It certainly is a nice cool morning on March 22 as my friend Chris and I launch myCrappie Master at Beaver Creek landing on Wateree Lake. The water is like glass and the air is brisk. We both know that we had better do what we are going to do before the wind gets up, after all, it is March here in South Carolina. As we motor out only 200 yards from the landing, I drop the trolling motor and start marking fish only 8 feet deep. I already have my rods rigged with 1/32 oz. jig heads with Tripple Ripple Grubs on every one. I fished yesterday evening in the bright sunlight so I know that I will have to tie on different colors since it is still early morning before sunrise. My boat is rigged with 20 horizontal rod holders. I don't normally use this many rods unless I am under pressure (as in fishing a tournament). Chris is fishing eight 6'6" B&M graphite rods out the back and I am using 6 B&M rods out the front. My rods consist of 2- 12ft, 2 - 10ft and 2 - 8 ft. I wish I could draw a sketch on this monster but if you can visualize my spread we are actually covering 28 feet of Crappie infested water. I mentioned changing colors. As most of you know, crappies are Very light sensitive making them very color sensitive. This is nature's way of protecting the pecies of baitfish. At some given time a certain color is virtually invisible to a crappie. If it were not this way we would not have any shad in the system, therefore, our crappie would be 3-finger size. "FISH ON"! " GET THAT OTHER ONE CHRIS"! ! Chris has 3 fish on. Maybe I should help him! No I won't. He can handle them because he is a champion. He has won tournaments and he is a better fisherman than I am. He is still using 1/32 oz. heads and I have adjusted my speed to pull him exactly 8 feet deep. I changed my heads to 1/16 oz. so that I could fish under him and possibly catch some bigger fish. We have changed colors about 25 times and he has settled on Tripple Ripple Grub with green body and orange tail for the best color. We have boated 25 fish in 45 minutes. We could stay here and catch 100 crappie in three hours with (No Problem), but it is time to move to another spot. Future Trollers, I want you to understand that COLOR, SPEED and DEPTH have everything to do with catching crappie by trolling. The main reason is that this coming Saturday, we have a tournament and we need to find some big fish and I will attempt to tell you how. As I said, we caught 25 fish in 45 minutes but they were mostly hand size plus a few 12-oz. fish. We released all of these fish since we were not guiding. When we guide, we allow our customers to keep what they want but never over 60. That is the rule. We moved up to Singleton Creek, which was about 3 1/2 miles. Knowing from experience that the better fish will be deeper in the creek channel in the early morning. When I dropped the trolling motor, I was marking fish at 11 feet on my Eagle depth finder. WOAH! Good fish at 14 feet. I started adjusting my speed. If you remember, Chris has 1/32 oz. heads tied on and I have 1/16 oz. heads. Chris immediately had on two hand size fish and a big grin. (He doesn't know what I know because I am watching the Eagle). Before he got his fish in, my 12' B&M pole made a slow curve towards the back of the boat. I LOVE a slow bend. When I picked up the rod and felt the fish, I knew we had what we were looking for. I held the rod up (not reeling) just enjoying the pull. "HELLO WEET BABY". I talk to myself, sometimes out loud. " TURN AROUND DARLING>>>> " ALL RIGHT" Even Chris has a big grin now. As I held my rod up, I felt the crappie turn around and ease off the pull. I started to work her in. About half way in, my 10 ft. B&M on the other side went down and I simply reached over, picked the rod up and carefully tighten up on the line to assure a good hookup and reinstalled the rod back into the rodholder because I knew I had a good fish on already. The point I am making is NEVER NEVER horse a nice crappie. ENJOY HER. I weighed the fish later (2lbs. 3 oz.) and released her because I might catch her again on Saturday. The other fish weighed 1 lb. 6 oz. and was tangled up in both my other lines because it had been free to move back and forth because I was busy. You never stop the boat because everything falls to the bottom and you might lose it all. I have changed all my jigs to Hal Fly now. If you are unfamiliar with it, Hal Fly has a lead head, jelly belly and marabou tail. I have 65 color variations in my box and have retied about 10 times. I have settled on yellow/green/green and Red/green/yellow. I don't know if they want yellow or green but it seems to be a combination of both. I am partial to Hal Fly because every tournament I fish, the biggest fish will always be caught on Hal Fly. Allow me to make a good point. This water here is clear to murky whereas the water in Beaver Creek was murky to muddy. The fish here will not touch the green/orange Tripple Ripple that Chris was using. He changed colors until he settled on a yellow body with chartreuse and sliver flake tail and white body with chartreuse tail. Chris caught more fish than I did on this drag, but I caught more pounds because I was pulling 3 feet deeper than him. A crappie will never go down after bait and will not go up very far. Try to keep your jig on an even keel or within 12" above him depending on the clarity of the water. Use light line probably 6 lb. I use 4-lb. test on all my reels. Always use the same lb. test line on all your reels so that you will know where your jig is.

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