Ned Kehde, longtime In-Fisherman contributor and former archivist for the University of Kansas, loves to fish for crappies in his home state. Kehde, a flatland-reservoir crappie expert, has long depended on brushpiles to draw crappies to the many featureless flats found in his home waters. He always carries a counter, clicking away madly through a hot bite, so he can tell everyone exactly how many crappies came into the boat. But sometimes the clicking isn’t so madly. Especially in fall.

“We have a situation that’s different from other segments of the country,” Kehde says. “Gizzard shad, the crappies’ main forage, enter the creeks in late September or early October. The shad settle in the upper half to upper third of secondary feeder creeks, focusing on 8- to 12-foot depths. Because the shad suspend and roam, and crappies follow, October is an extremely difficult time to fish.”

One thing that can keep and hold a few of these nomadic, high-riding crappies for short periods, Kehde explains, is a well-placed brushpile. “The brushpiles we make are osage orange mixed with willow. I cut off four major branches of an osage orange or hedge tree. These have big plumes of green leaves, branches, and thorns. Osage has mean thorns, and tough wood that lasts 30 years underwater. And for whatever reason, crappies are attracted to willows. We interlace four to five green willow branches with each segment of hedge and use bailing string to wrap them together, in a shape that looks like a small tree. The finished product is about 4 feet high and four feet across. We bundle it at the base to a big rock, take it out with several others in a couple of boats, and drop them in a line that’s at least 20 feet long and 10 feet wide. We try to place them several feet apart so there’s a spot to fish between. By stringing more piles together, we get more crappies to stop, especially when they’re roaming around suspended, chasing shad. More of an opportunity—better odds—for them to make contact with a bigger area of brush.

“Height and thickness are fairly important,” he says. “These brushpiles are about 4 feet high with spaces created or cut out. Some anglers make the piles too thick. A little space is a good deal. It’s nice to be able to penetrate it, because when crappies feed on insects, they go right to the bottom, and I like to leave space for my jig to get through the branches.”

As Kehde relates, crappies in Kansas reservoirs tend to be in secondary creek arms by October. Placement of a line of brushpiles, as always, is a critical consideration. “Sometimes we want the string to run parallel to the contour, sometimes we want it perpendicular,” he notes. “Key depths are 8 to 12 feet at this time of year, and water fluctuations make some piles too deep or too shallow. Placing brushpiles at a variety of depths is critical, so you know at least some are at the right depth, no matter the water level.

“The secret,” he says, “is to have at least 40 good piles to hit in a day, because you’ll get only 5 or so fish off each one in October or November. The crappies are constantly moving and almost pelagic, but they do seem to stop on well-placed brushpiles for a while. So I don’t fish each pile for long. Five to ten minutes and I move on.”

When shad counts are low because of a poor hatch in spring, Kehde’s crappies switch to insect forage and tend to stay on brushpiles longer. “Brushpiles provide a terrific source of aquatic insects, but crappies go right to the center of the piles. You have to pitch jigs and finesse your way through the brush or get right on top and vertically fish down through the branches and sticks. I use 8-pound test, usually a 1/16-ounce or sometimes a 1/32-ounce jig tied with marabou or chenille or tipped with a plastic body. Nobody ever tips with bait here, except the Kentucky spider-rig fishermen. They do quite well when crappies are in open water, but not so well in brushpiles.”

Kehde’s first choice most days is a Bailey’s Magnet, a solid tube. “It’s a tough piece of plastic,” he says. “It doesn’t tear up in the brush. Another great bait is the Bait Rigs Grub Master in a tube, a grub, or one of the new micro spider grubs in the Grub Master kit. It has a slow, horizontal drop, great for crappies hanging high in the brush, when we pitch and swim jigs through the tops of the piles. But we mostly work jigs vertically, in fall. The only way to penetrate the brush is vertically. When crappies hold in the interior or around the base of the piles, we want to be directly above them, finessing light marabou or chenille jigs.”