Welcome to Larson’s Quality Jigs Tip of the week. This week we’ll dive into spoon feeding Crappie on ice. Crappie often times get categorized as finicky biters with the only way to catch them being to fish small jigs and wax worm or spike type live bait. While true at certain times, mainly during fronts or with high fishing pressure, Crappie most of the time are aggressive feeders eating minnows and other small young of the year fish. A 12-15” Crappie is no longer prey (except for big pike and musky) but rather a predator that has a sizeable mouth and can eat some pretty large bait. Early ice is gone and we have transitioned to the early side of mid-winter patterns. Crappie are in the process of moving off weed lines and moving into basin areas suspending off bottom. Spoons not only shine at first ice but all season long in fooling these great table fare fish. There is more than one way to fish a spoon for Crappie and fishing it the same as you do for Walleyes often times yields similar results, but sometimes you have to switch it up to get the bite to take off. This time of year, bite windows are starting to develop and the fish will feed aggressively for a short period of time usually in the morning and evening (depending on the lake, clarity, etc). You can extend this bite before they turn on and again when they turn off by trying a few of these tips. First, as the fish begin to feed, you may notice fish coming in but not hitting the bait. This is when I use the smallest minnow head offering I can. As the bite picks up, using a head to a half a minnow seems best (heck when they are biting well pretty much anything works). As the bite shuts down at the end of their feeding window, tipping a spoon with a tail-hooked minnow and just dead sticking the spoon or hanging it under a cork will often let you pick up a few more fish as the lack of jigging movement is usually what they want. The weight of the spoon will force the minnow to struggle just right to entice bites from these fish that just minutes ago were kamikaze. Watching your electronics will tell you the jigging cadence they want on any specific day. One other thing to pay attention to is where the fish are coming in on your electronics. All fish have a ceiling or an upper limit of where they will chase bait to before they get out of their comfort zone and quickly dart back to the school. If they are coming off bottom it can be maybe 1-3’ or if they are suspended in the water column it may be much more maybe up to 8 feet. Figuring out their ceiling will help you do two things. First it will help you get catch more fish as getting them to chase a bait up often results in a bite as they feel the bait is getting away from them (same as walleyes). Knowing when you hit their ceiling will allow you to stop the bait at just the right time rather than going too far and spooking the fish. Second, if you determine they will chase up say 3 feet, then setting your dead sticks at that height will often be most productive in getting bites on these extra rods. I like using Larson’s Quality Jigs custom painted glow spoons in the 1/32 to 1/8 oz size for chasing these fish. Depending on the depth and attitude of the fish on any given day determines the size I start with, but the 1/16 is my go to size most of the time. Also, using a quick change clevis like those pictured will allow you to change spoons quickly rather than retying. Get out and try spoon feeding Crappie while you can. Tune in next weekend when Pro Staffer Jon Jenneman will provide some more ice fishing tips and tricks. Be safe out there and Happy New Year Everyone!!!
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 04:00:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015