05-30-2007, 03:56 PM
TubeN2 gave you some good advice. There's no reason why you can't tip your jig with a piece of natural bait. They'll hang on longer and give you a better chance of hooking the fish. Crappie are a tricky breed sometimes, but if you get into them, they fight and table fare are well worth it. I prefer a bright green or yellow jig for crappie, as it seems to alway work for some reason.
Also, i'm with matt on the live minnows. We've always use live minnows for as long as i've fished for crappie. Around structure, especially around bridges at night. We'd tie off the boat on a pilon and drop a floating night in the water. You could put a serious hurtin' on the crappie like that. Just use a basic bobber rig and hook the minnow just behind the dorsal fin, but not too deep. You don't want to pierce it's spin. A dead minnow will yield you negative results. [
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Also, i'm with matt on the live minnows. We've always use live minnows for as long as i've fished for crappie. Around structure, especially around bridges at night. We'd tie off the boat on a pilon and drop a floating night in the water. You could put a serious hurtin' on the crappie like that. Just use a basic bobber rig and hook the minnow just behind the dorsal fin, but not too deep. You don't want to pierce it's spin. A dead minnow will yield you negative results. [
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