HOT July/August Crappie fishing.

[Thudpucker]

[blush] OK, where are they hiding.
I know they are still in the lake.
This is Smith lake in Alabama. A Huge lake with all kinds of Inlets and different kinds of bottom structure.

How do we locate the Crappie?
What do we use to entice the bite?
What do we do for prospecting, that's a little more functional than casting all over this lake, one cast at a time.

C'mon guys. Let loose with some experience for me!
I'm pretty new to the south, and very new to Crappie fishing.
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[Fishhound]

[black][size 3]Hey Thudpucker,[/size][/black]
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[black][size 3]Try deep off shore structure - rocky humps, brushpiles, submerged trees, drop offs, etc.. During the summer, the slabs tend to go deep and hang out. [/size][/black]
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[black][size 3]Locate them holding close on the structure with your electronics. Try verticle jigging and use small minnows, worms, leeches, or plastics depending on your locale.[/size][/black]
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[Thudpucker]

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[black][size 3]Hey Thudpucker,[/size][/black]
[black][size 3]"[/size][/black][black][size 3]Try verticle jigging and use small minnows, worms, leeches, or plastics depending on your locale."

OK, what does "depending on your locale" mean?


I'd rather fish with the little plastic gizzies than the Minnows
If I'm reading other guys correctly, to fish deep we want Darker Plastics, and fish them slowly up and down.

Is this your way of doing it?
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[Fishhound]

[black][size 3]Sorry I was kind of vague.[/size][/black]
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[black][size 3]What I meant was this; [/size][/black]
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[black][size 3]1. In some locations it is only legal to use artificials - in this case, plastics. They can be plastic minnows, worms, leeches, 'gizzies', etc. If you have a wide variety in your tackle box, you increase the odds of having something that will work on a given day.[/size][/black]
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[black][size 3]2. Plastics color - there are a number of things that determine the color to be used. Depth, water clarity, bottom color, local available forage, and plain old luck(sometimes fish will experiment to find out if something is eddible). Without personal knowledge of your particular local body of water, I would not be able to make a suggestion as to which colors work there. [/size][/black]
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[black][size 3]3. Jigging. Yes, lower the offering to the fish, and then gently raise it in front of the fish. Pause, then lower it again and pause again. For Crappie, you only need to move the bait a couple of inches. Try to keep your line taut the whole time. Also, change your presentation until you find what is working. For example, during jigging, make the pauses longer or shorter, or jiggle the tip of your rod at the top of the jigging motion or at the bottom of the jigging motion.[/size][/black]
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[Thudpucker]

[] Fishhound I'm gonna lean on you till I get this straight.

Color, sixe and shape depend on the local water conditions?

OK, it's pretty dark down at 20 feet.

On a gray cloudy day with the fish looking up at a lure, wouldn't we want an absoluty black Jig with a curly tail?
The black against the poor grey back groud (or upground from the fish) should make the Lure stand out brilliantly.

The same thing should apply to fishing at night. That's probably the real reason for using lamps.

And then if your fishing in bright sunlight, wouldn't something that has Shiny surface or catches sunlight be the ticket?

And when would you use bright Green, Chartruse and Green Maribou jigs?
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[Tarpon4me]

Fishhound gave you some great tips to keep in mind. I also noticed you mentioned fishing at night, which in the summer, seems to be the most productive. Why? The same reason bream bite better early morning and late evening in the mid of summer...........It's a whole lot cooler.

I'd recomend fishing at night for one. Hopefully you've got a boat with a quality fish finder on it. Use the fish finder to help find your submerged structure during the day, if you have one, mark it on a GPS, and go back to it and fish it by night. Drop floating lights in the water. Floating lights do 2 things:

1. Attract minnows and small forage
2. which inturn attract predatory fish like crappie

Verticle jigging is a great way to catch crappie, however, you have to find what depth they are holding at. What does this mean for you? Exactly what fishhound said, experimenting until you find what works.

I like glow in the dark jigheads with a chartruese flutter tail grub. Powerbait seems to work well. I've also used live minnows on a bobber, which seems to work the best. I just like watching the bobber go under, it's just so exciting. [] Plus, it's alot less work using live bait. I'm all about lazy fishing. [cool]

Alot of veteran crappie fishermen/women slow troll for crappie in areas with lots of submerged structure. In other words, if there is tons of underwater structure, then the process of finding fish might be a little more tricky. Trolling allows you to cover alot of ground and relax for a bit until you find them. ofcourse, trolling is done with jigs, not live bait. Once you find them, you can anchor off and bait up with live bait.

Good luck
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[fish_a_holic]

When I lived in Arizona the tactic we used for catching crappies in 104 degree temps on clear days was to troll a 1/8 oz beetle spin behind the boat - using a trolling motor the tactic was to troll over boulder strewn bottoms and channels...on the lowest setting, we'd troll for a count of ten, then stop for a count of 2, then start her back up for a count of ten.

Sounds crazy, but I boated my best crappie on light tackle at 2lb., 9 oz. using this stop and go technique.
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[bassngal]

I have caught crappie fishing around submerged treetops with hot pink maribou jig in the middle of the day. I also like fishing with southern pro stinger tubes(black w/ chartreuse tail). I usually use an 11' jig pole w/single action reel. I also like using minnows so that I can watch the bobber go under.
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[Thudpucker]

[]I've learned a heckuva lot just from reading these posts!
Now, if I can get all my stuff together and get down to the lake again, I'll give it all a try and report back.[]
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