Thread: Help with Lure Selection

Zman baby ballerz on a 1/32oz jighead or smaller would be my suggestion. Tight lines to you in your near future

Thanks for the suggestion, speaking of Zman I was just looking at their Flasback Mini's, looking for some vicious reaction strikes

Originally Posted by Happyfisherman

Thanks for the suggestion, speaking of Zman I was just looking at their Flasback Mini's, looking for some vicious reaction strikes

Pictures upload sideways now but I have some pairs with a zman shad fryZ they are deadly

The biggest crappie I've caught at that pond was 11" on a Gulp minnow but I know they're way bigger in there, I've seen what look like footballs come up and swipe at my baits, just gotta figure out how to get the bigguns to bite

Maybe slow down bait speed too!

I've been reading about retrieval speed when casting, and though a slow presentation may often be the ticket, that might not always be the case

“The problem for most people is when the fish follows the jig but never commits, they don’t know how to adjust. When this happens to me, I always increase the speed of my retrieve drastically. In my opinion, it makes the fish think the bait is getting away, and their God-given survival instincts kick in, and they will accelerate to smash it. Most people won’t use this technique because they are afraid they will take the bait away from the fish but don’t realize just how fast a fish can swim.

“Most of my clients that struggle with their LS are amazed that this one technique increases their catches drastically.”

Originally Posted by Happyfisherman

I've been reading about retrieval speed when casting, and though a slow presentation may often be the ticket, that might not always be the case

“The problem for most people is when the fish follows the jig but never commits, they don’t know how to adjust. When this happens to me, I always increase the speed of my retrieve drastically. In my opinion, it makes the fish think the bait is getting away, and their God-given survival instincts kick in, and they will accelerate to smash it. Most people won’t use this technique because they are afraid they will take the bait away from the fish but don’t realize just how fast a fish can swim.

“Most of my clients that struggle with their LS are amazed that this one technique increases their catches drastically.”

And a lot of people say a Crappie won't chase a bait very far, but on more than one occasion I've had Crappie come racing towards a Road Runner that I was burning back to get in another cast before having to deal with boat position. These instances were around boat docks & marina boat slips ... out in front of them, not under or inside of them. (which is one reason I cast out in front of and around the sides of a boat dock several times before getting in close enough to shoot the dock)

And on your comment on how fast a Crappie can swim ... one only needs to remember that Crappie chase down and hit jigs at 1mph and faster, and crankbaits at 1.8mph to 2+mph. And while it is probable that many of them sense the bait coming and intercept it, that's not to say that they couldn't also track it down and catch it, if they wanted it bad enough.

Here's an interesting article from the In-Fisherman

Crankbaits For Crappies - In-Fisherman

But, one of In-Fisherman's fundamental teaching points applies as much to crappies as to any other fish. It's often best to begin with aggressive strategies and let fish tell you whether to temper those strategies to something less aggressive.

In crappie circles, anglers typically begin with tentative tactics, assuming, before they get a judgement from the fish, that such strategies are sure to work best. These anglers believe that because finesse tactics are so prevalent that those tactics must be so good that they are going to produce fish no matter what mood the fish are in.

I admit that where spider-rigging can be used in conjunction with jigs, rigs, and livebait, it's usually hard to beat. And where spider-rigging can't be used, because multiple lines aren't an option, I also admit that straightforward jigging methods usually produce some fish. The crappie is, after all, a fish of comparatively laid-back character.

But not always. Crappies are cranked way more often than most anglers realize — and anglers don't give crappies a chance to tell them how cranked they are. Fish often seem tentative when they're presented with tentative strategies — because they're not interested in those strategies when they're in a more aggressive mood. In not using aggressive tactics to begin with, we often minimize catches by not maximizing strategies that pay off in producing more fish. When crappies are cranked you catch more of them with aggressive tactics. So begins this tale.