Getting Frustrated - Trying to locate / catch Crappie
Hi Everyone,
A couple of years ago I started actively targeting crappie.Before that point, the only crappie I had ever caught had been while bluegillfishing or the incidental catch while bass fishing.
I have several "Good" crappie lakes near me inSouthern Illinois. The most notable of the two being Rend Lake and Lake ofEgypt.
Herein lies my dilemma… When the water warms during latespring, and the crappie move extremely shallow, I can reliably catch them. Iknow this is probably the time of year where anyone can probably catch themusing just about anything as bait.
During the rest of the year, when the crappie are notshallow, I “struggle” to catch them. By struggle I mean I don’t catch them atall, can’t find them, or find them and still can’t get a bite, and I end upgetting frustrated.
I have tried live minnows and jigs both either fishedvertically from the boat or beneath a cork. I just don’t have any success.
For instance, this past Thursday a good friend of mine and Idecided to try out a new-to-us lake just south of town. I had been told byanother friend that his dad had caught a “cooler full” of crappie earlier inthe week. My friend even told me the general location where his dad had caughtthe fish.
My friend and I were all set and ready to catch some crappieon Thursday morning, but when I awoke there was a large area of light tomoderate rain that hadn’t been in the forecast. After waiting for the rain tostop, we drove to the lake and hit the water. The area we were fishing lookedlike a pretty good spot. Riprap shoreline and a fast drop to about 12 feet ofwater. We would reach 12 feet of water within about 15-20 feet from shore. Wemade pass after pass down the riprap bank. We started shallow and continued towhere we were almost fishing the bottom. I started out by using a roadrunner head with2” curly tail grub. As we progressed through passes, I tried different color ofgrub bodies and went to a conventional head. I tried putting the jig under afloat and saw a few bites, but we decided those were probably bluegill sincethey would take the cork under for only a second and would never hook up.
The boat I was fishing from has an older fishfinder that Iam retiring in the next few days. It isn’t the best, but it still isn’t bad. It’sa Humminbird 597ci HD. GPS / 2d sonar. I bought this fishfinder new and amrather comfortable with it. The area we were fishing had a pretty solid bottomand fairly-clear water. If you let your bait hit the bottom, it would come upwith some bright green algae. I nevernoticed anything on the sonar display that would indicate fish or baitfishaside from an occasional “mystery blob” that would be at a random depth betweenthe surface and the bottom.
To salvage what was left of our pride, we chalked thisfailed trip up to the cold rain that fell early in the morning, but this is notan isolated incident. He and I have, so far this year, been skunked twice atEgypt and I have been skunked a couple more times at Crab Orchard and RendLake. As I said, once they go shallow at Rend or even Crab Orchard, I canconsistently catch them.. Until then, my winless streak continues.
I’m open to any suggestions on how to go about garnering alittle success with catching these paper-mouthed fish. I’vebeen reading here on the forum and am wondering if I should try adifferent float, but before I buy any more crappie tackle I want to make surewhat I purchase is actually something that would be beneficial to use.
Thank You All for taking time to read what was intended tobe a short post but ended up being a short novel. Looking forward to gettingsome advice and actually catching some crappie.
