MORE ON CRANKBAITING FOR CRAPPIE AND OTHER KENT DRISCOLL
TACTICS
How to Find Crappie on a New Lake
 EDITOR'S
NOTE: Kent Driscoll of Cordova, Tennessee, has enjoyed
fishing for crappie for 30 years. He's fished in crappie
tournaments for 10 years, winning numbers of local tournaments,
several one-day 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. Let's learn how Driscoll finds
and catches crappie.
Question: Kent, how do you find crappie on a new lake
that you've never fished before?
Driscoll: I'll start looking for crappie on a lake
I've never fished before long before I leave home. I
order a lake map of the lake I intend to fish, and when
that map arrives, I take a pen and based on the time
of year that I'll be fishing, I try to predict where
the crappie should be holding based on their annual
spawning migration. If I'm going to be fishing the lake
in the early spawning season, then I concentrate my
efforts in the northeastern part of the lake. Later
in the spawning season, I'll know that I need to fish
the backs of creeks or the backs of coves. If the spawn
is coming to an end, I need to fish more in the middle
of the creeks and coves as the crappie move from the
backs of the creeks and coves to deeper water. If I
fish the lake during the summertime, I know I need to
look for deep-water areas where crappie tend to hold
in the hot summer months.
 Next,
I search for the main river channel and the main creek
channels, which are the highways under the water that
the crappie use to travel to spawning areas, away from
spawning areas and to hold over during extreme weather
conditions like summer and winter. I next look for structure
in the lake like points, underwater humps or any other
type of structure, perhaps submerged bridges where I've
caught crappie in years past. I'll begin to call any
friends I have I know have fished the lake before and
get information from them. I call the chamber of commerce
in the town or county where the lake is located. I'll
get from them the names and phone numbers of the bait
shops around the lake, call those bait shops and ask
for information about where the crappie usually hold
at this time of the year on their lake and what baits
the fish usually prefer.
Finally, I'll call the Game & Fish Division in
that state and ask to speak to the fisheries biologist
who's responsible for that lake. His job is to know
where the fish are, what type structure they'll be holding
on, and how fishermen most often catch crappie on that
lake at that time of year when you're going to be fishing.
Now I have a huge database to draw from before I ever
go to the lake..
 Once
I get to the lake, I don't start fishing right away.
I leave my poles in the boat and take out a pencil,
paper and my hand-held GPS receiver. I go to the areas
I plan to fish from all my pre-scouting. By using my
depth finder, I search for bottom breaks and cover that
may be holding fish in the areas I've chosen to fish.
When I find the cover or I see large schools of fish,
I mark those spots as a waypoint, write down the number
of the waypoint on the paper and the creek or area where
I've located the spot or spots I want to fish. I'm also
looking for baitfish and crappie as well as structure
when I'm scouting with my depth finder and my GPS receiver.
I study the arches on my depth finder to try and determine
if they're big arches, because then more than likely,
the fish I'm seeing aren't crappie. From my depth finder
I can usually tell if the fish I'm seeing are crappie
or other species. I also want to know if the crappie
are in a stacked type of formation or other type of
formation or whether they're scattered.
I take my time when I'm doing my scouting, and I run
to a lot of different areas to learn all I can where
the fish are, where the cover is, how the fish are positioned
and hopefully find 20 or 30 areas where I want to fish
based on this information. I try to go to three different
areas. Then once I've completed looking at those areas
with a depth finder and recording the spots I want to
fish on my GPS, then I make a decision of which area
I want to fish first. I also compare the three different
areas to try and develop a pattern, like:
* are the crappie that I've seen in these three different
regions all holding on creek channels or humps or suspended?
* are the crappie in the back ends of the creeks, the
middles of the creeks, the mouths of the creeks or in
the main river channel? This is the same technique that
tournament bass fishermen use when they're pre-fishing
not only to determine where the bass are but also on
what type of structure they're holding.
 When
I start fishing, I'll begin in the area where I believe
the most crappie are in based because of my research.
I'll offer a smorgasbord of baits like I've mentioned
earlier to determine what bait, what color, what depth
and at what speed the crappie are most likely to bite.
I even change out the various types of minnows I use.
Sometimes I'll fish a rosy red minnow instead of a shiner
or a tuffy minnow. I've seen some crappie on some lakes
prefer one kind of minnow over the other two. I've found
that once I develop a pattern based on all this information,
I can take that same pattern, fish that same depth at
that same speed with those same baits and consistently
catch crappie.
Just remember, the more information you gather about
the location you're going to fish before you start fishing,
the more crappie you'll catch when you put your lines
in the water. I bet on Mossy Oak Fishing Line to help
hook, hold and land more crappie for me, and you should
too.
To learn more about Mossy Oak Fishing Line, go to www.mossyoakfishing.com.
For more information about B'n'M Crappie Poles, visit
www.bnmpoles.com.
|
