Staging Weed-Line Crappies

I went and checked out a lake I normally don't fish a whole lot. I watched all the boats fly by me to the normal shallow water spawning areas.

Knowing that the crappies have not begun spawning yet, I began the search in 5 ft of water working the weed line on a huge flat adjacent to 12 ft of water as we jigged up and down the sharp weed line with no success.

With the morning water temperature at 52 degrees, the fish have not moved in shallow for the day. Knowing these fish are staged up nearby, we worked all the way out to 12 ft where we marked them but they just were not interested.

After three hours of trying, we bolted across the lake to another spot just outside a creek flowing in and we found nothing but some small sunfish.

Four hours into our day and still nothing for crappies. We decided to go back to our original spot and work the 5-6 ft weed line one last time.

The water temp went from 52 to 55.9 degrees by noon. Using the Northland Firefly jigs 3ft below a bobber, we casted up on the weed line. Bam, big ol bull gill. Couple of more casts and a big gill or nice crappie almost every cast.

We found them and the guys up shallow were still catching nothing except tiny sunfish. It didn't take long before the other fishermen noticed the fish we were lifting into the boat and they crowded us like you would expect but they were not catching.

Sure they were in the same relative depth but they were not on the edge of the weed line. Use your sonar people as it's not just for locating fish.

After being center of attention for 2 hours, we packed up. We trolled by a small boat with couple older gentlemen and I shared my tip with them as they were struggling. They were very grateful and I hope they had as much fun as we did.