Numbers down, but biggest of Lake Moultrie’s crappie are biting

Fish moving out to deep brush piles, veteran guide says

The big crappie bite is “on” at Lake Moultrie right now. Guide Kevin Davis of Blacks Camp said that catching big numbers of fish have slowed, but plenty of slab crappie are being taken right now.

“Right now the fishing for big crappie is excellent,” Davis said. “We’ve caught a lot of slabs in 18 to 28 feet of water over brush piles recently. The time is now if you want to get in on the good fishing.”

Davis said the best crappie fishing right now is a situation where you don’t have to get out early.

“At this time of year the crappie will be out foraging early in the morning and a lot of times we don’t catch a lot of big crappie until the sun gets up a little higher in the sky,” said Davis (843-753-2231). “The reason for that is as the day gets brighter the fish begin to move back to the cover of the brushpiles and that’s where we can target our efforts to catch them.”

Davis said brushpiles, logs and other underwater woody cover are the keys to catching crappie on Lake Moultrie. He is using live minnows on a tightline rig as well as small jigs tipped with small minnows for the best crappie action. He is fishing both directly under the boat and is using light action rods ranging from six to 10 feet long to cover more territory as he works over the brush.

“My first effort is to work the area just above the brush and right at the top of the brush,” he said. “Often, the crappie will be holding off the bottom of the water column and in the upper portion of the brush, especially when feeding. When I ease the boat over the brush, the crappie will readily move up a foot or two to take the minnows and the action is on. Sometimes we do have to drop the bait deeper and get into the brush to find crappie willing to bite.

“On some days we’ll be able to catch limits fishing just a couple of places, but sometimes we’ll have to move to several places during the course of a day to catch a bunch of fish,” he said.

Davis said he is using 6-pound test, Trilene 100-Percent Fluorocarbon. He uses a #4 Eagle Claw Gold Aberdeen crappie hook for minnows or a 1/16-ounce jig tipped with a minnow as bait. He will use a No. 3 sized split shot 18 inches above the hook for added weight with either rig.