20180422-Opening Day

I decided to gear up and head to a local lake to test the waters for the panfish bite. Looking around winter evidence of ice is still present against the north facing foundations of the houses and garages and I’m going panfishing?

Looking at the solunar tables we were sitting at the lowest activity of the month at 13%. I would be fishing the lull approaching the major period. Today the weather was the trigger to get me out on the water.

30 short mins later im in the water scanning the shallows looking for the schools. Main lake body temperature was a cool 49° some calm shoreline waters broke the 51° mark where I started fan casting without a bite. This skunking went on for about an hour without a bite or signal from a fish.

During this skunking 2 other locals in their boats joined the pursuit and they seemed to be experiencing the same lack of success. I then started scanning with the side imaging looking for any sign of life. I then looked for them along the first and second breaks. Looking for schools of crappie would have been the easiest to spot on this lake… there are many as well as Lepomis. The search revealed nil.

Many times while out on the water during negative periods I would usually occupy my time by being productive in other ways like visual runs of the shorelines and contour mapping… just to keep me out there till the next solunar period.

At one point I started checking my phone for messages and position on the solunar graph while letting the boat drift slowly in one of the lakes shallow bays. Checking the surface temp on the sonar unit registered a blistering 53°. Just then I startled a large school of panfish in mere inches of water. Backing quickly out with the trolling motor I positioned the boat within easy casting distance to the bank.

I quickly rigged up the slip-float /fly/waxie setup and sent it to the school. The first cast was splashed on top of the school apparently alarming them sending the immediate shallows into a boil.  After repeated attempts with the rig ended with the same result the float spooking the fish in such shallow conditions.

I then started long casting the 1/64 oz jig/waxie combo into the school and started immediately hooking up which included the first fish/B.Gill of the season. I then let the jig settle to the bottom dead sticked it as well as a twitch and hop and increased the pace of tagged fish

After a short period in a flurry of fishing action I tagged 26 fish just over a Michigan limit and called it a day. In that mix were some nice mid sized B.Crappie and PSxBG hybrids in the lunker class… very nice.

I was able to recover the trip successfully by being persistent and adhering to a few basic early season principles. Fishing the warmest water, fishing tiny baits and fishing shallow. I missed the fish earlier in the trip fishing the same area but not shallow enough apparently.

A memorable opening day.