Reservation Number : 35014
Property Name : Frannies Lake
Reservation Date : 04/01/2023 All Day - 04/01/2023 All Day
Total Fish/Sizes : 9 LMB to 3.46lbs and 18 crappie
Lures Used : Most effective were boot tail/underspin, spinnerbait, shaky head, swim jig

My wife Pam, fellow member David Felton, and I fished Frannie’s on Saturday. It was a glorious day weather-wise with a cool start, warming nicely, and very little wind to speak of – with plenty of sunshine. The lake is full and beautiful with about 15 to 18IN of viz and water temps hovering between 62 and 64 by the EOD. The vegetation is filling in around the permiter with a decent amount of algal bloom mixed in, but really manageable overall. 

We were targeting bass fairly shallow and they were coorperative in the morning, particularly on the western shoreline near the dam in 3 to 5FOW. As far the bass go, things dried up fairly quickly for us and we just couldn’t find any kind of consitstency. Thankfully the crappie continued to keep things interesting as they were more than willing to take down a 3.3 shad boot tail on a 1/0 underspin quite regularly. They were also shallow and primarily 5 to 25 FT from shore. 

Sometime after a lunch break, at a round 2PM, my trolling motor started acting up, “Uh-oh, that doesn’t seem right”. Sure enough the battery died and left us incapacitated for the rest of the day. This is after David offered to bring his battery as a backup and I made the mistake of saying, “Nah, I think we’re good – mine held up well under much windier conditions last week.” So, that was on me! Instead of giving up completely, we decided to fish from the shore – kind of around the horsehoe of the dam – we managed a couple of more that way including the biggest at 3.46 lbs on a swim jig. Up to that point, we had never made it up to the NE side of the lake, so we missed out on the entire 1/3 of the upper end of the lake.

Overall, we landed 18 crappie and 9 bass for a 2:1 ratio. We harvested the crappie and 2 of the 9 bass. The crappie fell for the small underspin, while the bass were picked up on a variety of baits that could be worked through the weeds including a swim jig, a spinnerbait, and a shaky head. Despite the setback, it was wonderful day on a wonderfuly property with a great pontoon boat and lots of seclusion. We’ll definitely give Frannie’s another shot as soon as we can!

Tight lines!

Mark