Highway to Hot-Time Crappie

EDITOR'S NOTE: To catch hot-weather crappie, a fisherman must know what causes crappie to leave their deep-water haunts and move into shallow water when the temperature climbs high enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk.

Larry Bettison of Georgetown, Georgia, a sneaky, hot-weather crappie fishermen, rarely if ever lifts the lid on his ice chest or his livewell when someone asks, "Have you caught any fish?" Rather than lie, Bettison just wipes his brow and says, "The weather's so hot out on the lake, I can't believe a fish will bite anywhere."

But Bettison always grins after his comment. He knows he has a cooler full of big slab crappie he's caught at a time when and a place where most other anglers don't fish during the summer months.

"Lake Eufaula in Eufaula, Alabama, near my home, has three or four underwater bridges that are still intact," Bettison explained. "You can find these bridges by looking at old road and river maps that show train trestles and bridges crossing small creeks and rivers before the lake was impounded. Crappie often will suspend under these bridges and above these old creek channels. But even if you know crappie are holding around underwater bridges, you'll have difficulty catching them unless you use two grappling hooks to hold your boat in place."

Bettison tried to catch the underwater-bridge crappie for several years before he developed his grappling-hook technique. One bridge he fished lay out on the main part of the lake where waves caused his anchors to come up and moved his boat away from the edge of the bridge.

"I learned that if my minnows or jigs didn't fall right beside the bridge where the crappie could see them, the fish wouldn't move out from under the bridge to take them," Bettison reported. "Then when the waves hit the boat and the boat rocked, the anchors would come up off the top of the bridge and move my boat away from the edge of the underwater bridge. I couldn't find a way to keep my line lying right along the edge of the underwater bridge so my minnow would put on a show for the crappie under the bridge."

Not one to accept defeat, Bettison came up with a grappling-hook tactic that would allow his boat to stay right on the lip of the break and let him fish with his line lying right beside and touching the old bridge.

"I made an anchor resembling a grappling hook from pieces of aluminum with a 4-foot piece of aluminum sticking straight up and four spikes coming off the main shaft," Bettison said. "I'd lower the grappling hook down and catch the underside of the bridge with at least two of the four prongs. Then I'd tighten up on the rope and run the end of the rope through a bungee cord I'd hooked onto the cleat on the side of my boat.

"Once I got the first grappling hook secured to the side of the bridge, I'd hook up a second grappling hook to the stern. The grappling hook would hold the boat next to the bridge. The bungee cord let the boat rock back and forth without creating slack on the rope that held the grappling hook to the base of the bridge.

"Next, I baited my rods with live minnows and slowly let the lines down the side of the bridge. I kept most of my rods lying inside the boat with just the tips of the rods over the side of the boat. I usually could feel the side of the bridge with my line as I lowered a minnow down so it could swim right on the bottom edge of the bridge where the crappie were holding. The bridge provided shade, structure and a place for the baitfish to concentrate."

Although a number of people fish the bridge, Bettison has learned to fish a more specific, productive place for the most crappie season. Bettison fishes the edges of the two pilings that sit on the underwater riverbank and support the span of the bridge.

"Those bridge pilings offer vertical structure over the edge of the deep water, which means the crappie can hold vertically wherever they want under the shade of the bridge," Bettison said.

Often at night during the summer months, Bettison will use his grappling hooks to hold him on the break of the old underwater bridge. He finds that crappie move out from under the bridge and hold on top of the bridge when the sun goes in and the moon comes out.

"The later I fish into the night, the closer to the surface I'll catch crappie," Bettison advised. "The fish will move up because I use either a Coleman lantern or floating lights to attract the baitfish on which the crappie will feed."

With Bettison's grappling-hook method, he holds his boat on the lip of the break. He can fish minnows either under the submerged bridge by day or on top of the bridge by night.

To contact Larry Bettison, a crappie-fishing guide at Lake Eufaula, call Lake Eufaula Guide Service at (334) 687-9595.

Tomorrow: Doughnuts For Crappie