Autumn is one of the best and most overlooked times to catch crappie. The fish congregate in relatively shallow water, often in spots that are easy to find, and fishing pressure tends to be light.
Fall crappie often pile up on specific pieces of cover, typically over points that stretch into deeper water or close to channel breaks. They move shallow during the season’s warmest days and drop deeper during cold fronts. Rows of stumps, brushpiles, bridge pilings and docks are all apt to hold fish.
Once you locate crappie or cover that looks like it should hold crappie, one of the best ways to catch fish or find out who is home is to cast a YUM panfish bait over the cover, “count the offering down” to the likely strike zone and begin reeling back slowly. YUM 1.5-inch Wooly Curltails and Wooly Beavertails and 2-inch VibraKing Tubes all work well for this approach.
Before you begin looking for fish, you’ll have to do a little research. Rig the bait you plan to use on a 1/16-ounce leadhead, position the boat over a known depth and let your bait drop to the bottom, counting as it falls. Do this several times over a variety of depths until know with confidence how far your bait falls in a second. Armed with that info, you’re equipped to count that bait down to any depth.
If you plan to mix up body styles or leadhead sizes, do your “research” with each combination, and take a few notes that you can refer to, if necessary. Be sure to do your tests with the same line size you will be using as fall rates will vary.
If a brushpile on a break line is in 12 feet of water and comes up a couple feet from the bottom, try counting your lure down to 10 feet. You may get hung a time or two, but the crappie are likely to be close to the branches. Sometimes they’ll suspend above cover this time of year, though, so try a few casts with shorter counts before you move on.
When you do catch fish, always take note of the count. Chances are good that you’ll soon find a common count that produces the most strikes, and the highest yielding count is apt to be the same all over the lake.
If you’re fishing with a buddy, start the day with different body styles. Wooly Curltails, Wooly Beavertails and VibraKing Tubes each offer a unique profile and action, and the fish’s preferences will vary daily. Likewise try different colors. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out whether the bait, the color or the depth is the key, but in time the pattern tends to reveal itself.
One thing you don’t need to vary is your retrieve. Crappie don’t like a lot of hopping, and pausing the retrieve will throw off your depth control. Count the bait down, reel back slowly, and set the hook with a flip of your wrist whenever a crappie strikes.