Pick Prime Waters

Other times, great catches occur with planning and good direction. A bit of luck never hurts, either, when it comes to weather conditions. After giving a presentation for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife some years ago, I was invited to fish famous Kentucky Lake with Kenneth Bucy, veteran fishery technician on Kentucky Lake. His father had fished the Tennessee River and its tributaries prior to Kentucky Dam’s closure in 1944 and passed on his knowledge.

Though cool, cloudy conditions kept bigger crappies off the banks and away from stake bed attractors, we found fish along channel breaks in secondary creeks, suspended in 10 to 18 feet. Adjusting tube jigs to match the sonar readout, we found the plump prespawn fish easy pickings for our array of poles deployed off the bow. We tallied dozens of big fish and six over two pounds apiece for the day, all the biggest ones prespawn white crappies.

Crappie Hotspots

This overview is not meant to be a complete guide to the best crappie waters. They’re far too numerous and widespread to discuss here. Instead, we offer a look at two key areas that offer many excellent fishing opportunities. This model can serve as you consider other prime regions, including California, Florida, the crappie belt of the central states, and the North Country.

Lone Star Lunkers:

In his travels, Doug Stange has been impressed with the numbers of good-sized crappies available at many Texas impoundments. While Lake Fork, Sam Rayburn, and Toledo Bend contain excellent populations of big black and white crappie, Stange’s found that many smaller reservoirs also contain high-quality crappie that typically are less fished than these famous waters.

“Texas Parks and Wildlife Department does a great job of surveying their fish populations and making the information available to anglers on their website, tpwd.state.tx.us,” Stange says. “I’ve located several waters in different parts of the state that were rated excellent, and the fishing is indeed very good. Check out lakes like Eagle Mountain, Cypress Springs, Ray Roberts, Coffee Mill, or Richland Chambers, to name but a few.”

Mississippi Monsters:

In-Fisherman contributor Roger Bullock has sought big crappies across the country for the last 30 years and has recognized the lunker potential of Mississippi. “Because of the well-deserved reputation of Arkabutla and Sardis lakes, they’ve become targets of intense fishing pressure from trophy hunters and tournament anglers, as well as meat hogs,” he notes.

“Sardis still produces 3-pound crappie, but you may have to visit the lake several times to make that happen. The two Mississippi lakes that are presently producing most lunker crappies are Grenada and Enid. Grenada probably is the best of the best for outsized slabs. At a tournament with a 7-fish limit, the winning weight was 21.7 pounds! True 4-pounders have been verified by fishery workers and game wardens there.”