Springtime Crappie
Hunting Crappie
 Editor’s
Note: You can catch some nice-sized crappie in the prespawn,
if you know where to look for them.
Hunt Cover, Not Crappie - During the prespawn before
the crappie move shallow, you'll catch crappie under
stumps, roots and brush that you won't spot on your
depth finder. For this reason, search for cover. Even
if you don't see any crappie, begin to fish through
and around the underwater cover. Many times you'll take
a good number of big crappie on spots where you never
actually see the fish.
Catch 'Em Deep - During the prespawn in deep, clear
lakes like Lake Fork Reservoir in Texas, you may find
crappie in water 30- to 40-feet deep. These fish often
hold on underwater humps or ledges and in large, tight
schools. At this time of year, you can take them easily
with your depth finder.
Once you locate the schools holding on these humps or
ledges, fish vertically with either minnows or jigs.
When the crappie quit biting minnows, switch to jigs
for bait, or, change to minnows if you've used jigs.
If you don't have minnows, change the color and/or style
of jig you're fishing. Crappie become color-wise relatively
quickly. To catch a limit of keepers, you may have to
change colors several times to make the fish continue
to bite.
Troll Minnows Simultaneously at Two Depths - Place
a 1/4-ounce sinker o n
the end of your line. Then 18 inches above the sinker,
tie a 6- to 8-inch loop in the main line. Put the end
of the loop through the eye of the hook and then over
the point of the hook. Next, pull the loop back to the
eye of the hook. This technique will hold your hook
in place and away from the main line. Move 18 inches
up from the first loop, and tie a second 6- to 8-inch
loop in the line. Attach a hook in the same manner as
you have before. Bait both hooks with minnows, and lower
the lead down until it touches bottom. Then reel it
up 6 to 12 inches off
the bottom. Put one or two rods out using this type
of rig on each side of the boat.
Using your trolling motor, slowly move your boat along
the breakline of the underwater creek channel. Keep
one side of the boat on the deep-water side of the breakline
and the other side of the boat on the shallow-water
side of the breakline. You can take numbers of crappie
during the prespawn with this technique of trolling
live minnows along underwater creek channels at two
different depths.
Fish Rough Stuff - To catch prespawn crappie, you'll
often have to fish in some of the thickest cover you
can find in deep water. Many crappie fishermen will
fish the outside edges of that cover. However, if you
want to catch the most and the biggest crappie, fish
right through the heart of the thick stuff. As one old
timer once told me, "If you're not breaking off
jigs, straightening hooks, busting your line and losing
your leads, you're not fishing where the crappie are
during the prespawn."
For more information about how to fish crappie, go
to http://www.nighthawkpublications.com/fishing/fishing.htm
and learn about John E. Phillips’ book, “The
Masters’ Secrets of Crappie Fishing.”
Tomorrow: Fish Man-Made Structures
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