Really the best thing you can do for fishing for crappy is simply keep a journal. These fish seem very finicky, but they do have a rhyme and reason to them that makes them much easier to catch if you spend the extra time documenting your research. For those of you who know me over the years here, I know you're going, "There he goes again!" Sorry, I know I"m like a broken record when it comes to pointing out how important it is to keep a journal.

If you do, you will find these fish do, as you've noticed, return to the exact same places at almost the exact same times, every single year. Right now, most places in Alabama, they are just outside the spawning areas waiting to go in. It gets easier each week now until a couple weeks after the spawn. The journal really comes in handy for the months leading up to the spawn, from say November through February, but I'll point out how it is very important now, too.

Something that is a real problem right now for most of the state is water clarity. You simply have a tough time limiting out when the water is as dingy as it is right now. They are moving up, or just about to move up, in a lot of places, but harder to catch because of this issue.

I kept a very detailed journal for several decades at Guntersville. After awhile, you notice startling things about where they are at certain times of the year. Once you match the time with the temperatures, it's rather easy. I'm surprised people just don't take notes, really on just about everything that matters in life. You'd be amazed at what you find. I'm a sports writer, so I've been doing it all my life. Now, for crappie fishing, I've been doing it so long, I just time stamp areas with photo dates to prove what I already know. The journal should have the date, the times, the water clarity, the water temperature, the lures, the line pound test, the presentation, the results. If it was today, I'd headline it: Guntersville, 3/11/15, water clarity 1 foot or less, water temp 46-48 degrees, then list where I fished and what happened. It doesn't have to be all that long, just a paragraph or two, just meat and potatoes with the info you save.

Check it out the next year if you were successful, and if you go back within a week before or after, it's probably going to be much the same. Once you find these spots and catch them at certain times of the year, they're going to return the next year and the next and the next ... The only thing that is going to stop them is if someone comes in and starts dredging the area up to put in boat docks, or if they start spraying the area with chemicals. In other words, man is the only one who can mess them up! And, boy have I seen that happen several times over the years in some wonderful spots. But for the most part, luckily, once you find them, you can bank on them each and every year.

Simple example: bridges. Surface water temp 52 to 58 in the fall, ==== WIN! You will limit out if you have any basic knowledge of how to catch them. If you add a journal to this basic knowledge, then you really start to hone in on when and where and how. Once you start going away from bridges, obviously, away from their major highways of travel and have to track them to their spawning areas, it starts to get tricky. A journal makes it easy because on their way, they are at places one week, sometimes even just one or two days, then they are gone. If you know about when to check these areas, you can be highly successful and find out that you are all alone wiping them out because nobody else has a clue they are even there!

In months like late January, the fish begin to congregate at certain lake points, ect., and it's much more detailed than it is now. If you know where they spawn, then you really know all you need to know at this moment about being very close to the fish.

Once you catch a fish, stop! I've found that the crappie and bull brim and early bedding shellcrackers, bed right next to each other, but usually, really always, that I've found, not together (crappie and brim). It's almost funny how close they bed sometimes, but never on top of each other. This was the case the last time I went the other day. They were even staging exactly just outside of where they will bed - the exact same spot they bedded last year. Sure, you can realize this just by fishing and remembering a spot(s), but it's the times when you limited out - when was that again? When was it that time they were stacked here on this point? Things like that. Unless you have a photographic memory, and it holds up over the years, you forget the real detail you need to be super successful. That's where the journal kills. That's where that one fisherman is always successful and others are just crap shooting.

One more thing, each time you go, even if you're highly successful, fish some new water. If you spend about an hour or two in new water each time, you add ammo. Use your map to find areas you want to explore and do it. I've been fishing Guntersville for 45 years now. I found my best spot ever for crappie just last year on a scouting mission. I had been meaning to go to this spot for several years, but for some reason just didn't do it. I've found my best spots for bass in the last 10 years. I don't do it as much as I should, but unless you've been fishing a lake as long as I have, you should fish new water each time you go and document it in your journal when you are successful.