Fall Basin Black Crappie in the NE and Midwest

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Fall invokes memories of sweet treats and filling meals, followed by football games viewed from a horizontal position on the couch. You would be mistaken if you think my recollections are based on leftover Halloween candy and Thanksgiving dinners. No, they were created spending brisk fall days targeting concentrated schools of big black crappie in deep basins, later enjoying the fruits of my labor with a side of homemade tartar sauce. This phenomenon occurs each fall throughout the northeast and midwest, and it should be red hot in a water near you, right now.

When and Where to Go

One of the best things about this time of year is the simplicity of where to fish. As water temperatures fall south of 60 degrees and fall foliage peaks and fades, black crappie vacate shallower haunts and congregate in deep lake and pond basins. Deep is a relative term and might be a 15- to 20-foot hole only a hundred feet wide in a smaller pond, or an expansive 30- to 60-foot-deep area a 1/4-mile wide in a large lake. Look online at a bathymetry map or use your fish finder’s mapping software, such as Humminbird’s LakeMaster series, to quickly identify likely areas. Basins closer to shallow spots which hold crappies in the summer will be the best ones to explore first, especially in early fall.

Electronics

Good electronics are key to not only finding the right areas to fish, but for locating crappie as well. That is not to say you need to buy forward facing sonar (FFS) and the most expensive fish finder available, as traditional 2D sonar will do just fine. That being said, FFS greatly enhances your ability to cover water and find fish more quickly, provides fish and lure returns in real time, and allows you to adjust your presentation to the fish’s reaction, or lack thereof. Also, it is an absolute blast to use. After relying on traditional sonar for decades, the clarity, color palettes, and ease of use of my new Humminbird MEGA Live 2 combined with a Humminbird XPLORE fish finder has totally changed my fall crappie trips.

Crappie Gear

Rods and reels can be top of the line or bare bones depending on your budget. I guarantee you own combos that will work just fine. A 6- to 7-foot spinning rod in medium-light/medium power with fast/extra fast action is perfect for most applications when paired with a 2500-size spinning reel.  A few of my favorite rods include the Shimano Sensilite  series which perform way above their price point, St. Croix Rod Panfish Series and Daiwa TD Eye. If you want to use slip bobbers when fish aren’t too deep, a St. Croix Panfish Series 7'3" ML-XF or Mr. Walleye Series 7'6" medium slip bobber rod will serve you well. I prefer light sensitive braided lines such as Xbraid X8 Finesse or Seaguar PEX8 and a 6-foot section of 4- or 6-pound test Seaguar STS Trout & Steelhead fluorocarbon leader.

Crappie Lures

A small jig and plastic are all you need in most situations. I rely heavily on jigs like Northland Tackle’s Thumper, Thumper Crappie King, Tungsten Crappie King and Z-Man’s Micro Shad HeadZ and Micro Finesse ShroomZ. A newer jig on the market perfect for this type of fishing is the LS Snipin’ Jig from Mad Scientist Tackle. Besides incredible colors, the jig head has six sides and 18 facets to provide a stronger return on FFS.

For plastics, Northland’s Pan-Candy series and Z-Man’s Finesse and Micro Finesse series work great, as will 2-inch tubes from various manufacturers. I also have success using larger Ned Rig heads (1/8-ounce and larger) with the above plastics, but if you can find them in stock, big crappies destroy the new Z-Man Fuzzy BugZ.

Pre-made jig and plastic combos are also available from companies like Big Bite Baits. The Linder Panfish Special and Hal-Fly combine plastic and feathers into a light, hard to resist package.

Make note I said small jig and plastic combos work in most situations. That does not include moderate to strong wind.  While I always make an extra effort to avoid such days during an already cold time of the year, I was recently fooled by a sub-par weather forecast of 5- to 10-mph winds that turned into 15- to 20-mph sustained conditions with stronger gusts.  While my Minn Kota Ultrex’s spot lock held me perfectly in place and MEGA Live 2 did its job putting me on fish, the small jigs were blown past the target before they reached the needed depth, whether casting or fishing vertically

In frustration, I rifled through a storage bin and found two new lures from Berkley I had thrown in the boat but never used: The Finisher and the Ripfish. Being so regimented to using small jigs, I would never have thought of using these lures.  As I looked at the still boxed minnow hard baits, I was drawn to the slim profile and heavy weights. Optimized for FFS, the size 7 Finisher is only 2 3/4-inches but weighs a hefty ½-ounce, while the size 7 Ripfish is the same length and 3/8-ounce. Thinking it couldn’t hurt to try, my partner and I each put one on.

What happened next was one of those too few days on the water where we could do no wrong. The Ripfish can be fished throughout the water column like a glide bait, rip bait, lipless bait or a vertical jig. The Finisher has a slimmer profile and can be fished as glide bait, sinking jerk bait, vertical jig, or strolled through the water column at a desired depth. Even though the crappies were keyed in on eating aquatic insects (based on stomach contents from the few I kept), they didn’t hesitate to crush these two minnow imitations, with some literally taking them completely down their throat. Now, other anglers reading of my revelation might be laughing as they have been using similar baits for fall crappie for years, but it was new to me and the fellow New England anglers in my circle. Regardless, add or maintain these types of baits in your fall crappie toolbox.

Crappie Presentations

Casting and vertical jigging are both effective, depending on depth and mood of the fish. Shallower fish are more easily spooked by a boat, so casting is preferred in those situations. Wind, the presence or absence of a trolling motor and FFS, and a trolling motor’s ability to spot lock also determines the best presentation to use.

In both cases, it is best to keep your offering above the fish as crappie are built to feed upward. This is simple when fishing vertically using your electronics. With a jig rod  I coax bites first using slow up and down movements, followed by more aggressive lifts and drops as needed. Slowly raising your lure often convinces hesitant fish to bite. Casting is most efficient when using FFS unless the school is so big you can back off it and “blindly” cast to accurately reach fish. Cast your lure right on top of, or just beyond, the fish and then “stroll” (adjust) the fall rate and location as needed to keep the bait in the strike zone for as long as possible.

While you can target one or two fish at a time, it is more efficient to wait until you mark at least four or five fish to invoke the crappies’ competitive nature and almost guarantee fast action. Hits are often a simple tap, excess weight, or a lack of weight as the fish moves upward taking your lure with it. The latter are some of the most interesting bites. In calm conditions, a lighter jig that slowly wafts down toward your quarry is ideal, not only peaking interest, but drawing them up slowly reduces the chance of barotrauma.

Conservation Thoughts

As technology evolves, making fish easier to locate, diagnose and catch with each advancement, the decision to harvest wisely should not be taken lightly. I hesitated to write this article as fall basin crappie fishing can be like “shooting fish in a barrel," even when not using FFS. Keep what you will eat while they are fresh. Harvest a range of sizes.

Still a relatively new technology, scientific studies related to harvest and catch rates by anglers using FFS are in the early stages, and the potential for overharvest to occur under current regulations in some water bodies is unknown. I keep this in mind when fall crappie fishing and try to be conservative with my harvest.

Remember too that the fish you take home are not the only ones you kill during this time of year, as post-release mortality can be high for crappies caught from deeper depths. Crappie are “physoclistous," meaning they do not have a direct connection between their swim bladder and throat, and are unable to release air from their expanding swim bladder when they are brought to the surface from deep water. This can result in barotrauma, and possibly death.

Signs of barotrauma include fish with bulging eyes, an inability to return below the surface, or the stomach protruding into the mouth, among others. In some cases, barotrauma has been seen in fish caught from as shallow as 13 feet. If you see these signs in fish, harvest those that are legal and once you catch what you need, move shallower to target the same or other species, or go home like I did on that incredible crappie catching windy day. Easy to say, harder to do, but wise harvest is more important now than ever.

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