Todd Huckabee spends about 300 days a year crossing the country trying to fool crappie under every possible condition. Photo courtesy of Lurenet.com

The debate rages on. Can you catch more crappie by using live minnows, or by offering a plastic trailer on a jighead?

There isn't a crappie angler alive who doesn't have an opinion he can't back up with stories about the non-stop action he fell into using a particular lure or minnow setup. But those "mother lode" papermouth outings are generally about being in the right place at the right time. In situations like this, it wouldn't matter what you were using for bait.

To come to a solid conclusion on the best method for catching crappie, the best indicator is what produces during tough fishing conditions. Obtaining that information meant talking to someone who spends the majority of the year on the water while guiding clients and fishing tournaments where crappie are the species of choice. That person is Todd Huckabee, an expert who spends about 300 days a year trying to fool crappie under every conceivable condition. His experience proves that when it comes to the best way to catch crappie, everyone is right -- at times.

"The main reason that you would use one technique over the other is because that's where your confidence lies," Huckabee said. "I have a lot more confidence in a jig than I do a minnow. That's because it's what I've always used. But there are a lot of people out there who have more confidence in a minnow than a jig."

Asked to describe the best scenarios for a live-bait approach, Huckabee said, "Anytime a cold front comes through and the fish are real sluggish, the minnow is going to get the same amount of bites as a jig, but you're going to catch 80 percent more of them on the minnow. It's because the crappie are going to inhale the minnow farther and hold on to it longer.

"The other time live bait makes sense is in real clear water in the middle of the day when you have a high sun," continued Huckabee. "This is where the crappie aren't really feeding that much, and you can take a minnow, hook it through the back without a split shot, toss it out and just let the weight of the minnow sink it down to the fish. This will get bit a lot more than a faster-falling jig."

Other than that, Huckabee believes it is a far more productive approach to use plastics for papermouths.

"I fish for crappie 12 months out of the year and I firmly believe that you can catch as many crappie on a jig as you can a minnow -- if you know how to fish a jig."

So there is a catch. You have to know how to fish that jig.

"A lot of people will get in my boat and the first thing they do when I give them a rod with a jig on it, is they drop that jig down and just start jigging the heck out of it," Huckabee said. "The rod tip is going everywhere and the jig is hopping all over the place. I've had so many people make the comment that they can catch crappie on minnows all day long, but if you give them a jig, they can't get bit on it. I say, 'All right, show me how you fish a minnow.' And they hold their rod real still and they get bites on it."

Huckabee's program is relatively simple. He relies on only a couple of plastic trailer styles on his jigs, and he actively searches for the aggressive fish. It's simple but effective.