Crappie this time of year

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TNReb

TNReb

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I don't really fish for crappie except in the spring when they come up shallow and are easy to find and catch.

I tried several days last week on Old Hickory and couldn't catch one.

I found creeks full of shad. I found wood in 15-20ft that showed fish on the sonar. I jigged it with tubes and other artificial lures. No luck.

I trolled Bandit 200s - no luck.

I fished docks in 5-15ft. Nope.

Water temp was 72. Should be a little cooler tomorrow.

Any suggestions? I don't have a spider rig setup or proper trolling set up. I just have a bass boat and a few spinning rods for crappie.

What should the crappie be doing in this water temp? Holding to cover or just roaming and feeding on shad?

When I say creeks - I'm talking hundreds of yards wide - not just little creeks.
 
id look at brushpiles at 10-15ft deep during the day and shallower before good daylight or dusk for now. when the temps hit around 65 all the way down to high 50's you can catch them in some of the same places they spawned.

crappie are light sensitive, especially whites, and they feed heavy from dusk to dawn. when the sun comes up theyll move out a little deeper in cover.
 
Any time you cant catch crappie on jigs, switch to live minnows or a jig tipped with a minnow. If they don't bite that, they aren't there and keep looking.

Like WTM, I always start with structure on or very near a drop-off. Work up and down the drop-off till you find the depth they are at, then key in on that depth the rest of the morning.

I used to be a hardcore bass fisherman back in the 80s, but once I started crappie fishing in the 90s, id rather do that over bass any day
 
On Douglas crappie can be caught in 10-12 inches of water even on the coldest days in the winter.
They stage on the mudflats along the river channel and near the mouths of major creeks during the winter.
December-March probably accounts for as many crappie as the rest of the year.
 
For me the way I like to catch them, which is artificials out of deeper brush, I like it best when water temps get in the 50's and colder. It can't get too cold beyond that either. Spider-riggers and troller's tend to fair better in warmer water temps in my areas. Every lake fishes different, and I know that the post above about Douglas holds true to at times there because some of the best winter days I have had there are fishing next to sheets of surface ice shallow under a bobber.

Like Biggun said above....December-March is my favorite time of the year to fish.....bass or crappie.
 
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Yep, I agree....the best time is coming! I have caught more fish since this latest cold front than I have in all of Sept and October. In the spring a cold front will shut things off for a day or two. In the fall...seems like the fronts actually trigger the feeding frenzy. It can be hard to concentrate on your target species in the fall because you can quite literally catch multi species and never move spots. Yesterday I was fighting the post front wind and the wind had baitfish blown into the back of this pocket in a cove. The wind was brutal...cold and fighting kayak position and white caps. But those predator fish were GORGING themselves on those baitfish. I was catching 15 to 18 inch skipjack, largemouth bass, stripers, white bass, and even caught an aggressive blue cat on a lipless crankbait. All in the same spot. Fish breaking everywhere. And crappie time is here too...and will get better IMO when it gets even colder. They even taste better when caught in the winter. The fillets are firmer and not mushy.
 
Agree with the taste better. Even white bass taste completely different in colder water temps.
 

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