New to crappie, intro and gear advice needed

[Growler]

Thank you Mo, some very good information in your post. I live on Oneida lake, which is not extremely clear due to its shallow bottom and massive size so its a little closer to some of the southern waters I've been on IMO. I'm ordering a few SHSS in 9' and also a couple cheaper zebco crappie fighter in 12'. I'm going to go to my local shops and see what reels I like. My walleye setups I use Shimano Stradics with custom rods that I had made by a local guy who uses G Loomis Blanks, but I don't want to spend that much just yet for crappie fishing because the wife may just leave me if I do...

I like this technique you mentioned, Strolling, it seems like it would fit in well with the setup of the lake I live on. I am also reading all I can on here and have several ideas on presentations and techniques to try out. Right now the water is ~57-59 so I'm thinking I have a little time before the spawn and also the post spawn bite.

One thing I've reading is that the males should be moving in to nest now, with the females sitting in deeper water at the nearest drop off with structure until the water warms further. What is the validity of this?

My thought is that I can use setups similar to spider rigging to drift the basins for both crappie and perch as well. From what I've been reading this type of setup can allow me to work weed edges and basins alike and I can get 6 poles out with 2 people in the boat. Using the caps and coleman type rigs Dave mentioned above seems like I can work several depths with up to 12 presentations. I slip bobber fish for perch year round here, even on the ice, and do well in depths up to 30' but I typically only run 1-2 rigs at a time from a stationary position. I'm thinking with the egg sinker and using my rod holders I have for trolling I can cover a ton of ground. So essentially I'm thinking of combining the caps and coleman rigs and "stump bumping" in order to offer a ton of variety but also using slip bobbers as a strike indicator. After saying all this I do have a question. Is there a chart, similar to a trolling depth chart, on what size sinker to use at different speeds to keep line vertical while trolling? If not I can always experiment but figured if I don't have to reinvent the wheel I won't.


Thanks again to everyone who has offered help, this is a great community and very welcoming.

[DaveB40]

Hey "Growler" glad to see your getting out and experimenting. I do believe that is what
fishing is all about. As far as the CC rigs are concerned, check out Pg 17 of the Grizzly Jig
catalog and you'll see that the weights are associated with depth, more than speed. Use
your knowledge from walleye fishing, especially river fishing, and taht will give you an idea
of where to start. My buddy and I fish the Illinois and Kankakee rivers for walleye and we
use the two rod setup, that is, one rod in each hand while attempting to "slip" the river.
The weight we use is dependent on the current. Keith Kavajecz was more than willing to share
that technique with me several years ago and it took some time to get used to, but once you
get it down you can pretty well adapt it to other species on other bodies of water. Boat control
is the biggest factor, IMHO, that keeps your line vertical. If you are very good at that, you'll
have no problem in dropping an 1/8th oz jig in most conditions and keeping it vertical. Look
up a post by "shipahoy41" entitled "Knots and Rigs for beginners" as an alternative to CC rigs.
Keep up the good work!! Tight Lines - Dave

[Crestliner08]

DaveB40 has really hit on something here. "Slipping" a river can be extremely effective for all species of fish. What this boils down to is using your main engine with boat's bow pointed upstream. You raise the engine rpm just fast enough to "slip" downstream/backwards in the current while maintaining boat position with the bow pointed upstream. Minor steering adjustments allow for precise boat position in and around river structures with a minimum of effort.

What this does in effect is allow your presentation to get close to the bottom and in the face of the fish. They expect their food to arrive this way and slipping facilitates them getting the "right" meal (your jig!). You can also google Dan Gapen, who is the river fishing "guru". He has published many books on both bass, pike and crappie in rivers. I'd highly recommend his book entitled, "Big River Fishing", in which he goes into great detail on this and other techniques, which will put the odds in your favor.

[Growler]

Thank you so much Dave and Crestliner.

Dave, I'm going to download the catalog and check out their products. Just adapting what you showed me with the stuff I had laying around seems to be the ticket, I really appreciate the help. As for slipping I'll give that a try, I'm sure it'll be a learning experience trying that in a pontoon boat without a trolling motor but I think I can handle it. As for river fishing I don't get much of a chance to do that, the lake I live on has a lock system to the rivers as part of the old erie canal and to my knowledge there's only one stretch of river I can access until the lock open up again. I unfortunately didn't buy the trailer when I bought my boat because the marina is down the road and they store the boat for me. However, I think I could use this technique in the bays I fish in. I'll definitely check out that thread. Thank you again.

Crestliner, thank you for the detailed explanation, this really helps me understand how to achieve the control I will need. I can see this being useful in so many situations even outside of rivers. I feel like this would work really well fishing shoals on windy days as well and will help increase my catch rate overall. In the short time I've been on this forum I feel I've learned a ton, and while I have a lot more to go I feel I'm on the right path. Thank you.

I got out today for a while I was supposed to go into work but I'm technically on vacation so I figured fishing would be a better idea. I was using 1 walleye pole and a couple of ultra lights I had sitting around for my nieces and nephew when they come over. I ended up catching 12 crappie in about 2 1/2 hrs, only problem was they were all short. Here in NY we have a 9" minimum, of the 12 I'd say probably 7 were between 8-8 1/2. The rain came in and the fish shut right off, probably more to do with the drop in temp then the rain though. I tried a couple techniques, using jigs on the bottom using a loop knot with a drop shotted minnow on top seemed to work the best though, even had a couple doubles. When exploring I found an area that I thought would be packed with crappie but all I found was bass I'm wondering if bass move in do the crappie typically stay away, still it was a fun fight on an ultra light. Thank you everyone for welcoming me and giving such great advice, Im a member of other fishing forums and none of them are even close to the community this one is.

[CrappiePappy]

Im a member of other fishing forums and none of them are even close to the community this one is.

I've heard this very same thing many times. I believe it's because we have mostly good-natured members that like to help others. Plus, we don't put up with a lot of hooey or misbehaving from members, regardless of how long they've been a member. You become a problem or your conduct isn't in keeping with site rules ... you are subject to being booted out of the membership, never to be allowed to return.

Site rules are posted on the Main Message Forum, in case you want to read them for your own protection.

[Growler]

Thank you for the sage advice CrappiePappy. I appreciate the work you mods do here, it shows that you and the other mods do your job well.