Bait size

[ski_otter]

I've had a weird thing happen lately with bait size.

A lake that I normally fish I typically catch most of my crappies on small tungstons with either a waxie or plastic. I have been coming across more walleye at my spot so I have been using stop signs and buckshots 3" usually. While they haven't got me any walleye yet my past two outings nearly all of my crappies have been caught on these. A lot of these have been 12"+ fish but have also got some 7-8" fish on them.

What causes such a dramatic shift in the size of bait a fish will go after?

I've always heard cold front/ high pressure downsize but this seems the opposite(above was the case last night)

[gwiff100]

big bait = big fish...

[TruthWalleyes]

I rarely downsize for crappies. Big minnow head on a spoon often works well for the bigger crappies.

[JoeTC]

So you just switched to using larger baits and you ended up still catching fish? Doesn't sound like a shift in preference by the crappies, how do you know they wouldn't have always bit on bigger baits?

[mrklean]

big bait = big fish...

+1

[ski_otter]

So you just switched to using larger baits and you ended up still catching fish? Doesn't sound like a shift in preference by the crappies, how do you know they wouldn't have always bit on bigger baits?

Never thought of it that way. Just figured since I had fairly good luck with the micro stuff that the big stuff was out of play, it's kind of made me re think my whole approach - also the crappies are much bigger than what I have previously gotten

[20lbSloughShark]

This is exactly the thing I see with northerns. Sure you will catch plenty of northens on shiners. But a big one will completely pass up such a small bait. Big bait = Big fish; small ones still hit too.

[masoct3]

Hi,

Are you jigging your tungsten jigs or are you able to use a spring bobber or such? I am not able to because of the weight of Tungsten.

I've had a weird thing happen lately with bait size.

A lake that I normally fish I typically catch most of my crappies on small tungstons with either a waxie or plastic. I have been coming across more walleye at my spot so I have been using stop signs and buckshots 3" usually. While they haven't got me any walleye yet my past two outings nearly all of my crappies have been caught on these. A lot of these have been 12"+ fish but have also got some 7-8" fish on them.

What causes such a dramatic shift in the size of bait a fish will go after?

I've always heard cold front/ high pressure downsize but this seems the opposite(above was the case last night)

[gill man]

I'd say it's likely that all along the fish would have eaten the bigger bait. If you want to see, next time try both sizes and see what happens.

Sometimes big bait can equal big fish but not always. Sometimes I've upsized trying to select for bigger fish and it was the more agressive dinks that still hit it. On the other hand, I often find in crappie schools the most agressive fish will actually be the bigger ones. IN that case upsizing to walleye sized baits might be the ticket.

I have also had days where crappies and gills wouldn't even begin to follow standard jigs, but smacked an agressively ripped walleye spoon harder than you would believe.

Some days the fish don't make sense!

[ski_otter]

I both jig and use a spring bobber, I have a tripwire and use the small (3mm?) tungstons with no problem. The larger ones are too heavy for my spring, but do use them on other rods.

I did try using the small jigs the other night with no luck. I'll try again today up there and see what happens. It is kind of nice that I found out I can catch big crappies on what I was using only for a "calling" bait before