Learn how a veteran guide decides whether to seek crappie in the open or around wood cover and how he approaches each situation.
The development of forward-facing sonar has shown that some crappie like to roam the wide-open spaces while others prefer staying close to home.
When Terry Blankenship competed in crappie tournament circuits, he noticed other competitors who ran spider rigs or long line trolled would catch crappie out in the middle of the lake. He figured the trollers were able to find crappie in the vast open areas because they had so many poles spread out to cover a wide swath.
“They would just go until they got bit and then they would focus on that area to see if there was a big school around there,” Blankenship said. “Electronics are good enough now that we can see those crappie out there.”
Blankenship and other crappie anglers always knew crappie were locked on wood cover, such as standing timber and sunken brush piles, but pinpointing crappie in open water was a hit-and-miss proposition until forward-facing sonar changed the game. The new sonar technology revealed that large schools of crappie roamed around, chasing shad or just suspending in open deep water.
Blankenship’s Humminbird XPLORE units are equipped with Mega 360 and Mega Live 2 features that help him find crappie in the wood cover or out in open water. Countless hours spent watching his electronics have taught Blankenship the tendencies that cause crappie to lock in on wood or roam wide-open spaces.
Variables for Crappie Positioning
Blankenship notices black and white crappie differ in their schooling habits.
“What I have seen is the black crappie do love open water,” Blankenship said. “I think they will get out and follow shad around, and the whites will too, especially as they get bigger. The smaller (white) crappie tend to hang close to cover, and I think that is just for protection.”
The Missouri angler suggests the two crappie species tend to stage at different depths. He notices black crappie in brush suspend higher in cover whereas white crappie hold deeper in the wood.
Weather and water conditions can dictate whether crappie cling to wood or roam in the open. Crappie in clear water hold tighter to cover on sunny days. “The crappie are a little bit finicky about sunlight,” Blankenship said.
A severe cold front or a lake drawdown can cause crappie to move out of shallow brush. “I like fishing a shallow brush pile if the crappie are in it, but if they have been pushed out, you just have to start stepping it down a little deeper,” Blankenship said. He looks for these migrating fish in deeper brush or suspending in open water over a creek channel or the first drop-off he locates.
Water temperature is a key factor in determining whether Blankenship targets crappie in brush or open water. “Now, with electronics, we know there are always fish out in roaming water but that is not as consistent in certain times of the year,” he said. Cold water in late fall and throughout the winter is the best time for Blankenship to pattern crappie in open water. Then he finds crappie suspending in open water in the middle of coves, along channel swings or on the main lake.
The Bobby Garland Lures pro staffer targets crappie in brush piles or standing timber more in warmer water. “Electronics will be the major player for me just to locate cover and the fish,” Blankenship said. “If I am coming up on a brush pile and not seeing many fish, I try to maybe check something out at the next depth level.” He keeps scouting with his electronics until he finds an area and depth level holding crappie in brush.
Blankenship suggests standing timber is good cover for crappie year-round. He favors the wood cover in the backs of coves or along flats in warm water and keys on standing timber along channel swings in cold water. When the water warms in the springtime and crappie migrate into the coves, Blankenship targets any wood cover he finds along spawning banks to catch crappie in the shallows.
On a recent winter trip to Lake Eucha in Oklahoma, Blankenship faced the challenge of trying to catch crappie at a lake he had never previously fished. He caught quality crappie from a tree sitting near a channel bend in a cove during his day and a half of fishing Eucha.
Feeling the pressure
Before FFS, open water crappie were only hassled by trollers and spider rigging anglers. The FFS pioneers easily caught crappie from the massive schools in open water for a couple of years, but the FFS craze has made it much tougher to catch open-water roamers. “Now you do actually have to worry about if the crappie have been pressured because there are two things that will mess with your head with suspended fish,” Blankenship said. “One is if those crappie have been pressured from fishing? Or two, are they just not biting?”
When brush piles receive heavy fishing pressure, Blankenship searches for the hardest-to-find wood cover to locate crappie that will still bite. He targets standing timber along drop-offs or any totally submerged timber to find less pressured crappie.
Blankenship believes open water crappie are more challenging than wood cover crappie. He suggests open water suspending crappie can be moody, and it becomes harder to stay on the school when it starts roaming. On his home waters of Lake of the Ozarks Blankenship notices black crappie become elusive as they follow shad around in the open water. “There is a lot of surface acreage out there that the crappie can be in, so there is no way you will ever cover it all because the lake is so large,” he said. Those fish could be out in the middle of the channel following a school of shad around.”
When Blankenship fished Eucha, he knew he lacked time to invest in searching for open water crappie. So, he decided to spend most of his time keying on crappie in wood cover.
“A lot of times if the crappie are in a brush pile it seems like they will react a little better to a lure than those big schools of open water crappie,” he said. “The crappie in brush are set up there for protection and when they see a meal coming by, they can’t hardly resist that once in a while. As long as you can fish brush right, crappie in brush are easier to catch, but whenever that open water bite gets going good it is phenomenal.”
Presentations for Wood Cover & Open Water
When fishing brush piles, Blankenship keeps his boat at least 20 feet away from the target.
He casts a Bobby Garland Baby Shad on a 1/16-ounce jighead past the brush and makes sure he keeps the lure above the cover throughout his retrieve. “It is always better to keep your bait right above the fish,” Blankenship said. “Crappie don’t like to go chase a bait down and eat it. They might follow it down and might catch up with it going down, but they don’t go down to hit the bait as much.”
Blankenship likes to keep his lure moving and slightly above, where the crappie can see it. “Once they come up and start committing to your bait you are more apt to catch that fish than you are to set your bait down right in one’s face and go across it real close to where it can get a real good look at the bait,” he said.
A Baby Shad or Baby Shad Swim’R set below a bobber is Blankenship’s favorite presentation for open water crappie, especially lethargic wintertime fish. “If you cruise the lure above them too fast, they won’t look at it, but if you slowly move it with the bobber or dead stick it, they will come up and eat it.”
Open water crappie tend to spook easily, so Blankenship positions his boat at the farthest distance where he can still cast and reach the school.
Blankenship’s favorite colors for fishing Baby Shads and Baby Shad Swim’Rs are Blue Ice, Monkey Milk, Pink Lemonade and Bayou Booger.
