After water in shallow bays and boat canals warms enough to draw spawning crappies, finding and catching them is fairly easy. It’s not so easy to locate them before this shallow migration takes place.
In the 6.75-minute YouTube video below, Jeremy Smith of Lindner’s Angling Edge explains how to find suspended crappies when the water is still too cold for the fish to move shallow. First, he uses his electronics to locate them, then he tosses a swimming jig over the top of the school to entice strikes.
Note: These schools of crappies are often moving slightly, so it pays to be mobile. This isn’t the time to toss out an anchor and use a slip-bobber. Instead, keep moving slowly with the trolling motor and cast and retrieve a small jig (no bobber).
P.S. This same swimming jig technique is dynamite during the summer, too, after crappies have completed their shallow-water spawning rituals.
Watch and learn.
