- Fishing Tips, The Lead
- Southern anglers can capitalize now as crappies are aggregating and settling in for the winter.
By Noel Vick
Muskegon, MI – Boats are fewer and farther between. The oftentimes obnoxious manmade waves produced by recreational boaters are largely gone. Some sun on your back feels good again. And above all, crappies can be easy to pattern and catchable in the right zones with precision presentations.
A crappie’s preferred temperature range is 55- to 75-degree, give or take a few points. And if you’re launching in the southeast, south, or south central states, you’re in that window right now.
A clutch of southern crappies often consists of blacks and whites – white crappies usually being predominant. To that, especially in fall and winter, they’re intermixed with bream – bluegills, greens, longears, and redears, so it can be a busy bite.
The south is reservoir country – largely, rivers dammed from the 1940’s through the 70’s to produce hydroelectric power. The bountiful byproduct being the creation of expansive reservoirs numbering in the hundreds.
Crappies flourish in many of these reservoirs. The flooding of valleys, even farms and towns, via the damming produced astonishing and varied habitat. Left on the bottom were standing trees, brush, buildings, rock formations, and roads. Over the years, much of the standing timber and brush have broken down, but the rock structure and some roadbeds remain. Moreover, replacement brushpiles are continuously being added by local fishing organizations and ambitious anglers. And these brushpiles are the linchpin for fall and winter crappies.
Historically, the best brushpiles are associated with creek channels. Creeks became submerged channels when the reservoirs were formed. Their beginnings are easily spied on a terrestrial topographical map, too, areas where valleys taper into what’s now an arm of the reservoir. Switch to a topographical reservoir/lake map – paper or digital, and you’ll see the deeper, carved out creek channels meander into the basin.
These arms and associated creek channels are the best areas to begin your quest. For one, you have a natural edge, a break, that fish and forage of all stripes utilize. Secondly, if the original brush has deteriorated, oftentimes the replacement brushpile build-ups have been placed within or along the creek channels.
An inside-out exploration of the arm and creek channel is recommended. Start by checking brushpiles in the 10- to 20-foot range nearest the back of the arm. If you have previously pinpointed and logged brushpiles, approach slowly and make long casts. Motoring over them and probing with electronics can blow fish out or send them deep into the brush. But rest assured, they’ll reposition if it’s a favored haunt. Just give it a rest.
Said resting period is also important when you discover a new brushpile. In shallower water, there’s a strong chance the crappies bugged out before you passed overhead. So, log it in your electronics and come back later. Old-school markers still work, too. Chuck out a jug and let things resolve a bit before fishing. Multiple markers are effective for physically mapping a larger brushpile. Toss a few around the perimeter so you don’t inadvertently cross back over the top. Having a visual reference of a brushpile’s shape and size lets you maximize every cast.
If the shallower brushpiles aren’t producing, continue searching deeper along the creek channel. Finding fish in 30- and 40-feet of water in the fall and winter isn’t rare. Plus, deeper crappies are less easily spooked. And as a rule of thumb, the higher crappies stage on a given brushpile, the more active they are. In the best case scenario, they’re milling overtop it.
The last word on brushpiles associated with creek channels is locating ones on channel turns. These curves are natural fish aggregators. Typically, too, they’re associated with a steeper break, which as mentioned earlier, is preferred by panfish.
Note, too, that we’re in drawdown season. The water levels in most reservoirs are lowered in the fall. One reason is to expose overgrown aquatic vegetation – especially invasives – and kill or reduce them. Drawdowns also afford wintertime shoreline cleanups and give operators an opportunity to make dam repairs. But the most consequential reason is to prepare for spring thaws and rains to reduce the chance of flooding.
Why are drawdowns important to you as an angler? Because a brushpile you marked in 20-feet over the summer might be sticking out of the water in November.
TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES
Finding fish is first, followed by weaponizing yourself with jigs for casting and vertical fishing lures, and maybe live bait and slip-bobbers. (More on floats in a bit.)
Jigs are to crappies what popcorn is to movies. Any crappie angler worth a salt carries an armory of them. And for brushpile maneuvers, you want a mix of slow fallers and depth charges. And, when fish are high above the wood or working the flanks, nothing beats a naked feathered jig.
Bait shop shelves are juiced with options, from locally tied nuggets to universally loved offerings. Fishing what the locals use is a sagely start. Nearby tyers know what sizes and colors trip triggers. And, running a few local makes through the cash register is good for small businesses and can open the door to insider information.
From the widely available realm, consider Northland Fishing Tackle’s Fire-Fly Jig and the original Flu Flu feathered jig. Both are reliable fish catching machines and available in an array of colors. With Northland Fire-Fly Jigs, proven patterns include Parakeet – especially if bream are in the mix – and the ‘ol reliable Pink/White.
The magic of a feathered jig is its seductively slow fall and natural looks. Aggressive jigging is not required, either. Fling it out there and let the jig fall on a somewhat tight line, telegraphing any interceptions, which can range from a slight tick to a pull, or even stopping in its tracks – a fish rising to gobble. Line management is required or risk missing bites.
1/16th-ounce jigs are the benchmark in most brushpile situations. Lighter, and casting distance suffers. Heavier, and it drops too rapidly.
Tungsten is timely, too. The dense, eco-friendly metal lets you fish smaller sizes with the equivalent weight of lead. Meaning, a 1/16th-ounce tungsten jig is smaller than its lead counterpart. Northland’s Tungsten Crappie King Fly sets the bar in tungsten hair jigs. Crappie craving colors include Super-Glo Pinky and Olive, which is one of the coolest panfish producers to come around in a long time.
Vertical swimming jigs are crackerjack in 20-ish feet and beyond, or anytime you can hover over the fish without disturbing them. These are the baitfish-shaped, horizontal aquanauts that are widely employed in the north for walleyes and multispecies through the ice. They are lights-out on reservoir crappies, too, and should be part of your assortment.
The gold standard for decades has been Rapala’s Jigging Rap. The W2 (1 ¼-inch) and W3 (1 ½-inch) sizes being ideal for panfish. In clear conditions, consider the Bluegill and Rainbow Trout patterns. Go to Glow Green Tiger and Green Tiger UV when it’s murkier. Northland’s 1/8-ounce Puppet Minnow is another contender.
Working a swimming jig is simple and highly entertaining with electronics, you monitoring the action in real-time. Drop it down a couple feet above marked fish and start popping. The lure’s shape and fins cause it to swing and swim with each motion. Crappies tend to take it on the fall. Sometimes, tiny twitches or even a full stall will do the trick. These are best fished on light braided line with a fluorocarbon leader to get the full feel.
Seldom is live bait necessary if you’re sporting hair jigs and swimming jigs. But if bait breeds confidence, carry a scoop of local run minnows, sized as suggested by bait shop staffers.
Now, it’s slip-bobber time. A fixed cork won’t cut it at these depths. A slip-bobber with its line-tie/knot lets you adjust to any depth. There are plenty of videos on YouTube if you’ve never worked one. Also, most online tackle sources sell kits that come with the slip-bobber, beads, and knots. A #6 or #4 hook and split-shot (bobber straight and balanced but not submerged by the weight) is all you need on the business end.
For southern anglers, there’s no reason to mothball your boat like they do to the north. Take advantage of those warmer and calmer times to chase crappies. The ducks and bucks likely took the day off anyway.
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