by Todd Froebe
It will be hoodie weather with a cool fall breeze blowing in my face while I slowly slip through the timber looking for my next target. I quietly make my approach—50, 40, 30, 20 feet and she’s still there. I make my pitch. The jig flies true and she turns up and smokes it. Another fat fall crappie makes it’s way into the cooler! Probably not what you were expecting, right? While most folks are setting up feeders, cleaning out shooting lanes, and chasing wasps out of their deer stands, I’m looking forward to fall crappie fishing. Fat, aggressive fish that are bunched up pretty good and eager to consume a bait presented properly. One of the best parts is there’s not too many folks out there with me! Many days I will be the only boat at the ramp. The heat shuts me down for the summer, for the most part. I love guiding part- time, but when it’s so hot that your sunblock stick melts into a puddle on the floor of the boat, it’s not much fun for either of us. I usually tell my late summer clients to consider scheduling for the fall, or even winter, if they can wait that long. Staying hydrated and not overheating are a concern this time of year so it leaves more to worry about than just where the fish are on any given day.
This brings me back to the point of this article, fall crappie fishing! Crappie are just like we are. They eat every day. It surprised me, when I started guiding several years back, how many folks thought crappie only fed in the spring! Summertime, with water temps in the high 80s to low 90s, keep the crappie pretty lethargic. Just the same as you or I would be if we spent four hours outside after work, mowing the grass and weed eating. We’re not going to want to go inside and eat a huge meal. Crappie are the same way, but once the water cools off, their instinct to fatten up over the fall and winter in anticipation of their spawning activities in the spring take over and they put on the feed bag pretty good. The baitfish are a lot larger than they were in the summer, too, so you can get away with using bigger baits and heavier jigs. Using forward facing sonar, as most crappie anglers do this day and age, watching a 1/16 oz jig sink is like watching paint dry for me! Fall fishing finds me 1/4 oz jigs with a number 3 split shot above it to get it down in the target zone quicker. I like to keep the split shot about a foot above the bait. The split shot serves two purposes. One, it gets my bait down to a fish I’m already looking at on the screen sooner, and two, probably more importantly, it gives me two reference points for finding my jig on the screen! This has proven to be very helpful on guide trips when folks aren’t always accustomed to the light bite of a crappie!
Fall fishing will typically have me armed with my Jenko 11’ Silver Pro Series rod spooled with 12 lb fluorocarbon line and a 1/4 oz Slab Syndicate jig in Bad Shad, Popcycle, or Gingertruce colors, most likely. In early fall, I’m working timber on flats in depths 12-25 feet of water, depending on the lake, and as we get further into fall, closer to winter, I’m following creek channels to deeper water that the crappie use like a highway. The shad seek warmer water in winter and several of them go deeper in the lake. The crappie, knowing their dinner is moving down the lake, won’t be far behind. The first couple of good fronts in late October or early November will usually start the migration off the flats and into the creek channels heading to deeper water. Early fall can find them on a variety of structure as well as patterns. There is crappie on brush, timber, docks, bridge pilings, ledges, almost any structure you can think of! That is another appeal of fall fishing. You can catch them however you like. Brush piles find me using an 1/8 oz jig quite often. On bridge pilings, I like to cast a 1/16 oz jig on 6 lb line with a 7’ Jenko Trick Stick. I use the same setup for shooting docks but I will tell you it’s a small window for fishing docks in the fall, but it’s probably one of my favorite ways to catch crappie. As fall progresses, the fish will leave docks, and shallow brush and I tend to catch most of my fish on deeper submerged timber. You can also drift through schools of shad this time of year and catch crappie that are following around the bait. I rarely do this technique anymore, but when I did, I would drop a double-jig rig or run double minnows with a weight on the bottom.
One of the things I keep handy for fall fishing trips is plenty of clothing. The weather can change quickly and if you have enough clothing you can add more layers to stay comfortable, but if you don’t have anything to put on when you get cold it makes for a miserable day! Also, bring rain gear. The cold fronts in the fall can bring in a pop-up shower. I keep a change of clothes in the boat all fall, until its warm enough to swim again in late spring or early summer. On guide trips, I tell people to have their fishing license, if needed, as well as life jackets for younger children, if they have a comfortable one that fits them. Bring snacks, drinks they want other than water, sunglasses, sunblock, jackets and rain gear, and a small cooler with ice to take home bags of fillets. I’ll clean and bag their catch and provide all the bait and tackle. I can handle group trips as well, and operate on many East Texas lakes, with Fork and Palestine probably being two of the most popular. Let me know if you want to get in on the fall action. Call or text me at 817-781-8382 or go to www.toddfroebe.com. Hope to see you on the water!
