Creek crappie

Coastal creeks provide fine crappie fishing

Jeff Graham plopped a float rig baited with a minnow beside a fallen tree limb sticking up out of the water. The orange foam oval bounced a couple of times as the bait settled at the end of the line. Then it quivered and bobbed ever so slightly as the minnow began swimming in confusion.

After a few minutes, the float was pulled underwater as a crappie struck and swallowed the minnow. Deftly, Graham played the fish, lifting the long, black rod smoothly until it arced high above his head. When the rod had drawn the struggling fish close enough that it was splashing on its side, he corralled it in the mesh of a landing net and lifted it into his boat.

“I grew up fishing on Black River,” Graham said. “Caledonia Creek is as good a place to catch a crappie as there is anywhere. It is located just downstream of the Hunt’s Bluff Landing and circles back underneath the NC 210 Bridge. It’s a great place to fish in the wintertime.”

Find the fish

Graham, a retired Columbus Deputy Sheriff, said the fish can be very deep when the water is cold. In fact, he looks for the deepest places with the depthfinder on the console of his 17-foot Lowe Roughneck aluminum boat. However, he seldom actually spies crappie marks on the screen.

“I find a spot that drops from the normal depth of about 18 feet down to 30 or 35 feet or so, and that’s usually where the crappie will be in January,” he said. “Fishing is not very good on a northeast wind. It is much better on a southwest wind, when the air temperatures are warmer. The trees on the banks provide protection from the wind if it is blowing hard.” 

Graham also studies the surface to find stumps, logs and fallen trees and tree limbs extending down into the water. The crappie may be at the bottom of these natural wood structures on cold, overcast days. However, they can also rise up until they are near the top of them on calm, sunny days.

“When the sun warms the water, the fish can move pretty shallow,” he said. “When they are shallow, I use a float rig. When they are on the bottom, I drop down a minnow on a split float rig and set the line stopper above the float so the minnow is suspended about 2 or 3 feet off the bottom. The crappie will be sitting right on the bottom and will come up off the bottom to eat the minnow.”

When he is fishing with a slip float rig in deep water, Graham uses a spincast rig with a Zebco 33 reel instead of the long B’n’M Bream Buster rod he uses for shallow water fishing because the long rod has no reel – just a length of line tied to the tip that is shorter than the rod. If he can’t locate any fish initially by using a minnow as bait, he switches to his favorite search lure, a white Beetle Spin.

“A crappie likes to hit a white grub,” he said. “I use the larger jig that has a No. 4 hook because a crappie has a big mouth. I usually rig up two or three rods with Beetle Spins that have plastic grubs of different colors and cast them to different spots as I move along using the trolling motor. Chartreuse is the second-best color for crappie. On a third rod, I might try a yellow or black grub, or just about any other color. You never know what a crappie will like on a certain day.

Creek crappie are usually black crappie and they do not normally occur in large schools like they do in big lakes as do white crappie. More often than not, Graham catches no more than two or three fish from a single piece of structure.

“If I am casting a Beetle Spin and I catch two or three fish from one spot and they stop biting, I drop a minnow on a float rig at the same spot. If I get another bite, I stop using the trolling motor and drop an anchor or tie the boat off to a nearby bush to fish with minnows. There may be more fish right there that just won’t hit a lure in the cold water, but they may not turn down something as tempting as a live minnow.”

Play the tides

Like many coastal rivers, Black River is influenced by the Atlantic Ocean’s tides. It takes experience to know what the tide stage will be at a certain time of day based on tide charts for Wilmington or other stations close to or at the ocean. The best time to start fishing is halfway down the falling tide.

“I fish the mouths of the creeks, ditches and swamp runs while the water is falling because the minnows and other creatures that crappie eat are moving out of the swamp along with the water,” he said. “There are plenty of other creeks where you can catch fish under the same conditions, including Moore’s Creek, which is father downstream on the Black River, and Livingston Creek, which is on the Cape Fear River. I also fish Big Creek at Lake Waccamaw.”

Another angler who fishes for crappie at Big Creek, as well as all of the canals and culverts at Lake Waccamaw, is former Lake Waccamaw Mayor and retired NC State Trooper Daniel Hilburn. He grew up fishing the Waccamaw River at Crusoe.

Small boat, long pole

“I like fishing from a small Creek Boat,” Hilburn said. “The crappie can be right up against the bank, where it can be hard to reach them with a minnow or to free a snagged hook from a powerboat because of the overhanging limbs and stickups. If you try to get the hook free and are in a big boat, you will usually scare the fish and they stop biting.”

Hilburn fishes with a 13-foot B’n’M Bream Buster or Black Widow pole and keeps several rigged poles poking out of the back of his boat while he sculls along using one. If his hook snags on something, he leaves it alone while he plops down another minnow on a float rig to the same spot. After he is done fishing the spot, he slides the paddle along the line and pushes the stuck hook free with the tip of the blade. 

Hilburn said he has sat in one spot and caught a limit of 20 crappie. But, if he catches a few and they stop biting, he paddles to another bush or creek and tries again.

“They are not spawning in January, so they may not be in shallow water,” he said. “But they may start out the day in deep water and move shallower and shallower when the sun is warming the water.”

While some anglers use jigs and lures, Hilburn always fishes with minnows. He said it takes more finesse to land the fish when using live bait.

“A lot of times, a crappie grabs the minnow and just holds it in its mouth. If you set the hook too soon, your hook comes back without the minnow or the crappie,” he said. “It takes patience and experience to know how long to wait before setting the hook. A lot of people fish with jigs because it’s easier to set the hook. But I like watching the cork go down.” 

A big creek crappie can win a tournament

Like other dedicated panfish anglers, Jeff Graham fishes with many of his longtime buddies, resulting in a friendly competition. They formed their own bream club, which is not in any way sanctioned by an official tournament body, called “The Boys in the Hood Club.”

The members meet once a month to fish for panfish on many different creeks and rivers throughout Bladen, Columbus, Pender and other counties in Southeastern North Carolina. Any species of flatfish is a qualifying catch. While the entry fee is only $20, the number of anglers fishing on a given day can be impressive. In fact, Graham once caught a crappie that wound up winning $800 for the “Biggest Fish” prize in a side competition.

“We’ve been holding our tournaments for more than 20 years,” he said. “Most of the time when I win, it is with a big crappie. And sometimes, other people have won with a big crappie. The crappie in these creeks tend to grow bigger than the bream, shellcrackers, warmouth and other flatfish species. The biggest crappie I ever caught in a creek weighed 48 ounces.”