WINTER ANGLERS, IT'S YOUR CHOICE: A CRAPPIE CHRISTMAS OR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION.
by Todd Huckabee
Don’t spend your holiday season sitting indoors daydreaming about spring and fishing, get up and GO now! If you’re not already a winter angler, make it your New Year’s resolution to become one.
Winter is a favorite time of mine to get out there and catch huge crappie. Although we don’t have much opportunity for ice fishing in my home state of Oklahoma, we do have a true winter with really cold weather and water. It’s one of my favorite and most productive times to fish, and I usually have the lake to myself.
Winter typically brings the clearest water of the year. This is why the crappie go deeper at this time. In late winter, it’s temperature that puts them down.
During the day I do best fishing from a boat, and fishing in the 15-20 foot depth range. I turn on my Pinpoint sonar and watch for cover in those depths. When I find a spot, I lower my line with two 1/8 ounce Crappie-Pro jig heads dressed with YUM 2" beavertails. It is important not to get hung up when you first start fishing the cover. How I accomplish this is by my rod choice. I use a Quantum Xtralite Todd Huckabee Series 10' Dippin' rod equipped with a Quantum Energy E20PTi spinning reel spooled with 8 pound test. This rod is perfect for this application because you can hold the tip up and have 15' feet of line out. This means you don’t have to open the bail and let the jig free fall, which is how you hang up. If I see that the cover comes up from 20 to 15 feet. I make sure and hold the rod two feet off the water. With 15 feet of line out this keeps my jigs at 13 feet deep. If there are any active crappies around, I catch them right away. I can lift these fish up and out without spooking the entire school.
I’ve designed this rod specifically for this kind of fishing, regardless of time of year. Using it you can fish vertically without losing contact with the jig, and set the hook better when fishing deep. Rod length allows the sweeping of more line on the hookset. The tip is extremely sensitive, but the rod has a ton of backbone. The combination is what makes this next trick so effective.
Once the active fish are caught, I pick up another 10' Dippin' rod rigged with a single 3/16 ounce jig. Using the lone jig on 10 pound Silver Thread AN40, I put the bait right into the brush and "stir it up". This gets reaction bites from fish that have already fed and now are resting in the safety of cover. I still use the rod, not the reel, to lower the jig. I can hold the rod straight up and have close to 20 feet of line out. I then lower the rod slowly keeping in contact with the jig. This allows you to feel your way around and fish the brush without getting hung up. This is the only time of the year that I believe you are likely to catch the biggest fish last. This is because most of the great big fish are likely feeding at night. This leads to my next topic night fishing in winter.
Wintertime night fishing can really separate the men from the boys, but I think it’s awesome. I have been doing it for years and it’s almost like a cult thing everyone I take seems to become addicted. I usually fish from docks or banks during the winter. This is just because it is easy and you can jump in the truck to warm up. I truly believe that this will work on any lake that doesn't freeze. The dock doesn’t have to be an enclosed fishing dock, nor does it have to be over deep water. I’ve got about 10 lakes I do this on in winter.
