Any crappies yet?

Hey guys, we have a group going up the third weekend in January, just wondering if anyone has caught or seen any crappies caught this year?

I miss the crappie boom, I doubt we’ll ever see anything like it again.

Not likely a boom like before. BUT the nets are back and as long as there is stupidity, greed, and archaic ways of thinking then there is a chance (that is if they get ideal spawning conditions mixed in too).

First off I have no control or say over the Upper Red Lake forum but I rather we not use terms such as “stupidity, greed, and archaic ways of thinking” before you have seen the entire picture. Come with me to the advisory committee meetings, fisheries meeting, joint department meetings with the band and state, sit in the basement of the fisheries office with the big lake specialists and reservation biologists as they spend weeks even months gathering data and putting together numbers, sit on frigid overnight patrols with reservation wardens as they guard the net sites and just try to fathom how careful everyone is trying to handle our livelihood, our resource and our future. This is our life, not our weekend hobby. Then you will have a couple items to ponder; One you can start throwing stones at their house of cards from the sport anglers glass house, take a look at the harvest data from the n on reservation waters. Acre for acre we a taking a huge amount of fish out in comparison. The second thing you get is knowledge that nets have very little to do with the crappie population. Crappies inhabit different depths and regions then the nettable walleye and those blunt headed crappies do not net very well. Of course I know some are convinced you can put a square peg in a round hole no matter what they are told and screaming nets nets nets makes for great reading about the sky falling. Trust me those nets and sportsmen takes determine my house payment, truck loan, groceries and heat bill…we are all watching it very closely up here. The day when Upper Red Lake Area business and families start to panic you need to start worrying.

I have typed this a thousand times and I will type it again: Crappies require the “perfect calm”. We need three weeks of dead flat calm with perfect temperatures ranges during a sustained high water condition during the spawn for another massive crappie generation to replicate the one of 1996. Three weeks of dead flat calm on Upper Red Lake, not a safe bet. This year we where happy with three days of calm.

Now as for the original question. You will bump into a few crappies early season, two here four there type of stuff but the real action will not start until late February and into March with a pinnacle in early May. The crappies do not live in the eastern half of Upper Red Lake, they live in the deeper cooler waters to the west and we are fortunate enough to catch them on their migration run as they head east to spawn with the feedbags on. During the boom days we just had so many crappies they wouldn’t fit back into the cool water side of the lake, the school is now slowly returning back to its natural size.

Well said. Doc and I will be up the second week of January and ready to do battle. Hopefully we have not lost our jobs as “forward scouts”. We finished up pheasant hunting in SD last week. It was a good year! Have to spend some time with family for a couple of weeks over the Holidays and then “Katie bar the door” Thanks for all the information and instruction you do on this website.

Sorry to strike a nerve there Johnny. It was not my intention and I did not single out any group of people if you look at my post.

I have talked with you in person a number of times at Morts over the Memorial day week while you tended to your traps and have thanked you for your generosity and hard work.I have spoke with Buddy in the Winter time on the roads and it is unbelievable the amount of work that you, Kelly and the Hillmans put in to make what you do. I would never put someone down for doing hard work and making “lemonade” out of life’s “lemons”. i am sorry you didn’t like the words I used but in my defense all the hard work that you and many others have done in your area that you speak of in your posts is to PROTECT YOUR LIVELYHOOD FROM STUPIDITY, GREED , AND ARCHAIC WAYS OF THINKING. And you are right in that your are protecting it from more than one group of people. I also spoke of ideal crappie conditions being a contributing factor. I mean no disrespect to you or to anyone in your area that do a honest days work. So sorry if I made you irritated but please don’t put “internet words” into my mouth.

thank you and keep up the great work