It’s not just walleyes, try crappie fishing this Memorial Day weekend

Published May 24, 2024 at 12:48 PM CDT

Ken Seufert, left, and Susan Sundin, right, hold up crappies caught in Lake Winnibigoshish on May 21, 2024.

Jeff Sundin has been a professional fishing guide in Minnesota for almost 40 years. In 2023, he was inducted into the Minnesota Fishing Hall of Fame and he’s a weekly guest on KAXE

GRAND RAPIDS — While walleye is a popular fish among anglers like Jeff Sundin, he also loves looking for pan fish, especially crappies.

According to Jeff, crappies are biting when the lilacs bloom, but this year is not as predictable, due to recent rains impacting water temperatures across the region.

“They’re in the neighborhood where they want to spawn, but they haven’t moved in so that cold water is keeping them from making that final plunge,” Jeff said on the KAXE Morning Show.

Jeff Sundin holds one of his favorite fish, the crappie, getting ready for the 2024 Memorial Day weekend of fishing.

He explained that the majority of crappies are in the cabbage weeds located near bulrushes along the shoreline. Jeff thinks the cold blustery May weather might make them skip spawning completely. But if we get a warm up, they will move towards shorelines and weed beds quickly.

Jeff’s Fishing Report from Lake Winnie

In Jeff’s report on Lake Winnibigoshish for May, he wrote about the effect of cooler temperatures on walleyes.

"It pushed walleyes off of the 12- to 16-foot flats, and over the edge of breaklines leading into deeper water. The key depth in the areas we fished ranged from 20 to 26 feet of water. Those walleyes were catch-able, but not aggressively feeding and definitely very wary of boat traffic. I saw several instances when anglers in one boat caught a few fish from a freshly discovered school. Seeing that, other anglers headed toward that boat, and as they closed in on them, killed the bite."

You can read more of Jeff’s report or listen to our conversation above.

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