Midwinter Crappies over deep basins! This is maybe one of my favorite patterns in icefishing. Partly because I have it all to myself on many lakes I fish. But also because the crappie can turn into ravish bluegill in the way they attack your lure.

This is a pretty straight forward approach to fishing; go to the deepest water the lake has. On some lakes that can be quiet large or as small as only an acre in size. When this pattern happens depends on the lake’s size. Lakes under 100 acres are general the 1st on this pattern. Now if the lake is lacking a lot of depth it can happen fairly early as well.

Probing these deep waters is sometimes daunting for many anglers. The fish are roaming, and suspended most of the time. There is a few things you can do to tip things to your favor.

First is good electronics, when it comes to that I still put my money on Vexilar Flashers they are still the bench mark by which all other ice electronics is measured by for icefishing. The unit I fish with is the FL-18 . I did get to use a FL-22 earlier this winter and lets just say it is on my wish list now.

Next you need to be mobile and able to move easily. I my self fish out of a fish trap scout that is set up so everything has its own place and home. Another option for the more hardy souls is to bucket fish. Products like the Sonic Ice Hopper system make this idea even easier and lets you fish even faster and hit even more holes in a day.

The next thing we need to do is get out our maps of the lake we were fishing. Look for the deepest water in the lake. If the lake is large you may have more than one basin to check out. So form a game plan for the lake. I cover how I do this in-depth here.

Pick out likely areas where the fish will be.Places you may want to look are out off deep points that leads into the basin, or along adjacent weed flats. Also if you where catching them in the shallows earlier in the winter find the fastest drop off near that area, that can sometimes produce nice numbers of fish. The map below highlights the areas where I looked on a recent trip to a favorite lake of mine. The deep point with the fast break at the end was the best places for number and size. They where feeding on some roaming schools of bait fish off the point which also had some weeds up on it.

Baits

Some of my go to baits are 3 to 5 mm Fiska or Lindy Fatboys in size 8 & 6 tipped with soft plastics.I find myself fishing plastics more and more every winter as my confidence builds with them. I also have seen my avg size fish as gone up when fishing plastics.When they are really on I will reach for spoons and mini blade baits like the 1/16th oz Cicada from Reef Runner.

If you are seeing fish following it down on your flasher, go to a lighter jig, or put a soft plastic bait that will help slow the fall rate down on your jig. Those fish will take it on the fall if you slow it down just enough for them. I catch about 35% of my fish in this pattern that way and I have gotten some of my biggest this way.

One added bonus to this pattern is that sometimes you will have some real bruisers of bluegill under the crappie. So if the Speck bite slows on you and your marking fish on the bottom drop it down to them. You never know when you can run in to fish like the one to the right also.

So Tight lines and Screaming Drags!