Hot Cure for the Curious Crappie
Fever
By the On Ice Tour with Gord Ellis
We outdoors types are fond
of big things. We like big trucks and boats. Our boots are big and
many of us hunt for big animals. When it comes to fishing, well,
bigger is also usually better: Musky, pike and largemouth?
They're all pretty big, or can be. Which is why it's so
interesting that winter crappie fishing is such a phenomenon. Big
they're not. Crappie average ten inches and usually weigh less
than a pound.
A 14-inch crappie is usually considered a monster. Crappie is a
goofy name. What's up with that? They do, however, eat very
well. In fact, I'd put them ahead of perch, bluegill and (gasp)
walleye. So perhaps it's ultimately our big appetites that have
really won somany of us to the side of crappie. Fishing for
crappie is not difficult, but there are a few tricks that will
help put more fish in your Trap this winter.
Crappie
fishing and buying real estate are all about the same thing:
location; location; location. Choosing the right lake or pond to
fish (at the right time) is simply critical. But what do you look
for? The classic "natural" crappie lake - with a mix of rock,
weed, sand and reasonably deep water - is not always the best
choice. Fishing for crappie in natural lakes tends to be
spotty. There are often prolonged periods of inactivity, often
due to year class strength, the availability of forage and oxygen
levels.
Winter crappies in natural
lakes are typically found in 15 to 30 feet of water but they can
and will go much deeper. Sabaskong Bay, on Lake of the Woods, is
a favorite winter crappie hang out and a popular destination for
many Minnesota and Dakota based anglers. Those Sabaskong fish like
to suspend over deep water, and can be spotted on a
flasher holding 4 to 8 feet off bottom over 40 feet. Once the
crappies are located, anglers move their shacks right over them
and stay there for weeks.
There may be no species of
fish better suited for the use of electronics through the ice
than crappie. Because suspended crappies are oftentimes the
biters, you really need to have a set of eyes under the water
telling you precisely were the fish are. If you fish below a
school of crappie, they'll rarely bite. But when you know where
they are, you can tease them into striking by pulling the bait up
above them and then dropping it back down. Like a kid, the crappie
doesn't like when an easy snack is pulled away from its nose.
It's a game of cat and mouse that is both enjoyable and effective
but requires the use of a sonar unit to carry out properly. When
searching for crappies, a four-color flasher like the Vexilar FL-8
is one of the modern ice angler’s best friend and tool for the
job. It can show you depth, fish, your lure, bottom composition,
and structure with incredible accuracy. When you get really good
with one, you can anticipate the strike of a crappie moments
before you feel it.
Another important, fish
locating tool that should be included in every serious crappie
angler’s arsenal is an underwater camera. For suspended fish
especially, Aqua Vu’s DT series teamed with an Ice Pod is the
ticket. With Depth-Tech and Direct-Tech, the camera gives the
angler a digital read-out of how deep the camera is and in which
direction it is looking, thus pinpointing the location of the
fish. Sink a few holes, set up the Ice Pod and drop the camera
down. With a twist of the cable you can rotate the lens until you
locate suspended fish. Then it’s as easy as drilling on top of
them and dropping a lure down to the depth that they’re at.
When the suspended
crappies turn off, it's often the bottom dwellers that bite, and
fishing right on bottom is the way to go. In this situation using
a flasher with a bottom zoom feature to reveal these bottom
huggers, such as Vexilar’s FL-18, can really make a difference.
Dark water flowages and
reservoirs often have excellent crappie populations and more
consistent action than natural lakes. One of the key areas in a
flowage is flooded or drowned timber. Wood laden spots are crappie
magnets, attracting aggressive crappies all year.
In some flowages,
especially where time has depleted the timber, anglers have sunk
old Christmas trees or brush piles to create or rejuvenate
crappie-holding structure. Crappie holding flowages are not
created equal, however. Smaller flowages have fewer fish and can
be easily "fished down" ( a fancy term for pulling a pile of fish,
and eventually disseminating the school) by persistent anglers.
Huge flowages of 5,000 acres or better are more difficult for
crappie anglers to crack and can be affected adversely by water
draw down periods, turbidity and shaky ice thickness.
The in-between flowages of
1,000 or 2,000 acres are perfect for crappie fishing and
generally hold excellent numbers of fish with the chance at the
occasional slab. Small bodies of water like ponds, sloughs, river
backwaters and small lakes are especially good crappie fishing
spots at first ice. These small waters can get safe ice as
early as the middle of November, providing the keen angler good
action when the larger lakes are still fluid. Most ponds are rich
with food and weed, and this provides the possibility of big fish
in a small area. Look for the deepest water in a small lake or
pond and then work from there. Small waters tend to become more
difficult to fish as the winter wears on due to oxygen
depletion.
Crappies are relatively small fish, so it’s wise to use light
tackle. There are a variety of good light-action ice fishing rods
out there, but the best of the factory sticks are the Berkley Dave
Genz Signature Lightning Rods. The 28 inch light action Genz rod
is perfect for crappie, while the 29-inch will work, and can do
double duty as a light walleye rod. Join either rod with a small
spinning reel like the Abu-Garcia Agenda and spool it up with a
limp, 3 or 4-pound test monofilament with low visability, such as
Berkley Trilene Micro-Ice line.
If you're chasing slabs in
deeper and/or wood-infested water, where lines need smaller
diameters, more sensitivity and the strength to pull lures from
the snags; you might want to consider using one of the new
superlines such as Berkely’s Fireline Micro Ice as your main
connection. If the crappies are being fickle, tie a barrel swivel
on the main line and then attach a two-foot section of 4 to 10
pound test Berkley Vanish. The fluorocarbon line is virtually
invisible to fish and will increase the number of bites.
Winter crappie fishing is primarily a jigging game. The best
crappie jigs are those that ride horizontally and imitate
minnows. Great choices are: Lindy’s Techni-Glo Genz Worm and Fat
Boys and Northland’s Fire Eye Minnow and Forage Minnow Fry in
Super-Glo colors. Your jig collection should range from size 2 to
size 8, but you can go as small as size 10 for finicky fish.
For baiting, add a couple wax worms or Euro larvae (colored
maggots) to the lure. At times a 1-inch white Power Grub will be
all you need to do the trick. Speaking of tricks, try one I
learned from my son Austin; cover the shank of the hook with
Berkley Power Wigglers or Crappie Nibbles, then tail hook a couple
of wax worms or euro larvae for a very tempting presentation that
Austin calls: "double power"! This technique works well with
verticle riding lures such as Northland’s Jiggle Bug or Lindy’s
Frostee Jig.
Crappie will also hit
noisy jigging spoons like the Lindy Rattl’r Spoon and Northland’s
Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon in 1/16 to 1/4 ounce sizes. The addition of
a minnow head to the treble will increase the number of strikes.
Since you can fish two lines, try dead sticking a small minnow on
a single hook and fishing it close to the bottom. Dead sticking
employs a very whippy rod placed in a holder. Watch for the tip to
signal a strike, wait for the rod to slightly load up and then set
the hook and reel them in. Most of my largest crappies have come
on a dead stick.
Don’t forget that crappies love lures that really glow. Blast
your glow jigs and spoons with a Lindy Tazer or a Northland Glo
Buster to really get it beaming.
Don't jig aggressively for
crappie; just wiggle your bait lightly in front of the fish.
Tapping your index finger on the rod blank will provide a subtle
vibration to the jig. Crappie bites will be relatively soft and
are sometimes almost imperceptible. That's
were a slip float comes in. A slip float allows you to suspend a
lure in deep water, but more importantly, it signals even the
wimpiest bite. I prefer the Northland Lite Bite or Thill’s
Mini-Stealth, Center Sliders and Ice‘n Fly Special floats for this
type of presentation.
If you're on a school of
"Gulpers" (On Ice Terminology for fish that are chompin’) the
float will plunge on the strike. Other times, the float will
jiggle, dip slightly or even move upwards in the water (also known
as: a lift bite). All these actions register a strike. Lift softly
on the rod or better yet, just reel up on the fish and keep
reeling until it's out of the hole.
Crappie may be the all
round best winter sport fish. They bite well all season long and
they're one of the easiest fish to catch for anglers of all ages.
Because they are forage fish that propagate and replenish
themselves quickly, at the end of a long day on the ice, you can
keep enough for a fresh family feed without any qualms. Fry them
up crispy with some potatoes and a side order of beans and you
will be hooked for life. That's a piping hot cure for the curious
crappie fever.
Editor’s Note:
On Ice Tour, co-founded by Chip Leer and Tommy Skarlis, is an
extensive effort focusing on generating excitement for the great
sport of ice fishing. For more articles, fishing tips, info on
the latest and greatest ice gear or a schedule of On Ice Tour Pro
Staff appearances, log onto
www.onicetour.com Gord Ellis is a freelance writer from
Thunder Bay Ontario and pro-staff member for the On Ice Tour.
