Question:  Jim, at this time of the year, where are you finding crappie, and how are you catching them?

Jim Reedy:  At this time of the year, the water across U. S. lakes is from warm to hot, and most fishermen think the crappie will be deep. We have found that the opposite is true. We’ll often locate our crappie in 5 to 10 feet of water, or less. We’re looking for big balls of schooling shad. Any place we can find the shad surfacing or running the banks, we’ll generally pinpoint some crappie fairly close to those schools of shad. We may be fishing over 18 feet of water, but perhaps we’ll be catching crappie at 7- or 8-foot deep. Sometimes we’ll find the shad close to shore, and we may catch crappie in 5 to 6 feet of water. We’ll slow-troll with 12-foot B’n’M Brush Cutter Rods. We prefer the Capps & Coleman Double Minnow Rigs and usually fish with live minnows, although from time to time we will fish with jigs tipped with minnows. Our favorite color jig is blue and chartreuse.

Question: How many crappie do you usually catch when you’re fishing in August?

Jim Reedy:  We can usually catch a limit, but we’ll only keep about 20. We don’t fish to see how many crappie we can catch. We prefer to catch and keep just the big crappie.

Question: What’s the biggest crappie you and Barb have ever caught?

Jim Reedy:  Barb has caught a 4-pound crappie, and I’ve caught two or three 3-1/2-pound crappie, but I’ve never been able to break over into that 4-pound fish.

Question:  What pound test line are you using, Jim?

Jim Reedy:  Barb and I prefer to fish with 6-pound-test Vicious Hi Vis Line. Once in a while, we may fish 8-pound-test line, but we really prefer the 6-pound-test.  We really prefer the High-Vis Line because we can see the stripes on the line better, and we miss fewer fish with High Vis Line than we do with line that’s not Hi Vis. We usually troll with minnows, but if we do use jigs we’ll tip the jig with either a minnow or a Berkley’s crappie nibble.

Question:  How are you keeping your minnows alive?

Jim Reedy:  We use a Frabill Min-O Dipper Minnow Bucket with an aerator built into it. This bucket looks more like a cooler than it does a round minnow bucket. We’ve learned that if we pour cold water into that minnow bucket in the morning, the minnows will live all day long, if we keep the lid shut and the aerator running.

Question:  How many minnows of what size will you and Barb usually take with you for a day of minnow fishing?

Jim Reedy:  We usually buy a pound of minnows and put them in our Frabill minnow bucket. And although the minnows may look like they’re crowded, they’re really not. We may have to add a little ice to the water on really-hot days, but most of the time we don’t have a problem with our minnows dying.

Question:  With what size minnows do you like to fish?

Jim Reedy:  We’re firm believers in the old adage that big minnows produce big crappie. But if the weather gets really hot in the summertime often we feel we can catch more fish, if we downsize our minnows and fish with a somewhat smaller minnow than we usually do.

Question: Why do you think that the crappie are holding more shallow than most fishermen are fishing at this time of the year?

Jim Reedy: You have to remember that the crappie will follow the shad. If the shad are swimming near the surface, the crappie won’t be far from them. If you’re fishing along a creek channel that has a flat right beside it, the shad will often pull up out of that deep water and move up on that flat to feed. When they do, the crappie will be close behind them.

Question:  Jim, at this time of the year, anglers will often see bass busting through the schools of shad on the surface. Will the crappie be holding near those schools just like the bass?

Jim Reedy:  The crappie will usually be blowing-up on the surface eating shad like the bass do, but more than likely they’ll be holding under that school of shad or just off to the side of the school of shad. I wear polarized sunglasses at this time of the year to see the shad under the water. If I can spot a big school of shad, I know the crappie will be related to that school somewhere. So, just because the temperature may climb to 100 degrees, don’t assume that the crappie are 30-feet deep. They can be just as easily holding in 5 feet of water. Just remember, wherever you find the shad this month is where you’ll find the crappie.