Thread: cranking black crappie?

I caught a mixture of both yesterday. Couldn't get any to bite trolling. So I found a brush pile and casted. Had to hit the brush for them to bite. The crank would bounce off and they attacked it!!! I'm still struggling with the trolling thing, but if I can cast and catch that will work for me.

My home lake is less than 5% Whites. I catch plenty of Blacks on crank baits. I slow down to .5-.6 MPH and push or tight line 2oz of lead molded on a 12 inch wire. The crank bait is tied to the weight with a 2 ft leader. Blacks like slower, smaller lures such as the Bitsy Pond minnow or Micro cranks. Find the thermocline and present the bait at the exact depth of the fish.


Monk

I catch blacks pushing rattle traps at about .8-1.2 mph with 1 to 2 oz weights depending on the depth of the water. I loose lots of baits. I buy most the rattlers at wal mart. The black crappie like silver with black or blue back (1 3/4 inch size) best on west sandy. I am in the process of making charts with in line weights, including speed, depth, weight. Too hot right now to do much testing. THE CHART SHOULD BE ACCURATE FOR PUSHING AND PULLING WEIGHTS. I loose lost of baits cause these line charts for weights found on the internet are not very accurate.

We catch a lot of blacks long lining jigs deep at .8mph. They love blue & chartreuse in clear water, Cranks are fine but we lose to many trolling for the blacks, they are always hanging on wood. Plus it is to hot to just sit on them with a single pole. 110 index here yesterday. Fall and winter is my favorite time to fish for them.

Most lakes in my neck of the woods contain only black crappies. I have caught a fair number of them trolling crankbaits, but typically not a real effective method. They are often picked up as incidental catches while fishing for walleye. Most productive crappie cranks for me have been Flicker Shads. Although they seem to be very productive lures for white crappies down south, I have never caught a black crappie on a Bandit.

The private lakes I fish are 100% black crappie, I've caught thousands of crappie over the years there but not one on a crankbait.

Guess I ought to not post in the crankbait contests! Just won a bunch of the Johnson cranks too.

A couple of the lakes I fish have mostly Blacks, Black Nose, with a few Whites. I catch a lot of the black & black nose on Flicker Shads like Bugtussle mentioned, using cranks in #4 & #5 size about 100-120 feet behind the kayak. I also absolutely kill them on YoZuri Snap Shads, which haven't been made in several years and are kinda hard to find. The black crappie tend to be less channel oriented and tend to stay shallower than the Whites do in the same body of water. They sometimes hold over deeper grass beds if there's no suitable wood cover. I also catch plenty suspending above the thermocline in open water near the dam this time of year.

Jim