Why anyone would waste their time at west lake I have no idea. So many places in eastern Iowa where you can go catch a mess of nice crappies. West lake is not one of them. I've caught thousands of crappies out of there (100+ in a couple hours in the summer) and have never had one over 9". I've seen a lot of those 8-9"ers go in a bucket though, then guys claim they catch keepers out of there. I've only seen one keeper out there and it was floating dead, about 11". Anything over 10" is a keeper IMO, and I don't think there are but a handful of keepers in there. Another thing about that place, the crappie are about 1/2" thick. No food in that lake what so ever.. then dumping 2,000 trout in there every 4 months does not help either. The crappie are so starved in there you can stand on the rocks on the highway side and cast a tube jig and catch crappie until your arms fall off. Not very often you can make a cast and not get a hit there. Only way to make it any fun is to use 2# ice line and a real wimpy UL, because you will hook into a bass catfish or trout about every time out and that makes for a fun fight.
