Crappie Report - 11.21.19

[shockley32]

Time to get out and catch some slabs!  The crappie are in a mixed pattern, still hanging on to the fall pattern while transitioning to the winter pattern.  Right now, you can catch your limit any way you want – standing timber, brush piles, channel edges or schools of shad.  We had two limits this morning in less than an hour.  Here are a few things to point you in the right direction:

Channel edges – fish 8’-20’ deep in 20’-30’ of water.  The fish are hanging out right on the edge of the channel around brush, logs or trees.  You can troll down the edge of the channel until you find a nice group of fish.  We were catching 4-6 nice 11”-13” crappie out of every school.  Make sure to stock up on jigs and jig heads, you’ll need plenty!

Schools of shad – Troll the channels along bluffs until you find schools of shad.  The fish are piled in and under the shad.  Typically, we catch 4-5 crappie before the school of shad moves on or bust up.  This is a lot of fun – and you hardly ever lose a jig!

Standing timber – The crappie are still holding to a fall pattern with standing timber.  You can catch them by vertical jigging or pitch and retrieve.  They are in 10’-30’ of water, anywhere from 4’-16’ deep.  As the water continues to cool with overnight temps hovering around freezing this bite will slowly begin to thaw. 

Brush piles – The crappie are stacked heavily around brush piles, both shallow and deep.  You can cast, count down and retrieve or vertical jig.  The depth you need to fish will depend on the pile.  Shallow piles in 10’-12’ of water are holding fish at 4’-8’ deep.  Deeper piles in 15’-30’ feet of water are holding fish at 14’-24’ feet deep. 

Set up: We have been using a quality Ascension crappie rod with 6 pound Seaguar fluorocarbon line.  For vertical jigging we always tie on 1/8^th oz jig head (sickle hook – man these things are sharp!), with a Crappie Slammers jig.  The best colors this past week have been Cotton Candy (a new color), Sunset, Toothpaste, Smoke Purple and glow chartreuse.  The jig styles that we been killing them on are Fat Shad, Shimmer Stix, and Lil’ Shad. 

Good luck – stop by the store and let us know how you do!  We always love it when our customers shad pictures of their success!

Brad

I AM Outdoors

[olfishead]

Great report and good to know that the crappie population is still good at Pomme and the Muskies aren't eating them all!!!!!

[shockley32]

Gotta watch out for those Muskie!!!!