Fishing Frenzy

Many crappie anglers are a bit frustrated when it comes to crappie bait fishing in the fall. When the water temperature starts to cool down, the feeding and living patterns of the crappie can be unpredictable.

The patterns you were assuming and utilizing in the late summer months might not really work for you in the fall. The bait fish have stopped spawning so there will be more competition.

But you can use this little fact to your advantage to catch more crappie in the fall. You just need to study some facts.

It's true that a bait fish will be much more larger and you might assume that you would need a larger sized crappie jig in this situation to match the size of the crappie's main food source and in most of the time you are correct.

But what you need to keep in mind in the late fall as the water's temperature continues to drop, the metabolism of the crappie will also drop. And the crappie will not be able to chase your crappie jigs unless you're going to use a very slow fishing presentation.

Now this is something that goes against your reasoning and what you would normally do when the food source for crappie is bigger in size. If you want to know how to catch black crappie, you can utilize smaller jig sizes or use some technique to slow down your larger crappie jigs.

The reason many crappie fishermen use a smaller bait fishing presentation such as small jigs is because they float downward through the water at a much slower pace. This is just right for the slow crappie in the late fall and winter.

Like I've mentioned before, you can still use larger crappie jigs but they need to be presented very slowly. If you want to catch crappie with a bigger crappie jig then you need to use a heavier line because this will make it sink much slower in the water.