Crappie Tricks

I've been out crappie fIshing a couple times on my local lake this week. It's a small flowage and I've been fishing a couple hours before dark to an hour after dark using tipdowns 4# floro and tru turn size 6 hooks. I've also been jigging for them with spoons and minnow heads, caught a couple this way and 8 on the tip downs. I'm fishing 10 feet of water near some small brush piles. Heres my frustration, for every one I catch I have a hundred lookers. They follow and chase but won't commit. As the night goes on it seems to get worse and worse. The ones I've caught have been on my smallest minnows. I've tried cuttIng the tail off, splitting the belly, hooking in the back, hooking in the tail and even two minnows all with the same results. They're nice fish around 11 inches long. It seems to me they are hungry but don't really want to eat the minnow. Does anyone have any tricks to get these fish to bite?

Will agree about fishing just below the ice. Have been fishing a lake all winter and watching alot of guys not catch much. I have been sitting in my shack in 18-20 FOW and pounding them. Almost every fish I catch comes from around 4-6 feet below the ice. I have marked fish at all depths and also get alot of sniffers, but the aggressive fish will always come up and smoke it. Just something to think about.

Ive been poundin crappie 2' below the ice in 12fow. cant even mark them on the locator.just gotta have faith they are there.

For plastics, I suggest the J&S custom jigs. They make some very soft plastics that last. I like the paddlebug and gojo for crappies. Tried them for the first time last year and had a blast catching crappies and gills. Here is their website. http://www.jandscustomjigs.com/main.sc

try suspending your bait/jig. i've caught crappies as close as a foot below my hole in 10 FOW.

I use nothing more then 2 lb test ever when jigging for panfish. I like to run 1 lb Fireline crystal to a 2 foot leader of 2 lb trilene micro ice. Uni knot. That does alot of damage for me. Red seemed to be the color everywhere for plastics. I also had some good luck with a brownish color whip tail. Gills, crappies, and perch all seem to love them.

4 lb test is way too heavy for crappies if you are using live bait. use 1-2 lb test, and get rid of the tru turns, instead get tiny egg hooks or octopus hooks. they have a shorter shank, you can usually find them where trout fishing stuff is sold. a size 6 hook is wayyyyy too big anyways.

The Micro Nuggies from Little Atom baits is all I use. They come in a rainbow of colors and combinations of color. They are very soft and have a scent that the fish love. I order mine from "Your Bobbers Down". On a crappie jig they give it the profile of a minnow. On my tiny bluegill jigs I sometimes use just the tail.

On my tip downs I use a #16 treble hook.

the northland bro bugs "bloodworms", have been very good for me this ice season so far.

Went out today earlier than before. Those of you who mentioned blue gills were right. Had to try a few different jigs but found one that both gills and crappies would bite, also ran tip downs with minnows. Ended up with 21 that I kept about half crappies and half gills. I have some plastics but have no idea if they are any good. Have tried them some with little luck. Can you guys that like plastics suggest some that work and are you using them on larger crappie jigs or on your typical bluegill jig like a gill pill?

It sounds to me like you have small gills chasing you baits that you see on the flasher. You will see a lot of them following but not biting. Then a crappie shows up and he will hammer it. I have several spots that are that way. To test it tie on a very small jig and a small piece of spike or waxy. Jig with a slow cadence and very slowly raise the jig up. Either small gills of crappies should eat that presentation. If they do turn out to be small gills, Stay with the tip downs and use a bigger jig. Hop between holes, try to find aggresive crappies. Ignore the marks on the flasher if they don't bite in a minute or two. I like plastics because you can switch colors and find one they prefer on a given day. Plus you don't have to replace them often. But to each his own. I catch fish on meat too.

I'm going to have to side on the plastics. I bought one pack of waxies and I ended up feeding them to my lizard after using plastics for the first time this year. What I'm talking is thin red plastics. My favorite so far has been the red impulse tail. I shorten it up once in awhile but literally have not had to change my bait ALL YEAR for panfish. I limited out on crappie with a 12 gill pill and plastic once and have used the same bait everywhere else with no problems. I may never buy live bait again for panfish... My only problem now is my 2 lb test needs to be replaced after all the panfish I slayed this year on it. It was new 3 months ago... For the record, I am NOT including Gulp Maggots in the discussion of plastics. Ive used those for years now.

Yea, don't show your friends or your friends buddy your spot to help you out. You will find that it's not your spot anymore

Larger crappie can be very aggressive, but small crappie are very, very finicky. It could be that you have a lot of small ones and few big ones (biters). Go small on the jig size, use subdued colors or metallics and 2-3 spikes.

absolutely disagree, but to each his own. I have yet to be skunked this year and fish primarily castle rock and petenwell where the crappies can be very picky at times. All it takes is the right color and plastic combination and you can get them to bite no matter the weather and fish pattern once you find where they're holding. Many times your minnows won't work because the fish are feeding on much smaller "zooplankton" organisms. that's what our plastics simulate and that's why we can get bites when the minnow/wax worm soakers can't. Here's a story that illustrates exactly what im talking about... Early feb i went to petenwell w/ 3 buddies. 2 ppl per shack, set up right next to each other on a spot i had marked and previously caught a good share of crappies from. While one shack (wax worm and minnow soakers) failed to catch a single crappie (or fish for that matter) all day jigging everything from rosies/crappie minnows/minnow heads/waxies/spikes etc. Me and my other buddy used plastics all day and had 20+ crappies, a few cats, 17.5" walleye and numerous whitebass. We even moved their shack because they didn't believe me it was their bait to no avail. Granted this was a tough day, bluebird skies and very high pressure, but the plastics still caught fish. I totally agree, when the fishing is good your minnows/waxies/spikes will work just fine and you'll catch fish. But what about those days with bluebird skies or those periods of weird weather when everything is tight lipped? Plus, there's something to be said for the ability to catch 20+ fish on one plastic vs putting a fresh waxie on after nearly every fish you catch. Plastics. Period. We'll be making believers come next season. I was a skeptic at first, but now i have the same 2 dz waxies i bought my first outing dec 2nd still rotting in my bait puck in the bottom of my bucket because i haven't used them all season.