Get Ideas From your Fishing Buddies

You can learn some productive ways to catch post-spawn crappie from your fishing buddies. Here's some other anglers have taught me. Go to main river or creek channels during the hot summer months, and move your boat at a slow rate of speed along their edges. Every time you see a school of crappie holding on the edge of a creek or a river channel, drop a buoy marker. Continue to move on down the edge of the underwater river bank or creek bank. After you've located four or five schools of crappie holding on that channel break, then return to where you've dropped your first buoy. Stop well away from the buoy. Use your trolling motor on a slow setting to move in close to the buoy and relocate the school. Then fish vertically with either jigs or minnows to catch the crappie in the school. When the crappie in the first school quit biting, move to the second school you've buoyed off and continue to fish. Once you've fished all your buoys, pick them up and use them to pinpoint more schools of crappie to fish.

Another tip a friend told me was to fish bridge pilings at night to catch some of the largest post-spawners. The bridge pilings that support bridges and railroad trestles often sit close to the edges of underwater creek and river channels. Hang a lantern over the side of your boat to attract crappie that move up and down the edge of the channel and that have related to the vertical structure of the bridge channel. Often during the summer months, you'll start catching the crappie close to the bottom or the edge of the channel. The later in the night you fish, the higher the crappie will move up in the water, close to the surface. You'll have the most success at night catching crappie around this type of structure by fishing minnows. But always carry a few jigs with you. Then if the minnows die or you run out of minnows before you have your limit of crappie, you can continue to fish.

During the hottest part of the summer, you often can find crappie on a shallow flat where a creek channel runs into the main river channel. As the current is pulled through the lake, the crappie will school-up on the inside of the upcurrent creek channel below the lip of the break. The crappie will look toward the surface upcurrent to spot baitfish moving along the bottom with the current. Using a slip cork to suspend a live minnow just above the bottom, cast upcurrent. Let your minnow wash over the lip of the break 2 to 3 inches above the bottom. The crappie will come out of the creek channel, attack the minnow and pull your cork and the bait down toward the bottom.

I seldom think to fish for crappie with crankbaits, but my friends have suggested that I do. I've had success with this tactic with post-spawn crappie. You particularly can catch deep crappie on underwater drop-offs, ledges or stumps fishing small, deep-diving crankbaits. Cast the crankbaits out, and swim them along the edges of the cover. Or, crash them into underwater stumps and logs. As the baits float up after the collision, the crappie often will attack.

To learn more about successful crappie fishing, go to Night Hawk Publications' Home Page, and click on fishing books.

TOMORROW: PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR SURROUNDINGS, AND USE UNUSUAL TECHNIQUES TO TAKE CRAPPIE

Check back each day this week for more about Tips For Catching Post-Spawn Crappie ...

Day 1 -Be Versatile
Day 2 -Vary Your Tactics To Take Post-Spawn Crappie
Day 3 -Get Ideas From your Fishing Buddies
Day 4 -Pay Attention To Your Surroundings, and Use Unusual Techniques To Take Crappie
Day 5 -Small Things Make The Difference In Success for Post-Spawn Crappie

John's Journal