WINTER CRAPPIES

[TubeDude]

Hey, Gang. This is the time of year to start looking for crappies schooled up in deeper water. They will usually be stratified somewhere between the bottom and the top. Find them and then send down a small jig. Don't hop it around too much. Sometimes they will take it while it is dead still. An old ice fishing trick is to tip a small jig with a piece of meal worm or wax worm. Of course a small minnow or piece of fish meat works too.

The fish in the attached Pic came from Patagonia, on a float tubing trip just after the first of the year. The water was cold, but a couple of 3# crappies will warm you up.

Both Roosevelt and Bartlett can offer some good cold weather crappie fishing, if you know the secrets and don't mind a touch of chilly weather. There are also some decent crappies in Saguaro around the docks, if you can get to them before all the kids and dimbulbs start stomping all over them. Once the noise begins the fish quit.
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