"Every time you set the hook in heavy cover, you're going to lose that minnow, and that is going to hurt you if the fish doesn't get hooked," he said. "When I drop a jig down into brush or the tree roots next to a stump and I get bit and miss that fish, nine times out of 10, I'll catch that crappie. When I set the hook and I can tell that fish is not on, I have only moved the jig a foot straight up. So I'll drop it right straight back down and put the lure right back in that crappie's face, and most of the time he'll eat it. What happens with the minnow is that you're going to raise the hook up to see if the minnow is still there, and then you can't get right back into that ambush spot."

So how often does this guide bring live bait with him on a fishing trip?

"I haven't used live bait with clients in the past 12 months even once," Huckabee said. "Some of the people who fish with me think the baits I use are pretty big for crappie, but I tell them that if you look at the size of the minnows that crappie eat, you can see why they won't hesitate to grab a Beavertail."

Huckabee is miffed at some anglers' tactics.

"Another thing I don't understand is when the old-timers jig-fish, they use 1/32- and 1/64-ounce hair jigs," pondered Huckabee. "But when they fish with minnows, they want bigger shiners. All right, where is the theory behind that? You look at a crappie's mouth and it's not that small. I've taken fish all over the United States and those bigger jigs are going to get a lot more aggressive bites than a small jig, because a fish is going to eat that bigger jig. It's not going to play around with it. It's going to eat it."

For more on catching crappie, check out Huckabee's Web site at ToddHuckabee.com