July-sept techbiquea

Hope everybody has been staying dry and had a good fourth. Here is my question with a little background info.

Lakes I fish are mostly black crappie. I catch fish well February till end of June by longlining for the prespawn or single polling structure and shooting docks. Once July hits the boat traffic and temps keep me from fishin as much but when I do get to go I generally have no trouble finding fish but getting them to bite can be tough. Much harder to get bit than other times of the year it seems. My thoughts are these fish are much more inactive and picky for many reasons like water temp, storm fronts, lack of current, direction they face in the water, etc.

Here is the question. When you encounter situations like this, what seems to work best for getting bit? As always thanks for the inputs.

A lot of people switch to night fishing when it gets hot. Not many pleasure boaters at night either. Can always throw out some jugs/ noodles for a few cats as well.

We go at night every now and then. I sure do like my sleep and hate having to deal with lights an bugs an all that.

You might try smaller jigs. Slower is better in summer. In the summer all I use is 1/32 and small baits. This takes a lot of patience but works for me

Well you're doing better than me, I can't even find them!:biggrin

You can never go wrong rigging with minners. If you dance a minner in their face long enough they'll take it. I usually look for deep fish in the 25 foot range. it's tough for me too when it gets hot. You only have 2 choices go try to catch a few and learn from the ones you caught. Or stay home and wait for better conditions.

Deep rigged minnows spider rigging real slow works for the blacks. If you have whites around, you might try trolling the crank baits.

Get on the water at daylight and look for the schools of shad, the crappie will be where the food is. I catch them in 6 feet of water or less all summer. I've done the same in Missouri, Georgia and Texas over the years. The fish scatter because of low oxygen levels in the shallows during summer, I find them spider rigging. I consistently find Crappie biting even in water that's bath tub warm, all on artificial baits.

On our lakes we fish, they are still under the docks and on structure n onep water.

johndeere5045,

I agree by the way on the deep water, the typical summer pattern is the fish set up on the stratification layer. That's the coolest water that holds enough oxygen.

I target a different group of fish. I find there are good numbers of crappie that stay shallow year round. If deep water was a couple hundred feet away they'd be there, but I fish areas where there's no deep water or the fish would have to swim a quarter mile or more to access deep water. Most people pull up to the typical laydowns that held Crappie in spring, catch nothing or only one or two and believe all the fish are deep. I find that the warm water doesn't have the oxygen levels to support schools of fish, so they scatter through an area. By spider rigging I'm able to work an area slowly picking up one here and one there. While fish densities may be low, I'm fishing where there's no pressure and no other anglers. Most areas are shallow flats with no cover at all. The common trait that I connect with the Crappie again and again is bait fish.

One note, these fish are stressed because of the warm water and low oxygen. They spook very, very easy. It's difficult to run a trolling motor in very shallow water and not scare them this time of year. I talked with an angler that had read my post and tried to catch some shallow water crappie from a large boat. After several unsuccessful hours of fishing he started running up wind with his big motor, then drifting and only using a paddle to keep his boat straight. He started catching Crappie in the same areas that he'd been unsuccessful all morning. The only difference was the trolling motor.

I have been told and told that the crappie always go to deeper water when it's hot and I agree if thier is deep water close but it has always been hard for me to believe that they would swim 1-3miles or more out to deep water ? I have also been able to catch several fish up shallow in hot weather.and with all the fish that Ditch catches in shallow water makes me wonder the more.:twocents:twocents

I got lucky; I came from a bass fishing background. While things slow down, you can still catch bass all summer shallow. I slowly figured out how to catch Crappie shallow in the summer using many of the same tactics. Later I started reading that what I was doing shouldn't work. I thought maybe I had just stumbled onto a local pattern that only worked in Georgia. Over time the same thing held true in Texas, Missouri and Alabama in everything from farm ponds, flood control reservoirs and rivers. The funny thing is everywhere I go I'm told it will not work, that I'm lying and "where's my secret spot". I started taking photo's because no one believed me. Now I'm told that once a year when I catch a limit I rearrange the fish 50 different ways and take photos that I use the rest of the year, LOL!

If fishing creek and river ledges deep in summer isn't working, try something new!

The lake I fish has plenty of deep water with abundant shallow flats. I guess that's why the fish are easier to find in summer in the deep water. The deeper water is easy to get to from the shallow cool weather haunts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ditch Basser

I got lucky; I came from a bass fishing background. While things slow down, you can still catch bass all summer shallow. I slowly figured out how to catch Crappie shallow in the summer using many of the same tactics. Later I started reading that what I was doing shouldn't work. I thought maybe I had just stumbled onto a local pattern that only worked in Georgia. Over time the same thing held true in Texas, Missouri and Alabama in everything from farm ponds, flood control reservoirs and rivers. The funny thing is everywhere I go I'm told it will not work, that I'm lying and "where's my secret spot". I started taking photo's because no one believed me. Now I'm told that once a year when I catch a limit I rearrange the fish 50 different ways and take photos that I use the rest of the year, LOL!

If fishing creek and river ledges deep in summer isn't working, try something new!

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Ditch you the Man!

The thing is you know what will work and how effective it is and enough folks has had the great opportinuity to fish with you that testify of your character .and most folks out their want think out side of the box and that's why you catch fish and they don't .

I understand that Ditch. The electronics we use these days has a very loud sonar return. That's the trick n shallow water n Florida.

Two other thing that help is I really don't care if I don't catch anything, I just enjoy being out and on the water.

Second, I really pay attention to the fish and less to what "should work". Many of my bites come when the line is no longer tight because a fish has picked up the bait, but didn't give a distinctive thump. You'd be amazed at how often in the morning I start out sight fishing. Almost like looking for bass activity and a top water bite. Crappie will come up and take bait fish or insects from the surface. All you'll see is a gentle little ring spreading out almost like their kissing the water. That's often a dead give away that Crappie are feeding just below the surface.

I don't have a comment - I just wanted to put a marker on all this good info from ditch so that I can refer back to it. Good stuff!

Great info!

Sometimes I catch fish accidentally more than on purpose. Ditch is the man. Different approaches for different folks.