Thread: Crappie Masters

Originally Posted by hotrod1

I been pushing 3oz weights for years can't beat it. I've learned one thing for sure those flickers look nice cant wait to give em a try.

Some days they work, and some days they don't. I've had great success with them both on the walleye and the crappie.

Originally Posted by Shine Runner

BRM is right on everything except it was 3rd place doing the power pushing. 4th was a GA team that was pushing/slow trolling/spiderriging like us and 85% of the rest of us. 2 other GA teams longlined jigs and were in top 15 I believe. One I know was 11th.

Bottom line is some folks went outside the box and made it pay. We hopefully learned a lot about fall fishing for white crappie during extreme water fluctuation. I wasn't able to keep up with website info for lake levels but I know what I saw from water lines on trees after the 3.95 inches of rain Tuesday.

I have turned my whole thinking upside down and inside out after the past week and a long 8 hour ride home of all the things I should have done. Gut wrenching after having 11.5 to 12.5 lbs and 7+ fish on both Weds and Thurs to only weigh 4 fish in 2 days Fri and Sat. I am humbled.

I am proud that some big dang fish and some of 4th places fish came on baits I made.

I agree. We had the equipment with us and planned on doing some pushing with heavy weights but we put that on the back burner after Wed. and Thurs. We had five 2 lbers both days in a couple of hours of fishing in and around our spot. I thought we had them and could not catch them Fri. and Sat. Ended up with 6 keepers both days combined.

Originally Posted by bird down

5th place team fished double minnow rig and there top hook was 6 inches below the water. I saw crappie chasing shad right up to the top and he said he saw the same thing. He changed his depth and I didn't. His name is Jim and he is a member of this site. Maybe he will enlighten us. Think his name is something like seejimfish

I saw at least 10 BIG crappie roll on top of water during the week.

Originally Posted by ScottV

I've got some Flicker Shad and I've trolled them next to Bandit 300s and the Bandits kicked their butt. I'm a little scepticle of this whole story.

Well, I guess you can always ask the gentleman that conducts the Lie-Detector test - Crappie Masters placed him in our boat. He was with us almost the entire day, with the exception of about 45 minutes when the cameraman was!

Being a crankbait junkie: I have a lot of Bombers, Rebels, Wiggle Warts, DT Series, etc but don't have any Bandits - looks like I'll have to hook up on the big 5-0 (that's what we call filling a Plano box - 50 baits)

On a separate note - we saw fish "busting shad" a lot, but never threw anything up that high.....................hmmmmmmmm................ .....makes the mind do a few cartwheels! We had assumed they were whitebass.

So....What I am hearing is that in the top fifteen finishes, there were about fifteen different approaches. Flicker shad, planer board, spider rigging, power trolling, 8 feet deep, top hook six inches deep, longlining jigs, bandits....I am not really seeing a solid pattern here! You know, if the top 15 teams all caught their fish the same way, I might be considering trying something new, but sometimes luck/probability wins the day (or in my case, unluck....) I am not nocking the winners at all, they had the know-how and equipment that produced the winning wait on the given day, something most of us did not have, but it was just one day. Tommorow is another day, and I will be slow trollin on Grenada! You never can tell, it might just be my lucky day!!!

Out of those fifteen different approaches I think it can be safely assumed they all had one thing in common......top notch fishing technique. The flawless execution of a proven technique is what put those teams into the top tier of this competition.

Originally Posted by luvpt

Out of those fifteen different approaches I think it can be safely assumed they all had one thing in common......top notch fishing technique. The flawless execution of a proven technique is what put those teams into the top tier of this competition.

No doubt about that. I am not downplaying the accomplishments of any of these teams. They picked a technique, executed it well, and stayed at it on a very hard pair of fishing days. My real argument here is that any technique, fished appropriately, can produce good results. Do what you are good at, and catch fish. I am quite sure that the technique that the winners used was not something they decided to "give a try" at the last moment. They had done it before, and many times. They were good at it, and had confidence in it. It worked on the day in question, and would probably work on any given day, but when a few ounces decides the winner of the tourney, there is also a little luck involved, and any of the top finishers could have caught the lucky 3 pounder at the end of the day and become the new world champion....

OK... I went back and did the math. It would have taken a VERY lucky 5 pounder. But I still believe my thesis is sound.