Used to be, I’d catch crappie until the end of May. The last four or five years, I’m still catching them up until I start bow hunting, which is nearly September. I don’t know what has changed. But who cares? The bite is real!
Of course, the technique to catch them changes as the year goes by. On a recent Monday, Katy and I caught 114 and on Thursday we caught 141 in four hours. And she was reading a book for one to two hours both times. This year, it seems like the red/white tube jigs are the hot ticket with a small jig head but Thursday I switched to a Lake Fork Trophy Lures Baby Shad in their pearl color and it held its own.
Of course, they aren’t up right by the bank like in the spring when they’re spawning. We’re catching most of them out 50 yards from the bank and farther. To catch them is a little unique. We’ll cast out and let it sink to the bottom. If you’re fishing with two rods, cast out both.
Then pick up the first one and slowly pick up the tip of the rod and slightly reel. They start hitting right away. If not, repeat. Near dusk it is a hit every cast, literally. Reel it in, unhook your fish and by now another fish will be hitting the second rod. Don’t grab the second rod though. Cast out the first one right fast so it can be fishing and then reel in the second fish. Unhook him right fast and then cast it back in and grab the first rod. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat until you’re tired. Fishing is unbelievable right now. More than likely you’ll only be able to handle one rod.
I don’t have a depth finder on the Black Pearl (which the haters call the Edmund Fitz Terror due to a few mishaps) so I can’t tell you what depth to fish in but I’d say out to 30 feet. We catch most of them deep but as soon as I say that we get a lot of fish not over four feet deep. You might say, Tom, they’ve followed your jig up from the bottom but quite a few times we’ve had a jig laying over the side of the boat and caught a fish not three feet deep.
But big news, even though we’ve owned the Black Pearl for 34 years and she is very well weather worn, we did upgrade her last week. We put on a Honda BF2.3 gas motor. Ahh … It is like a slice of heaven. No longer do we have to monitor the battery power level nor are we limited to staying within a couple of miles of where we launched. Nor do we periodically have to paddle back due to a dead battery. A couple of times in bad winds I’ve made it back within 50 yards of the dock only for the battery to die (curse of all curses) and get blown off into eternity.
The Honda BF2.3 motor pushes the BP about three times as fast as the electric trolling motor, too. As soon as I get a free moment, I think I’ll go down to the courthouse and legally change her name to SUCK MY WAKE! That definitely sounds more prestigious than all the other names that my disillusioned buddies have called her. Such as The Edmund Fitz Terror, The Coffin or Carp 1.
Now that I have a real motor and can fish more and will be paddling and cussing less, what am I going to do with all of the fish that allows me more time to catch?
Yes, I am definitely on top of the world now that I have a gas motor. I’m thinking that I’ve reached the pinnacle of crappie fishing.
Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.
