Sid Brown displays several nice Mosquito Lake crappies taken during a recent outing with columnist Jeff Knapp.

My leadhead jig, dressed with a four inch twister tail grub, sank along the edge of a Mosquito Lake weedbed. A strong hit intercepted its descent.

Turning to my partner, Sid Brown, I declared “this must be a walleye.” A few moments later he slipped the net under what was not a walleye, but instead a 13-inch black crappie.

Soon afterward, Sid’s twin-tailed grub produced a similar fish. Happy to have stumbled onto a school of quality-sized crappies, thoughts of walleyes were abandoned as we continued to pluck slab-sided fish from the edge of the weed-bed.

Though they weren’t our intended species, catching good crappies from Mosquito Lake was not a surprise. Mosquito supports excellent populations of several species of fish, including both black and white crappies.

Crappies have a nine-inch minimum length limit on “Skeeter.” It’s one of the state’s best walleye lakes, receiving healthy stockings of fingerling-stage walleyes annually. Yellow perch show up in good numbers and excellent size structure, as do bluegills. Channel cats are numerous, and there’s a low-density population of flathead cats. Northern pike, ones of decent size, also show up regularly.

Physically, Mosquito Lake is much like a scaled down version of Pymatuning Lake. That’s not so say it’s small, because it’s not, covering over 7,000 acres. But like Pymatuning it’s relatively shallow, fertile and has a causeway that divides it into northern (upper) and southern (lower) basins. Given the similarities between the two waters, it’s not surprising that many of the fishing tactics that work on one are also productive on the other.

There’s one significant difference between Mosquito and Pymatuning, and that’s water clarity, particularly in recent years. When Sid Brown and I first started fishing Mosquito well over a dozen years ago, it had the same turbid, stained color as Pymatuning.

This spring, however, the water was much clearer, particularly in the lower basin. This is undoubtedly a result of the presence of zebra mussels now in the lake, which act as water filters.

The area where Sid and I caught our walleyes was a weed-bed that extended out into 10 feet of water. A few years ago, weeds were present only out to four or five feet due to the turbid water.

During our trip of a couple weeks ago, we caught only nice-sized crappies. This was probably due to the fact we only had walleye-sized jigs and grubs. Other boats around us, ones targeting crappies, were getting more fish, but lots of smaller ones as we saw a lot of undersized ones released.

The water temperature was around 60 degrees, so I suspect these fish were staging up in an area prior to their spawn, and feeding heavily. By now, with water temperatures in the mid to upper 60s, it’s likely these same fish are in the shallows and on spawning beds.

We didn’t make contact with any walleyes along the weeds, but I’m confident walleyes use this same weed/stump covered flat at times. Later that afternoon, at the ramp, we spoke with an angler that had taken a few walleyes mixed in with the crappies in the same area.

The primary forage base in Mosquito Lake is gizzard shad. Spot-tail shiners, common shiners, logperch and juvenile panfish also contribute to the food source.

Mosquito Lake has not horsepower restriction, though there is a 15 mph speed limit on the upper part of the lake, that north of the causeway. There’s also a large propagation area there where fishing is not permitted.

Two of the best access areas are at the state park near the southwestern part of the lake, and just south of the causeway, on the eastern shore. I typically use the latter. There’s also a nice bait shop right across the road where you can purchase a non-resident fishing license and tackle.

Ohio offers a one-day non-resident license for $10. Should you decide to upgrade to a full season license later on, you are credited with $10 toward that purchase.

The license year runs from March 1 to the last of February the following year. Licenses can be bought from the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s website, also, at wildlife.ohiodnr.gov.

Mosquito Lake is located in Trumball County, north of Warren, Ohio. It’s the same distance from our area as Pymatuning.

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle