As any crappie or bass angler will tell you, crappie are notorious for being finicky; you can stand there looking at bunch of them as they’re feeding and they won’t touch your offering if it’s radioactive. Most times the line between a limit catch and bird food turns around our ability to mimic existance confidences of the fish. It is not just in size but in the action.
Matching the action mean more than matching the bait. The first thing most anglers consider is size; they use a small jig in clear water and a big one in dirty water. That makes some sense, but what about silhouette, vibration?
A crappie’s response to color have everything to do with their response to silhouette and vibration. If you know which vibration and silhouette patterns will create the response, you don’t guess anymore. You trigger the bite.
Top Fly Patterns To Fool Finicky Crappie
Using Tube Minnows for Ambush Responses
And then you has the right lure on, which either triggers an ambush response from prey moving slow by or a shelter-hunting instinct. It is a tube minnow. A classic tube minnow are a proven producer in many scenarios because of its crawfish-like or smaller baitfish-like profile depending on your retrieval style.
It darts and twitches like a panicked minnow or can flutter lifelessly like a dying shad as you allow it to fall. For these reasons and more, a tube has become a go-to choice for most pro angler and it doesn’t require an elaborate rig to fish it either. Often a 2-inch tube on a 1/16-ounce head on a simple vertical jig will out produce other more specialized setups.
The trick is to let the tube work for you instead of constantly fighting it with exaggerated jerks.
Soft Plastic Grubs for Water Column Fishing
Another bait use soft plastic grubs for deception and relies on its segmented body to produce a subtle wobble in water column. This produces a reaction bite from those suspended but not actively feeding crappie.
A grub that hangs slightly off horizontal can be irresistable when the bite is slow. The key is to match length of your grub to your hook size. Two inches with a 1/0 hook has just right combination of hook set and action.
Using a larger hook than necessary will ruin the subtle action.
Hard Bodied Jerk Baits Near Cover
Serious crappie anglers is using hard bodied jerk baits, and rightly so; they emulate wounded baitfish with their darting action and erratic pauses. When crappie are near cover such as brush piles or even docks, a jerkbait work extremely well.
The stop-and-go action mimics an injured baitfish trying to get away from danger which in turn triggers the ambush reflex. The jerkbait is light. A lightweight jigging rod will let you feel initial tap of a bite, so use a sensitive rod.
The key to the hookset is not on the retrieve but right on the pause.
Matching Lures to Water Clarity and Depth
The blinkers has a flash to draw attention from a distance that you don’t get from other lures. And the bling of course gives it another visual component.
That’s nice when the fish are not seeing well like in deeper water or even more so in stained water. It throws them off. They’ll hit it before they realy see what it is.
But on the flip side, they can also makes noise which is not good for very pressured fish in really clear water. Maybe use something more subtle. Cast it around to find fish.
Then go to something less obnoxious if they quit biting. To conclude. So in a nutshell, read the water.
A fast retrieve and more flashy colors works well when the fish are shallow and aggressive. Darken up the color of the lure and slow it down when they get deeper and cautious. It’s not just about what time of year it is, it’s about matching the pattern to the conditions.
Have a mixed bag in your tackle box but keep it set and focused on type of fish you’re trying to catch. You don’t need to have all the lures out there but rather have the right one for the situation. Knowing why crappie bite changes everything because it would of helped you make a good guess as to how to fish next.
Random fishing turns into fishing with a reason.
