You often hear anglers talk longingly about the "good old days". Well, let me tell you, when the subject is black crappie fishing in Northern Ontario, the good old days are right here and now.

Fact of the matter is there have never been more opportunities to fish for black crappies and they've never been bigger or more plentiful.

Indeed, when I first moved to Northwestern Ontario, back in the late 1970s, you could only find crappies in a handful of lakes. Most notably, the Sabaskong Bay area of Lake of the Woods, around Nestor Falls and the Northwest arm of Rainy Lake, north of Fort Frances. Today, however, it is hard to find a moderately deep walleye/pike/perch (mesothropic) fishery or shallow, weedy largemouth bass/pike (eutrophic) lake that doesn't host a burgeoning population of crappies.

It is the same thing right across the huge, sprawling, southern half of the Northwestern region, especially around the towns and cities of Dryden, Fort Frances and Atikokan. Ditto for the stretch between Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury in Northeastern Ontario, as well as throughout all of the central and southern parts of the Province.

And the nice thing about many of the fisheries is that they're so new they haven't been discovered. As I found out last week when I hitched my 16-foot Alumacraft jonboat to the back of the truck and took off to follow a rumour that a certain lake to the west of Kenora had black crappies in it.

After backing the boat over a rough dirt access point - it is the nice thing about trailering the unstoppable, "go anywhere" jonboat with the 20-horse tiller Mercury on the back - I rigged up three light action crappies sticks with a trio of jigs - Woolies, Boolies and D-Bugs - that are made by buddy John McKean and his son Sean, who live in Glenshaw, Pennsylvania. (Contact John at:memck487@aol.com )

Minnow imitating jigs, like this one hand tied by John McKean, are what Gord Pyzer uses when he’s fishing for crappies in the fall in Northern Ontario

John has been driving me crazy this summer, posting images of fish - including rainbow trout, catfish, jumbo perch and smallmouth bass - that he has been catching on his super cool lures. But it is the crappies that have really caught my eye.

John and Sean do some very tricky things when they tie on their tiny jigs that make a huge difference at the end of the day. One is adding a miniscule tuft of raw, unprocessed wool which they tug to form the body. The wool expands when it gets wets, adds buoyancy and makes the jig swim in an amazingly life-like manner. And it soaks up fish scent like a thirsty horse, making the crappies bite when they get fussy.

For the rest of this article visit: Northern Ontario Travel

Check out Gord Pyzer on Twitter at: @gordpyzer