My fishing buddy and I have for years hit up the Mississippi River backwaters in the fall for the super nice crappies but this year the water is low and basically without current which has had a negative impact on the backwater fishing. The local 630+ acre lake just north of town sees very limited use after the temps begin to sink and some hunting seasons open so we opted to give it a go on Tuesday and found what we were looking for.
It took maybe 20 minutes for us to find that the crappies were hanging right on deeper water breaks where there was either some sunken wood or vertical aspects such as dock pilings. With the clear fall water and a bluebird day we also found that the masses of crappies were using shaded water. On dock pilings we simply dropped a jig/plastic down in the shaded water to the bottom then slowly began a jigging sequence lifting the jig a couple inches, then stop and hold for 5 seconds, then snap lift the jig a couple more inches and stop. Around wood we needed a slip float to help keep the jigs at a specific depth to keep us from hanging up. There was nothing pensive about the fish at the hits.... wham!
Between us we caught maybe crappies fish in four hours, keeping a few each for a meal. I kept three 13" blacks for a meal. It's amazing how thick these fall fish are. At 13" these crappies were weighing in over 2 pounds. Smallmouth bass were everywhere if a guy tossed a jig to the shallower shoreline water as were largemouths. I caught a channel cat of 9 pounds on a 7 foot ultralight rod with 4-pound mono. The day started off bluebird and hung together as such with the wind not an issue until we were packing things up, so it was a really great morning of fishing.
