Question: Ronnie, most people believe that when a cold front hits a lake during spawning season, the crappie move out of shallow water and back into deeper water. In your opinion, what effect does a cold front have on spawning crappie?

Capps: If an area you’re fishing get one or two days of cold weather like we’ve had during much of April this year, even in the Southeast, the crappie won’t abandon their nests. Although the crappie will be harder to catch and may shut their mouths, they don’t have any other choice than to remain on their nests. I fish through cold fronts during tournaments and with my guide parties, just like I fish on sunny days. I get fewer bites on days when a cold front comes through than when the weather starts to warm-up. When a cold front moves through, it generally brings wind and rain. When you have wind and rain while you’re trying to fish for crappie, you have to deal with factors that don’t exist when the weather’s stable.

With the wind come waves, which mean you’ll be bouncing up and down in your boat and won’t be able to hold your pole as steady as you can when the water’s still and calm. Under these conditions, you’ll probably think the crappie aren’t biting. But actually, you just aren’t able to present the jig or the minnow as slowly as you can when you’re not bouncing up and down on the waves. For instance, if you’re spider rigging or trolling, and your poles are sitting on a rack while you’re battling waves, instead of your baits moving slowly on an even plane, they may be jumping as much as 6 to 12 inches every time the boat goes over a wave. If you’re hand-poling, every time the boat moves, your hand moves the pole, which causes the bait to move. If you’re fishing with a cork, that cork rides up and down the waves, making your bait move up and down.

When the crappie are reluctant to bite, they don’t want to see a bait jumping in every direction. They want a bait to sit still, so they can come close and eat it. When a cold front arrives, the temperature doesn’t seem to affect the crappie as much as the wave action does. Although the wave action doesn’t directly impact the crappie, it does affect the fisherman’s ability to control the bait. Many times I’ve had to fish with a B‘n’M pole in each hand and move the boat with a trolling motor to try and catch crappie to survive in a tournament in wind. So, the wind in the cold front causes the fisherman to not be as efficient as he can be on a calm and sunny day. In my opinion, a cold front doesn’t cause the crappie to move out of the shallow water into deeper water.

Poles That Capps Recommends for Different Types of Crappie Fishing:

If I’m fishing with jigs, I use the lightweight 14-foot Buck’s Graphite Jig Pole to cover more water. Then I don’t have as hard a time seeing the strike.  I can see the minnows moving on 14-foot poles, due to the poles’ sensitivity. When I’m using a double-minnow rig, I fish with the B ‘n’ M Capps and Coleman 14-foot, 3-inch poles, a somewhat-stiffer pole than the Buck’s Graphite Jig Pole to support the egg sinker. When I’m fishing crankbaits and the B ‘n’ M Pro Staff 14-foot poles, which are really stiff, I like to use as much as 3 or 4 ounces of lead.

If I’m hand-poling in heavy cover, I’ll fish with the 8-foot, 2-inch Capps and Coleman All-Purpose and Wading Rod. If I’m hand-poling out of my Ranger boat, I’ll fish with my 14-foot Buck’s Graphite Jig Pole that I normally use to troll. When I’m fishing out of my canoe, I like my 9-foot Capps and Coleman All-Purpose and Wading Rod for cover that’s not that thick. I like to use that canoe to get into places I can’t enter with my big bass boat.

New Jig Poles: