Early Season Crappies
As a multispecies guide, we love to target all kinds of different species of fish. When the walleye season is closed here in Michigan, we typically go after massive crappies. Crappies are a voracious predator - they are known to out compete with most other fish species. And early in the season they can be easily sought after and caught. Some of our biggest fish of the year come during the pre-spawn - usually before water temps warm up into the mid 50’s. The key just like with every other type of fishing is finding them. Once you find them - the catching is relatively easy. I’m going to give you a couple of places that I like to look and my top presentations for this early season brutish panfish:
Locations:
Backwater areas/canals. The shallows tend to warm quickly and the bait tends to follow. Canals can be ideal places to hunt crappies.
Shallow, inside edges of weed lines - especially sections where the sun has been warming things for a couple of days.
Inside turns on weed lines. As water warms, fish move up. After cold fronts, you can still find the fish somewhere nearby - usually just backed out onto the deeper edge.
Presentations - this is where I get excited!
Charlie Brewer Slider 1.5” and 3” grubs (pumpkin black flake, green pumpkin, green pumpkin black tail are a few of my favs): I love to throw jigs for crappies. I like to use a 1/32 - 1/8” Old Fart Lures (1/0 - 3/0). I adjust cadence to the mood of the fish. All it takes i finding one and usually there are more in the area.
Jerkbaits: I love a jerkbait because it’s a great search lure. Crappies will hit these baits - even up to 4". Here are my favs: smaller Ima Flit 100 jerkbaits (natural colors) and Ima Foxy Fry’s in natural colors. Spruce up your jerkbait with a feathered trailer - you’ll up your catch rate!
Tubes and a float. Now we are talking - I fish a small tube a couple of feet under a float and wiggle and retrieve the bobber - this is especially deadly for water temps that are still cold and for fish that are sluggish - usually mid to upper 40’s.
We fished last night and caught some beauties - mostly on tubes and floats. Caught one that was trophy sized. We encourage as much as possible to let these trophies go…all fish in the pics were CPR’ed. More to come on this - and as always - feel free to ask questions or share thoughts in the comments!