A lot of people struggle to catch crappie because of their nomadic nature; but with a good set
of electronics you can break down the water quickly. So I'm using a map and I’ve got
a Point-1 Antenna, which gives me 10 updates a second. So if I've got a waypoint here and
I know this is a brush pile I’m getting ready to drive back over it because I want
to drop my buoy on it. I’ve got these screens split because I like to have Side-Scan when
I’m looking for individual pieces of cover because I might miss them by a little bit
and I can see them out to the side on either the left or the right. What I like Down-Scan
for is it is the clearest picture there is available. This Lowrance Down-Scan is unbelievable
because not only do I see the cover, but I can also count the individual fish in a piece
of cover like that right there. You see those? That's probably 5 or 6 dots I see right there
on that piece of cover which tells me there are fish on top of that brush pile right there.
That's what I want to see. I don't want to just find a brush pile; I want to find a brush
pile that has crappie in it.
See how pretty that looks? You can see
the individual fish in there. That's fish, that's fish, that's fish, and these are fish.
Each one of these little brighter spots along that cover are fish that are kind of hanging
out along the branches the branches of that cover. So I'm definitely going to throw a
waypoint down on that one and make sure I’ve got that spot marked. Then what I want to
do is I’ll drive back over it and I’ll drop my buoy right on the brush pile so I
can try to come over the top of it, next to it on either side, and make several presentations
all around it without actually getting hung up in the pile.
One of the nice features of Lowrance is the Trackback feature. You touch your screen and
you can just slide back to that piece of cover I saw and I put my waypoint right on it. I’ve
got my waypoint centered on there and I’m going to go up to new waypoint. Once you push
the screen you're going to get a menu of options. I've got new waypoint right under
clear cursor and I’ve got all these different icons for if I see a school of fish I'll
mark it with a school of fish, which tells me I see a school of fish there. If I see
piece of cover I'll mark it by if I think it's tall piece of cover, I’ll mark it with
this tall grass icon. If I think it's like a stump or something I'll mark it with this
shorter piece of cover. If I get out here and find a rock pile, I'll mark it with these
rock icons. That way when I go back into an area I'm like okay there's a couple stumps
here, a brush pile, and a rock pile all in this one area. That way if I'm on a certain
pattern let's say I found out they're on those hard clean rock spots or on cedar brush piles
then I’m going to want to be able to go back and find those exact places I already
have marked.
There's a small brush pile right there. Move your cursor and throw a waypoint on it real
quick. Mark it, mark it with brush, clear it, and get back to running again. There's
another couple little pieces right there. Throw a waypoint down, market with brush,
and clear it.
A buoy is an invaluable tool for finding crappie. It gives me so I can sometimes top it right
on the pile or if I know I want to throw next to a pile maybe I’ll come over the top and
drop it next to the pile and know I've got to make this cast just to the left of it every
time.
So I marked that pile and know I want to turn around where I can throw on it. We're going
make a few casts here and see if we can't catch them off that brush pile.
Everyone knows that wood is a great attractor for crappie. Up north it might be natural
lay down trees, which works down here in the spring as well. Once they pull off and they're
done spawning and they start moving out that’s where they're going to go is get in a brush
piles out there in deeper water. We'll fish for them as deep as 20-25 feet as long as
you've got some brush on a key kind of structure area like point, a creek channel bend, or
something like that is usually a good place to find crappie grouping up after the spawn.
So any place you can find wood whether it's against the bank or it's off shore using your
electronics this is a great place to catch crappie.
As far as my tackle selection when I’m looking for these crappies in these brush piles away
from the bank I keep it real simple. You could get a spider rig and put 10 rods out here
and just kind of drift over the brush piles. But I like to mark them with my electronics,
drop a buoy on them, turn around, and then just take this is just a 6 foot light action
rod this is a Wally Marshall Lew's Crappie Rod, a little small 1000 series reel, and
4 pound original Stren monofilament with ant 1/8 ounce jig and a curly tail. You don't
have to get real fancy with it or real expensive with your gear. Just light line and a light
jig head.
I'm going to let that jig sink down and I’m going to count it down. (It sinks about a
foot a second) If I think the top of that pile is about 10 foot I'm going to count to
about 10 and then it's just a slow steady reel. That's one retrieve you could do and
it's real effective. Sometimes in the winter we'll catch them out there in 20-25 real deep
and it's hard to wind an 1/8 ounce jig horizontally is real deep water like that. So what we'll
do is make a cast out past your brush pile and then you'll just tight line it. Just let
it pendulum down and you want it to kind of just swing down and come across the top of
that pile as it's swinging down.
It's not like bass fishing where they're going to come up and just slam that thing. Usually
what you're going to see is just a little tick of your line you're going to see your
line jump. So it's real important I use fluorescent blue line because I want to be able to see
my line move. Most of the time I’ll actually see my line move before I actually see the
fish bite it especially in those deep brush piles.
Pretty good one! Nice fish.
Nice! A little jig and twister tail combination got him again on that wood. That's a good
crappie right there. A few more like that and we'll have supper.
There we go!
Nice.
Play them easy; they've got soft mouths.
Nice, good fish.
Look at that one! The simple jig and twister tail will catch you lots of crappie off of
sunken brush.
Nice fish.