Fishing Report 5/19-5/24 North End

[JR]

It was another fun week at Black Lake, as it always is. The fishing was good, but not quite what we had hoped for. The wind this week made some of it tough, but we put in a good effort. Here is what we found on the north end of the lake:

Pike: The pike bite was good and we found them to be aggressive and healthy. They were thicker per length than previous years. We found them in 3-6 foot of water in the scattered weeds and hit well on lures.

Crappie: They had not come in to spawn yet and were scattered across the lake. You could catch them in 3 feet of water up to the 9 foot maximum depth. As other reports said, you would catch a lot of undersized ones compared to keepers. We only caught maybe 2 dozen keepers over the week for 7 guys fishing. I would imagine the warm weather this week will have them moving in to spawn and numbers should be improving.

Panfish: We also found these to be scattered and many were undersized. I also would imagine this will be picking up with the warmer temperatures.

Perch: There seemed to be more tiny 3" perch than I've ever seen here before and were all over this side of the lake. They were ferocious and would hit anything that hit the water up to #4 spinners. I basically used them as an in indicator if there was weed on my jig while drifting. If I went for more than 1 minute with out feeling the perch tapping, I knew I had weed on it. We did manage to catch some that were nice, but many had the little white "worms" in them.

Bass: We did not target them and stayed away from the very shallow areas they frequent. In spite of that, we did catch some going after the other species. They were, on average, in the 1-2 pound range and were very healthy. It should be another good year for when they open.

Good luck to everyone and we look forward to next year already,

JR