It is finally feeling like spring in Ely MN. This year's long cold winter has prolonged the melting of ice on Garden Lake and has given fisherman the opportunity to catch big black crappie in the west arm of Garden Lake. This is my favorite part of the lake due to virtually no homes or development. The land surrounding this beautiful bay is primarily thick pines and ledge rock.
My friend Wade and I ventured out this morning to see if we could catch enough crappie for a fish fry. It was a beautiful, sunny morning and the temperatures rose from around 28 to 55 degrees by mid day. The lack of snow on the ice made it easy for us to quickly drill several holes and start fishing.
Within the first hour, we had caught around eight fish between 9 and 12 inches. This was a good start but we knew that this bay had bigger fish. We moved several times throughout the morning and around noon, our efforts finally paid off. Wade looked at his depth finder and saw activity just above his bait. He slowly brought his line up to meet the mark on the graph. Suddenly, the bobber went down and the hook was set! Seconds later, a golden slab of a crappie came through the hole in the ice. This beautiful 15 inch crappie was the largest of the day.
Later in the day we took some time to do a little exploring around the bay and discovered an abandoned wolf den. It was one of those days that you just don't want to go back inside!