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Welcome to Crappie Fishing 101 ~ For Newbies (Continued)


Reason # 4 ~ Failing to Understand How to Properly Locate Crappies.
Reason # 5 ~ Failing to Understand How to Properly Attack Crappies.

Quick Review: In my previous post I said that biology, migration and environment are the basic elements that you absolutely must
consider when laying your foundation for everything else… whether you are just learning to fish for crappies, or whether you have been
doing it for a long time, because these three factors deal primarily with the natural or instinctive behaviors of crappies and tend to
determine more than anything else where crappies will be located and what they might be doing at any given time of the year.
(See “Crappie Fishing 101 ~ for Newbies ~ Reasons # 1 through # 3”).

Now that you better understand biological, migratory and environmental facts about crappies; it’s time to talk for the first time
about some of the skills that you must have to find, pattern and catch more crappies.

Just for fun let’s pretend that your boat is an Apache Attack Helicopter with the same ability to travel and search as this
infamous military gunship has… but using your outboard, your electronics and your trolling motor the same way the Apache uses its
powerful engine, huge rotors and state of the art electronics to search out and attack it’s targets. Your first job as pilot of your craft is
to quick scan the areas that we have already talked about in previous Crappie Fishing 101 Series, considering such things as… at this time
of year… with water temperatures in the upper 60’s… some crappies are going to be relatively shallow and others will have started easing
back along structure and looking toward deeper water.





You should always begin your search along structure features using outboard power and slowing your speeds inside of bays and
tributaries and well toward the banks at or near idle speeds making many slow sweeping turns back and forth toward the deeper
water structure until you start to see decent concentrations of crappies.



Once you see the fish on your electronics you’ll need to mark the spots by dropping marker buoys along the structure or cover features or by
setting waypoints if you have GPS and perhaps something like an I-Pilot trolling system. You also need to consider how deep the fish are
showing in the water column because that (of course) is the depth that you want to target with your presentations as well. Always try to
locate the best concentrations of fish as you possibly can and don’t be afraid to abandon or pass on an area if it is not holding the fish
concentrations that you hope to see… try not to waste time in unproductive areas.

Remember, once you locate fish and lock on with your electronics or mark an area with buoys, your next job is to deploy the trolling
motor and whatever weaponry you have chosen for the conditions.



The Apache helicopter certainly has the awesome capability to bring total devastation to the entire area and almost certain assurance
that the target has been thoroughly taken out. Since you are limited, however, by your prime directives as a responsible crappie fisherman as
well as your duty to be a good steward of the environment and our natural resources to always do things like protecting the young and undersized,
taking only your legal limit of keepers and not wasting any useable meat; I might take this opportunity to urge that refrain from using the hellfire
missiles and cluster bombs and perhaps urge you to go instead with the spider rigs or long-line rigs using jigs and minnows and commit to making your
very best attempt at a complete and total sweep of the targeted area using your trolling motors skills and your chosen mode of bait presentation.





Now let’s touch on trolling motor skills and again how these things might compare to the Apache helicopter and its abilities to search, hover and
maneuver. If you could take away the water and see the way your boat suspends over the lake bottom and/or structure and cover features it would
be clear to you why I even make this comparison to a helicopter in the first place. I personally hardly ever anchor when fishing for crappies
because I would much rather cover more area and be constantly moving along structure or cover.



Once I find the structure or cover feature where the fish are holding I gear my trolling motor assault to work into the prevailing wind. Even
if the feature, such as a creek channel, might run across the prevailing wind… I can usually still work the area thoroughly by making a zigzagging approach
back and forth across the feature allowing the wind to blow me backwards once my forward progress has crossed well over the targeted feature.



I always steer (both) my forward and backward progress in such a way that I am covering the targeted feature completely in whatever direction I have decided.
I often hover for extended periods over a spot if I’m hitting frequent bites or catching bigger fish. I always know that I need to watch my buoy markers or suggest
that you watch your map screen if you have high tech ‘navionics’ to assure that you are making these passes in accordance with the structure feature and that
you are progressing in the direction that you need to along the target line.



If the wind is too strong to fish the ‘confined open water’ areas of the main lake or maneuver along the structure of cover feature you should abandon
these areas and seek other features that are perhaps more sheltered from the howling winds.



Thanks for reading this article and I hope along with the biological, migratory and environmental facts that we covered previously; it will provide you
with something that might help you to better find, pattern and catch more crappies. I also wanted to give a shout out and my thanks to the original poster
who originally compared crappie fishing to flying a helicopter… who actually inspired this post… but I was unable to find the post again. If anyone knows… or if
the original poster sees this thread topic… please let me know. Thanks for the great idea and very appropriate comparison.

I wish you all the best of luck until next time, and may God bless you. Thumbs Up Thumbs Up Thumbs Up

Special K