Fall is a good time to go fish for crappies

Wherever people fish anywhere in North America, and that’s almost everywhere, there’s an excitement right now about fishing.

Fall is a great time to be in a boat or on the shoreline casting a line and trying to get a fish to bite. And, if you put your bait in front a fish, chances are good that it will eat it. In the autumn, fish are willing biters. They can sense a change in water temps and length of day and know that it’s time to fatten up for the winter. No doubt about it, the next couple of months are a great time to go fishing.

In many areas of the country, certain fish get the most attention. In the northern third of the country, walleyes and muskies get a lot of attention. In the south and mid-south, bass are the favored fish.

But almost wherever you live, crappies will be willing biters. Crappies, in most places, are abundant, they’re great on the table, and right now they’ll eat your bait. Depending on the type of lake you’re fishing, here’s how you can catch crappies right now.

In some lakes crappies will gather in the basin of the lake and behave much like a walleye would. They’ll hug the bottom in large schools. They might be near a point or some other underwater structure, but often they’ll be far from any structure. Depths of 25-to-35 feet are not unusual. The thing they’re looking for is food. That food could be minnows, but it could also be bugs that live in the mud on the bottom.

The fastest way to find these crappies is to cruise over the basin with a close eye on your sonar unit. Sometimes the fish will be suspended, but most of the time they’ll be right on the bottom. When you see them, hover directly overhead and drop a jig/plastic or jig/minnow on them. You will almost always get bit.

Another good location to find crappies is a short distance off the edge of the deep weedline. Crappies will suspend 20 yards off the edge of the deep weedline in search of food. In this case the best way to find them is to watch for small dimples on the surface of the water. You need calm wind conditions for this pattern, as you can’t see the dimples created as Mr. PaperMouth sucks a bug off the surface when it’s windy.

Late afternoon and early evening are when this pattern is most productive. Again, a jig with plastic or a minnow is good, either slowly retrieved just a couple of feet under the surface or fished under a slip-bobber.

Last pattern. This one works really good in reservoirs that have flooded timber. Crappies will suspend in the timber: Sometimes in the tree-tops, other times down a little farther. If the tree-tops are down only a few feet you’ll need to cast out, let your jig sink a few feet, they retrieve it slowly. If the tree-tops are 10 feet or deeper, and there’s some color in the water, you can fish vertically with your jig. Let the fish show you what presentation they want.

It’s tough to beat a Fire-fly or Gypsi jig for crappies. The sixteenth ounce size will be best for most situations. A two inch minnow on the back of the jig will catch fish, but also try an Impulse Swim’n Grub in the two inch size.

Next time you’re on a good crappie lake, give the bass and walleye gear a rest and try to catch a few crappies. Keep a couple for supper and put the rest back. If you do this once with any degree of success, you’ll do it again.

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Tags: outdoors, fishing