river fishin

[crappiecrazy]

I fished a small slow movin (30yds wide) river yesterday(Mud River). It is known to have some good crappie fishin. I was fishing near where this river dumped into another bigger river (Green River). There were young shad everywhere! It looked like you could "walk on them". I did not see any fish feedin activity on these shad and did not catch any crappie. I wonder how you would catch any fish when there was so many baitfish everywhere. Anyone else ever fish under these conditions and have any advice.

PS I was not fishin during what I consider prime time. Early morning/late evening. And I only fished for a couple of hours.

[racerkvn]

For something like that, I will fish a 16th jig first, at all different depths, and if I don't catch anything, I'll try a small crankbait, and maybe a horsehead spinner. I do find it harder to catch crappie when the bait fish is balled up really tight (I think they gourge themselves, and won't hit anything). I fish the edges of the bait ball. I like to troll around and see if anything is on the bottom (depending on how deep the bait fish are) and I fish around that structure, it seem to me that the crappie will hold around the structure and when the bait ball comes by or close to them, they will feed.