need some help folks

[ChrisCarter]

First of all, I'm on my cell phone, so pardon my typos and grammar. Lots of crappie on the rock beds today. However they aren't very active. They seem very sluggish and stay in the same spots along the bank. Caught two on minnows and a 1/16th jighead and very slow retrieve. But I think that was luck. I dangled a few minnows in front of some big ones so close to bank I could reach out and grab it, lol. But they just looked at it and slowly backed away. So what's your advice to get these bad boys to start biting?

[feelay]

Must be really clear water! I have never fished anywhere you could see the fish.

[ChrisCarter]

Pretty clear today, at least in this spot. I can see about 2 feet down.

[Legato]

best way I can get fish to bite if they are within range of doing so, is to vertical jig REALLY slow right in front of them. Just keep the bait going up and down in 1 spot.

[skiptomylu]

If you can see them maybe they can see you so I would back away as far as I could with still being able to reach them and I would cast a 1/32 Oz. Roadrunner like in my Sig. Maybe a different color, but maybe not. Just have to try different colors. Try something with a blue body and white tail.

I have fished at a spot where I could see them come up and take my Roadrunner, but couldn't see them until they moved up to take it and the water was stained. I was using a chart & Black body with a Hot Orange tail then. All my Roadrunners I use marabou tails, unless I tie one with rabbit strips. The love the little Roadrunners and I was using a long pole, 10' and had maybe 14' of line out and just jerked it from side to side as I troll motored down the bank, but as far as I could be from where they were and then backed off from them and cast in to them.

[Donald@CrappieLogic]

try a 1/64 oz hair jig under a float with very little action just pull and stop

[ChrisCarter]

It was a very weird bite. The first one nabbed the minnow as it sank. I was retrieving and got close to the bank when my reel got stuck (i dropped it in water last week so the insides are probably rusty). I watched the minnow sink and crappie came up and swallowed it. Unfortunately, while setting the hook, i pulled it out of its mouth. Bad luck there. The second one was on a moderate retrieve, same thing happened again, fought a bit and the hook/bait came out of his mouth. Grabbed the jighead with the largest hook and that is when i nabbed this guy...



After a few more minnows, small bass were getting hooked and not crappie. But they stayed in the same spot. More than likely their beds. My understanding is during the spawn male crappie will defend the eggs aggressively? If that is true, the spawn must not have happened yet as whenever I brought the minnow or jig into their bed area, they backed away from it and waited until the bait/lure was out of the way.

I did do the vertical jigging, and one crappie came out from the cover and head-butted the jig then slowly backed into the cover again. I did try plastics, marabou tail jigs, hackle jigs, went back to minnows, crappie nibbles, floating jigheads.

After 3 hours, i put the one crappie back into the water, packed up and went home. tomorrow is suppose to be much of the same weather wise, making me seriously doubt about going fishing Saturday and wait until this pesky stationary front moves out Sunday.

Here is a video of just how close i got to the crappie sitting on the beds. Keep in my there were probably a good 10 - 15 of this guys along the rocks, there was probably more further out where i couldn't get the camera let alone see them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBtLEBTIX5o

In the meantime, im gonna sit back and watch some Laurel & Hardy.

[bdorman]

The Midwest has had some pretty violent weather move through it in the last 24 hours. That might have something to do with it. It will be interesting to see what happens when the next high settles in.

Sometimes trying to figure them out is like a Tell me that again routine.

[CrappiePappy]

Had a very similar experience, several years ago, down at Watts Bar Lake in E Tenn. Water was no more than a foot deep over a small rock hump that was right next to the bank, which was maybe 8-10ft from the corner of the fish cleaning station/dock. There were three Blacknose bedding on there, and it took several attempts to get any of them to even attempt to bite a jig. They would wander off the beds when cast to, and eventually come back to their respective spots. I did, eventually, get one to nip at the jig ... caught him & promptly released him back to the water. I really didn't want to keep him, even if he was keeper size (which he wasn't) ... I just wanted to "see" his reactions to my different presentations. I didn't even think to cast well out from their nests, to see if I could find the staging spot for the females, and I wouldn't have kept them, either, had I caught any. I had already caught a nice bunch of fish, and was really just interested in seeing if I could coax the bedding males into giving up any secrets about how they defend the bed.

Butting into the intruder, nipping at them, or grabbing them in their mouths & carrying them away from the beds are some of the ways a male Crappie defends his nesting site. It's my conclusion that we catch these bed guarding males, only when they do the grab & carry off deal. I don't know if they are a bit more aggressive (attempt to kill, rather than remove the intruder), when eggs/fry are present or when a certain species is the intruder (like Bluegill or crawdads). I opted to not bother the nesting males, any more than that one instance. If memory serves me, the water level came down enough, by the following day, to make them leave that spot, anyway.


If you are seriously wanting to catch these fish ... consider using a jig that's representative of a egg/fry predator, and not a foodsource. Try a Blugill colored jig or plastic crawfish body .... enter them into the water well away from the fish, and VERY slowly inch them towards the nest. Dropping the minnows right in front of the fish may have caused them to "back off" due to the brazen act of coming right into the bed ... not something the fish are used to encountering. Give them a natural predator action (sneaking in slowly) and you might get a normal "removal" or "kill" response.

... cp

[ChrisCarter]

If you are seriously wanting to catch these fish ... consider using a jig that's representative of a egg/fry predator, and not a foodsource. Try a Blugill colored jig or plastic crawfish body .... enter them into the water well away from the fish, and VERY slowly inch them towards the nest. Dropping the minnows right in front of the fish may have caused them to "back off" due to the brazen act of coming right into the bed ... not something the fish are used to encountering. Give them a natural predator action (sneaking in slowly) and you might get a normal "removal" or "kill" response.

... cp

You know, you mention the bluegill/crawdad being a natural predator and it got me thinking. I do remember seeing a few small bluegill in the area that followed the minnows, not to mention a few small bass, but they made no attempt to get close to the crappie and where they were sitting on the rocks.

I'll try a few of those techniques tomorrow should the males still be in the same area. Thanks for the helpful info guys. Maybe I'll have some better pictures tomorrow.