Catching the Moody Crappie

[Jim Uran]

 

How does the old saying go? There are many ways to catch a fish… Or maybe it’s there are many ways to skin a cat, hell I don’t remember, but there are plenty of ways to catch a crappie. I’m going to compare a few different ways to catch crappies, which lures to use and what times they work best. I’ll go over the typical ways that most people go about it out on the ice, and then I’ll go over the way I do it.  I’m also going to cover the three major moods of a crappie as they relate to their feeding habits during the winter. Crappies are the french fries of the dinner world, they really never attain the recognition of cheeseburger like their dumb cousin walter the walleye, but crappies are excellent on the dinner table. They fry up nice and crispy, yet they remain flaky and they definitely don't have a strong flavor. If I fry up walleyes and crappies side by side I bet that 99% of the population couldn't guess the difference between the two, I leave the 1% open due to the threat of dumb luck.

The moody crappie, they are comparable to a child at the dinner table; as a parent how long does it take us to figure out our kid’s palate? These perplexing conundrums aren’t solved without a lot of footwork, guesswork, and they surely aren’t solved overnight. There are too many variables that are intertwined, so many that a mere rookie can’t completely comprehend the complexities of what it takes to get a crappie to inhale your lure on a regular basis. Ok so I may be exaggerating a tad bit, I guess luck plays a role in every aspect of recreation, but there is definitely some science that plays into it also. The number one tool that can make you a better angler is a flasher. There are many flashers on the market, and they all will tell you three things; depth, lure location, and fish location. There are roaring debates that will last a life time on which flasher is the best, but rest assured, the one you buy, no matter which brand will instantly make you a better angler.

Let’s start out with the aggressive, or positive mood.  Crappies that are positive aren’t too shy, they will hit about anything you drop in front of their faces.  These are fish that are riding high in the water column, if you’re fishing in 25’ of water and you are marking fish on your flasher that are anywhere above the half way mark, (12’ or higher) 9 times out of 10 these will be positive fish.  Most folks will drop down a jig with a minnow on it, underneath a bobber and pluck fish off as they come through. Which is ok by most people’s standards, but not mine.  This is where the advent of micro plastics comes into play, and also our ability to drill a lot of holes and to stay mobile.  I’ll tie on a spoon, which is basically an elongated hunk of lead with a treble hook attached to it; on the treble hook I’ll pierce a couple of pieces of ice fishing plastic. These are small, colored, scented pieces of super soft plastic, basically rubber band like, they move and ungulate in the water in a natural fashion. I’ll drill a dozen or more holes over the area that I’m fishing and move along with this lure and plastic combination down until I find the fish.  Instead of sitting around and waiting for the fish to come back, like most people, I’ll move along following the school dropping my spoon down only when I mark them on my flasher. This is a method of fishing that not only makes for a limit of fish on the ice, it also helps you stay warm and keeps you from getting bucket-one-just-like-silly-me, a condition caused by sitting on a bucket staring down the hole.

The next mood, the most common in this tri-polar species is neutral.  Unlike the positive crappies, which prefer to roam higher in the water column, these bad boys will stay a little bit closer to the bottom, typically occupying the bottom 1/3 of the water column.  They won’t be belly to the bottom like negative tight lipped fish, but typically you’ll find them 2-6 feet off of the bottom.  Now these guys aren’t overly enthusiastic about eating, but they will if you present it right.  Now most folks will drop down a jig with a minnow on it, underneath a bobber and pluck fish off as they come through, which is ok by most people’s standards, but not mine. These fish are usually tucked up a little closer to structure, (weeds, rock, wood) something that keeps them hidden from predators but also allows them to ambush prey as they see fit.  This is where I toss out the plastics and go with live bait, I won’t waste my time dealing with whole minnows though, and typically I’ll just pinch off the head of the minnow and use that attached to the spoon. Experimenting with the size and the color of the spoon you are using starts to become more important, over the years I’ve dialed in some great colors and sizes that typically do well in any body of water.

Another area of importance with these neutral fish is drilling holes more precisely along the structure they are holding on, whereas drilling holes anywhere over an area of a basin like you do with positive fish. These fish are still fun to fish, they will bite if you offer them the correct presentation, but will still give you bucket-one-just-like-silly-me if you don’t get up and chase them along the structure.

The last mood is negative, these are those tight lipped little bastards that are typically belly to the bottom and they don’t really move around too much. A bad weather pattern will put these fish in this mood, those days after a storm rolls through when the sky is blue, the air is bitter, and barometric pressure is peaking. Finding them isn’t too difficult, they will be where they are usually, over the deeper water basins or tucked in tight to structure like the previous two moods I discussed. Getting them to bite on the other hand, that’s what takes skill. Now most folks will drop down a jig with a minnow on it, underneath a bobber and pluck fish off as they come through, which is ok by most people’s standards, but not mine. This is where downsizing your presentation is critical, I’ll go with super light line and a small 4mm tungsten jig. I can get them to bite with plastics most days, but some days I’ll end up packing the hook with spikes aka maggots! These little wiggling globs of protein will get even the tightest lipped fish to at least investigate. This may sound like more of a pain in the rear-end than anything, why the heck would we want to be stuck trying to get these fish to bite? Sometimes just getting out there on the ice is better than sitting at home, or sometimes they just switch moods during the day.

Recognizing the mood that the fish are in is an important key to success out on the hard water, getting the correct tools for the job also plays an important role. Remember the three moods of the fish and which presentations to apply, and also make sure to stay mobile and not get caught with a case of bucket-one-just-like-silly-me.