Don’t overlook crappie when it’s cold
Catching crappie in the winter is an often-overlooked opportunity, and cold-weather crappie fishermen enjoy consistent success with both quantity and quality fish caught.
Knowledgeable anglers are stacking crappies in coolers during the winter, often with no other crappie anglers in sight.
The below scenarios are generated from specific lakes, but the techniques described are often applicable on most lakes in the Carolinas.
High Rock or Badin Lakes
Power pushing, or spider rigging, is a method of slow forward movement with tightlined crappie rigs in front of the boat working extended underwater targets.
The underwater ledge of a creek or river channel is a prime target.
Brandon Miller from Gold Point, NC, is successful fishing this method in late fall and winter because it produces plenty of shad-fattened crappies.
“This tactic applies to many lakes and is common for cold-weather crappie fishermen,” Miller said. “A couple of my favorite lakes in North Carolina are High Rock and Badin lakes, because they’re close to home and support good crappie populations.”
Miller said he employs this tactic because it blends well with what crappie typically do this month. Because of low water temperatures, the fish usually congregate in identifiable areas, and he employs his graph to check the situation prior to fishing.
“I check ledges, humps, and around creek channels searching for concentrations of crappie,” he said. “They are predictable regarding the general areas they prefer, but I narrow my target so I can catch fish quicker. I’ll get a feel for the basic depth and location pattern, and then refine it while fishing and dropping slabs into the cooler. That’s the expectation.”
Miller fishes eight rigs out of the front of his boat, using two sets of four-rod holders to give him a wide spread. He varies the length of the rod, with the longest ones on the outside extending far from the boat, increasing his coverage.
He prefers light tackle and uses 4-pound test line with a half-ounce sinker about two feet above the terminal end. This time of year, he prefers live bait.
“I want a live minnow when the water temperature falls low, as it does in December and January,” he said. “I use a 1/32-ounce jighead with no plastic grub, and I hook the minnow through the head so it rides straight. Jighead color can be an attractor based on the water conditions and depth. I use red, orange, black, and chartreuse jighead colors, and have found that they make a difference on some days.”
Miller said nothing about his technique is random. He’s always targeting a specific area and works it slow, from 0.2 to 0.4 miles per hour.
“This helps when I begin to catch crappie. I’ll have a good idea exactly the depth, type of cover, and speed I was moving,” he said. “That is essential information for a productive pattern during cold weather.”
Miller said he’ll give an area a reasonable time to produce, but if he’s not catching many fish, he’ll move to another underwater feature.
“If I’m concerned about the water color being too dingy, or perhaps too clear, I’ll move to an entirely different part of the lake to fish,” he said. “Water temperature, color, and availability of forage are all factors that influence crappie right now.”
It’s often a process of elimination, but when he hits the right spot, the bite is excellent.
“The catch will have some variability in size, but with some culling on a good day, the cold weather time of year can be productive for slabs,” he said.
Fishing Docks at Hartwell
Preston Hardin of Bucktail Guide Service (706-255-5622) on Lake Hartwell in upstate SC, is primarily a striper guide. But during the cold weather months of December through February, when the water temperature dips into the 50s and below, he puts on his crappie-catching hat. He said water conditions are not ideal this month for striper action, but crappie fishing on Lake Hartwell can be exceptionally productive by fishing docks.
“Docks offer everything a crappie needs during cold weather, providing ample cover for the fish whether brush piles are below the docks or not,” he said. “The shade from the dock attracts crappie, and that’s why I prefer sunny days. It’s a predictable pattern. The fish will better orient to the shady areas, making it easier to target them. But the cloudy, cold, and misty-rain days sometimes produce a better bite. I go when I can, and most any day can be productive.”
Hardin employs small jigs with a 1/32- or 1/16-ounce jighead and a small plastic grub. He prefers grub bodies in the 1.5 to 2 inch size. Short, accurate casts, shooting jigs under cover, and vertical jigging in and around the nooks and crannies of docks are all effective tactics. Hardin uses light action rods with 4-pound test line.
The specific pattern may vary with the size, shape, and depth of water around a dock.
“I’ll ease up to a dock and underhand flip the jig in and work it back along the floats and edges of the dock,” Hardin said. “I’m covering the shady areas, specifically on sunny days. I’ll shoot the jig back into the tighter cover and under the docks or boats and swim the jig back. Finally, I try dropping the jig vertically in and around tight, dark places, and work deeper water, especially if a boat is in the slip.
“Often, crappie will be holding in bunches in these small, dark areas,” he said. “I’ll fish the jig vertically by dropping it deep, even to the bottom in reasonable depths. I’ll jiggle the rod tip while slowly reeling it up. The slight movement triggers a bite, providing a specific depth preference. Then I repeat the process.”
Hardin said he typically finds crappie holding on docks floating in water depths from 10 to 40 feet deep.
“The depths I find fish vary, and it’s not unusual to find crappies deep near the bottom or in only four or five feet of water right under the boats or the dock floats,” he said. “Sometimes I can just swim the bait below the float in four or five feet of water, even if the dock is in 20 to 40 feet of water, and crappie will be holding tight to cover in the shallow part of the water column. You can catch a limit of hefty crappie in short order in several ways, but usually, it is specific to the day you’re fishing.”
Hardin said his key is to keep moving until he finds a dock loaded with crappie.
“We’ll catch scattered fish off of several docks. Then we’ll find one dock where fish are stacked up, and we’ll limit in a hurry,” he said. “It’s not hard to do, but it may require a bit of diligence to find the fish. But the crappie-catching reward makes it worthwhile.”
Shad Pods on the Flats
Clarks Hill and Richard B. Russell lakes are very productive crappie fisheries, and winter produces plenty of action if you have the right strategy. Fishing guide Wendell Wilson employs a highly productive method.
“Good numbers and excellent sizes of crappie are available, and one of my favorite winter patterns requires some outside-the-box thinking,” Wilson said. “Crappies have an affinity for woody cover, but that’s not the only object they like. This time of year, my favorite target for attracting crappies is schools of threadfin shad hovering on the flats adjacent to the river channel. Large schools of shad and woody cover are excellent, and give me an identifiable target. But that’s not my primary method during cold weather.”
Wilson (Wilson’s Guide Service, 706-283-3336) said his technique involves slowly moving and fishing along a clean flat in 30 to 35 feet of water near where the ledge drops into the channel. He uses a 3/8-ounce drop-shot rig to keep the bait near the bottom, and has a short leader about 18 inches above the drop shot with a No. 2 gold wire hook.
“I constantly monitor my graph, and when I see a school of shad higher in the water column, I’ll move one of my rigs from near the bottom to work at that depth,” he said. “Often, crappies are around that shallower school of shad and are the reason it’s shallower in the water column. If I catch a few fish quickly from that target, I’ll position the other rigs to the appropriate depth.”
“By the end of the day, we’ve usually caught lots of fish on both rigs, and with some culling, we can catch some beautiful strings of crappie during the winter months, at a time when most anglers are not even crappie fishing,” Wilson said.
Wilson added that his son Luke has been fishing with him for years and is gradually taking over the guiding business from him. The tactics learned from the elder Wilson are the foundation of the younger Wilson’s fishing philosophy.
Try it anywhere
These winter tactics are productive on other lakes, based on the type of lake fished, the availability of ledges and channels, and the water, depth, color, and the number of docks near deep water.
Determine which pattern or combination of patterns may work best at your lake and enjoy some slab-catching in the middle of the winter.
You may not have the company of many other crappie anglers during the cold season, but the flopping of future crappie fillets in the cooler makes it all worthwhile.
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