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Smile Blades Can Help
By Stan Fagerstrom
Part TwoIn my last column I talked about how Mack’s Lure Smile Blades can be a great asset in helping a panfish angler locate crappie schools. This time around lets look at some of the things you can do once you’ve got the school pinpointed.For starters---s-l-o-w d-o-w-n! Being a slowpoke might not get you by for many of life’s activities. It is an asset when it comes to crappie fishing. As soon as you get a hit or two drop anchor and get a good grip on your patience.I recall writing a magazine piece years ago. The title of the story was “Public Panfish Number One.” The story dealt with crappie fishing. I still think the choice of that story title was a good one. The crappie does indeed rank right up there with America’s favorite panfish. They’re fun to catch and a delight in the frying pan.I mention that business about being a slowpoke with good reason. I bring it up because slowing down is one of the keys to success when it comes to consistently putting crappie in the boat. Once you’ve got them located, I don’t care what the lure is, you simply can’t fish too slowly.One of the most successful crappie anglers I ever met did most of his fishing with flies. The way he went about using those flies was unlike anything I was familiar with at the time. I met this fellow, his name was Tom, a half century ago. Watching him fish, which I had opportunity to do from time to time, was a super learning experience. Tom hung a float on his line and attached his fly to a length of leader beneath the float. He often had his boat anchored over a sunken rock pile. He’d cast his float and fly 20 or 30-feet from the boat, then just sit back and relax. Long minutes later he’d raise his rod tip and slowly take a turn or two of his reel handles. Then he’d sit back again and just wait.It would have driven me buggy to fish as slowly as Tom did, but I can’t argue with the results. He caught more and larger crappie than anyone I’ve ever met. One of the reasons his approach was so effective was that Tom knew where the fish were. He didn’t get serious about slowing down until he was positive the crappies he was after were there.Mack’s Lure Smile Blades hadn’t been invented yet when I knew my crappie-catching friend. I know Tom would have used them if they had been. My guess is they would have been his first choice when it came to determining where the schools were located in the first place. He’d have trolled these dandy lightweight blades until he started getting hits. Then he would have anchored his boat and gone to work.
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| Slow trolling with Mack's Lure Smile Blades can be a great help in locating springtime crappie. |
It takes a minimum of movement to cause Smile Blades to go into their light-reflecting and fish-attracting spin. As I’ve already pointed out, this can be a big help in searching for crappie. I usually fished for bass on the lake where Tom did his crappie fishing. Now and then I’d set my bass rods aside and run out to the sunken rock pile to see how my friend Tom was making out with the crappie. I never found him without fish. Sometimes he had more large crappies than I’d have believed the lake held if I hadn’t had a chance to see them myself.I asked Tom once why he used the float along with his flies. “I get just about as many hits when the float is just dead in the water,” he said. “I learned a long time ago that I had to slow down if I wanted to catch crappie. Sometimes just the slightest movement of the my fly is the best way to make the crappies want to grab it.”As I said in the beginning, it’s not a bit too early to do some serious planning for your early crappie fishing. Try to catch a time when the water temperature in your favorite lake or pond is rising. Sometimes even the slightest rise triggers a crappie-feeding spree.
Save me a spot at your dinner table when that happens! |