Braxton Wall and his father, Rod, may prefer tight-line or long-line trolling for crappie during tournaments, but Braxton readily admits trolling isn’t as much fun as shooting docks.
Having worked with his dad building docks during his summer vacation from school, Braxton Wall knows a thing or two about dock construction, including where and how crappie will relate to them on Lake Greenwood.
“Lake Greenwood is a really good lake for shooting docks because the lake is absolutely loaded with docks. You ride around, and basically, you can find a dock for any day of the week. All times of the year, deep, shallow, backs of creeks, out on the main lake. It’s got a dock for pretty much any situation. You’ve just got to find the ones holding fish,” said Wall.
The majority of docks on Greenwood are pier docks, meaning they stand on pilings driven into the lake floor and don’t move with the water levels. Other docks are floating, and the depth under the dock changes with the water level. Braxton Wall prefers docks that provide ample shade and hover low to the water, whether that means a floating dock at any stage or a pier dock with high water.
“A good dock-shooting dock is one that has a lot of shade, which means you want a large, wide side and, preferably, a roof over the dock. The icing on the cake is a pontoon in the slip because crappie just love that. The pontoon stays really low to the water and makes it really dark under there,” he said. “Also, you don’t want a lot of crap up under the docks like Christmas trees and unnecessary wood and stuff — all that will do is hang up and cost you jigs.”
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