Found crappie.com again and am sad I got away from it. Since WI fishing can vary by location (thank you zebra mussels), what is your favorite color lure by water color?
I'll go first.
For the zebra mussle infested clear to stained waters, I like pink in spring and black/yellow combos later in summer. Maybe a bit od semi translucent white. Sparkles in sunshine, no sparkles in cloud cover.
For Missisippi waters, I don't know. I haven't been super successful there yet - any tips?
Glad to have ya back. Hate to hear about them invasives
I don`t have a favorite color by the end of the day Crappie fishing I have this pile of plastics laying on my front deck. It varies from time of day to the day itself. Mississippi River fishing is like any river current and structure are going to determine where the fish will be.
The toughest is when the water is high as it opens up so much area for the fish to find food and scatter them. When water is high I fish areas that has a stop you don`t want to be on a huge flat where the fish can be anywhere. I want an area that has some type of bank to keep the fish from going miles back into the high water area and protected from strong current. Crappies will tolerate some current as long as they have an area they can take a break from fighting it. Anything that slows or diverts the current to cause eddies.
Normal water levels the back side of islands off the main channel if they have some depth 5 feet plus with some cover especially islands that are banana shaped where the tip of the island is breaking most of the current. Wingdams can be great for Crappies and Panfish fishing the eddies created by them, especially the ones that have some grass growing towards the bank, hang on as these are also good areas for Smallmouth and Walleyes.
Lived in Mukwonago, WI for ~6 years and chased crappie all over Wisconsin from Delavan to 'Bago to Onalaska to Madison etc.....one consistent theme in clear (to me) Wisconsin waters is not color of the plastic, but size.
Think smaller, natural colored baits vs. big (2") and bright (chartreuse).
Exceptions could be made on the Mississippi backwaters where there's some stain to it but even then, I never felt confident with larger bait profiles like I did/do in Southern Illinois, Missouri, Texas, Louisiana and now North Carolina.
Just something to think about.
U