Crappie Fishing Year Round

Like many other fish, you’ll want to use different gear and different strategies to catch crappie depending on the time of year. Suppose you take a weekend to go toe-to-fin with your prey in late June to mid-July. This time of year, you’re not going to find crappie just below the surface in the shallow waters they prefer in the spring.

In the summer, you’re going to have to look for crappie in slightly deeper waters. The summer heat sends the fish to the cooler waters ten to fifteen feet deep.

Crappie fishing is something which you can’t count on for consistency. These are dish with very exacting criteria for conditions to facilitate their reproductive cycle. Crappie are more active as the moon waxes, with many anglers reporting that the most successful crappie fishing of all is to be had around or a little after sunset four to six days before the full moon. Once the moon is full, however, the fish quiet down and the following few days are the worst time of the month for crappie fishing – unless you really can’t wait to get out and fish, you may want to sit these days out or go fishing for something else.

If you insist on crappie fishing during a full moon, count on having to put in some effort to get sluggish crappie interested. Live bait and slow trolling (and a lot of patience) are the best way to go. In contrast, when crappie fishing in the four to six days before the moon is full you’ll have the best luck fast trolling with jigs – they’ll respond well to fast movement when they’re feeling more energetic. Different anglers do better with different baits, especially in the summer. In general though, a 1/16 oz. chartreuse or green jig with a minnow on the tip seems to work pretty consistently.

There are hundreds of thousands of different streams, creeks and lakes all over the US where you’ll find good crappie fishing. However, there’s no one right answer to where the best crappie fishing will be at any given time. Crappies are smaller fish, but they’re abundant and easy to catch. Even beginners can do very well for themselves on a crappie fishing trip; in the spring, it almost doesn’t matter what gear you use or what approach you take. Fishing for crappie in the springtime nearly guarantees that you’ll bring in a great catch of these fish, one of the angler’s favorite catches.