fall rate Fall slabs

The Author with a pair of nice dock dwelling crappie

Twitching and slowly falling, swimming one second, then suddenly sinking the next.  The last dying kicks of a fish seem to be just the ticket for triggering the strike of most any aquatic predator, and finicky fall crappie are no exemption to the rule.  With its great success rate in all species of fresh water game, this presentation must be the fish version of a neon sign signaling free cheeseburgers at the next exit.  Hard to pass up.

In late summer and fall, crappies have the advantage of holding tightly in weedy cover to ambush their prey as they pass by.

Clear water fish, with ample weed growth, will hang tight to their leafy homes until the bitter end, when they eventually depart for the company of fellow speckled slabs suspended over deep water. But in stained waters where the weeds only grow as deep as the sun's penetrating light.  The darker the stain, the tighter to shallow water you'll find the outer edge of weed growth.  In many stained lakes that weed line only extends out into two or three feet of water.  and quickly wilt away at the first hint of fall.  These lakes, usually left unharmed by most crappie anglers, are my favorite for those very reasons.  

Crappie will use whatever cover they can find in these situations, such as docks, boat lifts, and swimming rafts. Southern crappie anglers like to go along submerged timber, bridge pilings, or other vertical structure in search of active fish, as universally effective as the method may be, the circumstances are not.  To the dismay of northern crappie anglers, most lakes in Minnesota or Wisconsin lack the large amounts of submerged timber.  

Without the genuine article, the next best thing for the fish are docks.   Not all docks are created equal.  The ones that hold a pile of thick-shouldered crappies have several things in common. 

Though the structure may be able to support the fish, a dock that is in too shallow is not going to be able to support the type of fish that you're looking for.  Too deep and it will certainly not hold the weeds they need to support their appetite for the baitfish that feed on the microorganisms living amongst the weeds.  The perfect depth all depends on the the stain of the water.  If the submergent vegetation extends to almost ¾ of the way out the dock it will hold fish.  In clearer water, those ideal crappie holding docks will be situated over deeper of water, often as deep as 10-15 feet of water.  Ideal stained water docks could be in as little as three to four feet of water at the deepest. 

            

Proximity to deep water is another vital key to having a crappie holding dock. Deep water is a crappie's comfort zone.  Crappies are not always going to be found on the weed line.  They eat and then head elsewhere, often to deeper water, to lay low and stay away from the stresses of being in a feeding area.  So if you want to find a dock that is most likely to hold crappie at any one time, it is your best bet to find these basin resting areas and begin your search for slabs in the same neighborhood.

Size is the final requirement in good habitat for crappie. Though there are exceptions to every rule, generally you are not going to see as many fish holding on to smaller docks.  The more submergent structure provided by a dock simply means more opportunity for a fish to call one of those niches home.  Shy away from the single lane slip and spend the better part of your time searching the massive triple decked double boat lift monstrosity.

            

While crappies hiding under docks is nothing new to a lot of anglers, the idea of casting aside the fixed bobber and crappie minnow for such a foreign tactic as shooting docks with a jig and plastic is alarming to many northern anglers who put more trust in the live bait's ability to lure in lunkers that borrowing a page out of the bass fishing manual usually seems like a little too crazy to work.

You can catch fish all day around dock edges, catching the occasional 10-12" crappie, but mostly watching your bait well disappear into the pea sized mouths of the micro 'gills that crowd the outer edge of the dock. You could spend the whole day fighting the odds, and hoping a for a well timed strike by a good fish in between the stunted mass of bluegill and bass. Or take a shot at tossing a plastic.  My favorite dock shooting combo is pairing a 2” Watsit Grub with a 1/32 or 1/16 oz jighead depending on how much you want to slow down the fall of the jig. Day-to-day situations are going to call for different fall rates and color preferences, as any fisherman knows, are susceptible to change anywhere from hour to hour to seasonally, but usually change as soon as you have a pattern on the fish.

            

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