I can' t believe I' ve thrown them back all this time!!! Recently, I freind of mine, my kids, and I , went crappie fishing...... we had a good day...the kids loved it, and I went hope with a few fillets. Since then, I' ve been thinking about: " how can I catch these fish...more often" . It was the first time I' ve taken a fish home for the table in ten years. The family doesn' t eat fish, but I love it. Made me question why I haven' t brought a bass home in all the years I' ve spent chasing them. I will never be a " keep everything I catch guy" , but I may take a fillet or two once in a while now. Anyway, I would like some tips on how to catch some crappie the next time out. The kids and I caught our crappie on minnows(during the spawn)...and I' ve caught a few since on jigs, around pillars of a bridge. I don' t have a boat but have recently bought a belly boat. How can I catch a few for the table from time to time? What color jigs should I use and under what conditions? How deep do they go, and why do they go deep? Thanks for any help you can give.

i am not an expert but heres some info for ya. first use both minnows, and worms. cought em off both of them. but use samll minnows. then i dono what color the jig has to be i think it just depends on what they are biting on. keep changin colors. i changed 3 or 4 colors one day then when i put the pink color on they wouldnt stay off my line. and they suspend in water so they can be at any depth. we were catchin em any were from 6 feet (bottom of were we were fishing at) to 2 feet from the top of the water. just put on bobbers and throw the line in the water and change the depths on the rods. have one at one depth and another at a different depth. and change things up. dont be afraid to change colors or jis. i had my best luck on a pink glo genzworm and a green glo genzworm. they seemed to bite better on the glo jigs. genzworms worked the best for me with a small minnow. but have cought them off worms also. good luck

Very rarly do i use live bait for crappie for summer fishing. usually i use a black tube worm and a pink jig i have cought many crappie on this rig as well as bass, northern, bluegill, perch, walleye, muskie and any other fish you could think of this is truly my favorite rig to use for any fish expechally crappie.

I also just found out this year how good crappie really are. I' m from Ontario Canada and as you know winter is long up here. Myself and a couple buddies put an ice shack out on the lake looking for walleye but ended up catching many more crappie than pike and walleye put together. All we were using was a minnow and a hook. We avereged 30-40 crappie per night. We threw alot back but kept everything over 11" . My biggest was just over 14.5" .
This spring we decided to try to catch some out of the boat. We were using 1/32oz
jig heads and 1" power grubs in various colours. You could slam them all day with this setup.

me and my dad fished them under a bridge also...just like you...minnows under a bobber and a little white jig worked great for us..and we fished from the bank also...wed catch 30 apiece by lunch time fishing from a bit after light...we throw them back...neither of us really like fish...but its fun always catching fish like that...we havent been up to that lake in years...im going to have to recomend we both take a day off and go up....it was fun and we both enjoyed it...the little white curly tail jigs we would just toss out and slowly reel them in like a spinner almost but a bit slower..maybe let it fall once in a while....pretty fun fishing....i hear they are great eating..i just dont like fish to much...we kept a bass out of my friends pond one time and i ate it...fried it in a pan with some garlic...tasted pretty good i must say......