Small lake????

[Jbarker]

I fish a small lake about 1 acre in size (if that). There was alot of crappie in there but were fished quite hard. This lake was stocked illegally so there are no rules or regs. The deepest part might be 12 feet. What types of lures or presentations would work and what types of structure should I look for?

Thx in advance JB!

[iceintheveins]

Slipbob hit it right on the nose. Crappie seem to like deeper open water adjacent to shallower weeds flats or structure such as points, drop offs, or creek channels. Seems they are almost always suspended up off the bottom. Try different depths till you find them. A sonar though is really almost a must in my mind for icing crappies. Smaller jigs like shrimpos, ratsos, tear drops, genz worms, mini tubes, mini spoons, and the smallest jigging rapala are great tipped with a small piece of worm or better yet a maggot or two.

Tyler

[b1ak]

  we fish a small lake, no more than 12' deep.  rarely catch crappies "jigging" but use "tip-downs"...12" off the bottom with crappie minnow & #12 or #14 gold treble hook. if your minnow begins "napping" on you..put a fresh one on...i've watched on the vexilar...crappies will hold right next to the minnow sometimes for 5 minutes & decide to (or not) take it. jigging the minnow from above seems to turn them off...they must be really finicky.  but we've tried everything else in jigging & just do so much better on "tip-downs"

[crappieloo]

1 acre is very small and probabbly ''fished out''. I have fished these small waters and they are very easy. Structure is not necessary to find. Locate the deep holes and jig them. A lot of fish may and can be caught between 4 and 8 feet off of the bottom. Some of the actual lakes i fish the fish a caught between 4 and 10 feet off of the bottom.

[Swift]

You might want to also see if it has a seepage, creek or spring feeding it and fish the safe ice nearby. Little ponds that aren't very deep can get oxygen depleted easily if there's a long winter or lots of snow on top.

[crappieloo]

You might want to also see if it has a seepage, creek or spring feeding it and fish the safe ice nearby. Little ponds that aren't very deep can get oxygen depleted easily if there's a long winter or lots of snow on top.

Yep, we have done that too. Can be a little risky, but thats where they are. We fished 1 small 10 acre lake and finally walked over to the inlet on  the thin ice that was there and caught fish there.

[Jbarker]

thx all for your comments. We do fish out from the creek usually in 10 fow 3 feet down. The creek is very small and slow so the ice freezes. The good thing about crappie in this area is that there is none(except in this pond) so there is no fishery. There ar 3 or 4 groups of people that fish it. Fishing has slown down that is why I am asking opinions.