Winter Crappie Are Hot When It's Cold
Outdoors Direct
the start of crappie fishing for the year. This was usually in late March or
early April when the first aquatic plants begin to emerge and bugs first
start to buzz around our heads.
But, for those thick-blooded enough to handle it, the best weather for slab
crappies may be when ice blooms on our gutters and emerges around the edge
of lakes where aquatic plants will be in springtime. The winter months offer
Kentucky crappie anglers a great chance at a wall-mounting size crappie.
The best lakes for winter crappie fishing are Kentucky Lake and Lake
Barkley. These two behemoth impoundments of the Tennessee and Cumberland
Rivers produce some of the best crappie fishing in the South, but Rough
River Lake in west-central Kentucky and Buckhorn Lake in east Kentucky are
overlooked high quality crappie waters.
Winter crappie fishing isn't for everybody. It doesn't involve dipping live
minnows or small tube or curly-tailed jigs in bushes along the shoreline
like one might do in April. Successful winter crappie anglers must find
ledges and brush piles along secondary creek channels in 12 to 20 feet of
water or deeper. The crappie prospects greatly improve if these ledges and
channel drops are adjacent to shallower mud flats where crappie go to feed
during periods of warmer stable weather. A spot really shines with
papermouth potential if the channel swings near a boat dock as many crappie
anglers submerge unwanted brush and Christmas trees for their own crappie
fishing in spring.
Nothing beats a small minnow under a slip bobber or vertically jigged in the
brush for slab winter crappie. Small spoons and safety pin spinners will
work as well, but a small minnow will out-fish any artificial lure in
winter. Bites are very subtle and diligent line watching is very important.
Some anglers use piano wire or green twigs taped to their poles to help them
detect bites during winter.
Safety on the water is always important, but survival depends on safety in
the winter. Always wear a life jacket when on the water in winter. Coveralls
or bibs with a jacket underneath are the best at keeping in body heat, but
thermal underwear and with another layer on top is vitally important. Good
warm boots are worth their weight in gold when on the water in winter, but
the most important thing to keep warm are the hands. Cold hands resonate
through the entire body and often prematurely end a great trip.
A trick used by east coast winter smallmouth anglers is to cover their hands
with a layer of Vaseline before putting them inside a pair of thin latex
gloves like surgeons wear. Using these in conjunction with a pair of
fingerless gloves allows the winter angler to use their fingers normally
while keeping the hands warm. An extra pair of latex gloves in the tackle
box is a good idea should a fish's fin or a hook prick one of the gloves
leaving one hand toasty warm and the other freezing.