An alternative to fishing two jigs is to double up with a jig and a minnow. The jig should be at the end of the line to anchor the rig. Then, depending on the water depth and the amount of current and wind, the minnow can be presented on a crappie hook or a second jig, with either tied to the line with a polymer knot. An alternative way to add minnows is to use them to tip jigs. Sometimes that helps. Other times, just the plain jigs are more effective.

MARKER BUOYS
One of the most important tools for effective vertical fishing is a floating marker buoy. Most veteran anglers agree that anchoring over brushpiles is not a good idea. The anchor often spooks the fish, and can tear up the cover when it is time to move on. Plus, the cover sometimes wins the battle, and the anchor gets hung and ends up lost completely. A much better plan is to drop a floating marker attached to a line and weight. Upon spotting the cover on a graph, you drop it overboard, then use the trolling motor to hold the boat in position. Marking the upwind edge of the structure makes boat handling easier, because it allows an angler to hold the boat into the wind and keep the marker in sight.

The best fishing often won't be right under the buoy. However, the marker, when used in conjunction with shoreline landmarks, provides a reference point for working the area and honing in on hotspots. Once they find cover and a marker is down, veteran anglers spend a bit of time checking out the scope and height of the cover before they put down even a single fishing line.

Anglers are actually wise to carry a several marker buoys. Often a fisherman uses a buoy to mark a stump row or brushpile, only to discover that most of the cover is to one side of that marker. While a single marker does provide a reference point, dropping a second buoy at the opposite edge of the cover -- or over a specific hotpot -- often makes the fishing more efficient.

CRITICAL EDGES
One of the best places to set up during early spring is the edge of a creek channel. Crappie may be down in the channel or on the high side or over the slope but typically, some fish are somewhere in the vicinity of such a slope. By straddling edges or moving back and forth over slopes, anglers can work a variety of depths without moving their boat very far.

Because fish so often relate to channel edges, bass and crappie fishermen alike commonly sink man-made brushpiles near the same breaks. One of the best ways to find crappie-covered brush in unfamiliar waters is to cruise along the edge of a major creek channel edge, looking for clustered debris near the break. Sometimes crappie are even visible on the screen of a depthfinder, but if they're tight to the brush, they may not show up. Any piece of cover close to an edge deserves a bit of fishing time, especially if it is in the depth zone where you have already found fish that day.