GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. _ The sun hadn't yet crested the horizon last Tuesday when Greg Clusiau and Lorin LeMire began perforating the frozen surface of the lake with fishing holes.
"We'll see what's down there before we set up," said Clusiau, who calls Keewatin home.
It was a clear and chilly January morning, but the forecast was for temperatures near 30 by afternoon. LeMire, of Solway Township near Duluth, and Clusiau had come to the lake near Grand Rapids to see if they could coax some crappies from the depths. Clusiau had fished the lake for a couple days before with reasonable success.
About the time the sun inched above the horizon, LeMire pulled a 12-inch crappie from one of his holes. Clusiau followed with a couple more in quick succession.
Clusiau, 69, popped up his three-person fishing shelter, but LeMire, 48, chose to stay outside. He had punched a half-dozen holes and wanted the option to pop from one to another.
The early bite proved prophetic. Inside the shelter, Clusiau and I had a hoot pulling up the golden fish from 27 feet using tungsten jigs tipped with soft plastics that resembled the larval stages of aquatic insects
We hollered back and forth to LeMire, whose hole-hopping strategy was paying off outside. He was using a tungsten jig tipped with a pink soft plastic. He was outfishing Clusiau and me handily.
An occasional perch wanted to join the party, too.
Some of the crappies needed to grow more, and we sent them back down the hole. But we kept those that measured 12 inches as we worked toward our 10-fish individual limits.
Watching the Vexilar flashers that indicated the fish below, anticipating the strikes, setting the hooks and cranking up those frisky crappies was about the most fun an angler can hope to have.
I had one nice specimen lying on the ice in the fishing shelter.
"Aren't they pretty?" Clusiau said.
Yeah. They are. Big mouths. Exaggerated fins. Flanks the color of sunshine. Handsome critters.
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