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Author Topic: Daytime Crappie Bite in N. Indiana?  (Read 3962 times)

fishinpo1e1

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Daytime Crappie Bite in N. Indiana?
« on: Sep 06, 2018, 02:32 PM »
Are there any lakes in Northern Indiana that have good daytime crappie bites in summer and fall? I used to switch fishing for crappie from daytime in spring to night time in summer. I'm getting too old to venture out for all nighters. Mostly afraid of accidents and being besieged by the buggy crowd.

RoeBoat

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Re: Daytime Crappie Bite in N. Indiana?
« Reply #1 on: Sep 07, 2018, 08:49 PM »
One if the lakes I fish by just dragging jigs around.  They bite quite well during the day.  I'm sure that would be true of most of the lakes in the area that have high numbers of crsppie.

fishinpo1e1

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Re: Daytime Crappie Bite in N. Indiana?
« Reply #2 on: Sep 09, 2018, 07:10 PM »
Your experiences in catching crappie during the day in summer and fall are completely different than mine. I fish Wawasee more than other lakes and it seems that the spring bite is better during the day.
 But post spawn, the fish seem to switch tactics biting more at night. I can remember catching crappie all night long only to have the fish quit at the crack of dawn. I'll see the early bird fishermen coming out in the fog to try their luck in the same spot, as I pulled my anchor and shut off the lanterns.
 And when I go out in early evening, the crappie run thru a quick feeding period and then quit. Later around 10-11PM the fish will start up again.
 Also many times I'll see fish on my screen in early evening and then after dark they disappear. I finally figured out that they must be reducing their reflective profile somehow.
Now instead of looking for lots of marks after dark, I look for a few strong signals on the screen and anchor up. Usually, I'm successful.
 But I can't catch them during the day, with a few exceptions.

fishinpo1e1

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Re: Daytime Crappie Bite in N. Indiana?
« Reply #3 on: Sep 19, 2018, 08:06 PM »
Well, I finally started getting a few early in the AM. However the bite was quick and over in a flash. This week I got my latest copy of In Fisherman. There were two informative articles on Crappie and tomorrow I will try to follow up and try one of the new/old techniques described in the article - drifting and going deeper along the weedline and out further for suspended fish.

tater140

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Re: Daytime Crappie Bite in N. Indiana?
« Reply #4 on: Sep 20, 2018, 07:41 AM »
I got out with some friends last night for the night bite.  Didn't catch a fish before dark, but after dark turned on the lights and hung a lantern out and it was fish after fish for a couple of hours.  The downside is they were mostly all cookie cutter 9" crappies.  We kept a few to clean but threw the majority of them back.  We still had a good time catching them though.

fishinpo1e1

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Re: Daytime Crappie Bite in N. Indiana?
« Reply #5 on: Sep 25, 2018, 04:34 PM »
catching is more fun than cleaning for sure. lol

still not on fire in my neck of the woods.  picking them up jigging still scattered around.  no schools on the drops yet. the fall bite is almost exclusively a day time thing, so get out and often till freeze up.  or for some of you, till you put your boats away for winter. ;D

Thanks for that tip. I didn't realize that Fall Crappie were daytime feeders. My experience was that it was only night fishing. All the guys said so and we fished together that way. Oh well, this old guy has some new tricks.

I had a guy tell me he was still fishing deep water for gills last week. But yesterday I found the gills in four feet against the drop.

tater140

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Re: Daytime Crappie Bite in N. Indiana?
« Reply #6 on: Sep 25, 2018, 09:49 PM »
I really think the fish have to be transitioning shallower as we speak... but this hot weather just finally broke this past week. Im Headed out again tomorrow night and will see what happens.  I would like to think we will be seeing a fall pattern setup.

fishinpo1e1

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Re: Daytime Crappie Bite in N. Indiana?
« Reply #7 on: Oct 18, 2018, 02:46 PM »
I really think the fish have to be transitioning shallower as we speak... but this hot weather just finally broke this past week. Im Headed out again tomorrow night and will see what happens.  I would like to think we will be seeing a fall pattern setup.

In the last couple weeks, I found some Crappie shallow in weeds 5' deep. Lately I hit some real nice crappie in 15-20' on the weed drop off. But I feel that I'm missing the bulk of the fish. Where do you think they are at in the lakes this time of year. The lakes are near or at changeover. Water temps have dropped to 60 and below. Bluegill are deeper than last month unless they move in shallow for the evening bite. So where do I look for the crappie?

I tried to post pics from my last trip where I caught a half dozen large crappie. I'm using an old computer and don't deserve anything more sophisticated. I'll forward a pic that my son sent to me from my phone to his to my email if someone can post it.

fishinpo1e1

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Re: Daytime Crappie Bite in N. Indiana?
« Reply #8 on: Oct 24, 2018, 09:05 PM »
don't know water temp but im finding my crappie 6ft on down, in 10-12fow.  cruising until flasher says stop and drop.

Lake temps today were 53.5 degrees in AM. Water clear. Caught one 13" crappie first thing off deep weeds 15' down on 1" Bobby Garland monkey milk. Then nothing. Tried drifting in middle of lake, too windy. Went to shallows, 2' deep and caught 20-25 nice large perch, fat, 8-11", dark green color. Pulled up anchor and moss came up filled with bugs and leeches. A half a 5 gallon bucket is not bad. Wish I could find the crappie.
Forgot to add that we used minnows with the BG minnow soft baits and 1/32 oz jigs.


kesdadddy7597

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Re: Daytime Crappie Bite in N. Indiana?
« Reply #9 on: Oct 24, 2018, 09:13 PM »
Perch trump crappie any day in my book. Nice catch.

abishop

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Re: Daytime Crappie Bite in N. Indiana?
« Reply #10 on: Oct 25, 2018, 03:47 AM »
DITTO X2

 



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