Thread: Crappie with Scottie 9/30/20

My Son in law, Scottie and I tried for White bass early with crappie fishing as our choice after the bass early. Only poor results from the White bass. Scottie caught two nice Whites. They have been worn out this year by several anglers. A once beautiful spot ruined for good now because the word got out. It isn’t good to blab about a small area or pretty soon you won’t be able to fish it.

So onward to crappie fishing. It was very good for me but Scottie is a novice at fishing and especially crappie fishing and I had us both tied on 4 lb test hi vis line and a 1/16 oz Litewire hook with a Ghastly Minnow Slab Slayer with a white head on the jig.

I went to an offshore brushpile in 14 feet of water, dropped a marker buoy, and snuggled up close to the fish, set spot lock on the Minn Kota Terrova, and we began to fish. I began by casting about 20 feet and letting the jig drop on a pendulum line and counting down to 10, before slowly working the jig back with a very subtle “palsy” twitch. I had 5 consecutive bites, landing 2 keepers, 1 short, 1 pull off at the boat (what’s wrong with your hooks, Curtis? grin)” and missed one strike.

The bites were so subtle and without feel, that most would have said that the crappie aren’t biting today, but they were eating the paint off my jig head and I even remarked to Scottie a couple of times on two of the keepers that I caught there that 99 out of 100 people would never have set the hook on the those fish because they didn’t “feel the thump”.

I have a theory about feeling the thump and I may have already discussed it before, but it bears repeating. Close to 50 years of crappie fishing and being observant to fishing conditions and the different crappie moods, and keeping records, I have come to this conclusion. When a crappie inhales a jig, you will never feel that unless you are fishing vertical. Line watchers can see the bite before you ever feel the fish. Set the hook when you see the bite and 9 times out of 10, the jig will be buried in the roof of the mouth and very deep mostly,

When you wait to feel the thump and set the hook and get the fish to the boat, 9 times out of 10 it will barely be hooked in the lips or it’s paper mouth. Grin. Almost never back in the throat. Many of these fish pull off on the way to the boat because they aren’t hooked in a good spot, or the angler hasn’t opened up the gap of the jig a little bit. You want the point of the hook slightly above the eye of the hook for better hookups and getting the fish in the boat.

This is my theory and a theory is an assumption based on ignorance of the subject matter. Lolol. All this info, I freely give. Now get out there and prove me wrong. Most of what I have said applies to crappie that are in a neutral to negative mood because of weather conditions. I’ll get to that in the next paragraph. When crappie are in an aggressive mood, the visual bite and the thump are very close together because the fish are moving and chasing Shad.

Today, one day after the passing of a cold front that gave us a lot of rain yesterday, we found robin egg blue skies and south wind picking up later in the morning. Water temp in Wolftever creek where we launched was 71 degrees but was 73 in the main lake. Water flow was over 44,000 cfs, but didn’t matter because we did not fish the main river but went into the bays off the main river.

I had 8 keepers and 3 short fish and Scottie did not set the hook a single time. I’m sure that he had bites but didn’t detect them as we were fishing the exact color, lure, and line. I tried to talk him into bites, telling him exactly what the fish were doing and where to cast and the entire technique but it just takes catching that first fish to get the experience and confidence. He will get there.


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Curtis, you do know I was just kidding....jealous of both you and DK, as I have not been able to fish for weeks.
I did spent the afternoon painting and tying your jigs, so there's hope.