11/23, Post Cold Front Panfishing on Indian Lake

The weather forecast for Saturday called for 20-30 mph wind with gusts over 40mphs and a high of 38 degrees (25 degrees cooler than the previous week of weather). Earlier in the week I was hit with a flu which pretty much wiped me out until late Wednesday evening. Thursday I still had a slight fever but I was finally able to keep food down. I was recovering but I was still very weak.  I was most certainly going to sit this weekend out, or so I thought. A few guys that I had fished with on the tournament trail were talking about fishing Indian Lake Saturday on Facebook. (Dick Nauta, Brad Lehman, and Neil) I chimed in and said something along the lines of, "I'd join you guys but the winds were going to be in excess of 20 miles per hour and its going to be pretty cold." to which they replied, "Its not that cold.....were going to be fishing a very sheltered stretch of water with steep banks so the wind won't be an issue." With that said, It appeared that I was going to make the trip up to Indian Lake Saturday morning.

Saturday the alarm went off at 6am and I began to get dressed and load rods into the car. My apparel consisted of thermal pants, jeans, and waterproof pants for my legs; thick wool socks and knee high muck boots for my feet; a t-shirt, thermal top, wool hoody, and a Carhart jacket for my torso; and finally a thick wool beanie for my head and ears. I grabbed two ultra light spinning combos for crappie and bluegill, and two of my bass rods with blade baits in case we ran into a few saugeye. I quickly got everything loaded up and hit the road.

We all met up at Lakeside Pro Bass Shop at 10am. Neil and I went inside to find Brad and Dick checking out the inventory. Which happened to be quite impressive for a local baitshop. I saw baits in there that I hadn't seen before, and I visit Bass Pro Shops at least 5 times a year. We walked around for a few minutes, picking up a few items along the way. Soon enough everyone was ready to hit the water.

We unloaded the kayaks, put on our final pieces of clothing, and hit the water. First impressions.......cold, very cold, 27 degrees to be exact. On each cast I would see the wind start to freeze the water on my line. The ice would then build up near my reel. I have had this problem many times before, but rarely was in it November. I casted a blade bait for an hour and a half with only one bite to keep my occupied. Brad and Dick were working the banks for crappie, while Neil and I where working the middle of the channels for saugeye. After an hour and a half no one had caught a fish so we decided to search out a new spot. Neil wanted to find deeper water so we paddled until we found a 10 foot deep hole, which on Indian Lake is just about as deep as you'll find. We marked a lot of fish in the hole but we failed to get them to bite. At that point we spread out, each of us going our own way.....someone was going to find a fish.

I abandoned saugeye fishing and started throwing Bass Assassin's Tiny Shad on a 1/32oz jig head for crappie and bluegill. It took almost an hour, and a poorly placed cast for me to catch my first fish. I had accidentally casted further than I had intended to and landed only 1 foot off of the bank. I wasn't real enthused about working the banks because they were only 2 feet deep, instead I was working structure in 4 feet of water which happened to be 10 to 15 feet off of the bank. However on that cast I hooked a crappie right off of the bank. I was pretty excited to catch the first fish of the trip, I was certain that this one was going to end in a proper skunking. I took a picture of the little 10" crappie and held him high for everyone to see before releasing him back into the water. Thirty minutes later and probably only 10 yards down the bank I land my second crappie of the day. Ten minutes after that, I land a third crappie. At this point I had all but forgotten that it was still below freezing and the breeze was freezing water to everything it touched.  All of the other guys seemed to be unphased by my small crappie as they were still 100 yards away. Dick looked to be trolling for saugeye in the deeper water, Neil was out of sight, and Brad was tucked back into a cove casting away.

After a little while without a bite I decided to tuck my hands into my coat pockets where I had strategically placed two hot hand packets before launching our kayaks. At first my hands were so cold that I couldn't feel the packets working.  After ten minutes I regained feeling and I could clearly tell that bringing hot hands along was a good idea. As I sat with my hands nestled deep into my coat pockets I watched everyone else to see if they were secretly wearing the fish out in their spots. I drifted over to Dick and started talking to him, he was still looking for his first fish. I told him what I had caught and where I had caught them, but he quickly assured me that he wasn't ready to catch crappie yet. I sat there for a couple minutes longer and noticed a small snowflake pass by, "thats odd, must not be above freezing yet." I was cold, but since I had a slight fever I assumed that I felt much colder than it really was. The weatherman had called for a high of 38, which in all reality might have been a high of 30. (When we left at 4:30pm the air temp was 27 degrees.) A few minutes later, the one snow flake had turned into an all out flurry. I still get excited when it snows, so I snapped a few pics and then quickly put my hands back into my pockets.


A little while later Neil drifts by and asks how were doing? I reply 3 crappie and I lost a couple others. I then asked how he did?  "Oh I got couple gills." I told him that I had caught 3 crappie pretty quickly off of this bank. He then took his bobber and jig and tossed it up toward a fallen tree. We kept talking about fishing while keeping an eye on his bobber. A minute later he had his first taker, he picked up the slack and set the hook. "Missed it......must have been a gill." He went on to get a bite nearly every other minute, landing maybe 1 out of every 8 bites. Dick had worked his way over to us at this point. He put on a float and minnow and started casting on the opposite side of the tree Neil was fishing. Since he had crappie minnows, he didn't have the same problem Neil did. I watched as Dick and Neils floats danced around for several minutes. I have to say there is something inside of me that just enjoys watching a float dance across the surface as a fish plays with a bait. It just takes me back to those days when I first learned to fish with little red and white bobbers as a child. I'm not sure if Dick or Neil noticed it or not, but I was more excited about their floats than they were. I'd watch their floats as they talked back and forth. The little bobber would get into a rhythm with the waves and then all of a sudden it would get a tug that would break the rhythm. I'd say, "A BITE", of course at this point the fish was just taste testing so the bobber didn't move much. It would then start to slip under the water at which point i'd say, "THERE HE GOES." They would then set the hook and bring the small crappie or bluegill in. I did this at least three times before catching myself leaning forward watching their bobbers and with each peck i'd say, "Oh......oh.....yep....oh....hes gonna take it now." I didn't want to get too annoying so I decided to work my way around Dick and Brad and see if I could find a couple more crappie, my goal for the evening was five.

I quickly caught my fourth crappie, once again coming right off of the bank. I worked the bank long enough for my hands to get cold again. I tucked them back into my pockets and drifted over to Neil, Dick, and Brad again. We started to share stories, talk about the tournament trail, bass pro shops, cabelas, etc. We probably sat 10 yards apart for nearly an hour. The conversation started to die down when Neil asked what everyone's game plan was? What he meant by that was, Who all is ready to leave and call it quits? But before anyone could answer Neil, he had a bite. He set the hook and missed it, nothing we didnt see coming. Those pesky gills were getting the best of Niels crappie nibbles and he was loving it. At this point I still needed my fifth crappie to meet my goal for the evening.  I quickly paddled around Dick and got into position. I worked the bank for probably 3 casts before I landed my fifth crappie.

Now I was officially ready to go. Everyone pulled anchors and started paddling our way back to the boat ramp. By the time we made it to the boat ramp, I had gotten pretty chilled. I was shaking pretty bad, more so than I have ever. I quickly jumped in the car, started it up. I turned the heat on full blast, knowing full and well that the heat wasn't going to kick in for at least 2 minutes. I held my hands up to the vents anyway, shaking and shivering away. I sat in my car for a solid 10 minutes before deciding to start loading my gear. I quickly scurried to get everything loaded, I wasn't real particular on how things went into the vehicle as long as the door shut. We got the kayak strapped down and my gear loaded. At this point I was as cold as I was when I jumped in the car the first time...maybe even slightly colder judging from the noise of  my teeth rattling together. It was honestly the only time during the trip where I thought, "you know, maybe I shouldn't be out here with my fever.."

We all got loaded up and our said our parting words, which were pretty quick given the conditions. All in all I would say we had a pretty successful trip. We caught just at 20 fish combined, but in reality that was just a bonus. To me finding 4 guys willing to hit the water for 6 hours with air temperatures below 30 degrees and wind blowing 20-30 mph was the real success.  I'm glad I made my way up and got to spent some time on the water with everyone.