January 19, 2012
By Ned Kehde
On December 10, 2011, we posted a blog entitled "Cold-water crappie times in Kansas." Then we posted an update on December 17, 2011.
Both blogs featured the tactics that Dave Schmidtlein uses to catch vast numbers of crappie at four of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' reservoirs near his home in Topeka, Kansas.
One the many virtues of blogs is that they can be readily updated to include information that we failed to include in the original blog. In addition, typographical errors,  grammatical errors can be corrected,  and an erratum  can be quickly posted.
For a variety of reason, sometimes my blogs are besmeared with  misinformation and various errors that need to be either corrected or updated.  And this blog is an erratum.
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In the December 10 blog, we noted that Schmidtlein and his family of talented crappie anglers enjoyed great success catching crappie during the winter of 2010-11 with a 2 1/2-inch ZinkerZ affixed to a jig.
This winter, however, the Schmidtleins found that the ZinkerZ's prowess declined  substantially when the water temperature dropped below 45 degrees.  What's more, Schmidtleins have found that a 1 1/2- to two-inch tube on a jig has out performed the ZinkerZ at a ratio of four to one since mid-December.
By the way, the tubes and ZinkerZ that they have been using exhibit a variety of chartreuse hues.
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On January 19, Schmidtlein reexamined his fishing logs for the fall of 2010 and winter of 2010-11, and he detected that the weather was so harsh in December of 2010 and throughout the entire winter that he and his family didn't get to use the ZinkerZ after the water temperature quickly plummeted below 45 degrees. In sum, our December 10 and 17 blogs misinformed readers.
What's more, Steven Desch of Topeka, who is a talented multspecies angler and an expert at wielding a 2 1/2-inch ZinkerZ on a jig, recently discovered the same phenomenon with the crappie that Schmidtleins have this winter.
Desch says a 2 1/4-inch tube and two-inch Sassy-Shad-style bait have been the most fruitful crappie baits that he and  his friends have used this winter.
Even though the  2 1/2-inch ZinkerZ inveigles the bulk of black bass, crappie and temperate bass that Desch catches during a calendar year, he has found that there are spells,  and some of them are long spells, when the fish prefer another bait.
Thus, from the recent findings of Desch and Schmideltein, the ZinkerZ isn't the lure to use for Kansas crappie when the water temperature drops below 45 degrees. But as 2012 gradually unfolds and the waters warm, both of these anglers know that the ZinkerZ will once again  catch untold numbers of black bass, crappie, temperate bass and even walleye in the flatland reservoirs of Kansas.
Dave Schmidtlein and I are sorry that we misled readers in the December 10 and 17 blogs.
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