Thursday, February 17, 2011

Crappie City USA

Wednesday morning we headed towards Otter Creek at 7 am. For those who don't know, Otter Creek is quickly becoming one of the best mult-species fishing lakes in the country. It is a very young series of lakes encompassing more than 225 acres of water. Here is some more info: HB Featured Property- Otter Creek.

Anyhow, we were on the big lake by 8 am and it took Cam all of 20 seconds to land his first crappie of the day. His minnow didn't even make it 4 feet down before it got slammed. By the time everyone else even got a bait in the water, Cam and his dad had 8 crappies laying on the ice!


Let me tell you a little bit about Cam. He is in the 6th grade and is a diehard fish catching machine! He was also supposed to be in school. We made sure that he learned more in his day out in the outdoors than any day of school. We talked about the Science of fish behavior under the ice, the Art of catching fish, and did bunches of Math counting crappies! 69 average ones in one bucket and 37 big ones filled his other bucket!

Here he is concentrating on getting the fish to bite!

Not a bad day of crappie fishing for just 2 guys!



We didn't just focus on crappies today either. We went after and caught some nice perch, bass, and bluegills too!



We had a cookout on the ice for lunch! Man was it ever a feast!! Something about cooking outside on the ice in calm, sunny 50 degree weather that just makes good food taste amazing!


As you can see in the cooking picture above, we had a pretty good group out on the ice today. Cam and his dad weren't the only ones to find active schools of fish. Here are the rest of the pictures:





Jake and Dave found a huge fishing reef (strategically placed) in 26 foot of water and were smokin huge crappies with plastics just 5 feet below the ice!










If you combine everything from today- the perfect weather, great people, scenic setting, awesome food, quantity, quality, and diversity of the fish caught, you pretty much end up with about as good of a day ice fishing as it gets anywhere in the world! The only complaint possible would be that there were places on the ice with 6 inches of slush/water and it made moving around just a bit inconvenient.

4 comments:

  1. Nate
    I hope you guys enjoy all those crappie. They are the very best of the fresh water fish to eat. Fantastic trip and images too boot.

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  2. Hey nate, Thanks for a great time you know your stuff when it comes to getting the most out of the lakes you manage!!! If you ever need a hand with anything don't hesitate to drop me an email would love to learn more about what it takes to do what you do! Thanks again see you again sometime soon!! Dave z.@ Fishindavez@ sbcglobal.net.

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  3. Wednesday was a blast for Cam and I...Nate rocks and Otter Creek rocks. Will we be back? FOR SURE YES!!!

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  4. Those are some PIG gills and crappie!!

    This blog is getting added to my blogroll on www.brookfieldangler.com

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