Live Crappie Baits

The most effective live bait to use when crappie fishing is the live minnow. Minnows that are 1 to 2 inches long work best for the small panfish, and will yield some excellent results.

One key thing here is to try to keep them as lively as possible. You can buy small aerators at your local Wal-Mart or outdoor store for $20-$30. But if necessary, you might even buy a second aerator, just to move as move oxygen around in your bait bucket as you possibly can.

When you are rigging up for live crappie bait minnows action, use a small hook, and hook the bait up through the bottom lip, and out the top lip. This will keep the bait right side up and will allow it to look natural in the water.

Crappie Jigs

If you have little or no experience using crappie lures, I highly recommend starting off with marabou jigs. For just pennies per lure, you can have the most time tested, crappie producing lure ever. I would buy them in the 1/32 to 1/16 (perhaps even as big as 1/8) ounce jig size. Stick to lighter colors in the beginning, whites, greens and yellows are good starter colors.

Take them out to your fishing spot, then let them down to the bottom, and “jig” them (bounce them up and down) off the bottom, the reel up some, a repeat the process until you have pulled in all the line. This will allow to work the different depths, and you can find about how far down the fish are.

Crappie Baits: Soft Plastic Lures

If you are looking to use a bassassin or plastic worm, it can work, but the lure needs to be small. Try to get sizes of less than 3 inches long, and couple that with a jig head that is 1/8 ounce or less. Your worm style should be that of a grub, sassy shad, small worm or styles that resemble shad or minnows. Stay with the lighter colors in the beginning, and as you get confidence with a particular style and size, you can look at some of the darker colors when the water is stained, and the light colors aren’t working.

So that is three strong crappie baits you can use at your local fishing hole. So let me know what you think, and I’ll be back soon with more great crappie fishing tips.

1. Make sure you have good lively bait

If you have a live well, this isn’t much of a problem. But if you don’t, you can just get you a small clip on battery operated floating aerator for $20-$30 from your local outdoors store or Wal-Mart. These will come with a cord and two clips to hook up to your 12 volt battery(ies).

2. Find a likely spot for crappie

There are several things that are involved here, like using topographical maps and fish finders, but in general, if you can find an area with excellent cover for the crappie, and there are bait fish in the water, you stand a good chance to catch crappie.

3. Use a light to attract bait fish

Using a submerged green light can really pull in the bait fish, which will in turn, pull in game fish. If you can get a light that submerges down to about five feet, then you stand a much better chance of catching night crappie. Also, there is a product called a crappi candle, which is a light that actually attaches to fishing line, and sheds light directly on your bait! Pretty neat concept, and it works.

4. Chum up the water you will be fishing

Using very small cut up bait fish like blue gill and minnows, and pouring out all the blood and pieces into the water, you can create a scent that will help to attract the crappie. Once you have the light and chum in place, you can wait for about a half hour (or you can begin immediately if your prefer) and then start fishing. Start off about a foot or two from the bottom, right around the edges of the light. Then pull the line up foot by foot until you start getting some strikes.

Well, those are some great starter tips for night crappie fishing. So get on out there and start catch some fish.

The Crappie Jig

By far the most widely used and effective crappie lure, the crappie jig is a small chenille, hair, tinsel, or feather crafting attached to a 1/16 or 1/32 ounce painted or unpainted jig head. Often couple by a skirt of the same material, the crappie jig has been proven to catch fish over time.

The marabou jig has been the most effective jig over time. Behind it, the curly tail and rooster tail jig have been effective as well. I like using white colors the best with my crappie lures, but using chartreuse, yellow and green also work well in clear waters. If you find yourself in murky water, go for darker versions of purple, black, orange and green.

Soft Plastic Crappie Lures

A small, soft plastic lure of less than 3 inches long on a 1/8 ounce or smaller jig head is probably the second best crappie lure to throw. Stick to grubs, small worms, sassy shads, bassassins or other shad-like body styles for plastic baits. Again, I like white, but other colors like yellow, green, chartreuse, and black will work as well.

Crappie Spinnerbaits

You can also use small straight shaft or bent shaft spinnerbaits as well. Stick to small, single blade spinnerbaits with a small jig or worm. Again, stick to the basic colors mentioned above.

Crankbaits for Crappie

If you think the crappie are running deep, you can throw a small shad style or minnow style crankbait at them. Something like a 2 inch Rapala minnow or shap rap will work great with a deep running lip. Stick to basic colors like white, green, and natural shad or minnow coloring.

Crappie Flies

For the fly fisherman, you can do really well with crappie flies. Some of the better flies for crappie fishing are Crappie Candy, Clousers Or Minnow Imitations. They come in a variety of colors and styles, so just stick to good basic water color and time of year colors (as I talked about above) and you’ll do very well with these crappie lures.

Topwater Plugs

Within the topwater plug family, you’ll have a selection of popping lures, propellers, crawlers, frogs, stickbaits, and topwater spoons. A popper has a concave depression right at the eye (where the line attaches) of the lure. These lures are best when used with a jerk retrieve. This will create a “pop” or “gurgle” on the top of the water, summoning fish to come and get it.

Propellers are pretty self explanatory, they have one or more propellers attached at the front and/or back ends of the plug. When fishing these lures, use a steady or short stint retrieve, giving the lure the opportunity to cut the water with its blades, attracting nearby fish.

Topwater crawlers are plugs that have a large metal lip or arms in the front, and are designed to wobble violently on top of the water. The sound that these lures make often resembles a gurgle.

Artificial frogs are generally made of soft plastic and include a weedless style setup. Because of the soft plastic, the legs of the frog with shake and dance as you retrieve this lure.

Stickbaits are nearly the same as propellers, but without the propellers. They are basically a straight topwater plug. In order to attract the fish with this type of plug, you’ll need to twitch or jerk your retrieve, perhaps with some stops and starts, in order to create action that will draw a fish.

Topwater spoons are made of metal, and are designed to shake and move through the water, all the while reflecting light, and disturbing the water’s surface. This double action of light and sound can draw the fish in.

Subsurface Plugs

These lures come in three basic styles, minnow plugs, vibrating plugs and crankbaits. Minnow plugs have a long, thing body and resemble small (sometimes large) minnow bait fish. They’ll usually have 2 or 3 treble hooks and small lip, and dive anywhere from 1 to 6 feet down. Many will be naturally colored, although their is a myriad of available color options.

The best example of a vibrating plug that I can think of is the Rattle Trap. This is thin plug, that has less violent wobble that generates sound waves in the water. Fish can pick up on the sound waves, thus these baits can be a good alternative when fishing murky water. The Rattle Trap also comes with rattles, creating additional sound to entice the fish.

And finally, we come to crankbaits. My personal favorite in the plug family, these baits are generally short, stocky plugs with a sizeable lip, allowing them to dive anywhere from 1 to 20 feet. They offer a hard wobble, and sometimes have rattles to offer additional sound. Suspending crankbaits offer the angler the chance to do a start and stop retrieve, offer fish a look at a bait that is getting spooked, and a good target for them to feed on.

So what made this tank so great for pond bass fishing?

There were several factors that made this pond great for bass fishing. First, it wasn’t a very deep pond, and it was located in the south (Texas) where warmer weather prevails. This combination is excellent for the promotion of bass population and size. Water temperatures of about 60 – 80 degrees will begin to draw the bass into shallow water, and they will commence in heavy feeding. As a result, bass ponds in the south have longer seasons where this water temperature is prevalent, and thus the bass will grow much faster than in northern areas.

Second, aside from its location and depth, the vegetation in this pond was just excellent for bass. There were bulrushes and tree limbs both submerged and above the water’s surface. This provided excellent cover for  the bass, but there wasn’t too much vegetation to allow bait fish to escape. So the bass had open areas and vegetation areas, and thus there were lines between the two where bass could easily ambush their prey.

Third, this pond was closed to the public and wasn’t fished very often.  So the bass were allowed to grow year after year, and were not thinned out by many anglers. So you could say that we “had these fish all to ourselves”, and it meant that we generally caught lots of fish.

Fourth, this pond was stocked only with bass and perch. So there weren’t many other predators like catch fish that would disrupt the population growth of the bass. And the perch provided an excellent source of food for the bass. And again, with the vegetation being sparse, bass had good spawning grounds that they could easily protect against the perch hunting down their eggs and fry.

I cannot explain the appeal of having an 15 + inch bass on the other end of your line. If you see them come to the top and shake that head, and it is your first time, you will probably be hooked on it for the rest of your life. I like catfishing too, but just the fast paced nature of hunting down the largemouth bass with lures is enough to keep me occupied and happy for hours at a time.

Make sure to check back tomorrow as I’ll show you Pond Bass Fishing Hot Spots: how to fish your pond(s) for bass during the different times / seasons of the year. See you then…