Crappie

Fall Crappies: Triple Your Catch with the “Five Percent Solution”

Advertisement

One of the things that never surprises me is how the tiniest fishing details often yield the biggest results.  Casual anglers generally think it is the other way around—that it’s always something big that turns the tables—but you know what, I’ve rarely found it to be the case.

Take the last few weeks of fall crappie fishing as a good case in point.  The bite has been heating up big time, as it usually does at this time of the year, and I’ve been catching bunches of nice slabs on small 1/8-ounce tri-coloured jigs dressed, with chenille bodies and hackle tails.

Advertisement

I rarely—make that almost never—use live minnows for crappies, finding it much more fun to target the fish with artificial lures like spoons, crankbaits, bladebaits and jigs. And those three-tone jigs have been doing a bang up job lately.

But, they need one ever-so-slight and important modification.

You need to turn out the hook point about five-degrees. With bigger hooks you might need a pair of pliers, but with standard wire crappie hooks you can easily bend out the gap using your fingers.

Advertisement

Regardless of the method you use, however, go slowly and don’t bend out the hook too much. When you do, and then tighten it up at bit, it severely weakens the wire. So, go slowly, and stop when you reach the five-percent solution.

It is the subject of the following short On The Water Online video that I shot last week and that you can watch by simply clicking on the following link. Enjoy!

Advertisement