"In September and October, I do well in reservoirs that have more highland features as well as hill-land and flatland impoundments, since the shad and crappies move toward the upper end, where features are more similar to these types of waters. If it's unstable or stormy, the bass become active while the crappies scatter, so I fish for bass. And once the thermocline breaks up, crappies hold at depths from 6 to 30 feet on the same lake, so fishing is not nearly as consistent as it had been.

"The clearer the water, the more pronounced low-light bite you will have," Looper notes. "And the better the bite in cloudy conditions. In stained water, the midday bite is good. If a lake is murky or muddy, offshore patterns don't evolve, in my experience. In those waters, I believe crappies stay shallow nearly all the time, since their vision in deeper murky water is severely limited."

Trolling Tactics: Mitch Looper's tactics for offshore crappie have evolved over many years. "It was trial and error," he notes, "and mostly error for a while. Fifteen years ago, I was on a flatland impoundment in summer trying for bass. But the bite was slow. I saw big schools of shad on the LCD, with larger fish around them. I tried jigging and then trolling a Bomber Model A through them with no success. I tried a #5 Shad Rap and caught a big crappie on the first pass. For the next pass, I put two rods out with Shad Raps, and bang, two crappie.

"Trial and error taught me to troll with the wind, not against it. A couple years after I started trolling cranks for offshore crappies, I took an outdoor writer out and, after catching some big bass, we started trolling for crappie. I showed him the shad schools on the depth finder, with suspended crappies near them.

"To make a point, I trolled into the wind for 3/4 of a mile and never had a bite. He started looking at me with concern. I told him I did that on purpose to make a point and that I knew we wouldn't catch any. We turned around and trolled with the wind and soon were hooked up. It makes all the difference."

Looper has trolled a variety of lures and acknowledges that small jigs may get the most action. But for bigger specimens, he favors crankbaits. "When I first got on this offshore pattern, I relied on Shad Raps, and now I've taken to using the Grappler Shad from Cotton Cordell. Nearly every fish will be 12 inches or better."

For consistent depth control, Looper trolls with 100 feet of line out. To alter running depth, he changes line sizes. For example, he reports that the CD15 Grappler trolls at 11 feet with 10-pound Super Silver Thread, moving at 1 to 1 1/2 miles per hour. Switch to 8-pound and it runs about 13, and down to 15 with 6-pound-test. Conversely, 12-pound-test mono will keep it at 9 to 10 feet.