Crappie: Tournament Anglers' Stringer-Filling Tricks
Story and Photos By Tim Tucker

The contrast was a vivid illustration of just how far the sport of crappie fishing has come. A chilly morning on Alabama's Lake Guntersville found an elderly man perched on an overturned bucket, lazily watching three canepoles that stretched from the bank like antennae. About 50 yards offshore from his position, a boat weaved in a strategic serpentine course, its eight rods extended like a spider's legs. In the boat, two tournament fishermen intently watched the face of a depthfinder.

Crappie fishing has grown up.

While it remains a slow-paced hobby to many, crappie fishing has become a more sophisticated sport to others. The benefits of that technological and tactical growth have filtered down to anglers at all levels.

Here are a few of the advanced techniques developed by guides and tournament anglers that will help you develop your "A" game for consistently catching crappie.

Pitching Jigs
It is safe to say that most crappie enthusiasts think of the small plastic jig that dominates this kind of fishing as a rather passive bait that waits for a panfish to find it. Not Mark Robinson. To this Toledo Bend guide, these colorful jigs are assertive lures that will actually hunt down crappie.

Robinson force-feeds crappie by triggering reaction bites with a form of pitching that resembles the bass technique. It involves using a 7-foot pole, 15- to 20-pound test monofilament or braided line and a homemade 1/8- or 3/16-ounce jig to fish both visible cover and underwater targets with the trolling motor running.

"This is a good way to get aggressive with crappie and go after them," Robinson says. "This is the way to cover a lot of territory and present a jig to a bunch of targets you have pinpointed."

When the fish are biting, Robinson even goes after them with a 10-foot rod in each hand. He lets out a length of line and simply propels each jig with a pendulum swing.

Power Cranking
Don't mistake Wally Marshall as a typical troller. At first glance, his Tracker All Fish V-18 boat suggests that the Texas crappie guide uses a traditional spider-rig setup to drag jigs or minnows through the water. Look closer and you will find he is doing something entirely different.

It is a tactic Marshall calls power-trolling crankbaits — one of his most deadly techniques for catching big slabs.

"This is a great post-spawn technique when the fish start moving out to that deeper water," he explains. "On lakes that have little cover or in places where there isn't much cover, this is a great way to find fish. You can get out there in those big schools of shad and stay with those shad for hours. And you'll stay with the crappie, too."

This tactic centers around eight of his signature Bass Pro Shops Tightline Special rods in lengths of 12, 14 and 16 feet, which are ideal for pulling the crankbaits and weights used for this technique (on 10-pound Mr. Crappie Super Vis monofilament).

Positioned in rod holders on both sides of the bow are two sets of four rods spread in a manner that enables Marshall to cover a 40-foot swatch of water. Each rig consists of a three-way swivel that is connected to the main line, a 21/2-inch crankbait on a 2- or 3-foot leader and a 4- to 8-ounce weight (depending on the wind). Marshall sometimes adds a second three-way swivel below the first that pulls a second crankbait on a 4-foot leader. In off-colored water, he uses white and pearl-colored baits. Muddy conditions require chartreuse or pink.

Marshall runs his foot-operated trolling motor at a steady speed of 1.4 or 1.5 mph to troll the crankbaits, which somehow rarely get tangled.

"For power-trolling crankbaits, you don't want to be around any cover at all," Marshall notes. "You can fish ledges or out over long points and pull the crankbaits down the side of the points or out on the main river channel."

Marshall works a depth range that varies from 8 to 20 feet, depending on how deep the baitfish are. In the early morning, he runs his bait closer to 8 feet, but during the day, it's farther down to 12 feet, depending on the clarity of the water. If it's deep in the summertime, the thermocline also comes into play.

"When a crappie hits that crankbait, it just inhales it," Marshall says. "You would think that a crappie couldn't get that 21/2-inch crankbait in its mouth. But in places like (Mississippi's) Grenada and other Southern lakes, those 2- and 3-pound crappie just swallow the whole crankbait."

Long-Poling
While many techniques will catch crappie, one of Bill Dance's favorites is called long-poling, which is vertical fishing with an extra-long 10- to 12-foot rod.

"Regardless of whether it involves tight-lining or the use of a cork, this technique offers some year-round advantages, especially when crappie are relating to cover in depths of 1 to 15 feet," says Dance, who is a lifelong crappie enthusiast. "It allows you to fish cover where casting and retrieving is not practical — dropping a jig or bait straight down into pockets or branches. It also lets you lift a fish straight out of cover with less chance of him hanging you up. The extra rod length lets you get your lure out to cover a wider area and depth around the boat, as well as prevent spooking fish in shallow water."

Another advantage to vertical fishing, especially when crappie are suspended or inactive, is that it allows you to keep your bait in one spot longer with better depth control. Plus, it enables a fisherman to cover a wider depth range faster to locate the most productive depth zone.

Tight-Roping
If Tennessee guide Harold Morgan were limited to a single technique, it would be the double-hook tight-line tactic that was born on the stump fields of Kentucky Lake. The tight-line rig has been described as a poor man's depthfinder because it allows the angler to maintain contact with the structure below.

The rig consists of a 3-foot leader connected by a barrel swivel to the main line and a pair of 2/0 hooks set 18 inches apart on separate 6-inch leaders. A 1-ounce bell-shaped sinker is tied about 18 inches below the bottom hook.

"The tight-line rig is the most productive way I've found to catch fish," Morgan states. "It is so effective for two reasons. First, that big sinker actually feels for you on the bottom, so you stay in the ballpark the entire time. Despite the sophisticated depthfinders we have today, it's still a game of feeling the cover. Secondly, the tight-line rig allows you to fish two different depths at the same time. By using two hooks at different levels at the same time, you're going to pinpoint the depth that the crappie are holding at different times of the day."

Morgan uses both a small minnow and a tiny plastic tube jig on the double-hook rig. An added advantage of the tight-line rig is that the weight of the large sinker will usually free the hooks from brush or stumps.

Wading
Tennessee guide Kent Driscol uses his feet to find spawning crappie in backwater areas during the species' shallowest time of the year.

"Wading often produces bigger crappie than boat-fishing does because most fishermen don't like to get outside their boats and wade around on the bottom of a lake," Driscol says. "Also, early spring means cool water, and fishermen run the risk of tripping and getting wet and cold."

The biggest advantage with wading is the stealth-like approach it provides. Moving quietly with no splashes or wakes, you can literally sneak up on crappie in a manner that cannot be duplicated with a trolling motor.

The best depth for wading is typically knee- to hip-deep water, but deeper water creates an even lower profile above the surface. Obviously, it is important to move each foot slowly to avoid alarming the fish to your presence.

Wading also forces the angler to pay closer attention to the habitat of these panfish, so it is impossible not to develop a better understanding of what makes prime crappie habitat. In the process, you learn specific areas of a lake in minute detail.

It is easy to see that today's successful crappie fisherman has evolved considerably from the canepole-only caricature of yesteryear. These are just a handful of the great techniques that have resulted from their evolution.