Three Must Have Crappie Baits

When it comes to fishing for crappie, there are three basic baits to choose from no matter where you are fishing. As long as you have the three of these options ready to go for your crappie fishing trip, you are sure to have a successful adventure.

Live Baits

Hands down the best live crappie fishing bait that you can choose to offer to the fish is the live minnow. Make sure that these baitfish are no longer than 2 inches in length and no shorter than one. The trick here is to keep them as hyped up as you can. This can easily be accomplished with an inexpensive aerator that can be purchased at a local outdoor store.

As you rig up for your minnows, be sure that you are using small hooks. Take your hook and hook the minnow up through its bottom lip and out through its top lip. This will ensure that your minnow can swim as naturally as possible once he is in the water. One of the best crappie fishing tips you can ever pass along is that the bait must look natural.

Jigs

If you have rather limited experience with lures used for crappie fishing, you may want to begin instead with marabou jigs. These lures are very inexpensive at just pennies a piece. They are extremely popular lures as well which means they produce results. Be sure to purchase them in sizes between 1/32 and 1/16 ounces and stay with the light colors such as yellows, greens and whites when just starting out.

Haul these pieces of fishing gear out to your fishing location and drop them to the bottom while bouncing them off the floor. After a few seconds, reel in a little bit and then start the entire process over again until you have succeeded in reeling in all of your fishing line. This will give you the advantage of working multiple levels so that you can better determine at what depth the fish are actually holding at.

Soft Plastic Lures

If you would prefer, soft plastic baits such as the plastic worm are extremely effective as well. However, the lure needs to be rather small which means no longer than three inches. Combine that with a 1/8 ounce jig head, that means it needs to be even less than three inches. Choose from styles such as sassy shad, small worm or grubs. As long as the lure somewhat looks like a minnow or shad, you are headed in the right direction. Stick with lighter colors here as well.