Why are Crappie so difficult for so many to catch

[woodyard]

Sometimes it is a thing of where the crappie are hanging out and it can be just a few feet. I remember being on KY lake a long time ago and many ,many boats in one area. No one catching much, then one boat started catching some , then more and more, they threw out an anchor and put on a show. None of the other boats did much. I decided that I would be back and check out this exact spot. Next trip I was able to troll around the area found out it was a small rocky hump area. The fish were moving into it to spawn. Water around it went from 15-20 ft up to 4 ft on this hump. I fished it many times after that. Brush piles were scattered around the edges at deeper depths. Everybody on that one morning except that one boat was not at the correct depth and spot. It is a very small area.

Saw it one summer in a lake fishing for bluegill after the bedding and spawn. A buddy and I found a little spot that they were stacked in for some reason. About the size of a car hood, thus we named it and took many fish off it the rest of the summer. It had one little branch sticking up from the bottom in about 6 ft of water. If you were not in the little spot , you were out of luck.

As some have had said , it can be weird sometimes. I have seen it trout fishing sometimes. Both fishermen throwing the same bait or lures and one wearing the other out. I usually suspected that was a case of different reel speeds. Just a slight difference made the difference to the fish. It seems that sometimes it is only a very subtle difference.

[mozingo1952]

Well , I am no expert. I was fishing with a buddy a few years back . I was catching them pretty good , he was not catching any.
I started watching his rod tip. He was getting bit with no reaction. I asked to see his bait. He held the jig in front of me , and
I told him to look away. I gently thumped his jig. I asked, " did you feel that ? " he replied " Yes" I asked if he had felt anything
like that while fishing, He replied " yes" I told him to set the hook when he did. He started catching fish, He said " I thought they would
hit harder"
Some folks just don't get it.

Mo

[soonerdg]

Here's my take on this. It's about knowing when a crappie bites. A good majority of the time you don't feel a crappie bite. I recently took two trips with a guide on lake Fork. To learn the lake an learn live scope. What I found out that I was consistently lacking was knowing when the crappie bit. Basically they guide would say "hit him"...I'd set the hook and have a fish. I never felt it bite. So I started paying attention to what he was looking at on the screen when he knew it was a bite. By the end of the second trip I was getting much better at getting the fish before he told me to set the hook.

Another anecdote. I fish A LOT more than a buddy of mine. When he comes to fish with me I always out fish him. We're using the same setup with the same bait in the same spot. The difference, I recognize the subtle movement of the bobber (we mostly fish the spawn together) that signals a light bite when he doesn't. Obviously if the bobber goes under he gets the fish. But crappie sometimes inhale a minnow and then just sit there. It's that subtle tick, or just the way the bobber sits a little "weird" that I recognize and he doesn't. All because i get more practice.

Anyway, that's my take on why some fisherman out fish others even in the same circumstances. And why those "experts" are catching when others aren't.

[Rojo]

Here is the presentation video I mentioned earlier. For those who don't know what I'm talking about it is how you enter the water with your jig, how you lower it down, and how to tease a Crappie to bite. I hope you find it helpful. For those who already know how to fish it would be interesting to see if you like it or not. I'm also posting along with last months CrappieNow article we did to support that article.

Above the Fray - YouTube

[Ketchn]

a fella some know here and I used to talk when we ketched fish , we often had conversations about the amount of bites folks get and never knew it was bite .
there is something we called the crappie touch , it isn't really about your tackle and or line or rod , it is about that subtle bite and the differences between it and the cover they are near .
many times I thought it was brush or cover and tried to "ease" my jig away from the brush only to have a stubborn crappie pull back as I tried to not get hung up on said cover. crappie can flat out have a bait in their mouth and you will never know it . many times over LS we would say he/she is looking at it as a fish got up really close to the jig .....THEN KABOOM I set the hook and up came said just looking at it fish .
my sixth sense or "crappie touch" knew without watching that fish wasn't just looking .....

[SuperDave336]

Good video. Thanks for posting.

[Rojo]

Very well said Ketchn. It is very hard to describe what you just wrote. Best I have been able to say is "My Arm is Setting the Hook before my Conscious knows I got a bite". This along with a good Presentation is extremely hard to teach. I have noticed since Live Sonar came out those focused on a screen over their jig pole tip and blank seem the hardest to teach this. I feel it is the visual distraction causing the less than stellar performance Crappie fishing. Just my

[Bricks]

Ketchen makes a good point the more you fish the more tuned in you get to your tackle. Perfect example is when I haven`t fished Walleyes for a while. Pitching a 3/16 ounce jig in current, cover and depth it takes me a few hours to get the feel back of what and where my jig actually is. Feeling the difference is it ticking bottom as it`s drifting is that a rock, piece of wood sand gravel, clam shells or a fish bite. When I Crappie, Walleye fish I am a huge line watcher looking for that slight tick of the line or just gong slack.

[Slab Apprentice]

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[Gone Fishin']

I've been the guy catching 'em and I've been the guy not catching them. Usually, if anyone around me is catching, I do OK. My problem is finding them outside spring time. I fish a real big lake and struggle to find them for half the year.