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Merry Christmas y'all! 🎄

We hope you have an amazing time with the fam this Christmas and New Year's. Most of all, we hope you and your family feel the peace of the Lord, and on top of this crazy season, remember WHY we celebrate it! Jesus!

Here's a quick read for ya from some of our favorite Target Crappie Top 5s of the year – for you to keep in mind when you go try out all the new fishing gear Santa brought ya! 🎅🏼

Winter is big bait time

Winter’s when a lot of people think crappie get finicky (small baits), but Bobby Garland's Skylar St. Yves says it’s actually the best time to go BIGGER. He breaks down the "why" of how big baits can be a winter cheat code in a Lurenet post: – here's some of the 🧃 from it:

> Crappie...can become quite inactive when water temps fall below 50 degrees. However, inactivity should not be mistaken for unwillingness to eat. ...crappie will look for meals that warrant their effort.

> The most successful anglers constantly make adjustments to match forage. The closer an angler can get to that day’s forage size, color and presentation, the more likely that angler is to draw more bites.

> By winter, only adult baitfish are around. Baitfish born in the spring and summer have grown into their young-adult size, and crappie key in on these sizes.

> Shad are not as tolerant of the cold winter water temps and annually die off. When shad die, they quickly lose their skin pigment, turning white or opaque as they flutter about in the open water.

[So maybe when it gets real cold soon, a bigger plain-white bait will be the deal?]

> FFS [forward sonar] has made it easier for skilled anglers to catch crappie on a wide array of baits and colors, but only because they can put the bait on the fish’s nose. These anglers will tell you that they do notice an uptick in quality bites when using a larger profile.

> Crappie must expend energy to hunt, eat and digest, all while attempting to conserve energy in the cold water. This makes bigger, calorie-rich meals the preferred choice, especially when prey is steady or abundant.

Skylar's top pics for bigger crappie baits



• 3" Bobby Garland Slab Slay’R – Top colors are 'bone white/pearl white', 'sour milk', 'sweet tea with lemon', 'cajun cricket' and 'junebug/pearl chartreuse'.

• 2.25" Bobby Garland Slab Hunt’R – Top colors include 'monkey milk', 'purple monkey', 'bright white', 'live minnow' and 'Grenada gold'.

• 2" Bobby Garland Original Baby Shad – Top colors include 'monkey milk', 'crystal', 'pearl white', 'live minnow' and 'blue ice'.

"When the BaitFuel was on there...they were smoking it."

That's TN pro, guide and National Crappie League champ Clay Wilson talkin' about how he discovered BaitFuel Gel was the deal for him on his crappie baits. When he’s not chasing crappie and shellcracker across the South, Clay is competing in tournaments, working on new gear and serving as a school resource officer in TN.

He gave us the story on how he discovered BaitFuel and why he likes it so much:

> "I fished a tournament on Table Rock last year, the Wally Marshall Crappie Expo. It's the biggest crappie tournament in the country, with the highest entry fee.

> "I fished it with a guy from TX, Travis Deckard.... We'd found some different areas that were holding some fish, and black crappie are a little more finicky...so you gotta have something that's more natural.

> "...live bait's not allowed in that tournament. I was like...we've got to have something that's got some kind of scent on it – something to make 'em eat.

> "...a couple of key bites on a big black crappie go a long way. I had that BaitFuel in the squeeze bottle. I said, 'Man, let's see if we can get some of these black crappie to bite.

> "I started squeezing that BaitFuel on different soft-plastics...it was crazy, man. Every fish that would come look at it would eat it, where before they'd run off the tree, look at it, and not necessarily eat it.

> "But...when the BaitFuel was on there, I mean, they were smoking it.

> "On day 2 of the tournament, we had a giant crappie on a tree sitting like 32' deep. The cast has to be perfect with a 1/8-oz jighead to get that far down there and look real enough for them to bite it.

> "We had another tournament this year in January in MS – those fish wouldn't look at a minnow, period, nothing.

> "We'd practiced all day, probably caught 1 fish from when we got there 'til about 3:00, and off-limits was at 4:00. We picked up one of the NanoSnak in black and chartreuse, and I put some BaitFuel on it about 3:30 and boom, boom, boom.

> "I ain't gonna sit here and say it's gonna make every fish bite, but if a fish is borderline and interested, it'll make 'em bite."

Also:

Clay likes to put BaitFuel Freshwater Hardbait Scent Stick on crankbaits.

Be on the lookout for some Clay-inspired BaitFuel NanoCrappie baits and Halo crappie rods!

"It's kind of like pullin' a badger out of a 55-gallon barrel..."

Only the "broke the mold" Wally "Mr Crappie" Marshall would say that about his favorite slabbin' technique! Caught up with Wally to see if he'd spill the dock-shootin' juice, and he did so let's roll!

What are you looking for in docks to find the most fish?

> "Shade is the #1 structure. It really helps because those crappie get way back in there in those dark docks and wait for those big schools of shad to come by.

> "I look for docks that are in that deeper water [and also] where the main channel runs close to the shoreline, within 50 yards.

> "If you've got a creek channel that cuts into a bay – especially if it ever goes underneath the dock...man, that's the bomb. Those docks can reload with fish."

What's your thought on how crappie set up relating to the sun?

> "They don't really move from dock to dock.

> "They get on a dock that has a lot of shade – you gotta get your jig way back in there.

> "I like to find docks that have pontoon boats that are in the water because I can shoot that jig between the motor and the pontoon way up underneath there and catch a lot of fish.

> "A lot of people bypass that – [maybe they're] afraid to shoot it in there...afraid they're going to hit the guy's boat or whatever."

Biggest mistakes folks make when they're dock-shootin'?

> "They reel too fast and they fish too fast.

> "Most guys don't work the docks enough. I work every edge, every angle of a dock.

> "I'll drop to a 1/32-oz jighead with 6-lb test...I want that slow fall. You can't shoot it as far with a 1/32-oz, but you can get it back up in there far enough to catch a fish. 

> "I'm lookin' for a certain money shot [on the side]...an angle across the dock...[but] it just depends on how the dock is built and how [far] you can get under there to those pilings.

You talkin' about those support pilings in the middle of the dock?

> "Yeah – crappie love vertical structure....

> "Look for docks made out of wood. They like those concrete docks too...those hold a lot of fish.

> "I'll go around to the back of those docks, around the side of 'em...go in the back – whatever it takes to pull 'em out. It's kind of like pullin' a badger out of a 55-gallon barrel, you know...."

[Anybody besides Wally actually done that?? 😆]

What are your favorite jigs for shootin' docks?

> "I like the Slab Daddy Live Hair Jigs and the new Teen-Zee series – both are deadly on them docks. The Teen-Zee Tails, Teen-Zee Slabalicious and the Teen-Zee Fry work real well...you talk about sizing down, those right there will get the job done.

> "I like the Shadpole a lot too – it skips well on a 1/32-oz jighead and has a real slow fall.... It's a bigger bait, but it's a killer."

You doing anything special to get more bites?

> "1st cast...I let the bait fall to the bottom and retrieve it back. 

> "2nd cast...I'll shoot it way back in there and reel it a little bit faster. I'm tryin' to find out where they're hangin' out...what kind of mood they're in.

> "...when I'm retrieving that bait I'll pop the end of my rod down. That little twitch lets that bait jump just a bit...puts it right in their face, gets their attention and triggers a reaction strike. That deal is called the 'Wally Wiggle'.

> "That's the key to catching a lot of crappie, keeping that bait up high in the water column with a slow fall.... I use that Mr. Crappie high-viz line – especially in low-light conditions...I can see that line jump before I feel it on the rod."

Wally's favorite dock-shootin' set up:

> 6-lb Mr. Crappie high-viz mono, Wally Marshall Classic Signature Series Spinning Rod, Wally Marshall Pro Target 100 Spinning Reel

The real slabs are by the river channel

I got some intel in an interview with Wally 'Mr. Crappie' Marshall a while back about how a lot of your bigger fish hang out with some proximity to deep water, meaning usually the main channel of the lake.

On Sam Rayburn Rez, TX, where I guide, you can find fish all over the place on brushpiles, but I wanted to see what would happen if I solely focused on fish that were near the main channel. Here were my findin's from my experiment from back in May!

> "It seems like in May there was a big push of 8-9 inch fish that pushed out offshore to the brushpiles.

> "As obvious as it sounds, something that has been so key for me for staying on bigger fish is something Wally Marshall told me in an interview for a recent Target Crappie email:

Look at your map, and see where the creek channels are running. Then you get on those creek channels and you got that standing timber or them stumps...I don't care if it's 5 or 6' deep, those fish get on 'em.

> "He was talking about how cover next to creek channels will always reload and have fresh fish.



> "That's exactly what I did last weekend when my normal stuff wasn't paying off. I remembered that and started running old waypoints I thought would have fresh fish.

> "Not only did we catch more, but we got away from the 8-9 inch fish and we got around the 12-14 inch fish.

> "Our main deal was brushpiles in 15-20' on the edges of big flats where the main river channel would swing up against it. It was kind of an ultra-specific deal, but once we got on that it changed the day.

> "A bonus deal from that day was that if you could find older piles that didn't have many branches [like the one below] on them, that's where we did our damage on the giant ones."

How we caught 'em

> "We were casting the whole time and just had live minnows nose-hooked on the jighead. ...sitting 5-20' off of the brushpiles and casting past 'em, and watching that jig pendulum back over the piles.

> "Sometimes you could work a fish out of a pile by reeling it up and giving the jig micro shakes. But all 3 of us would just get a feel for how long it took for our jigs to fall to the pile and just slow reel it back.

> "If you were at the right depth and matched the speed of that pendulum with how fast (or slow) you were reeling, you were going to get bit."


My go-to setup has been:


> 1/32-oz 'pink' Bobby Garland Mo Glo' Jig Head, size 4 Bullet Weights Reusable Split Shot, 12-lb Seaguar InvisX Fluoro, 10-lb Berkley Forward Braid Flame Green, Wally Marshall Pro Target Spinning Rod, size 100 Wally Marshall Pro Target Spinning Rod.

Quit fishing in white shirts and wear wraparound sunglasses?

So you can see your FFS screen better! That's according to Crappie Connection's Brad Chappell – here's Brad's (and AL's Jamison Carr) 2c on a Crappie Connection YT video:

> "White, yellow, bright-colored shirts – the glare gives me a headache so bad and I can't see the screen as well.

> "Gray, darker-tone colors is where we're gonna focus. Everybody's like, 'Man, that's crazy, you're not wearing a white shirt.'

> "I can show you a LiveScope screen and [wearing a white shirt] literally is like having a reflection off the sun shining right in your eyes...."

If you do find yourself in the boat with someone wearing white colors (from Jamison):

> "I don't care what sunglasses you wear, who they're by – [you need] the wraparounds on the side. It knocks out the side glare [coming off of people's shirts, not the screen].

> "Because if I'm sitting there and there's something glaring on me, it's getting [in my eye] and it's distracting my focus on the screen."

"If you find blue cats, there's a good chance there's a lot of crappie stacked up underneath 'em."

Still a crazy thing to hear for me! That's Bobby Garland's Skylar St. Yves talkin' winter slabs sitting under dying baitfish!

> "Grand Lake is a great example of a lake where you have thousands of blue cats...chasing shad all over the place. Crappie...are waiting for the scraps underneath."

For reference, here's what your screen might look like when you're getting into a school of cats!

National Professional Anglers Assoc.

MN-FISH