Fish Flats for Fall & Winter Crappie Success

A fair number of things I hear go in one ear and out the other. Tell me a good fishing tip, though, and it gets deposited in my memory bank forever. A recent withdrawal from that bank occurred as I prepared to get on the water after several weeks of work had prevented me from doing so.

I had my sights set on nearby favorite destination, Oklahoma’s Fort Gibson Lake. A reconnaissance call the night before to fishing buddy Gary Rowe, a crappie expert on that fishery, revealed the fish were scattered on isolated cover in 8 to 12 feet. As he and I spoke, my phone dinged with catch images coming in from another reliable Oklahoma source, Mike Taylor. I called Mike next for details. He reported the bite was good on Okmulgee Lake, and he was finding that isolated pieces of cover were holding fish better than big brush piles. Bam, memory recall!

I had an instant flashback to my time spent with crappie guru Terry Blankenship on Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri a few years ago. On that morning’s drive to the ramp, Terry had excitedly shared how the fall-to-winter timeframe is one of his true favorites because crappie get shallow on pieces of cover on the flats and back into the creeks. He then backed up what he said, as we caught numbers and quality from areas littered with isolated stumps, logs on the bottom, and upward-branched laydowns.

“Such cover might not hold as many crappie in a single spot, but the places typically hold bigger fish. The quality of the fish and the high predictability of their being present are why I especially love November and December crappie fishing,” Blankenship explained.

I now have my own report to share after multiple successful trips in recent weeks. I’m confident you, too, can duplicate the seasonal success for similar situations on your crappie waters. Here are the details of three specific outings with my neighbor and a fellow crappie enthusiast, Leon Adams.

Conditions: For October, Fort Gibson Lake was below normal by a couple of feet due to the unusual absence of summer thunderstorms. Water temp was unseasonably high, still hanging in the 70s. Shad were plentiful all over the mid-lake area. Winds were light. It was sunny. Early morning temp was chilly in the upper 40s, but the day warmed to about 70.

Selected Area: We picked a main lake flat about the size of three football fields that lies protected from any river channel current because of its location downstream of a long point. The channel side of the flat is openly exposed to current from river, wind and boat traffic, but all three were lacking on our fishing day. The shoreline side of the flat has a distinctive breakline of 4 to 12 feet, with scattered cover right at the top of the break – mostly wood and some rock –with a few isolated pieces of wood along the edge where the bottom levels.

Fish Location: Shad were present from the surface to about 6 feet and were of all sizes from 1 to 4 inches. Pelicans and sea gulls were active in the area because of the baitfish activity. We caught most of our crappie suspended at about 6 feet over the edge of isolated cover in 12 feet of water.

Presentations: Leon is a cast and slow-reel guy, with extreme patience and a knack for the technique. I’ve always preferred to vertical jig or use a pitch and drag presentation. Our first hour of fishing found the crappie preferring horizontal bait movement. The cast and retrieve and the pendulum-swing methods that kept our baits moving across the upper parts of the cover produced best. Only a few catches were managed from near the bottom, and none came from the shallowest part of the break. The fish were clearly feeding “up” to the shad movement. As the shad began to disperse from the area early to mid-afternoon, the bite diminished.

Bait Rigs: Crappie baits in white and chartreuse colors are always good options on Fort Gibson Lake. The water was clearer than usual for the season. Bobby Garland’s more natural shad colors, especially Blue Ice, Crystal and Mayfly, produced best on this trip. Leon had his best success on the original Baby Shad, but it’s his favorite so he threw it the most. For my pitch and pendulum action, I experimented with more Garland body styles. I had my best success with the Live Roam’R, rigged upright.

The best jighead size was 1/16 ounce, and we both found the Bobby Garland BrushOff jighead in that size to be effective at minimizing snags in the old, hard wood cover below. Chartreuse colored-heads appeared to have the advantage in fish catches.

I did throw a Bobby Garland Itty Bit rig some throughout the day and caught fish on it. However, we found the 1/16-ounce heads and larger Garland baits easier to keep in the preferred strike zone on this day. Our catches were all white crappie, including several real dandies.

Conditions: It was another chilly start to the morning, with the day warming to above seasonal norms. This outing, though, had some high, thin clouds and was breezy from the south. Although we were in the main section of the Grand River above Fort Gibson Lake, current was minimal and had no influence on where and how we fished.

Selected Area: Leon has a long history of fishing this section of river, so he recommended bluff areas on the river’s east side. We spent most of our time on three stretches with shelves that emerged several feet out. They had 6 to 12 feet of water overhead and then dropped off to 20 feet or more into the channel.

Fish Location: The first few crappie came at or just off the shelves’ breaks, in the 6- to 10-foot range. The river section was clear, and we could see our lures dropping for the first few feet, so it was no surprise the bite got deeper as the morning progressed. We caught fish throughout most of the depth ranges along the drops.

Presentations: Again, Leon had success with his cast-and-reel technique, but here he slowed even more to fade his lure to closely follow the contours into the depths. Most of his catches came from 8 to 15 feet. I alternated between a down-the-stairs jigging motion using a Live Roam’R on a 1/16-ounce BrushOff Jighead and casting a Baby Shad on the new Bobby Garland Head Turn’R twin-bladed jighead. Two of my best crappie, both black crappie, came on the Head Turn’R at 20 feet. The latter rig also fooled two bass of more than 2 pounds and a decent channel cat, all from the deeper confines. I’m confident the flash and vibration from the blades demanded attention in the dark depths.

Bait Rigs: Leon has a fondness for Baby Shad in Crystal color, but he also had success on Electric Chicken and Cajun Cricket. He used the two brighter colors because of their greater contrast in depths. I also experimented with assorted colors and tail actions. My Head Turn’R success came on a white head with a Baby Shad in Mo’ Glo Green Lantern. For the Live Roam’R colors, I went with Monkey Milk, Live Minnow, Blue Ice and Pecan Cream.

In the river, we found the fish related more to breaklines than any particular cover on this day. However, we did catch a couple fish at the root ends of long laydowns that extended toward the channel.

Leon said his experience with this river is that it’s at its best when the water is cold, with January being his favorite month. “The nastier the weather, the better I seem to do here for crappie in winter,” he added. We caught both black and white crappie, but the stretch is known to produce good numbers of quality black crappie.

Conditions: At long last, November brought high amounts of rain to northeast Oklahoma, with some places getting more than 10 inches in just a few days. Fort Gibson Lake benefitted from the runoff and once again had flow and near-normal lake levels. The fast change in the lake’s elevation prompted Leon and I to redirect our next outing to Lake Eucha.

Eucha is near Grand Lake but is considerably smaller at only about 3,000 surface acres. It closely resembles Grand’s deeper and rockier areas and is an equally good crappie lake with great structure diversity. Leon grew up atop one of the Eucha’s several deep hollows, so familiarity with the body of water was definitely in our boat. Despite getting the same high volume of rain, Eucha’s level had remained relatively stable. Shad were visibly active on the surface. The air temp was pleasant, and water temp was still in the upper 60s.

Selected Area: “They used to live here,” Leon told me as he pointed to the mouth of a deep cove near the dam. As I approached, my electronics showed some of the cover he remembered was still there. Just a few casts later the first crappie was onboard, and it was a dandy. It was to be the first of several pulled from a variety of old, scattered pieces of cover on flats and at the front coves in 8 to 14-feet of water.

Fish Location: To begin with, everything mimicked our earlier Fort Gibson mid-lake flats experience. The fish were suspended at about 6 feet over pieces of wood in about 10 feet, and they wanted a horizontal swimming presentation with the Baby Shads and Live Roam’Rs in natural shad colors again working well.

But once the sun began to drop past noon, the shad activity lessened, and the fish moved tighter into the cover. We then had to be much more deliberate in bait placement and movement in relation to cover. It seemed most of the fish had dropped to the base of the cover and weren’t wanting to move to a bait.

Presentations: It was “cast and slow reel” for most of the morning’s success, with a single 1/16-ounce jig rigged with either a Baby Shad or Live Roam’R. As the day wore on, we employed more of a drop and drag or super-slow reeling retrieve, to stay in contact with cover.

Bait Rigs: At the stingiest times, I found some additional success when I switched to a split-shot rig featuring an Itty Bit Slab Hunt’R or Itty Bity Mayfly on a 1/50-ounce BrushOff head. The best colors among all the baits we tried were Live Minnow, Threadfin Shad, Blue Ice, Monkey Milk and Electric Chicken.

After our first Eucha November outing, we returned another time about 10 days later. It was post cold front, so the water temps had dropped to about 60. The breeze off the water and the partly cloudy sky made for a chilly day. Although a few single shad occasionally showed at the surface, the schools of bait were lighting up regularly on sonar at 15-20 feet. As a result, the crappie in the places we found them before were fewer and holding extremely tight to the cover. Our better success came near the bottom at depths of around 15 feet and via more deliberate presentations with minimal lure movement. The strikes were extremely light, often just feeling “different” during the retrieve.

We have another return planned soon to see what adjustments the fish have made with even more rain and cooler nights since the last trip, but we also want to get back on Fort Gibson and the Grand River, as well. Each new trip is a learning experience, with all knowledge being filed away for later recall. Gotta love crappie fishing this time of year!

Longtime crappie expert Terry Blankenship honed his fish-catching and electronics skills through countless hours on Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks. The Humminbird pro staffer pursues the species year-round, most often using a single jig to dissect cover or “shoot” under docks where crappie like to hide. Here are his tips for his favored way of fishing flats in fall-winter.

1. Mid-lake areas typically offer a good blend of flats, coves and creeks with protection from current. Spend more time thoroughly examining and fishing such areas versus lots of running up and down a lake.
2. Crappie like the cold, so don’t be afraid to fish shallow all the way through winter as long as there’s a food source in the area. As the water color clears, baitfish typically hang deeper and the crappie with them. But shad can be in the shallows in winter, too.
3. While “match the hatch” is always a good practice, by this time shad can be most any size. The original 2” Baby Shad is always on one of my rods as a top choice. The 1.75” Live Roam’R provides a good in-betweener size option, can be rigged flat or upright, and has been a constant producer, too.
4. A 1/16-ounce jighead provides great line control and “feel” when fishing flats in 6 to 20 feet of water. Also, be a line “watcher” if you’re pitching to cover and letting the jig swing back or fall. If you see the slightest line “twitch,” set the hook.
5. This time of year, on flats you’ll likely find that logs on the bottom, especially those with a root ball, and other pieces of isolated cover, will outproduce big brush piles. While you might not catch many fish from each, you’ll find quality fish on the places.
6. Stay away from the cover on approach, casting or pitching to it first. Compensate for the fall rate to allow the lure to reach the required depth before working it back over/through the cover, or you’ll often miss the sweet spot. Later, move directly over the cover and fish it vertically.
7. Be patient, sometimes holding the bait still for as long as 30 seconds. Often no lure action is better than any angler-applied action.

Bobby Garland’s new BrushOff and Head Turn’R Jigheads are precision tools designed for specific applications and functions.

BrushOffs are available in 1/16-, 1/30- and 1/50-ounce sizes and in Mo’ Glo Pink, Mo’ Glo Ghost and Mo’ Glo Chartreuse glow-in-the-dark color finishes. They have two key features making them particularly unique among all “weedless” jigheads: 1) Dual fine-wired stainless steel brush guards, and 2) hold-tight circular bait keepers.

Wire tensile strength was selected through extensive field testing to find the perfect flexibility to deflect cover without compromising hooksets.

To rig BrushOff heads, put the lure on first by sliding it up and over the bait keepers as far as it will go. Then, use your fingers to gently spread the wire weed guards and manipulate them to the desired position above the hook’s point for the ultimate deflection to “brush off” hang-ups.

Head Turn’R Jigheads feature twin silver willow blades fitted on each end of a 360-degree rotating shaft that turns like an axle through the head’s eyes. Raise the bait, the spinners trail below. Drop the bait, the spinners trail above. Retrieve horizontally, the spinners trail behind. The unique action add flash and vibration to any rigged crappie soft plastic.

Head Turn’Rs were designed by Crappie Connection’s Brad Chappell especially with long-line trolling in mind but are also proving to be extremely effective and visual in use with forward-facing sonar, and an excellent choice for anglers who like to cast for crappie.

Head Turn’Rs come in 1/16- and 1/8-ounce sizes, and Mo’ Glo pink, chartreuse and white colors. The heads also feature hold-tight circular baitkeepers for unrivaled soft-plastic holding power.

For more information on all Bobby Garland jigheads and soft plastics, visit Lurenet’s Bobby Garland page.