Todd Huckabee’s rod was rigged exactly like mine, and our rod tips were nearly touching as he used the trolling motor to hold us over fish. Still, Huckabee was pulling in two or three 
crappie for each one of mine, so decided I needed to watch him more closely and do my best to mimic his every motion.
We were dippin’, which is Huckabee’s signature long-rod technique for fishing any water that’s less than about 10 feet deep. In the most basic sense, he puts out a set length of line from his rod tip and "dips" his bait straight below, targeting cover, structure or schools of baitfish – all places where he expects to find big crappie.
Huckabee’s normal bait of choice is a YUM 2-inch Wooly Beavertail. His No. 1 color is Black Pink. When the baitfish are very small or the crappie are unusually fussy, Huckabee will downsize to 1 ½ inch Wooly Beavertails. Other days, the fish show a preference to YUM Vibra King Tubes or Wooly Curltails.
As I began studying Huckabee’s technique, the biggest thing I begin noticing was that his presentations were ever-changing. While I tend to fall into a simple cadence of twitching the rod tip a couple of times and then letting it rest a few seconds before twitching again, Huckabee continually changes what he is doing with his rod tip.
Sometimes he lifts the rod slowly a foot or two at a time and then lowers the bait with a tight line, moving the rod just as slowly. Other times, he shifts the rod tip from side to side, with zero vertical motion. Still other times he holds the rod perfectly still but moves the line ever so slightly with his index finger. And then there are the traditional twitches, the circles, the periods of no motion…
As I mimicked each presentation, I could visualize all the different things my Wooly Beavertail had to be doing and realized I’d been selling my crappie offerings short. Proving the point, my catch rate began to pick up. Intrigued, I began quizzing Huckabee and was interested to learn that neither "patterning" nor prevailing conditions were part of his thought process.
"I constantly change my presentation," he said. "Six fish might want it six different ways – all in the same day and with nothing else changed."
Huckabee concentrates of finding the best locations and uses lures he knows catch crappie. Then he mixes up the delivery until he persuades the fish to bite.
I learned a lot that afternoon and definitely picked up my catch rate. I never caught up with Huckabee, but all the observation and imitation in the world won’t teach you to feel subtle strikes and set the hook like a pro.
You can bet that next time I’m out dippin’ for crappie, I’ll be mixing up presentations like Huckabee himself. I hope to see you out there, mixing it up and bringing them in!