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Life long Bass fisherman turned to crappie. Setup is a 17' startos bass boat, have a Spyder rig 4 pole mount upfront, 14' poles, (4). fished I at end of spawn at nolin 12-14 foot of water fishing about a foot off bottom. I was catching 10" to 12"+ all day long. Was very happy. now that it is summer, I see a ton of fish in that same depth, but the crappie I am catching are 6" fish. Where did the big ones go and how do I catch those? please any advice needed.
I almost forgot I am using minnows.
To my knowledge, the bigger fish are mostly out in open water on flats & channel edges following the Shad schools. That's not to say that they won't be closer to the bank and/or in the brush in that depth range, but they're most likely to be there early & late in the day when the shade is over the water above that cover.
Your best bet for those open water fish is to Push jigs (or jig/minnow) at a faster speed than what you would normally Spider Rig at, and with heavier weights. I use a 1oz trolling sinker - 3ft leader - jig/plastic setup & run at around 1mph. I have two 4rod rod holders mounted on my boat, but rarely use more than 4 rods at a time (when alone or with a partner).
Sorry ... this is the only pic I have of my setup, but you can see how I Push jigs with 4rods with it. This picture was also taken prior to me having more than 2 rods over 10' long. (That's a 10' rod front left & a 7' rod rear right ... the other two are 14' rods)
https://www.crappie.com/crappie/atta...01_131357-jpeg
I like the umbrella and holder!
I knew Pappy would respond! I learned something looking at your setup and reading your post!
:welcome:welcome
Stay with us and you will learn a lot, Glad to have you!
Most of the mid summer crappie that I've caught at Nolin are on brush sunken near mid to deep water docks...it's pretty consistent once you find the right ones. SI helps tons this time of year.
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