Nice slab Crappie taken shooting summertime docks here on Weiss Lake.

Even though the outside temps are hot enough to make camel beg for mercy, summertime fishing in August and September can be some of the best times to be on the water. It might surprise most crappie anglers but I catch a lot of good crappie this time of year shooting docks in as little as 2 - 3 feet of water. First thing I look for knowing it is summer and the boat traffic is going to be brutal on Weiss Lake is the little out the way places that you don’t see a lot of jet skies and ski boats. When fishing docks this shallow they will take a pounding by 3 foot waves when you have a lot of boat’s running back forth. Little coves and pockets close to the river channel is a great place to look for crappie under docks. I like to wait to around mid morning before I will start shooting docks. I like to wait for the sun to get high and hot to push the crappie even tighter to the docks looking for shade from the sun beating down on the water. Another little trick for success at shooting docks is boat position. I like to approach the dock’s with the sun to my face as to make sure I don’t cast a shadow with my boat around the dock. Crappie are very spooky fish this time of year the more you can do to not let the crappie know your coming the more success you will have at this technique…

“Equipment- . The best rod I have found for shooting docks is the BnM Sharpshooter. They have three available lengths in this rod but I like the 5 ½ footer the best. These rods are designed just for shooting docks and even though it is an Ultra Light rod you will have no trouble pulling that big slab out from under his hidden water haunts. The reel I use is BnM’s West Point Spinning Reel. It is very light weight reel and that helps keeping your combo light and manageable. In a full day shooting docks you may shoot 200 to 300 times the lighter you can keep your combo the better off you will be. I do about all my crappie fishing except for spider rigging with 6 lb. Sufix Siege line in clear and the neon Tangerine. The Tangerine is a neon orange line that is very visible when watching for those faint little taps.

“Lure- Lure color and type are one of the most important parts of shooting docks. The one that I have found that works great on every lake I have fished including Weiss is the Southern Pro 2 inch Crappie Stinger. The Crappie Stinger has a solid body with a whip / stinger type tail and holds up very well for this technique. The color that produces day in and day out would be Black/Blue with the chartreuse stinger tail. Southern Pro has available eleven colors in the 2 inch Crappie Stinger but for shooting docks with a lot of shade I like to stay with the darker colors. The size jig head you use is very critical in presenting the bait that catches the crappie but surprise. You want a light jig head for these shallow water docks and most time’s I am using a 1/24 oz jig head. This lets the jig hit the water with very little noise and also lets the jig fall in natural slow fluttering manner.

“Presentation- I like to shoot the jig right at the dock pilings in the very back of the dock. Most time’s the crappie will hit the jig within the first foot or two when on the fall. If you get no hits on the fall let your lure go all the way to the bottom and then start a slow steady retrieve back to the boat. A lot of times you will catch crappie as soon as your lure breaks the shadow line that the docks puts off. I like to work the dock very thorough shooting at every piling before moving on.

“Tips- Here are a few things to know that may help you when shooting docks in the summer. Like I said before look for those little out of the way places that don’t see much boat traffic. Another key to shooting docks is to look for things on the docks like rod holders mounted to the dock lights close to the water. This lets you know that this dock is fished regularly and there is structure close by. If there is structure around the dock there will be crappie under it that the owner cant get to. Some of the best docks I shoot here on Weiss Lake in the summertime is docks that are in 6 to 8 foot water at the very end and are built on shallow water points with deeper water close by. Wait until the sun gets up high and hot around 10:00 am that is when the crappie will be holding tight under these dock. Most crappie anglers put up there gear after the spring spawn waiting for the first sign of fall. Summertime can be just as good if you will try this technique, you just have to experiment with different area’s of the lake but when you find those special docks they will produce crappie day in and day out all summer long…

When fishing lakes that receives heavy fishing pressures you better have every tool available to turn the table and put the odds in your favor. Here on Weiss Lake I deal with heavy fishing pressures on a daily bases-when the spring season is in full swing - The crappie here are bombarded with every jig color and combo known to man. That’s when you have to get down and really key in on those little details that really make a difference. I see it a lot of times here on Weiss, anglers will get hung-up on there favorite color jig and keep fishing it even though they are not catching any fish. They just figure the fish have moved off or has just stopped biting, when really all that has happened is conditions that the angler is not even aware of has changed. It doesn’t take much of a change in light or water conditions here on Weiss to make what was a killer jig color go from filling your live well to not even getting a second look from the crappie that lurks below. When dealing with waters that receive heavy fishing pressure you have to be right on with your jig colors or you are going to be in for a very long day.

If you’re favorite crappie hole on your lake gets more traffic than the local McDonald’s drive thru – remember when the bite slows or comes to a screeching halt – the fish are still there. With a quick check with the Color-C-Lector most times a color change will jump start your day to a cooler full of slabs…

This time of year a lot outdoorsmen are gearing up for the upcoming hunting season hoping to bag that big buck that visits them in their dreams every night. This is also the time when crappie anglers get real itchy to set the hook and bring back memories from this past year’s spring crappie season. This is one of my favorite times of year to be on Weiss -when the heat and humidity from the dog days of summer are gone and when foggy mornings and fall foliage signals that transition time has arrived. Crappie behavior is about to go from sluggish mode to one of aggression - the feeding frenzy is about to begin. Fueled on by cooler water temps and an appetite of a newborn baby and for crappie anglers this means one thing good times are on there way! During this time of year most of your crappie are going to be found holding tight to cover right on the channel ledges of the old Coosa River waiting to ambush there prey as they seek shelter on under water stumps that are dotted up and down the old river bed. This pattern will hold true from October all the way thru mid November.

Russ Bailey and I with some good fall crappie...

One of the most popular techniques for going after fall crappie here on Weiss Lake is simple technique called Bottom Bumping and if there ever was a finesse fishing technique for slab crappie this is it. It is simple rig to tie and is deadly when fished correctly. I like to start out with my reel spooled with 12 lb Sufix line using an eight foot BnM rod. You may ask why 12 lb line for crappie will you are going to be in contact with the bottom of the lake 99 % of the time and hang ups are a guarantee. Using this heavy of line allows you to pull free from hang-ups and save your rig every time. All we need to complete our bottom bumping rig is a simple a half oz weight on the bottom - come up 18 inches and tie on a #2 Eagle Claw snelled hook put on a minnow and go after them. All of this tackle is nothing special and all can be bought here locally. We now have our rig setup, so where do we start?

There are miles of channel ledges marked on Weiss Lake with markers on both the up stream and down streamside of the lake. I can tell you this from Bay Springs all the way up to Sand Valley has always produced fall slab-sized crappie. The most important part of this technique is being able to find structure on these ledges, there is no use in fishing a section of ledge that doesn’t have some type of structure. Most of the structure on these ledges will be found in 10 to 14 feet water with the lake down at winter level, so this will give you a good starting point on your search for these paper mouth beauties. One last thing about Bottom Bumping - when you think you are going slow working the ledge you need to slow down even more, it should take about hour and half to work a 100 yard stretch of ledge. Fall fishing on Weiss is underrated and overlooked sometimes and to me is one of the best times to be on the water. So if you get an itch to cure those summertime blues get into a cooler full of line stretching slabs and you'll see what I mean...

Here is a nice late fall Crappie caught on Lake Weiss fishing log jams...

While most people including myself are stuffing there bellies with Thanksgiving turkey - I still find time to get out on the lake for some fast and furious fall crappie fishing action. Most anglers are starting to put their boats and tackle away for the winter, waiting for the first signs of spring. Well let me tell you - if you are done gorging on that Thanksgiving turkey and cabin fever is already showing it ugly head then its time to make a beeline for the lake. This is the perfect time to stock up your freezer that has slowly dwindled down with fresh crappie fillets from this past summer cookouts. This time of year the water temps are slowly creeping down, crappie are getting more aggressive. Cooler water temps have triggered the crappie into a feeding frenzy - summer is over and its time for them to release their anger on any lures that get in there way to a free meal. Those slow faint taps we have felt on our rods for the last few weeks are gone - crappie now know that winter is on the way and the fall fiesta is on. They are several ways to go after these feeding frenzy crappie - but today I will talk about a technique that is bullet proof this time of year and also doesn’t break the bank on your way to stringer full of slabzilla's.

Here on Weiss and most all lakes you have at least one river system feeding the lake sometimes more - We have three here on Weiss the Coosa, Chattooga and Little River all dump their waters to form Lake Weiss. As the water temps drop the crappie migrate up into these rivers starting to school up in large schools and feeding on shad getting ready for the winter to come. The key to catching crappie this time of year or really anytime of year is finding structure. The old saying goes One Mans Trash is Another Mans Treasure - well that’s so true about this technique. In river systems you will always have falling tree's, broken up docks and just about anything else you can imagine. All this debris has to go somewhere and most times it ends up lodged creating a big log jam somewhere in the turns of the river system. These log jams creates an excellent place for these migrating crappie to hold. Number one you have structure - Number two you have a current break and last but not least you have an ambush point. Crappie will hold on the down current side of these jams waiting for schools of shad to move through. This is the area where you want to concentrate on working real well cause crappie are lazy fish and they look for anything to help them from spending any wasted energy. Now we know where to look for them, so how do we trick these critters in taking a one way trip to the live well...?

The best method I found for fishing log jams is simple - casting/shooting and tight lining a 1/16 oz. jig back to the boat. Here on Weiss the main river feeding it is the Coosa and it can tend to have a lot of current at times - that’s why I like the 1/16 oz. jig head and sometimes even heavier. I will mostly cast these jigs with a Southern Pro Hot Grub - the Hot Grub is a three color core twister type grub and works very well fishing log jams. Colors I tend to stay with and have always come through for me are the Black and Blues with Chartreuse tail. For the line I like to use Sufix Siege 6lb test - it is plenty strong enough for doing this technique and holds up real well fishing heavy cover like this. The rod I like best for this technique is the B'n'Ms Sharp Shooter in the 5 1/2 foot model - this rod was designed for shooting docks and works great for fishing log jams. A lot of times I can be more accurate with shooting log jams than trying to cast especially if you have any wind at all. Now we have our setup so where do we go?

With this technique you don’t need all those high dollar graphs and GPS units - the treasures we are looking for is in plain site and most people pass them by wondering why Alabama Power don’t come in and clean this stuff up. Well for my sake I hope they never do. This is where a good quality lake map will come in handy - what we are looking for is where the river makes a sharp turn close to shallow water. This where most of your log jams or going to form and this is where the crappie will be. Here on Weiss we have miles of river channels and 100's of log jams to fish - it doesn’t take long to scout out and check these log jams and see if they are holding crappie. Once you have found crappie on certain log jams they will continue to produce good stringers of crappie for you day in and day out. There will be times when you come up on an area and you spot fish working the surface around log jams - unless you are just wanting to have some fun, keep moving 99% of the time this will be stripers and white bass working a school of shad and crappie don’t want no part of the fun. Like I said before crappie are lazy fish and you want find them working shad like that. A great place to start your search is the Alabama Belle Resort - from their all the way up to Three Mile has always been great fishing when looking for log jammed crappie. Fishing this way for me is really what crappie fishing is all about - it’s me with one rod verses the all mighty fish we call crappie. Take this technique and the equipment I mentioned - I assure you will have a great day on the lake.