Crappie Fishing in Washington

you [Music] hello I'm mark divins fisheries biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife today we're out here on Bonney Lake in Eastern Washington's channeled scablands we're going to talk about some techniques to catch black crappie which are one of Washington's most popular warm water sport fish one really nice thing about crappie fishing is it only takes a minimal amount of equipment and tackle such as a light spinning rod for six pound test line a crappie jig and a bobber so let's get over to our fishing spot and I'll show you how to fish this lure one thing good to know about crop is that they like structure and so we've moved ourself along the shoreline here and found this down tree which provides a nice structure with its trunk and branches we're going to use our crappie jig and right now I'm going to use 1/32 ounce crappie jig and I've chosen a green and white and our float one thing nice about the float is it suspends your bait above the bottom and you can adjust it to the appropriate depth so what I'm going to try to do here is cast out and then let this bobber sit and see if we have any fish that are interested in our we're here today there you go it's as easy as that here we are in just our second cast of the day and we've caught this gorgeous crappie really nice fish about 12 inches long very nice yeah today we're fishing with this 32nd ounce crappie jig I've chosen a green and white pattern one thing I like to do is to set your knot on the line here so when that bait is fishing in the water it's horizontal to the waterline as opposed to straight up and down that gives it a more natural presentation like a small fish swimming in the water which these fish are foraging for there's one another nice-sized crappie about nine inches today I think we're going to go for those larger fish and try to catch some fish over 9 inches 1012 inches would be nice so we're going to let this go and let you grow a little bigger for next time there's one looks like they like that green and white jig today yeah fishing for these crappie with these small crappie jigs it's nice to have a pair of needle nose pliers or a Leatherman to to easily get that jig out of their mouth just push back on it and that'll free you right up here's one what do you have here a nice little crappie one thing I'm trying here is to cast beyond the log and then I could slowly reel it back towards it and bring that jig right up underneath there where those crappie seem to be hiding looks like something's trying to tap that there's a lot of different kinds of floats one thing that's nice about this pencil float a little is it'll a horizontal on the water until you get a bite a lot of times these crop you'll bite very lightly there we have something alright looks like we have a bigger one here wow this is a nice fish alright now this is what we're after all right now what we have here is a 12 or 13 inch crappie this is truly a prize for Washington State a very nice fish here's another one no nice little Bonnie Lake crappie well we've been fishing here in this one spot this afternoon on this one single piece of structure this fallen log we've caught about a dozen fish but things have slowed down just a little bit maybe we'll move down the lake and find another similar spot and try that for a while yeah here's another lay down log down the lake here we're going to try this spot as we come up to this log try to be quiet and and I've set the anchor so we're off a ways to start here and we'll cast towards the log and see if we can pick up some fish yeah as we fish this new piece of structure it's it's a trick to fish in and around the branches of this tree that's fallen down so thinking that those fish are going to be holding pretty tight to that structure sometimes it's a good idea to cast beyond it and then reel until you know that jig is just beyond that log and it's dropping down right beside it hopefully you'll get a fish before you get snagged on a branch there's one all right looks like we found some more oh and a nice fish too we better get the net oh look at that alright what a beautiful fish second cast on the second log and we caught this fish that's Matt close to 14 or 15 inches what a beautiful Eastern Washington crappie look at that another 11 inch er [Music] there's another one we'll let the smaller one go grow up for a couple more years yeah it's important to remember on these crappie that they have spines on both their dorsal and anal fin here so when you're picking them up it's good to bring those back so you don't get poked that's why they call these spiny rays a lot of times in the evening these crappie will move up out of deeper water and into these shallower areas around the vegetation where they're foraging for things like dragonfly larvae other insects or small bait fish I'm still using our bobber and jig first here one thing fishing this vegetation that's different than in around the log that we were earlier that is that it's less likely to get snagged on that log trying to wait for those fish to bite so a lot of times it's good to do a little bit of reeling after you cast out and put a little movement into your the action of your jig there's something yep another crappie another crappie off are we bed it's not as big as the largest ones we've seen today but another nice fish there we go feels like a little bigger fish oh yeah ah I wonder if it feels a little different all right another one of our Washington pan fish species the yellow perch a large winner look at about 10 inches a good size probably average size for yellow perch in Washington is about 8 or 9 inches this is a nice fish these are also very good eating there we go see what we have here Oh a smaller crappie let him grow back up now you don't really need any special equipment like a depth finder to find these spots just looking for cover and and I'm just moving along until I see those that we'd line here we go hello crappie yeah when we find crappie that are actively foraging in these weed beds there's another technique I'd like to show you today what I have here is a little beetle spin it's similar to a slardar spinner bait that used to sing for largemouth bass what is a small jig with a little spinner above it as you cast this out and move it through the water gets that little swimming action and if those crappie are real interested in biting you can just cast that out and just reel it back to the boat see if you get a bite there is oh yeah fun this is a different one here oh we got another one of these perch all right very good well I see why it feels a little bigger another fish largemouth bass so our fourth warm water fish of the day all great fine on just some simple gear hope there is that looks like a crappie it's taking our beetle spin oh yeah he's a nice fish just another way to catch them we've had a lot of fun this afternoon catching black crappie here on the lake caught over 25 or 30 fish in a few hours including these two dandies hopefully if you learned a few techniques that are pretty simple and easy to get out and enjoy this great fishery remember that Bonney Lake is only one lake across the state of over 140 that have populations of these great warm water fish if you go onto the WDFW website and click on fish Washington you can search for one of these lakes where you can enjoy this great opportunity [Music] you [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: TheWDFW

Views: 78,662

Rating: 4.8426967 out of 5

Keywords: Black crappie, Fish Washington, Fishing

Id: aOAXh-qFmyg

Length: 14min 10sec (850 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 04 2013