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Crappie Fishing Tips

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1. Whether fishing docks, brush, or other cover, the shaded side will usually produce the most fish, especially on sunny days. This tip also holds true when crappies are along a shoreline that offers no shade. Once the rising sun becomes too high and the shade disappears, so does the crappie bite.

2. While a lot of crappies can be caught fishing the edge a dock even more can be caught right underneath the dock. To catch these crappies under the dock just slip your jig or bait between the gap of dock boards. Another tip is when fish are too big to lift through the gap, just slide your line to either end of the dock and reach underneath for your slab crappie.

3. When fishing a jig underneath a bobber a jig that is hanging horizontal will usually attract more crappies than a jig hanging vertical. The horizontal hook will also help you hook more fish. With a tight knot just pull the line towards the hook point and your jig will hang horizontal.

4. When bluegills become a nuisance crappie fishing try fishing small bass style baits. These baits include small Rapala FL-3 or 5, Daredevils, Mepps inline spinners, and safety-pin style spinnerbaits.

5. A tip I learned ice fishing that I have adapted to summer time fishing is when casting for crappies keep a very close eye on your line for any sideways movement to detect strikes that you can not feel. This is the reason you will see many crappie fishermen use highly visible fishing line such as flame yellow or orange.

6. For whatever reason, the color of your lure can make or break you. Always be willing to experiment and keep good assortment of different colored lures in your tackle box. My favorite colors are black, pink, and yellow.

7. When setting the hook on crappies don’t get carried away. A longer sweeping hook set will result in more hooked fish without ripping jigs out of their paper thin mouths, hence crappies often being referred to as papermouths.

8. Unlike bluegill fishing, the best time of day to catch crappies is sunrise and sunset. On cloudy days fishing can also be good mid-day.

9. The best time to catch crappies from the shore is during pre-spawn and spawn. Other than these 3 to 4 short weeks crappies will almost always be found in deeper water.

10. Fan casting small safety-pin style spinnerbaits is a very effective technique when searching for crappie. With this style of spinnerbait being very snag resistant, work it slowly over, beside, and through wooded cover.

11. Don't overlook the opportunity to take loads of crappie in tailwaters below big river dams. River

12. During late winter and early spring crappies in rivers will move upstream in search of spawning sites. When their journey is stopped by a dam excellent crappie fishing can be had in the tailwaters of the dam before they move on.