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I
grew up fishing for crappie with a bobber, gold hook and a tuffy
minnow. Brush piles in the spring and then throughout the rest of the
summer with a little drifting which helped get those suspended
crappie that were scattered throughout the lake. Recently, since
relocating to the mid-west, I have found that many of the small lakes
are often structureless. I found myself searching for structure in
the open water. Crappie are structure oriented and that structure can
be many things. Points, drop-offs and ledges often hold piles of
Crappie.
In
my search for hidden structures I was noticing large schools of
baitfish suspended in the deepest part of the lake. With these
suspended baitfish, shad in particular, was following packs of fish.
I finally decided to try to catch some of these fish and hopefully
have fresh crappie for dinner. I got my gold hooks out and bought
some tuffy minnows and quickly found that most of the fish I was
seeing on the depth finder were indeed crappie with a few white bass
thrown in. The trouble was I was catching lots of small crappie and
many of them were stealing my minnows which get expensive when none
of the crappie are big enough for the box.
The
other problem was staying with the constantly darting baitfish. I had
observed that there were several balls of bait in the area but to try
to stay with one was aggravating. There had to be a better way. I
finally decided I would try to troll for crappie through the area with the
baitfish. Most crappie anglers have heard of or
did some sort of trolling for crappie which usually means
spider-rigging or just slowly moving around with the electric
trolling motor. This is essentially what I was doing when I was
chasing the bait. I remember trolling for crappie with my dad in the summer, when the crappie was suspended. I also remember well the size
of the crappie we caught on those Hellbender plugs, always a giant
slab crappie. I decided to downsize the bait from those old days and start trolling. Today, trolling for crappie is even better as you have many choices in sizes, depths and colors to choose
from in a crankbait.
My
set-up starts with an 8hp kicker motor and GPS for keeping the
correct speed. I have found that speed is a factor when trolling for crappie and you need a way
to regulate it as current and winds will effect that speed more than
you think a GPS is the only accurate way to monitor your speed since
it is not effected by those things. I have had crappie bite at
1.5mph all the way up to 2.2mph. You can use your electric trolling motor but at these speeds I just prefer to run the kicker to save the
expensive batteries.
I
start by locating schools of baitfish on the fish finder. They can be
along the shore but you will find them
suspended in open water. The depth can be 40 feet and the crappie may
be at 6 feet. I have actually been trolling for crappie so shallow that the
kicker motor was spooking them and I had to let out a lot of line to
get the crankbait back far enough that the fish had time to recover before the crankbait got to them. I have yet to do it but I plan to utilize side
planers in the future to help with this problem. Don't think that crappie aren't shallow in the winter. I just went out a few weeks
ago, mid-november, and was trolling for crappie in four feet of water. It
can be difficult to figure this out when you are marking fish at 10
feet and nothing shallower. What happens is the boat spooks these
shallow crappie and you won't see them on the fish finder. If you
are dragging 8 and 10 foot running crankbaits through those fish but
are not getting bites then on the one rod with a 4 foot running
crankbait begins to get bites the deeper fish may not be feeding and
you need to change all your baits to a little shallower. I usually
leave one rod with a deep running bait because those deep crappie might
turn on and besides that I like to have a chance at a nice Walleye
while I am at it.
Rod
holders are a must so you can test various depths and colors to narrow down the winning combination. When trolling with crankbaits an ultra light rod just
isn't enough. You need to go with a medium light at least and maybe
even a medium weight rod with at least 8lb test. I have landed many
types of fish while trolling for crappie to include some pretty big catfish so
you want to be prepared for anything. Trolling for crappie has drastically
reduced the small fish that was always stealing my bait or just too
small to keep which to me is a waste of my time when I could be
catching keeper crappie instead and trolling for crappie has allowed me to do
that.
Experiment
with colors and depths as well as speed and amount of line behind the
boat, all of these factors can play a part in your success. When you are trolling look for a color and/or depth that is continuously
getting more bites and set up the other rods to match and have fun
filling the livewell with nice crappie and remember the location as
it more than likely will produce over and over again. Good luck my
fellow crappie angler.
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