By O’Neill Williams
Will the following conversation get you a limit of bass or crappie when you have been catching only a few? Certainly not, however, you will get bit more and catch more. The thing to remember is that you can’t just practice these suggestions for an hour or two. You have to schedule a day or two sticking with it and see what happens.
When the water temperature gets below 55 degrees, the bass and crappie angler should change their techniques and lures to accommodate. One can still catch big bass and hundreds of crappie with a few short and well-defined suggestions.
Bass:
- Lighten you line. The strike or bite will become very softly. Lighter line and smaller lures will make the strike detectible. Say you feel and stick 4 more bass bites in a day because of this change. Worth it? Would be to me.
- Slow down and give them a chance to take a good look. When tossing into a deep tree, brush pile, or stump field, leave your bait there and let it sit. Just pick it up between the limbs or over the stump and let it fall back. You should not ‘swim’ it over or through the target. I know of a very successful tournament veteran on Lanier who told me that some of his casts would last 30 minutes before he reeled up. Worth copying his technique? I’d say so.
- Use scents liberally. You may have gassed up on the way to the lake or had breakfast and eaten the bacon by hand, then you hook up your lure. Your hands will smell accordingly. Are the bass repulsed? I don’t know, but I do know that a scented spray on the lure before making your casts can’t hurt.
- Finally, what is your chosen lure? The number one big bass artificial lure during these times is a crawfish imitation. Natural prey like bream, smaller bass, shad and other critters are all ‘hunkered’ down and in hiding, but crawfish are not. They are actively feeding on the rotting growths on the limbs and other deep water objects. When choosing that hair or rubber skirted imitation, pick one with rattles and has an extra sharp large hook. Crawfish do make a sound when swimming in the branches. Copy it.
Crappie:
In water below 55 degrees, crappie gather in huge numbers under the deep water marina docks, often under deep water docks out in the lake with brush piles underneath and in the standing trees out in the lake. They are catchable by the thousands. Best baits? Again, extremely light line with three or four small drop-shot rigs tied in stages down to a Road Runner at the terminal. It’s better than minnows because you get to present the bait to more crappie than fooling around with live bait. Use a red hook and try and keep the bait still. I know you can’t, but it’s better that trying to send action down the line. Simply hold it still. I was taught this by a friend years ago. He took me to Lanier, arranged permission from a dock slip renter at Bald Ridge who had anchored brush under his leased space, and we caught a 35-count each limit in less than three hours with a few crappie over 2-pounds. Also, when you hook one, because you have multiple lures on the line about 12 inches apart, don’t be in such a hurry to reel him in. Many times a second or third will hook up because of the activity of the first.