Fall - The Other Crappie Season
Some serious crappie catchers claim the fall season on Kentucky and Barkley lakes is just as good as the spring fling. Some say it is better, mainly because they don"t have much competition. But every one of these slab sultans agree that the average size of the fish they catch after the autumnal equinox is larger than during the spring.
In my honest estimation, fall crappie fishing is not as good as it is during the spring-but it isn"t far behind.
Now is the time to find out where you stand in this debate, because the crappie have moved into the bays, and they"ll be there until the water gets really cold about the end of November.
Actually, there are things I like better about fall crappie fishing. One is the aforementioned lack of competition. Another is the wonderful weather and the beauty of the fall foliage. But the biggest reason is that the best way to catch fall crappie is to cast for them, and that"s my favorite way to fish.
For the most part, during the spring crappie strike lures to protect their spawning areas. They don"t want anything near their beds, and they"ll literally wear themselves out and lose some weight keeping all the other creatures at bay. Casting works then, but not as well as dangling something right in front of their faces.
During the fall, on the other hand, they move shallow to put on their winter weight. They follow the bait, and they hit our fakes like a sumo wrestler beefing up for a big match. That"s why the average size is bigger.
I fish for them differently during the fall, because they act differently. During the spring, crappie sort of homestead a small area for a few weeks to do the family thing; but during the fall they prowl around like a bunch of hungry hobos.
They"re on the move, so to find them and keep up with them, I stay on the move, too. Crappie fishing during the fall is a lot like bass fishing. I don"t exactly "run and gun," but I don"t sit in one place for long, either. As long as I"m catching fish, I"ll stay in the same general area, but once the action slows, I move on to greener waters.
At this time of year, crappie move in and out and up and down a bank, depending upon what the minnows are doing, and minnows are almost always moving. If you think the only way to fish for crappie is to sit in one place, you"re not likely to think fall crappie fishing is very good.
When they"re not feeding, crappie move out to and hang around brush and such in deeper water, usually 10- to 15-feet deep. Even though they are less active, you can catch them there by dangling minnows and tub jigs. But when they"re hungry, which seems to be most of the time, they move up where the minnows and other tasty creatures congregate along the bank.
My motto for fall crappie fishing is: dangle when they"re deep and cast when they"re shallow. I not only find casting for crappie more active and entertaining, it is a great way to cover a lot of water when fish are scattered or on the move.
The best baits I"ve found are my own one-sixteenth-ounce Flair-Spins and Road Runners of the same weight, but you can also catch them with small crankbaits, tube jigs and, of course, curly-tail grubs. A light- to medium-action spinning rod, with six-pound-test line will handle all these bait well. Fish them just fast enough to keep them from getting hung up too much. Generally, the slower you go the more often crappie hit.
You can find feeding fall crappie on most banks that have minnows, so when I"m looking for the fish, I"m actually looking for the minnows. But there is one particular type of bank I like best. These are banks that slope off at about a 45-degree angle and are loaded with stumps from shallow to deep. These banks have been good to me for many years, but with the recent dominance of black crappie in the population, they are even better.
Just how deep crappie will be on a given day depends upon a lot of factors, but on these sloping stump banks, they"ll be somewhere between one and 15 feet, so I usually hold the boat at 15 or 18 feet, cast up shallow and work the bait all the way back to the boat.
At the beginning of this searching retrieve, I hold the rod tip high to keep the bait up on a slow retrieve. The closer it gets to me, the slower I go and the lower I hold the rod tip. During the last part of the retrieve, I"ll pause often to let the bait drop. What I try to do is keep the bait just above the stumps throughout the entire retrieve.
A sloping stump field adjacent to deep brush (preferably along a creek channel) is perfect. You can move back and forth, and up and down, according to the whims of the fish and stuff your live-well with fat fall fillets during this "other" crappie season.
Author: Ron Kruger
Ron Kruger has been an outdoor writer/photographer/editor for over 30 years.
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