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 shorter 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.