Outlaw adds that at other waters he visits on the tournament trail, cypress trees always hold crappies. “But not all trees are productive. I have what I call honey-hole trees because they produce fish year after year. Some of them sit in a bit deeper water, and others are on little points or underwater features. But some just have something the fish like for unknown reasons. If you’re exploring a new area, keep moving until you contact fish.”
At Santee-Cooper and elsewhere, crappies shift up and down in the water column during the day. Early in the morning, they’re deeper and move toward the surface as the day warms, particularly when it’s sunny and mild.
To fish vegetation and cypress trees, Outlaw uses the 10-foot Santee Elite B ’n’ M pole. It has no eyes and the line passes through the blank. “The cover often is so thick you can’t swing or pitch a jig,” he says. “I draw the jig to the tip, position it over the hole I want to fish, sometimes no bigger than a quarter, then drop it straight down.
“With 10-pound-test mono, you can hoist and snatch a fish right into the boat in one motion. It takes a bit of practice so you don’t knock him off on the side of the boat. In lakes where cover isn’t as dense, I switch to an 11- or 12-foot pole, which lets you fish a bit farther from the boat. Where cover is sparser, crappies can get a bit spookier and you have to reach out for them.
“At Santee-Cooper, black crappies move up first and spawn first; whites come in about a month later. They tend to spawn around the full moon, from 4 days before to 4 days after. But the water temperature has to be right.”
As in many spring scenarios, Outlaw prefers a 1/16-ounce tube jig. And he has a recommendation for color. “Wherever you find cypress trees,” he says, “you can’t go wrong with a black-chartreuse tube. But whatever combo you choose, be sure to have some chartreuse in it.”
Outlaw says the bite continues through April and into May, particularly if it’s been a cool spring. He admits that drought conditions in the Southeast have hurt fishing there. “The water is 10 feet low now, and that’s a lot of good cover that’s out of water,” he notes.
Pad Patterns
Reelfoot Lake is Tennessee’s only natural lake, reportedly formed by the New Madrid Earthquake of 1811, when the Mississippi River flowed backwards to fill it. Full of shallow swamps and bayous, it’s been a haven for crappies ever since. Steve Coleman, one-half of the celebrated team of Capps and Coleman, the 2007 Angler Team of the Year on the Crappie Masters Tournament Trail, calls nearby Tiptonville home.
He and Ronnie Capps take advantage of the lake’s abundant lily pads when out to catch a few for dinner or when competing against other teams. “Our pad pattern starts in early spring, when the big female white crappies get into the old lily-pad stalks. After winter only the stalks are left, barely jutting above the surface. Crappies may concentrate in a spot twice the size of your boat, within an acre of pad stalks.”
To locate fish, the team deploys six 14-foot B ’n’ M Capps & Coleman Series Trolling Rods, a sensitive medium-light model, and troll ultra-slow through the stalks. The length of the rods keeps jigs far enough from the boat to avoid spooking fish, while efficiently covering water. They constantly work the rods, picking up a jig to pass over stems and setting it back down, only to adjust another.
