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1"gulp minnow is good too for me
Good suggestions so far. Like just about every other fish that swims, crappie can be very finicky. Check with local fishermen and bait stores for the baits that work best on the lake you are fishing. Once you've determined the bait you are going to use, the next challenge is finding the fish. Crappies like to orient themselves to structure - particularly wood. If you can find brushpiles, stumps, weeds or other similar vertical structure near deeper water, that should hold fish. Crappies are nocturnal feeders so if you are going to fish for them, be prepared to fish at night or on overcast days. I catch 90% of my crappies between dusk and 2 hours after sunset. I'll also catch them at first light in the morning. Once the sun is up, it's difficult to get them to bite. The only time I fish on the bottom is during the day when crappies are inactive. They tend to hug the bottom on sunlit days. As you observed, crappies love to suspend in the water column when they are feeding. My favorite crappie lake has depths of 10-15 feet but I catch most of my fish just 3-4 feet below the ice most nights. If you look at a crappie, you'll notice that its eye are oriented at the top of its body. This means that their eyes are naturally pointed upwards. They see prey items above them but they are virtually blind to anything below them. This is really important to understand when you are targeting crappies. A crappie will strike a bait that is five feet above them but won't hit a bait that is sitting six inches below them - they simply can't see it. If you are using electronics and see fish suspended at 10 feet in 20 feet of water, drop your bait to about 12-13 feet or so - you'll want it hovering just above them. If you don't get a strike, drop it a foot or so but make sure it is always above them. If you do not have electronics, start jigging a couple of feet below the surface of the ice. Jig it there for five minutes or so. If no bites, drop it another two feet and jig for another five minutes. Repeat this process until you find the fish. Once you locate the depth of the fish, set all of your apparatus to that same depth. Crappies school in good numbers so where you find one, you'll usually find more. Slip bobbers are very good options for suspending baits at specific depths in deeper water so make sure you have some. If you are jigging, you may want to set a bobber stop on your line to mark the correct depth when you find fish. This will take the guess work out when you drop the bait after catching a fish.
You are going to get a lot of different answers depending on lake and time they fish. 17" is a trophy to me, I have seen a lot of 15"ers, but never even a 16", but that's the lakes I fish. Small Slender Spoons tipped with maggots all the way to a plain crappie minnow under a bobber work. Not much help but it depends on the day and the lake too much.Ches.
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Topic: What to use for Crappies? (Read 1359 times)
