Perhaps I am more inexperienced at late summer patterning than everyone else, but I've stumbled onto a new lake and a killer setup that has me tickled pink every night for the past 2 weeks.

I have been hammering gills of a decent size with a small live bait setup, typically a long shank w/ slip float. Last week I tried a naked hair jig presentation and, to my utter amazement, found hoards of crappies amongst the gills that simply refused to hit any live bait.

I have gone through at least a dozen 1/16 oz hair jigs since last week. Last night I setup on a shelf dropping from 8-9 feet w/ heavy weeds off to 12-14 feet with sparse weed cover. I could see crappies darting up from the depths to molest my hair jigs. The action was so furious I wanted to bring it to the forum because:

A) I have always been a live bait/tipped-jig sorta fella, and this approach is a new style for me.

and

B) I wanted to know if anyone else is having issues patterning the crappies this time of year.

/Back to work

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"If you really want something in this life you have to work for it. Now quiet, they're about to announce the lottery numbers."

Well I can tell you that all I'll use is hair jigs,no matter the time of year.
When the fish are aggresive like now ,bigger jigs work ,but when the bite gets tuff I'll downsize.
I just went last weekend for some crappies and drilled over 100 in no time
using hair jigs I've tied.


I find a slow fall triggers them to bite.
We caught a bunch of gills too.All of these fish fell to a 64th oz. jig without meat.

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