Landing Crappie Fishing a Cold Front with my Brother

 If you have ever fished after a cold front, then you will understand today’s post. I just returned from Mississippi where I was crappie fishing with my brother Bobby, the past couple of days. We fish a couple of hours late Wednesday afternoon and a few hours on Thursday morning and manage to land some quality crappie the hard way. We were battling a cold front on Wednesday and Thursday, and the fish was far a few between. Wednesday’s trip produced some nice slabs, and Thursday’s trip was shorter because the weather just didn’t cooperate at all. We were fishing with the wind at a time out of the east ( wind out of the east the fish bite the least) and the temps dropping most of the time.  But what can one expect this time of the year? The water temps were fluctuating between 59 and 61, not uncommon for this time of the year, which is ideal for wintertime crappie fishing. The tackle for the two days was the 11 ft. jigger poles and microlight spinning gear. The jigger poles were rigged with tube jigs and tipped with a pink or white nibblets. The nibblet was the attractor that help get the hits on both slow days. The other set-up was the microlight reel and 7 ½ ft. spinning rods. The microlights were rigged with curly tail jigs tipped with a nibblet pulled slowly over the brush piles. These are excellent casting systems for crappie and bluegills, because of their sensitively and light action. We were fishing water depths of 10 to 12 ft moving the jigs over the brush piles. Bobby and I drop all the brush three years ago in 12 different places on the lake. The key was getting the jig just above the crappie where they were suspended at the top of the brush. It worked both days but it took some patience and lure switching to land some of the slabs we brought to the cooler. Wednesday’s trip produced more using the 11 ft. jigger poles. The jigger pole or crappie jig pole is excellent on slow days when the fish are embedded in the brush and not moving to feed. This set-up will enable you to place the jig right in front of the crappie’s mouth. It can be an awesome way to land huge slab crappie, especially when you know where the brush is located. Both set-ups can produce large numbers of crappie. I have been fishing this lake with my brother for years and we know not to let a cold front dampen our spirits. We been there and done that before. I can't begin to tell you how many fish this one lake has produced for both of us. I will be heading back in December with another report. The following pics summed up the trip.

Nice slab to start the action

Landed using the Micro Light

The key to the catch--under that indicator is where some of the brush was located

Another slab --this one with jigger pole

Anything with red seemed to trigger a hit

Both jigger poles are 11 ft. long and excellent at getting the lure in the face of finicky crappie Both rigged with 4 lb. test line

The jigs for this trip--next trip or next day could be different