Looking for some Crappie advice (sic)

[waskeyc]

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?

[ted4887]

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.

[deathb4disco]

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.

[BigA]

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.

[rainbowchaser]

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

[CoachBob]

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 .
The technique is twitch and wait, twitch and wait.

[melk]

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

[bluefish]

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

[HideHunter]

#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.

[tailingloop]

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.