LAKE MINNEWASTA CRAPPIES

Star Lake in the Whiteshell provincial park, has had crappies in it for years but now Brereton, Caddy and many of the other lakes in the region have good, self sustaining populations of trophy crappies. They are also abundant in the tributaries along the east side of the province, rivers like the Manigotagan, the Wanipigow and the Pigeon just to name a few but it was an accident back in 1940 that created one of the best crappie fisheries in Manitoba. Fisheries personnel back during the Second World War figured that a small little lake in the southwest part of the province was ideally suited to largemouth bass.

For years these introduced bass flourished in Lake Minnewasta, just outside of Morden, until a dam built on the north end of this small lake in the early 80's raised water levels, changing habitat dramatically. As a result largemouth populations crashed with the last stocking in 1983 and one has not been caught since 1992. In that original stocking of 1940, some crappie fry were introduced along with the largemouth but the population fluctuated, depending on the strength of largemouth year classes. With the demise of the largemouth in the early 90's the crappie population in Minnewasta has been steadily growing every year.

Over the last couple of years. more and more trophy crappies over 13 inches are being caught, even some in the 16 inch range, a real trophy anywhere in North America. Local angler Dino Branfield of the Morden Game and Fish Association said this happened for a variety of reasons. Number one, they restricted boat access to the back of the lake in the springtime by putting out marker buoys. This allowed the vegetation that crappies use to spawn, to grow up, as well as improving the water quality.

I had a chance to fish Lake Minnewasta last October and we ended up fishing the north end of the reservoir on a drop-off that was holding good numbers of crappies and walleyes. By using small 1/16 ounce jigs tipped with live minnows we caught and released a number of crappies in the 11 to 13 inch range. It wasn't fast a furious fishing but certainly we marked a number of fish that day indicating a very healthy population of fish. We caught the fish by moving slowly backwards with my Vantage troll motor by Minn Kota until we either marked a lot of fish or got a bite. Then we would stay vertical on the fish, lowering or raising our baits depending on what level we saw the fish on my Bottom Line Tournament Master NCC 5300. We even caught a lot of the walleye four to five feet off the botto. I found by using the lime green Berkley Fireline in six pound test couple with a four pound leader of the new Berkley Vanish I was able to get the best of both world; the fireline being sensitive and very visible above water and the three foot leader of Vanish all but invisible. It seemed to work very, very well.

SPRINGTIME FISHING
Branfield says they also have tremendous success in the pre-spawn period in the spring by using floating crankbaits in the three inch range. This is done by moving very slowly with an electric troll motor, fishing water in the six to eight foot range, usually in the beginning of June. Branfield says if you want to catch really big fish and are not worried about size, a five inch floater will do the job!

When the season first opens the second week of May the crappie are still in about 15 feet of water and you have to either use deeper diving crankbaits or small jigs to get down to the fish.

During the summer they switch over to slip floats to catch the suspended fish, using small Power Baits or small jigs tipped with nightcrawlers or salted minnows and Dino say he usually fishes this technique from shore along the sharper drop-offs. For more information on fishing in Manitoba, visit the Travel Manitoba website at www.travelmanitoba.com

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