Yamamoto's New Baits -
"They Put Panfish in the Pan"
December 18, 2008
Part 3
(click here for parts one and two in the series . . .)
When I ask someone to go fishing with me I do so for one primary reason: I want them to catch fish. If I didn’t feel that way I wouldn’t ask them in the first place.
I mention this to start Part 3 of this series on crappie fishing for a reason. The reason is it brings to mind an experience that points out how important it is to fish at exactly the right depth.
If you read Parts 1 and 2 of this series, you know I said there are three basic keys to catching crappies consistently. They are:
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Finding the fish
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Fishing at the right depth
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Using the right lure speed
This time around we’ll talk about the importance of depth.
The experience I mentioned earlier took place early one morning in May. I had a friend who was a capable salmon and steelhead angler but he didn’t know squat about bass or panfish. He was a good guy who had done me some favors. I knew I could get him hooked into some crappies so I asked him to go out with me.
I had told him exactly what he’d need in the way of a rod, reel, line and lures. When we climbed into my boat that morning he assured me that he’d followed my instructions.
There was a cluster of brush in one area of the lake we were on that always held crappies in the spring. I eased our boat into position and showed my friend exactly where to cast. His cast was on target. I fully expected to see him nail a crappie. It didn’t happen. And it didn’t happen after he’d cast into the same spot a dozen times.
I knew darn well that spot held fish. There really wasn’t enough cover for two of us to fish it at the same time. Finally, when it was obvious my friend wasn’t going to score, I asked him to just cool it for a bit and let me try. Of course (or it wouldn’t be much of a story), I cast and hooked a crappie before my lure had moved four feet. I did the same thing on my next four casts. My pal sat there watching with an expression on his face that bordered on disbelief.
“Jim,” I said as I boated my fifth crappie, “I knew those fish were there. That’s why I asked you to come along. Your casts were perfect and you told me you are throwing the same lure I am. I don’t understand this. Let me have a look at your lure.”
My friend’s lure, a miniature plastic grub, did look like mine at first glance. The small leadhead jig he’d attached it to had the right hook size, but that wasn’t where the problem was. It was the weight of the leadhead itself.
“Partner,” I said, “here’s the answer. This leadhead you’re using is at least 1/8th-ounce. It’s way too heavy. The water we’re fishing is no more than 6-feet deep at the most. The crappies are up shallow. I’m getting most of my hits before my bait gets down 3-feet. Here, let me tie on a 1/32nd-ounce jighead for you like I’ve been throwing.”
Once I had him rigged the way he should have been in the first place he started catching fish. Before we left that spot we had all the fish we wanted to clean and my pal Jim was a happy camper.
What had been happening, of course, was the crappies were holding only a couple of feet below the surface. Jim’s heavier leadhead and grub was falling far too fast for them to get at it. It showed me once again just how darn important it is to determine the depth at which the fish are concentrated.
In my last column I told how so many crappie experts employ a Road Runner along with a plastic bait of one kind of another. George (Chief) Braswell found the Road Runner especially effective when rigged with one of Yamamoto’s new YamaMinnow panfish baits during his testing of the new lures.
I also suggested that if you decide to fish a Road Runner and YamaMinnow combination that you be sure to get all of the different sizes in which the Road Runner is available. You simply aren’t going to do much with a 1/4th-ounce Road Runner if the fish are in shallow water.
What you’ll also be wise to do is get yourself a complete selection of different size leadheads to be used with all four of the new GYCB panfish baits. Be darn sure some of those little leadheads are as light as 1/32nd-ounce. You’ll find times when that size is by far your best bet.
I had another crappie fishing experience once that was the opposite of the one I’ve already told. It also pointed up the importance of fishing at exactly the right depth. I almost always make it a point to stick at least one panfish rod and reel outfit in my boat whenever I go bass fishing. Every now and then, especially on those not uncommon times when something is nipping at my bass bait but I can’t make connections, I’ve made that pay off big time.
On the morning I have in mind I’d forgotten to bring the usual crappie rod along. After three hours of unproductive bass fishing I thought I’d give the crappies a shot. I cut a bass pork strip way down in size and hung it behind a small spinner. I attached a small bead chain keel sinker up ahead of the spinner. I knew the combination would give me barely enough weight to throw with my bass casting outfit.
There were trees along the shoreline I was fishing. It was in the spring and always in the past I’d taken lots of crappie that time of year in the fairly shallow water close to the tree-lined shore. I couldn’t stay out as far as I wanted because I just couldn’t get much distance with the lightweight lure I was attempting to throw.
I paused to take a couple swallows of coffee and my boat drifted a tad farther out from shore. In attempting to get my lure up near the shallows where I figured the fish would be, I threw way too hard and wound up with a backlash that would make a preacher cuss.
I spent 15 minutes picking out that miserable tangle of line while my lure dropped to the bottom in about 20-feet of water not that far from the boat. When I finally got the backlash cleaned up, I lifted the rod and began reeling in. A dandy crappie nailed my bait before I moved it 3-feet.
That’s where the crappie school was located. They were in the same general area where I’d found them before but now they were holding in much deeper water. I sat right there in water I probably never would have fished without that backlash and caught all the crappies I wanted to bring home.
I’ve had other similar experiences over years and years of crappie fishing. Each one has convinced me that even after you find where they are, you’ve got to fish at just the right depth to catch them consistently.
There’s something else you’ll also need to do. That’s to fish at the right lure speed. It’s the third and final point my crappie fishing program. The four new Yamamoto panfish baits---a 2-inch grub, the 2-inch YamaMinnow, the 3-inch Ika and a 1¾-inch tube---are admirably designed to let you do exactly that.
I’ll provide the details in the fourth and final column in this series on catching crappies.
-To Be Continued-