It’s February and cabin fever is at its peak. The snow seems to be
gone for good and with warm sunny days teasing you into thinking its
time, the tackle box finally receives some attention. You sort and
organize the jigs and sinkers, bobbers and hooks. Line gets replaced on
all the reels and the smell of spray lube drifts through the house.
Ahhhh, the smells of springtime, dandelions and dogwoods mixed with
WD-40 and salted grubs.
Those warm sunny days will trick the
most seasoned Crappie angler into thinking its time. It could be
however, that we all know the fishing will be tough but we go anyway,
just to finally be fishing. It feels good to be on the water and it is
a great time to work out the bugs in your equipment. It can also be a
great time to put a few Crappies in the basket as well.
I wanted
to share with you a lesson I learned from an old time Crappie angler on
locating early season crappie. It is one of those lessons where you
wonder why you had not thought of it before. In fact after learning
about this obvious but sometimes challenging technique, I recalled that
I had actually participated in the same technique while fishing as a
child with my Grandfather.
I can remember launching the 16-foot
v-hull and the smell of the old Evinrude as it sputtered to life after
a few hard pulls. My Grandfather never used an anchor. We just eased
into the middle of a brush pile and he would hold onto a limb. We would
then dip our Marabou Crappie jigs, the only bait my Grandfather ever
used, into every hole they would fit. Most of the time we caught a
couple slabs, moved on to the next brush pile, and repeated the
process. I can remember thinking how boring it was to fish this way but
we almost always went home with a few Crappie and I really do not
remember ever catching any small Crappie this way but we never caught a
whole bunch either. My Grandfather always said “everything in
moderation”. I guess that meant Crappie fishing too.
I remember
a few times when the Crappie were not in the brush or tree-tops along
the bank and my Grandfather wasted no time. If the first couple of
brush piles did not produce he pulled from the storage area, in the
front of the v-hull, an old Styrofoam minnow bucket and a broomstick
with something attached to the end and a wire wrapped around it. He
would attach the wire to the thing inside the minnow bucket and then
stick the end of the broomstick, with the thing on the end, into the
lake. He would then steer the tiller motor with one hand while keeping
the broomstick in the water with the other all the while staring into
the styrofoam minnow bucket. My Grandfather explained to me what he was
doing but it would be many years later before I would understand it.
I
can see my grandfather now, staring into what I referred to then as the
crystal minnow bucket. The look was serious and only left that minnow
bucket to get his bearing on where he knew the creek channel flowed and
then it was back down, his eyes squinting while he chewed on the Red
Man in his jaw. Finally he would say, “ok Ken right here” but not
before a spit of tobacco stained the water next to the boat. I was
ready before he could say right here. The spit was my cue, as he never
spit while he searched the crystal minnow bucket, only when he found
the brush below. Again, I know he explained what he was doing but like
so many lessons he taught me in my youth I only truly began to listen
after he was gone. This lesson was no exception and even took applying
the technique myself before realizing that my Grandfather, who was very
old school, was actually using electronics to locate brush piles along
a creek channel that were too deep to see. It was a flasher unit inside
that minnow bucket and the bucket would have shaded the orange bars
that flashed around the unit.
I remember him telling me that the
Crappie would move from the creek channel to the shallow water to
spawn. He told me that Crappie always traveled from one form of cover
to the next as they made their way to shallower water even if the
journey was longer. All this coming back to me as I utilize the same
technique, 25 years later, in the search for Crappie in a little deeper
water and discover stake beds lined up in a neat row leading straight
for the creek channel. This is when I listened to my Grandfather and
began jigging a white marabou jig and finally found them in 17 feet of
water suspended in the middle of a huge man made stake bed.
I
realize that maybe this early season Crappie tip is not a profound one
to many but I know that when I searched for deep water Crappie I just
looked for a creek channel. Not to say the creek channel itself won’t
produce but find some brush that leads from the deep water into the
shallow and you have located a travel route that will help concentrate
your efforts onto a spot along that creek channel that is more likely
to produce some action.
Locating such a spot is not always easy
and may take some extra time searching the fish finder for these
Crappie magnets. The cover, more times than not, will not be in a
continuous line. Look for stake beds and brush piles along the creek
channel and slowly work your way to shallower water and try to find
another brush pile closest to the first but moving toward shallow
water. In the early season when the days are warm but the water is
still cold Crappie will use these travel routes of cover to move from
shallow to deep water depending on the temperature of the water as it
fluctuates throughout the day. Hit each spot of cover until you find
some fish and then move with them. If you know of a good spawning area
for Crappie at your lake you can create a travel route, where legal, by
sinking stake beds or brush in a straight line from shallow to deep
water.
The season is here so get out there and take advantage of
this technique, as I believe it will help you catch more Crappie. If my
Grandfather can locate these travel routes with an old hummingbird
flasher then I know it must be a bit easier now to locate these
potential hot spots for some early season slabs.
