Question: Darrell, where will you find the crappie right now in late December and January?

Baker: Our crappie will be holding on those deep drop-offs on the channel ledges from the lower end of the lake to the upper end of the lake. With the water temperatures in the upper 40s and the lower 50s, crappie will hold in about 12 to 15 feet of water. We spider-rig the channel ledges. We use a drop-shot rig on our poles, let our jigs go to the bottom and then crank them up about one turn of the reel off the bottom. We ease along these ledges with live minnows. When we find brush piles and stumps, we stop and hover right over the brush. At this time of year, the crappie aren’t as aggressive as they are in the spring. So, you have to work each piece of structure really slowly.

Question: What poles do you use?

Baker: I prefer the 7-1/2-foot B’n’M IM7 Graphite All-Purpose Crappie Wizard poles designed by Richard Williams. I use these poles on the left- and the right-hand side of my boat. I fish the 10-foot IM7 Graphite Crappie Wizard Series poles on the front of the boat out in front of the trolling motor. I want those front poles to be further away from the trolling motor than the poles on the side of my boat. Ninety percent of the time, the two front poles will catch more crappie than the poles on the left- and the right-hand side of my boat because the minnows on those poles in the front reach the brush piles and the stumps before the poles on the side the boat. Those minnows actually will reach the structure before that structure shows-up on my depth finder.

Question: Why do you like the 7-1/2-foot poles instead of the longer poles?

Baker: I want those 7-1/2-foot poles to sort of fan around the front of the boat. Remember, I’m fishing steep channel ledges with sharp drop-offs. The two front poles may be fishing in 14 feet of water, the two poles on the right-hand side of my boat may only be in 6 feet of water, and on the left-hand side of the boat, those poles may be fishing in 18 to 20 feet of water. Having the shorter poles stay closer to the boat enables you to fish all the water depths on a sharp drop-off.  If I had 10-foot poles on the right side of my boat instead of 7-1/2-foot poles, those 10-foot poles would be in 3 to 4 feet of water instead of 6 feet of water, which would be really too shallow to catch crappie. I’ve experimented with different lengths of poles to try to determine which poles I can fish the most effectively on sharp drop-offs. I prefer to fish with 7-1/2-foot poles, because on sharp bottom breaks, they can more-effectively fish the edges of the breaks from the shallow side to the deep side better than the longer poles.

To successfully fish these ledges, you need really-good electronics that will help you keep your boat right on the edge of a ledge. I use the Lowrance 334C because it’s a color graph that shows the brush and the stumps in color. We catch crappie along the ledges. However, we generally catch most of our crappie on stump rows or brush piles. If the brush is on the edge of a sharp drop-off, maybe 14 feet, my right-side poles on the shallow-water side of the ledge may be in 10 feet, my front poles will be in 14 feet and my left-side poles will be in 18 or 20 feet. I may have poles that don’t catch very-many crappie and some poles that catch a number of crappie, but I’ve covered all the depths where the crappie may be holding. I’m above the brush, in the brush and below the top of the brush. I try to keep my boat positioned, so that that my minnows are right-beside or just on top of the brush. This way, we don’t get hung-up nearly as badly as we will if we fish down through the brush. Most of the time the crappie will come up out of the brush to take the minnows. If the crappie are in really-deep water – about 14 to 15 feet – then the poles on the left-hand side of the boat will catch more fish than the poles on the right side of the boat. I’ve learned that if I find crappie holding in 14 feet of water, I still can catch crappie as shallow as 12 feet or as deep as 15 feet.

Question: Other than the length, why do you like the B’n’M poles designed by Richard Williams?

Baker: These poles have very-sensitive tips, and the longer rods in this series have fluorescent tips. Then you can see the bites better. Besides the sensitive tips, they also have a lot of back bone that not only helps you on the hook set, but allows you to pull a heavier crappie into the boat.

Question:  How many crappie do you expect to catch at this time of year when you fish Weiss Lake?

Baker: Our limit on Weiss Lake is 30 crappie per person, per day, and each crappie you keep must be at least 10-inches long. Most of our 10- and 11-inch crappie will weigh from 3/4- to 1-pound each. Our biggest crappie caught in 2008 was 2 pounds, 9 ounces.

To contact Darrell Baker, go to www.weisslakecrappieguides.com  or www.weisslakeguides.com, or email him at darrell@weisslakecrappieguides.com, or call his home at (256) 927-2232 or his cell at (256) 557-0129.