New lakes, new fish

[patvetzal]

Well I have got to the point where I can go to a few lakes with the expectation of catching a rainbow....Up until last summer I thought you had to know a secret fishing chant. And I keep talking to people who claim to catch a splake each trip around the lake, soooo.
Yesterday I went after splake. I had ice fished this lake in past, ( no luck) but during the past 20 years they have switched species a few times in the stocking plan. I'm sure that when I first found the lake it had been stocked with Browns by the Bancroft Outdoors club.
Like a lot of our back lakes, it runs east/west with a swamp on the end, instead of the rocky brook trout lakes I am used to.
Started out with the old stand-by of silver spinner and worm while trolling clockwise around the lake. After a hundred yards my son latched onto a foot long small mouth. Then I did the same.....Tried to vary the depth from 5 to 20 feet, but kept finding "green bass", a species not listed for the lake.
Finally I tied into something different, no acrobatics and a good tug on the line, but hard to see in the dark water, no light colour.....
This time I got the net around a foot long black crappie! Went back over the same spot as I have heard that they are a schooling fish but could not find another.....been 25-30 years since my last one, and that was in Georgian Bay!-

[Big Jack]

Well done Pat.

[BIG MAC]

Great report Pat, sure someone carried a few bass back in a Pail and dumped them in............guess you have another lake to ice fish this winter for Crappie..

[Rugger]

Great report Pat. Good for you for getting out there and trying new lakes, I have such a long list that I'll never get through them all but always try to hit one or two new ones each year. Part of the fun (as you've proven) you really never know what to expect

[Sinker]

Interesting to find crappie in a lake up there. Do you know of any others? I've never caught one in any lakes in that area....yet.

S.