Spooky Crappie by Brad Wiegmann

[Slab]

Its crazy how spooky crappie get in the summer to early fall. It’s a combination of not wanting to leave the deeper habitat and migrating to the flats, but crappie are extremely spooky during this time. There are several ways to getting bites during this time when trolling crankbaits.


On a recent road trip to the famous Grenada reservoir the owner of PICO Lures Mitch Glenn experienced just how spooky crappie can get with boat congestion, strong winds and falling water levels. “Even on a reservoir like Grenada,” Glen continued, “Famous for its big crappie; the crappie can get spooky this time of year.”


Grenada is a reservoir on the Yalobusa River and one of the four flood controlled lakes located in North Mississippi. It was dammed in 1954 with a surface area of 36,000 acres and has 148 miles of shoreline. The minimum length limit is 12 inches with a creel limit of 15 crappie a day or 40 crappie per boat for 3 or more anglers. Anglers can use no more than 4 poles per person and no more than 2 hooks or lures per pole.


“We could see the crappie and other game fish scatter when our boat got close to them on livescope,” Glenn went on, “Everything was running from the boat which explained the reason why we caught a majority of the crappie out away from the boat. The trick to catching them was to cover lots of water with our crankbaits. ”


Glenn noted that boat control also played a big part of their success. To cover water they would slightly zigzag back and forth over the flats towards the river channel. This allows the crankbaits to cover a wide area in 12- to 18-feet deep of water; in addition to pulling crankbaits over humps and adjacent to the old river channel.




Having 4 anglers in the boat allowed them to troll 12 rods out at once. The back row of 8 rods had 4 Off Shore Tackle OR12 Side Planer boards and 4 free lines while the front had 4 down lines and pushing PICO crankbaits. Down lines up on the bow had Off Shore Tackle Tadpole Resettable Diving Weight to keep them in the 12 foot deep strike zone. The long line and Off Shore Tackle were set to 50- to 52-feet out which put them in the right depth for a crappie to bite them.


Not surprisingly the distance from the planer board to the boat was 75 feet on the outside board. The next planer board was out a shorter distance. This created a V pattern with the longest away from the boat. On these rods the line was set to around 50 feet allowing the crankbait to dive at 12 feet deep.





“On Beaver Lake, an Ozark highland reservoir, even with the clearer water clarity the crappie are not as spooky as the crappie were on Grenada. Right now shad patterns are the most productive compared to the darker colors that were catching crappie on Grenada. The best down there was PICO Crank baits in Grenada green, green machine, any of the orange color patterns and firetiger caught some,” said Glenn


The front down lines had PICO Squarebills on them. Unlike the PICO INT deep diving crankbaits; the squarebills have a more knocking noise and the deep diving model a rattling sound. At times the sound will make a difference when crappie are spooky.


There was some boat congestion as the wind was blowing both days. That also played a factor in where they were fishing. However, the one factor that was controllable was boat speed. Glenn noted they kept the boat speed at around 2 mph. “The crappie in Grenada have an attitude and seem to be all jacked up all the time and when a crankbait comes by they will just strike at it,” Glenn continued, “Those crappie are always wanting to eat.”

[Rojo]

Totally agree and I have never fished Grenada Lake. Our river systems near residential developments get the weekend pontoons cruisers, See-Doos, Water Skiers, etc with music cranked up, sub-woofers going Boom - Boom- Boom. No sane Crappie are eating much less in water shallow enough to fish reasonably. One thunder clap around here and you might as well go home, the bite is over.
Good article, thanks for posting.

[Ketchn]

it seems to vary a lot from water body to water body , some places they bolt like they are set on fire when you get close and others not hardly even a little bit , no clue why for positive ,but likely a predator prey relationship reaction is my guess .

[SuperDave336]

Good article. Spooky fish they can be for sure sometimes. I also have seen them on the same lake where you could drop dynamite nearby and I don't think they would leave. Strange fish they are. I would love to get to Grenada lake sometime and experience those awesome Mississippi fish.

[BuckeyeCrappie]

Thanks for sharing these insights

[DockShootinJack]

Great informative article

[M R Dux]

On Grenada, we have watched schools of crappie on Livescope, ahead of the boat, scatter as the boat approached. This was seen in 15-40 feet of water depth. That’s why planer boards can be so effective, like they were during Crankfest. As the boat passes over, the fish move off to each side, making them targets of the cranks as they came along, away from the boat.

Today a typical crappie boat has multiple electronic units “pinging” at any given time. You will never convince me that these electronic signals don’t alert fish to the presence of a boat, even before a shadow overhead would. This is why many Livescope fishermen turn off any units not directly in front of them when fishing.

Mitch got schooled on Off Shore OR12 planer boards in my boat at Crankfest in years past and the latest Crankfest.


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