Thread: Casting for crappie.

Casting is my favorite way to catch fish and it gives me exercise too! I cast toward bridges or wood lay downs primarily. Otherwise I target the top of weed beds. Pair a 1/16th pink jig head, a two inch stinger tail lure and some slab sauce or crappie nibble and you will catch dinner in no time.

Mike

Originally Posted by ezgoing

Depends on where and what I am fishing. I prefer to cast but sometimes jigging is the best way to go. I try and let the crappie tell me what they want.

Yeap......

Casting? As opposed to trolling? Casting a plug or bobber and a jig? I'm not a troller, never did much and don't plan on it in the future. But I do have a trolling motor. Guy can't be to careful! :-)

Up until about 10 years ago, Walt & I mainly cast for most species we went after. We love to cast! However, it started becoming more & more difficult - osteoarthritis - on the shoulders and arms, after a couple of hours of casting. So, we adapted. Started off drift fishing with the wind, sideways. Turned out to be ultra-productive for us. Even more so than casting! So we kept it up.

However, again, you can never depend on the wind for controlling your of depth & speed. So, again, we adapted and took up with Roger Gant's method of "Side pulling" with a gunnel mounted trolling motor. Now we have the best of both worlds. We now can cast for a while, then when the shoulders start acting up, we side pull our jigs. Works well for these old timers - 74 years young and going strong!

There will come a time, as you get older, where casting becomes less & less an option, so you just have to do what you have to do to keep on fishing. Wish I were 20 years younger again!

I cast 75% of my time and 25% drop shot fish for them

I need to do more drop shot fishing! Should work great at my normal lake I keep forgetting about this technique.

I fish from shore and docks. Mostly cast 1/32nd jigs with a variety of plastic tails such as 1 1/2 crappie tubes and 2" rat tail shads on 4# line and UL rods. I also jig dock pilings and walls with ice rod and 1/48th jigs and tiny plastics on 2#. With heavier tungsten jigs one can get the small size to match the small tails and still get a positive and fast decent, but IMO sometimes that descent is too fast. I fish slow and when casting and jigging start at the bottom and work up the water column. We have mostly black crappies who move more vertical than whites. Best is when the crappies move up the breaks and out from cover to feed on the open flats IOW generally after work in the evening or when the street drains start to rush following a storm. Fishing the feeding areas produces a significant number of larger bonus game fish, as well; so it pays to carry extra filled spools for your reel because some of those bonus fish head for the next county and some times you can't stop em on UL.

I guess bobber's are not casting. I do mostly that but mostly for other fish I cast. Bait on the bottom for cat's. Hoping my new reel will let me cast a few crappie plugs I got. Had caught the first two by accident casting rubber jigs for bass. Gonna try that some more but with smaller jigs.