Don’t put away your crappie gear when spring begins giving way to summer. With the right approaches, you can continue catching crappie throughout the warm months.
Many anglers enjoy great crappie fishing during spring, when the fish move shallow to spawn and to feed and congregate around cover that’s visible and easy to locate and target. When those fish abandon the obvious spots toward the end of spring, many anglers view crappie season as over and turn their attention to other species.
Crappie provide good fishing opportunities year ‘round, though, and summer conditions create predictable opportunities for anglers who employ the right strategies. Four great ways to tap into the best crappie-catching action through the summer are to focus on deeper brush piles; troll jigs or crankbaits; target spots that get shade throughout the day; and fish illuminated waters at night.
Brush piles and similar cover, including stake beds and commercially manufactured fish attractors, provide objects for crappie to relate to and hiding places, as well as attracting baitfish. As importantly, many tend to be situated toward the ends of points, near confluences and bends of channels, atop humps and saddles, and in other key summer holding areas for crappie. Whether placed by fisheries managers or anglers, brush piles commonly can be found in areas crappie would want to move to anyway.
Depending on water clarity and the depth of the brush, you can fish directly over the cover or set up a short cast away, cast past the location, and let the bait swing over the brush. Live sonar undeniably is beneficial for keeping the jig above the fish and gauging the crappie’s responses to presentations, but anglers effectively fished jigs over brush for crappie for many years before that technology was developed, and doing so remains highly effective.
A crappie bait with a subtle, wavering action, like a Bobby Garland Baby Shad, Mayfly or Slab Slay’R, tends to work nicely for vertical and swinging presentations. If the brush has high snaggy branches or if the fish are holding farther down in the brushpile, a Bobby Garland BrushOff Jighead is very helpful for getting the bait down to the crappie without staying hung in the brush.
2 – Troll Jigs or Crankbaits
When crappie move away from the bank and from visible cover, many fish relate to creek or river channel edges or roam near schools of shad. They sometimes scatter and become difficult to locate for many anglers, but trolling allows the lures to do the looking. Crappie trolling mostly takes on two forms: trolling crankbaits and long-line trolling with jigs.
For many anglers, the Bandit 300 is the gold standard of crankbaits for crappie trolling. It has an ideal profile and wobble and runs to a nice depth. The Bandit 200 provides a slightly shallower-running option with the same profile and action. Some anglers get sophisticated with rod lengths and positioning, GPS speed control, electronics study and more, but trolling can be as simple as putting out a few lines, spreading the rod tips so the lines don’t cross and experimenting with the amount of line out, speed and lure colors until the fish reveal their preferences.
Long-line trolling utilizes crappie jigs, usually with baits like a Bobby Garland Stroll’R or Slab Hunt’R that has a “swimming tail” and kicks when the bait is in motion. Jighead weight, the amount of line out and trolling speed impact the depths the baits swim. The term long-line trolling is telling, as baits are normally pulled at least a long cast’s distance back from the boat.
For either technique, work the lower ends of creek arms and main river areas and test channel edges, flats just off the channel, and the tops of points to locate fish. When crappie bite, pay careful attention to the location and the details of the bait the fish took.
3 – Target All-Day Shade
As summer sets in, fish are like other animals (and people, for that matter). They seek respite from the sizzling sun. And while shady banks will draw in fish in the morning or afternoon, nothing beats a location that offers all-day shade, where the water commonly stays a bit less toasty and where the fish don’t have to relocate as the sun moves across the sky.
The two most significant providers of all-day shade, both available at many waterways across the country, are docks/piers and bridges. Lily pads, matted vegetation, broad-trunked laydowns and collections of floating debris in eddies also provide areas of all-day shade that hold crappie during the summer.
Something nice about these docks and bridges is that both commonly provide foot access within casting range of or even straight above where fish are apt to hold. Of course, it’s important to note that not all docks and bridges are created equal. Look for areas that are protected from significant current and when where a channel edge gives the crappie access to a range of depths within the shaded area.
Vertical fishing with jigs, shooting docks from a boat, pitching jigs beside bridge or dock supports, and suspending crappie jigs under slip bobbers are just a few of the techniques that can be effective for fishing shady areas.
4 – Fish Lights at Night
Night fishing for summer crappie provides multiple advantages, including a break from the heat for fish and for fishermen and relief from crowds of anglers and recreational boaters that gather on many waterways this time of year. As significantly, at night, you can draw the crappie close and concentrate them instead of having to search for them.
Light shined down into the water, whether from a floating light you place or a fixed dock or bridge light that illuminates the water, draw plankton, which attracts minnows and eventually crappie. Often, once a light has been shining on an otherwise dark surface for a while, you’ll have enough crappie right there to avoid needing to move anytime soon. Just work jigs down in the lights and along the edges.
Of course, the crappie won’t show up just anywhere. You need to set up a light or pick a lit area that has fish nearby already. Bridges and docks again stand out because they hold fish day and night, and some have spots along them that get lit and hold crappie night after night though the summer.
Bobby Garland Mo-Glo bait colors and jigheads work really well along the darker edges of lit-up waters.
Bonus Tip – Downsize Crappie Baits
If the crappie are acting fussy during summer, an excellent way to coax strikes is to downsize crappie baits. Bobby Garland makes that easy for almost any jig fishing technique with the Itty Bit Series because this series includes Itty Bit versions of four top crappie baits, each different in character.
If you’re not quite sold on replacing your regular sized crappie bait, try a tandem rig, with one traditional crappie bait and one Itty Bit, and see which size the crappie prefer that day.
