HOW TO FIND CRAPPIE ON A NEW LAKE

Employ Scientific Reconnaissance

EDITOR'S NOTE: With the strategies you'll learn this week, you can develop a game plan on how to fish a new lake. With this information, a large number of potential crappie hotspots will come to mind. However, depending on the time of year you plan to fish, you also must consider where the crappie will be along their seasonal migration routes. During the hot summer months or the cold winter months, look for crappie on deep-water structures, like underwater points, creek channels, ledges, humps and bridge pilings you've located from your map and aerial reconnaissance. When fishing the prespawn or the postspawn, search for crappie in staging areas, including the brush in front of piers, around marinas and boat docks and on humps, creek channels close to spawning flats and edges of creek channels in flooded-timber regions. If you fish the spawn, fish those hidden areas where other anglers won't fish. Cross the sandbars and the mud flats to reach the backs of bays and creeks cut off from the main river channel. When fishing relatively clear water during the spawn, concentrate on the humps and the points out in the lake. many times crappie will spawn in deeper water, if the water's clear.

The state fisheries' biologist responsible for the lake you plan to fish provides one of the best places to gain information about a new lake. Obtain this biologist's name by calling your state fish and wildlife service. When you talk with the fisheries biologist, tell him where you want to fish. Ask him to suggest areas where his lake surveys indicate fishermen have caught the most crappie. Also question him about specific fishing sites, the depth of the water the crappie usually hold in at the time of year you want to fish and the kind of structure where the fish will hold. Too, inquire about parts of the lake where he's seen crappie during his electrofishing surveys, although most anglers may not fish these areas.

Your state fisheries biologist studies the lakes in his district throughout the year to try and determine the size, the number and the growth rate of the crappie as well as the water conditions. He has a vast amount of information that can help you learn how to fish a new lake.

To learn more about crappie fishing, order John E. Phillips's book, "The Masters' Secrets of Crappie and Fishing, available for $13.50, including shipping and handling by sending a check or a money order to Night Hawk Publications, 4112 Camp Horner Road, Birmingham, Alabama, 35243; or call 800-627-4295 to use a credit card or PayPal.

TOMORROW: MAP 'EM OUT