Had some beginner’s success catching crappie.

I went fishing Saturday. Took my bass gear and also my crappie gear. Figured I’d try for both. I was successful catching both as well. I started out bass fishing with a crankbait, and caught a couple but then the bite dried up. Moved locations and caught one more and then nothing again. So I ran the boat up the lake and came upon a cove where the fish finder showed what looked like hundreds of fish moving into the cove. I figured they may be a lot of baitfish, and I know it is still prespawn where I’m at so I also figured these baitfish are attracting bass and crappie both that are feeding up in advance of spawning. So I spent the rest of my day here. I wanted to try targeting crappie specifically so I tied on a Fin Spin and began fan casting it just probing the shoreline and also letting it sink deep and just combing water with it. I got two more bass on the Fin Spin, and then got a crappie on it. Once I found crappie I figured it might be a school, and I wanted to slow down and try fishing a jig in the school like Richard Gene showed to do.

The fish finder showed the wated depth in the cove to be 10 feet deep and most of the fish holding at 6-10 foot depths. Water was very murky with only about one foot of visibility, and 66° to 68°. So I tied on a bright orange 1/16 oz ballhead jig and put a white 1 inch curly tail grub on it. I rigged it sideways and trimmed the C shaped curl off the tail, leaving only enough of the tail to resemble the beaver tailed baits Richard Gene uses. Then I casted it out and counted it down until I thought it was at the right depth. Then started reeling it back in super slow. I felt my rod tip jump and I lightly set the hook and hauled in a 9” crappie. Not too big but definitely bigger than most crappie I’ve ever caught on accident while bass fishing. This gives me a lot of encouragement that the techniques I have watched Richard use will work for me also.

I also experimented with a slip float and tried to use 12 pound line to tie a bobber stop onto my 4 pound main line. This worked but I discovered that tying two overhand knots makes it too large to pass through the guides on my new crappie rod. The last 4 guides are micro guides and the stop knot kept getting hung up and slipping on the line. So while I was fiddling with the knot my jig was in the water laying on the bottom, and when I fixed my line I reeled it in and it had a crappie hooked on it too. I don’t know when that one took the bait. Could have been on the drop, or while it was laying there, or as I reeled it back in. But it caught a crappie without even being twitched.

I also continued using the Fin Spin and got two more crappie on it, but not as big. Only about the size of my hand. Then I got it hung up and lost it. Not a big deal, I have 15 more in different colors. Yeah I’ve already bought a lot of crappie stuff for someone who is just getting started. But I’m stoked to have gotten a few. I caught 6 bass and only 5 crappie, but the crappie fishing was my favorite part of the day. These are small but here’s a couple of the pics. The first one is the crappie that hit the jig as I wound it back in. It’s on the Bass Pro Shops Crappie Maxx Quick Tip rod, the one with 4 pound line and micro guides in the orange tip section. The second pic is of one that hit the Fin Spin on my St. Croix Premier medium light with 8 pound mono.

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Murky water in the high 60's = White Crappie spawning paradise.

If the lake is known to have a good population of larger Crappie, you may have gotten in on the "second wave" of spawners ... ie: the smaller ones.

I, too, have picked up my jig from off the bottom and found it to be in the mouth of a Crappie ... and yeah, I was as surprised as you !!

The Crappie in your bottom pic looks to be a male in tux, either just getting started looking for a nesting site or finished guarding & starting to fade out the tux colors. :dono

Good Job on your Crappie catching & Luck2ya on future adventures !!

Awesome. Sounds like a really good enjoyable time on the water. Good job. Thanks for sharing

As the old saying goes ... You never know until you try something new to see what will happen ... Looks like you are on your way to learning how to catch these critters that we all like to do .. Good pictures and post

Looks like a good trip and a good time.

Time on the water is the best teacher. You’re doing just fine and you picked a good teacher. Richard Gene is a lesson every time you turn him on.

rig up a pencil float above that there red and white jig and or whatever is a bright color and fan cast the shoreline
drag it back to you really really slowly ....set it about 18 inches deep and hit real close to the waters edge at the bank
work the shoreline very slowly , if they are on beds , some big ones will be in the mix is my guess
KABOOM

Great post and congratulations

Tried again last week while out camping. We had a serious cold front come through and probably messed everything up. Water visibility was less than a foot. I actually had the kayak out once in 30mph winds! I’ll never do that again! But I wanted to fish so I tried it from shore. I tied on a 1/6oz Roostertail so I could get some casting distance and depth. Caught no crappies, but this 18” channel cat thought it looked tasty. That was a fight on a light rod with 4 pound line! He peeled line off against the drag for several minutes before he got tired and I was finally able to land him. For me this is as much of a success as anything as it is teaching me to handle larger, stronger fish on light line. I haven’t used 4 pound line since the 90’s and it was only one time. I snapped it off twice on the same bass back then before switching rods to one with 8 pound line and finally catching that fish and getting two of my hooks back that were stuck in his face. I never used 4 pound line again after that, until now. So this was a good learning experience.

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Beats work any day of the week!

Tried again today in a lake we all call the dead sea, it is Greenbo Lake in Kentucky. Water is ultra clear there and you can see bottom even in 15-20 feet deep areas. Today it was just a little cloudy so visibility was only about 6-7 feet before the bait faded out. Normally whenever I go there I always bass fish in this lake and never do well. It has huge bass in it but they won’t hit any baits I have. Today though, I was panfishing. Didn’t even take any of my bass gear. I actually caught fish too. Started out using the BPS Crappie Maxx Quick Tip rod. I hooked a crappie on a 1/32oz jig and 1” grub with the tail trimmed to look like a beaver tail. The hook was tipped with a tiny little Berkley Gulp Alive Minnow. I hooked into it quicky after I got there, but it came off before I landed it. I fished that area for awhile looking for more of them but had no more hits so I moved on. Then later I caught a small green sunfish on the same jig. Switched to a Strike King Bitsy Minnow crankbait on the Sam Heaton rod and caught another green sunfish, and also a fair sized bluegill. That one was big enough to eat but I tossed it back since I was almost out of time and wasn’t prepared to keep fish yet anyway.

What I learned is that I might just have a good panfishing lake right here close by. It’s just 20 minutes from my house. As many times as I went there for bass and never did any good, I go there once for panfish and in less than 2 hours I manage to catch three fish on Memorial Day weekend with people everywhere. There’s rainbow trout in that lake too, they stock them several times a year. Also learned that these two rods are incredibly sensitive. I felt the strike on that jig with slack line when the fish sucked it in. I had casted it and was letting it sink. There were still some limp line curls on the surface when one fish sucked it in and I felt that through the line and rod to my hand. I have to give some credit to the line. It is BPS Crappie Maxx 4 pound mono. I don’t know if it’s so sensitive just due to line size on light rods and what I’m doing with it, or if these rods are really just that good. They’re inexpensive rods so I’m thinking they’re not super special, but they do seem to be very good for me. Also this is just mono line. Nothing special. I’m used to 8 pound Berkley Trilene XL for bass fishing and I use that on a St. Croix Premier, and have had it on numerous other graphite rods over the years and it has never been as sensitive as what these crappie rods seem to be. I tried several baits on the Sam Heaton rod, a jig with an elbow spinner blade (basically making a beetle spin), the Bitsy Minnow crankbait, and a Crappie Magnet Fin Spin, and I can feel every vibration of the blades, everything the baits come in contact with, and the fish strikes. I kind of figured a cork handle would dampen the vibrations but it doesn’t do that at all. The Quick Tip rod is just as sensitive, it’s the one I felt the strike on that jig through slack line.

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Originally Posted by The Rooster

Tried again today in a lake we all call the dead sea, it is Greenbo Lake in Kentucky..

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Uhh, no ... sorry, Rooster nonono The original "Dead Sea" lake is Herrington Lake. I heard it called that back in the early 1960's and people were calling it that well before I was even born. :biggrin

Great write-up — sounds like a solid day on the water! I’m just getting into crappie fishing too and also found Richard Gene’s stuff super helpful. Love how you adapted that grub into a beaver tail style — clever move in murky water. That Fin Spin's been a winner for me too, especially when fan casting. And yeah… nothing like picking up your line and finding a surprise crappie on the other end 😄 Tight lines, and looking forward to hearing how your next trip goes!