5 Best-Ever Crappie-Catching Tips
Story and Photos By Mark Hicks

Every crappie angler has a favorite technique. It could be spider-rigging, vertical jigging, swimming a jig, bobber fishing or one of several other effective methods. There's nothing wrong with this, provided that you know when to switch to something that's more productive for the conditions at hand.

Many anglers score well in spring when crappie move shallow but don't catch them at other times. Those who consistently catch crappie spring through fall change fishing methods as the seasons progress. These adaptable anglers own a variety of rods, reels and crappie rigs, and they know when and where to employ them. The methods used by the following
experts will keep you in touch with crappie regardless of the season.

Prespawn
In early spring, Dickey Barry of Corinth, Miss., concentrates on planted brushpiles 15 to 25 feet deep near the mouths of spawning coves. The most fruitful brushpiles usually sit on the edge of a drop-off or ledge.

Crappie begin staging in these areas weeks before they move into the coves to spawn. Barry and his son Ricky fish deep brushpiles with the spider-rigging method. They spread eight 10-foot B'n'M poles over the bow of Barry's boat and place the poles in Tite-Lok holders. Each pole is rigged with a 3/4-ounce sinker at the end of the line and two model 214EL Eagle Claw No. 2 hooks. One hook is 18 inches above the sinker, and the second hook is 18 inches above the first. Each hook is baited with a minnow, since Barry fares better with live bait in chilly, early season water.

His line is 6-, 8- or 10-pound test, depending on the lake. In clear water, like Pickwick Lake, Barry gets more bites with 6-pound test. In murky lakes that have a lot of wood cover, he steps up to 8- or 10-pound line so he can straighten a snagged hook rather than break it off. Whatever line size he uses, Barry favors Berkley Sensation.

"Sensation is thinner than most lines so it has less resistance in the water," Barry says. "It doesn't drag my baits back as much when I'm moving with my electric motor."

Barry positions his boat over the top of a ledge or drop-off and lets his sinkers fall until they touch down. Then he reels up the sinkers so they hang just above the bottom. This puts his minnows about 18 and 36 inches off
the bottom.

With his foot-control bow-mounted electric motor, Barry nudges his boat along a ledge slowly enough to maintain nearly vertical lines. He studies his depthfinder to keep the boat moving right over the edge of the drop-off. When his lines connect with brushpiles, which he sees by reading his rods and lines, he reels up so the sinkers hang at the top of the cover. Then he hovers over the brushpile and stays put until the crappie stop biting.

Spawn
Most anglers head straight for windfalls, flooded bushes and other cover when crappie move shallow to spawn. However, Oklahoma crappie authority Todd Huckabee often catches more fish at this time by slow-trolling jigs along the first breakline off banks where the crappie are spawning.

"That first drop is normally 20 to 40 feet off the bank," Huckabee says. "I'm looking for a fast, vertical drop, not a slow-tapering bank. A drop that goes from 6 to 12 feet deep is perfect."

This pattern starts a few weeks before the crappie begin spawning and continues throughout the spawn and for a few weeks after the spawn. Huckabee notes that crappie don't all spawn at the same time and that even the spawners aren't on the beds 24 hours a day.

"I catch a lot of suspended fish that have eggs running out of them," Huckabee says. "They have obviously been up on the beds the night before, and they're getting ready to go back up."

For slow-trolling, Huckabee opts for a 10-foot Quantum Xtralite Todd Huckabee graphite Dippin' Rod, a Quantum Energy E10PTI spinning reel and 8- or 10-pound test monofilament. He rigs the line with tandem 1/8-ounce Crappie Pro jigs. One jig is 12 to 18 inches above the other. He dresses the top jig with a 2-inch Yum Vibra King Tube and the bottom jig with a 2-inch Yum Beavertail.

"I normally fish with two clients, and we each hold one rod," Huckabee says. "I barely keep the boat moving parallel to the drop-off with my electric motor. The lines stay nearly vertical."

Huckabee tells his clients to hold their rods out over opposite sides of the
boat. This lets them quickly determine whether the crappie are suspended over the deep or shallow side of the drop-off. Since the crappie are suspended and not relating to cover, Huckabee picks them off one at a time.

"If you make a pass along a drop that's 300 yards long and catch 10 or 15 crappie, you'll get about that many on the next pass and the next, all day long," Huckabee says. "This is how I catch my biggest fish of the year."

Post-Spawn
Soon after the crappie finish spawning, Alabama crappie guide Brad Whitehead visits pockets off the main bodies of Wilson and Pickwick lakes. Logs and other floating debris gather here and form logjams. While this cover attracts crappie, Whitehead catches more fish from old sunken logs scattered over the bottom.

"Most fishermen go right to the bank and fish the logjams," Whitehead says. "Their boats are sitting right over the underwater cover that holds the most
catchable fish."

Whitehead positions his boat in the middle of a pocket, which is typically the size of a football field's end zone.

His boat usually sits over about 18 feet of water. Then he fan-casts a black 1/16-ounce TeeZur jig dressed with a 3- inch, chartreuse pearl Yum curly-tailed Walleye Grub. His casts fall 7 to 10 feet short of the logjams on the bank.

"I let the jig sink to the bottom on a tight line," Whitehead says. "If I don't get a bite on the first drop, I pump the jig up two or three times and let it fall back down."

Whitehead serves up the jig with a 6-foot-6-inch All Star light-action spinning rod, a Pflueger Trion GX-7 reel and 6-pound test Shakespeare Supreme clear blue line. He occasionally snags his jig, but not as often as you might think. The old logs on the bottom have few branches left on them.

"I run and gun from pocket to pocket and make 25 to 30 casts in each one," Whitehead says. "I usually catch five to eight crappie at each stop."

Summer
Throughout the summer months, Huckabee pitches a 1/16- or 1/8-ounce Crappie Pro jig with a 2-inch Yum Beavertail to standing timber using a 10-foot rod and 8-pound line. This presentation works equally well on main-lake areas and up the arms of major feeder creeks.

"On the main lake, the crappie suspend 8 to 15 feet deep next to trees standing in 10 to 30 feet of water," Huckabee says. "In the creeks, they're 2 to 4 feet deep next to trees in 2 to 8 feet of water."

On Kentucky Lake, which has little standing timber, noted crappie guide Steve McCadams probes main-lake ledges with a basic bottom-bumping rig. The ledges are typically 12 to 14 feet deep on top of the drop and fall sharply into 25 to 30 feet of water.

Since Kentucky Lake is generally stained, McCadams fills his reel with 14- or 17-pound test Berkley XT monofilament and ties the rig with the same line. The rig consists of a hook 18 inches above a 3/4-ounce bell sinker, and a second hook 18 inches above the first. The hooks are baited with minnows, which produce more crappie for McCadams in summer than jigs.

McCadams and his clients inch along creek and river channel ledges and fish the bottom while vertically bumping rigs. They slowly lift and drop the sinker on the bottom, feeling for crappie cover such as stumps, brush and sunken logs.

"You might go 30 or 40 yards down a bare ledge without a bite and then come to a little point that has a stump on it," McCadams says. "A little spot like that will hold a cluster of crappie."

When he finds a bunch of fish, McCadams hauls them in with a 7- to 71/2- foot medium-action spinning or baitcasting rod. A light-action rod would suffice for crappie, but it's common to hook big catfish, stripers and drum while crappie fishing on Kentucky Lake. A stiffer rod makes shorter work of landing these bigger fish.

Fall
When the water cools in September, McCadams fishes stakebeds and brushpiles planted on main-lake flats 8 to 12 feet deep. Because Kentucky Lake and many other reservoirs are being drawn down for winter pool by this time, there is little cover on the banks to attract crappie.

"Crappie start to move up pretty quickly after the first autumn cool spell," McCadams says. "That's when I go to jig fishing with light spinning tackle and 6- or 8-pound line."

McCadams rigs 1/16- and 1/32-ounce TeeZur and Southern Pro jigheads
with tubes and curly-tailed grubs. He especially likes the double barbs on the TeeZur jig's collar for holding tubes and other soft-plastic baits in place.

A tube is McCadams' go-to bait when he puts his boat directly over crappie cover and fishes vertically. If the crappie prefer a swimming presentation,
he marks the submerged cover with a buoy and casts a curly-tailed jig to it. He also scores well fishing jigs beneath a slip-bobber.

"A slip-bobber lets you adjust your depth perfectly to the cover, and you can give the jig a deadly twitch-and-stop action," McCadams says.