KENT DRISCOLL - EXTRAORDINARY CRAPPIE FISHERMAN
Why Driscoll Gets Wet to Catch Crappie
 EDITOR'S
NOTE: Kent Driscoll of Cordova, Tennessee, has enjoyed
fishing for crappie for 30 years. He's fished in crappie
tournaments and finishing third in 2000 and fourth in
2002 at the North American Crappie Classic. Each spring
and summer, Driscoll fishes the Crappie USA Circuit,
Crappiemasters and the new Crappie Angler's Association,
using a wide variety of tactics that produce crappie
all year long. For the next two weeks, we'll learn how
Driscoll finds and catches crappie.
Question: Kent, why do you get wet to catch crappie?
Driscoll: In north Mississippi where I like to fish,
often during the spring, the water clarity may only
be 2- or
3-inches deep, and often the crappie will be holding
really tight together. I generally start wade fishing
lakes like Arkabutla, Grenada and Enid in mid-March
and continue to fish like this throughout the month
of April. When the crappie are ready to spawn and are
moving into 1 to 2 feet of water, I like to get into
the water and fish really tight to the cover. Wading
gives me the advantage of putting a crappie jig in a
spot where a boat fisherman can't put a crappie jig.
 Question:
What kind of areas are you fishing when you wade fish?
Driscoll: I'll be wading in shallow water that's really
close to deep water. I look for a creek that goes into
a bay on the north end of the lake, especially during
early March. The northwest bank of that creek will get
the most sun of any bank on the lake. Because that northwest
bank receives the most sun all day long, that bank will
warm up quicker than any other bank in the lake. So
this bank in this creek in this bay will usually be
where the crappie will spawn first. As I move into these
bays with creeks moving through them, I start searching
for the type of cover that crappie look for when they're
going to spawn shallow.
My favorite type of cover to fish is a downed willow
tree with a root ball on it out in the water. Root balls
are a hotspot for crappie, especially in the early spring.
I'm also looking for buck brush out in the water. The
buck brush provides a lot of cover for the crappie,
and they really like to get into that brush in the early
spawning season. These two types of cover provide shade
for the crappie to hide in and  an
area where baitfish that crappie will feed on will congregate.
These kinds of areas offer food, cover and an excellent
spawning site. If I'm fishing close to the bank where
the water covers the root system of a tree, I try to
imagine the roots going down into the water and determine
where the crappie may be holding in that root system.
During the spring of the year when many lakes come
up close to or at full pool, those lakes often will
have a lot of grass in the water and a vast amount of
soft bottom. But crappie prefer to spawn on a hard bottom.
One of the tactics I've learned is when I'm fishing
lakes that have grass in them and have just come up
to full pool, I look for a hardwood tree that has water
covering its root system. Then I'll fish under the outermost
branches of that hardwood tree. This area is called
the drip line of the tree because this is where all
the water or a great portion of the water that hits
the tree when it rains runs off the tree. Because a
large hardwood tree creates quite a bit of shade, there's
usually little or no vegetation growing under that tree.
Therefore, the bottom around the base of the tree is
usually a hard bottom. The transition
area between that hard bottom and soft bottom will usually
be at the drip line of the tree. For this reason, I'll
start jig fishing along that drip line to catch the
crappie on the outer edge of this spawning area first.
Then I'll move my jig under the tree to catch the crappie
holding closest to the stump of the tree.
One important key to my crappie-fishing success when
wading is that I'm always fishing into the wind and
wading into the wind. The reason to wade into the wind
is as you walk on the bottom with your waders, you create
a cloud of mud along the bottom. If you don't fish into
the wind but have the wind at your back, that cloud
of silt coming up from the bottom will drift into the
bush you're trying to fish and will spook the crappie
you're trying to fish.
To learn more about Mossy Oak Fishing Line, go to www.mossyoakfishing.com.
For more information on B'n'M crappie poles, visit www.bnmpoles.com.
TOMORROW: JIG FISHING
|
