 12" deep around brush. I deepened to 2 ft and the crappies started to play. Didnt have much time left once i deepened, kids were caked in mud and complaining about being cold but started to get a crappie and/or bluegill every other cast. Keeper ratio was about 1 out of 2.


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## Saugeyefisher

Hit buckeye yesterday,same conditions as zara faced. Hi winds and muddy water. 
Had the kids with me,set them up with small gulp minnows under a float an I went big and bright. 
I noticed my daughter getting bit more then me so switched to the gulp minnow. 
I hit a dozen small crappies 9-10" an lost a couple bigguns. They each hit a few gills an dropped a couple crappies. 
Only fished an hour,but was suprised with the results. 
All the fish cane off docks with metal beams supporting them....


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Hit buckeye yesterday,same conditions as zara faced. Hi winds and muddy water.
> Had the kids with me,set them up with small gulp minnows under a float an I went big and bright.
> I noticed my daughter getting bit more then me so switched to the gulp minnow.
> I hit a dozen small crappies 9-10" an lost a couple bigguns. They each hit a few gills an dropped a couple crappies.
> Only fished an hour,but was suprised with the results.
> All the fish cane off docks with metal beams supporting them....


Saugfish.....you are a good Daddy! I have plenty of theories on why this time of year small baits are more attractive than bigger/normal size. I don't know the 100% correct, definitive answer. Those 1" Gulp do the trick though. Pretty close to the size and profile of Itty Bits, but wish Gulp were a bit more durable without aging them for a while out of jar.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Saugfish.....you are a good Daddy! I have plenty of theories on why this time of year small baits are more attractive than bigger/normal size. I don't the 100% correct, definitive answer. Those 1" Gulp do the trick though. Pretty close to the size and profile of Itty Bits, but wish Gulp were a bit more durable without aging them for a while out of jar.


Zara thankyou! They are the best things I've ever done with my life and to me that is the best compliment I can receive. 

I'm with you 100% on the small baits this time of year! 

Cant wait for the spring bite to really turn on! Good luck out there!


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## zaraspook

My 9 year old grandson and made it io GLSM Weds 11am for an overnight at our lake place. We do it every year at spring break. He said he needed some "guy time". With the school shutdown and covid-19 stay home edict, confined for 3 weeks with his 5 year old sister amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment" he said. No matter the reason I'll take any time I can get with him. 

We fished, or to be accurate I should say "l fished", 3 hours. Grandson likes the catching part of fishing, not so tolerant of the time between catches. That's when he works in iPad stuff, shooting his BB gun at plastic milk jugs, riding his Dad's 35 year old Huffy bike with banana seat and monkey bars which I've kept all these years. Grandson fished about an hour. He caught first fish of the day the 11 incher in the photo.

We ended catching 36 crappie, 34 for me and 2 for grandson. That first fish of his in photo also earned him Big Fish of the day! He skinned me and is still bragging about it. Great day! Alert....this is Part I of a two part story. Tune in tomorrow.


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## zaraspook

Hard to beat our Weds fun but grandson and I gave it our best. Recall that on Weds I caught 34 to grandson's 2, yet he caught the day's big fish. We caught 50 Thurs and 49 of those were mine. One fish for my grandson, a piggy 12" in photo, and he skinned me again for Big Fish! He had a lot more bites Thurs, but is weak in the hook set department. Definitely got it right with the 12 incher. His biggest improvement.....Weds it took 2 fish to beat me. He did it with just 1 fish on day 2!


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## Buster24

zaraspook said:


> Hard to beat our Weds fun but grandson and I gave it our best. Recall that on Weds I caught 34 to grandson's 2, yet he caught the day's big fish. We caught 50 Thurs and 49 of those were mine. One fish for my grandson, a piggy 12" in photo, and he skinned me again for Big Fish! He had a lot more bites Thurs, but is weak in the hook set department. Definitely got it right with the 12 incher. His biggest improvement.....Weds it took 2 fish to beat me. He did it with just 1 fish on day 2!
> View attachment 350263


Nothing better than fishing with the grandchildren.....and it isn’t so bad that the little guy caught the big fish....awesome times!!!!


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## zaraspook

Buster24 said:


> Nothing better than fishing with the grandchildren.....and it isn’t so bad that the little guy caught the big fish....awesome times!!!!


Agree. It's great that grandson is bragging like crazy to all that he bested "Pop". It's a great memory for him and hopefully last forever. Plus, we all need victories in life!


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## zaraspook

Tuesday 11am start from bank, my first 2 spots were already occupied by crappie anglers. Had to improvise for a while but finally one spot opened up. Caught 10 there, 6 from a spot where I'd been shutout for the year previously, then 7 more when the 2nd place opened up that was occupied earlier. 23 total with 6 keepers felt decent for having to fish for leftovers not taken/caught by prior fishermen.
Water clarity was fading fast, the result of inch and a half rain overnight. Bite was fading, too. Fished a couple stints later in day but infrequent bites and caught just 3 crappie.

Water temp 54. Two thirds of my fish came on chartreuse pepper Panfish Assassin. Remainder caught on bubble gum colored dual joker tail. Majority of fish caught 2-3' under bobber in water 3-5' deep. Cover fished was wood or PVC stake beds.


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## zaraspook

Weds morning out early hoping the puny afternoon the day before changed for better. It did. Not to say it was crazy good but a few bites every 15 minutes would be improvement. First 2 spots met the low bar. Caught 21, decent action even if 18 were short. Lots of 8" fish has been the rule this Spring. By fall we should be back in business. Chartreuse Pepper Panfish Assassin was good at first spot. Bubble gum best at 2nd spot but bite was fading fast the last 30 minutes of a 2 hour session.

Mid-afternoon went back out....hit same spots as earlier, plus 3 others. Color didn't matter, size didn't matter, profile didn't matter, nor did depth, speed, or how you wore your ball cap. Caught 5 crappie on maybe 6 bites. Then caught the photo fish. 10.5 incher. Made it all worthwhile. Knowing how we've struggled to get perch reestablished at GLSM, each one I catch brings pleasure.


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## Buster24

Nice size perch....good to see!!!!


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> Weds morning out early hoping the puny afternoon the day before changed for better. It did. Not to say it was crazy good but a few bites every 15 minutes would be improvement. First 2 spots met the low bar. Caught 21, decent action even if 18 were short. Lots of 8" fish has been the rule this Spring. By fall we should be back in business. Chartreuse Pepper Panfish Assassin was good at first spot. Bubble gum best at 2nd spot but bite was fading fast the last 30 minutes of a 2 hour session.
> 
> Mid-afternoon went back out....hit same spots as earlier, plus 3 others. Color didn't matter, size didn't matter, profile didn't matter, nor did depth, speed, or how you wore your ball cap. Caught 5 crappie on maybe 6 bites. Then caught the photo fish. 10.5 incher. Made it all worthwhile. Knowing how we've struggled to get perch reestablished at GLSM, each one I catch brings pleasure.
> View attachment 351009


Great catch! Something about those Perch gets me fired up. Got out wednesday with the boys for about 2hrs. Caught 1 crappie right away then nothing for an hr. Changed channels and still was getting nothing until I decided to throw across the channel toward some trees and then it was game on. Had close to 12 crappies and 8 nice gills in about 30 min. Fish were about 2ft deep and 15 ft away from shore in the middle of the channel. Guessing they were getting tired of getting pounded near shore last couple weeks and moved out. Caught fish on both a 1/64oz split tail and 1/64 chart jig with orange hellmegranite body.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Great catch! Something about those Perch gets me fired up. Got out wednesday with the boys for about 2hrs. Caught 1 crappie right away then nothing for an hr. Changed channels and still was getting nothing until I decided to throw across the channel toward some trees and then it was game on. Had close to 12 crappies and 8 nice gills in about 30 min. Fish were about 2ft deep and 15 ft away from shore in the middle of the channel. Guessing they were getting tired of getting pounded near shore last couple weeks and moved out. Caught fish on both a 1/64oz split tail and 1/64 chart jig with orange hellmegranite body.


FW.........good work. Crappie boat in my channel said his side imaging showed few fish at banks and stacked fish in the middle. said he was coming back Saturday to spider rig down the middle. A guy who fishes Sportsmans said he caught all his "out" and good number of mine were out 12-15', too.


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## zaraspook

Fished Thursday before heading home. Wind was not fun and white camps blowing down your channel made it more like a river........lots of flow. Detecting a bite more difficult and I'm sure many of my bites went unnoticed. Caught 11 crappie, most of those from a spot sheltered somewhat and winds cut to only 20 mph. Caught 2 bass and 5 unusually big gills from the backend of a channel where crappies were absent but plenty of other species wanted to play.

Big story is water temps. I had 62.4 degrees in my channel Weds afternoon. Assumed that was a mistake......no way water had warmed that much, I thought. Thursday same spot checked out at 60.6 degrees. Those are temps can get some spawning action. Next 7+ days have plenty of low temps in 20's and low 30's, high temps mostly in 40's. 60 degree water will not hold there, should head downward significantly as a chilling effect on the spawn. Male crappie are not yet dressed for the spawn dance. We have a ways to go before the party if temperature forecasts are accurate......certainly I always believe in whatever the meteorologists put out there. Duh!


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## crappie4me

i wouldn't mind if the fish hold out for a few more weeks...maybe then everybody could enjoy it..if ya know what i'm sayin...zara you could catch a crappie in a tsunami.


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## zaraspook

crappie4me said:


> i wouldn't mind if the fish hold out for a few more weeks...maybe then everybody could enjoy it..if ya know what i'm sayin...zara you could catch a crappie in a tsunami.


Hahaha! Hmmm. Like to try that. Wonder where I could find a freshwater tsunami?


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## fshnmaster

Fished a Northside channel that was out of the wind to only get a small gill. Tried various depths but only chartreuse. I forgot the bait box at home. From everything I'm hearing the bite is dead everywhere.


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## fishwhacker

fshnmaster said:


> Fished a Northside channel that was out of the wind to only get a small gill. Tried various depths but only chartreuse. I forgot the bait box at home. From everything I'm hearing the bite is dead everywhere.


Not suprising, seems like the bite fades mid april until the 1st week in May, then it gets even better for about 3 weeks until the summer season. Got out for 2hrs on the southside on Saturday and found some decent gills but have been getting crappies mixed in but not yesterday. Did see a few come out but slower than it has been.


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## fshnmaster

I've always been told when the spillway is pulling water from lake the crappie turn off. Not sure as to how true this is.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Not suprising, seems like the bite fades mid april until the 1st week in May, then it gets even better for about 3 weeks until the summer season. Got out for 2hrs on the southside on Saturday and found some decent gills but have been getting crappies mixed in but not yesterday. Did see a few come out but slower than it has been.


FW.........I kind of feel the same way, that bite dies for a period just before spawn. Haven't really looked at my logs to verify the pattern exists, but I will take a look. What's your theory on why slow period, or slowdown, happens? Going to try Mon morning. Arrived after dark Easter Sunday. Fingers crossed for a decent bite!


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> FW.........I kind of feel the same way, that bite dies for a period just before spawn. Haven't really looked at my logs to verify the pattern exists, but I will take a look. What's your theory on why slow period, or slowdown, happens? Going to try Mon morning. Arrived after dark Easter Sunday. Fingers crossed for a decent bite!


Zara, i am in no way a crappie guru just notice patterns while i chase bluegills cause crappies normally run close to them. My best guess would be after ice out they come up shallow searching for warm water and food. They then drop back to prespawn areas, usually not far from spawn areas. Once water temp, weather stability, etc reaches prime spawn time they move back up shallow. I also know they shift from wood to metal during some point in the late spring early summer.


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## Saugeyefisher

Fished my local shallow lake yesterday for crappies,buckeye. 
Bit has been pretty slow lately out there for me an my fishing buddy. 
Fished a cove we havnt hit yet this year an still pretty slow. It took me an hour to get my first bite dipping various rocks and brush piles. 
My kayak had drifted up against a metal dock,my float was set pretty deep trying to entice the lethargic fishing holding tite to bottom. An I had down sized to a ratso sized bait. But decided to run a rail sitting 8" under the water not even a cast away as I'm sitting there. I run my bait with out even casting 2" below the metal beam an see a silver flash under my bait,so I backed off set my float at 10" an picked the rail apart. An caught 9 8-1/2" crappie an a 10"er. Then hit 3 more the next 2 hours repeating this on other docks. My buddy comes an finds me after launching his kayak,I point out wich dock I hit on an he goes over an pulls in 2 really thick 12-13" fish... 
We both dip around a couple more hours with out much luck. Even the gills were off the bite today. 
Things can only get better out my way. 
Just hope it happens soon....


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## james.

Had probably 50 ish fish on Friday between me and my dad only 18 keeper's 3 fish over 13inchs all came 2 feet down in 7 feet of water color didn't matter. All fish came from south east corner.


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## RMK

Couple hours saturday evening- 9 or 10 keepers, 9 shorts, a bluegill, and a chunky bass. Bass ate a monkey milk itty bit. Thought i had a crappie of my life for about a half second! Popped my cork up and it layed on its side like alot of big crappie do. Set the hook and saw color and i still thought it was a crappie. I dont think i ve ever seen as many boats out as I have the last 2 weeks.
























Scotts north side perch from a couple weeks ago!


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## fshnmaster

RMK said:


> Couple hours saturday evening- 9 or 10 keepers, 9 shorts, a bluegill, and a chunky bass. Bass ate a monkey milk itty bit. Thought i had a crappie of my life for about a half second! Popped my cork up and it layed on its side like alot of big crappie do. Set the hook and saw color and i still thought it was a crappie. I dont think i ve ever seen as many boats out as I have the last 2 weeks.
> View attachment 351727
> 
> View attachment 351729
> 
> View attachment 351731
> 
> Scotts north side perch from a couple weeks ago!


I live a few minutes from the lake and I agree on the boat pressure. Southmoor shores 2 weeks ago was packed I saw 5 or 6 boats in 1 small channel.


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## zaraspook

Today(Monday) was another brutal day for wind. It can make many spots unfishable, but you can usually find other spots where impact is tolerable. Just have to be creative, adjust tactics to present bait to fish in a way they will attack bait yet you can detect bite and catch them in the act. Took 2.5 hours this morning, adjusting along the way, to catch just 11 crappie. Nice surprise when 3 of my first 4 were keepers, including the 12" in photo. The photo crappie ate a motor oil color triple tip twister tail.
After lunch it was back after them. Wind was still high but changed directions just a few degrees. A prime spot that sucked earlier now could be fished with a change of tactics. I caught 18 in an hour and a half, most from that spot.
Sitting on 29 caught for the day, after supper I ventured back out just to catch 1 more. By then wind was laying down, manageable now at half strength. In under an hour, instead of one crappie I caught 11, thanks to ever changing tactics all day. Total for the day was 40, with 11 keepers. Good day, despite the wind!

Submerged wood was good, particularly if it was 8' or more off the bank and in 4' or more of water. Craps were not shallow. Fished 36-48" under bobber most of day. Chartreuse pepper Panfish Assassin was best bait today. Rarely got a crappie inside 5' of bank, but gills would drive you crazy there. Caught some nice ones. Water temp 52.8 today, down 8 degrees in 4 days.


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## zaraspook

Tuesday at GLSM I found a boring bite. No hot spots with a spurt of action, but a steady pace just enough to keep your interest. Morning was decent with 15, 8 in my afternoon session, evening continued the decline to 3. 7 keepers from the 26 caught for the day. 

Water temp down to 50.4 degrees. Clarity stained, not muddy, surprisingly better than expected considering excessive rain and high water levels. Never felt like I had the pattern.....fish seemed as confused as the angler. However, nothing caught close to bank in water less than 2.5-3'. If you fish for gills, this was a great day for it.


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## nschap

Good report


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## fshnmaster

Have tried at 5 different spots so far today. Fished wood docks middle of channels, rocks and not 1 fish in 5 hours. Tough day so far.


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## zaraspook

fshnmaster said:


> Have tried at 5 different spots so far today. Fished wood docks middle of channels, rocks and not 1 fish in 5 hours. Tough day so far.


fshnmaster.......if you are still out looking for them, on tough bite days I accept that fish aren't chasing, won't move far for a snack or meal, and fish are hunkered down. You may have already done this, but my first counter punch at GLSM is to get down to the bottom of the water column and go small with your plastic. Itty Bits are great small baits if you have them. Get your smallest bait down to within 6" of the bottom. If the water is 5' deep. fish it at 4' 6". Fishing that deep, you'll find whatever limbs, twigs, logs are down there......fish will be close by. The may not be hungry for a full meal, but might take an opportunity to suck in dessert or a small snack if it's inches away.

No guarantees. Some days nothing works. Good luck.


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## fshnmaster

zaraspook said:


> fshnmaster.......if you are still out looking for them, on tough bite days I accept that fish aren't chasing, won't move far for a snack or meal, and fish are hunkered down. You may have already done this, but my first counter punch at GLSM is to get down to the bottom of the water column and go small with your plastic. Itty Bits are great small baits if you have them. Get your smallest bait down to within 6" of the bottom. If the water is 5' deep. fish it at 4' 6". Fishing that deep, you'll find whatever limbs, twigs, logs are down there......fish will be close by. The may not be hungry for a full meal, but might take an opportunity to suck in dessert or a small snack if it's inches away.
> 
> No guarantees. Some days nothing works. Good luck.


At the last spot of the day.. been using various jigs.. gonna put on a 1" single tail on and try it


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## zaraspook

Weds T04DF15H and I met up for a couple hours of bank crappie chasing. First spot, some submerged wood 3-8' off a seawall, underperformed. Between us we caught 8-9 crappie there, whereas normally we'd expect 8+ apiece. Wind started light, accelerated throughout the morning. Water temp continues its free fall, down to 48.5, 14 degrees lower than 1 week ago. 

Moved on to 2nd spot.........good amount of submerged cover, water depth generally 3.5 - 5.5', cover ranges from 2-12'+ away from the seawall. 5-6 crappie at this spot and definitely fewer bites, less action although a bigger area to work. We mostly attempted to swim our baits....wind is not your friend with the way we swim small plastic jigs. We moved again, each fishing a different 3rd spot. My 3rd spot was barren, didn't get a bite while T04DF15H picked up 3-4 crappie, closing the gap in our competition for most fish. We briefly fished 2 more spots, might have been 1 more crappie caught but I didn't catch any during the last hour.

T04DF15H beat me the last 2 meetings and let me take Weds round 11 to 9. Weird day, quantity poor but quality was pretty good. At least 1/2 our fish were keepers, likely at least 8 met our minimum 10" to go into the bucket. Rather than 8, at the end of the day the bucket had only 3. This close to spawning, at best a few weeks away, we've added one additional requirement. If a fish is obviously a female, bulging with eggs, they shall be pardoned to soon spawn and populate GLSM. We don't keep females this close to spawning and encourage others to consider the same policy. With only 3 males in the bucket, they also were released to catch another day.


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## zaraspook

Sunday fishing report, morning bite was decent catching 18. Midday OK for awhile but faded fast catching 13. Evening bite sucked, caught 5 but might have had 6 bites. Chartreuse sparkle Panfish Assassin and motor oil twister tails were best for me. Most fishermen I saw were boat guys pounding shallow banks fishing 12-14" deep in less than 2.5 FOW. I'm bank fishing 3-5' under bobber, usually well off the bank, usually in 4-6' of water.

Water clarity is darn good for GLSM. 47.5 degree water Sunday morning. That's darn cold. Last Spring water temp was no longer in 40's as of April 6. However, in Spring of 2018 water temp was last in 40's April 21......similar to this year. By the way crappie May spawn fishing in 2018 was outstanding! Hoping this year's late cold is a harbinger of good spawn catching, too.


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## zaraspook

48 degree water Monday morning. Cycle of 15 degree drop has ended! Caught 30 today. Two of my normal spots weren't available - occupied by other fishermen. 17 fish in morning all came from a single spot. 13 fish midday came from the 2 spots unavailable in morning. 11 keepers, none over 11". Headed home to Indiana before evening session. 

Monkey Milk Baby Shad caught 20 of my last 21 crappie. Fish really wanted to eat it, solid hookups, feisty fish, pulling hard. Enjoyable bluebird day!


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## outbackmac

Wife and i drove the 2 1/2 hrs to get out of the house. arrived at 10:30 went to 4h club nothing happening at all. drove over to spillway flow was fast and crazy same as 1st stop. then went and had lunch at the docks over by outdoorsman. from there we went to the club we caught 2 crappie 1 keeper and several gills. all in all just nice to get out of the house. Would love to find a few more keepers. Question, not sure of what you call them but cheapest place to purchase the jig floats?


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## T04DF15H

zaraspook said:


> 48 degree water Monday morning. Cycle of 15 degree drop has ended! Caught 30 today. Two of my normal spots weren't available - occupied by other fishermen. 17 fish in morning all came from a single spot. 13 fish midday came from the 2 spots unavailable in morning. 11 keepers, none over 11". Headed home to Indiana before evening session.
> 
> Monkey Milk Baby Shad caught 20 of my last 21 crappie. Fish really wanted to eat it, solid hookups, feisty fish, pulling hard. Enjoyable bluebird day!


Thanks zara, monkey milk baby shad caught 44 of my last 45 crappie today. Reordered!


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## fishwhacker

outbackmac said:


> Wife and i drove the 2 1/2 hrs to get out of the house. arrived at 10:30 went to 4h club nothing happening at all. drove over to spillway flow was fast and crazy same as 1st stop. then went and had lunch at the docks over by outdoorsman. from there we went to the club we caught 2 crappie 1 keeper and several gills. all in all just nice to get out of the house. Would love to find a few more keepers. Question, not sure of what you call them but cheapest place to purchase the jig floats?


Chuckanddeb.com from ohio city by far the cheapest for any crappie/gill gear


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Chuckanddeb.com from ohio city by far the cheapest for any crappie/gill gear


"Ditto" on chuckanddeb.com for price and great service.


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## zaraspook

T04DF15H said:


> Thanks zara, monkey milk baby shad caught 44 of my last 45 crappie today. Reordered!


You slayed them! Appreciate the kudos for suggesting Monkey Milk Baby Shad. Good to know it worked for you. Doesn't always work out.......like that "perchy" thing? We're working on it.


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## DavidRK

I don't know how the crappie are biting but the boat launch area at Windy Point looked like Lake Festival weekend. I saw two people take out jet skis. There even was a carnival stand selling sugar waffles and elephant ears at the old Beach Point bar.


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## RMK

DavidRK said:


> I don't know how the crappie are biting but the boat launch area at Windy Point looked like Lake Festival weekend. I saw two people take out jet skis. There even was a carnival stand selling sugar waffles and elephant ears at the old Beach Point bar.


Wife was pretty disappointed we didn't make it over for the elephant ears.


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## zaraspook

Scant fishing reports in the last week or so suggests what? Few people fishing? Fewer people catching? Or, the few people fishing are catching so many crappie there is no time to report?

Personally, I had a friend at GLSM Thurs thru noon Saturday. He lived 3 doors away during our elementary school thru high school days. Tough bite on Thurs gave us just 32 crappies. Friend beat me 18-14 with his 10 fish flurry in final 45 minutes before dark. I extracted revenge Friday while we caught 50. More fish that day but bite wasn't markedly better. We were tied 20-20. I caught the final 10 to win 30-20. Saturday we fished only the morning during worst bite of the 3 day junket. I eeked out a 5-4 win.

91 crappie for the trip sounds better than it seemed. Tough competition. Great food and beverages. Fun event with long-time friend.


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## crappiedude

Of course this is from the SW corner of the state but down here the fish have moved out into deeper waters, especially the better ones. A month ago I was getting some really good fish in 
1 1/2 - 3 fow. I had numerous 11" & 12" fish with 3 @ 13" in 2 days. 
Then the rain and the non stop parade of cold fronts started.
Now we're getting most of our action in 12-17 fow. Friday a friend and I found good action along a slow tapering shore that once at 11' the water dropped quickly into 30 fow. Smaller crappie (8"-10") were stacked on top of that drop but the size improved (10"-12") as we fished deeper. I kept 15 that day.
Yes we're still getting some up shallow but the numbers and size just aren't there.
I think once this weather improves it going to be on, 4 or 5 nice warm sunny days will do wonders for the fish (and me).


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## zaraspook

Forgot to mention water temp Thurs & Fri 51.4, then 54.2 Sat at GLSM.


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## zaraspook

Fished T-W-Th at GLSM. Water temp 55.5 on Tues, up to 60 on Weds, didn't measure on Thurs. Stained water clarity, not muddy, good clarity for the lake.
Tues morning in 2 hours caught 16, only a pair of fish keepers. Bite was neither brisk nor aggressive but fading fast toward the end. Monkey Milk Baby Shad accounted for 8, the same number as tried to eat Panfish Assassin in chartreuse pepper pattern. 

Spent most of day getting my pontoon and fishing boat water ready. Didn't fish again until late in day. Should have skipped the evening session. Caught a lone ranger crappie, that was it. May have been my only bite. Actually, afternoon and evening bite has not been good for several weeks. The saving grace is the solid morning bite.

Weds morning was decent, 15 caught and much better quality, bigger fish. After that bite went south again, caught 5 more but 10 keepers from 20 fish. Half keepers is a good yield this year. Rained off and on all day.

Thurs rain was still hanging around, wind up, and "uh oh".......that solid, consistent morning bite failed to show up. 2 hours, 5 fish without a keeper. Did not fish again until late afternoon. Managed to catch 6 more, most of those from one, lucky spot, 2 keepers among the 6. 11 total on a raw, wet day.

By the way a neighbor caught a 20" pike from his seawall Tuesday and different neighbor caught a 13" perch. Chalk up another southside perch!


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## Jim white

Sorry but how the hell is this lake in southwest ohio


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## Saugeyefisher

T


Jim white said:


> Sorry but how the hell is this lake in southwest ohio


Technically not,but per ohio DNR it is









As long as ove been a member of go fish ohio and now ohio game fishing it has always popped up in the southwest forums....
This is a great thread if you like crappie fishing,you should go thru an read,lots of good stuff posted....


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## Jim white

I do learn alot on here. Just cant figure that one out lol.


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## zaraspook

As Saugfisher accurately pointed out, DNR drew it up that way. Beyond that, follow the money. Grand Lake draws largest portion of its recreational users from Dayton area and suburbs. Property owners, campers, boat owners.........those who plow dollars into Grand Lake economy, come from Dayton metro area. It's the largest market within 60-90 minutes.


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## Jim white

Lol so that makes it from the southwest. Well that dont mean **** in my book. Southwest Ohio is southwest ok. Just like southeast is southeast. Look at the lakes in the southeast or so they say. I was taught how to read a map years ago when I was a young kid I don't need some idiot to tell me a lake that is in Northwestern Ohio is in the Southwest or a lake that is in northeastern Ohio is in the southeast. I guess I didn't know the ODNR ran the Ohio game fishing forms


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## gonelong

Went to St. Marys on a ride along yesterday (Sat). Every cove and channel we pulled into looked like a showroom - boats of all kinds as far as they eye could see. Picked up some nice crappies here and there, but tough to get numbers with so many folks out.

All strikes yesterday were extremely subtle, barely moved my tiny float.


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## Saugeyefisher

Jim white said:


> Lol so that makes it from the southwest. Well that dont mean **** in my book. Southwest Ohio is southwest ok. Just like southeast is southeast. Look at the lakes in the southeast or so they say. I was taught how to read a map years ago when I was a young kid I don't need some idiot to tell me a lake that is in Northwestern Ohio is in the Southwest or a lake that is in northeastern Ohio is in the southeast. I guess I didn't know the ODNR ran the Ohio game fishing forms


It's not a big deal. If u feel so inclined,start a post on northwest forum.
Dont sweat the small stuff man.
This thread is about crappie fishing not logistics.


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## crappiedude

Saugeyefisher said:


> It's not a big deal. If u feel so inclined,start a post on northwest forum.
> Dont sweat the small stuff man.
> This thread is about crappie fishing not logistics.


My thoughts exactly...just sayin


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## zaraspook

At my lake place just over 26 hours Sat noon to Sunday 2pm. More time doing chores and fussing with preparing 2 boats than fishing. Caught a 12" female among my 6 fish Sat afternoon. Today, Sunday, caught 12" male out of 7 fish. 
Water temp 62.6....fish should be transitioning to beds/banks for spawn but I'm not finding in numbers yet. Males are getting a bit darker, but not full warpaint. Both days my fish were 50/50 on chartreuse pepper Panfish Assassin or Monkey Milk Baby Shad. Photos of the Sat 12" and Sun 12" attached.


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## Jim white

Ok thanks


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## RMK

Friday morning 8am to 1pm. Water 59 at launch and warmest we saw. Down to 57 in places. Not as many boats today. NE wind made for a pretty decent chop out there. Fish showing great color and bulging egg sacs. They want to spawn! Only picked up one keeper male shallow on rocks shallow, the way I want to catch them right now. Fished deeper and slightly farther off the bank and found enough to call it a successful morning. 16 keepers. Close to that many shorts. Quite a few sunfish shallow in the rocks eager to attack your bait. 1 chunky 4.25 bass. Worth mentioning- 2 white crappie. Both short and thin. Anybody ever catch a big white in grandlake?


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## zaraspook

Weds at GLSM was a good day. Most spots on my walking circuit produced fish. The bite was aggressive, males dark with warpaint, and fish slamming my Monkey Milk Baby Shad or Panfish Assassin chartreuse pepper. Water temp 58 and clarity impressive for GLSM. Caught 44, 17 keepers and 3 small bass. No 12" fish today, frequent 11"+ though. Many males with roughed up tails and fins. A few males squirting joy juice, especially in a shallow backend that's always a popular spawn area.

That shallow area I fished as shallow as 12". Other areas with depths 4-5' I fished as deep as 3'+ to extract fish and they were out 10- 18' off the bank. Did not really find fish in close to bank except in that shallow backend.

Thurs bite was more scarce but I didn't have access to all the same spots that day. Caught just 11 in the morning with 4 keepers. 5 more caught later in day with 2 keepers. Most of those were off submerged wood 6-10' from bank. I fished less since bite was puny and had chores to get done.

Friday morning fish were not responsive. Water temp holding at 58.4 from Thurs. Took me an hour and a half to finally catch first crappie. 2 more graced my day just before putting my rods away to depart for home. 3 crappie was the days total, however, all 3 keepers.

All fish released to spawn and catch another day. Rarely do I keep fish and never keep this close to spawn.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Friday morning 8am to 1pm. Water 59 at launch and warmest we saw. Down to 57 in places. Not as many boats today. NE wind made for a pretty decent chop out there. Fish showing great color and bulging egg sacs. They want to spawn! Only picked up one keeper male shallow on rocks shallow, the way I want to catch them right now. Fished deeper and slightly farther off the bank and found enough to call it a successful morning. 16 keepers. Close to that many shorts. Quite a few sunfish shallow in the rocks eager to attack your bait. 1 chunky 4.25 bass. Worth mentioning- 2 white crappie. Both short and thin. Anybody ever catch a big white in grandlake?
> 
> View attachment 356383
> View attachment 356381
> View attachment 356385
> View attachment 356387


RMK........speaking to your question about big whites in GLSM. My biggest GLSM crappie was a white, 15.25", caught on motor oil colored triple tip grub from beneath wooden dock. Believe it was 2013 or 2014. 

More recently, within the last 2 weeks I caught a big white crappie within 20' of where I caught the 15" 6-7 years ago. I had just landed the white, was holding my line approximately a foot above my jig with right hand while attempting to grab the fish in my left hand. Before I secured the fish with left hand it flopped a couple times and my line snapped near the jig. Fish hit the cement seawall I was standing on, and flopped over the seawall, back into the water with my Monkey Milk plastic and jig still locked in its mouth. Obviously I never got to measure the white crappie, but I'm confident it was easily 14". Mind you it's weight compared more like a 12-12.5" black crappie. Those 2 are the only large white crappie I've pulled from GLSM in the last decade.


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## RMK

I thought I remembered you mentioning your previous big white one other time. Good stuff. I always get a little excited when we catch one, no matter what lake, just because we don't see them much on grandlake. One of ours from the other day was mixed in with a decent pile of black crappie of varies sizes and sexes and the 4.25 bass. and the other one seemed to be a loan fish. Only bite and only fish from that spot.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> I thought I remembered you mentioning your previous big white one other time. Good stuff. I always get a little excited when we catch one, no matter what lake, just because we don't see them much on grandlake. One of ours from the other day was mixed in with a decent pile of black crappie of varies sizes and sexes and the 4.25 bass. and the other one seemed to be a loan fish. Only bite and only fish from that spot.


The few whites I get seemed to be mixed in with other crappie, but don't catch enough to claim a definite pattern. Have a guy I occasionally fish with who is only crappie guy I know who targets whites at certain places and certain times of year. Need to pick his brain.......to learn what his thinking is.


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## crappiedude

Of course I'm fishing a lot deeper water down here in the SW corner of the state but when I'm fishing deep water for suspended fish I'll mostly get white crappie. The white will tend to relate to vertical cover (eg; standing timber) more often than blacks when it available.
Black crappie on the other hand will often be shallower it seems and maybe closer to bottom. I don't get as many sizeable black crappie as I do whites but more often than not, when I do get one it will be on really shallow cover.
Grand Lake being so shallow would be hard to figure out.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Of course I'm fishing a lot deeper water down here in the SW corner of the state but when I'm fishing deep water for suspended fish I'll mostly get white crappie. The white will tend to relate to vertical cover (eg; standing timber) more often than blacks when it available.
> Black crappie on the other hand will often be shallower it seems and maybe closer to bottom. I don't get as many sizeable black crappie as I do whites but more often than not, when I do get one it will be on really shallow cover.
> Grand Lake being so shallow would be hard to figure out.


Good info, c-dude. As you say, tough to translate for Grand Lake but who knows, it's a start. A few years back I heard white population at GLSM was rumored to be 3-4%. Most crappie guys here would say 3-4% is extremely generous. I've caught 2 whites this year out of 600-700 total year to date. However, I suspect the lake could have a degree of white/black cross breeding. Only say that because if you commit to serious counting of dorsal spines, some of those craps that look like blacks won't have 7 or more dorsal spines.


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## Cobe24

I crappie fish mostly Loramie and Indian. At Loramie, I would say it is 50/50, maybe 60/40 whites. It seems they run the same types of areas together at Loramie. At Indian, which I would say runs 75/25 black crappie, I do have a couple of spots where I will catch almost exclusively white crappie. The white crappie there seem to be more active in warmer water temps from my experiences. One pattern for the bigger whites seems to be rocks closer to the main lake and later in the spawn. That being said, give me a 10" black crappie any day for the dinner table. You can have those 12"+ slimy whiteys!


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## Cobe24

To Zara's point, I believe there is a great deal of hybridization of the 2 species at Indian and often times the larger crappies 14"+ do appear to have features of both species.


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## zaraspook

GLSM arrival at 4 pm Tues. An hour and 20 minutes to catch first 18 with 8 keepers. Caught 3 more after dinner, all dinks. Monkey Milk Baby Shad caught all

Water temp 53.4 today, down 5 degrees from last Friday. 90% of fish today were males. All were dark in formal dress and if they are tending beds, the beds are well off the bank. Majority 10-20' off banks/seawalls, very few close in. No slimy whiteys.


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## zaraspook

Weds water temp 55.7 but even warmer water couldn't keep the nice action from evening before. In the morning could find just 6 crappie, 3 keepers. After lunch I caught 5 with 1 keeper. Evening couldn't save me.....1 crappie, a dink, and a small bass.

It was a really nice day. Too often nice days are not the greatest days to fish. 

A note: starting to see a few spawned out females and tuxedos on the males are fading in color. Just saying.......


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## RMK

Wednesday late morning to early afternoon. Fished a variety of structure. Never really put an exact pattern toget her catching a couple here and a couple there on different types of structure from wood to shooting pontoons. No takers on rocks. A pair of good fish halfway shallow on wood. Couple interesting things from Wednesdays adventure- first fish of the day-10" white crappie. A couple channels later a fat 12"ish female white! Guess they heard I was talking about them. 6 whites on the year for us and finally 1 good one. 28 crappie for Wednesday with 14 legal fish.
Thursday mid morning to about noon. STRUGGLED! couldn't find them. 2 keepers out of 3 crappie.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Wednesday late morning to early afternoon. Fished a variety of structure. Never really put an exact pattern toget her catching a couple here and a couple there on different types of structure from wood to shooting pontoons. No takers on rocks. A pair of good fish halfway shallow on wood. Couple interesting things from Wednesdays adventure- first fish of the day-10" white crappie. A couple channels later a fat 12"ish female white! Guess they heard I was talking about them. 6 whites on the year for us and finally 1 good one. 28 crappie for Wednesday with 14 legal fish.
> Thursday mid morning to about noon. STRUGGLED! couldn't find them. 2 keepers out of 3 crappie.
> View attachment 357247
> View attachment 357249
> View attachment 357251


RMK.......good to talk to you and Scott yesterday. Like I said then all I could find that day was 3, all short. Tried a couple times after you guys left, 30-40 minutes each, never did solve the puzzle......just 1 more caught, not a keeper. 

Story is no different today/Fri. Caught 3 this morning, 1 a keeper male, still sporting his spawn colors. 57.9 degree water temp off my seawall. All 3 near submerged wood, plastic fished about as slow as you possibly can.


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## RMK

Friday 1pm to 430pm. 23 crappie with a little better average size and keeper ratio with 15 keepers. 4 fish in the 12" range. Water temp up to 59. Still didn't get any shallow. One male in paticular showed signs of spawning colors that have come and gown and several females that were definitely half spawned out if not completely. It's a big lake. I m sure there is plenty more spawning to come but some have certainly done it already. I want to catch some shallow! Had a nice talk with a longtime glsm crappie fisherman who was out working his sea wall and nearby structure as we were fishing. He said "give it a week" I ll take his word as good advice. He also happily pulled a very colored up 14" male out of his bucket to show us.


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## fishwhacker

Had the day off yesterday, started at indian where i had a hot morning bite that faded with 3 saugeye to show for my efforts then headed to glsm for some afternoon panfishing. One of the spots i frequent gets a good crappie bite shallow at the end of the spawn. I had 4 over 9 inches in 30 minutes using bluegill jigs. Not impressive numbers for crappie fisherman, but if i catch 4, crappie guys usually fair well. All were caught using orange and chart split tail 1/64oz tipped with wax worms. Fished 2 ft deep about 4ft away from the bank along rocks. Hope my little intel helps.


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## zaraspook

Friday morning brought the same tight lipped bite on my walking tour. Bites were scarce but ran into 2 short ones that supplied plenty of distance from the skunk line. Between the rain and packing up to head home for a hot date, didn't try again until time to put my rods away.

When fish aren't chasing baits and playing hard to get, it's wise to change tactics. I went small (Itty Bit), went to the bottom because fish were stationary, not moving. Going to the bottom isn't drastic at shallow GLSM, normally just 1-2' deeper. Plus I 
slowed my normal swimming presentation to about 2" of lateral movement per minute. Since I'm fishing submerged wood in 3.5' of water and bobber is set 3' deep, my jig is slowly bumping into a limb/log with frequency, I'm lifting the jig slowly over the cover to avoid snagging and slowly lowering the jig back down with very little lateral movement......essentially the presentation amounts to vertically jigging. Took 45 minutes to catch to keepers between 10-11", but these fish weren't responding at all before. I had enough bites to keep me interested, but you don't cover much ground very fast. Though you don't cover much ground, you are covering it thoroughly. Those inactive fish are given a chance to react to a close target, to suck it in with little effort or energy.

I've used these tactics before, but don't do it often enough, and rarely soon enough. When they aren't active it doesn't mean they aren't in the normal spots. They will take advantage of an opportunity to eat if you get bait close and it's an easy target.


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## james.

End up with 17 keeper's in 5 hours this afternoon. Probably just as many throw backs. Only kept 7 for dinner tomorrow. Some Females half spawned out some looked like they haven't even started yet. Males in full war paint. Surface temperature was 62 when I started 66 when i was done. Got my frist ever white crappie today she was a 9in female. Couldn't get much going on tember most all my fish came off rocks and sea walls 4-5 deep 2 feet under a cork. Monkey milk was the clear winner for me today.


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## johnern

Any advice to fish GLSM from fishing kayaks


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## zaraspook

35 crappie caught Mon with 11 keepers. Bite was slow until I ran into spawning action in a shallow channel back end. I've been testing this spawn spot off and on for weeks. For the year maybe pulled 6 crappie from it. Mon it gave up 16 over 2 short sessions. When I fished it last evening, biggest obstacle was watching water clarity transition from unusually good clarity to choco milk in 30 minutes.

63 degree water off my seawall. Shallow spawn bite has arrived. Monkey Milk caught all 35. Female in photo was the day's biggest at 11.5". Saw surprisingly few war painted males. Lots of females yesterday, many still with eggs. The once a year annual spawn bite is in full gear! Get in on the fun while you can.


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## zaraspook

johnern said:


> Any advice to fish GLSM from fishing kayaks


Johnern.........not a "yak" guy personally, therefore, can not say I understand factors that yak users need. Should be sufficient access for launching. It's a big lake, very shallow, be sensitive to summer storms. Lake gets very nasty, very fast, big white caps. Be careful not to underestimate how dangerous lake can transition. I do see more kayaks out every year, but rarely are any fishing. For serious fishing I'd avoid major holidays and early summer weekends. There will be abundant recreational boating, pwc lake traffic. If you do try GLSM by yak, please let's us know, fill us in.


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## zaraspook

Friday caught 20 with 8 keepers in a limited fishing effort. Can't fish much while entertaining guests, grilling, and just chilling. 

Shallow bite was the ticket. Most fish within 3' of bank on Monkey Milk, gravel and rocky banks most productive fo me. More males than females, dark and squirting joy juice while you removed hook. Couple of 11" were biggest. 61 degree water temp early, 63-64 later in day. Channel was crawling with fishing boats. Both crappie and bass guys were catching 'em today.


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## zaraspook

I'm pooped. Lake guest's from Thurs thru Monday evening left me worn out. Good time though especially for most who were sheltered in for 2 mos. Crappie tacos were a huge hit on the dinner menu 1 day.

I caught 16 Sunday, 10 Monday morning with 6 keepers each day. My son in law caught about 1/2 as many. It was fun to use my fishing boat both days and fish some new waters. Plus, used a new bait that a fellow OGF'er, RMK, gave me to sample. Thanks for the samples, RMK. Most definitely an impressive bait. I used the Monkey Milk pattern. It's a split tail plastic and when the fish hit it they absolutely ate it like crazy! Water temps were 63-ish on Sun, and broke the 70 degree mark Monday late when pulling the boat out. Still catching a few impressive female crappie that haven't yet spawned. Plenty of males still tending beds and and dark with warpaint.

We had a good crowd and some very good craft beers, local and non.


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## Saugeyefisher

Zara,I'm glad you was able to enjoy the holiday weekend! Such precious times! 

I spent a couple hours dipping the end of some docks over the weekend at buckeye. I prolly could of done better if I took the time to get behind the boats/pontoons an hit the dock posts closer to shore in the rocks. But there was alot of people in and out because of the holiday weekend and didn't wanna get in the way. Plus the saugeye were biting ... 
But each dock I hit had a small Male or two hanging out protecting either beds or fry. I didnt really try getting up under the docks an tite to structure given the situation. I imagine will be able to easily catch the males another week or two considering this cool down coming up.
Any pictures of the new baits? Just curious,always like seeing new designs/shapes/etc. I follow "fishslim" on IG an he has been using a newer crappie bait. It's a little bigger with nice bright colors, but I forget the name,RMK might be able to help me out. He has been doubling it up for saugeyes to.

Question for anyone. from everything I have read about crappie spawning. The males will move in first to fan/prepare the beds,then the females move in do there thing with the males,drop there eggs,move out,or rest a bit an go into feed mode again. Why the males stay close and protect everything. But I have noticed a good amount of females I've caught this spring(and in the past) will have the chewed up tail fin. Are they helping with the nest building? At first i thought maybe they fanned silt off the eggs an try to keep the water moving over them,but alot of these fish have eggs still. Maybe from the actual spawning process its self? Anyone?


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## Cobe24

With the clear water this week at Indian, I have watched the spawning process in action. The females really rub their bodies in the rocks when spawning there. The ones I am catching are pretty beat up as well. I believe it is just happening as result of the spawning process.


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## RMK

if we are thinking of the same ones Bobby.... fish slim has posted some stuff about The Crappie Psychic. think he called them crazy crickets. looked like a type of split tail as well. different than the ones we found locally at the outdoorsman. neat looking baits though.


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## zaraspook

Cobe24 said:


> With the clear water this week at Indian, I have watched the spawning process in action. The females really rub their bodies in the rocks when spawning there. The ones I am catching are pretty beat up as well. I believe it is just happening as result of the spawning process.


Cobe24....great observation. Unusual water clarity at GLSM allowed me to observe same mating dance about a week ago. Actually looked like as many as 3 males slipping and sliding against a single female. They had her pinned against a suspended log. The dance looked just like you see carp do, rolling against female. Excuse my French, but process looked like a gang bang. I figured they were courteous, polite.......here are my eggs, please squirt them with your joy juice. Apparently not.....seem to like it rough. 

One of my keepers today was a female, fins and tale all roughed up. Could be the ladies help with bed, but now I know without a doubt process can be aggressive.


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## zaraspook

Arrived GLSM 6:30pm this evening. First dip 6:50pm and quit to eat at 8pm. 
73.4 degree water. Caught 14, only 3 keepers. All chomped on Monkey Milk. 10 were males, still wearing tuxedoes. 4 females, 2 of which still had bulging egg sacs. Not much rocky bank near me but it was the ticket and produced 10 craps within 6' of bank, and 2' of water or less. Fun, exactly like spawn is supposed to be. Hate to see it end but my channel closer to end than beginning......my opinion.


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## CHOPIQ

Thanks zaraspook. I'm coming to St Marys tomorrow to take my dad crappie fishing. He still lives in St Marys and I'm coming in from Columbus with my boat. At least now I have an idea where to start.


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## zaraspook

72-75 degree water on Friday for a lively bite. Long time fishing friend and I caught 51. We kept zero of our 10 keepers. 90% of fish were males. Rock banks were consistent producers. A pair of 12"+ fish were biggest of the day. Monkey Milk or chartreuse plastics were winning colors in 1-3' of water. Cottonwood starting to fly and will be a 3 week nuisance. Good day at the lake.


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## zaraspook

Friend and I abandoned my normal bank walking circuit Saturday for a change os scenery. We used my fishing boat, battled the wind, and worse fought with cottonwood fluff. Numbers were down, just 19 caught but size was better. A pair of 12.5" among my catch. My friend avoided the skunk catching only 1 crappie of our 19.
Sunday we fished only in the morning and reverted back to familiar bank fishing. Friend returned the favor today, beating me 11-7. His last fish was a Fish Ohio 13" female.

Water temp slipped to 70 today. Saturday one bay we hit with some success tipped 78 degrees. Spawn spots we've been hitting for last week or two are definitely slowing. At least in my area of GLSM spawn is in late stages.

Monkey Milk pattern was good, chartreuse was best. Split tails were best plastic all 3 days. Bulk of our fish today were in 1-3' of water with rock lined banks. Not as many productive spots, not as many fish from spots that were productive. Boat traffic on lake very high this weekend.


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## CHOPIQ

Zara, my dad and I fished Saturday from 9-2:30 and ended up with only about 15 crappies with only two of them over 10". All males. We hit Otterbein, harmons and where we put in at, Little Chickasaw ramp channel. It was windy as heck and fought the wind all day. Lot of people fishing Otterbein. Looked like the algae bloom had started in some areas. Was hoping to do better but first time I've fished St Marys from a boat in 15 years.


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## zaraspook

Was at GLSM Tues taking care of some business. Fished just 25 minutes late morning on a spawn spot. 2 bites, 2 short crappie caught.

After lunch and cutting grass came back to fishing for a little over an hour at 1:30 pm. Based on few bites in the short morning effort, expectations were low. Pleasantly surprised when first spot produced 2 keepers from 3 caught including a nice 11.5". No bites at 2nd spot but 3rd place stepped up with 5, 3 keepers over 10". Final stop gave up just one, a 12.5" in photo. Before the big one I was ready to pronounce the 2020 spawn was history, but that fish is clearly still packing eggs.

8 caught, 6 keepers in an hour and 15 minutes is decent. At least in my channel spawn is ending. Other parts of lake should be ahead or behind, but not by much. My advice.....if you have different spots you fish during spawn only, try them but if no action move on. Crappie should be back on their normal cover soon if not already. Water temp 71 Tues and clarity has been better so far this year than normal. Not saying the green isn't in our near future, but I believe the tide has turned. Chartreuse split tail the winner today but fished under 2 hours if I add the 2 morning dinks in 25 minutes. Wood was good. Fish caught in 2-5 FOW.


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## zaraspook

Back at GLSM after dark on Fri so as to fish the Sat morning. Bite wasn't crazy good but good enough to catch 11 with 5 keepers. Earlier in the week I pronounced the 2020 spawn done or close to that. However, if it weren't for fish coming from spawn areas I would not have caught most of the 11 Saturday. Majority were males still wearing dark warpaint.

Fished the evening bite starting at 7:30pm. Results not as kind as in the morning........4 caught, 1 lone keeper. It was a nice male, fins and tailed roughed up from spawning acts, and no matter how I tried to measure him, he was 1/8th inch short of the 12" mark.
Water temp bloated to 83 Sat evening, +12 degrees compared to last visit Monday. Clarity took a hit from green matter. Most fish caught on/near rocky bank. Chartreuse the only color used today. Cottonwood is a heavy on water surface. Wish this could be peak for cottonwood but we won't get off that easy.


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## crappiedude

We have the same bite going on here Zara, a few males still sitting up shallow on the bank. I can't figure out if they're still spawning or just got to the party late and hope a couple of lonely ladies will still show up.
I have a few spots I like to fish in post spawn that some of bigger ladies will hang out for a few weeks before moving on to some of their summer haunts. So far all those spots are empty. 
My guess is the crappie have moved off the shore already and they're out chasing the schools of shad in open water.


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## Saugeyefisher

They sure are good at keeping you guessing this time of year. The last couple years I've noticed "spawn talk" from early april to the beginning of June,finally tapering off really good mid june.
I have read articles that talk about fishing shallow the full moon after the main spawn. At times it will pull fish shallow that may not have spawned previously. And it never fails,I always catch them into mid june(sometimes later) casting jigs for saugeye in really shallow water. 
And then you just get the ones that stay buried in thick shallow cover all year long an come out for short periods to feed. Kinda like a largemouth bass would,why the majority of fish chase open water shad schools......
They really are a fun fish to pattern(haha or try to pattern).


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## crappiedude

Saugeyefisher said:


> And then you just get the ones that stay buried in thick shallow cover all year long an come out for short periods to feed.


I personally think it's possible to catch some crappie shallow all year long. By shallow I mean under 3 fow and that even in the middle of summer. If you can find them it can be some of the craziest jig and bobber fishing of the year and it will leave you scratching your head.


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## Saugeyefisher

crappiedude said:


> I personally think it's possible to catch some crappie shallow all year long. By shallow I mean under 3 fow and that even in the middle of summer. If you can find them it can be some of the craziest jig and bobber fishing of the year and it will leave you scratching your head.


I agree 100%


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> I personally think it's possible to catch some crappie shallow all year long. By shallow I mean under 3 fow and that even in the middle of summer. If you can find them it can be some of the craziest jig and bobber fishing of the year and it will leave you scratching your head.


Absolutely "can" catch crappie year round in under 3 fow. GLSM forces you to do it, especially if you bank fish. It requires more patience plus acknowledgement that quantity and quality of fish won't hold up. They are scattered, 1 here and 1 there, exactly like bass as Saugeyefisher said.


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## zaraspook

Sunday crappie bite continued to fade. 8 in the morning, majority males in color. Not a single keeper. Evening bite caught only 3....but did get my only keeper of the day on the last fish.

Fished Monday morning before departing for home around noon. Slowest action yet of my Fri-Mon junket. Took 30 minutes to get my first bite, and whiff. Another 30 min for 2nd bite, but yielded a 12.5" male(still in tuxedo). Poor guy's tail was a bloody mess....lower third of tail completely worn off. 5 minutes later 3rd bite, 2nd fish and 2nd keeper at 10". Fished another 30 minutes but no more bites. 2 hours for 3 bites. I surrender! Fish won today.


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## fishwhacker

Son wanted to go whackin and stackin for our one on one time. Ended up finding some nice gills with some crappies mixed in. 1 1/2 ft deep on the north side with a 1/64oz pink/chart hait jig along the rocks. Let him do most of reeling so missed as many as we caught.


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## firemanmike2127

Fishwacker, looks like you guys had a fun day. Good to see you making memories with the little guy. That spot has nice access for the kids too. Did you fish the stake bed to see if it was holding any fish ? Mike


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## ohiostrutter

Checking in for my roughly once a year post to the thread.....being a die hard, multiple state turkey hunter really hampers spring fishing. I do a ton of crappie fishing through the ice and then mostly miss the spawn traveling the country for turkeys. I usually make it up to St. Mary’s about this time for a good days crappie fishing. I have about a two hour drive, but enjoy the lake. I have a handful of spots that seem to produce decent at the tail end and right after spawn when I’m able to wet a line. Using a 1/64 ounce pink jig head and monkey milk garland itty bit I was able to catch around 30 crappie from 6a-9a. Only three keepers in the bunch. Didn’t matter, was a boat load of fun and the 52 degree temp made it even more enjoyable!


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## fishwhacker

firemanmike2127 said:


> Fishwacker, looks like you guys had a fun day. Good to see you making memories with the little guy. That spot has nice access for the kids too. Did you fish the stake bed to see if it was holding any fish ? Mike


That was the plan i had in my head, but we were getting bit enough didnt want to leave biting fish to find more biting fish, especially with the little guy being satisified. The tide can turn with my kids quickly.


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## zaraspook

ohiostrutter said:


> Checking in for my roughly once a year post to the thread.....being a die hard, multiple state turkey hunter really hampers spring fishing. I do a ton of crappie fishing through the ice and then mostly miss the spawn traveling the country for turkeys. I usually make it up to St. Mary’s about this time for a good days crappie fishing. I have about a two hour drive, but enjoy the lake. I have a handful of spots that seem to produce decent at the tail end and right after spawn when I’m able to wet a line. Using a 1/64 ounce pink jig head and monkey milk garland itty bit I was able to catch around 30 crappie from 6a-9a. Only three keepers in the bunch. Didn’t matter, was a boat load of fun and the 52 degree temp made it even more enjoyable!


Great report from you, ohstrut! Glad the lake didn't let you down. You've clearly been "listening"......Itty Bits and Monkey Milk pattern are good bets for a successful day. Don't be a stranger......


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## zaraspook

Wife had knee replacement surgery 10 days ago. Playing caretaker kept me away from GLSM for 2 weeks. Finally got a reprieve and made it to lake midnight Thurs. Son-in-law and I could squeeze in 2-3 hours fishing early morning Friday, attend to 2 weeks worth of chores for a few hours, then head back to Indiana by noon.

Fishing was nothing to shout about, but we fished. Son-in-law caught one gill and a 2-3# channel cat. I caught 3 crappie from 6 bites. Just not enough action to find a pattern. First fish was a keeper hugging the seawall in 3' of water near wood. 2nd fish was a bit short, near a stake bed, and 6' off a seawall in 4' of water. Last crappie, a good 11 incher, was 30' off the bank in 4' of water near no known cover. Never got around to checking water temp. All 3 fish ate chartreuse split tail. It was good to wet a line!


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## fishwhacker

Zara, hope your wife's recovery goes well. So, did she wait for thw surgery until after the spawn or happy coincidence haha?


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## Saugeyefisher

https://www.ohiogamefishing.com/threads/new-grand-lake-st-marys-improvement-project.369541/

Seen this in general discussion


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## crappie4me

good luck to Mrs spook in her recovery.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Zara, hope your wife's recovery goes well. So, did she wait for thw surgery until after the spawn or happy coincidence haha?


Very happy coincidence. Luckily, June date for surgery was scheduled last December, before we could spell Covid-19. Dumb luck.


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## zaraspook

Eureka! Actually made it to GLSM Saturday and got in a little fishing. Must emphasize, fishing is the operative word. Catching not part of it. Fished an hour and a half Saturday evening. 5 spots produced a total of 6 bites, caught 2 dink gills. 

Back at it early Sunday morning. Managed to tolerate an hour and 15 minutes of inaction, just 3 bites. No bites Sat or Sun suggested it was a crappie chewing on my plastic.

Water temp was 79.5 degrees. Clarity was far from normal for what we expect at GLSM in summer. Rather than the normal heavy shade of green, almost pea soup appearance, my channel was the color of a dark tea, kind of brown/black with amazing clarity down to almost 2 feet.

Cannot say I have an explanation for the wonderful looking water. But, I've witnessed it before, 6-7 times in the last 5 years. I'm guessing it's a form of an algae event. All the algae or green matter in the water column "dies" simultaneously. With the green particulates magically gone, water clarity looks instantly like a mountain stream in a Coors beer commercial. Crazy, huh? Past experience suggests it can last maybe 8 hours, sometimes more than 24 hours before the water in the rest of the lake mixes in turns it back. This "event" was clear water when I arrived Sat at 6pm, and still good at Noon Sunday, though starting to fade slightly. I'm not talking about a short stretch of water going clear, but several 100 yards of channel and seawall to seawall on opposite side. Anyone else witness this type of phenomena at GLSM, or have a theory on what happens and why?


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## zaraspook

Made a late showing at lake tonight. Arrived at 7:30 pm and fishing by 7:45. Quit at 8:30. In 45 minutes maybe 8-10 bites and actually caught 1 crappie. No skunk.....an improvement. Have to head back to Indiana by noon Thurs but get to try again in morning.

Been hearing of some GLSM fish kills last few days and saw some photos. My channel had zero floaters. In another branch of the channel I saw 15 floaters, nearly 1/2 of them crappie. Rest were a mix of gills, channel cats, a drum, 1 small bass and a shadzilla that was easily 20". Confident kills are due to absence of dissolved oxygen in water compounded by very elevated water temp. At 8:30pm I measured water temp off my seawall and down 2'. No wonder fish are distressed with water at 89.2 degrees! Unfortunate and not likely to improve soon.


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## zaraspook

Fished my walking route this morning. 6:30 - 7:30am. Zero bites. Quit to finish my 1st cup of coffee. 

Couple hours later took my pontoon out to survey main lake for fish kill. Jeez....a lot worse than the impression I had from scouting my channel. They were scattered but hard to go more than 30' from 1 floater to the next. Other than perch I saw floaters of all GLSM species. Perch were likely among the dead but tougher to identify the smaller fish unless boat was right on top of them. Unfortunately, many of the bigger fish were "eyes". I say "eyes" because no way I could differentiate between the saugeyes and walleyes that both exist in GLSM. Lower tails white tipped, but the colors of dead fish fade fast and difficult to look for saddle bags vs normal side patterns of walleye.

To most GLSM fishermen, eyes are nothing more than legend.. If they ever caught a GLSM eye it was at the spillway or Jan-Feb time frame thru the ice near Coldwater Creek. Forget pulling them from main lake, extreme rarity that few accomplished. To recap what's been reported dozens of times in this thread, a total of 123,000 saugeye fingerings were stocked only in 2 years, 2010 and 2011. With an expected survival rate of 4%, can't be too many of those left. Walleyes were stocked for a decade, ending in 2009 or maybe 2008. Walleye fingerings and fry totaled 55-60 million stocked. Who knows what the remaining population was for either, but I'm guessing lake wide several hundred eyes fell prey to this fish kill. Too bad......numbers were dwindling without the latest hit.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Fished my walking route this morning. 6:30 - 7:30am. Zero bites. Quit to finish my 1st cup of coffee.
> 
> Couple hours later took my pontoon out to survey main lake for fish kill. Jeez....a lot worse than the impression I had from scouting my channel. They were scattered but hard to go more than 30' from 1 floater to the next. Other than perch I saw floaters of all GLSM species. Perch were likely among the dead but tougher to identify the smaller fish unless boat was right on top of them. Unfortunately, many of the bigger fish were "eyes". I say "eyes" because no way I could differentiate between the saugeyes and walleyes that both exist in GLSM. Lower tails white tipped, but the colors of dead fish fade fast and difficult to look for saddle bags vs normal side patterns of walleye.
> 
> To most GLSM fishermen, eyes are nothing more than legend.. If they ever caught a GLSM eye it was at the spillway or Jan-Feb time frame thru the ice near Coldwater Creek. Forget pulling them from main lake, extreme rarity that few accomplished. To recap what's been reported dozens of times in this thread, a total of 123,000 saugeye fingerings were stocked only in 2 years, 2010 and 2011. With an expected survival rate of 4%, can't be too many of those left. Walleyes were stocked for a decade, ending in 2009 or maybe 2008. Walleye fingerings and fry totaled 55-60 million stocked. Who knows what the remaining population was for either, but I'm guessing lake wide several hundred eyes fell prey to this fish kill. Too bad......numbers were dwindling without the latest hit.


Sad to hear. Especially the "eyes". Could you tell an average size on them? 
Who would of thought there was that many swimming around given the lack of success catching them.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Sad to hear. Especially the "eyes". Could you tell an average size on them?
> Who would of thought there was that many swimming around given the lack of success catching them.


Saugfish.......actually I was looking for smaller ones. With no walleye stocked for more than 10 years, and no saugs for almost 10 years, little ones would be evidence of successful reproduction. Saugs are supposed to be sterile, didn't really expect to see little saugs anyway. Did not see any short eyes at all. None of eye floaters looked smaller than 22". One was at least 26-28". Lots of crappie, cats, drum, not enough carp, shad of course.

If no reproduction going on, all the eyes in lake should 10 or more years old. Shouldn't be little ones and I didn't see any, but my path on boat was only 3 miles and didn't zig zag.


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## Saugeyefisher

Thanks zara. I just find it really interesting. I'd imagine only a small percentage of them died off to.
Pretty cool theres that many still around! But totally uncool nobody catches them(except the spillway). Shoot,I even hear of more pike catches then wal/saug-eyes thru reports on the lake.
I wonder how many get caught during bass tournies. I bet there are some real bruisers in there!!


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## CHOPIQ

My dad rode around st Mary’s yesterday. He said dead fish everywhere. He saw a couple eyes he guesstimated over 7 pounds. He also saw a pike 35-36”. Lot of fish dead and with next week even hotter plenty more to come.


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> Thanks zara. I just find it really interesting. I'd imagine only a small percentage of them died off to.
> Pretty cool theres that many still around! But totally uncool nobody catches them(except the spillway). Shoot,I even hear of more pike catches then wal/saug-eyes thru reports on the lake.
> I wonder how many get caught during bass tourneys. I bet there are some real bruisers in there!!


Other than through the ice, I know just one person with verified proof of catching walleye while actually fishing for walleye in main lake. It was before saugs were stocked., so no question about eye identity. I've seen a few photos of other walleye caught main lake, but they were caught by catfish tournament guys, weren't targeting eyes.

The guy I know was casting for eyes, not trolling. His first time targeting eyes, he caught a 16.5" keeper on a 4" Berkley hollow belly, paddle tail swim bait. It was Firetiger pattern. One week later he boated another single walleye at 2" bigger, same spot, same structure, exact same swim bait. That guy was me. I know plenty of other fishermen that pulled eyes from spillway, or eyes through hardwater. No one else I know pulled eyes from main lake during softwater seasons.


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## zaraspook

Fished my GLSM walking route Weds morning for 90 minutes. Caught this 12" crappie in 2.5' of water and 1' off the bank. Water temp 82 degrees as compared to 89 a week ago. If there are any other crappie in the lake, you wouldn't know it by me. Thank you Monkey Milk Itty Bit!


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## zaraspook

Wife not yet independently mobile after knee replacement in early June, I got a 24 hour pass Saturday to hit my lake place. No matter my backed up chores there would take 48 hours, I'd find a way to squeeze in a bit of fishing.
Saturday mid-afternoon was first such chance. After cutting grass in 90+ degree heat, took 30 minutes to wet a line. Few bites from the 86 degree water, but got off the skunk line with a short crappie. That one fish was enough to tie my last visit 15 days ago. Any more the rest of the day would be icing on the cake!

2nd opportunity wouldn't come until 7:30 in evening, but I'd have a good hour to spread over multiple spots. Didn't take long to get a spunky surprise, a 13-14" fish, on Monkey Milk Baby Shad. Too bad it wasn't a crappie, but a largemouth, always fun on a long crappie rod. Found 4 more crappie, 2 keepers, and another small bass before daylight slipped away. My 5 total crappies for the effort may not impress anyone, but I was quite pleased. That's a decent result for late July and 4' or less of water at a steamy 86 degrees.
Sunday morning had another early hour session. 4 spots, virtually biteless. The skunk finally won. All crappie caught on Monkey Milk Itty Bit. The 2 bass both chased Monkey Milk Baby Shad. Crappie were on submerged cover and 10'+ off bank. No bites at all under the few pontoons available in my walking circuit. Water temps fast approaching the 90 degree mark that produced fish kill 2 weeks ago.


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## RMK

We have it a shot Sunday first part of the day. 8am to noonish. I had 80 degrees at the launch and up to 84ish by the time we hung it up. 3 south side channels. 9 crappie 3 keepers. Honestly better than I thought we would do. Better size was in the deepest channel we fished. Black and chartreuse panfish assassin took big fish of the day fished 4 feet deep in 6 feet of water. 2nd channel much shallower than 1st and only one short. Slightly better numbers but all small shorts on the last stop of another deeper channel.
















I ll add that all fish appeared happy, healthy, and have been eating ok.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> We have it a shot Sunday first part of the day. 8am to noonish. I had 80 degrees at the launch and up to 84ish by the time we hung it up. 3 south side channels. 9 crappie 3 keepers. Honestly better than I thought we would do. Better size was in the deepest channel we fished. Black and chartreuse panfish assassin took big fish of the day fished 4 feet deep in 6 feet of water. 2nd channel much shallower than 1st and only one short. Slightly better numbers but all small shorts on the last stop of another deeper channel.
> View attachment 368673
> 
> View attachment 368675
> 
> I ll add that all fish appeared happy, healthy, and have been eating ok.


Good report, RMK. You aren't real keen on P/A's so the mention of big fish on P/A got my attention.
Liked your observation about channel depth. I've noticed the summers when water levels are up, my results follow. Low water levels, fish are scarce. Not a fan of current level from dry conditions. A foot of water makes big difference.


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## zaraspook

Over the weekend managed the longest visit in 2 months to my lake place. Arrived Fri around 4pm and departed 3:30pm Sunday. Woo-hoo!

Lot of chores to catch up, particularly outside, but seemingly constant rain or drizzle got in the way. Bank fished evening Friday for 2 crappie, including an 11.5". Saturday morning and evening sessions could coax just 1 crappie to join me on the bank. It was a legal 9", little consolation. Sunday morning I thought I got into a sow of a crappie, then figured it was a channel cat. Finally got it to the surface for identification. It's the photo fish.

Used a variety of plastics and colors. Never found a combination to turn them on. This time of year we don't expect good numbers of craps in shallow channels with max water depth 4' or so. You're basically chasing few scattered fish, strays scattered like LMB rather than crappie in schools.

Water level is holding steady, maybe even up a couple inches. I caught a few gills each session, rarely a good one. For the record, all fish I caught on the weekend ate a Monkey Milk Itty Bit, including the LMB in photo. My son-in-law fished with me most of the time. He caught a few gills, no crappie.


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## zaraspook

At my lake place from Weds late afternoon until Fri at 3pm. No crowd to entertain, no rain to disrupt outside, overdue chores. Terrific opportunity to trim the "to do" list and seriously bank fish early mornings and late evenings. Solitude can be a blessing! 

Be sure, this isn't a report on fishing the main lake. I never left my channel. All from bank, boat never got wet, and didn't stray more than 100 yards from my place. No water available deeper than 5', in fact, 4' might be more accurate. Pretty much a typical, shallow GLSM channel, summertime bank fishing for scattered crappie. Evening sessions last 45-60 minutes. Morning sessions usually last an hour and a half but can stretch to 3.

Water temps 75-76, clarity poor, a cloudy green with considerable suspended chlorophyll in water column typical for GLSM in summer. 
Weds evening zero bites on Baby Shad Monkey Milk that I stuck with too long. Switched to my 2nd rod baited with Monkey Milk Itty Bit. Actually had a surprising number of weird bites dead sticking the bait for 30-60 seconds between slow 1 foot pulls of the bobber. Bite would barely twitch the bobber, then move laterally 3" and stop.....no followup. Assumed bites were gills until I caught 1 skunk-saving keeper crappie. I'm happy with that. I was fishing nearly 4' deep and 12-15' off the bank near submerged cover. 

Thursday I caught 5 crappie with 3 keepers. Started with the Monkey Milk Itty Bit at 3 spots I didn't hit Weds evening. Nothing but a few gill bites. Still using the Itty Bit made it back to the spot where the single keeper showed up night before. Worked the spot hard.......zero. About to quit, remembered my 2nd rod was baited with a chartreuse pepper Panfish Assassin. First cast in same spot I'd pounded with Itty Bit produced an 11" crappie. Two more crappie followed over next 40 minutes on the PA. Evening session yielded 2 additional crappie. All 5 Thurs on the chartreuse pepper PA. 

Friday I fished morning only. Started with previous day's hot bait, the PA. It must have been radioactive....no bites. Went back to Itty Bit plastic to catch 4 crappie, 2 keepers. Last 2 of craps were on Keylime Itty Bit after a fish stripped my jig of the Monkey Milk.

No, I didn't clean up this trip. 4 sessions over 3 days, no skunks, 10 crappie. Considering I caught just 9 crappie during month of July, 10 crappie feels pretty good.


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## crappiedude

Nice report Zara and good job.
Even with deeper water, bank fishing has been tough down here. 3 or 4 fish would be a good session for my spots right now. 
From a boat it would be easy to get 30-50 fish in a morning or evening. 
Fall is just around the corner.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Nice report Zara and good job.
> Even with deeper water, bank fishing has been tough down here. 3 or 4 fish would be a good session for my spots right now.
> From a boat it would be easy to get 30-50 fish in a morning or evening.
> Fall is just around the corner.


Appreciate the encouragement, c-dude. Good reminder about falls within sight. "Dog days of August" is largely a mental state. Shallow bite only gets better from here. Patience, Grasshopper. Light is there if you open your eyes.


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## zaraspook

Just 45 minutes Mon night before darkness and storm shut me down. Would have been nice to have a little more time. Few bites I ran into left no doubt fish meant business. 4 crappie and a tubby 14" LMB. Fun while it lasted!


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## zaraspook

Had not heard if perch stocking resumed this spring at GLSM. If I recall correctly, 2019 was a bust for perch fingerlings/fry. Yields were poor, none stocked. A fishing buddy with a pulse on hatchery stuff advised perch stocking did in fact occur Spring 2020. Exact numbers stocked for GLSM weren't available but hatchery suggested numbers exceeded plan. Good news! Someday we perch neophytes might figure out how to get them on the table.......


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## zaraspook

Tues evening before dark produced 4 crappie with 2 keepers. Followed it up Weds morning with 2 keepers among 3 keepers. Just when I was thinking at least bigger fish were showing up, Weds evening was limited to zero keepers from just 2 caught.

Pretty much a ho hum visit so far. While updating my fishing log I found a bright spot. Last year I caught only 26 crappie for the month of August. With 12 days to go, Aug 2020 the tally is 31. Slow but better than last year!


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## zaraspook

81-82 degree water today. Fished 90 minutes early and an hour before dark. From my walking circuit caught 8 today, best of the summer. More surprising, 6 of the 8 were keepers.

Fish I found were near submerged cover, generally 8-15' off the bank though I pulled a couple within 3' of bank.

Water level continues to dive and is my biggest concern for the approaching fall bite. Good fall results rise and crash dependent on sufficient water to hold fish. We are close to that crash level.....like to see this drought end soon.

Smaller baits such as Itty Bits continue to be effective. A motor oil color twister tail with flecks attracted at least half my keepers. Fished generally 2-3' under bobber, in 3-4 FOW. Fish looked healthy and well fed though biggest one looked a little stressed.

Still a struggle to catch crappies. Don't know if I'm getting a few more fish because more in the channel, or I'm learning where and how to get them? Maybe a bit of each.......


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## zaraspook

Weds fished 2 sessions, morning and pm. Identical lack of a bite both times catching 3 craps and 1 keeper each session.
Fished only a morning session Thurs. Fish were bigger, more active, and closer to bank. Still, the numbers aren't there yet, 5 crappie with 4 keepers. Improvement is slow, but it won't be long for fall bite.


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## zaraspook

Going to spend a day this week at Brookville Lake with a long time fishing buddy. We go way back to grade school and get in 5-6 fishing fishing outings every year.

Some rain in the forecast and noticed my rain gear not in my boat or at my house. Hustled up to GLSM Mon morning to pick rain stuff. While there, why not wet a line for a bit? Put in an hour from the bank during late morning, running and gunning 4 spots. Not much of a bite. Caught 3, one nice 11" that was within a foot of a seawall on wood I added about 4 years ago. That one ate a motor oil color twister tail left on my rod since last visit.


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## Saugeyefisher

I'm excited for the fall bite out my way... dont hold me to it,but gonna try taking some time away from the saugeyes to figure out the crappies better!


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## zaraspook

On Weds a friend and I hit Brookville Lake in SE Indiana. I try to get there at least once a year. Forecast called for rain, but we didn't see any except on drive to lake. At Brookville we target smallies and walleye. Targeted smallmouth first 2 hours but were shutout. Switched over to walleye and found better results, catching 3. My 2 eyes were 16.5" and another 1/2 inch short of keeper. Partner caught biggest of day, a 17.25" keeper eye. Most eyes came on jig and twister tail tipped with a chunk of crawler. My keeper busted a flicker shad. I also caught a smaller channel cat and white bass.
Water temp ran 79-80 degrees. We put in at Hannah Creek ramp where clarity was stained. Elsewhere, clarity was much better. We saw very few anglers, maybe a dozen boats in the 6-7 hours on water. Wind was manageable, good enough to drift thru several flats we tried. We did not slay them but it was a good day to be out, good fun. My under worked boat performed like a champ.


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## zaraspook

Had an extended holiday at my GLSM lake place. We were there Thurs evening thru Tues morning. Mostly direct family were the attendees with a few guests, friends, and relatives sprinkled into the mix. Boating, sipping adult beverages, grillin', chillin', corn hole, loud conversations and music were definitely the best of 2020 summer holidays! You could tell people needed some semblance of normalcy, a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, after 6+ months of confinement. No way to know with certainty if social distancing was adequate. Time will tell.

Little fishing time for me until Monday evening when just 3 of us remained. I did get to fish an hour every day, maybe 2 hours, and caught a few crappie each time. Monday evening had some peace and quiet, caught 5 with 3 keepers, and 4 with 3 keepers Tues in morning. Best of the holiday was the 11.75" in photo. Bite was sparse whole time but better quality fish Mon-Tues. Panfish Assassin in chartreuse pepper did most of damage.

Water temp down to 71 Tues. Water level got a much needed boost from Monday night lengthy string of storms that dumped 5" in friend's rain gauge. Channel depth now in much better state to hold fish for fall bite......I'm more optimistic. Had fun!


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## crappiedude

Nice report Zara, this heat won't be here much longer. (thankfully)


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## zaraspook

Saugeyefisher said:


> I'm excited for the fall bite out my way... dont hold me to it,but gonna try taking some time away from the saugeyes to figure out the crappies better!


Saugfish........hard to justify sacrificing a single second away from fall saugeye action to chase crappie. If I had the same eye options as Central Ohio, and 1/2 your eye expertise, I'd be a-hole deep in the saugeye hysteria. You might not ever see another zara crappie post. Crazy good stuff you guys do with the saugs over there!


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## zaraspook

Virtually no bite Fri morning on my bank fishing circuit. Caught 2 crappie, one of which was a 12" photo fish.

Later day session was another story. Caught 9 of which 6 were keepers. Have not seen quality and quantity numbers like those for 3+ months, specifically since first week of June. Top keeper in the late session was 12.75". Two 12"+ fish out of 7 keepers is a great ratio.
Water temp 71.2, same as Labor Day weekend. Water level is +6" from a week ago. Most significant change in bite was that 6 of my fish came from under pontoons. The pontoon bite previously wasn't showing up in my shallow channel. Wish my channel had more than 3 toons to target but you have to play the hand you're dealt. Toon bite usually shows up about the time college football starts. Monkey Milk BG baby shad worked very well for the toon bite.


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## zaraspook

Rolled into my GLSM place after dark Tues evening. It was too dark to fish Tues, but planned to fish morning and evening sessions Weds and Thurs, then head home Fri noon after morning fishing session.

Bank fishing this time of year is notoriously spotty. We're transitioning from summer bite, always slim at best, to a fall bite which is better and even spectacular at times. Those spectacular days normally don't show up before mid-Oct, more likely late Oct thru Nov.

Weds caught 6 in morning, 2 in evening with 5 keepers among the 8. A so-so day for quantity, fine for quality. Thursday results were 4 in morning and a fast 11 in an evening hour. 6 keepers for the day from 15. Quantity better, but that flurry in the evening was dominated by small fish. Friday, just fished morning, only 2 but both keepers. Total for 5 sessions was 25 with 13 keepers.

Water temps were 65-67. Submerged wood was most productive cover. Bulk of fish came inside of 7' from bank in water depth 18" to 3.5'. Some PVC stake beds I like to fish were a total bust as was shooting toons. I was swimming plastics, usually shad bodies from Itty Bit size up to Bobby Garland Baby Shad in colors of Monkey Milk and chartreuse variations. Tiny Shad Panfish Assassin in chartreuse pepper caught ALL my fish including all crappie, 2 bass, 3 yellow bellies, and maybe 10 gills. Occasionally got hits on other baits, but fish wouldn't eat it. Things are improving, but better days are ahead.


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## RMK

Western Buckeye Crappie Cup started back up for their fall tournaments yesterday. We weren't able to fish it but looks like all teams caught their 8 and if i remember correctly big fish was a 1.35.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Western Buckeye Crappie Cup started back up for their fall tournaments yesterday. We weren't able to fish it but looks like all teams caught their 8 and if i remember correctly big fish was a 1.35.


RMK.......Have you fished GLSM lately? I'm curious what you're experiencing. One of days for me last week was one where you repeatedly get good initial "hit", but no followup, fish drops bait, doesn't eat it. I was using one of your split tail "Indian Lake" baits. Frequent bumps told me the fish could see it, would make a move on it, but for whatever reason passed on opportunity to eat. They treated Monkey Milk BG's same way. Switched to the Panfish Assassin, still got healthy hits without follow thru but 1/2 the time they ate it for a hookup. I think the smaller size of P/A compared to BG or split tail was the reason fish would hold bait longer and eat it. Certainly you've had days they hit but don't eat. What adjustments do you make?


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## RMK

sadly i havent been on grandlake for a while. checked a date on a picture and july 26th was last outing. thats too long! we will be focusing back on GLSM much more here in the very near future. we went down to cumberland last week. fishing was tough and we struggled but comparably speaking we did ok. 84 degree surface water temp when we got there. best excuse i have is fish were transitioning from summer to fall patterns and we dont really know what either of those patterns are down there haha! we caught fish shallow and deep, and big and small, but nothing consistent. we re headed to green river the end of october.
back to the lazy bites at GLSM- first off i dont think i m going to teach you much about crappie fishing at GLSM but yes definitely going smaller is usually my best educated guess during a light bite or multiple bites without a hook up situation. on that same note i have seen many of times a style of bait out catch another. even something as similar as a triple tip grub to a curly tail when shooting pontoons. i feel that size and style of bait has more of an impact on catching than color. one thing i know for sure is its alot more fun when they inhale, and take off with, whatever you throw remotely close to them.


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## RMK

Some cumberland pictures


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## zaraspook

RMK,........wasn't that long ago you and partner Scott were crappie newbies trying to figure out GLSM. Didn't take long and you guys knew you knew you could locate and catch GLSM slabs and entered the Crappie USA event at GLSM with all the big boys. You finished high, got invites to more Crappie USA events that year, and have been on the competition trail since. We are proud of you and Scott. Keep feeding the passion! Good things happen when you keep your bait in the water.


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## RMK

we ve definitely learned alot. and still are. i think thats a big part of the fun.


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## crappiedude

Hey Zara, the other night I was fishing with my wife and I was throwing some BGBS in Monkey Milk. I bet I had 10 hits and I just couldn't get a hook into anything. I switched to a 1 1/2" orange/chart tube jig and started hooking fish 4 out of 5 casts. I rarely fish tubes in the summer heat but once the water cools they become a go to. I hope this helps


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Hey Zara, the other night I was fishing with my wife and I was throwing some BGBS in Monkey Milk. I bet I had 10 hits and I just couldn't get a hook into anything. I switched to a 1 1/2" orange/chart tube jig and started hooking fish 4 out of 5 casts. I rarely fish tubes in the summer heat but once the water cools they become a go to. I hope this helps


Absolutely agree on one thing......if you're getting hits, not hookups, it's a good problem to have. You know you are on fish. You know they can see your bait and will attack it. That's great stuff! Just need to give them a bait, presented in a way they will eat it. Would be insane to continue doing same thing. Gotta change something and always multiple options to choose from. You are two thirds of the way to victory.


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## RMK

Sunday. Sunrise to noon. Surface temp 67. Low and green. Had hopes of starting out by finding a shallow cork and jig bite in some structure. Tried a couple different types and locations. Not a lot of action but finally got a couple bites and 1 keeper in a steak bed. It came on a smaller bait on the end of Scotts pole. Probably an ity bit. Time to check some pontoons. Nothing, nothing, nothing, and a few more with nothing..... and then bam! Not sure the rhyme or reason but one pontoon ended up being very productive. There was some structure under the front that I could feel on the drop of every cast. Might ve been what made the difference compared to the rest of the empty toons we tried. Either way a school of 10" to 11" fish had moved it and were calling it home. Almost every cast produced a bite and most produced a fish. We enjoyed the action and caught fish for 20 minutes or so and left them biting with 20 keepers. Only 1 short in the mix. Limetrues triple tip grub for me, a couple different small baits for Scott. Scott concluded that "we could have thrown a rock under there and they would have ate it" haha! Continued checking more pontoons and other structure in a deeper channel and only 1 more bite and 1 more crappie. Best fish of the day but only other fish of the day. 1 lucky pontoon made a big difference in the outcome of our trip.
Scotts bonus white from shore middle of last week.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Sunday. Sunrise to noon. Surface temp 67. Low and green. Had hopes of starting out by finding a shallow cork and jig bite in some structure. Tried a couple different types and locations. Not a lot of action but finally got a couple bites and 1 keeper in a steak bed. It came on a smaller bait on the end of Scotts pole. Probably an ity bit. Time to check some pontoons. Nothing, nothing, nothing, and a few more with nothing..... and then bam! Not sure the rhyme or reason but one pontoon ended up being very productive. There was some structure under the front that I could feel on the drop of every cast. Might ve been what made the difference compared to the rest of the empty toons we tried. Either way a school of 10" to 11" fish had moved it and were calling it home. Almost every cast produced a bite and most produced a fish. We enjoyed the action and caught fish for 20 minutes or so and left them biting with 20 keepers. Only 1 short in the mix. Limetrues triple tip grub for me, a couple different small baits for Scott. Scott concluded that "we could have thrown a rock under there and they would have ate it" haha! Continued checking more pontoons and other structure in a deeper channel and only 1 more bite and 1 more crappie. Best fish of the day but only other fish of the day. 1 lucky pontoon made a big difference in the outcome of our trip.
> Scotts bonus white from shore middle of last week.
> View attachment 377943
> View attachment 377945
> View attachment 377947


Nice haul for you two! Toons are normally a staple for me this time of year. Not so this year, a few every now and then but nothing like normal. You've given me sufficient hope to stay the course, keep the toons on my target list.


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## zaraspook

Weds-Thurs at GLSM to do chores and wet a line, of course. Combination of a front moving thru and full moon upped my optimism. Did not witness any change in the bite. Fishing shallow from bank I found a few scattered fish, one here and one there. Caught 4 Weds with 2 keepers followed by 7 on Thurs with 3 keepers. Twister tails and Panfish Assassin produced all fish, mostly from submerged wood. On a positive note, Thurs water temp cracked into 50's for first time this fall. Temp was 58.....it's coming!


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## zaraspook

Last week's optimism over water temps cracking into the mid-50's didn't last long. 62 today/Sunday. Bummer! 

Absolutely did not expect a decent catching day and glad crappie don't read thermometers. Catching 13 is best day of a young October. A lot more dinks than normal but I'll take it. Biggest of 2 keepers was 11". Took about 3 hours. Itty Bits caught all after other baits were shutout. Monkey Milk caught first 2 and remainder ate Key Lime. 

October crappie fishing is supposed to be fun. It's coming.


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## zaraspook

Hosted my bi-annual GLSM crappie fishing event this weekend at my lake place. Past events have been 6-7 of my neighborhood buddies from elementary school days. Because of covid-19 precautions, this one was limited to just 3 of our normal group participants. Nonetheless we fished, drank beer, reminisced, swapped memories and stories long forgotten while abiding by social distancing recommendations. 

We did catch fish in decent numbers, actually better numbers than expected judging from my 5-6 times fishing during prior 2 weeks. Bank fishing only, our group managed to land 88 crappie over the 2 days. Also, caught 3 bass and at least 40-50 gills. Much like our fall event last year, the majority were short ones, not keepers. None cracked the 12" mark....a reflection on the weak current class of crappie, both quantity and quality are weak compared to most of the last 6 years. 

Water temp was down to 52.3 degrees Sat morning, very promising for future fall weeks. Chartreuse variations caught 90% of fish, nearly all inside 10' from bank, from water depths of 2-4'. Submerged wood/brush as well as PVC stake beds were productive. You had to be patient, fish weren't chasing baits, slow vertical presentation, tight to cover, coaxed out bigger fish from the dinks. I caught the most fish but margin was only 4 and most keepers. We managed just 12 keepers 10" or better, none bigger than 11.5". 

Commaraderie was wonderful. We switched up crappie tacos, opting for PERCH tacos instead! Yummy!


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## zaraspook

Weds PM fished GLSM. Loved the fact water level was +3" thanks to Mon-Tues rains. Water temp sitting at 53.4, up a tad from last week but 3" of rain will do that.

Fishing from bank for 2.5 hours produced 14 crappie caught. That's decent but where are the keepers?Fish #10 was the only keeper, a 10 incher. Majority of the rest were assumed to be 1st year little guys in 4-6" range. All caught on chartreuse plastics. Those caught were inside 15' from bank, relating to submerged wood, brush, stake beds. Fished significant time "out" in channel, searching for schooled, bigger fish. No success this time but it will happen, hopefully, yet this fall. Good to know GLSM has an ample supply of little ones to grow into fun size in a year or two.


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## zaraspook

Thurs found a few better fish, 4 keepers from 19 crappie caught. Interesting that the 4 keepers were all within 4 feet of seawalls. Biggest 11.5". Submerged brush, wood, stake beds, and pontoons all contributed a few fish, otherwise there was no real treasure chest with a mother lode. Had to keep moving and working spots. Swimming chartreuse plastics 2-3' down was more effective than a syncopated pull and pause under bobber technique. In general water fished is 3-4' deep. 

No real change in the fall fishing pattern. You can find some fish, but tough to get a bucketful to clean.


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## crappiedude

Fishing has been tough down here for the last few weeks. Hard to find any shallow fish, most fish were down in 20-30 fow. Best luck swimming orange/chart tubes on 3/32 & 1/8 oz jigs. 
A friend and I were wondering if the lake turned over. 
Just this week though I’ve noticed a little better bite on a few shallow spots. 
water temps are still in the 60’s.I think fishing and size will improve with colder water temps.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Fishing has been tough down here for the last few weeks. Hard to find any shallow fish, most fish were down in 20-30 fow. Best luck swimming orange/chart tubes on 3/32 & 1/8 oz jigs.
> A friend and I were wondering if the lake turned over.
> Just this week though I’ve noticed a little better bite on a few shallow spots.
> water temps are still in the 60’s.I think fishing and size will improve with colder water temps.


Agree with you, c-dude.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM at 4pm Weds. Fished until 6pm. Caught 15 crappie, 4 keepers, none over 10.5 inches. Theme remains that short ones are really short.....dinks galore! 50.7 degree water temp. Different sizes of chartreuse baits all worked to some degree. Everything caught swimming baits 4-10' from bank. No bites "out" in channels. 
Lots of rain tomorrow....should be fun!


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## zaraspook

Thurs late morning fishing walk was an active one. Steady rain, cool temps, warm bite. Caught 25 in the 90 minute session. Fish #2 of the morning, was first keeper at 10"+. Certainly never expected to catch the next 23 without getting another keeper! 

Next session began at 1:30pm and no surprise began with another dink. Next 5 were all keepers between 10 and 11". The hour session ended with 11 crappie, 7 keepers. Go figure! 

Up and down day continued for third session during an hour. Caught 7. Guess how many keepers? Zero.
43 caught today. 8 keepers. Crazy fall fishing!


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## Buster24

Zara......your reports are awesome....I live 20 miles from GLSM, but don’t fish it....I still read your reports mainly because you seem like a dedicated fisherman who shares the wealth about fishing the lake!!!!!


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## DavidRK

I'm going to head out to Windy Point after work today. I will try chartreuse baits and maybe the old Mepps Comet. - I live 5 miles from GLSM.


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## zaraspook

Water temp 49.1 degrees Friday morning. . First time it slipped below 50 this fall. A bit of trivia....last year on this date water temp was 51.2 degrees.


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## DavidRK

Any hints on what depth I should try?


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## harrison08

How's the water clarity up there? 1 1/2 hour drive for me and would not like to get up there to see chocolate milk....


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> How's the water clarity up there? 1 1/2 hour drive for me and would not like to get up there to see chocolate milk....


Southside tributaries I'd expect to be muddy but haven't personally viewed them. I'm southside and not a bit muddy. Must be others that also are clean. Will depend on where you're headed. Friend and I caught 44 Fri morning with 15 legal. Water clarity best I've seen since spring.


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## zaraspook

DavidRK said:


> Any hints on what depth I should try?


I bank fish. May sound weird to you but I try to stay in touch with bottom....within 6", and work my way up in water column as needed. Best action we found today was shallow, probably 2' of water and less near wood. Hard to say from 1 day to next. Good luck. Post a report.


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## zaraspook

Fellow OGF angler T04DF15H met up Fri.....first time since late Spring. Competition is always tough between us, back and forth, and this time was no different. We fished 9:30-12:30 AM, hitting 6 spots, and found a few crappie at each. Best action came at a shallow back end of channel that enjoyed full sun all morning. Recent rain pushed lake water level up 5".....that's very significant for shallow areas that have been 18" and less most of the summer. We caught at least 22 crappie there, many hanging near wood. 

We caught 44 for the 3 hours, at least 14 legal fish, with seven 10" or better in T04DF15H bucket for the table. Fish size is definitely off at GLSM. Gotta cull thru many little guys to put a mess on the table. But all the little guys will be bigger soon. 

I barely edged T04DF15H this time, 24-20. We seem to alternate top score, always close. He found Jelly Bean colored shad stingers worked well. Chartreuse Panfish Assassin worked for me. Good day regardless regardless of what we catch.


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## zaraspook

After 3 days at my GLSM lakehouse, Saturday late morning would be my final fishing session before heading home. It was a different day, cloudless sky, gusty wind, but below surface of water not much different for the fish. Found them pretty much in same spots as day before, near wood, same chartreuse baits as prior day, same depths, perhaps a notch less aggressive to chase/eat the plastic. In 90 minutes caught 18 with 3 keepers. 

Cleaned up, packed up, loaded truck to head out. Last task is putting crappie rods away. Made a few more dips along seawalls to catch 2 more crappie, 1 a keeper. That made it 20 for the day, 4 keepers. Weds afternoon thru Sat morning total was 108 crappie with a 20% keeper rate. Quantity is fine, quality number is disappointing. Good thing lots of little guys are lined up for future. Good days ahead in Nov and Dec.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Weds. 3 hours caught 16 with 5 keepers. Fish were scattered, a few here, a few there. Didn't get onto a school. Chartreuse Panfish Assassin caught two thirds, Jelly Bean color stinger caught remainder. Fish all caught inside 10' of bank, tight to cover. 

Thursday was a mixed bag. Caught 1 fewer crappie, 15, but more keepers, 7. Bite seemed much slower today......but my thought was there were just fewer dink crappies and gills nipping at your plastic. 

Jelly Bean caught more today than chartreuse color, and seemed to catch more of keepers. Water temp 46.9 degrees about noon. Had to fish a little deeper today(6-12") to get fish to react, but keep in mind the water I fish is all shallow, runs 2-5' depth. 

Results are disappointing compared to 30-40 fish days last week. But water temps fell quickly to current 46.9 degrees. Usually takes 2-3 days for fish to adjust to serious swings. Tomorrow might be better, or worse?


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## zaraspook

Yesterday/Tues water temp 51. That's up 7 degrees in 6 days. Not the greatest news for fall fishing. Bank fishing I caught 19 in 3 hours between chores during the day. However, just 4 of those keepers at 10" or better. 15 of the 19 were caught in last 45 minutes of evening daylight. 3 of the 4 keepers were tight to wood in water 2-3' or less, jigging vertically. Chartreuse was better color for me this time.


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## zaraspook

Made it to lake in time for an hour and 45 minutes before dark. Caught 10, 3 keepers 10"+. Water temp eased down below into 40's at 49.6 degrees. Crappie were finicky. 9 of 10 were caught on Itty Bits, about 2' down in water under 4'. 

I'm encouraged. Typical that GLSM has first ice during first week of Dec. Still some time for a few weeks of fall bite which hasn't yet been great.


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## zaraspook

Saturday got off to a decent start. 11 in the morning, 5 keepers. Figured getting 20 for the day, more than 1/2 way there, would be a lock. Put in several hours cutting grass, and playing with leaves. 

Finally got back to fishing at 3:30. Just needed 9, huh? Don't think I had 9 bites. Caught 3, none keepers. Total of 14 was well short of 20.

Climbed back on the horse Sunday. Gusty wind 30-60 mph made it a tough ride. Steady rain stopped about 9:30am. Weather was changing, but bite wasn't. 2 keepers from 10 crappie caught. 

Water temp 45-46 Sat-Sun in my channel. Those are good fall fishing temps but will take a while for main lake to get there. Trivia: water temp last year at this time was 36 degrees. Channel iced over for 3 days and I caught 6 crappie, 1 keeper in 3 days. I should be grateful for my 2020 3 day result of 34 crappie, 10 keepers. Ice normally stays away until 1st week Dec. A couple weeks more for open water and chance to put up decent numbers! Monkey Milk best color today and few fish I got were tight to cover within 8' of bank.


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, you catch more fish in just about every kind of weather there is when most people wouldn't enjoy a single bite sir. enjoy your detailed and helpful posts !


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## DavidRK

No kidding Lowell, I try Grand Lake all the time and I never have much luck.


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Zaraspook, you catch more fish in just about every kind of weather there is when most people wouldn't enjoy a single bite sir. enjoy your detailed and helpful posts !


LHT.........glad to hear you still dial us in now and then. Thanks for kudos!


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## zaraspook

DavidRK said:


> No kidding Lowell, I try Grand Lake all the time and I never have much luck.


DavidRK........Fishing knowledge builds one fish at a time. The more you know, the more you will catch. Be patient and keep fishing!


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## zaraspook

Weds a fishing bud and I caught 38. Keeping with this fall's trend, it takes many short ones to put a keeper in the bucket. Just 8 made the grade, the biggest 11.5" is the photo. Water temp 42. We'll give credit to the brisk water temp for improved bite. Most fish caught on Monkey Milk Itty Bit.

Thursday my bud and I hit pretty much the same walking tour as the day before. Water temp slipped on degree to 41. We caught 35 but keepers nudged up to 10. Again, Monkey Milk Itty Bit responsible for most fish. Only real difference was fish were backed off the bank a few feet....8-10' out vs.4-5' day before. Fishing wood was theme.


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## Saugeyefisher

Way to stay on them! As much as we all love to catch bigger fish,those shorts do help keep things entertaining. Esp jig/float fishing... Something bout that bobber going down.
I've prolly said it here before but I always know it was a good day crappie fishing when at the end of the day I close my eyes and see a bobber being taken down.....


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## zaraspook

Friday bite was tougher, really puny in the morning. Took us a while to figure out how to coax at least a few to eat the bait. Small baits like Itty Bits had been the only ones to consistently land fish on Weds and Thurs, but Itty Bits weren't working. As luck would have it, keeping with the small bait theme, I switched to chartreuse Gulp 1" minnows. Bingo! Not that bite went nuts, but catching improved. We ended up catching 32, down just 3 from Thurs. A reminder that we bank fished only and never ventured more than 100 yards from my lakehouse.

Saturday we fished only in the morning. Afternoon was dedicated to Ohio State-Indiana game. We caught 14. 6 keepers among the 14 was the best keeper ratio for the Weds to Saturday junket. Water temp bumped up 3 degrees which wasn't helpful. Overall we finished the 4-day visit catching 119 crappie, 27 keepers. 2 small bass also caught plus about 80 gills. All fish returned to water to entertain us next year! Cover was mostly wood/brush, water 3' to max of 5'. Good time!


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM Sunday at 2pm. Line wet by 2:30 and bank fished about 2 hours. With low pressure approaching and full moon hoped bite would be decent. It was. Caught 15 with 4 keepers 10-11". Chartreuse Gulp minnows were more effective than Itty Bits, but Ittys caught fish, too.
Water temp 43. Clarity good and improving. Fish were around cover but not necessarily in it.


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## zaraspook

Monday morning was windy, snow/sleet/rain all day. Only lasted an hour in 1st session. Frozen fingers forced a retreat back inside for gloves and coffee but caught 5, no keepers. Found a spot with more protection from wind for 2nd session. It was easier to detect the timid bite. Caught 6 with 1 keeper. Noticed Gulp minnows weren't getting action. Itty Bits more effective and planned to setup both rods with Itty Bits but different colors for next round. 

Ate lunch, ran some errands, cleaned up and packed to depart before dark. At 3:15pm went back out to hit 2-3 fishing spots I hadn't tried yet. By now precipitation was all snow and heaviest of the day. First spot produced 3, 1 keeper, on Key Lime Itty Bit. Fish really weren't eating the bait. Timid hits, frequent drops of the bait, and hook ups weren't solid in roof of mouth. More likely than not hooksets were lips only. That works OK on smaller fish, but big ones will tear lips and lose fish. With just 45 minutes left to fish, moved on to next spot. 

Felt like I still didn't have a bait the fish wanted to eat, but one that would catch some. Switched to my 2nd rod, setup with Monkey Milk Itty Bit. Wow! Was not prepared for the drastic change in the bite. Had hookups on the first 7 casts. Caught 5 crappie, a nice gill, and lost a good crappie lifting it from water over seawall. 40 minutes on that spot produced 15 crappie, 4 gills....like walking into an alternate universe! Fish would grap the bait and go, rarely drop it, and hookups almost all roof of mouth or deeper. Only managed 2 new keepers from those 15, but that keeper rate is typical of GLSM's fall crappie demographics. The bite was still good when I quit, hated to leave, but future fishing opportunities might suffer if I failed to meet promises made on the home front. 

15 on Sunday and 29 Monday were great results. Never know if it was just the change in bait color or did I get on more fish that were actively eating? Fun either way.


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## zaraspook

Fellow OGF angler T04DF15H is lighting up GLSM this week. He put a 30 fish limit of crappie in his bucket today. Rumor has it pink was the hot color, not at all uncommon when water is cold at the lake. Well done, T04DF15H! 😁


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## zaraspook

Mid-afternoon GLSM crappie fishing on Thursday. Water temp 38.2 degrees and some skim ice still showing in my channel at 2:30 pm. Caught fish at most spots I tried. All fish shared a common trait.....each was short at one end or the other. As darkness approached, finally my 22nd and last fish was legal. Not a keeper but at least a legal 9". Returned him to swim and grow for when we next meet.
Hey, it's Dec and I am still catching crappie!


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## crappie4me

zaraspook said:


> Hey, it's Dec and I am still catching crappie!


me 2...isn't it wonderful?


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## zaraspook

crappie4me said:


> me 2...isn't it wonderful?


Right on, c4me! 27 more on Friday mostly in morning as bite faded fast by 1pm. Channel water temp 37.8, not much different than day before. Water level now 44" deep off my seawall, really good for this time of year, but DNR started pulling water 12/3. Assume it's the winter drawdown and unlikely to stop for 10-16 days. Less water in channel does not help hold fish, but DNR's objective isn't same as mine. Duh?
Photo is best of Friday fish. It's an 11", not really photo worthy, but the best I had. Actually caught that one well out in channel, not on known cover, on chartreuse Gulp minnow.


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## zaraspook

Water temp 37.7 degrees at GLSM when I arrived at 2pm Thurs/today. Channel estimated to be a third ice covered, but that ice disappeared by 4pm. DNR is 7 days into a winter drawdown, down 7 inches at my seawall where it's fallen to 37". I vote for closing the gates now, but likely it continues for another week or more.

First spot was ice covered, zero fishable water. 2nd spot held true to recent form, gave up 5 crappie but all dinks. Moved on to 3rd spot on a friend's tip. It was a good tip! Ran into my best crappie fishing of the fall. I caught 26 here, kind of typical. Not at all typical this fall, was we were on a school of good size fish. I caught 9 keepers, way better than this year's norm. We put at least 25 keepers in a friend's bucket. I had several that were over 11", and there were several over 12" in the bucket.
We were sitting on a school that stretched nearly 150' of bank. Doubt we caught more than 3 fish inside 10' from the bank. They were out in the middle of channel in max of 3.5' feet of water. We fished under bobber, usually 20-30". My fish were were caught on Monkey Milk plastics or yellow chartreuse. Friend used green chartreuse exclusively. When you get on a school like this, lots of different colors will work. Fish were pretty aggressive which makes good fun. Good day to be out.


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## harrison08

zaraspook said:


> Water temp 37.7 degrees at GLSM when I arrived at 2pm Thurs/today. Channel estimated to be a third ice covered, but that ice disappeared by 4pm. DNR is 7 days into a winter drawdown, down 7 inches at my seawall where it's fallen to 37". I vote for closing the gates now, but likely it continues for another week or more.
> 
> First spot was ice covered, zero fishable water. 2nd spot held true to recent form, gave up 5 crappie but all dinks. Moved on to 3rd spot on a friend's top. It was a good tip! Ran into my best crappie fishing of the fall. I caught 26 here, kind of typical. Not at all typical this fall, was we were on a school of good size fish. I caught 9 keepers, way better than this year's norm. We put at least 25 keepers in a friend's bucket. I had several that were over 11", and there were several over 12" in the bucket.
> We were sitting on a school that stretched nearly 150' of bank. Doubt we caught more than 3 fish inside 10' from the bank. They were out in the middle of channel in max of 3.5' feet of water. We fished under bobber, usually 20-30". My fish were were caught onMonkey Milk plastics or yellow chartreuse. Friend use green chartreuse exclusively. When you get on a school like this, lots of different colors will work. Fish were pretty aggressive which makes good fun. Good day to be out.


Nice Job Zara. Heading up in the morning to try my hand. Love hearing the reports.


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## zaraspook

harrison08 said:


> Nice Job Zara. Heading up in the morning to try my hand. Love hearing the reports.


Hope you get into some......good luck!


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## harrison08

Quick report- Friday produced 29 keepers for my buddy and I. We must have caught 70 or 80 fish today in multiple spots. However, only two spots gave up her keepers. The first was a spot no larger than 8'x8'. She gave up a dozen or so keepers with several drop-offs of some keepers. The second place we hit twice and accounted for the remainder of the keepers. All in all, it was a great day to be out and have a respectable amount of keepers to bring home.


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## zaraspook

Good job, harrison08! A worthwhile trip. What was the preferred bait for you?


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## harrison08

zaraspook said:


> Good job, harrison08! A worthwhile trip. What was the preferred bait for you?


Funny you should ask... it depended on which spot. Chartreuse stubby butts caught most keepers at the first hole. At the second place (where we went twice), bubble gum with a yellow tail , sometimes called pink lemonade, stingers. They would not touch chartreuse at all.


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## zaraspook

Fri fellow OGF mate T04DF15H and I got together for a few hours of good fishing fun. T04DF15H fished elsewhere early Fri and I didn't wet a line until about 10am. By 11am we were side by side hammering a good school of GLSM crappie. We always compete but on this day he didn't really count how many he caught. I caught 32, and would bet T04DF15H easily caught 50-55 by 1:30 pm when we quit. Between us we had at least 30 keepers with 22 of the biggest in the bucket.

I fished again later Fri just before dark, the same spot which was most productive early. Caught 6 beefy keepers among the 10 I pulled in. Most of day I used Monkey Milk Baby Shad. It worked fine but couldn't match the jelly bean like color T04DF15H used all day. When I went out just before dark and had good success, I had jelly bean tied on. Fish ate it like crazy. Fish are out in channel, well off bank and cover. Water temp creeping up. Fri was great weather day and widespread good day for catching crappie.


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## zaraspook

Waited until rain slacked off Saturday morning, about 11am, to fish 90 minutes. Fish weren't at the same location as Friday's bonanza, but not far. I found a decent bunch 100' to the east. Steady action led to 7 caught, all keepers 10.5 to 12.5", a great ratio of chunky fish. Bite slacked off and I tried to find them again without success. I did catch 2 at another spot, but way short fish. The only positive from that pair.....one was a white crappie. Once the dominant crappie species in GLSM so I'm told, the taller and thicker black crappie make up 97% or more of my catch. I've caught 4 whites in 2020 if memory serves me.

Water temp just over 41 degrees Sat. Of my 9 fish, all but one bit jelly bean shad stinger. Biggest fish today at 12.5" fell to a chartreuse split tail. Interesting that 3 straight days my biggest crappie came on that same chartreuse split tail. Just saying.....


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## zaraspook

Grand Lake perch update.......DNR has no further plans to stock perch in GLSM. We should be catching them by bucketfuls with number of fingerlings/fry deposited over the last 8+ years. If they are thriving something is eating them before they find way to our hooks. Personally I think I caught 2 this year. Usually get one in Nov-Dec, but so far not this fall/winter. Too bad!


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## zaraspook

GLSM fishing Friday, found my channel locked with ice everywhere except two 20' x 20' areas with open water. Dunked my plastic for 1/2 hour in each to thoroughly cover. Caught the photo fish in one to keep the skunk away. Other open water had a few bites but nothing big enough to pull my bobber under. If you are curious about jelly bean color, the bait is still in mouth of photo fish. 

Disappointed Saturday morning to find the 2 open water spots from Fri were totally refrozen. By noon both had opened somewhat and light wind was working some magic to further erode hard water. At 1/2 time of the Buckeye football game I dashed out to check the status. Good news was both areas should be sufficiently ice free to fish after the game. At game end I fished one spot for 30 minutes, caught none with very few bites, all timid. Mon to 2nd open water spot. Finally had a bite that produced a crappie, albeit a short one. Got into a little better bite, catching 7 more crappie, one of which was legal, when darkness put an end to the day. DNR continues to pull water for 17th day. Channel depth really low and may be more of a detriment to fishing than the ice cover.


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## zaraspook

Amazed Sunday that channel ice went from 85% ice cover Sat morning to 85-90% ice free. It meant I could fish spots I wanted to try rather than restricting fishing to what little was open. Had a good start at first area, 4 crappie in first 30-40 minutes. Two of the four good keepers. Could not get on a school, however that wanted what I was throwing them. Hit 3 or 4 other spots, not a nibble to be found. DNR continues drawdown, something like 19 days worth. My seawall depth reduced to 30" from 44" over last couple weeks. I believe that 3.5-4' of water remaining out in the channel is not as attractive as it was before the drawdown. Less water and colder water won't hold them. Fish will run to deeper depths than my channel can offer. Not likely I'll be fishing soon, at least this rear. 
Jelly Bean caught all 4. Water temp off my seawall 36.1 degrees. Won't take much to freeze again and surely will be thicker hard stuff. Ice guys may get a shot at fishable ice soon.


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## RMK

no report on catching but we did give it a try last friday morning. 5 of 6 channels we peaked into were completely ice covered and the 6th was 75% covered. found enough water to attempt to fish but no takers. even tried some submerged wood on the mainlake which i havent tried before. didnt look like anything was home there either. 33 degree surface temp on the mainlake with patchy slush and skim ice present out there that morning as well. it should be warmed up a little now. going to give it one more try tomorrow morning before the big freeze. i wouldnt complain about getting to do some ice fishing. but the in-between stuff we ve complained about before sucks for everybody. man i wish they would stop pulling water. kicked up mud pulling into a north side channel last friday that i ve never even thought about hitting bottom in before.


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## RMK

not much action fishing the first couple hours of daylight for us. 1 legal white, 1 4"black, and 2 bluegill. much more open water today than 5 days ago but still some patches of ice. surprising to me, I had more bites at sunrise than later in the morning. wish I could have got out this evening. and i am pretty sure they stopped pulling water, possibly stopped before i posted my previous complaint. we ll wait and see how solid this upcoming freeze makes things. we fished some "deep" structure today that i would really like to try through the ice.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> not much action fishing the first couple hours of daylight for us. 1 legal white, 1 4"black, and 2 bluegill. much more open water today than 5 days ago but still some patches of ice. surprising to me, I had more bites at sunrise than later in the morning. wish I could have got out this evening. and i am pretty sure they stopped pulling water, possibly stopped before i posted my previous complaint. we ll wait and see how solid this upcoming freeze makes things. we fished some "deep" structure today that i would really like to try through the ice.


Yeah, DNR put the drain plug back in late on 21st. Not soon enough to hold fish in my channel. Regardless of ice, need to add back about 8" of depth before I see any quality fish over my way. March maybe? At least the water clarity is surprisingly good.


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## Lowell H Turner

Merry Christmas Zaraspook and to those whom post here. Happy Holidays and a good New Year


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Merry Christmas Zaraspook and to those whom post here. Happy Holidays and a good New Year


A blessed Christmas and 2021 to you and yours, Lowell.


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## zaraspook

I did make it to GLSM 3 days ago(Sunday). Fishing wasn't planned and channel 95% locked up. After completing a couple chores, mid-afternoon checked the ice landscape again and packed a rod with me. Found 2 small areas of open water directly off seawall where I could wet my plastic. About the 3rd dip of the bait, was unprepared when fish grabbed and ran with plastic. By the time I recovered, too late. Another bump a few minutes later my reaction way too premature.....too soon and a whiff. 30-40 minutes total, caught nothing. Ice everywhere a half inch to inch thick of well degraded ice. With or without ice cover, my view is my channel unlikely to hold fish for now. Drawdown took a toll, too shallow until my area recovers at least 8-10" of depth. Ice guys, your time should arrive within 2 weeks, maybe 3. Enjoy!


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## zaraspook

Up to 1/9 an open water few were still catching sporadic crappie from bank. Best numbers I heard were midweek and declined rapidly as southside open water spots succumbed to ice cover. Orange I hear was a decent color and 3' under bobber.

No reason to expect any open water remains. Catching now up to hardwater boys and when/where they dare to venture. Be safe guys!


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## RMK

had a little time to kill this evening. after getting some wax worms and more ice jigs that i dont need at the outdoorsman i made a trip around the ne side to spectate. several patches of open water on main lake. several people on docks playing ice fishing. i didn't check any ice myself other than driving by. after a little warm spell coming up, hopefully not much snow, and then possibly some more potential for ice growing weather. i d sure like to try it on the big lake this winter.


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## fishwhacker

Been popping at a few holes with my boys at the end of some docks with limited bluegill success.....waiting on the hard stuff. The in between is frustrating because my vise gets used more than my rods.


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## Rooster

The ice is coming!

How is the crappie bite (typically) on the ice at GLSM? I’ve only fished there once, and got shut-out. Long drive from Cincinnati, but have no problem making the trip when there is ice.


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## zaraspook

Rooster said:


> The ice is coming!
> 
> How is the crappie bite (typically) on the ice at GLSM? I’ve only fished there once, and got shut-out. Long drive from Cincinnati, but have no problem making the trip when there is ice.


Rooster.......keep in mind I am not a hardwater guy. However, GLSM has a solid core of hardwater guys in the area. I believe they don't consider GLSM a serious ice fishing lake. Not that they won't occasionally try. Here's a recent quote from one of the best crappie guys I know who is a hardwater fanatic. 
"You know how hard it can be to locate crappie in open water at GLSM , try doing it through a 6" hole in the ice. Far better places to ice fish. Occasionally can catch a few, never a pile."
I have a reputation as a huge GLSM cheerleader. Not easy for me to knock the lake, but like to tell it like it is.


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## Rooster

Thanks!

I’ve been told that GLSM was tough from the ice, but I hoped that it was a lie.

Hopefully, the ice will be moving south in the next few weeks.


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## zaraspook

I've been saying that even if there were no ice on my channel, water depth is too low to hold fish. That lengthy Dec draw down went about 3 weeks and water depths now under 3.5'. Surprised the heck out of me when State restarted pulling water again 3 days ago. Not fond of the move but West Bank spillway may get exciting again. It's getting restocked via water pulled from lake. If we have any eyes left in lake, those plus crappie/perch will show up soon in spillway fishing creels!


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## DavidRK

I drove around Montezuma and Windy Point a little yesterday, saw very little open water. Didn't check if the ice had any thickness to it as I am not a hardwater guy.


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## fishwhacker

Had some success today fishing off the docks as the ice is still too thin to get on. Gills are beefy crappies were small.


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## zaraspook

Nice, whacker. Keep it up. It's the only way to fish at the moment. Ice too thin to fish on. No open water to cast. Go out on docks, bust or drill hole, drop a line. 

Others reporting gill bite is good. Crappie bite ok but dink city. I hear more reports southside.


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## RMK

fishwhacker said:


> Had some success today fishing off the docks as the ice is still too thin to get on. Gills are beefy crappies were small.
> View attachment 462210


Quality! good job!


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## zaraspook

Draw down continues to Day #5 at 417 cubic feet per second. I wonder how many fish per second are pulled from lake into the Beaver?


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## zaraspook

GLSM Draw down continues into Day #6 at 414 cubic feet per second. Boo!


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## DavidRK

I was kind of surprised of how low the water looked compared to the boat docks at Windy Point last Saturday. Not a lot of snow so far this winter, I hope this doesn't come back to bite us. I understand the need to draw down, kind of a crap shoot every year I guess.


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## zaraspook

DavidRK said:


> I was kind of surprised of how low the water looked compared to the boat docks at Windy Point last Saturday. Not a lot of snow so far this winter, I hope this doesn't come back to bite us. I understand the need to draw down, kind of a crap shoot every year I guess.


DavidRK.....you should have chimed in sooner. Drain plug put back into the tub this morning. Draw down ceased. Good work!


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## zaraspook

Have heard a few ice fishing reports this week. Guys are actually fishing on ice rather than sitting on docks fishing thru weak ice. Some reports from Northside anglers and some Southside locations. Fish are being caught. Mix is 50/50 crappie and gills. Very few keeper crappie - more likely to catch decent size gills. Ice thickness runs about 4" as of Tues 26th......be careful where you roam.


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## brad crappie

Hey Zara how has the new post structures been working out thx


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## matteo

Thanks for the ice report.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Have heard a few ice fishing reports this week. Guys are actually fishing on ice rather than sitting on docks fishing thru weak ice. Some reports from Northside anglers and some Southside locations. Fish are being caught. Mix is 50/50 crappie and gills. Very few keeper crappie - more likely to catch decent size gills. Ice thickness runs about 4" as of Tues 26th......be careful where you roam.


I ve been hesitant to post any reports because the ice I have seen varies so much I didn't want people to just go for it and think the entire lake is good. Last Saturday ice I checked varied from 1/4" to 4" in different south side channels. Didnt grow any ice for Mondays adventure, but didn't lose any either. Was hoping to make it to some deeper secluded water on Mondays trip but stopped short due to the inconsistency of the ice thickness. Spudding our way out the ice was slowly getting thinner to down to around 2". Gave up and went back to Saturdays dink spot. Haven't found anything in the size department, 0 legal crappie, but decent numbers in one area. Fishing structure in deeper water is what i have been focusing on. 1/32 black/silver spoon with waxworms and or crappie nibbles has been my go to. Hopeful the next couple cold nights stiffen things up just a little bit more to make exploring a little more comfortable.


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## zaraspook

RMK,
Great photos and report. I should be more explicit when I talk about ice thickness in my posts. Usually, guys I talk to are speaking of thickness where they fished. Variations are all over the map and usually thinner, not thicker. Use that spud bar. If you don't have one, don't trust your luck. Be safe.


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## RMK

Had high hopes for this morning. No go on the 3 Southside channels I was hoping to explore. Ice ranged from 2" to open water. 4th channel I checked had the best ice I ve seen so far at close to 5" of good hard ice. Pleasantly surprised with the depth I was able to find of 5' to 7' deep. Fished end posts of docks. No bites. No marks. Set up in the middle of the channel, no structure, 3 different areas. Saw fish roaming. 1 bite and 1 bluegill to keep the skunk off. Probably should have given it a little more time. Saw a few others out today.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Had high hopes for this morning. No go on the 3 Southside channels I was hoping to explore. Ice ranged from 2" to open water. 4th channel I checked had the best ice I ve seen so far at close to 5" of good hard ice. Pleasantly surprised with the depth I was able to find of 5' to 7' deep. Fished end posts of docks. No bites. No marks. Set up in the middle of the channel, no structure, 3 different areas. Saw fish roaming. 1 bite and 1 bluegill to keep the skunk off. Probably should have given it a little more time. Saw a few others out today.
> View attachment 463091


Report from Saturday, a friend fished 4-5 northside locations. Most spots produced nothing or a single gill. One location gave up 30-40 gills and 15 dink crappie. Worthwhile fishing action but short on meat for frying pan. Said he also witnessed a northside perch thru the ice. Perch was also a small one. He didn't provide info on ice thickness/quality, but generally known as very cautious.
Overall sounds like fishable ice can be found, guys are fishing, catching isn't widespread, and don't expect to bring home a bucketful of keeper crappie.


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## zaraspook

Since I'm not an ice guy and GLSM is virtually locked up, not much left but to reflect on last year. December is usually a decent crappie month. Fish will bite as long as you have open water. December 2020 I caught 144 compared to 85 in Dec 2019. Not really much difference when you consider I fished 8 days this Dec compared to 5 days 2019. Average 17 per day in 2019, 18/day in 2020.

January is a different animal for open water. January 2021, last month, caught zero. No open water during my trips there. January 2019, same fate for me...0 crappie, 0 open water days. But January 2020 was a bonanza with 294 crappie during 9 days of fishing. The deeper you get into winter the hungrier they get, if you can get to them. 
We'll talk about Feb/March next post.


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## zaraspook

Hardwater guys are still drilling and chilling. They are happy. Me? As an open water guy, not happy. But my time will come sooner or later. Until then, I'm digesting 2020 crappie numbers and comparing to 2019. 

The big question this time last year was after record crappie numbers in Jan 2020, would February 2020 follow suit? Short answer.....nope! Ice cover ruled the roost. Not enough ice for ice fishing, but enough to bugger up open water bank fishing. Three days I could fish some open water pockets, but pockets were few. Caught just 7 crappie for the entire month. A single keeper crappie. Best news for the month........I did catch a 10.5" perch. It was a lone wolf but the best news for Feb. Going back a year earlier, Feb of 2019, fished just 1 day catching 3 crappie, 2 keepers. Conclusion? Tough to find February open water in channels at GLSM. How about March? 

There's good reason to get excited in March. The start of the month water temps are near 40 degrees, and pushing 50 by March end. If water temps run a couple degrees warmer, action can get crazy good. A few degrees behind and action is poor. March 2020 started with 40 degree water, rose steadily, and hit 50 degrees before mid-month. Temps receded a bit but but bounced back into 50's, as high as 52 by month end. I fished 18 days in March 2020 catching 403 crappie with 111 keepers. 400 crappie in a month is very good for me, especially in March. Often in March you're still fighting for open water. The year before, March 2019, 3 weeks into the month water temps were only edging into 41-42 degrees. 13 days fishing totaled a puny 94 crappie with 27 keepers. 60% of my fish came in the last 10 days of the month, water temps were as low as 43 the last week until cracking 48 the last 2 days of month.

March 2020 wasn't all good news. Catching 400+ gives you a clearer picture of quantity and quality. Easy to notice the caliber of fish was off. Short ones were really dinks. Average size of keepers became 10.25" and frequency of 11-13" fell considerably. Still big ones out there, but numbers down compared to 3-5 years earlier. From the number of dinks we caught throughout 2020, expectations are promising 2 years out.

Sorry for lack of photos about my recent catches. Haven't caught first 2021 crappie yet!🙁


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## zaraspook

Hearing a few ice fishing reports. Few crappie being caught. Keepers are rare. Gills more plentiful, typically small. Appears that 4th of July fish kill last summer, which did produce significant numbers of keeper crappie floaters, hurts us more than we thought. By no means do I have hard data to support, just speculating based on 6-months of creel reports. Hope little guys grows fast!


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## zaraspook

At GLSM Saturday to handle a few chores. Didn't expect to fish but scouting the ice was on the agenda. Had heard a few rumors of "open water"....music to my ears and had to check it out.

My channel was not on the rumor list. It's a good week away with 2-3" ice on the edges, thicker as you move away from seawalls. Soft and porous for an inch or more on top, clear and hard ice beneath.

Found one 6' diameter ice free "hole", the result of discharge from my neighbor's basement sump pump. Couldn't resist, fished it for 20 minutes without response from creatures below. Water temp at that spot was 36 degrees, 3 degrees warmer than the few other places found where my probe could be submerged. Crappie must not be reading thermometers.

There are other small ice free areas if you look hard enough. Main lake usually opens first. From the East Bank, no signs of main lake open water, yet. Fishing is just around the corner. I'm ready.


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## Buster24

Zara.....I totally enjoy your updates....do you ever fish lake Loramie since it is close to GLSM????


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## Muddy

zaraspook said:


> At GLSM Saturday to handle a few chores. Didn't expect to fish but scouting the ice was on the agenda. Had heard a few rumors of "open water"....music to my ears and had to check it out.
> 
> My channel was not on the rumor list. It's a good week away with 2-3" ice on the edges, thicker as you move away from seawalls. Soft and porous for an inch or more on top, clear and hard ice beneath.
> 
> Found one 6' diameter ice free "hole", the result of discharge from my neighbor's basement sump pump. Couldn't resist, fished it for 20 minutes without response from creatures below. Water temp at that spot was 36 degrees, 3 degrees warmer than the few other places found where my probe could be submerged. Crappie must not be reading thermometers.
> 
> There are other small ice free areas if you look hard enough. Main lake usually opens first. From the East Bank, no signs of main lake open water, yet. Fishing is just around the corner. I'm ready.


I would think that discharge has to attract fish at some point during cold water.


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## zaraspook

Buster24 said:


> Zara.....I totally enjoy your updates....do you ever fish lake Loramie since it is close to GLSM????


Buster24.......Should fish it more but to answer your question, yes I do. I think Loramie is a hidden gem of a fishery. DNR deserves the credit for getting the current fish demographics in a really good place. I'm still a novice there, very inconsistent, but learning. Guessing I've fished there 15-20 times 2018-2020.

Loramie's crappie numbers are off the charts, among best statewide. Perch are coming on, and saugeye keepers better each year. Used my boat there for 1st time last year and intend to increase boat use this year. I'm a fan but short on knowledge.


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## zaraspook

Muddy said:


> I would think that discharge has to attract fish at some point during cold water.


Makes perfect sense, but this wasn't the time. If at first you don't succeed, blah, blah, blah. Right?


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## Muddy

Yep!


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## Buster24

zaraspook said:


> Buster24.......Should fish it more but to answer your question, yes I do. I think Loramie is a hidden gem of a fishery. DNR deserves the credit for getting the current fish demographics in a really good place. I'm still a novice there, very inconsistent, but learning. Guessing I've fished there 15-20 times 2018-2020.
> 
> Loramie's crappie numbers are off the charts, among best statewide. Perch are coming on, and saugeye keepers better each year. Used my boat there for 1st time last year and intend to increase boat use this year. I'm a fan but short on knowledge.


The reason I ask is that Lake Loramie has numerous places that you can get to from the shoreline......I fish IL a lot for gills and crappies, but since Covid hit there are huge numbers coming out of the woodwork to try fishing....never seen anything like it.....trouble is that most are rude and have no clue about etiquette.....I have caught crappies and just seemed to find them and before you know it, there are numerous lines around mine.....I usually don’t say a word and just pack up and leave.....never was this way before.....also been fishing Alum and O’shaunessy and both seem to have good crappie numbers!!!!!!


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## zaraspook

Buster24 said:


> The reason I ask is that Lake Loramie has numerous places that you can get to from the shoreline......I fish IL a lot for gills and crappies, but since Covid hit there are huge numbers coming out of the woodwork to try fishing....never seen anything like it.....trouble is that most are rude and have no clue about etiquette.....I have caught crappies and just seemed to find them and before you know it, there are numerous lines around mine.....I usually don’t say a word and just pack up and leave.....never was this way before.....also been fishing Alum and O’shaunessy and both seem to have good crappie numbers!!!!!!


Buster 24.....what can I say? You're on target. Unfortunately, success brings a crowd. It happens on land and on water. Consider it a form of flattery but try not to show them your best spots. Public fishing is, after all, public. When this pandemic fades, the crowds should, too. Sooner the better!


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## Buster24

Zara....I understand it is all public fishing and all are entitled to fish the lakes, but finding fish can be a tough adventure and I really don’t mind other fishermen fishing in the area I am fishing, but just be somewhat courteous.....hell, I have even had boats approach and wet their lines within 10 feet of mine....if it wasn’t so funny I might get pissed.....oh well, like you said....public fishing!!!!!


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## crappiedude

Buster24 said:


> since Covid hit there are huge numbers coming out of the woodwork to try fishing....never seen anything like it.....trouble is that most are rude and have no clue about etiquette....


It was bad last year, I hope this year is better.
Last year I was fishing one day and met a friend on the lake, We just stayed in that spot chatting about nothing and a another friend saw us and stopped and joined us. Now we have 3 boats forming a pack. One guy in his shinny new boat saw us and spent quite a while working in and out of our boats trying to figure out our secret fishing spot.
We didn't have the heart to tell him nothing was there and we were just talking. After over an hour of checking out "our spot" he took off to find someone else to stalk


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## CHOPIQ

Four of us was icefishing Indian lake last Friday. We were probably a half mile out. There wasn’t another fisherman within half a mile from us. We were set up in about a 10 yard area in a semi circle when we heard the sound of someone pulling a sled. Sure enough a guy pulled his sled right up to us and sit down right in the middle of us. He was within 10 feet of each of us. He then said to me “I saw on your truck you have a morel mushroom sticker I’m going to have to follow you this spring.” I said “why you going to horn in on my mushroom spots also.” He then said I don’t see your name on this spot. “ I figured let it go it’s not worth getting shot over icefishing. We were catching nice fish but we made sure we didn’t let him see what we were using as bait. After about an hour he gathered his stuff and left. Usually I’m a pretty social guy while ice fishing but with the whole lake to fish the guy could have and should have fished else where.


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## zaraspook

CHOPIQ said:


> Four of us was icefishing Indian lake last Friday. We were probably a half mile out. There wasn’t another fisherman within half a mile from us. We were set up in about a 10 yard area in a semi circle when we heard the sound of someone pulling a sled. Sure enough a guy pulled his sled right up to us and sit down right in the middle of us. He was within 10 feet of each of us. He then said to me “I saw on your truck you have a morel mushroom sticker I’m going to have to follow you this spring.” I said “why you going to horn in on my mushroom spots also.” He then said I don’t see your name on this spot. “ I figured let it go it’s not worth getting shot over icefishing. We were catching nice fish but we made sure we didn’t let him see what we were using as bait. After about an hour he gathered his stuff and left. Usually I’m a pretty social guy while ice fishing but with the whole lake to fish the guy could have and should have fished else where.


Chopiq.....tough to top that one!


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM for 2 hours bank fishing Weds. Though my channel retains ice over 95% of area, there is open water if if you hunt for it. Started at a nearby boat ramp I'd passed on the way into my place. Lots of open water, muddy conditions though. Beggars can't be choosers. Play the hand your dealt. Finally I'm fishing this year. 90 minutes with a sparse bite but did I mention I'm actually fishing?

Used multiple baits, colors, and depths but I'm fishing. Bobber finally acted funny, took off in a weird direction, hook set and a sweet looking crappie soon on land. Spunky guy, no giant but at 10" my FIRST crappie of the year is in the bag! Skunk is off, too. And better than that, I'm fishing.

Returned to my lake place and surprised to see a decent size spot of open water. Made a short walk and worked the heck out of that open area. Interesting that I had more bites in 30 minutes at this spot, maybe a dozen, than 90 minutes at previous. Probably little gills, caught none. Ended the day with just the one crappie, one keeper, and best of all, I went fishing today.


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## RMK

glad you are back at it zara!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> glad you are back at it zara!


Thanks. I'm happy about it.😁😁😁


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## zaraspook

Still at lake Thurs. Not happy with refreeze Weds night of all the melting progress from Weds sun. Low in 20's will do that. And will continue to do refreeze the next 3-4 nights. So, Thurs AM locked up again in my channel. Will have to travel for open water. Plenty of open water at the the nearby ramp where I caught one crappie yesterday. No ice there, but after an hour no fish either. Drove to 2 more spots but don't stop too fish. Just too many anglers competing for space. Fish are biting at both, but I'm not a fan of fishing in close quarters. Went back to house for lunch and chores.

At 4pm impressed to find the overnight refreeze is reversed. Good melting opens up a couple spots, maybe 15% of channel partially fishable. I can do that. No ice along a 90' length of seawall for 15' out. Fished 90 minutes, caught 6 crappie, 2 keepers. Bite was decent casting past the open water and onto the ice. Drag jig on ice to the edge of open water and let it fall into water below. All bites weren't from that technique, but many were. 6 crappie is a 600% increase over yesterday. I'm happy. I'll take it. Enjoy while I can since 23 degree forecast tonight will freeze it up again. Have to wait until late afternoon to hit this spot tomorrow.


Fished under bobber about 2 feet, in 3-4' of water. Bluegrass color caught 1st of the day but final 5 tried to eat Monkey Milk. I should add that boat ramp fished early was muddy. Spot I caught all the craps was lightly stained, clarity darn good for GLSM. Nice day, but cool.


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## zaraspook

Friday morning my channel locked with ice again, but significant melting opens up a spot by noon to try. Caught 10 crappie at that spot. Really timid bite but you could finesse them, mostly small. Sun and wind open up several more options by 3pm. 

This channel now as ice free as its been in 2 months. Bite was still skimpy until a final spot cleared for the first time. Fellow OGF angler T04DF15H dropped by so we fished that spot. Action was pretty good. We caught about 15 crappie there in no more than an hour, plus a small bass. Fish were all short ones, no keepers. 

Packed up to head home. In the Weds-Fri visit had to fight ice each day. Caught just 1 crappie Weds, but 1st of year! 6 on Thurs, 21 on Friday. I like the trend line! Good to meet up with T04DF15H. Hadn't fished with him for 3 months. Ice conditions will be gone soon - 2 more nights of refreezing before warm blast ends daily ice war. Good fishing times near.


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## RMK

Saturday-quick trip mid day. Got the boat out back together and had the itch to get out and make sure everything was working. More ice out there than I expected. Launched out of little Chickasaw. Luckily a duck boat had been making trips in and out with their boat because they had a path broke open for me to get out of the channel. Found more ice in channels to the east. Went north and saw a couple open channels. Shore fisherman. Disnt want to bother them. Back across and farther west found and mostly open channel. Broke ice at the mouth but clear after that. Muddy but fished it a bit. 2 shorts for my efforts. 38 degree water for the most part. 43 up the muddy channel. Nice to be riding on the water again. I passed an ice berg that was eating a duck blind.


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## zaraspook

Unique post/photos, RMK!
Love it!


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## fished-out

Love the "icebergs"!!


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## DavidRK

Stopped at Duckfoot, today, channel was still iced up. Shockers was clear. Windy Point was mostly ice free in the channels, lake side still had quite a bit of ice. Not a lot of people fishing but a lot of traffic scoping out the situation,


----------



## zaraspook

DavidRK said:


> Stopped at Duckfoot, today, channel was still iced up. Shockers was clear. Windy Point was mostly ice free in the channels, lake side still had quite a bit of ice. Not a lot of people fishing but a lot of traffic scoping out the situation,


DavidRK.......this week should be the end of ice for winter. After tonight no more forecasts of sub-freezing temps for lows. This week lake should be ice free. 
I heard a lot of good crappie reports last week. Look for channels with backends not far off the main lake. Fish those backends at 20-30" depths, out in middle of channel to find schools. Unlike those dink crappie I'm catching 400 yards back in my channel, the shorter channels see piggy crappie earlier. Reports show high % of 10-12" keepers in those shorter channels. A lot of different color patterns having success. When you cast into a school of feeding crappie, they aren't as particular as we give them credit. Experiment with types and colors of your plastics. Don't get stuck on a single variation. Crappie schools are following baitfish/shad and gorging. You can find some great fishing if you get on a school. Enjoy!


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## Saugeyefisher

You guys are giving me the itch to get out searching out my way. Ive dipped a couple main lake docks next to where I cast for eyes. But no takers yet. My buddy did hit a 16" eye dipping one of those docks. 
The eye fishing has been just ok,looking forward to hitting some crappies, hopefully.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Experiment with types and colors of your plastics. Don't get stuck on a single variation. Crappie schools are following baitfish/shad and gorging.


Very good advice Zara.


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## harrison08

Went up to the lake on Sunday 3/7. Expectations were mixed as we knew the cold nights would leave less open water. Therefore, there would be more fisherman in each confined space. That expectation was confirmed, although with less than enthusiastic reactions. Each place that we ventured to was littered to loaded with men, women, and kids trying their luck/skill. We picked up a few here and there in some less less dense crowds. We returned to a place that was mostly iced covered in the morning to find more open water, but anglers walking away with nearly empty buckets. I approached the channel and tossed my jig on the outside of some ice and the float never set........whomp! Miss! I cast out to the same spot, jigged a time or two and hooked and landed a healthy 10 1/2" fish. For the next 3 hours or so, the fish came in spurts. I was fishing shallow- 16"-24" at the most. I stayed within about 6 feet of shore to land most of my early fish. Gradually, I started fishing out further and further in the channel, although I did not adjust my depth. We would get a good run of 6-10 fish (1/2 keepers) at a time, then a slight lull. Purple and chartreuse (popsicle, I believe) was the color of choice. We took home 30 keepers, with several fish dropping off at the bank as we tried to lift them. We probably had as many throwbacks as well. A bullhead and a nice 2lb largemouth rounded out the day's catch.


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## Saugeyefisher

Harrison,sounds like a good time.
I am absolutely awful at fishing the entire channel and hitting the middle part. And know I'm missing out because of it . And I am going to make it a point to start trying it more.


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## RMK

Saugeyefisher said:


> Harrison,sounds like a good time.
> I am absolutely awful at fishing the entire channel and hitting the middle part. And know I'm missing out because of it . And I am going to make it a point to start trying it more.


exactly why i generally dont do well during these ice out times. i fish structure. i don't enjoy casting blindly into the dead sea of the main channel. guess i shouldn't call it the dead sea because that is exactly where these roaming schools of ice out crappie are right now. for the most part not holding to any type of structure. YET. my time is right around the corner....


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## harrison08

RMK,

I get ya. I am in no way- shape or form, an expert or even "experienced" at open channel fishing. I did not like doing this at all when I first started. I almost always fished relative to structure. I came to enjoy it a bit due to slowing down my fishing and being surprised by a "hit" in the middle of nowhere. I used to run and gun, thinking if they were there, they'd bite quickly. Not with open channel fishing. Slow presentations, longer pauses, and smaller profiles (not necessarily shorter) baits seemed to do the trick.


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## zaraspook

Hey, guys................a point of clarification. When we talk about open channel fishing, out in the middle of channels, fishing away from structure, whatever name you want to call it, we're not suggesting you won't find crappie on structure. Rather, the ballgame changes.....structure is almost irrelevant. If the shad are cruising/massed in an area of structure, predator crappie will use that structure to their advantage. However, structure isn't required for crappie to be there. They go where the shad mass goes, with or without any cover. Fish are relating to the bait ball/shad mass.......the buffet table becomes the structure. And, it's not stationary. It moves, expands, contracts. If you're ever blessed to be on a school without a crowd of anglers, you can intentionally try to find it's boundaries, define the size of it. Keep in mind the size and shape continuously changes. Usually if it moves, it won't be far. 

The point is when we get on these schools, there may be structure down there but we don't know or don't think so. And, for readers who don't fish shallow water lakes, these schools that provide a lot of fun are in channels or bays with water 2-6' and as little as 50' wide. Structure is secondary.


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## wannaBfishing

zaraspook said:


> Hey, guys................a point of clarification. When we talk about open channel fishing, out in the middle of channels, fishing away from structure, whatever name you want to call it, we're not suggesting you won't find crappie on structure. Rather, the ballgame changes.....structure is almost irrelevant. If the shad are cruising/massed in an area of structure, predator crappie will use that structure to their advantage. However, structure isn't required for crappie to be there. They go where the shad mass goes, with or without any cover. Fish are relating to the bait ball/shad mass.......the buffet table becomes the structure. And, it's not stationary. It moves, expands, contracts. If you're ever blessed to be on a school without a crowd of anglers, you can intentionally try to find it's boundaries, define the size of it. Keep in mind the size and shape continuously changes. Usually if it moves, it won't be far.
> 
> The point is when we get on these schools, there may be structure down there but we don't know or don't think so. And, for readers who don't fish shallow water lakes, these schools that provide a lot of fun are in channels or bays with water 2-6' and as little as 50' wide. Structure is secondary.


Hello everyone! First time post, but long time follower of OGF and specifically this thread. I have learned a lot over the years of reading this thread and really appreciate all of you on here willing to share. With that being said, I have really witnessed first hand this week everything Zara has said in his post above. We caught probably 90-100 fish (did some sorting and kept 26) on Sunday. Fished the North side channel from bank and found a school out in middle, but also off of some structure. Other fishermen would come and go from that channel not catching anything. Tuesday and Weds. we boat fished. Used the livescope and found a few active schools of crappie out in middle of channels with no known structure but big balls of shad. Like other have said, in the past I would have my boat in the middle pitching up to structure etc and not fishing the middle and would miss this opportunity. We also tried another channel on South side and found some active fish hanging on typically tree structure. I guess in short, we found active fish with structure and without. Most of the keeper fish we found were in middle without structure. Sorry for lengthy post and glad to be participating!


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## zaraspook

wannaBfishing said:


> Hello everyone! First time post, but long time follower of OGF and specifically this thread. I have learned a lot over the years of reading this thread and really appreciate all of you on here willing to share. With that being said, I have really witnessed first hand this week everything Zara has said in his post above. We caught probably 90-100 fish (did some sorting and kept 26) on Sunday. Fished the North side channel from bank and found a school out in middle, but also off of some structure. Other fishermen would come and go from that channel not catching anything. Tuesday and Weds. we boat fished. Used the livescope and found a few active schools of crappie out in middle of channels with no known structure but big balls of shad. Like other have said, in the past I would have my boat in the middle pitching up to structure etc and not fishing the middle and would miss this opportunity. We also tried another channel on South side and found some active fish hanging on typically tree structure. I guess in short, we found active fish with structure and without. Most of the keeper fish we found were in middle without structure. Sorry for lengthy post and glad to be participating!


wannaB.......We're honored to have your 1st OGF post land on our thread and we appreciate your generous praise. Glad we could add a concept to your tool box. Great to get responses that an idea, technique, or bait helped put fish in the bucket or live-well. Don't be a stranger. Keep us posted with results. Share the wealth when you can.


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## crappiedude

Welcome wannaB, nice report


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## wannaBfishing

I guess one more quick thing to add... the active fish we found in the middle of channels were all suspended at about half the depth. If the channel was 6' the fish were suspended at about 3' and we fished about 30" deep. If we were in 4' the fish were at 2' and we fished 18" Anything Chartreuse seemed to work. I tried throwing Monkey milk at them but didn't seem to want it. Caught a few on bubblegum pink. Lastly, we did fair better on non painted jigheads versus painted. Could have been coincidental!


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## tracker_80

I was out Tuesday, and from what I've been hearing, seems like things have been heating up the past week.


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## zaraspook

wannaBfishing said:


> I guess one more quick thing to add... the active fish we found in the middle of channels were all suspended at about half the depth. If the channel was 6' the fish were suspended at about 3' and we fished about 30" deep. If we were in 4' the fish were at 2' and we fished 18" Anything Chartreuse seemed to work. I tried throwing Monkey milk at them but didn't seem to want it. Caught a few on bubblegum pink. Lastly, we did fair better on non painted jigheads versus painted. Could have been coincidental!


Great info that fish were generally at half water depth of the channel. Keep up the good work!


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## RMK

Friday late morning to mid afternoon. Water up to 53. That's up 15 degrees from 6 days ago. Fish are starting to relate more to structure. We caught fish on metal, wood, and brush. Small baits. Itty bits and similar. Chartreuse pepper better in one area compared to pinks doing better in another. Quite a few shorts and bluegill with enough keepers to keep it pretty interesting. Kept about 20 around 10" fish. 3 white crappie on the day. All shorts. Heard of a 13"ish white caught by another angler we talked to at the ramp. Crappie nibbles improved the bluegill bite and hook up percentage. No real big fish yet. Hoping they will follow shortly behind to the structure. Surprisingly crowded out there.


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## zaraspook

Good report, RMK. Amazing rise in water temp you've noted. Bound to promote changes in activity level of craps.
Concur with your observation toward smaller baits. I was up 2 days early last week. My channel had decent numbers of craps, but size nothing like what you get when you hit open water schools. Caught 64, high percentage 4-6" clones. Could only manage 3 keepers at 10" or better, most on structure. It's typical for my channel, early fish dinks, takes a while for quality fish to make it back as far off the lake as my place is. Without Itty Bits would have tough to stay entertained.

Highpoint of my 2 days last week, momentarily had a pike on. Lasted maybe 6 seconds before unzipping. I usually land one of those toothy torpedoes ever other year. Occasionally get 2 this time of year. 2nd highlight was my 1st perchy critter of 2021. If I get photo to upload, it was smallest in several years. Maybe 5", but they always put smile on my face. It ate an Itty Bit, believe a Pearl color. 









Hope I make it back up in next couple days.


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## crappiedude

It's always a good thing to see Zara's GLSM's crappie thread come back to life.
I finally made it out for my 1st trip since the ice shut us down yesterday. All the flooding we've had on the southern border (Ohio River) caused the COE to hold our lakes back which caused the lakes to flood. This recent dry spell has been good and although my home lake is still 6' high, it has dropped 10' but the ramps are all opened back up.
Like others have said smaller baits are always a favorite early in the year and I turned to my stand by (tube jigs) and color didn't seem to matter as we caught fish on every combo we tried but we mostly fished chart/black and chart/purple. We never kept track of how many we caught but the action was non-stop. Our biggest being a black just a tad under 12".









It was a great day to be out and a great way to start the season.


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## Bait catcher

Hey crappiedude,did you get a water temp at E F ? thanks in advance


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## crappiedude

Bait catcher said:


> Hey crappiedude,did you get a water temp at E F ? thanks in advance



Honestly I didn't pay any attention to it but I think my friend said it was upper forties when we launched at 1:00. 
I'm sure this cold rain is cooling it off a few degrees.


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## RMK

crappiedude said:


> It's always a good thing to see Zara's GLSM's crappie thread come back to life.
> I finally made it out for my 1st trip since the ice shut us down yesterday. All the flooding we've had on the southern border (Ohio River) caused the COE to hold our lakes back which caused the lakes to flood. This recent dry spell has been good and although my home lake is still 6' high, it has dropped 10' but the ramps are all opened back up.
> Like others have said smaller baits are always a favorite early in the year and I turned to my stand by (tube jigs) and color didn't seem to matter as we caught fish on every combo we tried but we mostly fished chart/black and chart/purple. We never kept track of how many we caught but the action was non-stop. Our biggest being a black just a tad under 12".
> View attachment 466073
> 
> 
> It was a great day to be out and a great way to start the season.


sounds like a great day! still amazes me your lakes fluctuate more in depth than we have total in our lake... crazy


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## fished-out

Fished a tournament there once where the water came up 6 feet---in 10 hours....Another time, parked my truck and trailer in the lot, and when I returned 8 hours later, the water was lapping at the tires and I had to tie the boat to a post and sign in nearby....and Deer Creek and Paint Creek can be worse. Paint has been 40-50 feet over normal pool.


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## crappiedude

fished-out said:


> Fished a tournament there once where the water came up 6 feet---in 10 hours....Another time, parked my truck and trailer in the lot, and when I returned 8 hours later, the water was lapping at the tires and I had to tie the boat to a post and sign in nearby....and Deer Creek and Paint Creek can be worse. Paint has been 40-50 feet over normal pool.


I remember those day very well, it's not as easy as you think to get the trailer backed into the ramp when the water is covering everything. 
What amazes me is that it really doesn't seem to hurt the fishing any. Paint Creek is my favorite lake to fish and like you pointed out it fluctuates even worse than EF.



RMK said:


> sounds like a great day! still amazes me your lakes fluctuate more in depth than we have total in our lake... crazy


It can be a challenge to fish some days. These flood control lakes can rise really fast and the then drop them 2'-3' per day.


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## fished-out

crappiedude said:


> I remember those day very well, it's not as easy as you think to get the trailer backed into the ramp when the water is covering everything.


 Ramp?? We don't need no stinking ramp! LOL. The day I was talking about, the entire ramp was under several feet of water. All you could do was find the steepest incline and float the boat on using the trolling motor and pulling it up for the last few feet. Timing was everything. No way to drive it on safely.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Saturday afternoon thru Monday noon. Watched Buckeye basketball game then fished during halftime, 6 crappie. Game over back out to catch 10 more. Keeping with the past few weeks, just 1 keeper among the 16. Water temp 48.7 surprised me since plus 10 degrees in about a week. Bites were frequent, but very light. Fish wouldn't grab it and go, just tap it and drop. Itty Bits in Key Lime and Monkey Milk gave the best shot for hookups. Fish I found were 10-15' off bank and just beyond submerged structure.

Sunday showed signs of a few bigger fish working their way back into channel. Caught 21 with 7 keepers in the mix. 3 of my first 5 were keepers and 5 of first 10 were keepers, but keeper rate fell off. Since fish on Saturday weren't eating the bait, I switched to Gulp 1" chartreuse baits. Fish did eat the Gulp better Sunday and majority were out a little further, 15-20' off bank and beyond submerged structure. In general found fish 20-30" under bobber. Panfish Assassins in Monkey Milk caught about 25% of fish. Mostly 18-24" under bobber.

Monday the wind and temps got challenging. Fish were harder to locate, but more inclined to eat the bait when you did. 7 caught with 2 keepers. First 3 came on Gulp, last 4 on Monkey Milk Panfish Assassin. In the wind and 29 degrees, Gulp required too much bait adjustment on the jig to tolerate. The 2 keepers were out in middle of channel, no cover. Hoped it was a school of bigger fish but couldn't locate others if they were there. Water temp 43.3 Mon, down 5 degrees in 48 hours. When sleet and rain became steady, packed up and headed home. 44 craps and 10 keepers for the 48 hours there. Gill bite was incredibly good. Easily caught more gills and more keepers than crappie. Unusual for GLSM to have gills like these.


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## zaraspook

Friday made it to GLSM in time to watch Buckeye debacle. Fished afterwards, caught 4 all short ones. Water temp a disappointing 43.7 degrees after broaching into 50's last weekend. Muddy water conditions, not choco milk. All bank fishing for me.

Saturday water temp 41.7.....wrong direction. Morning caught 13 with 1 keeper at 11". I gotta say there are a ton of 1st year craps learning lessons about fishhooks.More than 1/2 the short fish are 4" size. After lunch tried several other spots, all dry holes so made it back to the spot where I'd caught many dinks in the AM. Morning had strong sun, must have brought in a few better fish. Caught 9 with 4 keepers......all came on Monkey Milk Panfish Assassins. Fish were mainly on submerged structure, PVC fish attractors about 10' off seawalls. Evening session tried 2 spots, one empty so returned to same spot I'd caught most fish from earlier. Got 7 shorts and 1 keeper. Finished with 30 caught today, 6 keepers. Must say fish were more aggressive Saturday, higher in the water column. Mostly fished 20-30" under bobber.

Sunday water temp 42.6, positive movement but limited by mid-20 low temps last 2 nights. I fished 6 spots today from the bank. Bite was timid, light bumps, no hookups. I'm thinking either gills or small crappie, either way they weren't showing success at eating my plastics. Downsized baits to Itty Bits. The morning ended having caught 18, all short 4-8". The 8" I'll mention was a white crappie, only because we catch so few whites in GLSM. I skipped the after lunch session because had chores to do and was not inspired by the 18 fish run of short fish. Took a 3:30 pm break from chores, grabbed a rod, just fished off my seawall where I hadn't caught a fish either Friday or Saturday. Caught 12 in 45 minutes, no keepers. For the day I'm now 0 keepers from 30 crappie caught. Ate dinner grabbed rods, went out to at least catch 1 more crappie. If I couldn't get keepers, I at least wanted to catch 1 more fish than my Saturday total of 30. I caught that 1 in about 2 minutes, but the bite was crazy so kept fishing. In 45 minutes I caught fish number 26 of that evening session. It was a 10" keeper. Bite slowed when a pontoon cruised over the spot I was raiding. Worked another 15 minutes to end up catching 30 for the hour session.Caught 60 total for the day. My streak of no keepers lasted for 55 fish. Fish number 56 the only keeper! Catching a lot of fish is never painful.


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## crappiedude

As the air and water temps increase it's just a matter of time before the better fish start moving into your channel again.


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## zaraspook

Yep. This is typical. Patience, Grasshopper.


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## zaraspook

Departed for home Mon afternoon, but morning and lunch fishing sessions showed promise. Caught 20 for the day, 9 keepers, biggest 11". 6 of 9 keepers came near backend of channel, very shallow, gravel lined bank. Monkey Milk Panfish Assassin 14-18" under bobber. Water temp 44.7 in AM on Monday.


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## MagicMarker

Zara I was just wondering, do you still fish Brookville lake any? Thanks


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## crappiedude

We fished down here on Monday and it was a pretty slow day. Oh we probably had 35-40 fish but 1/2 were really small and the bites were few and far between. We did hit one honey hole right against the bank and it was stacked with fish. Fished jigs 12" deep and it was a hit every cast for about 20 minutes. That spot died as fast as it started. We spent the rest of the day fishing jigs 1' to 4' deep in 3-8 fow. We'd find a few here and there but nothing like that one spot along that bank.
Normally when we find those schools of shallow fish like that they are almost always black crappie.


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## zaraspook

MagicMarker said:


> Zara I was just wondering, do you still fish Brookville lake any? Thanks


MM.......Just once last year. To be frank I've never crappie fished at Bville, though I've caught a few. Usually target walleye and/or smallmouth there, neither of which are options at GLSM. Why do you ask?


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## MagicMarker

I was going thru some old posts on Brookville lake and I saw where you had posted there. I’m going to try and fish it for walleye this year a few times ,thanks


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## PatSea

Do you guys use live minnows on the artificials? How about just minnows, no artificial? Bringing my grandson up this week and would like to get him in some crappie.


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## zaraspook

PatSea said:


> Do you guys use live minnows on the artificials? How about just minnows, no artificial? Bringing my grandson up this week and would like to get him in some crappie.


Wil you be bank fishing or boat fishing with grandson?


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## PatSea

Zaraspook, we'll be bank fishing. Was thinking of fishing near the Sportsmen's Club on the north side of the lake. Like I said, I'm not that familiar with the lake.


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## zaraspook

I'm a fan of fishing the baits and techniques you're most comfortable and confident with. If that's minnows, do it. If it's small jigs with any of the thousand of plastics available, do it. If it's both do that, too. If it"s Gulp Alive 1" minnows, do it. All work some of the time; none work all the time. May the fish catching gods be with you.


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## PatSea

Thanks zaraspook. I'm more familiar with minnows, I'll probably start with that but have some artificial as backup


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## zaraspook

PatSea said:


> Thanks zaraspook. I'm more familiar with minnows, I'll probably start with that but have some artificial as backup


Let us know how it goes for you and grandson!


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## fshnmaster

I'm going to give it a try later today. I haven't been out since ice out been too busy chasing toothy critters😆. If anyone will be out feel free to message me


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## zaraspook

Grandson(age 10), nephew(12) and I hit GLSM Thurs evening thru Fri 5pm for our annual Spring break crappie overnighter. Rained the entire drive up but we lucked into an hour break from rain at 6pm Thurs....stayed relatively dry for close to 90 minutes of fishing. Water clarity was good, bite not good, but everyone got off the skunkline. Nephew caught 6, grandson 1, 4 for me. Little did we know the fish would be maybe 1/2 as active Fri morning and faded all day.

We fished hard and long Fri. These guys normally don't have near the persistence I have for catching, but delightfully surprised me this trip. They matched me minute for minute in effort. Might have helped that I setup up a $5 reward to the one, excluding me, to catch the most crappie.  Shame that fish weren't cooperating, but frustration is one of the lessons fishing requires you to deal with. They pressed on, no quit in the boys. Grandson managed 3 more craps on Fri lifting his total to 4. Nephew caught same number on Fri, adding 3 more to his 6 on Thurs. I caught 11 Fri to total 15. That was easily the toughest bite I've seen since ice out. A brighter note, quality of fish was again edging in a good direction. The boys had 2 keepers and I added 8. 10 keepers from 38 is decent. We each caught a few gills between the crappie to keep it interesting.

Boys needed a "guy" outing. Good time, lots of laughs, they both showed improving skills with fishing basics, and should have many smiles to recollect in future. 😁😁😁

Our colors that caught fish were Monkey Milk, black/chartreuse, key lime, bluegrass. The latter two are chartreuse variants. Also, chartreuse Gulp 1" caught a couple late when other baits no longer generated interest.


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## fshnmaster

Congrats on catching them on a slowww day. I tried it for an hour in 2 northeast channels with only 1 bite. I hit Indian for 6 hours in the evening for saugeye and got the big ol goose egg. 1 white bass and saw only 2 shorts caught all night! The forecast doesn't look too favorable in the next few days. Was dead at indian for crappie too talked to few who went all over it and got nothing.


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## RMK

fshnmaster said:


> Congrats on catching them on a slowww day. I tried it for an hour in 2 northeast channels with only 1 bite. I hit Indian for 6 hours in the evening for saugeye and got the big ol goose egg. 1 white bass and saw only 2 shorts caught all night! The forecast doesn't look too favorable in the next few days. Was dead at indian for crappie too talked to few who went all over it and got nothing.


glad to hear others struggled. thought it was just us. we made our first trip to alum and felt a little defeated catching 6 shorts. so we dropped into indian on our way home to hit a spot real quick before continueing home. 1 possible keeper was the only bite and fish caught before heading home.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GLSM at 2pm Monday. Bank fishing at 2:30pm. 1st spot for 1/2 hour caught 4. The single keeper was a 10". Moved thinking I could do better. Over the next hour 4 spots produced 3 bites total, but did catch a keeper 11" from my only bite there. Quit at 4 pm with 2 keepers from 5 fish that thankfully tried to eat my bait. 

Did some yard work and ate dinner before daring to try again at 6:30.

Was getting bites, mostly timid ones, but no hookups. Grabbed my 2nd rod already rigged with an Itty Bit. Caught 11, all but 1 really small. Had no confidence the run of small fish would change so quit for the day. Hopefully, pattern will change tomorrow. 😁 😁 
Checked water temp, 50 degrees. Surprised me the bite was so puny with 50 degree water.


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## zaraspook

Caught 6 with 2 keepers in AM session, 6 after lunch with 4 keepers. Bite was tough and slow but better fish quality. I got out late for my evening session and would have been content to catch 2-3 more. Surprise....got into one of those flurries of action right before dark. Caught 10 with 5 keepers in 45 minutes. 22 with 11 keepers is best day of year for quality fish

Fished 17-20" under bobber in 3-4.5' of water. 49 degree water temp. Good ripple on the water with 20-30 mph wind. All keepers ate a bluegrass Itty Bit. Fished 7 spot today. 5 of the 7 spots gave me at most 1 bite, no fish. Nice to see better quality specks again. All were black crappie, 4 between 11- 11.75".


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## AndOne

Hoping the weather this week gets things going.


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## zaraspook

Good day. 16 keepers from 24 caught. Only caught 1 crappie in that 4-6" size that's been dominant since ice out. Panfish Assassin was best bait (chartreuse variations) but split joker tail worked as did a motor oil triple tip grub I'm fond of.

Couple of males were caught in 18" of water laying next to logs, transitioning into spawn war paint, with beat up tails. Mostly 10-10.5" solid fish today, really spunky on the end of your line. Good number of 11" but none over 11.25". 

Fish were all on cover, with just a few close to the bank. Most 8-10' from bank, on wood/brush, and PVC stake beds, 18-30" under bobber. Caught 2 bass today, one a 14" chunk that's fun on a a crappie rod. 

Good time of year and it will get better. 57.7 water temp.


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## zaraspook

After my 16 keeper day Weds I thought I had it figured out. Thurs early AM started ok but bite faded fast. Caught 11 with 5 keepers. Just 1 of the 11 caught after 2pm.

Friday found similar results. 6 early morning fish with 4 keepers. Fished off my seawall next. Not a bite until the 11.75" photo fish inhaled my plastic.


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## RMK

Thursday and Saturday. 1st halves of the day. Water temp 58 Thursday and up to 63 today. I was hesitant to say it because I feel it's pretty early, but there is some spawning going on. It will be interesting to find out what next week's cool down does to things. Fish relating to structure near rock and seawalls. Big fish Thursday were 2 females pushing the 12" mark and Saturday a nicely colored 11.5" male. Grandlake Crappie Series starts up tomorrow and The Western Buckeye Crappie Cup kicks off next Sunday. 
















































White Crappie at GLSM always get an honorable mention from me. 
Nice to talk to you Thursday Zara.


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## zaraspook

Good report and photos, RMK! Like we discussed I'm with you on the conclusion "spawn has started". Temps are there, more and more males are looking the part in tuxedo and beat up tails, females showing up..... I'd call it early into spawn but elements are there. Plus, this has been a nice sustained warmup with water temps rising over several weeks. Interesting to see if spawn hits a snag with protracted cooler weather next week.

Like the pic of the white......maybe something going on with the white crappie population at the lake? I think I've already caught as many whites this year as all of last year. Just saying.....

The plastic hanging from the in your photo of the white......I used that bait Thurs and during my limited Friday fishing. I got positive results on the bait, including the 11.75" in last photo I posted. Do you know if any of local tackle guys are stocking it? I've found it online, but doubtful I'll get delivery before a Weds group fish next week. If none local you are aware, don't worry about it.

Good luck on the tourney trail. You and Scott will be busy. Keep us up to date with the action.


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## RMK

Not positive on anything local unfortunately. Brushpile fishing website carries them and although shipping would be involved it's similar to buying local. There is a smsll chance I might be able able to get hands on some by Wednesday. I ll let you know if I can.
The mentioned bait is from bone head tackle. Slim sticks and stump bugs are what I ve been interested in, and experimenting with. The slim stick seems pretty similar to a Bobby garland baby shad but much more durable.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Not positive on anything local unfortunately. Brushpile fishing website carries them and although shipping would be involved it's similar to buying local. There is a smsll chance I might be able able to get hands on some by Wednesday. I ll let you know if I can.
> The mentioned bait is from bone head tackle. Slim sticks and stump bugs are what I ve been interested in, and experimenting with. The slim stick seems pretty similar to a Bobby garland baby shad but much more durable.


RMK...Don't worry about finding any for me. I have some on order, expected delivery Weds or Thurs, which is fine. If they don't arrive for my fishing group, it's not that big a deal. Have plenty of other plastics to spread around. Just figured if a local retailer carried it would be insurance. Appreciate your efforts.


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## crappiedude

RMK said:


> The mentioned bait is from bone head tackle. Slim sticks and stump bugs are what I ve been interested in, and experimenting with. *The slim stick seems pretty similar to a Bobby garland baby shad but much more durable.*


I have become a real fan of Bonehead Tackle. I like using tube jigs but they are delicate and tear up too easily, it's hard to keep tubes up on the hook. With standard tubes I use 6-10 baits per day. After trying some of the stump bugs last year I have made the switch on most colors to the stump bugs this year. I can normally fish 1 bait all day and a lot of times, I'll get 2 or 3 days out of a bait. When I want a little bigger bait I'll use the 2 3/8 Slim Sticks. Great bait.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> I have become a real fan of Bonehead Tackle. I like using tube jigs but they are delicate and tear up too easily, it's hard to keep tubes up on the hook. With standard tubes I use 6-10 baits per day. After trying some of the stump bugs last year I have made the switch on most colors to the stump bugs this year. I can normally fish 1 bait all day and a lot of times, I'll get 2 or 3 days out of a bait. When I want a little bigger bait I'll use the 2 3/8 Slim Sticks. Great bait.


C-dude......I knew I'd read a previous post by you that spoke positively about Bonehead plastics. Was thinking the post was sometime last year. So when a 2nd of my favorite crappie guys mentioned Bonehead, it got my attention. I used the Stump Bug 1st time last week on one rod, rotating it with 2 other rods rigged with other baits I use regularly. It wasn't a great day, wasn't a lengthy trial, but Stump Bug results were better than one of the other baits, and competitive with the other on that day.

Knowing I can catch fish on them I've ordered some other colors. Later this week I should get a chance to play with the slim sticks. Good call, c-dude!


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## crappiedude

Zara, yes last year was my 1st year using Bonehead Lures. After a friend gave me a purple/chart Slim Stick, I soon became a (skeptical) fan. They needed a little more investigating. I bought like $60+ dollars worth of lures and messed with them all summer and winter. So far, so good.








Here's a pic of my go to baits I use everyday in & out. (I have no secrets) Of the 21 compartments 9 are Bonehead baits. Crappie fishing isn't really about what bait to use, it's like real estate....it's about location, location, location.
On the left side, there are white & chart 3" twisters and we have had good success with these for post spawn fish the last 3 or 4 years. Mind you we are tageting larger fish with the bigger baits and (at times) we've had good success with them. I often wonder if it's the bait we're thowing or if it's just a matter of us fishing in areas where the larger fish have moved to rest up after the spawn.
I used most of that 1st order up and I just recieved my 2nd good order from Bonehead this past week in preperation for a couple of upcoming trips. Watts Bar in Tn this month, then Cumberland in Ky in May.
One color stump bug they don't have but I would like to see is red/chart. Before I place my next order I'm probably going to email them and see if they may be an option in the future.
My normal progression of baits is tubes or stump bugs in cold(er) water. As the water warms I'll go to the bigger shad body style. (I can't say this matters too much though) Right now with the water in the upper 50's-low 60's, I'm having good success on both. We've been finding pockets of fish right on the bank and are having positive results using jig and cork with a stump bug or swimming slim sticks on a 1/32oz weedless jig.


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## polebender

crappiedude said:


> I have become a real fan of Bonehead Tackle. I like using tube jigs but they are delicate and tear up too easily, it's hard to keep tubes up on the hook. With standard tubes I use 6-10 baits per day. After trying some of the stump bugs last year I have made the switch on most colors to the stump bugs this year. I can normally fish 1 bait all day and a lot of times, I'll get 2 or 3 days out of a bait. When I want a little bigger bait I'll use the 2 3/8 Slim Sticks. Great bait.


I like fishing tubes also. They are one of the best baits for catching crappies. I always use a drop of glue to keep them from tearing up so much! It will make your tubes last a lot longer before getting tore up.


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## zaraspook

polebender said:


> I like fishing tubes also. They are one of the best baits for catching crappies. I always use a drop of glue to keep them from tearing up so much! It will make your tubes last a lot longer before getting tore up.


C-dude.......At boneheadtackle.com look at the Crazy Chicken color. Might satisfy the color pattern you're looking for.


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## crappiedude

polebender said:


> I like fishing tubes also. They are one of the best baits for catching crappies. *I always use a drop of glue to keep them from tearing up so much!* It will make your tubes last a lot longer before getting tore up.


I used to do the super glue thing on my tubes years ago. As I've gotten older my hands have gotten a little shakier.
Last time I used super glue it was a hell of a mess. The tube stayed in place but so did my fingers. LOL


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## polebender

crappiedude said:


> I used to do the super glue thing on my tubes years ago. As I've gotten older my hands have gotten a little shakier.
> Last time I used super glue it was a hell of a mess. The tube stayed in place but so did my fingers. LOL


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## Saugeyefisher

Thanks for sharing all the bait info guys.. crappie dude I'm the same when it comes to sharing baits. No secrets here about what baits I like to use. 
I'm going to pick up some stump bugs eventually. I like the looks of them. 
I've found myself going to the brush pile jigs bandit and hammer more then anything else anymore. Disco lemonade being my favorite all around color. And they are very durable baits. 
For me things seem to go in cycles bait wise. Leaning towards bg shads one season to trout magnets the next. My original favorite was the BG sent Wiggler's. With part of the body bit off. Haven't used those in a couple seasons now. Witch kinda shows me it is indeed alot about location, location, location,like crappie dude said. Lol but tell that to my brain when I start browsing crappie jigs..


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## AndOne

Update from about 10 days ago. I as surprised how stained the water was. We fished several hours and kept 10 fish between the 3 of us. Another day at St. Mary's and another black eye. We used every color known to man.


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## fishwhacker

Took a mental health day today and after striking out on keeper size,lots of shorts, saugeye at Indian, tried for some gills and crappies at glsm. Did fairly well on the crappies with minnows we had left over, maybe 12-15 keepers in 2 hrs. 3 feet deep and 10 ft off rocky bank. Males were suited up.


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## zaraspook

Had my boys from the hood at my lakehouse from Thurs 2pm until Saturday Noon. First couple years of our crappiethon was in the Spring, then we added a yearly Fall event, too. Neither 2020 event made it, both casualties to the pandemic. It had been 18 mos without our crappie fishing, beer drinking, poker playing, story telling days of neighborhood life for K thru 12 boys growing up. Great to be back with these guys now scattered from Kettering, Oh. 

Over the 48-hour fishing event we caught 110 crappie, plus gills, at least 1 bass apiece, a few cats, couple of drum, 1 koi, and I added a rare GLSM pike. Most crappie were short, but we managed 31 keepers and cleaned enough for our traditional yummy crappie tacos. All lady craps were spared this close to spawning but a dozen males wearing warpaint went under the knife. 

Chartreuse variants caught 90% of all fish, no minnows, no waxies, plastics only, under bobber 16-36" depending on water depth. Brush, stake beds, submerged wood all were productive. We found a few fish really shallow, but shallow bite next to the bank isn't ready yet. All fishing was from the bank and within 100 yards from my lake place. 

Water temp 59.6 degrees when we started, 53.7 degrees when we quit Saturday noon. Water clarity was good fir GLSM, not stained. Best bait was a chartreuse and speckled 2" grub body with longish dual tails.....local bait shop model, sold bulk. Bonehead Stump Grubs did OK in a pattern that looked like monkey milk, but isn't called that. It was only pattern I had at the time. 

Great to be with long time friends and returning to normal lifestyles!


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## RMK

Sounds like a great weekend Zara! Good times and some fish catching. Interesting bonus fish. 2nd pike I ve heard of. I still haven't hooked up with one.

Fished Friday early to mid afternoon, Saturday morning, and Sunday early to mid afternoon. Friday was probably our best day with 10 or so keepers and a dozen or so shorts. 1 13" 1.40lb female and a couple around the 12" mark. 
Saturday we successfully found spots not to fish. 
Fridays quality didn't hold on for Sunday and we struggled a bit. Ended up catching 11 legal fish and none of the chunky type. At least 6 whites on the weekend. The biggest of the whites was 10", nicely colored, and fairly thick for a "slimey ******" as somebody on here called them. Decent turn out for The Western Buckeye Crappie Cup with some very good crappie guys in the mix. Time to see what we can do at Alum after this snow storm.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Sounds like a great weekend Zara! Good times and some fish catching. Interesting bonus fish. 2nd pike I ve heard of. I still haven't hooked up with one.
> 
> Fished Friday early to mid afternoon, Saturday morning, and Sunday early to mid afternoon. Friday was probably our best day with 10 or so keepers and a dozen or so shorts. 1 13" 1.40lb female and a couple around the 12" mark.
> Saturday we successfully found spots not to fish.
> Fridays quality didn't hold on for Sunday and we struggled a bit. Ended up catching 11 legal fish and none of the chunky type. At least 6 whites on the weekend. The biggest of the whites was 10", nicely colored, and fairly thick for a "slimey ****" as somebody on here called them. Decent turn out for The Western Buckeye Crappie Cup with some very good crappie guys in the mix. Time to see what we can do at Alum after this snow storm.
> View attachment 468710
> 
> View attachment 468711
> 
> View attachment 468712


Good report, RMK. Curious if the 7.74# winning basket is about the typical 1st place weight for an area tourney? Are you in the camp that thinks GLSM white population is on an upward trend?

Guessing my pike was 14", nothing to write home about. Caught it in the same spot as larger one that came unzipped earlier this year.

Good luck at Alum. Have heard Alum water levels are way off.


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## zaraspook

48.9 degree water temp midday at GLSM. Hasn't been that cold since March 30th. Yuck. Wasn't a bad day though. Caught 45 with 14 keepers. All but 4 crappie caught on Bonehead Stump Bugs. Used 2 different patterns which are Confetti Chartreuse and the other called Slick. If you know the Monkey Milk pattern of other baits, Slick is the same. Both patterns worked equally well. Crappie today were mostly in same spots as last week, but out another 6-10' off the bank. The bite wasn't aggressive, a little timid and slower to move away with the bait. Maybe the result of 10 degree loss of temp in less than a week? 

Hard to say how this cool-off effects spawning that seemed imminent just a week ago......


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## RMK

Don't know if my post disappeared or I forgot to click post back when I replied to your previous post. Either way I ll give it a try again.
7.74 on 8 fish was a good weight and you could usually expect to finish well with that kind of weight. That being said I m going to predict 18lbs this weekend at crappie USA. 9 lbs a day in the 2 day tournament. 7 fish. Slightly better than a 1.25 lb average. And just for fun I ll guess big fish will be a 1.94.
Definitely agree white crappie population is increasing. I wonder if it could be related to the improved water quality.


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## brad crappie

RMK said:


> Don't know if my post disappeared or I forgot to click post back when I replied to your previous post. Either way I ll give it a try again.
> 7.74 on 8 fish was a good weight and you could usually expect to finish well with that kind of weight. That being said I m going to predict 18lbs this weekend at crappie USA. 9 lbs a day in the 2 day tournament. 7 fish. Slightly better than a 1.25 lb average. And just for fun I ll guess big fish will be a 1.94.
> Definitely agree white crappie population is increasing. I wonder if it could be related to the improved water quality.


Whites like stain water more and I heard back in the day there were more whites!


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Don't know if my post disappeared or I forgot to click post back when I replied to your previous post. Either way I ll give it a try again.
> 7.74 on 8 fish was a good weight and you could usually expect to finish well with that kind of weight. That being said I m going to predict 18lbs this weekend at crappie USA. 9 lbs a day in the 2 day tournament. 7 fish. Slightly better than a 1.25 lb average. And just for fun I ll guess big fish will be a 1.94.
> Definitely agree white crappie population is increasing. I wonder if it could be related to the improved water quality.


RMK......18#, huh? You must have confidence in both the anglers and GLSM's ability to provide quality fish. Git her done!

I was up there Saturday for the afternoon. Water temp edged up to 51.8 from 48. 9 earlier in week. I caught 31, but just 5 keepers. 4 of the 5 were bulging females and all 4 ladies were well off the seawalls, like 12-15' out. I thought that was odd, and wondered if colder water pushed them out that far to spawn. The keeper male I caught was right on the seawall.

Caught all fish on Stump Bugs. Three patterns I used worked equally well. They were Chartreuse Confetti, Confetti, and Slick(looks like Monkey Milk). Confetti is basically solid white underbody, clear and speckles on top. That was the color that surprised me the most.
Good luck in tourney....get into some toads!


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## crappiedude

It looks like those stump bugs are becoming a favorite, I do like their durability.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> It looks like those stump bugs are becoming a favorite, I do like their durability.


c-dude......I committed to use Stump Bugs for a few trips to give them a respectable trial over different conditions and fish activity levels. Too early for me to offer conclusions other than I'm catching fish with them, keep using them. I believe they will be more durable than the BG baits. Not sure that's saying much though. Fun to try new stuff.......particularly when you know others say they catch fish. Good recommendation!


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## brad crappie

Rmk u guys fish out of green aluminum boat? From what I hear from guys and what Zara is reporting is the size of craps are down! Will be there toMorrow and can’t wait for another cold front to fish in😩


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## RMK

brad crappie said:


> Rmk u guys fish out of green aluminum boat? From what I hear from guys and what Zara is reporting is the size of craps are down! Will be there toMorrow and can’t wait for another cold front to fish in😩


Yep! Camo aluminum triton. We ll see ya out there. Say hi


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## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> Rmk u guys fish out of green aluminum boat? From what I hear from guys and what Zara is reporting is the size of craps are down! Will be there toMorrow and can’t wait for another cold front to fish in😩


BC.......still some toad crappie in the lake, just an abundance of short ones to grow for next season. Water temps recovered nicely......60 today at my seawall from 51 four days ago.

Arrived GLSM mid-afternoon Tues. Bite in my channel from bank anemic and faded thru evening. Caught 20 but first 19 were all short. I'm doing you a favor by stinging the lips of as many little ones as I can find so they don't chase your baits. 20th and last f







ish was finally a keeper. It was a tubby lady of 11", about ready to burst at the seams(see photo). Notice I'm not stinging the lips of the big ones, leaving those for you guys to catch.


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## Tom 513

Crappie Masters tournament this weekend on the 30th


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## zaraspook

Late start on Weds. Spent the morning prepping the pontoon for the season. Bank fished at noon and found a puny bite although 2 of first 3 fish were keepers. In an hour I caught 6 while using 2 different patterns of the Stump Bug. Fish were tentative, hookups mostly lips only, no feedback from the fish they really wanted to eat the bait. Took a lunch break and decided I needed to find a bait the fish wanted to eat.

2nd session started at 3pm. Tied on a trusted Garland 2" Baby Shad in Monkey Milk and same bait but Blue Grass pattern on second rod. Targeted 3 spots that aren't primary ones, but had already fished best 2 spots in earlier session. Bite change was immediately noticeable......more aggressive, even short fish were eating the entire Monkey Milk bait. Hookups were deep and solid.

90 minutes produced 14 caught, 7 keepers. 7 of my 9 keepers were egg-laden ladies, 2 dark males. Keepers weren't toads but chunk 10-11.5" specimens. My conclusion was they wanted and were eager to eat a minnow profile.

Water temp was 61 degrees. Clarity good by GLSM standards. 2nd session fish all taken from wood within 8' of seawalls/bank. For the record I mentioned BG Baby Shad baits, but the ones I use are actually Southern Pro Baby Shad....40% cheaper, more durable, otherwise identical. Never got around to trying the Bluegrass color yesterday. All fish released immediately to fight another day.


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## zaraspook

Thursday not as kind......in the rain caught 10 in 25 minutes in the morning. All were dinks. Went back inside to finish coffee and do something constructive. Didn't try again until 2pm. 2 hours in rain and wind, dink bite was still there but found a few keepers. 21 caught, 4 chunky 10-11.5" split evenly boys/girls. 3 of the 4 were in less than 18" of water and hugging logs. That very shallow bite in the backend of channels is coming on this week. Rain backed off and tried again for for an hour at 6:30 pm. Bite disappeared, not a good omen for tourney guys Friday. Baby Shad plastics caught all.


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## crappie4me

zaraspook said:


> Thursday not as kind......in the rain caught 10 in 25 minutes in the morning. All were dinks. Went back inside to finish coffee and do something constructive. Didn't try again until 2pm. 2 hours in rain and wind, dink bite was still there but found a few keepers. 21 caught, 4 chunky 10-11.5" split evenly boys/girls. 3 of the 4 were in less than 18" of water and hugging logs. That very shallow bite in the backend of channels is coming on this week. Rain backed off and tried again for for an hour at 6:30 pm. Bite disappeared, not a good omen for tourney guys Friday. Baby Shad plastics caught all.


that's a piglet your holding z..


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## zaraspook

Day one Crappie USA Super Event at GLSM....... Heard that a boat capsized at GLSM this morning. I don't know if it was a tourney boat. Hope all is well. 30-35 mph wind all day. Link is below for Pro Division and Amateur Division. Way to go RMK and Scott!
https://m.facebook.com/crappieusa/p...737664/?type=3&source=48&refid=52&__tn__=EH-R


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## RMK

It's tough out there. We ll see what we can do tomorrow. Better report and pics to come....


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## zaraspook

Day 2 GLSM Crappie USA Super Event Results at link below Big fish was 2.21 pounds. 
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10159580606877664&id=359247802663&sfnsn=mo


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## zaraspook

Complete list of results from crappieusa website 
Crappie USA :: Tournament Results


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## RMK

My previous guess on winning weight proved to be a little on the high side. However, I feel that if we wouldn't have had that front my 18lb prediction may have held up. Prefishing mid week was going well and the bite was decent. Fish were setting up well in prespawn locations. Heard from another team catching multiple fish around the 1.5lb mark. That decent bite from midweek slowed by Friday and got down right tough on Saturday. Not only the cold front but a field of 65 crappie boats hitting alot of the same spots multiple times also makes catching tougher. We caught most of our fish on deeper wood structure, some on shallow wood, a few on rocks, and frantically **** as many pontoons as we could the last 2 hours of Saturday and actually upgraded a couple fish doing it. 20 or so keepers with 1 pretty good male on Friday and 10 or so on Saturday. Again males. Don't think we weighed a single female fish. Compared to prefishing when we were catching predominantly females. We did catch some small females Friday that were oozing eggs. Lots of 3" to 6" fish out there. Big congrats and good job to OGFers Rutty and his partner and Brad and his. Probably more OGF guys in it but those are the 2 I knew of. Tough conditions and tournament again for the Crappie USA event. I think we learned more prefishing and fishing this tournament than we have from any other one and added alot of spots to our arsenal. Still need to work on our shallow brush bite.
Kind of a rough spawn so far this year with a couple bad timed cold fronts just when things were getting good both times. Looks a little chilly this week as well. But it should be getting good real soon. 
Didn't get a picture of it unfortunately but Scott caught a real colored up crappie that we were convinced was a hybrid. Looked alot like a black but had a black spot behind its gill and faint vertical black lines on its side. Didn't count the spines. Heard of a small black nose caught last week as well.
Off to Illinois in a few days for Decatur Lake.


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## wannaBfishing

RMK said:


> My previous guess on winning weight proved to be a little on the high side. However, I feel that if we wouldn't have had that front my 18lb prediction may have held up. Prefishing mid week was going well and the bite was decent. Fish were setting up well in prespawn locations. Heard from another team catching multiple fish around the 1.5lb mark. That decent bite from midweek slowed by Friday and got down right tough on Saturday. Not only the cold front but a field of 65 crappie boats hitting alot of the same spots multiple times also makes catching tougher. We caught most of our fish on deeper wood structure, some on shallow wood, a few on rocks, and frantically **** as many pontoons as we could the last 2 hours of Saturday and actually upgraded a couple fish doing it. 20 or so keepers with 1 pretty good male on Friday and 10 or so on Saturday. Again males. Don't think we weighed a single female fish. Compared to prefishing when we were catching predominantly females. We did catch some small females Friday that were oozing eggs. Lots of 3" to 6" fish out there. Big congrats and good job to OGFers Rutty and his partner and Brad and his. Probably more OGF guys in it but those are the 2 I knew of. Tough conditions and tournament again for the Crappie USA event. I think we learned more prefishing and fishing this tournament than we have from any other one and added alot of spots to our arsenal. Still need to work on our shallow brush bite.
> Kind of a rough spawn so far this year with a couple bad timed cold fronts just when things were getting good both times. Looks a little chilly this week as well. But it should be getting good real soon.
> Didn't get a picture of it unfortunately but Scott caught a real colored up crappie that we were convinced was a hybrid. Looked alot like a black but had a black spot behind its gill and faint vertical black lines on its side. Didn't count the spines. Heard of a small black nose caught last week as well.
> Off to Illinois in a few days for Decatur Lake.
> View attachment 469387
> 
> View attachment 469388
> 
> View attachment 469389


I couldn’t agree with RMK’s assessment above. If the tournament would have been Tuesday/Wednesday I believe the winning weights would have been 17+ pounds. We caught a few in several places and thought “wish we wouldn’t have hooked that one -lol”. Then nothing showed up after that rain and front came through. We caught a ton of fish just not the ones we were hoping for. We were lucky enough to to find some big males and a couple females to end up 7th in the amateur division. I wasn’t sure who you were RMK until this weekend. I’ll make sure to talk with you when I see you out. Good luck in Illinois!


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## wannaBfishing

Here were a few from Saturday


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## RMK

wannaBfishing said:


> Here were a few from Saturday
> View attachment 469392


Nice to put another face with a screen name. Good job to you guys to.


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## RMK

wannaBfishing said:


> I couldn’t agree with RMK’s assessment above. If the tournament would have been Tuesday/Wednesday I believe the winning weights would have been 17+ pounds. We caught a few in several places and thought “wish we wouldn’t have hooked that one -lol”. Then nothing showed up after that rain and front came through. We caught a ton of fish just not the ones we were hoping for. We were lucky enough to to find some big males and a couple females to end up 7th in the amateur division. I wasn’t sure who you were RMK until this weekend. I’ll make sure to talk with you when I see you out. Good luck in Illinois!


Good job! Tough one


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## brad crappie

Thx rmk and it was tough! Plus nice meeting u and we had no problems finding fish but I think only one at 12in or better! That was are problem


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> My previous guess on winning weight proved to be a little on the high side. However, I feel that if we wouldn't have had that front my 18lb prediction may have held up. Prefishing mid week was going well and the bite was decent. Fish were setting up well in prespawn locations. Heard from another team catching multiple fish around the 1.5lb mark. That decent bite from midweek slowed by Friday and got down right tough on Saturday. Not only the cold front but a field of 65 crappie boats hitting alot of the same spots multiple times also makes catching tougher. We caught most of our fish on deeper wood structure, some on shallow wood, a few on rocks, and frantically **** as many pontoons as we could the last 2 hours of Saturday and actually upgraded a couple fish doing it. 20 or so keepers with 1 pretty good male on Friday and 10 or so on Saturday. Again males. Don't think we weighed a single female fish. Compared to prefishing when we were catching predominantly females. We did catch some small females Friday that were oozing eggs. Lots of 3" to 6" fish out there. Big congrats and good job to OGFers Rutty and his partner and Brad and his. Probably more OGF guys in it but those are the 2 I knew of. Tough conditions and tournament again for the Crappie USA event. I think we learned more prefishing and fishing this tournament than we have from any other one and added alot of spots to our arsenal. Still need to work on our shallow brush bite.
> Kind of a rough spawn so far this year with a couple bad timed cold fronts just when things were getting good both times. Looks a little chilly this week as well. But it should be getting good real soon.
> Didn't get a picture of it unfortunately but Scott caught a real colored up crappie that we were convinced was a hybrid. Looked alot like a black but had a black spot behind its gill and faint vertical black lines on its side. Didn't count the spines. Heard of a small black nose caught last week as well.
> Off to Illinois in a few days for Decatur Lake.
> View attachment 469387
> 
> View attachment 469388
> 
> View attachment 469389


Funny you mentioned the black nose, I caught a 6" black nose Thurs last week. First one in a couple years. 
Good luck at Decatur!


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## Saugeyefisher

Good job to everyone fishing the tourneys from ogf! Good stuff on a big stage! I have enough problems making decisions on what to do an when to do it why crappie fishing I couldn't imagine the pressure why in a tournament....


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## brad crappie

Forgot to mention I counted around 8 white crappies caught


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## brad crappie

Also what in the blank did they do at windy point?? Taking out most of all the bank structure on unreal!!! I got a fish and wildlife degree and how can u sign off on that project!!! Structure for fish and leading to more bank erosion unreal!!!! I did not see one fishermen on the bank where they did this thinking they did it for more areas for bank fishermen!!! Where if they going to do that just make holes every so many yards on the bank!!! Once again the division made a wrong choice!!! Anyone know the answer on this project


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## RMK

That one had me puzzled as well. First thought was to allow shore fisherman more access to the water but like you said a couple holes here and there would have made since. An area of north side old growth timber and brushy/woody bank was destroyed last year as well to make room for dredge material.


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## zaraspook

Arrived at GLSM Tues in time to fish a couple hours before dark. Water temp 62 and clarity mildly stained. Caught 9 at first stop on walking tour, all on Monkey Milk Baby Shad. 8 of the 9 were short so moved to next spot.

2nd spot consists of submerged wood close to seawall. Among the 4 caught there one was legal. It looked light colored, lacking war paint like you'd expect for males, but no mid-section bulge from an eggs. Perhaps it was a spawned out female or even a male post spawn and lost it's expected dark shading. 3 of 4 fish here bit the monkey milk baby shad while a chartreuse stump bug claimed 1 fish.

Third spot structure is wood, floating logs, very shallow, some stone banks, water is mostly less than 18" with occasional 3' depth. 2 keepers from 5 fish here. Better quality fish here including an 11" male tight to a floating log. Baby Shad produced most bites here but 2 fish with chartreuse stump bug. A twin tailed grub did not stir interest. Next stop my seawall....nothing but a couple bumps. 

Stopped long enough for a quick dinner, then back out. Made a change in bait on one of the rods I carry.... Stump Bug changed color to black/chartreuse from Confetti Chartreuse. 

Headed to a spot with submerged and surface wood, some rip rap, light brush and substantial water at depth 2' and less. In the rain few it took some time to locate fish. Got a keeper on Baby Shad then silence, no action Grabbed the black/chartreuse stump bug, catching another 10"+ keeper and a pair of legal 9" on the Stump Bug. Then got into a toad of a fish, thought it was a bass, but finally saw it was a crappie. Unfortunately it came unzipped after 20 seconds. Easily my best of the day but speculating on size is foolish. We'll never know. Daylight fading fast headed back to my place. 

Not bad....22 with 5 good keepers. A couple more legal size. Aggressive males in tuxedos. Fish quality definitely improved as the day progressed. Very shallow water held the bigger fish....nothing crazy about that when spawn is on! Good fun.


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## zaraspook

Didn't fish as much Weds but a productive day. Nice quality, low quantity during a late morning and then mid-afternoon session. Focused on shallow back ends of channels with wood....floating logs with 1-2' of water were great. Caught 12 with 7 keepers in the AM. Afternoon caught 4 with 2 keepers. Photos of a 12.25" and 12.5" are attached.. 5 were11 but short of 12", smallest keepers were 10.5c.. Easily would be my heaviest basket of the Spring

Nice mix of males and females. Some females looked spawned out. Tried other baits today but all caught were happy with the black/chartreuse Stump Bugs. Most caught swimming the bait, frequently less than 10" below the surface parallel to the logs. Really cool when you can see the fish engulfing the bait.....not a common event at GLSM. Other than one flurry of activity, 5 fish on 6 casts in 4-5 feet of water parallel to a seawall, the rest were really shallow catches.


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## CHOPIQ

Zara, I saw someone caught a 2.21 lb crappie during last weekend’s tournament. It was a hot. Probably biggest I ever saw come out of st Mary’s.


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## zaraspook

CHOPIQ said:


> Zara, I saw someone caught a 2.21 lb crappie during last weekend’s tournament. It was a hot. Probably biggest I ever saw come out of st Mary’s.


Saw a photo of thst 2.21#. Agree, biggest I've seen here.


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## zaraspook

Thurs was a dandy day.......may have had better but don't recall. After a timid late morning start of 2 keepers from 5 caught, took a potty break and finished off my 1st cup of coffee. Thinking about other shallow channel backends similar to those where I located bigger fish Weds, I came up with a hunch to try.
Hiked to the west where I previously had enjoyed some limited success. Dropped a bait near a dock, moved it twice, bobber disappeared and we were off and running for the next hour and a half. That first fish was a dark 11" male. That process repeated 29 more times without leaving the dock. 27 of the 30 caught were keepers ranging from 10.5 to 12.75". Fewer than 5 were females though I thought sure those big males must have some jumbo ladies as mates. Never got into a toad female, but nothing else to complain about.

I used 3 different baits......black/chartreuse Stump Bug, Green Hornet Baby Shad, and a chartreuse grub with dual tails and speckles. All caught fish though the first 2 attracted the 12" fish. I fished 16" under bobber and as deep as 3'.................found fish at all those depths. Caught fish 15' out and 2' out. Clearly I was camped on a good size orgy and it probably didn't matter what the bait was. Great day of spawn fishing!

Pics of the 12" and 12.75".


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## zaraspook

After the great day Thursday, Friday was going to be abbreviated. Due back home early afternoon, my fishing would be limited to just a morning session. Soooooo, didn't mess around with other spots, just headed for the spot so generous Thurs. Connected on each of the first 3 casts.....3 decent dark male crappie. But, the fish weren't as robust as day before. Too soon for a verdict! A few more casts into it and it was clear......some fish still there, not the numbers nor the quality I'd camped on 24 hours earlier. Caught 9, 4 keepers, but couldn't locate there, or nearby, anything to resemble Thursday's good fortune. 

Friday morning water temp was 57. When I arrived Tues it was 61-62 range. Cleaned up, packed up, and headed out of town. Hope the spawn still has legs when I get back early next week.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Thurs was a dandy day.......may have had better but don't recall. After a timid late morning start of 2 keepers from 5 caught, took a potty break and finished off my 1st cup of coffee. Thinking about other shallow channel backends similar to those where I located bigger fish Weds, I came up with a hunch to try.
> Hiked to the west where I previously had enjoyed some limited success. Dropped a bait near a dock, moved it twice, bobber disappeared and we were off and running for the next hour and a half. That first fish was a dark 11" male. That process repeated 29 more times without leaving the dock. 27 of the 30 caught were keepers ranging from 10.5 to 12.75". Fewer than 5 were females though I thought sure those big males must have some jumbo ladies as mates. Never got into a toad female, but nothing else to complain about.
> 
> I used 3 different baits......black/chartreuse Stump Bug, Green Hornet Baby Shad, and a chartreuse grub with dual tails and speckles. All caught fish though the first 2 attracted the 12" fish. I fished 16" under bobber and as deep as 3'.................found fish at all those depths. Caught fish 15' out and 2' out. Clearly I was camped on a good size orgy and it probably didn't matter what the bait was. Great day of spawn fishing!
> 
> Pics of the 12" and 12.75".
> View attachment 469607
> 
> View attachment 469608


Awesome day and great job Zara! Nice fish


----------



## zaraspook

I think you know the exact spot I'm referencing, correct? Thanks.


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## RMK

Interesting observation from Lake Decatur last week..... 10" size limit with a 10 fish limit. As we were running and gunning trying to learn the lake and find big fish at the same time we hit some rocks to see if anybody was spawning. Found several stretches of rocks loaded with 9" to 9 7/8" male black crappie and thought to our selves how many fish that 10" limit was saving and giving them the opportunity to grow and reproduce. Also couldn't help but wonder how a 10" and possibly even a 15 or 20 fish limit could help GLSM.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> I think you know the exact spot I'm referencing, correct? Thanks.


That channel always looks amazing to me and I still haven't caught a fish in it. Just haven't been able to time it right yet. Glad you did!


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## crappiedude

RMK said:


> thought to our selves how many fish that 10" limit was saving and giving them the opportunity to grow and reproduce. Also couldn't help but wonder how a 10" and possibly even a 15 or 20 fish limit could help GLSM.


I have thought that same thing. A 15 fish 10" limit is more than enough for a 1 person limit. Unfortunately I doubt that the state will ever go for it. ODNR wants that $$$$. I think Ohio is in a very good up-tick in crappie fishing right now and lots of people are just going to keep every 9" fish they put a hook into. 
I talked to one guy who keeps evey legal fish he catches and he was telling me he was eating crappie from his freezer that were 3 years old. He fishes almost everyday yet he throws nothing back.
The new electronics is what makes me want lower limits. I know some pretty good fisherman who would have both good and bad days when they went fishing. Both added livescope and now rarely have a bad day. Most days I see them on the lake they have full livewells.
Long term I don't think these lakes can hold up to the pressure they are recieving right now.


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## brad crappie

Rmk good job out of state! I think St marys would produce bigger fish with a lower limit or a 10in size limit cause those fish grow so quick there! But on on the other hand every lake is different so the regulations has to fit the lake! Maybe no limits and it has help some lakes I know! I fish a lot and hardly keep fish but those that fish a lot, that keep them all the time has to be doing it for profit or a favor for a favor! U can’t eat fish 24/7


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## polebender

They tried the 10” limit at Delaware Lake for a few years. They were hoping it would be a trophy lake for crappies. But all it amounted to was less fish being harvested and a bigger population of smaller fish. So they dropped the size limit back to 9”.


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## crappiedude

polebender said:


> They tried the 10” limit at Delaware Lake for a few years. They were hoping it would be a trophy lake for crappies. But all it amounted to was less fish being harvested and a bigger population of smaller fish. So they dropped the size limit back to 9”.


Maybe but the state still touts Delaware as a premier crappie lake. The only way you get big fish is with time.
So keep the 9" size limit or get rid of the size limit all together but reduce the limit to 15 fish, too many greedy people.
If it really doesn't matter why have any limits?
Why did they reduce the perch limit to 10 on Erie Central Basin (I think that's what it's called) 
Protect the resource...


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## polebender

crappiedude said:


> Maybe but the state still touts Delaware as a premier crappie lake. The only way you get big fish is with time.
> So keep the 9" size limit or get rid of the size limit all together but reduce the limit to 15 fish, too many greedy people.
> If it really doesn't matter why have any limits?
> Why did they reduce the perch limit to 10 on Erie Central Basin (I think that's what it's called)
> Protect the resource...


You know the adage!

“*You* can *please* some of the people all of the time, *you* can *please* all of the people some of the time, but *you can't please* all of the people all of the time”.”


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Hope the spawn still has legs when I get back early next week.


I bet this incoming warm up sets these lakes on fire next week. The bite should be fantastic.
We're planning a trip to Cumberland next week, can't wait.


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## Saugeyefisher

crappiedude said:


> I bet this incoming warm up sets these lakes on fire next week. The bite should be fantastic.
> We're planning a trip to Cumberland next week, can't wait.


I'm thinking(hoping) the same! Fished a small shallow pond this morning an caught females with eggs.


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## Rooster

Taking a ½ day tomorrow, and hitting Cowan. I was there last week, catching runts on every cast, but nothing over 10”. Hope the sunshine gets the BIG girls moving in everywhere this weekend!


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## Tom 513

Zaraspook, you have a Pm


----------



## CHOPIQ

Rooster could you post how you do at Cowan. We’re going camping there next weekend to fish. Thank. Hoping the cicadas are out by then.


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## wannaBfishing

crappiedude said:


> I bet this incoming warm up sets these lakes on fire next week. The bite should be fantastic.
> We're planning a trip to Cumberland next week, can't wait.


Let’s hope you are right crappiedude. Are you planning to fish the crappie USA regional at Cumberland? We are planning to and will probably be down there the next 3 weekends after this one trying to figure out where those fish might be - lol.


----------



## crappiedude

wannaBfishing said:


> Let’s hope you are right crappiedude. Are you planning to fish the crappie USA regional at Cumberland? We are planning to and will probably be down there the next 3 weekends after this one trying to figure out where those fish might be - lol.


No tourny's for me, I just fish for fun. C-land is so different than our Ohio waters but it's a fun lake to fish. I've only fished it 2x in recent years. In 2016 we did pretty good on crappie once we figured out a pattern. In 2019 we had a hard time finding any crappie but the smallies were crushing our lures so we just targeted them and had a blast. Our last 2 trips were in mid April and since this trip is early May were aren't sure what to expect. With this cool weather we've been having I hope we can still run across some spawning fish. Since I only have limited time on that lake I don't really have any idea what to expect.
I think I'm right about our local lakes. I fished with a lifelong friend last night whom I haven't fished with in 3-4 years. He used to be a regular on all our trips but he has a hard time getting away from his farm since his wife is no longer able to take care of the animals when he's gone.
We only fished a few spots but the results were impressive. We caught well over 100 fish and we could have kept a double limit of fish over 10". I'm too lazy to clean them so most fish went back. A few females were showing up in the mix.









Here's a good one that went back. I won't generally keep many big females this time of year.
If we could get 3 or 4 days of good warm sun these fish will be on fire.
I'm pretty convinved not all fish will come shallow to spawn and some will spawn in 10 fow at times.


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## Saugeyefisher

C-dude... Crappies are just now at the end of there spawn a little further south then c-land at a much shallower lake. So I bet you find just what your looking for!


----------



## crappiedude

Saugeyefisher said:


> C-dude... Crappies are just now at the end of there spawn a little further south then c-land at a much shallower lake. So I bet you find just what your looking for!


That would be great, there's a spot we found last time down that would be perfect for jig & cork. 
I don't mind post spawn fish, if you can find an area they head to you can catch a bunch of really nice fish.
I'm really hoping we can find a decent pattern for smallies too.


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## wannaBfishing

crappiedude said:


> No tourny's for me, I just fish for fun. C-land is so different than our Ohio but it's a fun lake to fish. I've only fished it 2x in recent years. In 2016 we did pretty good on crappie once we figured out a pattern. In 2019 we had a hard time finding any crappie but the smallies were crushing our lures so we just targeted them and had a blast. Our last 2 trips were in mid April and since this trip is early May were aren't sure what to expect. With this cool weather we've been having I hope we can still run across some spawning fish. Since I only have limited time on that lake I don't really have any idea what to expect.
> I think I'm right about our local lakes. I fished with a lifelong friend last night whom I haven't fished with in 3-4 years. He used to be a regular on all our trips but he has a hard time getting away from his farm since his wife is no longer able to take care of the animals when he's gone.
> We only fished a few spots but the results were impressive. We caught well over 100 fish and we could have kept a double limit of fish over 10". I'm too lazy to clean them so most fish went back. A few females were showing up in the mix.
> View attachment 469862
> 
> 
> Here's a good one that went back. I won't generally keep many big females this time of year.
> If we could get 3 or 4 days of good warm sun these fish will be on fire.
> I'm pretty convinved not all fish will come shallow to spawn and some will spawn in 10 fow at times.


Awesome report C-dude. Good luck down South. I will have to follow up with you on how you did down there


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## zaraspook

High school buddy and I fished GLSM Tues noon thru Thurs evening. We did not find the robust spawn bite we expected. Water temps had been off as much as 11 degrees from low 60's several weeks ago. Variable clarity didn't help, choco milk in many places, and post front conditions. Add to that a sudden surge of carp mating action was adding insult to injury. Crappie will shy away from boisterous carp bull-dozing, usually not too far away, but will temporarily vacate. In general the crappie we found were 10-20' off the bank and at times 3' or more under bobber. No crappie bigger than 12" this trip and I did catch 1 dink white crappie. A ton of boat traffic in my channel and elsewhere this week.....3 bass or crappie tourneys this weekend.

We caught 11 Tues PM, 21 Weds, 22 Thurs. My buddy caught more crappie than me, but my 14 keepers nearly tripled his 5. Most fish caught in Stump Bugs in black/chartreuse or black/green patterns. The "slick" stump bug pattern also produced well, it kind of resembles monkey milk color, but rarely hooked a keeper. We did not keep fish....not my style to remove crappie during spawn. Why retain a fish so close to producing babies? Sorry, but harvesting crappie within a few days of reproduction is not logical if you're a fisherman. It's your choice and I choose to abstain. We had fun but expected more.


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## crappiedude

We got out for a few hours on Thursday. Our spots we fished on Wednesday had dried up or those fish were still nursing their sore lips from the previous day and weren't going to be fooled again. It took a while but we eventually found a pocket of shallow fish. My wife got the best one today. Pruple/chart was the color of choice, just like the day before. Black/chart came in a close 2nd.









Unfortunately our Cumberland trip got canceled for this week so I guess I'll just be fishing local. With any luck we'll be able to continue to find some good fish around here.


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## zaraspook

Tom 513 said:


> Zaraspook, you have a Pm


Hope you saw the reply.


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## zaraspook

Tues at GLSM started slow. Caught 3 short ones in the morning. Not much of a bite so opted to address a bloated list of chores. Back out at 12:30pm, hitting 2 of my spots which have been empty the last 10 days. No change at the first....disappointing. Second spot has been more puzzling. A backend of a channel, shallow and in the past a consistent producer of some piggies. No piggies this day, but 3 tuxedo attired short males found my jig. I've feared the 2021 crappie spawn was sputtering. At least in my channel, evidence looks like it's tank is near empty. 

Made a pit stop at the lakehouse which turned into a full scale gutter cleaning project. At 5pm was re-inspired for another fishing session. Clearly catching isn't working and dictates more dramatic change. Hiked to a channel west where a spot has been inconsistent, but can very good at times. Easily was best action of the day though the bar was set pretty low. Caught 11 in 90 minutes. Actually caught those 11 in 60 minutes. Last half hour silent. First of 4 keepers was a white crappie and got another short white later. Most of keepers came when I adjusted jig depth to 3' and deeper. All 11 crappie came on Stump Bug plastics. 10 of those bit a pattern they call Confetti. It's white on bottom half, translucent upper half with with multicolored speckles. I've had good experiences with this pattern, though hadn't tied it on lately. After a few weeks of using Stump Bugs, I'm a strong fan. 

Late day water temp 68+ degrees. Clarity was not as good where I caught fish compared to places I blanked. Maybe spawn still has legs?


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## zaraspook

Wednesday this week fished 2 sessions. Total was 11 caught, 5 keepers in dwindling action and water temps ready to crack into 70's. Difficult to assess what the pattern is when bites are scarce. Not too much data to go on but I'm surprised that near bank bite is poor and fish really small. Better quality fish more likely to come 12-15'- out in channel and in water 5'+ if you can find it. Cover not required. Guessing the 3 cycles since March of 8-9 days warming, then 7 days cooling resulted in pushing fish out to spawn. My channel which runs mostly 3-5' was good in 1st heat/cool cycle, wimpy since. A nearby channel with substantial areas of 6-8' water has been better size and quantity during last 2 cycles.

Unfortunately, the deeper channel wimping out now too. If beds are deeper, remember to fish deeper. Very few egg loaded females showing up. Post spawn girls and guys will be around for as long as food supply keeps them, but sadly spawn bite growing short. Thurs AM caught just 2, 1 keeper before heading home.


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## crappiedude

I'm still finding some pockets of shallow fish here and there, nothing consistent. I'm not sure why but 2 spots still hold a decent amount with some bigger males. The females looked to be much slimmer these days.
I told a friend last week that it may be time to put the jig and cork and light weight jigs (1/32) away and get out some heavier 1/16 & 3/32 oz jigs.
One spot I normally catch fish shallow during the spawn had zero fish along the shore but fish were stacked up in 8-12 fow just out from that area. We caught a few just to confirm they were crappie and some were pretty good fish. We were on a quest for a last of the season shallow bite so we moved on to try a few more spots.
Our last spot held a few late fish but not what we've been finding.


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## RMK

Just saw brushpile fishing has bone head tackle 50% off


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## ohiostrutter

Turkey season is a memory now, so I’m headed up in the morning to try to find a few crappie. I’ll report back Tommorrow!


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Monday morning before heading home. 90 minutes caught 7, 3 keepers. Highlight was this 12.5" on a black/chartreuse Stump Bug. Thought this one was likely a spawned out female. Others were all relatively dark males. 

I came up Sunday evening to put pontoon into the water for the season. Fished briefly Sunday to catch 6, 3 keepers. Water temp 77 degrees. Hard to believe there are any crappie that haven't spawned yet with water that warm. Still fish hanging around to catch post-spawn.


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## ohiostrutter

I will echo what others have said all spring. LOTS of short fish. A whole bunch of catching, but not many keepers. 6 am-10am yielded 8 keepers out of easily 75 fish. Most in the 4-6” range. Enough for my once a year fish fry for myself and better than sitting at home! Nasty nates single tail in a monkey milk pattern on a 1/80 ounce pink jig head.


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## zaraspook

Though the weather tried to spoil the Memorial Day summer kickoff, it was great to again experience a "normal" gathering of friends and family. While mankind can't control the weather, Mother Nature will turn it around soon. Thanks to tremendous American leadership last year, people can again socialize in the USA. Soon the world will reap similar benefit from American ingenuity. 

We partied Thurs thru Mon, probably eating and drinking too much, but making up for a year's absence of in-person interaction. Sorry, but Zoom is a poor substitute for live and in-person. 

Not much time to fish when hosting a house full. No fishing Th, caught 3 Fri, 4 Sat, and 4 Sunday. Not a keeper among those caught! Finally found freedom to fish Monday, catching 20 with 2 keepers. Monkey Milk was best pattern. Water temp just under 65 degrees and clarity far better than GLSM can claim during the last decade of Memorial Days. The run of dink crappie will correct itself. Summer will arrive. Hope springs eternal!


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## zaraspook

Late Tues went back to lake. Fished an hour before dark. Post spawn bite is wimpy. Caught 5, all dinks but 1 which barely cracked legal length.

Steady rain all day Weds. Painted inside most of the day. Ventured out twice for 30-40 minute fishing breaks, of course both times once outside the rain kicked up a couple notches. Caught 1 crappie late morning, a keeper male still sporting war paint. Felt sorry for that guy.....battered and beat up, fins and lower tail ragged and missing from tending beds for the spawning ladies. Caught 3 in the afternoon, 2 dinks and the 11.5" in photo. Usually I reserve photos for only those 12" or better but they've been few and far between since 2021 spawn ended. 

Afternoon bite slightly better than morning.....fewer carp creating havoc. All fish Weds caught on Stump Bugs, a black/chartreuse color or monkey milk version they call "slick". The few I caught were farther out than normal, 12-20' off bank and beyond known submerged cover. Water temp steady at 65 degrees and water clarity decent. Rain was insufficient to muddy the waters.


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## Lowell H Turner

you're still doing better than myself at the moment sir !


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> you're still doing better than myself at the moment sir !


Sorry to hear that, LHT. You must not be fishing much. Good to hear from you!


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## zaraspook

Arrived GLSM in time to fish Tues evening for 45 minutes before dark. Pleasantly surprised to catch 7 crappie, 3 legal from one of the 2 spots I hit. Interesting that the males are still donned in spawn colors. 

Water clarity is decent but stained understandably from recent rain. Cottonwood fluff on water wasn't evident Tues evening. I'd like to say cottonwood is over with. More likely its absence the result of complete calm, no wind. 

Best bait Tues was the Stump Bug in "slick" pattern. Slick color resembles Monkey Milk. Fish I caught were on submerged cover 12-15' from bank in 4-5' of water. My bait was fished 3' under bobber to keep plastic just above cover below. I've had that same plastic tied on that rod for 3 weeks.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Interesting that the males are still donned in spawn colors.


We fished some post spawn spots in 12-18 fow and caught nada, nothing, zilch. Most years the big girls would stack up on these spots after the rigors of spawn and eat like crazy.
After checking 3 spots we headed for some summer lairs in 10-18 fow. Lots of shad balls around and so were the crappie. Plenty of males sporting color. We caught so many in fact I was wondering if we still had a few late spawning females nearby but all the girls looked nice and slim, all ready for summer.

Those stump bugs are some kind of tough little buggers....wow, 3 weeks.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> We fished some post spawn spots in 12-18 fow and caught nada, nothing, zilch. Most years the big girls would stack up on these spots after the rigors of spawn and eat like crazy.
> After checking 3 spots we head for some summer lairs in 10-18 fow. Lots of shad balls around and so were the crappie. Plenty of males sporting color. We caught so many in fact I was wondering if we still had a few late spawning females nearby but all the girls looked nice and slim, all ready for summer.
> 
> Those stump bugs are some kind of tough little buggers....wow, 3 weeks.


Hey, c-dude. I thought twice about leaving in my post the statement "3 weeks with the same bait(Stump Bug) tied on". Is it proof the Stump Bugs are tough little buggers or does it suggest I haven't caught many crappie the last 3 weeks? Truth is a bit of both. Those baits are durable and my crappie numbers have sagged big time compared to March thru mid May. 
I'm glad I read your endorsement of these plastics last year, plus RMK gave me a few of the baits earlier this year to try. Been a fan since my first bait got wet.


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## DavidRK

Does anyone else think the lake level is kind of low for Mid June? I drove on Lake Shore Drive yesterday and I think I saw some signs of the algae reported in the Daily Stannard. Anyone else seeing this? I haven't been out much this year since I've been catching up on work on the house since recovering from cancer.


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## fshnmaster

DavidRK said:


> Does anyone else think the lake level is kind of low for Mid June? I drove on Lake Shore Drive yesterday and I think I saw some signs of the algae reported in the Daily Stannard. Anyone else seeing this? I haven't been out much this year since I've been catching up on work on the house since recovering from cancer.


We haven't gotten much rain lately. This weekend will help


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## james.

Cold water creek on Friday campgrounds was way worse got a video of campgrounds if I can figure out how to uplade


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## zaraspook

james. said:


> View attachment 471724
> Cold water creek on Friday campgrounds was way worse got a video of campgrounds if I can figure out how to uplade


James - I haven't personally viewed any algae blooms in my area, but the colors in your photo look dead-on similar to the Mother of all blooms that smothered the lake in 2010. Let's hope we're not headed down that path.

Just a few weeks ago we celebrated a huge event..... for the first time in 12 years testing for microcystins, the toxin from our "normal" GLSM algae, showed the toxin levels were "undetectable". Never happened before and water clarity had been incredibly clear for months.

Quietly, many of us were jubilant but leery there could be another shoe to drop. Why the apprehension? You see, in 2010-2011 when the lake blew up, the scientific wizards from Battelle Institute were engaged to analyze what happened, why the historic algae bloom happened. After months of studies Battelle reported the lake actually contained multiple strains of algae. For unknown reasons, in 2010 the normally dominant algae did not thrive, became recessive and in its absence another normally recessive strain thrived and dominated. That strain gave us the thick 2010 algae that looked like paint in white, blues, and turquoise swirls. 

The abnormal water clarity this year and recent test data shows our "normal" algae is not present in normal levels. If you follow the logic I'm pushing, is the door open for a recessive algae strain to become dominant and thrive as history shows happened a decade + ago?

Before anyone jumps off the deep end, keep in mind GLSM is not the same lake as in 2010. Conditions are different. The loading of nitrates and phosphates to feed algae is different, so we're told. The southside tributaries now have treatment trains to filter contaminants which is another difference. Tons and tons of dredged materials with legacy contaminates are gone, another difference.

Clearly current photos and reports tell us something is going on. The next few weeks should tell us if we've done the right things and enough of them over the last 11 years. Cross your fingers!


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## zaraspook

Water temp late Monday 78 degrees. Fished 8-8:45 pm to get 2 bites, catching one. It was 12", first one that size in several weeks. Jumped on my Stump Bug in "slick" pattern which is essentially Monkey Milk. Fun while it lasted.


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## zaraspook

No shortage of brew, burgers, and brats for our July 4th affair at lake Fri-Mon. Pontoon getting a steady workout including the fireworks display Sat night. Easily several hundred boats cramming the NW quadrant of the lake. Fireworks were good for a small town like Celina. Kudos to the the sponsors!

July isn't a productive time for bankfishing shallows of GLSM channels. I attempt to fish for 45 minutes each morning and evening. Doesn't always work out. Caught 14 crappie so far with 4 keepers....that's considerably better production than norm. Water temp is 76, a couple degrees under last week. Water clarity suffers with each week deeper into summer, but better clarity than most years. Our normal algae is not evident. A different strain creeping into the picture that resembles the prevalent algae from 2010 GLSM blowup. It's presence is scattered, not everywhere, and likely will get worse with hotter temperatures. No one knows how severe it will go. Good reason to be concerned.

Things are never perfect but what a great place America is!


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## brad crappie

Been quite u all right Zara


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## zaraspook

brad crappie said:


> Been quite u all right Zara


Awww. So nice to know I've been missed. Thanks, BC! Just the dog days of summer eating into my fishing time and results. The catching from bank slides to a trickle. My log says I caught 24 crappie in July, really not that bad considering some years it was a skunking for the entire month. 20 of the 24 were bagged by July 6th. Remainder of the month caught but 4. August is on a better pace at 29 so far with 23 caught T-Th this week. I returned to traditional GLSM baits that work for me, traditional colors, which I credit for the slightly improved catch rates, Rarely any keepers but the short ones aren't as short as last year. Looking forward to the fall when fish population in channels begins to rise. 

GLSM had an unbelievable run with water quality thru June, the likes of which was unseen for 12 years. We hit a bump around the 4th of July and toxin numbers started to rise. Experts expected algae issues to get worse until early August when algae conditions peak. Scattered areas, usually very stagnant spots without wind, did pop up with unsightly surface crud. All beaches are open, water caution signs down, and water testing shows microcystins at record low levels for GLSM.
The scientists say our spring algae issues normally come from heavy spring rain producing runoff from fields, No runoff this year...............lake looked pristine. Summer algae issues come from phosphates and nitrogen already in the lake. Warming water breaks down bonds and allows legacy gunk on the bottom to rise in the water column. Those nutrients feed algae. We got some of that this year, but subdued and very mild compared to the last 11 years. All the dredging apparently having an impact, farmers practicing better management of fertilizer and manure, plus no spring runoff equals vastly improved water quality. Great to see now but no guarantees for next year. Mother Nature can't be held at bay for long, runoff will return.


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## zaraspook

Fished from bank tonight for hour before dark. First bait produced no bites. 2nd bait was the same no bite scenario. 3rd bait, same spot, caught 5 crappie. Go figure! 2.5 to 4' of water. Plan to fish 1-2.5' water in the morning. 😁


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## zaraspook

Tues AM bank fished 2 hours early. Started at a shallow backend of a channel with a lot of variety within a 40x50' area. Very little seawall, multiple large floating logs, some rocky bank, a few limbs, an old boat slip, and an aerator that creates significant current circulation. Water depth ranges from 4" to 2.5", mostly under 20". Picked up 4 crappie 5' out along a rocky bank in 2' of water and 2 along floating logs with water depth a foot deep. All crappie were is areas of low current flow. When the bite slowed I moved to another spot that produced no bites. Moved again to the area fished the previous night with some success. it's runs about a foot to 18' deeper, predominately seawall banks with suspended stake beds 4-12" out. Caught 3 crappie here. Total of 9 for the 2 hour morning walking session.

Fished again Tuesday evening for an hour before dark. Same spots fished as in in the morning but skipped the spot that was without a morning bite. The shallow backend produced 6 crappie again. Caught 4 at the slightly deeper area, all seawall banked with the stake beds. 10 crappie in the evening hour session is a decent catch rate. 19 for the day(2 sessions) is the best I've had for the summer. Yep, you can find crappie surprisingly shallow in the summer.

Water temp is 73.7 degrees and water clarity seems to be improving........water less green. Monkey Milk was a good color today as was chartreuse.


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## AEFISHING55

Great report, any size to your crappies?


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## zaraspook

AEFISHING55 said:


> Great report, any size to your crappies?


Keepers are few and far between. Mostly 6-8", but actually better than last year's massive 4" invasion.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Yep, you can find crappie surprisingly shallow in the summer.


 Yes it surprises me too sometimes just how shallow you can find summer crappie. Every year I'll take a few days and fish super shallow water...just to see what's going on. It never fails to amaze me when I get into a good school. I've had some days when I can see them flash when they go after a bait.


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## zaraspook

Came to GLSM Thurs evening and fished 7:15-8:30. Water temp 80.6 compared to 73.7 last week and depth off my seawall virtually steady at 36". Caught 4 crappie, one a keeper. 1st legal fish in 2 mos. To keep things entertaining also caught 9 gills, a yellow belly, and 17" channel cat that was fun on my crappie rod. 

Back out this morning at 7:30 until 9:15am. 5 crappie this morning, also 14 gills. While keeper crappie continue scarce in my channel, size of gills is above average. Fished from bank. Crappie were all taken from water depth 1-4'. Chartreuse or pearl colors were effective.


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## zaraspook

Friday evening before dark caught 5 crappie, 1 keeper from 3 spots. Saturday in 2 morning hours caught 10 crappie, 1 keeper.....more activity than night before. 2 crappie came from a very shallow back end. Remaining 8 came from seawall, 3-4 fow with submerged wood or pvc stake beds roughly 2-8' off the bank. Plastics in pearl and chartreuse variations were effective 20-30" under bobber. Slowly getting in to keeper size fish, a welcome change, but far from a bucket full. Morning fishing consistently better than evenings.


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## zaraspook

Saturday morning bite was more active, therefore I fished longer. Session lasted nearly 2.5 hours, partly due to 30 extra minutes trying to get crappie #11. It didn't work. Caught 10, zero the last 1/2 hour. Most crappie were 7-8", 1 officially legal and a couple within quarter inch of legal. That's normal, that is smaller fish in channel early. Size improves as we move into and through the fall bite. It's coming, but way early.


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## zaraspook

Great Labor Day extended weekend for food, beverages, boating, and people fun. Saturday afternoon, evening, night was a washout. Rain set in late afternoon with a few downpours spaced between steady showers. Neighbor commented on Sunday his rain gage measured 0.9 inches. 

Labor Day is our smallest lake holiday party. Mainly family members and a few visitors occasionally mixed in. 

My bank fishing for crappie is minimal. Mornings for 60 minutes, maybe 90 minutes max. Rest of the day is too busy and evenings I'm grilling. Boat traffic in the channels is high. All property owners are at their homes and entertaining. Most of my normal fishing spots therefore are not available to fish. Saturday morning I caught 1 crappie......no skunk! Sunday morning gave up 4 crappie, one a keeper. Monday tally improved to 6 crappie, again one a keeper. Gill bites are plentiful and nearly session I'll get into one channel cat to get the adrenalin pumping. The cats aren't huge, typically 17-20" range, and provide an awesome tug-of-war on my light line, long pole, crappie rig. 

Channel crappie will become more numerous over the coming weeks. Admit I'm not confident about a robust fall bite. Quantity of fish may be ok. Quality/size is the concern. We've been spoiled with many seasons of 60-70% of catch keepers. Last fall was way off that mark. Fall of 2021 may not show any improvement. Hoping to be surprised.....


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## zaraspook

A friend and I bank fished GLSM Friday for 90 minutes in morning, 2 hours starting at 2 pm, and 20 minutes prior to darkness. My partner in crime caught 20 crappie, 23 for me. Good quantity, quality not so good. 4 keepers, largest at 10". Majority of fish 6.5 - 8.5" which is better than last year at this time. Most fish caught in water 3-4' tight to submerged cover. Chartreuse best color. Smaller baits preferred. Mid-afternoon bite best....in the shade. We had fun.


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## crappiedude

Sounds like a good time to me.


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## RMK

Friday first light- surface temp 71. Started out trying some deep structure. Nobody home. After that I moved on to check some shady spots that have produced in the late summer/fall in the past and got a few to bite. 6 fish all in the 9" range. A couple here and a couple there. Not piled up yet anywhere that I tried. Silver shad stump bug for me. I had a feeling you might have been out Friday morning Zara and had intentions to stop through there to say hi but I ran out of time.. Looking forward to some cooler days, and water temps, to come.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Friday first light- surface temp 71. Started out trying some deep structure. Nobody home. After that I moved on to check some shady spots that have produced in the late summer/fall in the past and got a few to bite. 6 fish all in the 9" range. A couple here and a couple there. Not piled up yet anywhere that I tried. Silver shad stump bug for me. I had a feeling you might have been out Friday morning Zara and had intentions to stop through there to say hi but I ran out of time.. Looking forward to some cooler days, and water temps, to come.
> View attachment 475714


Good to hear you're out, RMK. I just came in from a 3:30-5pm Sunday session. It's been a good time to play with the crappie as long as you stay in the shade. Caught 7, 3 were legal 9. In my hour early this morning I caught 4, one legal. Bluegrass pattern this afternoon, chartreuse in morning. Friend caught 12 this morning, one a bit over 9".Between us we caught 80 crappie Fri-Sunday....about 10 legal but just one of those 10".

I'm surprised you didn't shoot toons. Hasn't been productive for me yet but I think it's time.


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## zaraspook

Water temp 71 Mon morning and water level down 1.5" in a week. Managed to catch 12 this morning(Monday) 8-9:30. Unlikely I will fish again before leaving for home. Bluegrass color and submerged wood in 3-3.5' water depth gave up 10 of the 12 crappie. Keeper rate very low, 10% maybe. Stay away if you're fishing for meat 😁.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Good to hear you're out, RMK. I just came in from a 3:30-5pm Sunday session. It's been a good time to play with the crappie as long as you stay in the shade. Caught 7, 3 were legal 9. In my hour early this morning I caught 4, one legal. Bluegrass pattern this afternoon, chartreuse in morning. Friend caught 12 this morning, one a bit over 9".Between us we caught 80 crappie Fri-Sunday....about 10 legal but just one of those 10".
> 
> I'm surprised you didn't shoot toons. Hasn't been productive for me yet but I think it's time.


toons were my choice of shade, and where i caught my fish. i just wasnt going to mention that part haha


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## zaraspook

Haha! I should have known.


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## zaraspook

Quick trip to my lake place Thurs afternoon. Back home Fri for grandson's soccer match. Fished from 4-6:30pm.....not exactly a time frame at the top of my list. However, this spot is well shaded at the time, holds ample submerged cover....two important trump cards to find cooperating fish. Not lik I killed them, but caught 9 crappie in 90 minutes from that first spot. It was steady, nothing spectacular from water 3-4.5' feet deep. Used shad body plastics in Monkey Milk, Key Lime, and Bluegrass patterns. No clear preference found among those colors. 2-3 legal size fish, none 10" or better. 
Fished 2 other spots for 1/2 hour each. A pair of fish from 1 spot, both dinky 4 inchers. A lone legal crappie from final spot which was my pontoon. 

My hope for better results in early morning Friday never materialized. Caught just 3, 1 a keeper, from 3 spots. Bite was woeful. Put rods away and did some chores before heading home. 

Grandsons soccer match ended in 1-1 tie. Two well matched teams. We scored early in the 2nd half. They scored their lone goal with 2 minutes remaining. Poo! This travelling league doesn't play overtime periods nor shootouts to settle ties.


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## crappiedude

Nice to see you getting at least a few. This (mid/end of Sept)time frame has always been a tough time for me. I guess the summer schools start breaking up and do something. Maybe they just quit feeding because they all have sore lips and they're tired of minnows that bite back. We marked a ton of fish but they just wouldn't bite. Water levels are stable and temps are upper 70's and up so I'm not sure why.
Last week I took the grand kids out and we only caught a total of 4 fish; 2 crappie, 1 cat and a hybrid striper in 3 1/2 hours of fishing. A couple of other friends didn't catch much either.
I'm really looking forward to the water temps dropping down into the 50's and low 60's.
Much better days are coming.....


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Nice to see you getting at least a few. This (mid/end of Sept)time frame has always been a tough time for me. I guess the summer schools start breaking up and do something. Maybe they just quit feeding because they all have sore lips and they're tired of minnows that bite back. We marked a ton of fish but they just wouldn't bite. Water levels are stable and temps are upper 70's and up so I'm not sure why.
> Last week I took the grand kids out and we only caught a total of 4 fish; 2 crappie, 1 cat and a hybrid striper in 3 1/2 hours of fishing. A couple of other friends didn't catch much either.
> I'm really looking forward to the water temps dropping down into the 50's and low 60's.
> Much better days are coming.....


I'm with you on tough time for crappie as well as better days coming. Good job getting grandkids out to learn from grandpa! 

Actually, my August catch of crappie easily exceeded the norm. I'm trusting when we get lower water temps, better quality fish will show up. Very suspect at the moment and GLSM size disappointing last 2 years.


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## zaraspook

Fished GLSM Mon and Tues this week. Did a morning session, early afternoon, and evening session each day. Surprised me that water temp still up there in low 70's, 73.4 to be exact. I figured with a full moon and a bit of rain and front heading in, the combination might juice up the bite. 

Monday morning was uninspiring in light rain. Just 6 crappies. Mid-afternoon improved with 18 more. Sitting on 24, needed only 6 more in evening to hit 30-mark which I hadn't nudged in months. Got 13 instead in a heckuva an hour with a fantastic bite. Total of 37 was best since April 22nd.

Today, Tues, managed 20 in my morning session. Early afternoon backed off to 10. I'm thinking a lot of fish from earlier sessions had stinging lips. Late afternoon session tried long and hard to get to 40. Bite wasn't there but the 8 caught pushed daily total to 38. That's 1 better than Monday! I'll take it. 

Tried lots of new plastics and new color patterns. When the bite's this good, almost everything works. Ice Out, Key Lime, Monkey Milk, Glacier, a color that looks like Army Green were all different sizes and styles of shad bodies that worked in water 3-4.5' of water, fished from seawalls, that held submerged cover within 12' of bank. I found small pockets of schooled fish where I'd pull 5-12 fish from an area the size of a bathtub. Move a few feet away from the bathtub, rarely a bite to be had. 

More rain on the way, much cooler temps could juice things to a new level. More important, hoping to see if some bigger crappies migrate into channels. Now catching 38 a day to get 6-7 legal fish. Year 3 of a puny cycle.


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## zaraspook

Lots of rain to deal with Weds, but wind was more of an issue. Didn't fish early but got out twice, once right after lunch then again about 3:30pm before heading home. 

Wasn't sure if/what bite would be like. 1st session quickly showed bite was at least as good as Mon/Tues. Stayed on the first spot the entire time. Caught 16 in 90 minutes. This was within 6' of bank on submerged wood...2.5' to 3.5' of water. Most crappie were 6-8.5" length, except last 5 fish were all dinks 5" or less. One tap, eat it, and steady pull away. Hook sets were deep. Plastics used were shad bodies in bluegrass, monkey milk, pearl, and key lime. All worked and any plastic or color may have as well or better. Back to lakehouse to cleanup/packup and warmup my coffee. 

3:30pm session was a different spot, more open, susceptible to wind, and heavier rain. Again, got into fish quickly. Bite was aggressive but slightly slower pace. No more than 40 minutes caught 8, no 5" dinks, all 7-9.5" with pudgy tummies. Water at this spot runs a foot deeper than earlier location with more submerged cover but PVC stuff, not wood. Bite hadn't weakened when I left. Had I taken time to add up the numbers, I would have stayed to catch 1 more crappie. With 37 on Mon, 38 Tues, then 24 during just 2 sessions Weds......total for the trip was 99 crappie. 

Fun 3-days. Full moon and low pressure system were on my side to keep the fish active. Cooler fishing weather was a great change. Lower water temps should slowly attract the better quality fish into channels. Yay!


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## tracker_80

Hit a lot of the main spots on the south side. Caught decent numbers of fish, just no real size to them. Typical shad body baits, common colors.


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## zaraspook

tracker......that's the cycle we're in. Approx 2 yrs ago it began. Population weighted heavily to the dinks. Good report.


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## zaraspook

Friend and I fished my channel Mon, Tues, and then just morning on Weds. We caught 29 first day, 34 on Tues, then just 9 in abbreviated Weds morning. Bite was progressively puny 5 barely keepers after 2 days and none thereafter. Last 2 days you had to pull them from the bottom tight to cover, vertical jigging. They'd suck the bait in momentarily, move a few inches if at all. You'd barely feel weight and lift to hook. 

Water temp 62, stable from prior week and water level nicely up 5" in last 8 days. We could use a round of nasty weather to get the party going. Shad are thick. Bait color seemed less important than profile.....smaller and skinnier plastics drew what little response we mustered up.


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## zaraspook

Same friend and I did a repeat M-T-W crappie fishing junket this week, with just a morning session on Weds. Caught 24 between us Monday, fell off to 17 Tues, and continued the downward slope with a puny 8 Weds morning. In about the same fishing time as last trip, our catch dropped by roughly 40%. 

To me the key is water temp which should be declining weekly. Nope, actually rising water temps when nightly low temps sit in the 60's. Bite was scarce for crappie and timid when you found a few. On a good note, we did catch a few bigger fish this week. No real change in weather forecast. Pretty much a rerun of the last 10 days. Will be mid-month before nightly low temps crack into 40's, the norm for Oct. By the way, the toon bite was decent, not reliable, but pretty good at times.

It's coming.


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## crappiedude

Our bite has been fickle in the SW corner of the state also and these warmer temps aren't helping much.
Normally I only use jigs but at this time of the year I'll take a few minnows along. Last week I had a pretty decent day and caught 35 in just over 4 hours. Size wasn't good until I found a few on a stump in 20 fow. We need some cooler weather to get those fish to move shallow.


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## NotAWhopper

Where did you find 20 fow on grand lake st marys?


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## Morrowtucky Mike

NotAWhopper said:


> Where did you find 20 fow on grand lake st marys?


Read the first sentence of his post


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## zaraspook

Arrived GLSM at 3:30pm Mon and line wet at 4pm. Started under my pontoon. 1st fish there was a keeper crappie....that's a pleasant switch. 2 more crappie followed, decent fish but neither a keeper. Moved on to target my neighbor's toon. Pulled 3 more there in 30 minutes, including another keeper. Moved again but not a pontoon this time. First fish was 11", but a LMB not a crappie. Poo! Did catch 3 crappie here as well, again 1 keeper per spot fished. Finished up my 2 hour session back at the 2 toons where I began. Picked up 1 crappie at my toon, no bites at the neighbor boat. Catch 10 in 2 hours isn't bad. 3 keepers in 10 is a definite improvement. 

Fish easily more active, assumably an assist from the approaching rain due tonight. Water temp up nearly 5 degrees from last Mon at 68. Good wind this evening, 15+ mph. Used a Salt and Pepper speckled Silver Phantom Tiny Shad Panfish Assassin. With shad a plenty everywhere this color plastic seemed a logical choice. It worked out ok, didn't try anything else. The toons I fished were in 3-4' of water. The other spot I fished, no pontoon, was same depth. A little better quality fish today, only 1 a dink of 5". This Saturday looks like we start a run of overnight lows in the 40's. Should easily pull water temps into the 50's. I'm pumped!


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## zaraspook

Tuesday at GLSM, despite nearly all day cloud cover, the bite was anemic. Caught 16 but it was a grinder day. Morning was the worst of it, a little better in afternoon, evening bite somewhere in-between. Lots of casts, patience, scattered fish, 1 here and 1 there. Just 1 good keeper. Monkey Milk the best pattern today but not like I found any plastic that turned them on. Really need a string of nights with lows in 40's to knock 10+ degrees off the water temp. It will get them going.


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## zaraspook

Water temp 64 today, windy, and good day to fish. Friend and I bankfished for 62 crappie today. We caught crappie at about every spot fished, but toons were gold. I used only 2 baits, salt/pepper silver Panfish Assassin and Monkey Milk Baby Shad. 

I've been griping about lack of decent size fish. Some 10" showing up over last couple weeks and the photo is the first 11" of the fall. 

Water temps should easily drop 10 degrees into next week. More fish will fire up. The best is just around the corner!


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## crappiedude

Great job Zara, you know the bite is improving when we start seeing some pics.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Great job Zara, you know the bite is improving when we start seeing some pics.


You're right on target, c-dude! Hope more photos in near future.


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## zaraspook

No photos from today's/Sunday catch. Caught 34, 5 keepers. First 13 came from 3 spots on my normal walking circuit. Most of those were in 3' of water, hugging seawalls....within 6 inches of the concrete. 19 of the remaining 21 were enjoying life under pontoons. 

Water temp down 4 degrees to 60. By morning temps finally break into 50's. Plastics used today were same ones used yesterday. Bite should get interesting.


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## Saugeyefisher

Good to see some size following the numbers.
My shallow lake way east and south of you is producing well. Most fish seem to be right at 10". And 95% of what I'm catching is coming from under pontoons. I'm shooting a 1/32 oz road runner with any shad body I have in shad patterns. Be it white or silver glitter.
After I catch the active eaters I go back with a jig/bobber for a slower presentation. Again shad pattern shad bodies being the soft plastic of choice.
I'll cast for saugeyes for a few or until the wind blows my kayak to a dock then crappie a fish a few an just keep switching it up.
No water temps from me but if I'd to guess yesterday was probably in the low 60's.
Lots of big gills eating the shad bodies as well as a couple smaller saugeyes off a spot I bank fish.


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## zaraspook

Saugfish.....clearly similar techniques/results at both GLSM and Buckeye. Assumed you were were referencing Buckeye. And spot on with your remark about big gills busting the shad bodies. Really an unusually good year here with quantity and quality of gills. Envious that you have saugfish option and we don't.


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> Saugfish.....clearly similar techniques/results at both GLSM and Buckeye. Assumed you were were referencing Buckeye. And spot on with your remark about big gills busting the shad bodies. Really an unusually good year here with quantity and quality of gills. Envious that you have saugfish option and we don't.


Yes sir,buckeye lake. And I agree. The variety is nice. And having different options keeps me going.


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## zaraspook

57 degree water on Monday this week. Bluebird day, no wind, mostly sunny. Struggled to bring 11 on land vertically jigging in 3' of water I could reach from bank. They'd gently suck in my plastic and sit motionless. I'd feel weight/tension on the line, lift and land, or be buried in a snag. Toon bite was scant.....just solos. 

Tues morning before heading home found same bluebird conditions, bright skies, little breeze. Bite was slower than Mon. Caught 5, 1 a keeper and the only pontoon fish that day. I'm sure somewhere on the lake catching was good but not for me. It goes that way. With water temps declining, bite will pickup and hopefully bring more size to the creel.


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## zaraspook

Came to GLSM after dark Thurs just to fish today/Friday then head home. Water temp this morning 55.7 degrees, continuing a slow but steady descent.

Earlier this week, Mon/Tues, bite was puny so my expectations weren't high. In my morning session I caught 7 in under 2 hours, 2 were legal....not a great session, but not a bust. Trekked back to my place, finished off my 1st cup of coffee, and ate toast. Relaxed then ventured out again for another round.

Started at some brush off my seawall. One unzipped, no more action moved to another brush pile with no success, so figured I'd work a few nearby toons. Actually bounced back and forth between 4 pontoons and Jeez, got into some of the best action this fall. Over the next 3 hours including a break for lunch, I caught 37 crappie! 19 were from one toon, 8 each at 2 other toons, and and the 4th toon a mere 2 crappie. Used Monkey Milk Southern Pro Baby Shad the entire time. Mostly 7-8" fish, but 7 legal keepers. Biggest was a rare 11", 2nd 11" in a week from the current undersized crappie class.

Unexpected good fortune today. The best is still ahead!


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## zaraspook

Spontaneous decision to come to lake late Sunday despite rain and expectation of more on Monday. Arrived in time to fish 75 minutes Sunday in the rain. Managed to catch 11 crappie, no keepers in the lot. 

Monday/today started better. 3 keepers from first 4 fish. Next 37 fish not so good....3 keepers. Nice to catch 41 crappie, but 6 in bucket is puny. It rained all day. 

I fished 7 spots, twice today at each spot, and caught crappie at each. Water temp 54.6 degrees, first time this fall to slip below 55. Used same plastics as last Friday. Panfish Assassin and Southern Pro Baby Shad, both in Monkey Milk pattern. No muddy water in my channel despite the rain. Water clarity will change soon......Tributaries are spewing lots of muddy runoff into the lake. I expect bite to stay good despite stained conditions. Hoping those lake crappie, soon to invade channels, includes some better size fish.


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## zaraspook

Weds-Friday fishing excursion at GLSM this past week. Though the bite was decent on Weds, friend and I really struggled next 2 days. Only reliable constant was incessant rain. Lake water level is up nicely for fishing, not for catching. Despite the deluge my channel water clarity is good, not muddy, not stained. Water temp held steady at about 52 degrees the 3 days. 

We caught 37 Weds. Despite fishing longer Thurs we could only coax 15 crappie onto the bank. Limited to just fishing the morning on Friday, we caught 19. Monkey Milk shad bodies worked best for me. Fishing buddy split time between Monkey Milk and a chartreuse pattern of shad bodies with about the same success. 

Forecast calls for a string of 9 straight nights with 10-15 degree colder lows. Water temps heading south, 40's soon.


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## zaraspook

Monday afternoon this week I caught 25. Water temp 51 degrees. Tuesday caught 41. Water temp crept into 40's first time this fall at 49.1 degrees. Today/Wed water temp 47.4 and bite was crazy good! Caught 71. Definitely signs of more fish in channel and quality improving modestly. 37 caught from traditional cover/brush. 34 came from beneath pontoons. Good steady action morning, midday, and late afternoon/evening. Success from brush came 40" down in water 4-4.5' deep. It was a fun day. It's coming!


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## crappiedude

Good job Zara. It's still a tough jig bite down here but I've heard the minnow guys are doing better. 
I haven't fished much the last few weeks cause I've had some hip issues. I've got an MRI coming up in another week. I told the doc he's got to get me fixed up for the winter fishing season. 
I'm going out tomorrow and we're bringing minnows. I hope we find a few.


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## zaraspook

C-dude.....sorry to hear hips are cutting into your crappie fishing time. Not good! Good luck tomorrow.
Hey.....water temp this morning 46.2 degrees. We're closing on hot zone temps where bite escalates exponentially for this shallow lake. Hope so!


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## Saugeyefisher

crappiedude said:


> Good job Zara. It's still a tough jig bite down here but I've heard the minnow guys are doing better.
> I haven't fished much the last few weeks cause I've had some hip issues. I've got an MRI coming up in another week. I told the doc he's got to get me fixed up for the winter fishing season.
> I'm going out tomorrow and we're bringing minnows. I hope we find a few.


Hope you get that hip figured out and better soon! I literally feel your pain(well used to). 
Had my left replaced summer before last at 37 yrs young and was fishing in 4 weeks,and kayaking in 6. 
Good luck C-dude!


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## crappiedude

Thanks for the well wishes. 
The hip is a mystery at this point. According to the x-rays the joint is fine and at this point he's leaning to it being muscular. I was on a strong anti inflammatory for a month and it was feeling a little better but it faired up over the weekend to where I couldn't walk. It's a little better today and I hope it stays that way so I can get the boat out tomorrow. Usually my wife will help me get the boat out if I'm messed up but she just had cataract surgery no she's on light duty for another week. I'm just disappointed I have to wait almost 2 weeks to get an MRI.
My fishing buddy has been fighting sciatica and needs a back operation so he can't take his boat. I got a feeling this is going to be an interesting trip. We're both tired of sitting around.

When I retired I took up pickleball to stay active and healthy. I never had joint issues before I started playing. 
So far I tore my meniscus in my right knee, tore my calf muscle, got inflamed tendons and now the hip. 
I think this staying healthy is going to kill me. 

I can't wait to get on the water tomorrow. I'm optimistic, I changed the line on all my jig rods this evening.


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## AEFISHING55

Hope you feel better soon John. We are going to try it tomorrow on EF. Good Luck if you get out.


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## crappiedude

AEFISHING55 said:


> Hope you feel better soon John. We are going to try it tomorrow on EF. Good Luck if you get out.


Thanks Michael, I hope you guys do good tomorrow.
Today I caught 1 catfish, 1 bluegill and 1 crappie....then my trolling motor died. 
After calling the TM shop we dicided it was probably a power issue. I pulled the batteries and they both tested bad. Got everything hooked back up and charging. Batteries were less than 2 years old and still under warranty. The starting battery is the same age so I hope it doesn't die too.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> Thanks Michael, I hope you guys do good tomorrow.
> Today I caught 1 catfish, 1 bluegill and 1 crappie....then my trolling motor died.
> After calling the TM shop we dicided it was probably a power issue. I pulled the batteries and they both tested bad. Got everything hooked back up and charging. Batteries were less than 2 years old and still under warranty. The starting battery is the same age so I hope it doesn't die too.


Poo!


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## AEFISHING55

That doesn't sound good. Hope everything works good in the future. We only kept 11 and caught lots of dinks. Did see a nice 12 point buck chasing a doe all over the bank so that was very cool to watch.


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## zaraspook

GLSM water temp 44 degrees Sunday in my channel, down from 46 on Thurs. Here in time to fish 2 hours. Caught 8 first hour. Just 2 in 2nd hour. With good results lately my expectations were higher.


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## crappiedude

I think our water temps are still in the 60's down here, we won't hit those temps until December sometime.
I'm heading back out tomorrow, I hope the new batteries fixes the problem.


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## zaraspook

Monday headed home at 3pm but fished 3 hours over 2 sessions. Hit four spots on my walking morning tour. First spot was a dry hole. 2nd spot caught 1 but a keeper. 3rd spot got 14.....I like the progression I'm on. Ooops 2 dry holes after that. Afternoon session gave up just 1 crappie beneath my pontoon. 2 other spots biteless. Water temp 45.2 today vs 44 yesterday.

The fish I caught had to be coaxed from the bottom. They weren't going to move unless you put bait close enough to be inhaled. Barely moved once inhaled but you could feel weight on the line. Some days they don't want to play!


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## zaraspook

Noon Fri 12th until noon Sunday 14th I hosted my fall crappiethon at my GLSM lakehouse. 6 of us, buddies since elementary school days, grew up in the same Kettering, OH neighborhood. We've been doing this since 2015, originally in the Spring only, but expanded to add a fall event in 2015. This Fall 2021 event in mid November is the latest we've scheduled. Weather reflected the late date.....damn cold and wet snow, not to mention challenging wind. Water temp fell from 45 to 41 while we were there.

Our group caught 83 crappie during the event, 13 Friday afternoon, with a full day available Saturday we caught a respectable 52, 18 Sunday morning. Keepers were hard to come by, maybe 4-5.

Although I tied for most fish caught and biggest fish, my team team was badly thumped. No prize for most beer consumed where my team easily kicked butt. Hmmm. More beer means fewer fish? Who would have thought that one? Duh!

Good time! Good fun! Great music, camaraderie, poker and exaggerated stories. And, some somber moments and reflections for a group member who passed since our last event in the Spring of this year. Not even fishermen can escape reality and time moves forward. For as long as it lasts, we are thankful and blessed there are more fish to catch!


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## RMK

sounds like an awesome weekend Zara. Sorry to hear of the member who couldn't make the fall trip.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> sounds like an awesome weekend Zara. Sorry to hear of the member who couldn't make the fall trip.


Good guy. His spirit was with us.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> Good guy. His spirit was with us.


and i bet he didnt feel like s*** on sunday morning! hahaha


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## zaraspook

At GLSM Tues from 11:30am until 4pm with a couple of errands to handle. Got in a late morning session of an hour, then a late afternoon one.

From bank fished only 1 spot in the AM catching 9 crappie. 1 keeper but can say the short ones are getting less short. Majority of fish were 15-20' off the bank on submerged cover. Water depth there 4-5' and you had to be down within a foot of the bottom to entice a hit. Water temp was a chilly 36.7 degrees. No wonder channels are regularly seeing skim ice in the morning. 3-4 hours of sun required to clear the ice.

Afternoon session hit 3 spots, the first of which consists of a submerged Christmas tree, some blue spruce limbs, and a few miscellaneous sunken wood piles. All the cover is within 6' of bank/seawall. Caught 4 at that spot, 1 keeper.

Next spot has similar submerged cover, but less of it. Cover is all within 5' of seawall. Found 9 crappie there, decent ones, none keepers, then noticed it was time to head home. Walking toward my lakehouse I passed a backend of a channel. It's a favorite spot for winter/spring schooled crappie but not been productive yet this fall. Maybe time for a few casts out into the middle to test it? 2nd cast with plastic 2' down under bobber the float disappears. A fat crappie, just short though. In 20 minutes I made maybe 20 casts, caught a crappie every other cast. Definitely sitting on a school but couldn't hang around to see how long it would last. 2 keepers there from the 10 caught there. 23 caught during the afternoon event, 3 keepers. 32 total Tues, 5 keepers. That last backend spot will provide lots of action until ice takes over. Hope I can get back soon.

Plastics were shad bodies, Monkey Milk or a color called Glacier. However, when you hit a school of shallow fish chasing shad, they will hit nearly anything that swims. Great action when you can find it.


----------



## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Water temp was a chilly 36.7 degrees.


I am just amazed by just how cold your water temps are already. I was out yesterday and down here the main lake temps are still in the low 50's and the backs of the bays & creeks is mid-upper 40's. Most years we won't see those temps until after Christmas. I'm sure the depth of these lakes down here makes a huge difference in the temp difference.
It's good to see you're still catching. I really don't know why but this is the time of the year I switch to tubes. Shad bodies still work just fine but I prefer the tube body profile.
Nice report by the way.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> I am just amazed by just how cold your water temps are already. I was out yesterday and down here the main lake temps are still in the low 50's and the backs of the bays & creeks is mid-upper 40's. Most years we won't see those temps until after Christmas. I'm sure the depth of these lakes down here makes a huge difference in the temp difference.
> It's good to see you're still catching. I really don't know why but this is the time of the year I switch to tubes. Shad bodies still work just fine but I prefer the tube body profile.
> Nice report by the way.


C-dude......easy to make a case for tubes this time of year. One of my fishing friends at GLSM, a longtime tournament trail veteran I highly respect, switches to tubes when water temps get to these levels (37-38 degrees Tues-Thurs this week). The bite has slowed dramatically. Fish aren't moving even when you get a bite. They move away at a snail's pace. Reaction bites almost disappear....chasing baits not in the fish's arsenal. Dying shad flutter slowly in the water column and don't require predators expend much energy to get a meal. Presentation of a bait is slow, slower, and slowest. Under these conditions those multi-filament tails of tubes, twitching/fluttering even at standstill, closing the deal saying "eat me". That same veteran crappie master I previously mentioned is pushing the tube theory farther. This week he switched to a squid tail, even more tentacles to flutter. No final verdict yet, but he's having a good week.

Tues I caught 30 and saw no evidence that GLSM's small fish syndrome is improving. Just 2 keepers from the 30 and both barely legal. Crappie were out farther from bank, 15-20' on submerged cover, rather than 6-10' out. Weds I fished just 2.5 hours catching 17, getting 4 keepers. Thurs was a late afternoon session only. Weird that my bank fishing spots were occupied by fishermen nearly all day. I caught 6, 1 keeper, before heading home in Indiana.

In general I feel fishing cover well off the bank is more productive than the same near bank/seawalls. You'll catch some close in, but we found those to be really dinks. Shallow lakes most guys fish 18" under bobber most of time. Fish how you feel comfortable, but in cold water spend some time fishing closer to bottom. If they are down there, more likely they will move 6" to bite than move 3-4' to take a look.


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## zaraspook

Chores to handle at my lake place so ventured there mid-morning Sunday. My routine is complete a chore then get a reward....fish for a while. Got in close to 3 hours fishing for the day. 10 crappie in first session then 16 in afternoon session. Few keepers, just 2 but catching crappie in Dec is reward enough. Plus, a bonus Sunday, a fatty girl, 10.5" yellow perch! Definitely looked overstuffed.

Hung around overnight to fish Monday in 20-30 mph wind and 34 degree temps....that gets your attention! First spot for an hour, more punishment, not a single bite. Took a break, fed my face, warmed and finished my 1st cup of coffee and tried another location. 6 crappie in an hour removed the skunk. Back to the house to thaw, an hour in that wind is all I can handle. Some soup to warm the belly and back out for a final time. A different spot and a little better bite. I lasted 90 minutes, coaxing 10 more crappie to shore. By the way, water temp today 39.2 degrees, actually higher than last report. I believe my channel my channel will be mostly iced over by Weds, Thurs at the latest.

If you get to fish, fish slow and small baits. The bobber will barely dimple the water for most bites and don't be surprised if horizontal movement is nearly non-existent. They aren't in a hurry, have to be patient. I'm fishing from seawalls and caught most 15' out just beyond submerged cover, 2.5-3.5' under bobber. Key Lime color better today, Monkey Milk the winner day #1(including the 10.5" perch).


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## RMK

nice work zara! i always like to hear about the perch.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> nice work zara! i always like to hear about the perch.


RMK....didn't have a bucket or my phone when I caught the perch. Put the perch on the ground and wanted to get right back in the hole where perch was, trying to get its brothers and sisters. That plan didn't work out...just more short crappie. Felt like I either had to get a bucket or put the perch back into water. Back into the drink it went and I realized not even a photo. 

My adrenalin gets going each time I get a perch. Hoping you're on a school of them, but it never happens. Instead I catch more crappie, not perch. Shows I don't know how to specifically attract perch. I can catch a rogue one a few times a year but only once caught 2 the same day. Frustrating when you know should be others there, but can't prove it. I've probably caught 8 perch at this exact spot or within 15 yards away.


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## zaraspook

Friend and I fished GLSM Friday late in advance of high wind/storms and Saturday morning till mid afternoon. In 2 hours Friday before dark I caught 22 with a pair of keepers, buddy caught 9. The closer it got to dark, the better the bite was. My crappie were generally 15-20' off the bank near submerged cover. Wind was strong before the bad weather came thru, but not nearly as tough as we fished in Saturday. Saturday we caught 65 crappie, but 49 were taken by my fishing bud. He was sitting on a pile of crappie stacked up right at the bank in 2' of water at a channel back end. He got 37 of his 49 from a 10' section of the bank. Wind was wailing 30-40 mph and he had limited control of rod/line/bobber but to his credit made it work. 6 keepers between us Saturday.

Water temp was 37.7 degrees. Clarity good and a ton of surface leaves where my friend was trying to fish. December can by wild for those crazies who fish it. Hopefully we aren't done yet for 2021.


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## zaraspook

Tues 3-5pm at GLSM for a little December open water fishing. Caught 2 crappie quickly at first spot for an optimistic start. Spent the rest of the hour catching nothing but gills. Entertaining but not my target and finally got the message.....time to move. Tried 2 brief spots that were empty before reaching next destination on the agenda. It's a shallow back end of a channel with mostly 2-3' of water that attracts piles of shad.. I worked along a 40' section of gravel and small rock bank. Picked up 1 here, 1 there at a pace that accelerated as light faded. Pulled 13 crappie by dark, 3 keepers, and a the star of the day, a 10" perch. All fish caught on small plastic shad bodies, Itty Bits, in Monkey Milk or similar colors and in 2-3 fow. 
Perch in the attached photo. Late day, last hour or 2 before dark, has been a good time to be fishing.


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## zaraspook

Weds this week a banner day for catching crappie. Bank fished just one spot but hit it 3 times during the day. Caught 67 crappie, 12 keepers. Casting left, right, or center from my bank position, I caught crappie. Some kind of fun when you get into a school like that and an aggressive bite. 

On Thurs it only made sense to return to the same hotspot. School was still there, bite a little less aggressive. Caught 49 with 8 keepers. On this day, however, an added bonus came my way. Whenever I catch perch, it's one and done. Once I'd caught 2 in the same day, but pulled the pair from different channels. Thurs I pulled a pair from the same spot, same channel and they were mixed right in with the crappie school. Have to admit it sidetracked me for awhile. Tried to turn a hat trick, get a 3rd perch for too long. Photos of the 2 perch, 9.5" and 10.5" attached. Nice icing on the cake.


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## zaraspook

After a good run since Tues, had hoped the crappie would hang around for 1 more day. Wasn't in the cards! Eventually caught 7 Fri but it wasn't easy. The few bites I got they just wouldn't eat it. Good thing you don't have to catch a pile to have fun! Caught 138 crappie and the 3 bonus perch during my 2 partial days and 2 full days at the lake. 😁


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Caught 138 crappie and the 3 bonus perch during my 2 partial days and 2 full days at the lake. 😁


Very impressive numbers. It's crazy how they can move so much.
Friend of mine fished Mon & Tues last week and he did very good, I went out Wed and fished the same rigs in the same locations and we struggled to even get a hit. After 4 very small fish I gave up on those spots and headed to some new places on the other end of the lake. We caught 20 in the next hour.
Great seeing your posts.


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## zaraspook

Quick trip up and back today. 2.5 hours fishing, 1/2 hour lunch, and headed home. Water temp 37.2 degrees which is relatively steady.

Started at last week's hotpot. Last week final fishing day it wasn't good. Hoping fish were around and hungry. Nothing home, no bites in 1/2 hour. 3 of the four next spots each produced fish, as many as 11 crappie from the most productive. At my last spot I'd caught 3-4 short crappie, then the bite stopped. I was fishing submerged wood and an aging Christmas tree in 3-3.5' of water. Decided I go deeper, fish 3' down at the bottom of the cover, swimming the bait along slowly with frequent stops, raising and lowering the bait as I brushed against limbs. Felt a twitch pickup by a fish, it moved off a few feet. Confident the fish had the bait, I set the hook and felt more weight from a good, solid fish. Only 4-5' from my feet I lifted the 12" yellow perch ashore. It was a lady, definitely packing eggs. Interesting that my first perch of the fall was at this same spot, also a fat female, and about an inch shorter than this one. Not catching big crappie this fall/winter, 22 crappie today with 1 keeper, but this is my 5th solid perch keeper this month and 4th in the last 5 days I fished. Maybe I should back off the crappie and focus on the piggy perch? Sorry for the less than perfect photo. In bright sun/glare thought I had the entire fish in the photo. At least you get a sense of the girth of the perch.


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## RMK

great fish! is that your biggest GLSM perch to date?


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## bobberbucket

zaraspook said:


> Quick trip up and back today. 2.5 hours fishing, 1/2 hour lunch, and headed home. Water temp 37.2 degrees which is relatively steady.
> 
> Started at last week's hotpot. Last week final fishing day it wasn't good. Hoping fish were around and hungry. Nothing home, no bites in 1/2 hour. 3 of the four next spots each produced fish, as many as 11 crappie from the most productive. At my last spot I'd caught 3-4 short crappie, then the bite stopped. I was fishing submerged wood and an aging Christmas tree in 3-3.5' of water. Decided I go deeper, fish 3' down at the bottom of the cover, swimming the bait along slowly with frequent stops, raising and lowering the bait as I brushed against limbs. Felt a twitch pickup by a fish, it moved off a few feet. Confident the fish had the bait, I set the hook and felt more weight from a good, solid fish. Only 4-5' from my feet I lifted the 12" yellow perch ashore. It was a lady, definitely packing eggs. Interesting that my first perch of the fall was at this same spot, also a fat female, and about an inch shorter than this one. Not catching big crappie this fall/winter, 22 crappie today with 1 keeper, but this is my 5th solid perch keeper this month and 4th in the last 5 days I fished. Maybe I should back off the crappie and focus on the piggy perch? Sorry for the less than perfect photo. In bright sun/glare thought I had the entire fish in the photo. At least you get a sense of the girth of the perch.
> 
> View attachment 480454


I know your probably not into playing the live bait game. But if you really want to go down the perch rabbit hole. Some live minnows fished just off the bottom would probably give you a good idea of how many perch you’ve got hanging around. 

Thin wire gold #4 hook with a bb split about 6” above to keep the little minnow in the zone is money for perch in numbers around my area. When it’s frozen we use Minnowheads on Swedish pimples or spoons. 

Maggots and a pinmin with a little flash works well too. But you’ll have to contend with dink gills with that route. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> great fish! is that your biggest GLSM perch to date?


You are correct, personal best glsm 12" perch.


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## zaraspook

Unless you are a GLSM perch expert, if there is such a person, here's how I'd recommend going about running into a GLSM perch. Perch are clearly in channels now. All of the 5 I've caught this month were hooked from the bank, no further off shore than 5', more like 3'. All have been mixed in with crappie, in crappie kind of cover, or off gravel/rocky bank areas. Fish crappie cover, brush, limbs just as you would for crappie. You'll pull a few crappie out, then adjust bobber depth to get your bait to the bottom or within inches. Slowly swim the bait to feel all twigs, limbs. Back away over the snags you sense, and lower bait back down. The perch have come from below. Work gravel banks as close as 2' from waters edge and keep bait close to bottom. On seawalls, particularly around brush/cover, work within 1-3' of the seawall, but get your jig down near the bottom. 

No way do I suggest live bait won't be effective, or not to tip a jig with meat. I fish with small plastics like Itty Bits, occasionally 1.25" Gulp minnows. They are effective. I catch a few perch and acknowledge meat could catch more. If you want to locate a few perch, my method will work. They are more accessible now than ever, and should be through March when open water exists. Monkey Milk color is proven at GLSM, but I'm confident other colors are likely effective. Don't shy away from water as shallow as 18". If you try, give feedback and post photos, please.


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## Lowell H Turner

still giving them what they obviously want eir ! Happy Holidays !


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> still giving them what they obviously want eir ! Happy Holidays !


Good to hear from you, LHT! Wishing you a healthy and prosperous 2022.


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## zaraspook

Couple of my friends who regularly attend my spring and fall crappie outings expressed interest in a winter crappie fishing try. We tried that this past Monday, 2 of the guys for a 1-day event. So, Monday high temp was 61 degrees, hardly winter weather. Water temp though was barely over 40 degrees. 

I frequently say in the winter, "find a school of fish and have a great day. Good luck if you don't get on a school of fish". We didn't get on a school and it was a tough day. We struggled to catch 19 crappie total for the 3 of us. 12 of the 19 were caught in the first hour and lulled us into thinking a great fishing day was unfolding. It was drudgery to plod ahead each of the next 3 hours, rarely a bite, to catch only 7 more. Lunch was a high point for the day, great food. Good camaraderie but not much bragging during conversations. The lake won today, but hard to lose anytime you're fishing with friends.


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## crappiedude

A get together with friends is a worthwhile event anytime it can be arranged but this time of the year it is really great. 
The fish are just a bonus.


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## zaraspook

After my Monday event with fishing friends I stayed overnight at my lakeplace. Wanted to fish Tuesday morning thinking the fish owed me a better bite. Apparently the fish had decided to the contrary. Took 30 minutes to muster my first bite and first fish of the day. No, not a crappie, but another of those GLSM phantom perch that no one catches. Each one I catch brings a big smile. This one not a 12" like last posted, but still impressive at 11".

DNR stopped stocking them in GLSM a couple years ago and claimed the 7-8 year stocking program had not been a success. That assessment may have been premature. I've fished 14 days this month catching perch on 6 days tho not targeting them. Hmmm?


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## fished-out

At that size, you're catching older perch. In good lakes, perch should be self sustaining--but in lakes other than Lake Erie, I tend to find them in weeds, weed edges, etc. and they tned to loosely school up. Course, could be the size of the bait you're using too. I like ice spoons tipped with a maggot for perch; Erie demands minnow shiners for me. Whatever works, though.


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## Hortance

zaraspook said:


> After my Monday event with fishing friends I stayed overnight at my lakeplace. Wanted to fish Tuesday morning thinking the fish owed me a better bite. Apparently the fish had decided to the contrary. Took 30 minutes to muster my first bite and first fish of the day. No, not a crappie, but another of those GLSM phantom perch that no one catches. Each one I catch brings a big smile. This one not a 12" like last posted, but still impressive at 11".
> 
> DNR stopped stocking them in GLSM a couple years ago and claimed the 7-8 year stocking program had not been a success. That assessment may have been premature. I've fished 14 days this month catching perch on 6 days tho not targeting them. Hmmm?
> View attachment 480792


I read that they quit stocking in 2019. This pig was probably stocked. Are you catching smaller ones that would indicate that they are breeding?


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## zaraspook

Hortance said:


> I read that they quit stocking in 2019. This pig was probably stocked. Are you catching smaller ones that would indicate that they are breeding?


Hortance......that's a good question and equally interesting observation concerning reproduction. The answer is, personally I am not catching small perch. All mine are easy keepers 9-12" range. With the safe ice recently at GLSM, the ice guys are reporting catching perch, also. Not in big numbers but a couple perch scattered here and there, no smaller fish. Same reports at spillway where state has been pulling water for several weeks. Anglers are catching a few perch, but I only heard bigger ones up to 12".
I think you are correct, state stocking of perch ceased in 2019. Couldn't one make the argument that if fish are not reproducing, stocked fish are doing well(12"+). If doing well, let's continue stocking just as they stock other lakes with saugeye and saugeye don't reproduce?


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## Hortance

zaraspook said:


> Hortance......that's a good question and equally interesting observation concerning reproduction. The answer is, personally I am not catching small perch. All mine are easy keepers 9-12" range. With the safe ice recently at GLSM, the ice guys are reporting catching perch, also. Not in big numbers but a couple perch scattered here and there, no smaller fish. Same reports at spillway where state has been pulling water for several weeks. Anglers are catching a few perch, but I only heard bigger ones up to 12".
> I think you are correct, state stocking of perch ceased in 2019. Couldn't one make the argument that if fish are not reproducing, stocked fish are doing well(12"+). If doing well, let's continue stocking just as they stock other lakes with saugeye and saugeye don't reproduce?


That's a really good idea. I just emailed the ODNR, related what we're hearing about the nice perch being caught at GLSM and asked them if perch stocking was being reconsidered. I also sent attachment of this whole page (278) of this thread, indicating pics of caught perch are included along with fisherman info....will let you know if I hear back.

Maybe a few others could contact them as well. Any ODNR employee looking at this thread would know that serious Ohio fishermen are giving a lot of feedback info in this thread. I love the "reproduction isn't necessary, just keep stocking them" approach. Heck, I'd buy a stamp to support it every year.


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## zaraspook

Hortance said:


> That's a really good idea. I just emailed the ODNR, related what we're hearing about the nice perch being caught at GLSM and asked them if perch stocking was being reconsidered. I also sent attachment of this whole page (278) of this thread, indicating pics of caught perch are included along with fisherman info....will let you know if I hear back.
> 
> Maybe a few others could contact them as well. Any ODNR employee looking at this thread would know that serious Ohio fishermen are giving a lot of feedback info in this thread. I love the "reproduction isn't necessary, just keep stocking them" approach. Heck, I'd buy a stamp to support it every year.


Hortance.....good maneuver with ODNR. Maybe it will spur them on for more to come in future.


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## ohiostrutter

I’m assuming there is good ice by now! May head up this next week. Indian has been pretty slow/hit and miss through the ice


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## zaraspook

ohiostrutter said:


> I’m assuming there is good ice by now! May head up this next week. Indian has been pretty slow/hit and miss through the ice


Ostrutt......GLSM ice was 2.5 - 4" on 11th. Gotta be in great shape now. Some perch that day were taken at the bottom in 5.5' water. Catch some!


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## fishwhacker

ohiostrutter said:


> I’m assuming there is good ice by now! May head up this next week. Indian has been pretty slow/hit and miss through the ice


Ice has been good, went out 3 times over the last couple weeks. Nothing too significant to report, couple gills, couple short crappies no luck on any perch yet. Ice thickness varies like always but mostly 4-5 inches yesterday.


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## Hortance

fishwhacker said:


> Ice has been good, went out 3 times over the last couple weeks. Nothing too significant to report, couple gills, couple short crappies no luck on any perch yet. Ice thickness varies like always but mostly 4-5 inches yesterday.


I don't want to crowd you, but learning St Mary's ice over last 3 years, have only caught some on main channel around Anderson's, still not that good. Should I be looking at canals (friend of mine moved in with a dock on a canal this Fall)? I don't have the ice experience to venture out onto the main lake.


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## Hortance

zaraspook said:


> Hortance.....good maneuver with ODNR. Maybe it will spur them on for more to come in future.


Zara--So, I got an email back from the ODNR on Friday, four days after my report to them on the general email...Not bad!--Was directed to a regional fisheries management over here, managing GLSM....Deb Walters...I called her this AM. Her report:

Perch aren't reproducing at GLSM, they DID check main lake, canals, etc...She said that perch are tough...that they get reports of big perch catches at places like Rocky Fork and Cowan every once in a while, but...fools gold...they aren't reproducing, it peters out, which is what matters to them. I guess hybrids that don't reproduce are OK to stock, but if a species should reproduce but can't based on lake conditions/water quality and temperatures/etc, then they aren't likely to stock.

I did encourage her to check this thread here and in general at Ohio Game Fishing...for the perch info and pics....she was clear that they do monitor OGF for info ...she was clearly familiar with the site, so all the more reason to post info here....ODNR professionals are monitoring.


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## fishwhacker

Hortance said:


> I don't want to crowd you, but learning St Mary's ice over last 3 years, have only caught some on main channel around Anderson's, still not that good. Should I be looking at canals (friend of mine moved in with a dock on a canal this Fall)? I don't have the ice experience to venture out onto the main lake.


To be honest, this is the first year that I have had success in the channels. I don't know if that is because it is still early but usually don't have success in the channels and fish off main lake bays or channel mouths connecting to the main lake. Seems like the fish in the channels are starting to shift closer to those main lake areas but I have heard guys catch them in the channels all ice season so they might just find deep holes or hug closer to cover rather than roaming along channels.


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## RMK

fishwhacker said:


> To be honest, this is the first year that I have had success in the channels. I don't know if that is because it is still early but usually don't have success in the channels and fish off main lake bays or channel mouths connecting to the main lake. Seems like the fish in the channels are starting to shift closer to those main lake areas but I have heard guys catch them in the channels all ice season so they might just find deep holes or hug closer to cover rather than roaming along channels.


thanks for sharing. getting better at ice fishing on grand lake is of interest to me!


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## fishwhacker

I'm a far cry from an expert but just sharing experience not expertise. I'm sure there are guys finding schools of big crappies and perch somewhere on the lake, they have to go somewhere but similar to the dog days of summer bite is not shared


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## Hortance

That helps! Thank you.


fishwhacker said:


> To be honest, this is the first year that I have had success in the channels. I don't know if that is because it is still early but usually don't have success in the channels and fish off main lake bays or channel mouths connecting to the main lake. Seems like the fish in the channels are starting to shift closer to those main lake areas but I have heard guys catch them in the channels all ice season so they might just find deep holes or hug closer to cover rather than roaming along channels.


Thank you! That helps.


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> I'm a far cry from an expert but just sharing experience not expertise. I'm sure there are guys finding schools of big crappies and perch somewhere on the lake, they have to go somewhere but similar to the dog days of summer bite is not shared


Whacker....cannot say this info is current, a few weeks back. Some of those perch thru ice reports I mentioned were north side of lake. Don't tell anyone I said this, "sail boat club".


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## fishwhacker

zaraspook said:


> Whacker....cannot say this info is current, a few weeks back. Some of those perch thru ice reports I mentioned were north side of lake. Don't tell anyone I said this, "sail boat club".


Your secret is safe with me....


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Your secret is safe with me....


Hahaha! 2 week old info is hardly a secret, but there are some who get pissed regardless. Those GLSM perch are getting rave reviews at the dinner table.


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## fishwhacker

Well didn't check on the hot tip today and rather continued on in the channel I had the most success with. Had several nice gills today and a couple crappies that might have been legal if I measured them out of the 5 or so that were caught. All returned to catch another day. Had a couple doubles. Fish were in 4 ft of water and fairly close to shore.


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## fishwhacker

Well shows ya how much I know about ice fishing. Went to the same holes Sunday with my son and got 2 bites that we missed. Moved toward the dead end of the channel and fished off some structure and bingo we caught 12 in the next 30 minutes. Should have had significantly more but teaching my son took over trying to catch them myself which caused us to miss quite a few bites. A few other we're going towards the mouth of the channel and blanked. Guess sometimes they move shallower instead of deeper, who knew.


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## Hortance

fishwhacker said:


> ...Should have had significantly more but teaching my son took over trying to catch them myself...


Nice!


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## zaraspook

fishwhacker said:


> Well shows ya how much I know about ice fishing. Went to the same holes Sunday with my son and got 2 bites that we missed. Moved toward the dead end of the channel and fished off some structure and bingo we caught 12 in the next 30 minutes. Should have had significantly more but teaching my son took over trying to catch them myself which caused us to miss quite a few bites. A few other we're going towards the mouth of the channel and blanked. Guess sometimes they move shallower instead of deeper, who knew.


Whacker.......moving shallower rather than deeper is a year round tactic for success. My posts are full of love and appreciation for the back ends of channels. I don't think crappie care if they eat a bait fish in a foot of water or 10'. We smart anglers have mental blocks, no way the fish would be that shallow under these conditions. Duh! Our brains get in the way.


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## Lowell H Turner

The fish are always ' right ' no matter when where what how much so if you catch them you ' guessed ' right too !


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## zaraspook

Was at GLSM Weds for a package delivery. Wasn't a fishing junket but I am definitely antsy for open water. Not much exists yet, but there are some small pockets to try from the banks. I watched 4 guys at the marina on east bank. They caught 1 crappie during the 8-10 minutes I watched. Sail boat club had a narrow strip open. Sunnyside looked like some water was open as I drove by.

My channel was locked up. I tried to break ice at my seawall but too thick. At least the water level has risen nicely from last few weeks of decent rain/snow. Should be good to go in a couple weeks!


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## fshnmaster

Have made it out a few times after some channels opened up. They have been liking pink and chartreuse. Mostly short fish only a handful over 9" all got released to get bigger


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## zaraspook

At lake Friday afternoon. Boo, not happy my channel still locked up with ice. Tries to break ice along seawalls to aid thawing Saturday with poor success, some places I couldn't crack at all and looked 4" or more. 

Sat morning still no open water. Headed a short drive to a nearby boat ramp I noticed driving in Fri was open. Fished almost 2 hours. Took half an hour to get 2 bites but switched plastics before moving. Caught 10 crappie over next hour. 1st one was legal and caught 1 other keeper. 

Spots I fished were natural bank, void of visible cover but it didn't matter to me. Fish are schooled up this time of year and I was near a point, an intersection of 2 channels. I was casting out, generally 40-60' off the bank, small float, 1/32 oz jighead, small plastic from18-30" under bobber. Monkey milk pattern was virtually ignored. Hit same water with chartreuse to catch the 10, all relatively aggressive biters. Water was stained but not muddy, and well rippled from 10-25 mph wind. Bite lasted an hour then disappeared. I blamed a big pickup of boat traffic in and out of the ramp. I was happy to catch the 10, especially since my channel was locked up.


----------



## zaraspook

Hung around to fish Sun morning. What a remarkable transformation it was. Every crystal of ice gone from overnight lows only into 60's. Hello, open water my old friend. Without ice it means all my channel's fishing options are on the table. Now let's go find some fish!

Started at some new brush a few feet off a seawall. Bobber disappeared on my 3rd dip. Fish on but have to negotiate thru several limbs. Ha! Not a crappie but a spunky 1st year largemouth. It was fun but not what we came for. Back into the brush pile the bobber leaves sight again. Fish on again, same weave it thru maize of limbs......same result, another 6" LMB. Moved to other targets along this seawall and pulled 3 crappie, one a keeper, over next 20 minutes. Skunk is off! Those fish all caught on Itty Bit Mo Glo chartreuse plastic.

Moved a couple hundred feet to next spot. Same bait, first fish is another bass, but heavier 12". Again it was in some heavy cover right at the seawall. Next fish is decent crappie but short and beat up plastic needs replacement. Switch to a new bait, an Itty Bit Slab Hunt'r in a Horsefly color. Bought it cause I liked the name of color which is orange grub body with chartreuse tail. Didn't take ling for Horsefly to get 2 crappie at this spot and 2 at the next location. I'm liking this bait, more mass to the grub body to hold the jig shank. Should be more durable than the skinny Itty Bit shad swim'r.

Next spot, some submerged wood close to seawall, nobody home, no bites. At this point in about 90 minutes tally is 8 crappie, 3 bass, handful of gills. No more than 3 crappie from any spot. Most fish caught inside 10' from bank. A couple out 30-40' from bank but haven't located a school. Next spot is a channel back end, some wood, some gravel bank, but all shallow water. Majority is 2' depth or less, none over 3'. I'm casting out 40' or more, not targeting cover. I catch 1 crappie, miss a couple, catch 2, miss a few. It's clear crappie are here in a wide area and have shad backed up in the shallow end of a foot and less of water. Caught 16 in 45 minutes. Finally a school! Even though bite was still good, hungry and a deadline to head home, I sadly had to leave a good bite. Caught 24 today, just 3 keepers. It was fun!


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## tugmac36

zaraspook said:


> Hung around to fish Sun morning. What a remarkable transformation it was. Every crystal of ice gone from overnight lows only into 60's. Hello, open water my old friend. Without ice it means all my channel's fishing options are on the table. Now let's go find some fish!
> 
> Started at some new brush a few feet off a seawall. Bobber disappeared on my 3rd dip. Fish on but have to negotiate thru several limbs. Ha! Not a crappie but a spunky 1st year largemouth. It was fun but not what we came for. Back into the brush pile the bobber leaves sight again. Fish on again, same weave it thru maize of limbs......same result, another 6" LMB. Moved to other targets along this seawall and pulled 3 crappie, one a keeper, over next 20 minutes. Skunk is off! Those fish all caught on Itty Bit Mo Glo chartreuse plastic.
> 
> Moved a couple hundred feet to next spot. Same bait, first fish is another bass, but heavier 12". Again it was in some heavy cover right at the seawall. Next fish is decent crappie but short and beat up plastic needs replacement. Switch to a new bait, an Itty Bit Slab Hunt'r in a Horsefly color. Bought it cause I liked the name of color which is orange grub body with chartreuse tail. Didn't take ling for Horsefly to get 2 crappie at this spot and 2 at the next location. I'm liking this bait, more mass to the grub body to hold the jig shank. Should be more durable than the skinny Itty Bit shad swim'r.
> 
> Next spot, some submerged wood close to seawall, nobody home, no bites. At this point in about 90 minutes tally is 8 crappie, 3 bass, handful of gills. No more than 3 crappie from any spot. Most fish caught inside 10' from bank. A couple out 30-40' from bank but haven't located a school. Next spot is a channel back end, some wood, some gravel bank, but all shallow water. Majority is 2' depth or less, none over 3'. I'm casting out 40' or more, not targeting cover. I catch 1 crappie, miss a couple, catch 2, miss a few. It's clear crappie are here in a wide area and have shad backed up in the shallow end of a foot and less of water. Caught 16 in 45 minutes. Finally a school! Even though bite was still good, hungry and a deadline to head home, I sadly had to leave a good bite. Caught 24 today, just 3 keepers. It was fun!


Thanks for the detailed update


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## zaraspook

At lake Mon evening to fish 2 hours before dark. Caught 15. crappie and a smallish perch, mostly 25-40' off the bank.....shallow water, 16" or less under bobber. 

Tuesday AM started slow but finally found a school. Again shallow water was good to me. Caught just 1 in 1st hour, 16 in the 2nd hour after getting on another shallow water bite. Returned to same spot 3:30pm for couple hours catching another 25. 41 total was fun, only 4 keepers disappointing but that's the crappie population we're dealing with. It happens.


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## crappiedude

A friend has been suggesting we make a visit to GLSM for a few days this year. 
Time frame is open so looking for suggestions. I'd like to avoid any weeks there are tourneys or special events going on if possible.
Also are there any fisherman friendly places to stay. We prefer motel type places with electric hook-ups outside our room for the boat. We don't need fancy, but we like clean.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> A friend has been suggesting we make a visit to GLSM for a few days this year.
> Time frame is open so looking for suggestions. I'd like to avoid any weeks there are tourneys or special events going on if possible.
> Also are there any fisherman friendly places to stay. We prefer motel type places with electric hook-ups outside our room for the boat. We don't need fancy, but we like clean.


We'll see if we can generate some info for you c-dude..........


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## zaraspook

Didn't mention that my stay at lake place lasted into Weds this past week. In the morning attempted to see if the bite held up at the hot spot I've been pounding with success. It did. Caught 27 in 2+ hours. Got back out for an hour mid-afternoon for 16 more. Better news was 9 keepers from the 43 that day. Would easily have made it into 50+ if I was able to hang around, but had deadlines at home. Same baits, no change in fishing depths or retrieves.........just a little better class of fish. Perhaps some bigger ones to come as spring progresses? Fun day.

Ooops. Water temp was 44.2, up a couple degrees from Monday.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> We'll see if we can generate some info for you c-dude..........


I know there have been a few places who cater to some of the crappie tourneys. I just thought someone may have that info.


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## ohiostrutter

crappiedude said:


> A friend has been suggesting we make a visit to GLSM for a few days this year.
> Time frame is open so looking for suggestions. I'd like to avoid any weeks there are tourneys or special events going on if possible.
> Also are there any fisherman friendly places to stay. We prefer motel type places with electric hook-ups outside our room for the boat. We don't need fancy, but we like clean.


took my daughter for a two day fishing trip over her spring break a couple years ago. We stayed at the West Bank inn. Don’t recall the price so means it wasn’t excessive. EXTREMELY clean. Which is hard to find these days. Unsure on outside electric hookups.


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## fished-out

Back in the day when I fished tournaments there, we stayed at America's Best value inn in Celina a time or two.


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## ruffhunter

dad and buddy went to st marys and laramie yesterday no bites and no one else was catching either



*shouldnt this thread be in the Northwest section???*


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## zaraspook

Water temp at my seawall yesterday(Mon) was a surprising 51.2 degrees. Prior week Weds, same spot at seawall was 44.2 degrees. Up 7 degrees in 5 days. It won't stay there. Less sun this rainy week, cooler air temps, colder water in main lake will mix into channels and bring water temp down.

Witnessed many more fishermen out and handful of crappie boats in my channel. All fishing guys I talked to were catching crappie and gills, albeit few keeper crappie. They weren't slaying crappie, but enough to keep entertained.

I caught 50 yesterday, best day of year so far. Better news was 12 keepers, an uptick that started last week. Now seeing an overall better quality of fish. Not huge fish, but more legal. I fished nearly 6 hours from bank to catch the 50. Most of my fish have been out in middle, off the bank, but definite improvement in number and size coming from cover near bank with the warmer water temps. Whether out or in, fish were biting up in water column, 14-18" under bobber. And, warmer water temps aided the fight in the fish. Definitely a more spunky resistance when you hooked one. Good day yesterday but it can and will get better.....sometimes.


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## zaraspook

Friday was wet and cold but looked better than the next 4-5 days, so headed to the lake. Got there about 3pm and plan to leave for home around dark. 

Water was up a couple inches and muddy. Took 2 hours to catch 10 and can't say there was a pattern other than despite poor clarity the fish could see my bait. Plus at least I had 2 keepers. 

Marched onward to my next spot. Too bad I didn't start here. In 1 hour I caught 13 with 3 keepers and had a significant number of fish come unzipped. Plenty of action here. Considering the frequent showers and cool temps in low 40's, 23 with 5 keepers was a decent day. Went home happy.


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## RMK

crappiedude said:


> A friend has been suggesting we make a visit to GLSM for a few days this year.
> Time frame is open so looking for suggestions. I'd like to avoid any weeks there are tourneys or special events going on if possible.
> Also are there any fisherman friendly places to stay. We prefer motel type places with electric hook-ups outside our room for the boat. We don't need fancy, but we like clean.


Sorry for the late reply c-dude. That would be awesome if you guys make it up. I have been busy and out of town off and on the last couple of weeks. Crappie USA will be at grand lake April 22nd and 23rd. that will fill the lake with crappie boats. the smaller local circuits wont put to much of a crappie crowd on the water and i wouldnt worry about coming while they are going on. I would recommend the 1st three weeks of may for your trip as far as timing goes. The hotel on the west bank looks very nice. not positive how charging would work there. plenty of good hotels in the area close to the lake. not sure if you still have my number or not but hit me up either on here or call me and i will let you know what i know as far as the fishing goes for when you decide to come. i havent fished grand lake since last fall. storey of last fall was tons of small fish. the next month should be a better indicator of what the lake will have to offer this year.


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## zaraspook

Arrived about noon Wed at GLSM and fishing at 12:30 pm. Water clarity was good and water temp 42.8 degrees. After a brief rise into low 50's last week water temp back down now to where it was 2 weeks ago. Found fish at all but 1 spot on my walking circuit. Ended the day catching 45, 9 keepers. 20% legal keeper rate seems to the pattern for this year. It's not great but better than the 6-7% of 2021.

A fishing friend and fellow OGF'er, T04DF15H, joined me for an hour and a half early afternoon. He caught about 18 and I think 5 keepers, about same ratio. It was a good day and 70 degree air temp was wonderful.

I fished Thurs also. It was midday, air temp in 40's, water clarity more stained from overnight rain. Bite not as good and scattered. I struggled to catch 9, but 4 of those keepers. Had to leave by 4pm so cleaned and packed up. Before putting my rods away decided to fish 1/2 an hour, at least catch 1 more and get to double digits. Hit a spot that I hadn't yet fished during the 2 day, 24 hour outing. Quickly caught the 1 to get to double digits and caught 10 more from same spot. Ended with 20 caught and 5 keepers. Fortunate ending to a very spotty day!


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## zaraspook

Tues expected to have a full afternoon/evening of fishing GLSM. Things don't always work out the way you plan them. Minor delays morphed into majors, lucky to make it there by 6pm to get an hour of chasing a bite. Struggled to catch 8, scattered, 1 here 1 there, well short of the plan. That's ok. Front coming thru Weds is the main attraction anyway and should get fish moving. 

Wow! What a great day I was in for. A chill early but comfortable 40's. Rain off and on, light to heavy but neither for long. Clearing by 3:30pm and sunshine late. Caught 32 in the morning 2.5 hours. Pace was very active once I found fish were not in close. Generally 15-25' off the bank, hanging around submerged structure but not necessarily in it, and fishing a foot deeper under bobber than normal got you into more and better fish. 

In afternoon sessions I concentrated on 2 spots most productive in the morning. Occasionally you'd get one inside 10' of bank but 15-25' out was more productive. Caught 40 during multiple afternoon sessions. Cleaned, packed up early evening to head home. Before putting rods away fished my seawall for 15 minutes. Caught 6 quick ones for a final tally of 78 total, 16 keepers. Alternated orange/chartreuse Slab Hunt'r and same bait in Monkey Milk all day. Both caught fish with 60/40 in favor of Monkey Milk. Outstanding pre-spawn day at GLSM. Plenty of fish in southside channels. Way better than last year. 46.7 degree water temp Wed compared to 57.6 degrees on same date last year. A fun one!


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## firemanmike2127

Nice report & impressive #'s !! I haven't been out for the last couple of weeks....hoping to get out the latter part of next week. Mike


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## zaraspook

firemanmike2127 said:


> Nice report & impressive #'s !! I haven't been out for the last couple of weeks....hoping to get out the latter part of next week. Mike


Thanks, Mike. Definitely a rising population of fish in channels with spawn near. More fish and fortunate timing when they are active is a good formula to put up high numbers. Size is suffering tho better now than last 18 mos. Catching lots always better than few. Entering a very positive cycle, I think.


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## crappie4me

there goes zara again starting on his spring ritual of ripping lips on mass quantities of paper mouths..kick ass z


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## RMK

3.98 on 7 fish won a recent local tournament. 23 teams. most got their 7. .91lbs took the big fish prize


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## zaraspook

crappie4me said:


> there goes zara again starting on his spring ritual of ripping lips on mass quantities of paper mouths..kick ass z


Aww, crappie4me. Did you have to do that? Now you put the pressure on me. I have to kick butt every time out. I smell a skunk coming. 😁


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## AEFISHING55

RMK said:


> 3.98 on 7 fish won a recent local tournament. 23 teams. most got their 7. .91lbs took the big fish prize


Wow, sounds like a down year for old Grand lake


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## zaraspook

AEFISHING55 said:


> Wow, sounds like a down year for old Grand lake


AEFishing....actually GLSM is in year 3 or 4 of puny cycle. A low oxygen event about 3 summers past took out huge numbers of bigger fish. I believe crappie population is in good shape this year, numbers are up, but we lost a couple years of older fish. Catching lots of 6-9 inchers now, but infrequent >10". Sets up nicely for next few years. Last year sucked.......percentage keepers 5% at best. This year it's back into double digits.


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## zaraspook

Monday evening at lake caught 26, 3 keepers the last 2 hours before dark. Tues caught 37 with 10 keepers. Weds left late afternoon, but in steady rain caught 22 with 4 keepers. None of the days were great but you could find fish if you kept at it. 
Water clarity surprisingly good. Water temp 52-53 range. Spawn isn't far off. It's coming!


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## zaraspook

The past weekend 5 lifelong friends and I held our annual "Spring crappiethon" at my lake place. These are guys from the same neighborhood, elementary school, etc. in Kettering, OH and this was at least our 10th event. Originally held in the Spring only we added a Fall event 4-5 years ago. Crappie fishing is the focus, but a guy gathering has to include plenty of beer, lots of fun food, story telling about times long ago, comraderie, blaring oldies music, and of course poker. During our 48 hour time at the lake, we caught 119 crappie. Cleaned 14 of them, plus a 10" perch I caught, for a yummy crappie taco dinner Saturday night. Good time. Good people. Good memories to recall at future events.


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## AndOne

Water clarity OK at the lake? Was thinking about trying tomorrow (Friday). Probably southside, but open to whatever.


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## zaraspook

Unusually good in channels without a feeder creek, stained but fishable in those with feeder. Sorry if I didn't see your question in time to help.


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## zaraspook

Last Friday water temps were back down to 53-54 degree range from 60 prior weekend. Males are getting darker and I'm sure a few areas of lake should have spawning ongoing. But, no concrete evidence of spawn in my channel.

I caught 14 with 4 keepers Friday evening. 21 with 7 keepers Saturday. Sunday was punishing. Worked at it for at least 3 hours for the worst action I've seen of the season......landing just 3 crappie. Cut grass, did chores........constructive things since fishing wasn't. Packed and loaded truck for an earlier than planned departure. Before putting rods away I committed to 15 minutes of fishing. Caught 1 crappie on 2nd cast. 2 more hooked but unzipped lifting them out. Then I got into this guy in the photo. It was off like a crazy rocket. Got me hung up in the brush he'd been stalking. Stunned that I patiently worked him out of the cover, jig still engaged in his jaw. Not a bruiser for his breed, but 18" and a blast on my crappie rig. Quit on a high note.......the most fun of the day.


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## zaraspook

At lake late Tues thru noon Thurs. Water temp 57, water clarity good in my channel though plenty muddy elsewhere in channels with feeder creeks. Caught 9 crappie Tues evening, 1 keeper in about 90 minutes.

Weds started with a decent bite. My walking tour produced 6 crappie at 1st spot, 5 at spot 2, and 7 at the 3rd stop. Took a potty break and finished my coffee started earlier before pushing on.

Not that I had been fishing deep water (3-5') but next spot includes a serious stretch of 2' max depth. If/when crappie are spawning it can be magical at times. This was one of those magical times....caught 24 in less than 2 hours. The males were darkest of the season so far and females bulging with eggs. Hormones were elevated, fish were aggressive and full of spunk on the end of your line. Took a break when the bite faded. Cut grass and checked a few other chores off the list for several hours.

At 7:15 pm grabbed my gear again. I'd caught 42 from the earlier sessions. Hitting the 50 mark sounded like a good goal before dark. Got 10 before last light. 52 with 11 keepers the final tally. A good day!

Thurs was just a single morning session before cleanup and heading home. 1st headed to the super shallow hot spot of previous day but just 2 there. Fortunately located crappie at 2 other places to wrap up the session with 7 keepers from 21 caught. A pale lime color and Monkey Milk did most of the damage all 3 days. Fun time of year. All returned safe and sound to water to make babies. Next year should put an end to the 2-3 year shortage of quality fish.


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## zaraspook

Made it to GL in time to fish evening bite on Monday. It wasn't active but did find a few at each stop. Caught 16, 2 keepers. Water level up 4" from last week......spawning areas needed the extra depth. Disappointed that water temp had risen just 1/2 degree. At least clarity was was good.

Better bite Tues.....28 caught with 8 keepers. Biggest 11.5" which is pushing the upper range GLSM can do this year. I spent most of my fishing hours working a shallow back end spawning area that runs 2' deep and less . It was fast paced and enjoyable. Monkey Milk and and a pale lime pattern worked great but you get on beds and I think anything may catch fish. Water temp was 63......game on!

Weds again working shallow spawn water. Nearly identical results catching 26 with 7 keepers. A neat bonus was my 2nd pike of this month, see photo. This pike 3" shorter than earlier 18" pike. They are just a riot on a crappie long rod! I removed my crappie jig plus another jig and plastic from its jaw and released to find me again some day.

Thurs was a single fishing session only. Caught 11, 2 keepers. Slow bite but lots of carp doing their mating dance and mucking up peace loving crappie.

I believe the spawn will be short lived. It started late and won't fall below 70's quickly enough to stall what's going on. Get out there and have some fun!







m


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## zaraspook

At my lake place for 2 morning and 2 evening crappie sessions Weds to Fri this week. The spawn has been in high gear previous 8-10 days. Typically would catch 20-25 daily from the bank in 2-3 hours. However, my expectation was this spawn would be short in duration. The crappies have been in the channels for weeks, ready to dance, but water temps stubbornly remaining cool in 50's. That ended quickly with back to back heat waves into mid 80's. The switch turned on, but how long would it last? Wimpy results of these 4 latest sessions, 16 total crappies with 3 keepers is a huge drop! Numbers say it is probably done in my channel. Spawn doesn't necessarily track in unison for the entire lake but little time left. Boo!

Water temp 72 degrees Friday.


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## zaraspook

Holiday weekend lasted Thurs to Mon with family and friends. Normally it's not good for fishing, just too little available time to work in fishing. When I did fish, it was early or late in day and crappie bite was decent. Water temp was 67 on Thurs and 73 on Mon. I caught 47 total, including a good percentage of males still sporting spawn dark black. Most fish were caught within 12' of bank, 16-24" under bobber and near wood. Post spawn the bite was aggressive and good hookups in roof of mouth.
Our Memorial Day crappie tacos were yummy!


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## zaraspook

Thurs night fished 45 minutes at dusk. 2 bites, no fish. Just finished an hour and 10 minutes Fri AM at 4 spots. Maybe 6 bites, 1 crappie, 1 gill. Not enough action to merit further effort. More productive to work on finishing my 1st cup of coffee. Water temp last night 70.8 degrees.


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## zaraspook

Father's day weekend was a mixed bag for fishing. Just before dusk got 4 crappie, 1 keeper. Sat morning was more cooperative, caught 13 with 3 keepers before running an errand while the bite was still hot. Returned to same hot spot after errand, pulled 3 more on 3 casts, then it was total shutdown. No option to fish again until Sun morning. Could manage just 1, no action. Caught 21 total, 4 keepers for the weekend from approx 3.5 hours of fishing. Water temp fell to 73 Sunday from 79 five days earlier. 20 of my fish bit green Panfish Assassin tiny shad with sparkles, about 20" under bobber in 3-4 fow. Most of cover was pvc stake beds. Lots of property owners were around so few of my bank fishing options were unavailable. 
Fishing wasn't great but on par or better with summer GLSM crappie results. Lake time with family/kids was gold medal level!


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## FlashMan2702

What's the fishing like this time of year at GLSM? Heading down for a long weekend, usually don't have any trouble catching channels from the house we're at but just curious as to any other options around the lake? We'll be near windy point area


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## zaraspook

FlashMan2702 said:


> What's the fishing like this time of year at GLSM? Heading down for a long weekend, usually don't have any trouble catching channels from the house we're at but just curious as to any other options around the lake? We'll be near windy point area


FlashMan........plan to fish from bank or boat?


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## FlashMan2702

zaraspook said:


> FlashMan........plan to fish from bank or boat?


Bank mostly but maybe a little by boat


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## zaraspook

As you already know, channel cats are fun and abundant. Same holds true for crappie though tougher to get good numbers this time of year. Small jigs with plastics or minnies/wax worms are good. Start about 20" under bobber and go deeper depending on water depth. Most channels will run 3-6 deep this time of year. Under docks will produce, as will the stake beds that the State put in at Windy Point and other places. Gills are plentiful. You'll catch an occasional perch but rarely more than 1 or 2.

The bass population is good. Walleye are possible not probable, stocked for nearly a decade ending in 2008. Saugeye did famously in the lake but really stocked in numbers only 2011. It's a lengthy story why saugeyes were not continued....saugs are possible not probable. Even pike are possible. I caught 2 this year while fishing for crappie. Most years it's 1. Spillway on the West Bank is an incredible fishery for any or all species. It's a smorgasbord there, but most of year hardly more than a decent size creek.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.


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## FlashMan2702

zaraspook said:


> As you already know, channel cats are fun and abundant. Same holds true for crappie though tougher to get good numbers this time of year. Small jigs with plastics or minnies/wax worms are good. Start about 20" under bobber and go deeper depending on water depth. Most channels will run 3-6 deep this time of year. Under docks will produce, as will the stake beds that the State put in at Windy Point and other places. Gills are plentiful. You'll catch an occasional perch but rarely more than 1 or 2.
> 
> The bass population is good. Walleye are possible not probable, stocked for nearly a decade ending in 2008. Saugeye did famously in the lake but really stocked in numbers only 2011. It's a lengthy story why saugeyes were not continued....saugs are possible not probable. Even pike are possible. I caught 2 this year while fishing for crappie. Most years it's 1. Spillway on the West Bank is an incredible fishery for any or all species. It's a smorgasbord there, but most of year hardly more than a decent size creek.
> 
> Good luck! Let us know how it goes.


Thanks for the info, that's a great rundown!


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## FlashMan2702

As seems to be the standard anymore, I didn't get to venture out or onto the water as much as I'd like to look for the fishes. 

Thursday morning I watched a great sunrise and spent about 45 mins off the sea wall at our families property and after hooking up with 4 annoying bullheads I managed a nice 20+ inch channel and 2 others in the 15-18" range. Decent first morning. 

Friday morning I spent another 45 mins or so from the wall and caught an even bigger channel in the 26" range and then my 4 year old hooked into one that we lost while pulling up bc the hook somehow broke off the line 🤦🏼‍♂️ 

Saturday I didn't even cast a line, instead opting to watch the eagles do a little fishing before the storms rolled in. 

All in all another great weekend at the lake, already looking forward to the next trip. 

One of these times I'll get to explore some more shoreline and or some other areas and maybe find a few crappie 👍


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## zaraspook

Last weekend was the Lake Festival at the lake. Activities included fireworks and the amphicar splash-in among others. There is absolutely nothing natural about watching an automobile accelerate down a boat ramp, splashing nose first into the drink, and gliding away across the water. Fascinating! 
We hosted family and friends for the weekend. Good time. Of course I managed to work in a bit of crappie fishing, way short of normal, maybe 60-90 minutes daily from the bank. 

Not that I caught many, 17 caught to be exact, it was enough to conclude GLSM is in a favorable transition. In July 2019 (maybe it was 2018?) the lake experienced an oxygen depletion event. I doubt most people recognized how extensive the resulting fish kill actually was. A few days later viewing the damage from the lake, I was shocked by the number of floaters which seemed dominated by larger fish, including crappie. Stunned also by the number of large "eyes, saugeye or walleye, that had been alive in our lake despite the absence of stocking for nearly a decade. 

Crappie fishing at GLSM has been in recovery mode ever since. I'm here to tell you those 4" dinks of 2 years ago, and 7-8.5" fish that dominated your catch this spring, have just crossed over that 9" legal line. Last weekend the 17 total crappie I caught included 13 legal ones. It's not just a lucky day. My legal rate is running 50-75% for several weeks, and all returned to the water world. Don't expect to catch a bunch of 11"+. It's coming, not far away. Yes!


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## zaraspook

At lake Thurs to late afternoon Sat. From shore twice tested the morning bite. Neither time found a bite exciting enough to pursue. I'd catch 1 or 2 on rare bites. The fishing plan for the rest of the day was to hit a pair of pontoons 2-3 times for 20-30 minutes. Quit if no crappie, keep fishing if warranted. 

Using that pattern I caught 27 crappie, 19 keepers. Biggest was the photo fish at 11". All but 5 of the crappie were pulled from beneath the toons in 3-4' of water. Water temp was 75 degrees.


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## RMK

Good work Zara. It's been interesting watching this cycle the last 2 to 3 years. Hoping 2 years from now for more of those 14" fish to show up more regularly again. The bit I fished fished grandlake thus spring along with more whites than I d ever seen, there were also more hybrids than I ve ever seen. Really excited about possible numbers of those in the near future.


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> Good work Zara. It's been interesting watching this cycle the last 2 to 3 years. Hoping 2 years from now for more of those 14" fish to show up more regularly again. The bit I fished fished grandlake thus spring along with more whites than I d ever seen, there were also more hybrids than I ve ever seen. Really excited about possible numbers of those in the near future.


RMK.......curious to know what are the physical characteristics for those crappie you identify as hybrids?


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## Saugeyefisher

zaraspook said:


> RMK.......curious to know what are the physical characteristics for those crappie you identify as hybrids?


Yes same here! I always wonder on some of my buckeye fish. They always look like hybrids to me. But I'm awful at fish Id so would love to hear some thoughts....


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## RMK

Thoughts is what I ll give you saugeyefisher then lol. No real scientific evidence to back up what I m about to show and say. More just personal opinion that may or may not be correct.
This type of fish is what I refer to at GLSM as a hybrid and these fish seem to get bigger than your average black or white. Not colored quite like a black or a white and usually have spines that resemble more of a black crappie. Also taller, more round body, than a typical white.









2 whites left and bottom. Possibly 2 more hybrids top and right hard to tell until they get a year or so older/bigger could be regular whites.









And a decent black for comparison. These were all from GLSM prefishing and fishing CUSA this year.


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## RMK

Also worth mentioning I saw a picture from a long time local grandlake crappie angler with a big black nose he caught on grandlake. I ve caught a couple small ones on GLSM but never a big one. His was pushing 1.5lbs. My understanding with black nose is they are a stocked fish so not sure where they would have come from in GLSM.


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## T04DF15H

Interesting!


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## zaraspook

Your 1st photo I think the markings look like a black. I get the the height and rounded body thing, but wouldn't question that it was a black. However, counting dorsal spines, some would count 6 spines(white), some would call it 7(black). I can understand hybrid. 

3rd photo I'd say black. Don't know that it looks weird enough to suspect hybrid. Agree, white population up last 2 years. 

Black nose I have caught a few at GLSM but only 1 that was 11"+. My understanding is the nose stripe is naturally occurring but a very recessive gene. If you take a black nose male and black nose female, I don't know that you'd get higher numbers of baby black noses. It's still a recessive, low odds, gene pool that has to occur. Not sure that's a breedable characteristic you can produce to stock. 

A few years back for a while I took to counting spines on every crappie I caught. I had a surprising number of fish that looked black, spines said not. I concluded hybrids. Good discussion, RMK.


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## RMK

here's some more info on the magnolia crappie. and magnolia crappie are what I think of when I hear of a black nose. from this article it talks about a black striped crappie (a naturaly occuring color phase of some black crappie) being crossed with a white crappie, creating a hybrid blacknose crappie. black nose are my favorite crappie to catch though by far. caught them in decent numbers down south a few years ago and they were all big and mean. fought like crazy. regret not having one on the wall.


https://www.mdwfp.com/media/302409/magnolia-crappie.pdf


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## zaraspook

RMK said:


> here's some more info on the magnolia crappie. and magnolia crappie are what I think of when I hear of a black nose. from this article it talks about a black striped crappie (a naturaly occuring color phase of some black crappie) being crossed with a white crappie, creating a hybrid blacknose crappie. black nose are my favorite crappie to catch though by far. caught them in decent numbers down south a few years ago and they were all big and mean. fought like crazy. regret not having one on the wall.
> 
> 
> https://www.mdwfp.com/media/302409/magnolia-crappie.pdf


Ahhh! I learned something new today, thank you. Cool looking fish and clearly can raise in numbers and stockable. Our St. Marys hatchery is experienced at the triploid sterilization game. Added a huge cost to saugeye fry to stock in GLSM a decade ago. It was the final nail in the coffin, ending the short trial of triploid saugeye fry/fingerlings for us our lake. Interesting experiences for you on the crappie tourney trail!


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## Saugeyefisher

RMK, thanks brother! Love the info! Wether it's opinion or fact. I respect your opinion,a lot!


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## zaraspook

Now deep into summer my GLSM crappie fishing sessions are fewer daily as well as shorter in duration. Usually I can catch a few, rarely double digits walking the bank fishing milk route. Water temps are not bad, low 70's. Water levels are more problematic, suffering in depth and holding fewer fish. 

Thankfully fish size is recovering from our down cycle the last 3 years when keeper percentages were stuck in single digits. During a recent 48 hour visit to my lakeplace, day 1 produced 10 legal crappie from the 20 I caught. Day 2 found 5 legal from the 9 landed. My current 24 hour visit went fishless Tues evening, got skunked. Managed to catch 2 crappie this morning but neither of them legal. For the month of July I caught 77 crappie......42 legal for 55%. For the record, catching just 77 crappie for a month sounds pretty pathetic. But, I've had many Julys ending with single digit totals. GLSM crappie guys know what I mean. 77 might be my best July ever! August is tracking about the same number. 

Better days are not far off. I'm ready!


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## zaraspook

GLSM Friday late 8pm arrival allowed just enough daylight to catch 6 quick crappie. All 6 made legal size but none bigger than 10". Fishing was 3.5' under bobber on submerged cover 20' out from bank in 4' water. That's a tactic most GLSM anglers rarely use but it's worked well for last 4+ weeks.

Saturday was a painting day but with several breaks to dunk my plastic for 30-45 minutes. Sometimes found fish, sometimes not. Tactics were sane as above or otherwise fishing under toons. First 2 fish were keepers making it 8 keepers in a row including night before. Ninth fish was barely short. Caught 17 total Sat with 11 keepers. Two-thirds of fish were from toons.

Sunday was occupied with chores and didn't fish until 2pm. First 3 caught were using the 3.5' down in submerged cover tactic. Next 9 came from a pair of toons. Caught 12 with 9 keepers before heading home.

Total this trip was 35 caught, 26 legal. Did not catch any bigger than 10.5". The last 2-3 years of 5-15% legal sized fish are kaput/over/gone! All my fish this trip were caught on Monkey Milk baby shad bodies by Southern Pro. I used what was tied on.


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## RMK

zaraspook said:


> GLSM Friday late 8pm arrival allowed just enough daylight to catch 6 quick crappie. All 6 made legal size but none bigger than 10". Fishing was 3.5" under bobber on submerged cover 20' out from bank in 4' water. That's a tactic most GLSM anglers rarely use but it's worked well for last 4+ weeks.
> 
> Saturday was a painting day but with several breaks to dunk my plastic for 30-45 minutes. Sometimes found fish, sometimes not. Tactics were sane as above or otherwise fishing under toons. First 2 fish were keepers making it 8 keepers in a row including night before. Ninth fish was barely short. Caught 17 total Sat with 11 keepers. Two-thirds of fish were from toons.
> 
> Sunday was occupied with chores and didn't fish until 2pm. First 3 caught were using the 3.5' down in submerged cover tactic. Next 9 came from a pair of toons. Caught 12 with 9 keepers before heading home.
> 
> Total this trip was 35 caught, 26 legal. Did not catch any bigger than 10.5". The last 2-3 years of 5-15% legal sized fish are kaput/over/gone! All my fish this trip were caught on Monkey Milk baby shad bodies by Southern Pro. I used what was tied on.


Great report and news! Hoping for a good fall and even better spring to come!


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## Backwater

"fishing under toons" - sorry, but what does that mean? New to GLSM and crappie fishing.


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## CHOPIQ

Backwater, Pontoons.


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## zaraspook

Friday thru Labor Day at my lake place for a more relaxed holiday, family only, less entertaining to fuss with. I tried to get out and fish 4 times a day for 30 minutes or so. All fishing is from the bank. I couldn't always control the time of day, but I did get out. With most property owners "up" for the weekend, many of my spots to fish were not available to hit. 

Friday was my best day catching 19 crappie with 11 legal. 16 of the 19 were pulled from under pontoon. Saturday caught 11, just 5 keepers as the fish I found were simply smaller. 14 with 4 keepers Sunday and Labor Day, today, 13 with 7 keepers as late in the day I got back into a school of better fish.

80% of my fish came from under toons. Most days I had just 3 spots available to me, and 2 of them were toons. I don't recall using any pattern other than Monkey Milk baby shad. Other colors may have worked...I'll never know. 

It's a new month but results look similar to last 4-6 weeks. Fun weekend.


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## zaraspook

Tues/Weds this week took a break to test the waters, see what impact cooler temps were having on the crappie bite. Water temp sat at 58 degrees Tues, 56 degrees on Weds. 

I worked in a morning, midday, and evening bank walk each day. Session were planned for roughly an hour. It's a good sign if a session is extended. None were. Several ended early. Tuesday I caught 7 crappie with 1 keeper. Weds total was 1 higher, 8 with 3 keepers.

Wish I could say I found a pattern. Not this time. Channel water levels are really low, eventually impacts fishing and probably a factor. 

My bait tendency is toward shad bodies, usually Monkey Milk or chartreuse colors. Those clearly weren't the ticket. I had more success with colors such as pink or orange, ones I think of for colder water temps. By the way, current water temps 55-56, those last year didn't come until late Oct. 

Better days will come!


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## crappiedude

With those temps you're getting the fishing will only get better, especially if we can get a little rain and add some fresh water and raise your level a little bit. I'm not doing much good down here either, what fish we do find are scattered and deep. Jigs have been an even tougher bite with most fish coming on minnows. 
I can't wait to find water temps like you have, I was out yesterday, and we had mid 70's everywhere we went. I may have to try a shallower lake.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> With those temps you're getting the fishing will only get better, especially if we can get a little rain and add some fresh water and raise your level a little bit. I'm not doing much good down here either, what fish we do find are scattered and deep. Jigs have been an even tougher bite with most fish coming on minnows.
> I can't wait to find water temps like you have, I was out yesterday, and we had mid 70's everywhere we went. I may have to try a shallower lake.


Interesting observations, c-dude. Shallow lakes do present weird issues but also opportunities. Water temps bounce all over the map like ping pong balls. Amazes me that you guys still have water temps in 70's. Regardless, we all have to play the cards we're dealt. It's a new puzzle to solve every time out. Love to see a quick influx of fresh water though.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> Amazes me that you guys still have water temps in 70's.


The real pay-off to theses deep water lakes come in December and January. When other lakes are starting to freeze over, we'll still hold on to some open water. With any luck we'll be able to get our boats out until after Christmas and usually in until mid- Jan.
The downside is it's rare to see fishable ice.


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## zaraspook

Fished GL Weds-Fri this week with a friend. We did a 4pm session Weds, off and on the full day Thursday, finished it off just an AM session Fri before heading home. We caught 12 with 3 keepers in the brief Weds evening session, 36 with 11 keepers in our only full day available/Thurs. Friday morning was brief, only 7 caught and none keeper material.

All fishing from bank. Water temp 59 which is +2 from prior week. Water level extremely low and affecting fish population in channels. Recently the fishing under pontoons has been weak. Toons turned in our favor Thurs and I got into a pile of them. 70% of toon fish were legal, just 20% keeper rate elsewhere.

Key Lime shad bodies worked great under toons. Elsewhere stingers in orange to pink colors were best, the same trend of last few weeks. Fish are scattered, one here, one there. You need patience. Schooled fish don't seem to be in channels yet.

It was decent and will get better, especially if we can get some RAIN.


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## zaraspook

Came to lake Tues late afternoon. Wet a line at 4:45pm. Almost 2 hours, caught 9 with 4 keepers. Those aren't great numbers but was encouraged by the return of better quality fish. Dinks proliferated for last few weeks. Nothing under 7.5" this time around. I can live with that. 

Hoping the forecast of rain materializes over next couple days. Those orange, red orange plastics still working for me. Not at all typical in my arsenal.


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## zaraspook

Weds AM session wasn't overwhelming, caught 8 with 4 keepers, but thought was if I replicated those numbers in midday plus evening sessions, a total of 24 with 12 keepers would be really decent. Interesting that things don't always turn out the way you plan them. 

Midday started decent, a couple from the south end of my seawall followed by 3 at the opposite end. Those 3 got my attention.....had not pulled a crappie from seawall north end in 12 weeks and all 3 were keepers. Hmmm....I may be on to something.

Next target is beneath pontoons. Not so cool is neighbor's toon was pulled out for the season 2 hours earlier. My toon targets are running thin. Just one still in the water.....mine! It's normally not as productive as neighbor's boat but you gotta go with the hand your dealt. Decided not to eat lunch until I tested my toon bite. Two hours later, still casting my pontoon, but have to pee. Stopped for relief. I can lunch when fish are done. Caught 48 w/26 keepers. I quit when the combination of gusty wind driving tons of leaves on water surface jammed up the water under toon. It shut me down.....90% surface thick with leaves. 

Water temp 59 degrees. Bigger fish are available in impressive numbers. Fall fishing is on! Key Lime Baby Shad Swim'r beneath toons and orange stingers on wood elsewhere.


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## firemanmike2127

Thanks for the great report ! Additionally, I truly appreciate all your shared observations & experiences throughout the season. Life got pretty busy this summer & resulted with considerably less fishing around home. I've been up north salmon fishing but you've got me fired up to chase some fall crappies @ GLSM ! Mike


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## zaraspook

Thanks for feedback. Should be best crappie fall in 3 years. Not sure I'd go from salmon trip to chasing GL crappie though. Big challenge for GL to measure up!


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## Lowell H Turner

Zaraspook, you inspire many with your skill and informative helpful posts


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Zaraspook, you inspire many with your skill and informative helpful posts


How nice of you to say! Clearly, LHT, you must among the smartest intellects on the planet, not that I may have a faint prejudice.


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## zaraspook

Past weekend at GLSM included a Friday afternoon walkabout for 90 minutes yielded 9 crappie with 7 legal ones. Found them on normal submerged crappie brush cover, 8 to 15' off seawall, on orange stingers 18" under bobber in 3-4 FOW. Plus the pontoon bite was equally productive with key lime pattern Bobby Garland Baby Shad Swim'r. Water temp was a brisk 48 degrees and fish felt like ice cubes compared to mid to upper air temps. The ones that hit were aggressive, didn't mess around, grabbed bait and were gone. 

Saturday in 2 hours was like pulling teeth. Caught 9 again, just 3 legal, hitting 8 different spots in/out, shallow and deep, slow and fast to find no bite most places. Fish that bit seemed like they were sleep walking. Toon bite didn't exist at all. Caught 1 on Monkey Milk Baby Shad and rest on orange stinger tails. 

A quick 45 minute Sunday morning session before heading home for soccer matches was exciting. Caught just 5 but all were legal, all beneath my toon. It wasn't a rapid fire bite, but good hits with key lime baby shad. Didn't have time to fish any other cover or spots. Good quality fish showed a promising day for Sunday but couldn't hang around to see if it held up.


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## zaraspook

Past Fri - Sunday completed my annual fall crappiethon event with 5 of my old time neighborhood buddies. We're talking elementary school day mates, old farts reminiscing to days and events long gone by. Beer consumption is active but a pittance of earlier events, replaced by exaggeration of conquests decades before. Good times and massive competition to reach for the crown for King Crappie Master.

Our group had our most successful ever fall event with 279 crappie landed over the 2.5 days of the tourney. The team competition, 3 man teams, was decided by a single fish......140 to 139. My team the "close but no cigar" loser. In the singles competition I prevailed as King Crappie Master coming from down 5 to win by 2! Unusually competitive and these guys have mastered all my tricks, all my spots, and are persistent to the final minute.

GLSM did its part, providing a good bite if you worked hard and smart. Orange stingers, chartreuse pepper Panfish Assassin Tiny Shad, and Key Lime Baby Shad ruled the list of successful plastics. Shallow water brush and wood carried the days......generally water under 2' deep. The difference maker this year was the ability to successfully fish beneath pontoons. Toons were my advantage....no one else with any experience shooting tunes.

Good to see my buds and tip a few brews!


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## zaraspook

Back to lakehouse Weds evening.....gotta play that hot fall bite all I can. Had just 20 minutes before dark but pulled 4 keepers from the 6 I caught in race against fading light. 

Thurs mid-morning started in heavy fog. Found out fish don't care about fog. First 8 crappie in a hectic 30 minutes were all keepers. Only 6 more keepers out of next 21. Oh well. 

Water temp 54. Switched to Bluegrass pattern Southern Pro baby shad for most of fishing today. Inventory of Key Lime really low while I have several 50 piece bags of Bluegrass pattern. Besides, in my opinion Southern Pro plastics are more durable and cost 60% less than Bobby Garland baby shad. 

Photo fish was 11", best of day, next years fish will be much better quality. Fall bite is fun.....fat tummies.


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## zaraspook

Hung around lakehouse until Friday morning to checkout late morning bite. Caught 12 with 6 legal but bite was anemic. Pontoon had a few but under performed, lacking the better size fish normally you can find there. Water temp was up to 56.6, up a couple degrees. That temp is warmer than GLSM usually sees in Nov. Water level continues its steady descent.....absence of rain. I believe lack of depth promotes earlier ice formation if temps get down there. As a bank fisherman, ice of any thickness is not a wish, just shuts down open water. Ice guys can't fish it unless prolonged cold and open water guys are shutdown as well. No one gets to fish. Boo!


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## zaraspook

A buddy and I took advantage of the great weather and bank fished GLSM Weds and Thurs. Bite cooperated at a decent level....fish weren't bashful when the hit. Most of our spots and cover produced multiple fish. In general we fished 14-24" under bobber in water depth 1-3'. Hard to find water any deeper than that in my channel.

Odd coincidence that between us we caught 34 crappie, 20 legal each day. The difference being we fished only the afternoon on Weds. It took us all day, fishing off and on the entire day, to catch Thurs 34 and 20 keepers. Our main focus Thurs was pulling my pontoon for the winter, cleaning servicing, and covering for winter.

I miss the pontoon already. It may have been the source of 50% of my crappie over the last 8+ weeks. Imagine any time of day grabbing a rod, walking out your patio doors, and 40' later you're casting beneath a prime crappie source. 10 casts or 50, if they are hitting stay longer. Not hitting, go cut grass. 

Orange and speckled stingers were #1 plastic this trip. Chartreuse shad bodies were productive and Monkey Milk did well, too.


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## zaraspook

Caught 15 crappie today in snow flurries. 4 keepers. They were sluggish, not moving very fast or far. 52.7 water temp last Friday now down to 41.2 degrees in just 4 days. Forecast says low temps in teens Fri-Sun. Channels will have ice and maybe total ice over sometime on weekend. Hope it isn't around long. All 15 on orange/salmon colored stinger tail shad body.

Be patient, work bait slow. Don't expect fish to gulp and go. They will acclimate to sudden 10+ degree loss of water temp in a few days. Should become more aggressive then, however, temps are going lower and may take different path.

You can catch some if you try. If we get ice on channels, this time of year it shouldn't last long. Bite should go nuts when channels lose ice.


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## zaraspook

As I feared 5 days ago, my GLSM channel is locked up with ice this morning (Sunday). Can't vouch for status in other channels or the main lake, but all hard water at my place. Boo. I'm not an ice guy. Photo is facing west from my deck. 

From 10-day weather forecast, likely ice will disappear by Thanksgiving day. Anyone else have hardwater this AM?


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## crappiedude

No hard water in Southern Clermont County. I haven't been fishing a lot lately, but a friend told me we still had 51-degree water 2 days ago. I'm hoping I can get out sometime in the next few days. 
This has been a really odd year for me, probably the worst I've had in 10 years. We're finding plenty of fish but they just won't commit to my jigs. I've been waiting for this cold weather; my luck has to change.
Fishing now until ice forms is my favorite time of the year.


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## zaraspook

crappiedude said:


> No hard water in Southern Clermont County. I haven't been fishing a lot lately, but a friend told me we still had 51-degree water 2 days ago. I'm hoping I can get out sometime in the next few days.
> This has been a really odd year for me, probably the worst I've had in 10 years. We're finding plenty of fish but they just won't commit to my jigs. I've been waiting for this cold weather; my luck has to change.
> Fishing now until ice forms is my favorite time of the year.


I, too, love fishing up to ice. Can get into some great action and hefty fish. . I know your fishing time has been off this year. Let's hope 2023 gets you fishing early and often, c-dude. I always enjoy your reports and commentary.


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## crappiedude

zaraspook said:


> I, too, love fishing up to ice. Can get into some great action and hefty fish. . I know your fishing time has been off this year. Let's hope 2023 gets you fishing early and often, c-dude. I always enjoy your reports and commentary.


Thank you!


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## Saugeyefisher

Ice covering lots of areas at buckeye. But still enough open water to make the trip worth it.


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## Lowell H Turner

Thin ice is the worst it gets unless there’s a deep water dock nearby ( and even better yet if there’s cover beneath it! )


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## zaraspook

At GLSM a short time Tues and shocked to see main lake totally locked up. Some State workers said 2-3" ice thickness everywhere. Channels iced over in Nov is not rare. Main lake locked up this soon is another story.


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## RMK

Happy Thanksgiving Zara and everyone that checks in in here!


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## zaraspook

Tues this week expected to be warmest day this week and I needed a fishing fix, sooooo hustled to the lake by 2pm for 3 hours of chasing crappie in my channel. Had no clue if and where I'd find them but ice off events can be entertaining. My skepticism was quickly erased. First dip of the day off my seawall near a smallish limb gave rise to a spunky, chunky, 10"+ black crappie. Took all of 20 minutes to catch the 1st half dozen then headed to a 2nd spot.

Using the same orange shad body stinger I started with the bite was good, that is until I broke off. Tied on a pinkish orange stinger and the bite kicked into the next gear. Caught 7 at spot #2, 6 from spot #3, spot #4 was the only dud yielding just 3. Finished back at my seawall for 7 more. 29 caught with 10 keepers when I quit at 5pm and headed home.
Water clarity was unusually good at 42.3 degrees but shallow as I’ve seen in a decade. A fun day and just maybe a shot at a sequel yet this week. Photo below is the fish from first cast.


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## Saugeye Tom

zaraspook said:


> Tues this week expected to be warmest day this week and I needed a fishing fix, sooooo hustled to the lake by 2pm for 3 hours of chasing crappie in my channel. Had no clue if and where I'd find them but ice off events can be entertaining. My skepticism was quickly erased. First dip of the day off my seawall near a smallish limb gave rise to a spunky, chunky, 10"+ black crappie. Took all of 20 minutes to catch the 1st half dozen then headed to a 2nd spot.
> 
> Using the same orange shad body stinger I started with the bite was good, that is until I broke off. Tied on a pinkish orange stinger and the bite kicked into the next gear. Caught 7 at spot #2, 6 from spot #3, spot #4 was the only dud yielding just 3. Finished back at my seawall for 7 more. 29 caught with 10 keepers when I quit at 5pm and headed home.
> Water clarity was unusually good at 42.3 degrees but shallow as I’ve seen in a decade. A fun day and just maybe a shot at a sequel yet this week. Photo below is the fish from first cast.
> 
> 
> View attachment 499895


Been following this thread for years love it brother spook. i dont fish st marys like i did as a kid


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## crappie4me

Saugeye Tom said:


> Been following this thread for years love it brother spook. i dont fish st marys like i did as a kid


me 2 would love to fish with zs someday


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## mrb1

First feller I started "following" way back


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## zaraspook

Saugeye Tom said:


> Been following this thread for years love it brother spook. i dont fish st marys like i did as a kid


Saug Tom, much appreciate your encouragement. Didn’t know you fished Grand Lake in your earlier life and your memories are fond ones.


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## zaraspook

Friend and I did an up and back Fri afternoon GLSM crappie visit. Fished from 1-5pm, gusty wind and cool, overcast and rain on the way. Let me start with…..this fall or winter crappie bite, which ever you want to call it, is crazy good right now! Keep in mind we're walking the bank and hitting 5-6 target spots to locate schools. Once we catch a few fish in an area, we’ll attempt to define the shape and size of the school. We concentrate casts in open water 15-20’ left, right, out, and in of where we catch fish and get bites. If you assume the school will move and it will, you can stay on them for hours. Don’t get focused on specific cover. The schools aren’t holding to specific cover but are focused 
on schools of baitfish/shad.
We had the luxury of locating 2 schools. One we worked multiple times over 2+ hours. The 2nd simply had a heavier concentration of fish and we sat on it for the last hour and 45 minutes before dark. Between us we caught 84 crappie. 41 crappie came from school #2 and 31 found our jigs in school #1. Fish were generally 8-35' off the bank/sea wall, 14- 24” under bobber in water 1.5 to 3.5’ deep. Jigs were 1/32 oz, #4 and #6 sickle hooks with shad body plastics in paddle tail or stinger versions. Orange or Cajun cricket plastics caught 15 crappie while Monkey Milk hauled in 69. We didn’t fish 4 solid hours but took plenty of breaks to eat, consume adult and other beverages, potty, and I met with a contractor for 45 minutes just after I located school #2. By the way my fishing buddy beat me 43 to 41.

Cold weather crappie fishing can be the bomb. I love it!


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## firemanmike2127

Impressive report & way to stay after 'em !! Great job on defining the pattern....Mike


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## zaraspook

Got together with another GLSM crappie guy on Tues mid morning. Started out fishing some good cover ad caught a few but wanted faster action. Went to the backend of a channel hunting a school. This time of year spots like this can hold great rapid fire action. It didn’t disappoint.

In approx an 60-90 minutes we landed 35- 40 crappie casting out 40-60' from the seawall, 15-20" under bobber, dragging various jigs with plastics. I used one plastic the entire time, an orange shad body stinger tail. My partner was equally as adventurous and used a bubble gum colored plastic, one bait all day.
When the bite faded somewhat, we moved 60-70 yards looking for a 2nd school. 3 casts for me produced 2 crappie and the game was on again. However, this school was different……more fish and bigger fish! Rarely did we catch a short fish, nearly all legal or better. Tactics were the same. Casting to as far as you can to open water, no known cover, about 15-18" under bobber in water 2.5- 3.5 feet deep. Orange or pink(bubble gum) plastics. We caught 45-50 crappie from school #2. Bite was still going strong when I shut down, packed up, and headed home for grandkids soccer match,

As long as we have open water, no ice, these tactics should work. Don’t get strung out fishing cover…….cast out hunting for schools. Fan cast to locate a fish then pound that adjacent water. If you hit a school you’ll have the time of your life.
Photo is 20 of our keepers.


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## zaraspook

Fished my Grand Lake channel Thursday from 1-4:15pm. Figured by Sunday channel would ice over and add thickness as temps head to zero by next Friday. Likely my last opportunity this year to fish open water. Plus, it’s a shot at testing if the pattern that’s worked consistently for 4+ weeks remains intact. The short answer to pattern is “yes”!

Caught 36 this day with 18 legal keepers. Hunting for schools out from banks and not holding to cover, first school located was very near a productive spot in recent weeks. The bite never became frenzied, fish after fish, but consistent enough to get 19 there. Monkey Milk shad bodies helped me locate a half dozen, but switching to orange or pinkish orange shad with stinger tails easily doubled the pace of bites.

In retrospect, might have been wiser to stay there but moved approximately 60-70 yards to another consistent area. Not good today…..4 wasn’t enough to keep me around.

On to a 3rd area, recently not too productive for me. It started decent but faded fast. Ones I got weren’t schooled but scattered. Needed to expand my arc of casts and reach farther off the bank. 3/4’s the way across the channel I hit paydirt. Landed 11 in 30 minutes. Should also mention I switched away from the orange stingers that bagged them at 1st school. Went back to Monkey Milk. Also, early afternoon with some decent sunshine I fished 14" under bobber. The last school I found it was overcast and when the action picked up it was 20-24" under bobber.

18 legal today from the 36 caught. One white crappie in the group. Doubtful channel will be ice free for another outing for me.


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## Lowell H Turner

Well done to you both, an impressive day ! You seem to have been doing pretty good while most of us would be challenged to even get a few hits


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Well done to you both, an impressive day ! You seem to have been doing pretty good while most of us would be challenged to even get a few hits


LHT…..you have it right. We’ve been on a good run last couple months. If you’re on a good horse, ride it! The puzzle pieces are falling into place. Tactics and baits the same which I’ve regularly repeated in this thread. Amazing to me that we rarely see anyone else fishing. The fall bite is a great time of year at GLSM. Ho, ho, ho! Only thing that ends it is I-C-E !!!

Have at it hard water guys. It’s your time now and wishing you well.


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## Lowell H Turner

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and those whom post here ! Any plans to ice fish par chance soon ? If so would like to see any results, particularly for yellow perch and saugeye !


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## zaraspook

Lowell H Turner said:


> Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and those whom post here ! Any plans to ice fish par chance soon ? If so would like to see any results, particularly for yellow perch and saugeye !


LHT....no saugeye up here. Haven't been stocked in a decade tho they were wildly successful the 2 years stocked. Yellow perch show up randomly in creels but rarely enough to actually target them. State tried to kick-start native perch population at GLSM. Stocked high numbers for 7 years 2010-2018. Improved perch population a little but abandoned. I think insatiable appetite of Cormorants were keeping perch numbers down. Tho GLSM has active fish hatcheries, little of what they raise ends up in Grand Lake.


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## zaraspook

With the string of warm days was hoping channels around my lake place would be showing open water. Made a quick trip to find out late Monday. Barely a few spots found, purely around the edges, a few gaps between ice and seawalls.

We hung around overnight with Tues temps expected in low 60's. By noon it was certain there would be no open water opportunities available. Any fishing would have to come elsewhere. We scouted a few spots around the lake, ones with reputations for early open water. One showed a small open water patch we could cast. A southern wind picked up and quadrupled open water to a 50 by 40 yard area. We worked it for an hour. No bites for me, 1 bite and a small gill for my fishing buddy. Stumbled on a 2nd spot which was actually the size of 2 football fields. Bank access was limited, maybe 150-200' of accessible bank for casting. We worked it thoroughly for 45 minutes. I had the lone bite and whiff on hookset.

I'm confident by Weds open water access would be a minor obstacle. Bigger issue is water depth. GLSM water table is so low. The ice disappears but uncovers water less than 2' deep. Not a desirable set of conditions but without better options what do you do? We opted out, headed home Tues. Better days ahead but who knows when next open water comes about.


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