Looking for some Crappie advice (sic)

I'm a relatively new fly-fisherman who's spent most of the winter casting in the grass (several times a week since September). Now that we are in a warm spell and the water has warmed up enough to make the fish active, I'm just itching to catch some fish. Most of my fishing (spinning) has been for bass/bluegill in streams and ponds. There are a couple of opportunities for me to catch crappies, and I'm not sure how to go about it.

The first location is my Dad's 1/2 acre pond, where I fished as a kid. It used to be a LMB/BG fishery, but someone introduced some crappies and following a fish kill 5 or so years ago, I think stunted crappies are about all that are in there. The pond is in the woods, so casting a fly rod, or anything else, is tough, but the shoreline will probably be most productive anyway.

The other location is the local 20,000 acre reservoir, Smith Mountain Lake. SML has had a growing crappie population in recent years, and I'd like to know how to tap into that. The lake is very deep, over 200 feet at the dam, and near 100 in the cove I fish with my canoe. It is also heavily covered by private docks. The shoreline is very steep and the bottom is out of sight by the end of almost any dock, even though clarity is typically over 5'. There are no weeds to speak of, and all timber within 13' of full pond was removed before damming, although the remaining deepwater timber was left in place.

I've heard that crappies don't usually take surface lures like bass and bluegill, and I know most people use minnows. I don't plan on switching from floating WF line, so maximum depth will be about 6 or 7 feet. Any deeper than that and I'll get my spinning rod out. So here are my questions:
What general type and size of fly should I use?
What depths should I target?
and How should I retrieve?

I've always had my best early season crappie luck on white buggers. Generally slow, and low in the water column. Probably not right on the bottom, as most of the crappies will be suspended if they're active. Go looking around 10', long leaders, and a slowww twitchy retrieve.

A BH or CH woolly bugger in chartreuse. IMO, there's no need for the hackles.

If you're not averse to plastics, a small panfish assassin, a Bobby Garland baby shad, or a crappie slider are good, too.

You might want to consider using a sinking leader (RIO and other companies make them) for fishing the drop offs. A sinking leader with a lightly weighted fly will help you get fly deeper and stay deeper through your retrieve. The sinking leader with an unweighted fly will fish well, too. Small minnow flies like white buggers or clouser minnows will work as will nymph patterns.

try a small white marabou streamer with red tail and throat. Retrieve very slowly.

Crappie will hit a top water fly. Consequently, you may consider a popper-dropper combination with a yellow/white popper (about hook size 4) below which would be a white or grey wolly bugger (size 8 or a white/grey Boudreaux (size 12) or a white and tinsel clouser (size 8 8).
The technique is twitch and wait, twitch and wait.

Dare I pun - that you won't get any "Crappie (bad) advice here" :cool:?
Mike

Notice the white and flash theme?- little minnows. Cabela's carries some jig hooks for fly tying that have a small lead head-I also use dumbell eyes tied right behind the eye to create a jig effect. Crappies will chase schools of minnows to the surface or feed on a hatch, so carry some small poppers and a few dries with you, too.

Charlie

#8 or 10 Red or Red/White Boa Leech has "been berry, berry goood to me" this year. ;) As the water warms pre-spawn don't be afraid to go shallow. Most of my fish come in 4' or less - sometimes 6". And CoachBob is right - they will take topwater. I had a ball on a Jelly Bean several days last year.

Lots of good suggestions on flies so nothing significant to add on that topic.

However for flyline and leader setup I like a floating line and a 9ft leader and I attach a strike indicator (essentially a bobber) to the leader. The indicator has two functions. First it aids with strike detection; crappie can be notoriously light biters. Second, the indicator is used to suspend a weighted fly at a known depth. I prefer indicators that can be easily repositioned on the leader. If I need to use a leader longer than the length of the rod I use a slip indicator (slip bobber) that will break free and slide down the leader when a fish is hooked. Then I can fish longer leaders and reach a greater depth if needed. Slip indicators can be made but I have also acquired some from Cascade Crest Tools. There was quite a bit of discussion about slip indicators on this forum a year or two ago. I first learned about these techniques from an article in California Fly Fisher magazine many years ago and they greatly improved my success with crappie.

When the water warms the Crappie head into shallower water as going deep is not required during the spawn. Crappie do hit surface flys anytime, I've caught them mid summer with hoppers.

Why are you concerned about this pond being in the woods? You have a canoe, use it! Plus, because your new to fly-fishing, sitting close to the water will force you to "Keepyst Thynne Baakast Upeth"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by melk

Dare I pun - that you won't get any "Crappie (bad) advice here" :cool:?
Mike

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I was hoping someone would pick up on that. My post was all serious, but my title was intentionally tongue-in-cheek.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by new2thefly

When the water warms the Crappie head into shallower water as going deep is not required during the spawn. Crappie do hit surface flys anytime, I've caught them mid summer with hoppers.

Why are you concerned about this pond being in the woods? You have a canoe, use it! Plus, because your new to fly-fishing, sitting close to the water will force you to "Keepyst Thynne Baakast Upeth"

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Indeed, tight situations do make for better casting practice than on the lawn. The reasons not to use the canoe are several, prime of which is THAT GIANT HILL I HAVE TO CARRY IT DOWN. Probably 150' vertical from the driveway, then back up afterward. Also, at my parents, it's usually just a few minutes: my kids get bored quickly.

I agree with the slooooow technique. But one of the biggest crappie I have ever caught was on a chrome BIG roostertail retrieving it very fast. Don't ask me why it hit it, it just did.

I figured out the slip thing years ago. I was already using it on my spinning gear so it was no big jump. I use a stop knot and bead, one each both above and below the float to control location. Those little plastic bubbles with an ear are very good.

Here's my take away from this discussion so far:

-Use a fly that sinks and looks like a minnow, but a floating fly is not altogether out of the question.
-Fish near the bottom, but not on it.
-Retrieve slowly, but sometimes no retrieve (under a float/strike indicator) works, and occasionally, even a fast retrieve will pay off.

Does that about sum it up?

lol.. yep - and because you had to "qualify" 1. and 3. you just as well add to .2. Crappies' eyes are situated to look "up". I can tell you from icefishing experience a crappie will quite often come "up" to a lure.. but will virtually never follow one down. Crappies (especially whites) will quite often suspend. So, "near the bottom" can be wrong, too.


Find a place with crappies. Get a fly inthe water. ;) Good luck.

Crappies on poppers for me has been an evening time activity but I suppose that could be where I was fishing and the bug activity at dusk. The best popper was a Bluegill sized one , in yellow, with rubber legs. Fished slow! (Lake Hope, Ohio near Hope Furnace a charchol burning relic from the Iron Belt) :grin:
For underwater I've used my BS fly as my primary Crappie fly now for years, and it's a dark olive maribou wing and tail, with a yellow or orange throat, with a large copper beadhead on a size 10, 2 0r 3x long streamer hook. I fish it under an indicator or a larger popper and fish it almost motionless. (the BS = Bluegill/Sunfish fry) (Clear and Silver Lakes, Washington near Spokane) :)
Crappie can be choosy as I have ran into one situation where all they wanted was a size 14 bead head, Hares ear nymph. Turns out that thousands of newly hatched fry were hangin out in the weeds and these little fellows had a big head, sort of brown and gold colored, and each time an airboat would come by the wake and vibrations would dislodge them from the shoreling vegetation where they were hiding from the school of Crappie that was after them. (airboats = Florida, St Johns, River just out of Melbourne.) :tieone:

:cool: Another time they wanted streamers that imitated a mix of perch, crappie, bluegill, etc fry in the fall that were now averaging a couple inches long. This was very much like run and gun sight fishing on the salt where you would scan the lake looking for the fish to erupt in a school attack and then chase them down and get your fly in fast. A Black Nosed Dace and small muddlers were the flys that scored on Eloika Lake, north of Spokane where shortening days had caused a massive die off of vegetation where thos fry had been hiding all summer from the bass and other predators. AS you might expect those Crappie were fast moving fish and wanted a fly that was fleeing. :cool:

Although white or chartreuse are indeed top fly colors for crappies, don't ignore black or olive...especially in clear water. Its what I've been catching most of my crappies on so far this season.
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2..._3-21-2012.jpg

I like using microjigs (a pattern tied on a 1/80 oz jighead) and use them either with or without an indicator, depending on how the fish are hitting.

I have caught some very nice fish on a #12 black furled tail mohair leech!

Waskeyc: I would like to suggest you go to the home page and type in Crappie Flies in the search feature. Then click enter and you will be directed to over 500 entries pertaining to your search. Many of them are from a very knowledgeable FAOL member, Rick Z.

Good Luck

Tim

The best fly I have ever used for crappie is Al Campbells Crappie Candy. It's in the Fly Of The Week Archives. Just type it in the search box. The next best one I have used is the Electric Chicken:

Attachment 10177

After this, any smaller clouser, streamer or bugger will work. I'd recommend chatruese, and white for daytime use, and black for nightime. Use brighter colors in stained, or darker waters, and darker colors in clearer water. If you are catching a lot of small ones, move a little deeper.

During pre-spawn, look for schools of staging crappie in structure that is close to suitable spawning areas (flat shallows with nearby cover). Use a sink tip to fish in about 7-15 feet of water. During the spawn, just throw anything at them in shallow flats. It doesn't really matter what. Fish anywhere from 6" to 4 feet deep.

After the spawn....fish for something else. Crappie are moody and suspend, anywhere, without regard for structure, the thermocline or anything else. They can be anywhere, from 10' to 100' deep. They will refuse to hit anything unless it is almost placed in their mouths. Summer crappie are tough. In fall, look for them in 5-15' of water around structure. They bite actively, stoking up for the winter. In winter, they will hold in 15-20' of water, and hit very light and slow. This is not a good time for fly fishing, as far as crappie are concerned.

I went to my Dad's pond over the weekend, since we were celebrating his birthday. I had three of my kids with me, plus my brother and his 2 year old son on Saturday. Sunday, it was just me and my kids, the oldest of which is 7. We fished about an hour each day. Both days were overcast, with a thunderstorm chasing us away on Saturday, and there were scattered showers during the afternoon on Sunday, but it was dry while we were out.

I was using a small (#12?) bead-head nymph on my 8' 5/6 wt. The others were using garden worms and plastic grubs on jigs with spin-casting rods. No casting was necessary, the fish were right along the bank, mostly under floating dead aquatic vegetation from last season. I don't know whether this was pre-spawn, mid-spawn, or post-spawn, but I do know that pond is seriously overrun with crappie. Combining our catches, we landed 28 fish on Saturday and 21 on Sunday, most of which fell to my nymph. Only 2 or 3 were over 6" long and most were about 4" or 5".

The technique that seemed to work best was to let the nymph pendulum out past the matted floating grass and let it sink on a semi-tight line. My rod was more a jig-pole than a fly rod. If no take on the initial drop, slowly jig it up and down while moving it along the bank. If slack is allowed to develop in the line, the fish can get free when they bite, and bites will be difficult to detect. With tension in the line, a hookset is much more reliable. Fish would not pick the nymph up off the bottom, but would bite it while it was falling. They were mostly 1'-2' below the surface. Didn't try topwaters, but the others didn't have much success because their hooks were too big for the little fish. The fish seemed to be just a bit bigger slightly farther from the bank, and slightly deeper, but all of these fish were stunted.

I did fillet most of the fish from Saturday and everyone got a bite, but that was way too much effort for such a small amount of meat.

Congrats on working out the solution for your situation!