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.

Those are the exact questions to ask, and the reason for this post. Schooling bass (sometimes called schoolies), are usually found during the late summer to early fall months on large lakes or reservoirs. These bass are typically young, and thus smaller, perhaps only a pound or two each.

The situation normally occurs when very large schools of shad follow plankton around the lake, feeding on it. The schooling bass will pin them to the surface of the water, and then viciously attack. So spotting them can often be easy. Just look for areas where the shad are jumping out of the water, being hit by bass. We usually refer to this as “boiling water”. You can sometimes spot this from afar by using binoculars or looking for birds diving and hitting the top of the water in a particular area.

What To Do When You Spot The Schooling Bass

This feeding frenzy will likely not last very long, however. So we you see it, immediately drop your current fishing spot, and get to that area as fast as possible. Cut the boat more short of the area, and allow your momentum and/or your trolling motor to get you close to the fish. This will ensure that you do not spook the fish. Begin casting as soon as you are within range. I prefer to cast behind the boiling water, and retrieve back into it, as to not scare the fish. But experiment, you may find that the bass respond best when you drop your line right on the top of them!

Smart anglers will have an additional rod and reel rigged up with a short diving, natural looking shad crankbait, or other shad like lure. Having this on hand will prepare you for the schooling fish, and you’ll be able to maximize your catch, since the boiling water will not last that long. I hope you got something out of this article, and if you did, would you leave me a comment in the box below? Thanks, and we’ll see you next time on HiddenFishingTips.com.