Cold Fronts, Cold Rain
That Is March Crappie Fishing

By Steve Welch

Hey, I am back out on the water again so who cares about a little cold weather? It’s better than sitting home. You can’t hone your skills in front of the TV.

Every year I make it a point to be up and running by March 1. My winter seminar trail is winding down and I have clients biting at the bit for early action.

The way I normally book clients this early in the season is we’ll go if Mother Nature gives us a warming trend for a day or two.

This year in January I sat at work and watched some beautiful weekdays go by only to see the weekend be nasty. But, it isn’t much different in March except those nice days can be extra nice.

The reason I am so excited about seeing the sun in the early season is that it is the key to a fishing pattern. The sun can be the difference between an average day and a spectacular day.

The fish seem to really prefer brush over old standing wood in the spring up on the north end of Lake Shelbyville. These fish will pull up over the brush and suspend on sunny days. Sure, they do the same thing on standing wood, but you can get your limit off some brush versus a couple of fish from standing wood.

In recent years there has been a lot of brush showing up on the north end of the lake due to either fisherman or Mother Nature putting it in the lake. All I know is that Lake Shelbyville is a flood control lake and for those of you who complain about it’s shear size and don’t know where to fish, now is the time to get down here.

Any brush that you find in the five to seven-foot range now will have spawning fish on it in May after the water comes up to summer pool. The good thing is that you can see it now, so get out your GPS and create a milk run of waypoints for future reference.

Bass fisherman should be doing the same thing. Your fish will use these spots after the crappie leave.

The one thing I do like about March fishing over early April is that we really haven’t hit the rainy season yet so we will have good water color up on my end of the lake.

If we do get muddy though, I will just put the boat in down on the south end. It is always gin clear so you just have to fish deeper down there. My rule of thumb about the south end is that if you find fish 6-10 feet deep on the north end, just add five feet to that when fishing the south end.

I don’t have near as many brush piles to fish on the south end, so I am always looking for suspended fish close to bunches of standing trees. Keep an eye on your electronics because any cloud on your screen could be shad, but most likely it is crappie.

You have to do more sorting through small fish down there so I prefer the north end.

Lake Shelbyville is an Army Corp of Engineers Lake so they use it for flood control. This exposes old stumps on main lake flats and sandbars, so use extreme caution. Give all your flat looking banks a lot of space and swing wide of all the points.

The sandbars that you can hit on the north end are all exposed. There are two by the Railroad Bridge and one by the Coal Shaft Bridge. Watch out for Points Five and Six and in front of the Findlay Marina. All these spots are shallow far out from shore.

You can hire a guide since they know how to navigate. This cuts your search time and your learning curve down considerably.

I have been a guide down on this huge reservoir since 1994 and it has thrown me a curve ball or two. You must always learn from that or clients won’t re-schedule. Arguably my best asset is my knowledge of patterns during the early season.

I have more GPS waypoints marking brush than probably anyone. I even use it in the summer to mark ledges where I know the white bass hang out. I have just over two hundred waypoints for reference and use my system every time that I am on the water. It isn’t just a navigational tool for me, unlike some of my buddies.

Bass and walleyes use brush and stumps, but crappie are really wood oriented. The GPS accuracy is close enough to mark just a single stump and I use these stumps on the points to do my walleye fishing later in the year.

I have a Lowrance 332c GPS/depth finder on my dash and a Lowrance 102c on my bow. For those of you fighting the urge to go color- just try one. The picture is fantastic, with depth contours, hotspots fishing technologies, and creek channels clearly marked. It will open up your deep fishing game to a whole new level.

Let us talk about early season tackle and lures. First of all, the huge baits I was using just before ice up are gone for a while and I am back to small baits, such as a sixteenth-ounce hair jig or a Bob Folder tensile jig. Both are good early season baits.

The tensile gives off a lot of flash in the clear, early-season water so fish can pick this up from far away. The hair jigs and tube baits that I use all have some sort of chartreuse on them, whether it is white and chartreuse, red, or black and chartreuse. Those are my three best colors.

The brands that I use are Southern Pro (www.SouthernPro.com) or Midsouth (www.midsouthtackle.com). I have used both of these brands for years. I put them on a Reeves (217-864-3493) sixteenth-ounce jig.

The rods that I use vary. I keep three six-foot spinning outfits spooled up for throwing a fixed or slip-bobber. I have three 12-foot poles to hover over shallow fish to avoid spooking them. I have three nine-foot poles to hover over the deep fish. They all have their strengths.

It is easier to cast a spinning rod with the fixed cork than it is to cast a long rod. You don’t get hung as much with the 12-foot rod in shallow brush, but I do like it very wimpy on the tip section so I don’t set the hook so hard that it pulls out. My nine to 10-foot rod must be stiff so I can horse fish out of thick cover and feel a light bite as well.

I don’t care if it is a B&M, a Wally Marshall, or many other brands. Just don’t give an arm and a leg for them. We are just too hard on them, jamming them down into brush to free that 69-cent jig from a branch. You will break a few tips before you get the hang of it.

The reels that I use are made by the Bee Ready Company. They are very small baitcasters with a bait clicker alarm on them. Bee Ready (918-724-3920) rods are great to go into their spider rig rod holder systems.

You can still see me at a few more fishing shows or out on the water this spring. Just book a trip and I will show you a great day on the water. Till then, great fishing.