Question: How are you finding and catching crappie during the end of May and the first of June?

Baker: I’m finding the crappie in the mouths of spawning bays. These post-spawn crappie have moved out of the shallow water, but they haven’t made that big move to deep water yet. They’ve moved out of the 2-to 3-foot-deep water out to the 7- to 11-foot-deep water. The crappie are suspended, just like prespawn crappie will be. We’ve had cool weather in Alabama for this time of year plus relatively-cool nights and quite a few cloudy days. So, the water temperature has remained in the mid-70s. When that water temperature moves up and gets hotter, the crappie will be headed for the main river channel and become structure-oriented on the channel edges. That’s where we’ll be able to catch them in the summer.

Question: How are you catching your crappie?

Baker: I’m catching them longline trolling. I’m using the Crappie Wizard Series Richard Williams from B ‘n’ M Poles. I use 10-foot and 12-foot rods on the front of the boat and the 7-1/2-foot Crappie Wizards off the back of the boat. I’m fishing with 6-pound-test line and pulling 1/24-ounce jigs with Southern Pro Hot Grubs on the jigs. The best colors have been sour grape and blue chartreuse.

Question: What depth of water are you trolling?

Baker: The bottom’s at 7- to 11-feet deep, but we’re catching suspended crappie at 5 to 6 feet.

Question: What kind of structure are the crappie holding over?

Baker: I’m mainly fishing stump flats, and the crappie are holding above the stumps. But they’re not real tight to the structure.

Question: Why do you like the Richard Williams poles?

Baker: The Crappie Wizard poles have enough backbone to let me lift a big crappie into the boat. These poles also have very-sensitive tips that allow me and my customers to see the crappie.

Question: In a day of crappie fishing at Weiss right now, how many crappie will you catch?

Baker: We’ll usually catch over 100 crappie and keep 35-40 fish a day. For the last 3 days (mid-May), I’ve been averaging 40- to 45-keeper crappie per day. Remember that the minimum length you can keep here at Weiss Lake is 10 inches. But the crappie we’ve been keeping have been 11-1/2- to 12-inches each. These fish will weigh 1- to 1-1/4-pound each. We can keep 30 fish per day that are 10-inches long per person. We’ll normally catch 100 to 150 crappie per day. Ninety percent of the fish we’re catching are between 9- and 9-1/2-inches long, and we have to throw all those back. What’s really strange is we’re catching a lot of 9- and 9-1/2-inch crappie and 11- and 12-inch crappie. For some reason, we catch very few 10-inch crappie.

Question: On Weiss Lake, what water temperature do you have to have before the crappie will leave that post-spawn staging and move-out to the main river channel?

Baker: When the water temperature starts hitting 75 to 78 degrees, the crappie will start moving out to the main river channel. That’s when we find our crappie on brush piles and stumps on channel edge drops.