Went to a small lake called Banner Creek this last weekend. Most of the local COE lakes are 
high, muddy, and falling. This lake is 30 miles north of Topeka at Holton. Go west of Holton on hiway 16 about 2 miles. It is a small , 500 acre lake that stays 
normal most of the year and is clear enough to have a weed line. It is just chuck-full of 
black crappies and 
largemouth bass. A few years back, it was over stocked with crappies and was run by the city. They asked local fishers to remove 
the crappies and they did so by the 1000’s. Now the state has controll and has a creel limit of 20 with no size limit. I took 2 clients there Friday and Saturday. The 1st thing that disturbed me was the lack 
of bait stores. NO MINNERS to be found. So off to the standing timber to discover my clients could not dip trees with jigs. I had my crank rods with me and started to pull them. Running 4 cranks at different depths and colors. The hot color had to have some blue in it and diving to 8ft. OOOYA!! crappies, up to 14 1/2 in. Put 30 in the live-well over 11in. BONUS!!! Walleyes and saugeyes 
would hit the cranks too. Creel is 2 and have to be 18in. NO PROBLEM!! Saturday. I have a baitwell with 10 doz. minners!! OMG, The crappies were slamming the minners 
like they were starving. My live-well is 33gal. and with 48 in it,,,it was full 
as it could be. Caught the walleyes/saugeyes when we went to pulling cranks again. Those we kept were in the 20in range. Hit all colors as long as they were running in 8 to 12ft. Great 
days at a SMALL lake!! <*)}}}><
June 23, 2008 at 7:25 pm
#1306188