July 23, 2024
By Cory Schmidt
From the pages of the June 2018 edition of In-Fisherman magazine.
The floating forest twitched, slightly at first, and then an upward heave of an impending explosion. Something was in there. Something big and alarming enough to make other creatures in the area stop. Wending its way across the small oxbow flat, a serpentine shape shot ripples across the leafy canopy. Every few feet, something was producing sharp pop sounds, like miniature fireworks.
Other than the osprey perched in a towering pine, only a lone figure peering through polarized glasses moved in for a closer look. With a well-timed flick of the rod tip, the angler’s jig entered the water just as the something arrived, producing an eruption of water and salad and scales.
Nearly impenetrable, vast green awnings of floating vegetation harbor swarms of big crappies, bluegills, and other sunfish, plus a thick stew of bugs, crustaceans, and minnows. Here, sun-protected panfish swim and forage in relative comfort. Bass, pike, bowfin, and other marauders occasionally invade this littoral safety zone that serves as panfish playgrounds.
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In certain regions, there’s a perception that big crappies and sunfish move offshore and into deep water when spawntime wraps. That’s true in many waters. But in other lakes, reservoirs, and slack-water rivers, the least pestered fish are those hunkered under expanses of overhead cover—boat docks, downed trees, and emergent and floating vegetation, in particular. Plenty of fisheries host both shallow and deep patterns concurrently, though some larger crappies and sunfish choose the shallow option for its protection and infusions of food.
This scenario reminds me of the day a friend and I discovered a gem of a panfish lake that occasionally produced colossal crappies, but also some frustration. We’d managed to work out a technique southern anglers call doodlesocking—quietly and precisely dipping jigs into small open pockets in floating vegetation, steering baits into place with 9- to 14-foot poles, or in our case, spinning rods—11-footers from Cabela’s and Class Tackle, both European-style match rods, long discontinued. These days, B’n’M Poles owns much of the panfish rod category and offers two sweet 10- and 12-foot graphite rods for dipping little jigs. B’n’M’s 10-foot Ultimate IM6 Graphite Rod and the Sam Heaton SS are two I’ve used.
The author uses many of the tactics of southern anglers discussed here to catch crappies and other panfish in northern waters. Mostly, I continue to prize the light, sensitive, fishable qualities of St. Croix’s Panfish Series, including an 11-footer for dipping jigs and a 9-foot version for short-pitching stealthy slipfloat rigs. These long rods are impressively light, due to wispy Pac Bay Minima guides wrapped on a convergence of premium high-modulus/high-strain graphite. The butt sections offer ample stiffness and power to set hooks and lift big panfish out of cover, while the tips are sensitive and soft enough to protect braided line. Fine graphite tips help guide light jigs into tight quarters, such as tiny openings in vegetation or between tree branches.
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Though most of these rods match 2000-size spinning reels, I often pair them with a 1000-size, such as a Shimano Sedona or Stradic. Since you’re not casting—at least not beyond the occasional short pitch—a larger spool isn’t needed and adds weight. Tiny 1000-size spools also couple well with 2- to 4-pound braid, important in this style of fishing.
The frustration in the scenario above was caused by pie-plate crappies and bluegills twirling light mono lines around plant stalks. Strong, braided lines didn’t exist. Six-, 4-, and 2-pound mono don’t play nice with slab crappies or bull bluegills in heavy vegetation. Some anglers use 8-, 10-, and 12-pound mono for crappies in heavy cover, but to me, a 1/16- or 1/32-ounce jig doesn’t work right on heavy mono.
Joe Balog, an exceptional angler who moved from Michigan to Central Florida a couple years ago, has worked out a crappie system on the St. Johns River that hinges largely on braided line. When he’s not retracing the stomping grounds of the late, great Bass Professor, Doug Hannon, Balog’s mission is searching for hubcap crappies beneath the St. Johns’ endless shallow jungles. Perhaps more than any other tackle element, he believes braided line is key in his ability to precisely present jigs, detect bites, and extract fish from snarls of vegetation.
“Braided line is great,” he says. “It separates most of the locals who use mono from those of us who fish braid because we can fish tiny jigs with stealth and precision and yet pull fish out of heavy cover. For me, 2-pound-test Sufix 832 matches perfectly with a 1/16-ounce jig and softbait.”
Stirring the Brew Coaxing crappies to bite in these cozy environs is far easier than finding them in most cases. Balog believes it’s why many anglers create their own fishing spots, which I’ll detail shortly.
He says that crappies in most systems—south and north—make two separate shallow movements. “On the St. Johns, groups of black crappies start moving into shallow floating cover during prespawn in November and December,” he says. “Here, mats of pennywort, water hyacinth, and water lettuce are all attractive to crappies. We don’t see a lot of invasive hyacinth in the St. Johns anymore due to spray-control. But I fish a lot of pennywort, and water lettuce can be a goldmine. All three species can entirely blanket the surface from a foot deep out to the channel edge in 12 feet of water.”
The right lures are critical to summertime panfish success. During this first shallow movement, pods of crappies often tuck beneath the canopy but hold near a deep edge, he says. He reconnects with shallow crappies in mid-March and April after the spawn, finding smaller groups on shallow, vegetated flats. He’s also found big coppernose in some of the same spots. The pattern may last into summer, though the oppressive Florida heat keeps a lot of folks off the water in June, July, and August.
“It’s astonishing how much prey lives in these mats,” Balog says. “Not just baitfish. I frequently clean crappies that are full of crayfish living on the vegetation. You also find mosquitofish swimming beneath the mats. They’re 1 to 2 inches long and crappies eat tons of them. It’s amazing when a boat goes by and throws a big wake and displaces bait. And you immediately hear pop, pop, pop sounds—crappies wolfing down mosquitofish. It’s like shaking bushes, and a lot of local anglers have figured out how to take advantage of that situation as well.”
He says many anglers use push-poles or lengths of conduit sharpened at one end to push through shallow-water mats and open fishable holes in the cover. “Some anglers chop the plants, disturbing invertebrates and creating an artificial feeding situation,” he says. You ‘d think this might spook rather than attract panfish. But Balog says chopping out holes in heavy veg-mats remains a popular local method for creating temporary feeding zones. “The first few minutes after I see anglers do this, everyone in their boat seems to be hooked up,” he says. “After that, the fishing may slow considerably, since there are only so many active fish in an area.”
Exploring Crappie Carpets I’ve never been a fan of destroying vegetation. Perhaps Balog isn’t either, which could be one of the reasons he prefers to stay on the move rather than pinning his hopes to a single spot or two. His active approach relates more to his bass-fishing background—fish fast and stay on the move for active fish. So he uses his trolling motor and works through expansive shallow flats.
“Earlier in the year, more crappies position beneath vegetation closer to the main channel, while after spawning they spread out more, and you’ve got to hunt them down,” he says. “I’ve noticed that most of the active mats I find are near feeder creeks or in old oxbows and other primary backwater areas. Big flats with 18 inches to 4 feet of water are ideal.
“Some of the pennywort mats I fish are as small as a coffee table,” he says. “Other beds are 4 or 5 acres. I look at the small mats as casting targets, often working around their perimeters, dipping a little tube jig into corners and protrusions along edges. When I work a large plant-covered flat, I use my trolling motor, fishing vegetation the way a bass angler might flip it with a worm or weedless jig.”
While small-leaved pennywort and other plants such as “gator grass” overgrow some of his best crappie spots, there’s something attractive to crappies about water lettuce, he says. “Other than the overhead cover, it’s the root system of water lettuce that attracts fish.” Indeed, Pistia stratiotes sprouts long, feathery root systems that appeal to a variety of invertebrates such as crayfish, which feast on the sweet plant flesh.
“Working through these expanses of matted cover, I search for targets—holes near thicker plant clumps, in particular,” Balog explains. “Even a small opening has potential. My Minn-Kota Ultrex is the best trolling motor I’ve ever used and moves my boat quietly and efficiently through these matted forests. Having spot-lock on a cable-drive motor has been a huge advantage for the way I fish. My 17-foot camo-green boat not only doesn’t spook crappies, sometimes they relate to it like a mat. After I hook a crappie, I often sit in place and catch fish beneath my boat.”
Another key to his boat positioning is to work into the wind. Between spot-lock and floating mats that can temporarily hold a boat in place, he likes an upwind approach because it forces him to work slower and systematically through an area. Motoring downwind can move you too quickly through fish-holding terrain.
Buzzing through a veg mat with a trolling motor might produce the same effect as slicing it with a scythe. But trolling-motor noise and too much on-off turmoil can spook crappies, particularly in shallow, clear water. Thus, a shallow-water anchor can be a fantastic tool for dipping pockets.
Dipping Devices Whether Balog’s snaking his way through a jungle of pennywort in Central Florida or I’m wending through a field of water lily on a Minnesota lake, we fish in much the same way. “Because I often fish in 4 feet of water and less, I peel 3 to 4 feet of line off my reel and let the jig hang,” Balog says. “When I spot a small clearing among pads, I move my rod tip into position and drop the jig into it, letting the lure freefall to the bottom. If a fish is there, it often bites right away. Lift the fish to the surface, away from plant stalks, and either dip it up with a net or swing it into the boat with the rod.” A good panfish net is valuable, especially a long-handled, soft-meshed, tangle-free scoop like Frabill’s 9535 Conservation Series.
Big bluegills and crappies are often found near or in brushpiles or blowdowns. “I experiment with retrieves just beneath the mats, too,” he says, “especially when I hear crappies popping things off plants. Dip the jig and hold it within a foot of the surface. Feeding fish can be so close to the surface that you spot them with sunglasses. But if no bites happen within about 20 seconds, give the jig one hard snap. Lots of times, right after the lure comes to rest, fish eat it.”
Most days, Balog begins and ends with a 1/16-ounce ballhead jig inserted into a 2-inch tube. He prefers traditional tube rigging over threading the bait onto the jighead collar like a grub because it stays intact until fish rip the bait apart. “To me, a tube is the ultimate for dipping and flipping,” he says. “You get hung on something about every third cast—it’s unavoidable. You don’t want to constantly re-thread the bait onto the hook. A tube, however, is tough and efficient. I don’t mind jigheads with a cheap hook, either. You need a hook that straightens when you hit a bad snag. A #6 or #8 light bronze hook is ideal.”
As a lead jig alternative, a compact, heavy tungsten jig more easily pierces thick mats. Tungsten lets you maintain jighead and hook size while fishing heavier, like the difference between piercing a target with tin versus lead shot. My favorite tungsten crappie jig is an Akara Tungsten Jighead in 2-gram (1/14-ounce) and 3-gram (2/19-ounce) sizes. They match 11⁄2- to 2-inch softbaits and have a fine-wire Japanese hook and keeper on the collar. For micro (1-inch) softbaits, Akara’s Tungsten Sphere and Teardrop jigs feature even tinier head sizes with hooks down to #16.
When crappies and ‘gills are extra spooky, such as in 2 feet of clear water, even a 12-foot rod might not provide enough separation or stealth to safely deliver a bait. It’s here that my 9-foot St. Croix Panfish Series rod springs into action, rigged with 2-pound green Sufix 832 and a Thill Stealth or Mini Stealth slipfloat above a jig-softbait combo. I avoid pinching splitshot on the line so the float and jig can be delivered as one compact package, preventing snags. For accuracy, a combo sidearm swing and rod-tip flick usually transports the rig to the target.
Other than a standard tube, such as a Strike King Slab Hammer or Mr. Crappie Tube, Balog likes straight-tail plastics. The Strike King Shad Pole and Lightning Shad, Candy Plastics Domination Fry, and TriggerX Flap Tail Grub are other preferred softbaits. One of my new favorites is an Akara Tungsten Jighead with the cut tail section of a Z-Man Finesse ShadZ—soft and lively yet durable.
Fish-holding structure is often obvious, otherwise scan shorelines and breaks for treetops and brushpiles--the panfish will be nearby. Color can be a key factor at times. “Many days on the St. Johns, pink and white tubes blow everything else away,” he says. “I also like to start some days with a natural brown tube before moving to solid white, pink, or orange. Every waterway has favored color patterns.”
What doesn’t change is a crappie’s fondness for a roof over its head. Whether it’s a large dock on a Kentucky reservoir, lily pads on a Midwest lake, or water lettuce in Florida, some of the biggest crappies and bluegills are always there.
