I was planning to feature this fish this week and was surprised to catch one in Onion Creek on a baby bass imitation.
The papermouths are fun to catch. And arguably one of the best tasting freshwater fishes.
Once located they are pretty easy to catch on minnows or on jigs or roadrunners.
The key is locating them. Brush piles and humps seem to be a common place.
I've caught them in lakes and in soem rivers where they empty into a lake. This weekend was my first in a truly riverine environment. But I don't to take away from crappie fisherman--it takes a talent to locate them frequently (unless you sank some old x-mas trees in a secret spot )
I pose these questions to the experienced crappie hunters:
Crappie in rivers? Anybody catch many this way?
Preferred tackle?-rods, reels, baits and arties?
What are good lake tactics for crappie?
Anybody mind going over the cycle of where crappie lurk in different periods/seasons of year?
Also please share some of your favorite crappie recipes
Crappie is one freshwater fish I've never had much luck catching, not that
I've put any real effort into it. I've had the most success with crappie when using meal worms in 8-12 ft of water when fishing for bream. It seems to me that they are one of the most structure oriented fish in freshwater, even more so than bass. I know my relatives in Louisiana used to catch crappie year around in rivers, but never really paid much attention to how they did it.
boy I hope this one gets a lot of posts ... It has been a real long time since I went crappie fishing.
All I can remember is ... it was always minnows ... boat tied off to a tree ... at night ... north end of lake conroe ... the bite would turn on and off like a light switch ... and they were the best eating fish around.
One of my best trips on Lake Waco I was bass fishing some dead timber with a 1/4 oz chartreuse spinnerbait and ended up catching six or seven 12 to 14" crappie! What makes me sick is that I didnt know how to clean fish at the time and threw them all back (on top fof that I caught my pb lmb)
I hear lake waco is supposed to have really good crappie fishing, but I dont get on the lake too much anymore. Way too windy for me.
Ive only caught one in a "river" while trolling a roadrunner. I wouldnt call the Bosque river below the lake waco dam to exactly be a flowing river. more of a really skinny lake.
Other than those accidental encounters I couldnt find them to save my life. I am planning a trip to Lake Meridian soon and want to know more though as Id love to catch a stringer full for dinner.
The Canyon Lake and Lake O' the Pines Experience with Crappie:
Canyon Lake:
In the late 80's and early 90's, I spent considerably more time fishing than I do now. While in San Antonio back then, good ol' Canyon Lake filled many ice chests with crappie--yields exceeding 100 fish. The place to be then was the Crane's Mill marina. We fished from evening to morning using minnows on simple hooks with weighted lines. The key was to let the line drop to the bottom and crank it up four or five turns with your reel. I remember the water depth was fifteen to twenty feet. When the crappie frenzy hit--it hit hard. The crappie would strike fast and furious in spurts. We always suspected the marina's lights and shelter (structure) of the marina's size were the key to the whole experience. Funny thing back then was the value of knowing which boat slip to use for the fishing feast. Not all the slips fished the same--odd as it sounds we always went to one specific slip to do our fishing.
Lake O' the Pines (aka Big Cypress):
For those of you who were in the know in the late 70's and early 80's, Lake O' the Pines spillway served many fishermen with the snagging experience. As teens, we would weight our lines and use large treble hooks to snag incredible stripers and hybrids. As for crappie, there was a boat ramp near the spillway where we would put in a bass boat for the downriver experience. We found a small channel leading into a large tank where we blindly fished to find a school of crappie that hit as hard as the crappie in Crane's Mill. Again--minnows on hooks (no bobbers) proved to be the best bait. Of all the fishing craze I had experienced, the Big Cypress was probably the most memorable. The tank had lots of structure with felled trees and foliage which I am sure contributed to the healthy population and the catching experience. (I know there are lots of beautiful places in our great State, but any of you TKFer's get a chance to journey the Big Cypress--take it. The pines are awesome and the fishing is great.)
That's my contribution for the crappie scene. I anxioulsy wait to see what others have to share about locating crappie and their method to the madness. Catching crappie makes for an experience unlike many others.
It's been awhile, but I used to really love to fish for crappie. Especially in the winter, when nothing else seemed to bite, you could get a crappie to tap a minnow or jig. With the water so cold, it freezes on your line and the bite so light you can barely feel it, it takes very light tackle to feel those coldwater crappie.
Unfortunately, most of my crappie experience was on lakes and not rivers. The lake crappie would hold in deep brush or timber during the cold months. But don't be fooled. Those fish would move shallow if the temp along the bank was a few degrees warmer.
Now spring is the easiest time to find crappie. But everyone knows that.
Shallow and in the backs of coves that has some submerged cover. But prior to the spring spawn and after the spawn, one can catch these fish schooling at the mouth or just outside the coves.
Every crappie I've caught in the river has been in dead, slack water, just off the current. I've not had much luck in the sandy murky Arkansas river for crappie, but the Grand River and other cleaner rivers produce decent numbers. Small jigs around tree limbs in the slack, cleaner waters will find the fish.
I'm certainly no pro at crappie fishing, but I can dang sure eat as many as anyone else. Which brings up another point: coldwater crappie beats the taste of summertime crappie hands down. YEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAA
I have caught crappie on the Mt Fork in OK and on the Colorado near where you were. In fresh water I am a pretty exclusive artificial guy. You are dead on about locating them. They can be hard to find. I have caught them on crappie jigs, road runners or other small jigs. I usually let it sink down and do a VERY slow retrieve. There is another lake I fish that I just have not mastered the technique like a friend of mine has. There seems to be a bit of a difference in technique depending on the body of water, time of year and weather. Again locating them is the primary hurdle.
It has been 20-30 years since I fished for crappie.........they were the first fish I caught when I started fishing.
Of course we always caught tons of them in the spring in Arkansas. One of my most successful trips was on a slack water bay off the Arkansas River, after the lock and dams were in place.
It was winter time and we were fishing some pilings from an aluminum boat. Shinners (minnows) with bobber corks. We fished about 5-6 foot leaders (but since we didn't have a fishfinder got no idea how deep the water was) and you would see your bobber start moving and it would move in circles or for 4-5 feet then it would slowly start down and when it went out of sight, you set the hook. We limited out.....20 apiece.........with huge slabs, running 2-4 lbs.
I don't like to eat crappie (different than most folks) as I don't like the soft texture of their flesh. Therefore I quit fishing for them.
Some of the fondest memories of my childhood were of my dear grandpa Woody (passed away 6 months ago) taking us crappie fishing at my great grandmother's lakehouse outside of Goodrich in East Tx. In all likelihood my first fish was a crappie. Again the theme was locating them. We would hit locate a brushpile, everyone would soak a minnow in the water, and if there were no strikes in a couple of minutes, we pulled anchor and moved to the next one. As it was a small, private lake, you'd eventually find them and each kid would catch a dozen or so. Sadly, the lake became overrun with an invasive grass/weed, and the crappie fishing was the first to go. The bass and catfish population held up until the late 90s/early 2000s, when the lake became so overrun that it was no longer fishable anyway.
A good crappie population is an ideal way to introduce young kids to fishing. Put a minnow on the hook, flip it overboard, tug 'em in. Kids can catch good numbers to keep them interested, it's simple for the unskilled youngsters, and there is a reward of a great fried mess of fish at the end.
I occassionally catch a crappie in Cypress Creek, and every single time, it's the exact same experience: While drifting a live minnow or tossing a small artificial (spinner or jig) I land a big, slab sized white crappie near some cypress roots or other structure. Then I fish the same spot over and over, but get no more bites. They seem to me to be much more solitary in creeks/rivers than in lakes.
Most of my crappie have come out of lakes, but I did get into some river/creek crappie this past spring. I was at my deer lease, fishing Boggy Creek, about a half mile up from the Trinity River. Caught a few by accident fishing for whites the first day, switched to jigs on slip rigs and managed a few more. My dad, brother, and I came back the next day with minnows and caught around 20 of them. Crappie rank up there with yellow cats, flounder, and specks as my favorite eating fish.
the only crappie fishing i have done has been on lake LBJ outside of marble falls. pretty easy lake to fish for crappie. seems that everyone that lives on that lake has brush piles that are marked by buoys. my father-in-law sank quite a few of these piles and we would just have to find the ones the crappie were holding in. minnows on light tackle. the only problem we had was with the gar. when they start rolling the crappie seem to disappear, but we would limit out more often than not. we tried using artificials but just didnt have the same bite, so we went back to live minnows.
I am very familiar with the Crappie on Sam Rayburn. This lake, along with Toledo Bend, are full of them.
We sink brush tops close to creek channels, ranging from 15 to 30 foot of water. Cypress trees are the best, followed by Willow and Cedar trees in my opinion. Never use Pine or hardwoods, they will repel crappie. We try to place the tops about 20 foot or so from the creek channel, but once the top is in the water, it sinks where it wants.
Someone early on said that crappie are structure oriented fish, and that is definitely true. The fresh tops attract bait fish, and the crappie eat those bait fish. The crappie also use this structure for their defense. I have caught a few flatheads around these same brushtops, and I assume they are there to eat the delicate crappie.
Spring time is my favorite time to fish Rayburn. The bass fisherman are casting like crazy (usually prepping for the McDonald’s tourney), and the crappie are left untouched. The crappie will be shallow. Strolling over weed beds is a common method to catch them, but my favorite technique is fishing the base of visible structure, like willow trees. I use a 10’ fly rod with a light weight spinning reel, and a small 1/16 oz jig. 3 vertical jigs per stump is all it should take, and you will catch a crappie on more than half of the stumps. The fly rod gives you extra length to jig, and it gives you flexibility so you don’t rib through the crappies papermouth.
In the early summer the crappie will congregate in cooler deeper water, around the brush tops. You can easily catch 10-15 per top, but if you ever hook the structure, the fish will get lock jaw. We usually use gold 1/0 hooks that you can bend straight. When you do get hung, this allows you to easily get unhooked without disturbing the area too much. We bait with shiners. If you feel something pecking at your shiner, you can bet that it is bream. When you real in your shiner, he will probably be missing his eyeballs. We also have problems with schools of Kentucky bass chasing the crappie away.
I don’t fish for crappie in the fall, because I usually wait until the winter. We often fish the chicken coop at Toledo during this time of the year. The colder the better. I have heard that the crappie migrate upriver to spawn, but I think this is location specific. Anyways, the fish will be very deep, and you have to keep every one you catch by law. None of the deep fish will survive if you release them.
I have also fished many lakes in Oklahoma for crappie, and I found that crappie will overpopulate and stunt their growth. If you catch a few undersized crappie, you might as well move locations, and expect similar fish from every spot.
I mentioned early about congregating around brush tops in the summer, but year round these will produce some fish. So will bridges, especially the pilings with cross beams.
They are my favorite freshwater fish to eat, and my favorite way is to lather in sour cream, and coated in broken spicy cajun potato chips. I then bake them. They are wonderful, but kind of messy. Pan fried crappie tacos are also great.
CityByTheSeaCitizen wrote:I am very familiar with the Crappie on Sam Rayburn. This lake, along with Toledo Bend, are full of them.
We sink brush tops close to creek channels, ranging from 15 to 30 foot of water. Cypress trees are the best, followed by Willow and Cedar trees in my opinion. Never use Pine or hardwoods, they will repel crappie. We try to place the tops about 20 foot or so from the creek channel, but once the top is in the water, it sinks where it wants.
Someone early on said that crappie are structure oriented fish, and that is definitely true. The fresh tops attract bait fish, and the crappie eat those bait fish. The crappie also use this structure for their defense. I have caught a few flatheads around these same brushtops, and I assume they are there to eat the delicate crappie.
Spring time is my favorite time to fish Rayburn. The bass fisherman are casting like crazy (usually prepping for the McDonald’s tourney), and the crappie are left untouched. The crappie will be shallow. Strolling over weed beds is a common method to catch them, but my favorite technique is fishing the base of visible structure, like willow trees. I use a 10’ fly rod with a light weight spinning reel, and a small 1/16 oz jig. 3 vertical jigs per stump is all it should take, and you will catch a crappie on more than half of the stumps. The fly rod gives you extra length to jig, and it gives you flexibility so you don’t rib through the crappies papermouth.
In the early summer the crappie will congregate in cooler deeper water, around the brush tops. You can easily catch 10-15 per top, but if you ever hook the structure, the fish will get lock jaw. We usually use gold 1/0 hooks that you can bend straight. When you do get hung, this allows you to easily get unhooked without disturbing the area too much. We bait with shiners. If you feel something pecking at your shiner, you can bet that it is bream. When you real in your shiner, he will probably be missing his eyeballs. We also have problems with schools of Kentucky bass chasing the crappie away.
I don’t fish for crappie in the fall, because I usually wait until the winter. We often fish the chicken coop at Toledo during this time of the year. The colder the better. I have heard that the crappie migrate upriver to spawn, but I think this is location specific. Anyways, the fish will be very deep, and you have to keep every one you catch by law. None of the deep fish will survive if you release them.
I have also fished many lakes in Oklahoma for crappie, and I found that crappie will overpopulate and stunt their growth. If you catch a few undersized crappie, you might as well move locations, and expect similar fish from every spot.
I mentioned early about congregating around brush tops in the summer, but year round these will produce some fish. So will bridges, especially the pilings with cross beams.
They are my favorite freshwater fish to eat, and my favorite way is to lather in sour cream, and coated in broken spicy cajun potato chips. I then bake them. They are wonderful, but kind of messy. Pan fried crappie tacos are also great.
One more thing. When crappie are aggressive the strike is obvious. When they are not so aggressive, they will normally strike when the bait is falling. This makes it very hard to feel the bite. When it is slow I always try to keep the rod tip active.
If you are having a hard time feeling the bite, try using a slip bobber. If the weight looses tension with the bobber, the bobber will lay flat. Reel quickly, and no hook set should be necessary.
About 5 years ago, I experimented with putting out stake beds when Sam Rayburn was real low. We made about 15 10'x10' stake beds with the stakes being one 1 foot centers. Every spring we catch a few from these, but they proved to ultimately be a waste of time. There is enough shallow water structure in that lake, so I don't think the crappie use them. I bet this technique would work very well in lakes that don't have much spawning structure.
Also, there is definately a differnce between white and black crappie, but it really isn't important to know the difference. On Sam Rayburn though, I have caught multiple fish with unique markings. They have a racing stripe going from forehead to almost their dorsal fin. I have never seen this in another lake. The next time I catch one, I will post a picture on TKF. This marking is on about 1 out of 4 crappie we catch.
Also, I notice that my fish finder never marks crappie, even when we are catching one after another. If your depth finder marks submerged structure, it is always worhwhile to stop and jig a few times.
Other than the color differences, the one thing I understand about black vs white crappie is one tolerates turbid water better than the other. I've forgotten which species to which that applies.
greyloon wrote:TCF, where are you? Now that man is the crappie fisherman of TKF. Hopefully, he'll show and give us a few lessons on finding and fishing for crappie.
I'm like some of the older guy's, I haven't fished for Crappie in forty years. Growing up in Austin, My Dad, Granddad, and I fished the highland chain lakes. We mostley fished on weekends, setting out troutlines and between running them at night, we fished for Crappie with mimmows and small white jigg's. We fished trees in coves or other structure. Our best lake was Lake LBJ at Station Creek.
We also had family fishing on weekends at winter at the heated Marina's on Lake Travis. They baited the wells in the marina and Crappie's were the go to fish.
this past spring, my buddy from austin(who doesn't own a yak yet, but i'm workin' on him) and i hit the san gabriel river the first week of march and in 2 days we caught around 75 crappie. so river fishing is great, so long as the lake it feeds has a healthy population. spawn fishing is kinda cheatin', but for people who eat crappie twice aweek like me, it's good to get on 'em when you can and stock up. lake texoma is a great fishery also, but you're correct about finding them first. that's the hard part. i typically will use panfish assassins, Yum beavertails and h&h solid body tubes. color doesn't matter about half the time. when they get picky, i change colors about every 10 minutes till i get action. these pics are from fairfield in feb. huge black crappie in that lake.
My first fishing memories are of Crappie fishing on Hubbard Creek Lake with my dad and grandad and filling that old mesh fish basket nearly to the top. We would fish our Zebco 202 and 404s off the bottom with live minnows at Peeler's pier. Almost always non-stop action. It was this experience that certainly got me "hooked" on fishing.
The central theme I have read so far is minnows on light tackle near structure. I can't disagree with that. Best example I have is a couple of experiences out of Limestone. Went with a guide that submerges willows at strategic locations. In the summer it provides food from baitfish that hang out there as well as shade for the Crappie. Moving around till you find fish is also key.
Some of the best Crappie fishing I have had was when it was so cold I had ice forming on the eyes of my rod. Fishing Lake Proctor at the dam and Lake Leon at one of the marinas in the coldest days of winter with very simple tube jigs. I think I missed more than a couple of classes, and even more hours of sleep, when the fish were on.
Crappie fishing, especially in the winter, can be a game of inches. I have fished less than 12 inches from another guy when he consistently got hit and I couldn't buy a bite. This is with same tackle and bait. Seen the same thing in the summer fishing several guys from a boat over submerged structure.
I think by far those that have the best success Crappie fishing are those that sink their own structure and fish it enough to know exactly where their holes are. This is hard work, as most brush degrades eventually when submerged and the Crappie move on as the piles go away.
I have got some nice slabs in the upper end of Lake Travis during the White Bass run. Usually in the little tribs coming into the main channel on white road runners. Did this back in the spring from my Kayak on a really windy day. Those fish sure did taste good.
One of the best crappie fishermen I knew fished L. Houston on the E. Fork for them almost exclusively at night. He hung a Coleman lantern over the crappie hole and fished under the light. As there was no limit, it wasn't unusual for he and his wife to haul in 100 or more on a good night.
My question is a little more specific... We used to fish Lake Aquilla near Hillsboro for crappie back in the late 80's. I would love to get on some crappie, but find it near impossible without a fish finder. Any advice on finding spots, and proper depth?
Brush piles and humps seem to be a common place.
(on top fof that I caught my pb lmb)
