Kent Driscoll of Cordova, Tennessee, has fished for crappie for over 30 years and competes in national crappie tournaments each season.
Question: Kent, how do you catch crappie when the weather’s almost too hot to breathe?
Driscoll: I’ll troll crankbaits all summer, fishing for suspended crappie. Right now, the crappie are just starting to get into their summer pattern and following big schools of shad out on the flats. I start early in the morning pulling shallow-running crankbaits, like Bandit 200s and Strike King Series 3s. These crankbaits run about 8- to 11-feet deep. As the sun rises, the crappie go down a little deeper and move from 12- to 16-feet deep in the lakes I’ll be fishing this summer. So, I’ll switch over to the Bandit 300s and the Strike King Series 5 crankbaits. I’ll use deep-diving crankbaits as the crappie move deeper because of the light penetration and the action from water skiers and jet skiers on the surface. The surface temperature’s getting warmer also causes the crappie to move deeper.
To learn more tips and tactics for catching crappie in the spring and summer check out Crappie: How to Catch Them Spring and Summer – http://amzn.to/WGaJLT available in either eBook or print book formats. Be sure to click on look inside to see the table of contents and read 10 percent of the book free.
