During this
time of year most of your crappie are going to be found holding tight to cover right on the channel ledges of the old Coosa
River, waiting to ambush there prey as they seek shelter on under water stumps that are dotted up and down the old river bed.
This pattern will hold true from October all the way thru mid-November.
The most popular technique for going after fall
crappie here on Weiss Lake is a simple technique called Bottom
Bumping and if there ever was a finesse fishing technique for slab crappie, this is it. It is a simple rig to tie
and is deadly when fished correctly.
I like to start out with my reel spooled with
12 lb. Sufix line using an eight foot BnM Pro Staff rod. You may ask why 12 lb. line for crappie, but you
are going to be in contact with the bottom of the lake 99 % of the time and hang ups are a guarantee. Using this heavy
of line allows you to pull free from hang-ups and save your rig every time.
All we need to complete our bottom bumping rig
is a simple a half oz. weight on the bottom, come up 18 inches and tie on a #2 Eagle Claw snelled hook put on a minnow
and go after them. All of this tackle is nothing special and all can be bought here locally. We now have our rig
setup, so where do we start?
There are miles of channel ledges marked on Weiss
Lake with markers on both the up stream and down streamside of the lake.
I can tell you this from Bay Springs all the way up to Sand
Valley has always produced fall slab-sized crappie.
The most important
part of this technique is being able to find structure on these ledges, there is no use in fishing a section of ledge that
doesnt have some type of structure. Most of the structure on these ledges will be found in 10 to 14 feet of water with
the lake down at winter level, so this will give you a good starting point on your search for these paper mouth beauties.
One last thing about Bottom Bumping, when you think you are going slow working the ledge you need to slow
down even more, it should take about hour and half to work a 100 yard stretch of ledge.
Fall fishing on Weiss is underrated and overlooked sometimes and to me is one of the best times to be on the water. So
if you get an itch to cure those summertime blues get into a cooler full of line stretching slabs and you'll see what I mean...
Good Fishin'
