Rice Lake Opener

[Steelcat]

My dad, my brother, and I arrived at 797-BOAT Rental in Bewdley at around 645am. After we got our boat, we head to the spot where we had some luck last year. We were lucky to be one of the first boat on the lake, therefore we were able to drift around to locat the Crappie. After drifting for like 20 minutes, we managed to locat them. The bite weren't that frequent, for the first 2 hours, we were able to catch 20 of them. The size were from 8 inches to 12 inches. My dad caught 4 Largemouth at the same location. At around 9, people started to show up, boats didn't really care if you were fishing, they just drove a couple feet away from our float. After that the fish disappeared. We kept casting until 12, and we finally decided to leave the now extremely crowded area, and head to another location. There were no boat around, except one which was pretty far away. Once again we drifted, and after 5 minutes we found yet another school of Crappie. This time they were in feeding frenzy, Crappie after Crappie; we had many double headers, and one almost triple headers. The size were from 6 to 12 inches. Caught around 15 Largemouth (kinda feel bad about the bass being caught at spawning season). After an hour of boat free time, boats started to rush onto the spot where we were fishing, once again, they drove right on top of our float, and the fish disappeared. At around 2, we decided to head home, our arms and backs were sore from all the hook sets. Today is by far one of the best Panfish season open.

We were using Pink/White tube, as well as minnow like bait.

We are looking forward to a wonderful 2007 season.

 

The beauty of the early morning Rice Lake

The Canadian Goose are heading back home

First fish from Rice Lake in 2007

The first Crappie (target fish of the day) of 2007

A little Perch

]

Edited April 30, 2007 by Steelcat

[lew]

You had an excellent day on the lake with quite a variety of different species...well done !!

[Rich Clemens]

Nice report steelcat. Alomost like you had your choice of fish today,

[Minnow]

Nice assortment of Fish! Congrats on the great opener!

[irishfield]

Great stuff steelcat !

[Terry]

it all looks good to me

[Smokey]

Thanks for the report Steelcat. I'll be out on tuesday and wednesday this week chasing them around.

[Steelcat]

All Crappies were found at around 8+ feet of water. Hope this will help you chase them

[Smokey]

Any info helps as they have been getting harder to find the last few years. Thanks

[lovetofish]

Nice report, pics and fish.

[Steelcat]

Oh i forgot to say, one of the Crappie actually attacked my float as if it's eating some giant juicy bug on the surface of the water..

[ccmtcanada]

Nice job out there! Good thing you got there early...in your case I guess it's "the early bird get the....fish?". Sorry that was a bad joke. Anyhow...congrats on your opener!

[jediangler]

Thanks for the report. I'll try looking in similar depths for crappie here. I've often caught large crappie on smaller bass topwaters, like jitterbugs. You gotta love when they get that aggressive.

[marvin]

Oh i forgot to say, one of the Crappie actually attacked my float as if it's eating some giant juicy bug on the surface of the water..

I had the same thing happen to me today. Those little buggers were agressive like crazy . I was catching them on a yozuri pins minnow. Was alot of fun. We weere catching them in 3 -4 ft of water. we were around bewdley and thge river inlet. We got some nice slabs though. Looks like you had an awesome day as well. Little bit on the cold side though.

[Steelcat]

Except for boats running over my float, everything was excellent~! I have a feeling that it's gonna be another wonderful season for Rice this year

[Guest Johnny Bass]

Thanks for the report! I have to give these crappies a try next year. Fished for them in the fall at canal road and did quite well but never from a boat.

[TAH]

how do you open the red x pictures

[Steelcat]

You should be able to see them now, photobucket kept on giving me this red X even when I have unlimited bandwidth....

[darsky]

dont feel bad about the bass-they are a long time from spawning

[Steelcat]

Now I know why people in the States love to fish pre-spawn bass. I still feel bad because this is the time when they start to search for good spawning area and build up another lbs reserve before the real spawning begin.

[Whopper]

Good report steelcat, got to luv Rice lake!

 

Whopper