A large number of crappie will be moving to the north ends, more specifically
the northwest ends, of most lakes, because these areas of the lakes heat-up first. I primarily fish the four lakes in northwestern
Mississippi – Arkabutler, Enid, Grenada and Sardis lakes. Right now the crappie will be branching-off the main river
channels into the main creeks on the northwest side of each lake. They’ll follow these shallow creeks into the spawning
bays. In these northwestern Mississippi lakes and others across the South, the water temperature is from 55-59 degrees in
many of the shallow bays. This past weekend (mid-February) I was fishing for crappie, and found some 61-degree water. This
water was 2- or 3-feet deep on the northern end of the lake. But the temperature in the majority of the lake was 56-58 degrees.
Two different patterns are taking place right now in late February and early March: the male crappie pattern and the female
crappie pattern. The
Male Crappie Pattern:
The male crappie will go to the
shallow water first, moving to the spawning areas as the weather begins to warm-up. They’ll be looking for structure
and cover in 1 to 3 feet of water. For instance, in Sardis Lake, many of the backwater bays have standing timber that will
attract the males. Sardis Lake also has some shallow-water weeds that grow-up during the summer, when the lake water was down.
The males will move-in to these weeds to begin to fan the beds about a week to a week and a half before the females come to
lay their eggs. Now if you want to put some crappie in the ice box, fish for the males. They’ll be easier to catch because
they’re in a really-aggressive mood. They’ll try and move-out any type of baitfish in the beds they’re fanning.
Most of these male fish will weigh between 3/4- to 1-1/2-pounds. One of the things to remember if you’re going to fish
the four big lakes in north Mississippi is all four of these lakes have a 12-inch-length limit, so all crappie longer than
12 inches have to be thrown back. Too, there’s a 20-crappie-per-person limit on these lakes.
The Female Crappie Pattern:
The females won’t be in the spawning areas right now, but they’ll be
close by. They like to hold in a somewhat-deeper water than the males, and you’ll usually find them holding on structure
on the edges of ditches or small creeks. I usually start out fishing in 3 to 5 feet of water to try and catch the females
first, under normal conditions with stable weather. But when a cold front hits, like usually happens in the spring, often
the water temperature will drop 4 or 5 degrees. Then the crappie will back-out into deeper water, often as deep as 13 to 16
feet. When that cold front hits, and the crappie move to deeper water, they get in a bad mood and are hard to catch.
How to Catch
Crappie in Late February and Early March
The most-effective
way for me to catch crappie is spider-rig trolling. I prefer to use the B ‘n’ M Capps & Coleman 14-foot trolling
poles with a B ‘n’ M spinning reel. I’ll either be using 8- or 6-pound-test Vicious clear line, and I’ll
be fishing a jig tipped with a live minnow. The jigheads either will be 1/8- or 3/32-ounce. My favorite colors for the heads
of jigs to fish are red, orange or green. For tube bodies, I prefer Southern Pro 2-inch Umbrella Crappie Tubes in either chartreuse/black,
chartreuse/orange or solid chartreuse.
If I find a ditch meandering into a small bay, I’ll run half my poles, so
the jigs troll through the ditch, and on the other side of my boat, I’ll have my poles trolling on the shallow flat.
This way I can fish different depths and various colors of jigs, until I establish the depth where the crappie are holding,
and the color of jig they prefer that day. I prefer to move really slowly and use only a single jig at this time of the year.
Second
Crappie-Catching Tactic for Early Spring:
If
I’m fishing in heavy cover, I’ll use a 12-foot Buck’s Ultra-Lite Pole, and I like the pole with the reel
seat on the bottom. This pole has a notch cut in the handle above the reel, so the fisherman can put his finger on the rod
blank of this incredibly-sensitive and light new pole. I’ve weighed the new Buck’s Ultra-Lite Poles. The 10-foot
pole weighs 4 ounces, the 11-foot weighs 4.3 ounces, and the 12-foot pole weighs 4.6 ounces. I’ve compared these jig
poles to all the other ultralight jig poles, and the B ‘n’ M jig poles are 15- to 20-percent lighter than them.
If you’re going to fish and hold a pole in your hand all day long, you want the lightest pole you can use that still
has the backbone to get a big crappie out of the brush, and that’s what these new B ‘n’ M poles have.
I can put one of
these ultralight jig poles in each hand, and I can fish two jigs at one time, one shallow and one deep, until I find the crappie.
Fishing the jig pole means you can get your jig in really-heavy cover. If the crappie are in the brush or the weeds, you can
drop that jig in any hole you locate to catch the crappie. I pick an area that I want to fish and vertical fish with the jig,
until I work that region out and catch the crappie there. I’ll be fishing these two patterns this month, and this is
where I’ll be looking for and catching crappie. The end of February and first of March are great times to crappie fish,
and you often catch really-big prespawn females these months, using these tactics.
