Winter Crappie Fishing Guidelines

Many crappie fishermen hang up their rods during the cold winter months, winterize their boats and sit back patiently waiting for spring. Alternatively, quite a bit of profitable fishermen continue to fish for crappie all winter long, and for great cause: discovering crappie in the winter may be easier than it truly is within the spring and summer season.

To locate winter crappie, use your depth finder to look for submerged creek and river channels in 15 to 40 feet of water. What you're looking for is brush or submerged trees along these channels. Crappie is going to be holding someplace in or about that cover. Crappie, like bass and most other species, virtually usually stage close to some kind of cover, and they appear to choose brush-piles or submerged trees as their cover of decision. Underwater ledges subsequent to deeper channels may possibly also be holding a handful of crappie, if there is certainly some sort of cover nearby. If a warm front comes through and the temperatures rise to get a few days, crappie may well begin to move up to flats along the creek channels. If that takes place, you might would like to go back to slow-trolling, as the fish is going to be more spread out.

Frequently throughout the winter, wind can be a dilemma for fishermen. In the event you have a very good trolling motor, it is possible to preserve your boat positioned over the cover and drop jigs into and around it. I hate fighting the wind, so I typically use an anchor to maintain my boat exactly where I want it. When I come across the cover on my depth finder, I will drop a marker buoy over it, then decide the wind direction. I circle the boat around, and when I am upwind and off for the side on the buoy, quietly drop my anchor. When it hits bottom, I let the boat drift alongside the marker buoy, then tie off the anchor rope. I will then have the ability to concentrate additional on fishing than regularly repositioning the boat.

Now that I'm in position, I am able to fish. But what bait do I use? Modest, lightweight jigs is the answer. Keep in mind that in the cold water, the crappie are moving slower, and they aren't going to chase a lure really far. So use light jigs and fish them slow. Use a 1/8 or lighter jig on a lightweight or medium-light rod, and when you noted any fish in your depth finder, drop the jig just more than them and be ready for a strike. Move the jig gradually up and down, or use very light twitches. You won't get the aggressive strikes like you do in the spring and summer season, typically you can only feel a slight tug and even just slightly stress. This can be exactly where the light tackle comes in. Light-weight rods and four to six pound test line will enable you to really feel these subtle strikes. Should you know the crappie are there, and your jigs are just not working, try adding a crappie nibble or when you can, tip it with a little minnow. That may visit us occasionally entice a strike from finicky fish. In some cases you can use a bobber to keep your jig in position, but normally this time of year the crappie are also deep for bobber-fishing to be sensible.

Marabou and feather-type jigs can be incredibly effective for winter crappie, along with "umbrella" kind jigs. The slower rate-of-fall seems to become the trick with these. Whatever type of jig you select, just keep in mind to fish it pretty slow.

On a clear, sunny day use light colored jigs, and on cloudy days you can go using a darker color, but I choose a white, yellow, light green or chartreuse color. The exact same rule applies to water clarity, in clear water use very light colors or even clear with some sparkle. In stained water, use a darker green or chartreuse. You'll find numerous distinctive colour variations nowadays it may be overwhelming attempting to pick the "perfect" colour. with colors like "bayou booger", "firecracker", "woodpecker" and "electric chicken", everyone currently seems to have a diverse favourite. The way I do it really is attempt a couple of distinctive color combinations at first, fishing with 3 or four separate rods, and when I appear to become catching far more crappie on a specific color, stick with that colour.

When ice fishing for crappie, fish over the deeper brush piles you found within the spring, summer or fall. The crappie will be holding tight to this cover, Their decrease metabolism inside the cold water signifies they won't venture far from it when foraging for food. This also means that they may generally readily inhale a jig after they see it, not passing up an chance for any morsel of nutrition. The trick right here is, in the event you catch several crappie and after that the bite stops, move and drill an additional hole over one more brush pile.

In the dead of winter, in February for example, you might discover that the crappie have moved to even deeper water, and are staged along the edges of the deeper channels. In these locations, they may typically suspend just a foot or two off of your bottom. Once they are this deep, I have had fantastic accomplishment employing a bottom rig. Tie on

a barrel swivel at the finish of your line. Then tie on a 3 foot section of line having a bass casting sinker or a cannonball sinker on the other finish in the swivel. Generally a 3/4 ounce sinker will do, but if there is much more existing you are going to need to use a heavier one particular. Then tie on a 1 or two foot section of line around the swivel using a hook and minnow at the finish, or even a jig tipped using a minnow or crappie nibble. Drop this straight down beneath the boat, and when it hits bottom, reel up just a smidgen. I've caught properly more than 50 crappie in one particular spot working with this process, in just a few hours.

In case you are applying any of these methods and are catching a whole lot of crappie, but all of them are modest and not keeper size, visit a larger jig. Sometimes the larger fish will only strike at larger baits, letting the tiny guys eat up the compact stuff. If I am catching nothing at all but small ones, I will switch to two inch jigs. Normally that may get the "bigguns" to react.

I hope that by utilizing these winter crappie strategies you could go out and catch your self a good "mess" of crappie, just recall to adhere to the game and fish laws, slot limits, everyday limits, etc. A further factor to try to remember is to bring sufficient clothes for the temperature, keeping the wind chill element in thoughts. You do not wish to be miserable when out on the water, and also you can constantly take off a layer of clothes in case you get also warm. Check the climate forecast ahead of you go, pay interest for the wind speed, and dress accordingly.