Crappie spend a substantial amount of time suspended around deep brush. The angler who locates these hotspots and probes them effectively stands a good chance of sacking up a mess of nice slabs.

Going crappie fishing is sort of like threading a tiny grasshopper on a small hook and tossing it into a stock pond known to be loaded with fiesty bream.

There is no doubt you’re gonna get bit. The question is how quick and how many times.

That’s a pretty bold assumption to make. But you can rest assured it’s as rock solid as they come.

Crappie, also referred to as white perch, are finicky feeders, indeed. Some days they’ll hammer a minnow or jig, while on other occasions the strike will be so subtle it can barely be felt through even the most sensitive stick of graphite.

Such was the case last August when I made the big loop from Nacogdoches down to Montgomery and back up to Broaddus for back-to-back mornings of white perch jerkin’ on 22,000-acre Conroe and 114,000-acre Sam Rayburn.

Despite the drastic difference the size of these impoundments, the patterns and the intensity of the action were one in the same.

The crappie were relating to deep brushpiles in 18-30 feet of water and the bites were extremely light. In three hours fishing my friend and I landed 26 crappie, 12 of which made the 10-inch minimum length limit, and a pair of small channel cats.

Crappie like dense, limby cover. So they’re attracted to brush like a magnet. But it seems like the deeper brush in 18-22 feet holds the most fish during the heat of the summer.

Since man-made brushpiles are most effective when submerged around mainlake structure like creeks, rivers, humps, roadbeds and points, having a good LCR or paper graph is of the essence. You can’t pinpoint good locations to sink brush without the aid of some sort of depth-finding device, much less find the honey hole again when you return to fish it.

I haven’t been finding much at all on the shallow brush in 12-15 feet of water. Most of the fish seem to be holding around the 18-30 foot holes. They’ll usually be suspended in the brush, but they’ll occasionally be right on the bottom. The key is to use an LCR or paper graph to tell you at what depth the fish are holding then put your bait at that depth.

Live shiners fished vertically beneath the boat on a 2/0 gold crappie hook are generally the most productive bait day-in and day-out. But on occasion you can take a 1/16-ounce Puddle Jumper jig and hammer the big ones ones.

Minnows work best when the bite is slow. But when the fish really get turned on you can wear them out on a 1/16-ounce Puddle Jumper. A blue-ice body with a chartreuse head tends to work best on sunny days and pearl with a pink head is best in overcast conditions.

The Puddle Jumper is different from other crappie jigs on the market in that it has an awesome, built-in action. The plastic body has twin legs that flutter about freely. All you need to do is put the jig at the proper depth and wait.

I’ve tried them all and the Puddle Jumper is the best around, bar none. These jigs will literally drive the crappie wild at times. The jigs are available at various tackle stores around the region.