crappie question

[1timothy1]

yesterday am and late last night  i went out  and i was marking fish all the time but they would come up  to bait and sit there for bit or go back right down what did i do wrong       

[river_scum]

neutral mood. good time to try beemoths when they wont go on minnows(assuming thats what you were using). sometimes swimming horizontally around the hole or back n forth triggers them too, when vertical wont. gotta figure them out, thats why we love fishing. 

[Weskimo1]

If they are coming to the bait, but not biting it, sounds like they are interested.  I had lookers on the bottom the other day, just hanging and not biting... started jigging a foot to two foot off the bottom, and they came up fast and hit it with purpose...good luck!

[Jigmup]

Welcome to my experience this weekend perch jerking!

[RoeBoat]

I've experienced a similar bite a few times this year.  One of the thing that I found to work for me was fishing two hooks.  I've been using a lead or tungsten jig low with bait and fishing a bait-less fly (Bricker Bug) above it.  Many times I will get lookers on the bottom bait and eventually a more aggressive fish will raise and take fly.

[bryan62]

Welcome to the game of Crappie fishing!! You just have to continue to work on them till you find something that works. Sometimes you won't.

[walleyepac]

Make sure you use a glow jig and don't be afraid to supercharge it often, preferably a rocker style( has been working well for me) tipped(barely) with a spike,wax or mousee, that is if your fishing with a jig

[Fishslayer81]

take the bait off...yesterday I went out for a few hours and started with a #14  pink zebra muscle jig tipped with a spike. I caught a small crappie, a few small gills, and 1 bass. So I switched to a #14 blue/silver thread wrap bricker fly with no bait and the crappies started nailng it.

[wax_worm]

Keep raising the bait to play on their predator instinct.   Sometimes you can have them follow 10 ft or more before hitting the lure.  Sometimes once the lure stops moving or stops rising, the fish lose interest.  If that does not work, change lures as mentioned above.  Sometimes a change from a vertical hangng jig to a horizontal one will make a huge difference.

[Rabidgupy]

When fish are attacking high keep your bait high no need to lower down to the dinks that cower below. You will always be in the strike range and nothing else is required. Most tie two hooks on because fish flying up to split shot. That's only because they are attacking the midge hatch or whatever else is going on. Many times I'm just three foot deep over 10 to 11 fow just depends.

[Backbay Gunner]

Change colors.

[Boomer]

I've seen many times at Salamonie where the bite is fast and furious then NOTHING until the evening bite. Didn't matter what you did - just keep at it. When they get hungry they will eat but if you are not fishing you will get nothing. Keep at it and good luck.

[1timothy1]

thanks for the info

[JimB]

Ran into the same thing the other day,so I put some Bioedge fish attractant in smelt scent.
They were attacking the lure after that.

[gruntngrin]

Welcome to my experience this weekend perch jerking!

No kidding, Hammered nice ones Sat but Sun and Mon All LOOKERS.

[Muddman2k]

Add a tail. As you raise up in a slow form it jiggles itself and turns the bite on. I'm will Wally light it up and add a tail.

[northrn-duck-assassin]

i like to use pink alot for crappie and also chartruese. but another tactic u can try is turning a 'looker' or 'sniffer' into a 'hot fish' basically triggering the fish and when they finally eat as a 'hot fish' there is no hesitation amd they whack it! now, as u are marking a fish and u begin to work the fish, never stop what u were doing to bring the fish in. keep the same action going but start a slow vertical lift, this could be numerous feet, if mark never becomes big and red while doing so, i drop my jig (a little faster than my rise lift) past the fish to get him to turn back to the jig once the fish turns back down i lift the jig back up past the fish and continue the lift, thus causing the fish to insue its predatory insticts and become 'hot' and tends to be a deadly tactic at times. but with all this being said, when crappie fishing i always make sure i have a dead stick rod going.

[MDeppe]

A few years ago a friend was laying it on me catching 5 to 1.  Instead of jigging the minnow on the way up as I was doing he was pulling up the bait slow and steady and jigging it on the way down.  I change my jigging pattern and it made the difference.  Sometimes it is the suttle things that make a difference.