Crappie Fishing Tips: Find Your Honey Holes
Crappies love to gather around structures, you can properly prepare your own crappie honey hole for fishing.
The key to preparing your own crappie structure is keeping the location a secret. You can sink various structures such as plastics like PVC and brush. Willow tree branches are the easiest brush to sink, while preparing an area where crappies will swarm too all month long. You need long cuttings of about 3 feet in length, while using seven to ten branches with many smaller branches. Use cement blocks to sink any type of artificial structures and branch cuttings. You need something heavy enough to sink your cover directly below where you place it in the water. Having a good anchor keeps the brush from shifting in the water. Use a cement block and a rope of about two feet; tie it to the main branch to sink. Crappies, much like bass enjoy sitting in covers and waiting for food.
Prepare your crappie hole in the fall and in early spring while there is no ice. Prepare crappie cover at three depths for the best results and then mark your locations in shallow, mid-depths and in deep water. You want an area that is not easy to fish. Sink your brush while no one else is watching you. If your cover area is over-fished, the crappie will haul tail and leave for other areas. Search for areas that may not be attractive to casual boating. This is the reason for preparing three locations for different fishing seasons. You should find an area where the bottom is deep and then grows gradually shallower for preparing your three locations in a line up. Mark each of your locations using a GPS point, so you can come back repeatedly and not waste any of your good fishing time. You can get small children interested in fishing by having them along as you prepare your covers. Children may grow impatient, however when visiting a busy honey hole with a lot of biting action, they will learn to love the sport like a pro.
Regardless of the area, this method works well, since crappies enjoy collecting around structures and brush when it is part of their habitat. Before you begin, you should check with the local authorities to find out if you can legally sink such structures for fishing.
After preparing your honey holes, they may produce a good catch for you at least ninety-five percent of the time, which is impressive while taking others out fishing.
Finding Those Elusive Crappie Fish
Any angler worth their salt knows how to find the prime fishing spots for crappie. Even the most experienced fishermen aren’t right every time, but there are a few things which generally sound guidelines to follow when looking for crappie fishing spots.
During certain times of the year, crappie tend to hide out in deeper waters; but one of the better places to find these fish when they haven’t headed for the nearest lake to spend the winter or aren’t hanging out a little deeper to avoid warm summer temperatures is among the cover provided by weed beds, sunken logs, stumps, the mouths of feeder streams, lily pads and other spots where they can hide during the day.
For this reason, this is what anglers in search of crappie will look for. Locating these likely crappie hideouts and carefully getting into casting position so as not to disturb the fish is the first step. During spring and autumn, the rest is almost effortless. Crappies are relatively active in these seasons, so a fast moving jig or a cork or bob with a minnow work wonders for the angler.
In the summer, anglers will want to look for crappie in shaded cover close to deeper waters. Underneath docks and bridges are good places to search along with the usual cover they prefer. You’ll have much better luck from dusk to dawn; particularly in the summer since crappie prefer to feed after dark.
Spots where you’re likely to find crappie in streams and creeks include sunken trees, snags and undercuts in the banks of the stream are all places crappie looking to spend the day in a shady spot favor. You may also catch trout and bass in these spots, so even if you don’t come across any crappie you’ll almost certainly catch something.
Anglers will also want to try slow trolling along eddies and among the rocks in streams with a fast-moving current.
Finding Crappie in Lakes
Crappie tend to spend most of their time in the deeper waters farther out from the shore when they’re in lakes, so casting from a boat is often your best bet. Try the small coves along the shorelines, weed beds and wherever there’s a drop off. If you’re fishing at night, you’ll have an easier time hooking crappie while they come out to feed – the couple of days preceding the full moon are the best days to try your luck.
Weed beds near the entry points of feeder streams are nearly always good spots; not just for crappie either. You may also catch pike or bass in these spots.
It takes some time to develop an eye for the places where crappies and other fish are hiding out, but with patience, you’ll eventually become an expert crappie tracker.