Update, Linder Media along with the DNR going back and doing more testing. This article was written by Jeff Sundin January 25, 2024
Well, we finally found the time, along with a compelling reason to get out on the ice. And as of Wednesday, the Hippie Chick is officially 2 crappies ahead of me for the 2024 fishing season.
Maybe you’re wondering, so, how many did you guys catch altogether yesterday? We caught 2, I mean she caught 2, and I didn’t fish. I know that doesn’t sound very good, but the fishing trip was a lot different than what we’d usually be doing together, and for us the trip was a great success!
What we were doing exactly was participating in a new fisheries research project. The MN DNR, along with Lindner Media has teamed up again to produce an expanded version of the barotrauma study that they introduced last year. Along with DNR scientists and Lindner media producers, volunteers like Susan and I took to the ice to help gather, document, and record the releases of about 125 crappies caught over a 2-day period. Today, fisheries biologists will re-capture some of the fish, and search for others using camera equipped underwater drones.
The project is ongoing, and it will take months for biologists to pour through the video recordings and compile statistics. So, any “official” results won’t be coming along for a while. Casual observations by volunteers who were there to help will likely pop up from time to time. In fact, I have a couple of observations to share with you right now.
First, I was amazed at how thin the ice still is on the Longville area lake we were fishing. We didn’t use a ruler to measure it, but I’m sure that it was less than 10 inches thick. There were a few snowmobiles out there, and the good quality, clear ice, supported them alright. But aside from those, or some of the lightweight ATVs, walking would be the only other option that I’d be comfortable with.
Second, I had an opportunity to see firsthand that having forward facing sonar does not guarantee fast and furious fishing action. There were no less than a half dozen FFS units on the ice and all of them at one time or another pointed to good numbers of fish. Repeatedly their operators would advise anglers to “move 30, 40 or 50 feet that way” to try and catch them. But the crappies were so skittish that simply walking over to them was enough to make them scatter. Over and over, I watched anglers get enough time to catch one fish, maybe two, before the schools of fish disappear from the screens of their electronics.
In my opinion, there were just as many fish caught by folks who sat still and waited for fish to move through. But I realize that every outing is different, and I did see the power of FFS in action. There’s no doubt that when the fish are biting, location and efficiency is greatly improved using advanced imaging. Having the chance to see all the major brands of FFS in action was an eye opener too. On this occasion, it was clear the Garmin units provided better coverage and accuracy than the other brands but that’s a conversation for another time.
My third observation, and maybe the most troubling one for me, is how stubborn crappies are about the depth of water they “prefer” to live in. An ideal “barotrauma study” would include fish captured from a variety of depths. There was an awful lot of effort put into locating crappies at the shallower end of the danger zone, let’s say water depths from 27 to 33 feet. Over the past couple of days, there were some fish caught in the 30 to 35 depth range, but most of the crappies showed a preference for deeper water. Fish located in 40 to 45 feet were common, 45 to 50 feet was less common, but also observed. How this impacts the study isn’t for me to figure out, but it’s obviously going to be a factor.
What I did see for myself is that a lot of those fish swam away when released, and then floated back up to the surface minutes later. Sometimes it took 3 to 5 minutes, but in some cases, there were delays of10 minutes or even longer.
We’ll get back to the barotrauma studies as new information becomes available. But in my mind, my own “casual observations” support my belief that crappies in deep water lakes are their own worst enemies. Anglers don’t force the fish into those depths, the fish go there because they want to and if we catch them there, it definitely will do harm to some portion of them. So, for me, finding fish in shallower water lakes will continue to be my master game plan. If the lakes I fish don’t have deep water, then I can never be tempted to follow fish into dangerous territory. — Jeff Sundin 218-245-9858 or EMAIL
