There is nothing more frustrating that to pull up to a hole that you have worked hard on baiting up, only to find three or four boats already there and you have no place to fish. As I said earlier, if know the habits of the fish, it makes them easier to catch. To start with, crappie are very finicky fish.
You may be in the right spot and doing everything right but they may not bite. That's just the way crappie are. Crappie depend on eyesight when feeding so if the water is off color it makes catching the fish just that much tougher. In off color or muddy water you literally have to put the bait right in the fishes face.
So it stands to reason that the more clear the water is, the better chances you will have of getting the fish to bite. Another interesting fact about crappie is that they will go up to take a bait but will not go down to take a bait. Crappie absolutely love minnows, making it easily the best choice for bait. Ask any experienced angler and most will recommend live minnows for catching crappie.
Better still, you can combine the minnow bait with a jig, which can sometimes double the bite rate because jigs are also a great choice of bait on their own! As previously mentioned, many anglers love to combine live minnow with jigs for the ultimate crappie bait, although jigs can do a fine job on their own! Skirted jigs one of the tougher jigs to use though, although their resemblance to crappie prey fish makes them very effective bait. Finally, we have spinner baits. Their metabolism does from where it is during warmer months mainly due to a reduction in available food.
Crappie will still feed during the winter, but their bodies require less food now. These are the food sources most readily available to crappie and the ones you should take into account when winter crappie fishing. In states where you are allowed to use fish as bait, these are great options. You can also use jigs, spoons, spinners, and small crankbaits that mimic these baits along with crayfish. You can catch crappie through the ice by jigging small jigs and spinners as well as simply suspending small fathead minnows beneath the ice.
Crappie will consume worms if presented. Worms can be rare, but natural food items for crappie. Occasionally, heavy rains can wash worms from steep banks into the water and down streams in the main lake systems.
Here, crappie and other fish may feed on them usually long after they have drowned. It is extremely rare that a crappie will ever see a wiggling live worm in its life team but not impossible. Crappie, like many other fish, respond positively to a wiggling worm on a hook. I personally would not choose worms over grasshoppers or minnows for crappie fishing.
Minnows and grasshoppers are much better and more reliable crappie baits. Plus, bluegills will beat crappie to the worm 9 times out of 10 anyways. I wrote a complete article on fishing for crappie with worms which will dive into a lot greater detail if you want to learn much more. Check out the article by clicking here. The best lures for crappie are lures that mimic natural crappie food.
These baits are premier food for crappie. Spinners and spoons are great options for crappie. Focus on dark reds and browns for crayfish patterns, black and gray for minnows, suckers, and shad patterns, and yellows, blues, and greens for yellow perch and bluegill patterns.
Small shallow diving crankbaits and jointed plugs can work awesome for summertime crappie. The best crappie lure, in my opinion, are crappie jigs and tube baits. These things are dynamite and catch so many good crappie. There really are so many lures to choose from but as long as they are relatively small and mimic baitfish, crayfish, and grasshoppers, you should be good to go. Big crappie will even consume small frogs so small frog baits can work very well too. Spinner baits feature a silver, gold, or other colored pendant which spins in the water as you reel the bait in.
These things are always very shiny and they work well to create a huge visual effect when they spin due to being reeled in. They do a great job at reflecting light. Now, if you are fishing on a dark day, a spinner might not be the best as it does rely on light a whole lot, but on bright days it certainly works fine.
Spinner baits do not need to move all that fast, so you are good with a medium rod here. Once again, throwing a live minnow into the equation might go a long way in attracting more attention from crappies.
Yet another great bait option for crappie fishing is the grub bait. Grub baits are more or less just jigs, but instead of a normal hook or a fish-like bait, it looks like a grub. If you are not aware, grubs are just fat little insects that crappies love to eat. Crappies love eating grubs and they will do so all day long if they can. Grubs work really well to catch these fish and crappies will go for pretty much any kind of grub and any color too, which makes life a bit easier when selecting the bait you want to use.
Of course, you can go with a good old hook and real grubs, but that can be a bit of a pain in the neck. Using artificial grubs is much easier , probably cheaper, and the selection of colors is great too.
The neat part about grub baits is that you can put them on a normal hook, on a jig, or on a spinner too. Therefore, if you want to see success when crappie fishing, you might want to try using a grub in combination with a spinner or jig.
0コメント