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Thread: Looking for some Crappie advice (sic)

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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
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    Virginia Piedmont
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    140

    Question 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?

  2. #2

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    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.

  3. #3

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    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.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Wheeling, IL USA
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    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.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
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    Nunica Mi U S A
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    try a small white marabou streamer with red tail and throat. Retrieve very slowly.
    I can think of few acts more selfish than refusing a vaccination.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Broussard, Louisiana
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    613

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    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.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
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    Dublin, NH
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    Dare I pun - that you won't get any "Crappie (bad) advice here" ?
    Mike

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
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    Virginia Piedmont
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    Default Looking for some Crappie advice (sic)

    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?

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    SE Iowa
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    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.
    "Flyfishing is not a religion. You can make up your own rules as you go.".. Jim Hatch.. 2/27/'06

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    Palm Bay, Florida/Rock River Wyoming, USA
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    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)
    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.)

    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.
    Good Fishing,

    Chuck S (der Aulte Jaeger)

    "I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved"

    http://fishing-folks.blogspot.com/

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