Ice Fishing Tips -Check your local regulations! > Crappies

Frustrating

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Splattypus:
I've caught plenty of crappie on just a plain hook tipped with minnow (real is best, but plastics work as well, also on waxies both real or artificial), demon/moon jigs, horizontal jigs, small spoons of varying colors (wonderbread best).

Mostly on the fall, everywhere from a foot off the bottom to 6ft below the ice over 25ft of water. Definitely place your bait just above them, as pointed out.

When they're feeding, they'll hit about anything that they can get in their mouth, and where you find crappie you'll 9ftwn find some perch and bluegill nearby as well (and surely whatever eats them isn't far away either).

I primarily find the over holes in the middle of a plain at dusk and after dark, but have found them cruising between shelves and those holes in the plain during early afternoon, before they post up at their nighttime feeding spots.

Schools tend to go in circuits, you'll be onto the bite for 10-15 minutes, they'll move out for a little while, then come back for the next round. If you can figure out where they're moving (follow contours or structure) and you can hole hop and chase them around for hours. Good time.

They're the only species I can reliably catch on the ice, which is funny, because I cant catch them to save my life in open water (so I rarely try). Once you establish where to locate them, it's just a matter of finding the right bait and presentation for them. What works this week isn't guaranteed to work next, but you find trends.

I love panfishing through the ice, but I'm trying to get out more and broaden my horizons this year if I can get out with any consistency.

butcher:
Excellent post Splattypus!

Here’s a helpful hint for finding crappies in softwater season: cover as much water as you can quickly to locate active fish.

As you mentioned in your post, crappies school up but can move around and will turn on and off quickly. Therefore, it’s important not to spend too much time in one spot if the fish aren’t there or aren’t actively feeding.

The best way to deal with this in open water is to use fast-moving baits that cover a lot of water quickly.

My go-to lure for locating active crappies is a 1/8 to 1/4 oz roadrunner tipped with a 2-2.5” split tail plastic trailer or similar-sized tapered plastic minnow trailer:

https://www.fishusa.com/road-runner/

Beetle Spins work well too but my personal preference is for the road runners.

I can cover a LOT of water in just a few minutes with that bait. The lead head jig makes it easy to work in shallow or deep water and the teardrop spinner attracts fish from quite a distance as well.

Once you land a fish or two from a spot, you can anchor up and hit it hard with finess baits, crappie jigs, minnows etc. to get the less active fish in the school.

When they stop biting, pull anchor and start searching with the roadrunner again and repeat.

The roadrunners will catch just about anything from gills, perch, crappies and bass to larger toothy critters and trout as well.

And don’t worry about that bait being too big for crappies either. I have caught crappies on 1/2 oz spinnerbaits when bass fishing so a 3” bait is barely a snack for even a small crappie.

Good luck!

Butcher

Splattypus:


Wonderbread rattle spoon, tipped with gulp! Maggot (in red), suspended about midway in the column at about 18ft

This particular evening, they were hitting a more aggressive action on the jigging. While I caught others on different jigs tipped with different plastics, the biggest and most numbers came on this setup. Next week will probably be something totally different though

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