Fall Crappies from North to South
One of America’s most sought-after panfish is the crappie, which puts up a nice fight and can be caught in bunches when you find them. From north to south, they are targeted by anglers looking for fun and to fill their freezers with these tasty filets. Fall months and into winter can be some of the best fishing of the year.
Wisconsin guide Jeff Evans and professional bass angler Mark Rose from Arkansas are many miles apart and frequent vastly different fisheries, but they are united in their fondness for fall crappie fishing.
Evans guides clients looking for some late season open water action and Rose uses this time to unwind and regroup after a long bass tournament season. The ways they target them vary slightly, but each arrive at the same result by catching plenty of crappie.
Deep Basins in the North
As winter begins to creep in, Evans and other anglers in the northern states head to the deeper basins to chase crappie. It’s part of their annual migration to wintering areas and can provide some fantastic fishing.
“Late in the season, as the days shorten and the water starts to cool down into the 50s and 60s, the crappie will start to move into the main lake basins, especially the mud basins,” Evans shared. “The crappie that head out there start feeding on bloodworms coming out of the bottom. The best depth ranges are between 20 and 30 feet of water, as this is where crappie spend their winter. Ice anglers would benefit from extra fall fishing so they can locate where these schools of crappie are because they won’t be far when ice forms.”
Locating these schools is something that’s done with the help of his electronics. “You have to trust your electronics this time of year, and once you find them, it’s going to be very obvious,” he said. “I’m looking for fat, short blobs on the graph that are very close to the bottom. You don’t want to start fishing until you see bunches of them; seeing one or two is not worth stopping on, and you want your screen to just light up with them.”
Fishing in deeper water can be tough on fish with the barotrauma when pulling them in. Evans stresses the importance of only catching what you need. “If you’re going to catch enough for a meal or a limit, once you do that, you have to accept that and be done instead of continuing to catch them,” he said. “That can be hard when they are still biting, but it’s rough on the fish and they’re not going to live when you release them. I like to keep the fish in the 10 to 11-inch range and let the bigger ones go. Then, once we get as many as we need, we can chase other species.”
To catch these fall crappie, Evans and his clients rely on a tried-and-true rig with a slip bobber and small jig. “Slip bobber fishing is a staple for crappie and we fish small plastics and fish it just off of the bottom because most of the fall, they are going to be really close to the bottom,” he said. “We rig it so it’s about six inches off the bottom with a 1/64-ounce jighead, most of the time with a small plastic bait, mainly small tube baits."
As for colors, he keeps it simple. "I’ve tried all kinds of colors and it always seems to come back to pink and white, no matter what lake we’re on," Evans said. "To keep our bait down, we use a 1/8-ounce egg sinker, a barrel swivel, and a 1/8-ounce slip bobber that is counterbalanced so it barely floats, because a lot of times they hardly bite, and when one just breathes on it, that bobber will move.”
Evans uses a 6-foot, 10-inch ultralight 13 Fishing Defy rod with a 1000-size Daiwa spinning reel and spools it with 20 lb Seaguar Smackdown braided line. From his barrel swivel to the jig, he opts for a 12-inch section of 8 lb Seaguar Gold Label fluorocarbon.
“Smackdown is a great braided line that really holds the slip knot for the bobber very well, it sticks where I want it to stick and won’t slide up,” he said. “Gold Label is a great fluorocarbon leader and the ultimate for finesse fishing. It’s thin, flexible, and does everything I want to line these shy fish, which can get pretty goofy at times.”
Rose’s Love of Crappie Goes Way Back
After a long season of following the Major League Fishing Bass Pro Tour across the country, Rose likes to go fishing for crappie. It’s something that he’s loved since a young age.
“It all started with my granddad, who would take me crappie fishing and always knew some little magic spot we could pull in and catch a bunch of them,” he said. “I’ve gotten a lot more advanced since then, and it’s no longer a cane pole and a minnow. Don’t get me wrong, I’d still do that if that’s what it took, but now our equipment and electronics have gotten so much better.”
During the fall months and well into the winter, Rose’s best approach is open water around schools of baitfish. This is where the crappie congregate, and he relies heavily on his electronics to find them.
“All summer it’s a lot of fishing around brush piles because that’s where the shad are, but when they start to move and stack up in open water, the crappie will follow, and the colder it gets, the better they will bite,” he said. “Those balls of shad and crappie will start to roam around in open water, and following them with your electronics is the best way to stay on them. It’s a lot like bass fishing during the fall and winter for me.”
Rose’s go-to setup is a chartreuse 1/16-ounce jighead with a blue glimmer Strike King Lightning Shad. He fishes it on a 6-foot, 6-inch medium light Lew’s Custom Light Rod and CL 100 reel spooled with 12 lb Seaguar PE-X8 braid with a 6 lb Seaguar Tatsu fluorocarbon leader.
“If you told me I had to go catch a crappie right now, that’s the bait I’d have tied on no matter what lake it was,” he said. “I’ve started using the smallest pound test they make in PE-X8, and it’s incredibly thin to get the jig down quickly and be stealthier. As forward-facing sonar has evolved, everyone’s got the same thing, and you are often fishing around other boats, so your line can make a big difference. Going down to a very thin braided line and fluorocarbon is needed when things get tough, especially if you have to downsize to an even smaller jighead because of the fishing pressure.”
Rose sees more parallels to crappie and bass fishing and relies on his forward-facing sonar to stay on the fish. It’s also taught him a lot about fish behavior and getting fish to bite, something that has also helped him in his bass fishing.
“One of the biggest mistakes I see people doing with their crappie jigs is to go up and down with it too much; they bring it up and then let it fall back down quickly, and a shad doesn’t swim like that,” he reasoned. “Crappie, especially, are always looking up to feed, so you want the jig to stay above the fish. You’ll catch more fish casting past them and keeping the bait steadily above them instead of dropping the bait right in the middle of them. A shad is always going to be trying to stay away from danger.”
No matter where you live, chances are there is a good crappie bite happening nearby. As one of America’s most sought-after gamefish, now is the time to get in on the fall bite in deeper water. From slip bobbers to chasing them with forward-facing sonar, there are many different ways to target these tasty fish that are also very fun to catch
Seaguar Tatsu Fluorocarbon mainline is available from 4 to 25 lb tests on 200- and 1,000-yard spools.
Seaguar Gold Label Fluorocarbon leader is available in 25- and 50-yard spools in 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 lb tests for freshwater use, complementing the 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 80 lb test leaders available for saltwater.
Seaguar Smackdown Braid is available in high-visibility Flash Green and low-visibility Stealth Gray. It is available in 150- and 300-yard spools in sizes ranging from 10 to 65 lb tests.
Seaguar PEX8 Micro Braid is available in 200-meter spools (219 yards) and comes in 12, 16, 18, 21, 24, and 33 lb tests. (This is a micro-thin braid. Please check line diameter when selecting product.)