Question for the panfish pros?

[shae1986]

I have been fishing a lake where i am catching lots and lots of crappies. They seem to be in a lot of places. Problem is that i am catching a lot of 7-9 inchers with some 10-12 inchers in between. I was wondering how do i find the bigger fish, if their are any. Do i look for ceartin spots, the lake is mainly a bowl so i don't know where to start. Your expert advice is greatly appreciated.

Andrew Shae

[CrappieJohn]

What is the water like, color-wise, clarity-wise? What is the deepest water there? Do you have weeds that are still green? 10-12 inch fish.....do you know if larger fish exist there?

[Corey Bechtold]

I fished a smaller lake today and found different sized fish using the same areas. If I was using small baits it seemed that the small fish would snatch it before anything bigger had a chance to get to the bait. I started to up-size my presentation and that seemed to work. I started picking up more larger fish. I was sight fishing so I saw all the smaller fish cruising around. They would fly up to the bait and often times miss the bait or hit and not get the hook. After the small ones played around the big Crappies would come in and take the bait. I tell you what, watching a Slab Crappie inhale your bait is quite a thrill!

I was using Berkley Power Tubes and Power Minnows to get the big ones to bite.

Try going supersize and see what you can come up with.

Good luck,

Corey Bechtold

[shae1986]

Crappietom, the water coler wise is clean but the clarity is around 7-8 feet. The deepest section of the lake is the 18 foot zone that i am fishing. Not many weeds but gravel rock and then a mud zone from the look of it on the camera. And i am not not sure what size fish are in there, i have seen some nice ones on the camera.

Also i will upgrade my presentation size and see what that does to these very aggressive crappies.

Andrew Shae

[CrappieJohn]

A good way to find aggressive fish is a jigging spoon inthe 1/16 ounce range or a bit less. Tip the treble with a couple waxies and have at it. Mix up your jigging between very aggressive with high lift/drops and smaller lifts with lots of jiggling.

JBLures makes the JiggingEye in that weight and it is a noisy, fish-calling bait. Once you get their attention, get into a more horizontal presentation, similar to what Corey is suggesting. When things cool off, hit the water with that jigging spoon again. Glow colors on those spoons is a bonus as well.