Question regarding crappie/cypress trees.....

For those of you who target crappie when they are on the cypress trees, do you fish minnows only? Or do you use lures too? And if you have done this on Blackshear, minnows or lures? I have caught a few of them in the past couple of springs on minnows, but this will be my first spring that I will actually get plenty of trips to target them on the trees. Just want to make sure I don't screw it up. I have caught crappie pretty decent up on Lake Marion, SC around cypress trees casting a blue Khalins curly tail. Any info would be great.

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Originally Posted by crappster

For those of you who target crappie when they are on the cypress trees, do you fish minnows only? Or do you use lures too? And if you have done this on Blackshear, minnows or lures? I have caught a few of them in the past couple of springs on minnows, but this will be my first spring that I will actually get plenty of trips to target them on the trees. Just want to make sure I don't screw it up. I have caught crappie pretty decent up on Lake Marion, SC around cypress trees casting a blue Khalins curly tail. Any info would be great.

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Hey, crappster.....I'm a bit out of your territory, but in my area cypress trees are a favorite place to target crappie stageing in and out of spawning beds. I cast a Bill Dance crappie spin, which is a little larger than what you might envision for our favorite fish, but I do target the larger ones. I use a number of colors, white being my favorite, then chartruce, and a gray/white combination. With any of them, the first thing I do is substitute the swivel w/a sampo ballbearing and clip to be able to change blades, a size larger for shallow, smaller for deeper, and very free spinning. Look for a drop or channel with cypress trees adjacent in 3 to 6 ft of water. I cast past the trees, let it helo down 2 to 4 seconds, then begin a slow retrieve. If they don't hit it in the shallow, let the lure drop deep just inside the channel edge. If you find them deeper in the channel, go to a smaller blade and cast parallel to the edge fishing deeper, still working slowly. If they are slow to hit, try another color, or down size the lure. If you catch all males, the majority of the females either haven't come in, or have already spawned in that area. If you want the bigger females, find cooler water (as in shaded south banks w/ deep water close by) and try there. Hope this works for you crappster, and good fishing!

Down by me we catch em spawning on the roots of cypress trees with jigs. I look for clusters of trees that are close together. At pool stage the trees have a root mass about 1' below the surface that the fish love to spawn on. Also on other lakes the fish spawn on the cypress knees along the shore.

Here is a pick of a few I caught spawning around the roots in the middle of a cypress lake out of 48 fish all but 8 were a pound +.

Aw man....you're killing me tight line. Those big black beauties are what I'm envisioning in about a week here at Blackshear. I would love to catch a mess like that. Just once....thats all...just one time. lol.

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Originally Posted by crappster

Aw man....you're killing me tight line. Those big black beauties are what I'm envisioning in about a week here at Blackshear. I would love to catch a mess like that. Just once....thats all...just one time. lol.

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Crappster if you can get the time to do some night fishing, come on up to Columbus Ga and take a trip with me. We fill the cooler very often. we only had 17 keepers tonight but we stayed busy with white bass. Had about 8 bass make the livewell.
No sheet, We get a hundred on many nights from april till september. The dock light fishing is great and I expect to harvest many on my condos this summer. You are welcome to go with me anytime. You can take your boat too if ya want but my fat arse will tippaCanoe. lol

I fish walter f. george(Eufaula) and lake harding at night.

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Originally Posted by crappster

For those of you who target crappie when they are on the cypress trees, do you fish minnows only? Or do you use lures too? And if you have done this on Blackshear[/IMG], minnows or lures? I have caught a few of them in the past couple of springs on minnows, but this will be my first spring that I will actually get plenty of trips to target them on the trees. Just want to make sure I don't screw it up. I have caught crappie pretty decent up on Lake Marion, SC around cypress trees casting a blue Khalins curly tail. Any info would be great.

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Crappster - Over here in La. the cypress trees are some of our favorite trees to fish around. I use jigs only vertical fishing. You can move that little jig in and out around the trees and stumps and really catch some nice fish. Look at these.

http://images.snapfish.com/343368%3B...75%3A%3Bot1lsi