A tiny jig combined with ultra-light gear can be deadly on Fall crappie suspended around hydrilla, bridge pilings and treetops. Best jig sizes are 1/16 to 1/4-ounce, depending on the depth of water.

Crappie fishing has long since been heralded as a lazy man’s sport, a laid-back style of fishing all too often correlated with tying a scarred-up john boat to a stump in open water, kicking back in an easy chair and poising for a subtle strike as a minnow flitters helplessly around a maze of limbs and branches below.

The slightest flex in the rod’s tip is the angler’s signal to set the hook, which means lifting up with just enough pressure to make the sharp hook pierce the papermouth’s thin lip without ripping it. Avid slab busters proudly refer to the practice as “white perch jerkin’.”

Albeit a fairly reliable means of taking a 25-fish limit of the tasty panfish, drowning live shiners in deep water has a way of growing old pretty quick. Not only is it somewhat repetitive, but it also can get downright boring when the bite slows to a crawl.

These are among the primary reasons why more and more anglers have begun going after crappie using ultra-light tackle and tiny artificial lures.

In eyes of a panfishing purists a deadly combination of spinning gear, eight-pound line and curly-tail grub is the only way to fly. “Sport slabbin‘” might be a fitting slug for this game.

There’s a lot of people who like to sit in 20 feet of water and drown a live shiner on 25-pound test line, but it’s just not my deal. I’ll still fish live bait on occasion, but only when I can’t get them to hit anything else or when they’re holding 15 or more feet down. This normally occurs during the hottest part of summer and the coldest part of winter.

The main keys to crappie fishing are finding the magic depth where they are comfortable and being there when they bite. During spring I’ll do a lot of wade fishing with jigs around shallow cover like button willows and cattails. Other than that, though, I’ll fish deeper. If you find a bunch of fish holding eight feet down in 12 feet of water, they’ll be eight feet down in 20 feet of water. That’s pretty much a given.

The places anglers should look for cover-happy crappie over the next few months will vary from lake to lake in accordance with the type of structure and/or cover that’s available. Aquatic vegetation, for instance, should be approached differently than say, standing timber.

On older reservoirs where timber has eroded and hydrilla and other forms of aquatic vegetation have become the primary forms of cover, I believe the major hurdle to leap is pinpointing the depth at which the majority of the fish are holding.

A good depth range to consider during fall is 8-14 feet. Using spinning gear and eight-pound mono, I’ll probe the outer edges of grassbeds at these depths with a 1/16 or 1/8-ounce curly-tail grub. One of my favorites is the two-inch Power Grub by Berkley.

What I’ll do is cast to the edge of the mat and retrieve my jig very slowly and walk it down the grass as it stairsteps to deeper water The fish will really nail it when they’re aggressive.

Another highly effective technique for fishing around the grass is “strolling.” The trick here is to cast 20-30 feet behind the boat and rely on the trolling motor to keep the jig moving.

Maintaining the proper trolling motor speed is essential with strolling. Go too fast and the jig won’t run deep enough; run too slow and it’ll hang up in the moss. The idea is to keep the bait running just above the submerged grass.

On reservoirs which have an abundance of standing timber, I like to seek out big trees situated on points, mainlake ridges and flats adjacent to a main creek or river. Some of my favorite trees are pecans and bois d’ arcs, mainly because both will have plenty of limbs for the fish to congregate around.

Crappie will suspend around the limbs and underneath them, usually 6-12 feet down depending on the amount of sunlight and the clarity of water. They’ll be shallower on cloudy days or in off-color water; deeper on sunny days or in clear water.

You’ll need to fish the jig vertically right off the front of the boat and you won’t need to move it much at all. I’ll just let it sit there and move with the boat. I’ll move to a different spot if something doesn’t happen within 10 minutes or so.

Sam Rayburn fishing guide uses a similar technique when he’s fishing submerged brushpiles staged along the edges of the Angelina and Attoyac rivers.

He sinks his crappie willows vertically in water ranging from 18-25 feet. The fish will spend much of the year either suspended on top of the brush or on the sides. One of his favorite jigs is a white Puddlejumper on a 1/16-ounce pink head.

Two other reliable forms of crappie structure are the bridge piling and powerline pillar. Both are apt to be found on lakes all over the country.

The part of the bridge piling that generally holds the most crappie are the cross members. The braces usually are located about 10 feet below the surface.

The crappie really like to suspend around the cross members. They’ll usually suspend just above it on cloudy days, but they’ll get beneath it when the sun is shining bright.

As you might expect, catching bridge crappie typically requires some patience and a deliberate effort to keep the jig in the strike zone.

What I’ll do then is close the bail and watch the angle of the line as the bait falls. Count it down as it falls. Once you get a strike you can pretty much predict when other strikes are going to occur merely by watching the angle of your line.

Selecting the proper outfit for crappie fishing

Anglers looking to put some sport back into their crappie fishing will need to gear up accordingly.

For casting and shooting jigs around timber, bridge pilings and grassbeds, go with ultra-light spinning tackle and light line, say 6-8 pound test. Wally Marshall’s Signature Series spinning rods are ideal for this style of fishing. The rods, both of which have fast tips and solid backbone, are available in 5’6″ and 6’6″ lengths.

In addition to the spinning rods, a line of long jigging poles that are perfect for wadefishing in shallow cover or getting into tight places from a boat. The rods are constructed of IM6 graphite and are equipped with a reel seat that can be fitted with any spinning reel or an Uncle Buck’s line keeper. Lengths available are 8, 10 and 12-foot.

Another quality feature of the long poles is the line guides. The eyes are large enough that they allow the line to flow smoothly without sticking to the rod. That’s a big problem with most of the crappie poles on the market today. The eyes are small and the line sticks to the rod, which makes it difficult to feed line with a light crappie jig.

I prefer the eight and 10 foot models when I’m wadefishing and dabbling jigs around dense brush for spawning crappie. The rods are long enough to prevent me from disturbing the fish, yet short enough to keep them from being cumbersome.

The added reach of the longer 12-footer, meanwhile, is best suited for the angler who’s fishing from shore or boat. Many anglers in the East use 12 footer to stroll jigs for crappie suspended over submerged stump fields.