Proven Night Crappie-Fishing Methods
Bridge Pilings
Editor’s
Note: Any time a writer mentions where crappie will
be at a specific season, he only can be sure he’s
explaining where some of the crappie will be found.
During both the cold winter months and the hot summer
months, I’ve caught crappie at 2-feet deep and
in 20 feet of water on the same day. In the spring of
the year during the spawn when the crappie usually are
shallow, like you, I’ve taken crappie in 1-1/2-
and 15 feet of water. The truth about crappie fishing
is there are no absolutes. The suggestions I’ve
made this week produce crappie for me most of the time
in most of the areas I fish at night in hot weather.
Hopefully, they’ll do the same for you.
Most anglers who fish by starlight realize that bridges
that cross creeks, rivers and lakes home productive
crappie hot spots at the bases of them. A bridge piling
provides a current break and vertical structure
where the crappie can position themselves and hold out
of the current at any water depth where they find bait
and/or cooler temperatures. Oftentimes you’ll
locate crappie and the bait they’re feeding on
just above the thermoline. To fish these bridge pilings,
first decide at what water depth the crappie seem to
be feeding most actively. By letting your bait down
to the bottom and counting the number of turns on the
reel you take as you reel your line back to the surface,
you can locate the crappie in the proper water depth.
For instance, if you let your minnow down to the bottom
and make six turns off the bottom with your reel and
the crappie attacks, the next time you drop your bait
to the bottom, you can reel up quickly six turns and
assume you have your bait in the crappie’s strike
zone.
Remember, the longer you fish next to a bridge piling
at night, the
more likely the crappie are to begin to move from deep
to shallow water to feed. Therefore, once I know at
what depth the crappie are feeding, I usually set out
two B’n’M poles with quills on them to suspend
the bait half-way between where the crappie are feeding
and the surface. For example, if I’m catching
crappie 16-feet deep next to a bridge piling on my rod
and reel, I’ll set the quills on my poles to suspend
the minnows at 8 feet. When I start getting bites on
the poles, I know the crappie are feeding up. Then I
fish with my rod at 8 feet and move the line on my poles
up to 4 feet. Using this tactic, I consistently can
keep up with the water depth at which the crappie are
most-actively feeding. When fishing a bridge piling
all night, I may begin the night fishing at depths up
to 25 feet. Then before daylight, I may catch crappie
in less than 1 foot of water right under the lights
of my boat.
The best bridge pilings to fish throughout most of
the year will be the pilings on the edges of creek and
river channels. I prefer to fish creek bridge pilings
during the pre-spawn and post-spawn periods and river
bridge pilings in mid- to late-summer. Bridges across
creeks seem to pay more crappie dividends just before
and just after the spawn when the crappie move up creek
channels and hold on pilings before they swim into the
shallow water to spawn. Once the spawn is completed,
the crappie generally migrate down the creeks and hold
on the creek bridge pilings at night before the hot
temperatures force them to move to the deeper water
of the river channel. During July and August, I seem
to find the most crappie on bridge pilings on the edges
of underwater river channels. Even though the crappie
tend to move out to deeper water and hold on cover along
the river channel, they still seem to congregate under
bridge pilings on the river channel during the hottest
time of the year. At night, even in July and August,
I’ve caught crappie as shallow as 1-1/2-feet deep
as the fish move from the deep water to the shallow
water to feed under my lights at night.
Tomorrow: The Great Light Debate
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