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Crappie (Pomoxis) is a popular panfish that belongs to the genus and found in North American freshwater. There are two types of crappie fish which is black crappie and white crappie. This fish belongs to the sunfish family Centrarchidae. Both types of crappies live together in a social environment which makes it difficult to catch.
There are different ways of catching crappie and it is popular as the best-tasting freshwater fish in the fishing industry. There are some competitions that consist of crappie fishing records from 1957 according to the weight of the fish.
Building Crappie Beds
When Crappie fish live together in a social environment, it is not quite easy to catch them using usual methods so fishermen use a man-made object which is called Crappie Beds. Crappie beds are fish concentrating structures which are identified by crappie as cover to live in. There are different forms of crappie beds and made with different tools.
The crappie bed is pieces of wood that fall into the water by natural cause while the man-made is a brush pile of woods which is commonly used in the past. Crappie beds are most likely a helping tool for the fisherman to get the crappies to bait because fisherman has to struggle to find a spot so without them the fish would disappear.
The secret of these crappie bed is that they provide a place as a shelter for crappie and it also provides the foundation for the formation of zooplankton on which most the baitfish feed.
PVC Crappie Beds – Building Crappie Structure
Most of the fisherman uses PVC pipe and concrete which looks almost similar to the brush pile of woods. When building a crappie bed, people need to concentrate on its structure which is a characteristic that attracts crappies. In the present, it is mostly constructed with PVC pipe and concrete instead of wood or other material.
The size of the PVC pipe depends on the depth of the water and the number of PVC pipes depends on the builder. The building of a man-made crappie bed has been going for a generation in both private lakes and public reservoirs which have ceased the original crappie bed made of wood.
There are companies that produce a mass amount of these structures for the fisherman who isn’t concerned about spending extra money. Sometimes the structure doesn’t work because the structure looks like an ambush to the crappie
There are some concerns when catching crappie, the structure of crappie bed, and the position where crappie has to be considered to have effective fishing. The structure should not look like a trap which might cause crappie not to revisit that place again so changing the look of the crappie bed could bring new crappies. When fishing for crappie, the first thing that a fisherman would do is find the perfect area where more crappies spent their time and they are known to feed or rest.
If the fisherman is over the crappie bed, it is good to have the hook with the crappie bed so that it can be fallen to target depth. Changing the depth should be considered and it should not be done often. It is good to keep in mind that crappie is social fish so they hang around together, if a fisherman could not have a single bite in a particular area for several minutes then he should probably move on to another location. But if you once got a bite and it will create a hype which can go more chances of getting another.
Other Techniques on Building Crappie Structure
Other than the structure, size, and purpose of the crappie beds, there are various tools that are similar to it such as the recycled Christmas tree but it is only capable of catching crappie for a short term which is likely for days or weeks. There are some crappie beds that consist of fishing baits within it so that it can attract more and more crappies. This technique is mostly practiced when the crappies don’t hang around frequently or according to the time period of the year.
If the fisherman owns a boat during the summer or winter months, fishing for crappies would be much easier, and also use of a crappie bed would be convenient since fishermen can catch fish by being on the boat directly over the top of the crappie bed.
Sometime Crappies look more than for cover, most crappie anglers refer to brush pile or crappie bed because all these structures provide cover for crappie which provides concealment to a fish. Crappie shallow to bottoms of the lake which range from rocks to logs, but fishermen are fortunate since most lakes are surrounded by the cover so it would be easy to lay the structure.
Since most of the professional fishermen are aware of crappie – creatures of habit, they tend to return to the same place during the year if they yielded success, especially during their spawn. So, a fisherman who uses structures has to identify those locations for a large scale of crappies.
Furthermore, crappies have a habit of moving towards holes so it is preferable to have holes in the structure. So, if there is any kind of deeper spots in the area and holes in the structure, crappies would be beholding to it. Also, light and other conditions matter when fishing for crappies.
Big crappies will be unlikely to go into too shallow unless it has a low light condition. When the temperature of the water is about 45 degrees or above, crappies couldn’t be found easily so fishermen might have a hard day of finding crappies. Most of the crappies move to heavy cover when the winter storms hammer but if the fisherman is skillful and lucky, there is a chance for a bite when the structure is good and provides the necessary cover for them.
Most of the professional fishermen recommend to fish for crappies using crappie bed in open freshwater, toss giant jigs or minnows to feed crappies and attract them easily, make use of bass-size lures and fish the storms. The use of crappie beds has been a common strategy to catch crappies and not only crappies but some sort of other fishes that have similar characteristics.
Here are two examples of fish structure for mossback fish.
Note: These MossBack Safe Havens were designed for mossback fish, we are not sure whether it works for crappies.
1) MossBack Safe Haven
2) Mossback Safe Haven – Gamekeepers Edition
