Does anyone know what’s going on with Thornapple? I went there yesterday and something is wiping out all the crappies. There were hundreds of dead fish all around the lake but they were all crappies. I saw several fish swimming around at the top of the water very lethargic. It was very strange and did not look good; I didn’t fish very long and went home to wash my boat.
I was there Sunday night, same deal with all the dead crappies. My guess was the holiday weekend party boats tore the lake up all weekend and killed some panfish in the process. I noticed several live crappies and gills swimming right below the surface so that is why I figured all the dead ones were from the party boats but it could be something else. The lake was a zoo Sunday night and very hard to fish with all the boat traffic and chopped up weeds everywhere.
No contacts but I also saw several fish porpoising around the surface with no interest in anything I was throwing…
It was like that last Thur (5/24) also. Almost all were black crappie. The ones that weren't dead but were still maintaining equilibrium just under the surface could be easily pushed around with my rod tip, they were so out of it.
I also think the muskies are pigging out on all the stressed out crappies, as I didn't see an esox all day.
"MattG_braith" said:
No contacts but I also saw several fish porpoising around the surface with no interest in anything I was throwing…
Are you sure they weren't gar? There're some big ones in there and they do that when they're feeding.
"hemichemi" said:
Are you sure they weren't gar? There're some big ones in there and they do that when they're feeding.
Some of them could very well have been gar as I didnt get the greatest look at them with the wind being pretty heavy and all the boat wake being thrown around. I must have seen like 5 or 6 fish doing this in about a 1-2 hour span before sunset. You are probably right about them pigging out on all those half dead crappie though, there were too many to count…
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