Thread: How quickly do you change and do something different when crappie aren't biting?

For me in spring I select color depending on how clear or how stained the water it. I love chart/blue/chart, but I also know once I can see my jig 3' down or more in the water I like a blue tail and usually either a chart body or silver body. Also. Silver/Blue/white combo is killer!

read report on Gville, fisherman said he busted them on only 2 colors fire tiger and popsicle, they can be very peculiar. Acid rain when fishing shallow 2 to 4 ft and black/blue/chartreuse always.

I'm not convinced bait change is all it is cracked up to be. If they are biting they will bite anything that looks like a shad yeah, many claim they switched and they turned on, but they would've started on original,( opinion)
Depth and location are much more important. Fish will move deeper in the sun, shallower early and in the shade, spawn shallow etc.

i agree with nimrod, also sometimes in deeper water i have saw the fish suspend higher in the water column during the day, when i stop catching on a color i have been killing them on i may just be below them with the jig head . you might have to use a lighter jig head or if you are trolling, speed up a little

Depends on the day. Some days all I want to do is chill out in the boat and mull life over and could care less if I get a bite. I rarely get impatient while fishing. Tournament days are a little different. If I mark fish. I change things up until I figure out what they want. Some days, my soul mission is to try new stuff. This year I am going to learn to troll cranks. Next year Ill work on another technique. Im pretty confident in slip bobbers that I can catch fish just about anytime.

I think color change is the difference for us on certain days, back man running 6 poles is always experimenting with color combinations. we run 10 rods and certain colors work better. During dead times I have put on colors ( that looked good at bass pro) and have never used and bang rods start bending. At times they hit all color combinations seems like, but if it gets slow experiment.

Fish ain't biting, I just go home and try later.

although I have fished for crappie for most my life, there are many on here that do it for a living and know a lot more than I do, so..take this for what its worth. I find that more times than not color doesn't make a noticeable difference. I have about 6 colors that work everywhere I have ever fished in most every condition I have ever encountered. Now, I have 200 colors in my box, but I use about 6. That being said, I have had a fishing buddy make me change colors before...but it is RARELY a color outside of those 5 or 6 normally used.
In addition, I think that while there are many ways to catch crappie, one pole vertical jigging, spider riggin, trolling, pullin cranks, casting a jig, casting a cork...etc....each of us have a favorite way we would RATHER catch crappie than any of the other perfectly acceptable methods. I think THAT is what keeps us from adapting and catching more fish sometimes. I know that no matter how much I "love" to vertical one pole jig, that I am going to get my tail handed to me up against a couple guys spider rigging. I accept that and continue to try to catch them the way I like to catch them. But I often wonder if I wasn't so hard headed or if I took the time to set up to fish a different way (technique...presentation...whatever you call it), if I wouldn't be immensely more successful.

All that being said, I think the guy that familiarizes him / her self with multiple techniques and gets good at them has a distinct advantage over the way MOST of us fish...which is...the way we like to. To further that... I think the guy that does that AND knows the best time to implement that specific method...is the guy that has the BEST advantage and consequently wins tournaments or at the very least...has more fish more often.

My 2 cents