If the bite is slow, we’ll try a bladed jighead like the Jenko Slasher Spin.” “We do fish with a lot of artificial lures, like the Jenko Mermaid in lucky leprechaun color or hair jigs like the Jimmy Watt jigs, but we also put shiner trailers on sometimes. “My boat doesn’t leave the landing without minnows,” Thomas said. This time of year, he never heads to the river without shiners. Thomas loves to fish the river for fun, but he also competes in several major crappie tournament circuits. The deeper ones still have crappie in them.” You may pull up and find two or three on a top, or you might come up to a big fallen tree and find 200 on the electronics. There aren’t fish in every top, but it’s something you can’t pass by. “This time of year, the river itself is a prime target. “When you find the big wads of shad, the crappie are close by. “One thing never changes, though: find the bait,” said fisherman Jason Thomas of Monroe. The focus has switched from the river lakes, many of which are cut off from the main-river access when it drops to pool stage, to the main river channel. And with the river now dropped down to pool stage, the fishing has not let up. Life span averages 9 years.Meandering almost 100 miles from the Arkansas line to below Jonesville, the river’s backwaters have been on fire with crappie the past couple of months. Young crappie feed on plankton, juveniles and adults feed on small fishes and invertebrates including shad, minnows, aquatic insects, crawfish, and freshwater shrimp. After releasing eggs, females return to deeper waters and males guard the nest. Females may produce and deposit eggs several times during the spawning season and mate with several males. Their coloring becomes vivid to attract females to the nests for mating. Male crappie seek out nesting sites with firm bottoms in shoreline areas with depths of 1 to 6 feet. Found near vegetation and woody debris in shallow water during spawning season.īegin to spawn in February in south Louisiana and in April in north Louisiana when water temperatures reach 60 to 65☏. More tolerant of muddy water than black crappie. Found in open freshwater with submerged timber or aquatic vegetation in standing water bodies and slow flowing backwaters of medium to large rivers.