#12   ("Crappie City")  N39 57.171  W083  46.694  1st set of posts closest to Main Boat Ramp- 20 "C" trees w/o brush and 30 brush blocks all along or inside posts 12-16` deep.  #13  ("Cinder Block Road")  N 39 57.164  W 083 43.629  10 "C" trees with brush and 5 brush blocks in roughly 2 rows 50- 60` off shore running E to W in 9-13` water summer pool. A friend fished  #12 Thursday and said caught almost 60 crappie and afew bluegill out of 2 holes, wind was rough, still not bad. Most were small  only 10 were kept, all over 9". Good luck. Respectfully, the Friends of CJ Brown Reservoir

how thick was the ice? really want to get up there. I take it that you fish CJ Brown, I started to fish this lake alot last year and other then the stickups poles, where do you fish, I tried to drift the center but no good ..any pointers
life member since 1995

He said 8-10" of ice.  Tend to fish drop offs (#18- gravel bar N of marina, #19 off  NW end of campground point and nearby humps, also  #15 off very end S Marina breakwater)  also  C shaped  former country club lake just E of  submerged Buck Creek Lane. With the exceptions of the 6 remaining sets of cedar posts (there were orgionally 11) , the 27 groups of "C" trees we are adding and the recovering weedbed to the NE of the upper end of Buck Creek Lane, there isnt much cover in the lake. Structure galore, just no cover, unless you count the largely  rusted away fence rows, hence our project. There was an ice shelter on the hump by the country club today, have seen several nice wallygators caught there the last 5 or so years.

Put in 3 hrs in at Crabill House and decided to reward ourselves with a fish or two. Fished `bout 200' W of Gazebo just W of Main Boat Ramp; Jason caught 25 keeper crappies there Sat, caught 6 in 45 min, none over 10". At his insistance we shifted to #12, fishing NW corner inside posts, caught 20+ in 45 min. He lost several icejigs and decided to fish just outside them, drilling 5 holes inline 2-4' apart. Caught 12" crappie 15' away from posts!He expressed surprise, replied once pine needles fell off they actually influenced 5X actual volume. He expressed doubts about that much effect. Suggested giving it a couple months should tell the tale. We shall see, and personally you should guess my bet. After all we did only catch 39 keeper crappie and bluegill in under 2 hrs out of 30 x 20' area.

  After a hard day of adding cover in 11 more sites, what better way to unwind than by getting tied up to Crappie City and hoisting another 45 crappies and bluegills from the submerged forest beneath us. Only 12 were keepers and did lose 2 ice jigs, am thinking should have listened to Jason and brought 5 not 3 dozen minnows. we also had 2 hard hits ,lost them into the tangle below. Would have liked to know what those were. Did shut the fish alarm on the sonar off after `bout 3 minutes, seriously sounded like a broken alarm clock! And it isn`t even April just yet, can`t wait till mid May. A word of advice, if`n you do stop by `bout then, you might want to get there and tie off REALLY early in the AM. Would bet you WILL have lots of company... oh yeah, and don`t forget to bring a couple extra dozen minnows, would bet sitting on a hot bite out of bait with other boats hovering nearby waiting for someone to leave, well borrowing a cup of minnows realistically just isn`t going to happen. Good luck!

  Seems our partner in cover Jason and 2 friends were upon the lake sometime this week (Monday?) and did very well on #12 again. He called as was slaving away in my basement, and said the 3 of them had caught 85+ fish tied up there on glow ice jigs tipped with spikes and small minnows mostly under the smallest Winget slip bobbers, with afew taken on tiny twister tails. According to him, they kept 20+ including 1 bluegill over 10", 8 bullheads, and an baker`s dozen of 10" or better crappies. They had 4 very hard strikes, but hoisted none of those, unfortunately. They rounded out the massacare with 2 small 12-13" walleyes which went right back into the lake, both on the twisters fished along the outside edges of the posts. Seems the good results may have gone to his head abit as he stated he was seriously thinking of posting several "RESERVED" signs on the posts to keep the spot availabe  24-7. Oh yeah, he added, that would mean me TOO!  Talk about GRATITUDE!!! Could only manage to politely suggest he fly the idea by Park Manager and # 5 ODNR and see what they thought `bout that, and perhaps lay a naval mine field around the posts to enforce it IF they both agreed...  He did add they lost 5 ice jigs and 2 twisters and 1 Winget, not counting the few they would get back cleaning the fish. Lastly, he said started with 8 dozen crappie minnows and all were gone in less than 4 hrs, including the few dead ones . And it isn`t even May yet...