It was one of the first warm days of early spring. The late March temperatures had climbed into the middle 40s, but the dark skies and brisk winds made the afternoon feel even colder. The crappie were biting, and most anglers would have been happy with the 10-inchers we were catching on a steady basis. After dipping my near-numb hand into the minnow pail, I came out with a skinny pinhead minnow slightly more than an inch long. Normally, this would have been a reject, but I didn’t want to again reach into the pail’s frigid waters. My lightweight slip-float was gently pitched next to a moss-lined pier support. Within seconds, it dipped under the surface. A gentle, sweeping hookset brought a stocky 12-inch-plus crappie to the surface, which drew words of praise from my two partners. Ten minutes later I had three more slabs in the boat on hand-picked tiny minnows, while my partners continued to boat smaller fish.
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