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Posted on 2/2/26 at 3:23 pm to hashtag
Years ago, when I came to this board with a similar question as OP, all the crappie guys here gave their suggestions. I bought just about everything they suggested, including the lures below. I trolled them all side by side around some private water, and this one consistently outfishes all the others. It's the only thing I tie on now when crappie fishing from the boat. From the bank, it's live minnows.
Something else I found, Berkely Crappie Nibbles do make a difference. Also recommended to me by many on this board.
Direct link to the product- LINK
You will need 1/16 and/or 1/32 oz jig heads, I have both chartreuse and black, I haven't noticed a difference in jig head color between black and chartreuse. Use the 1/16 if you need the extra weight for casting distance or into the wind, but if you don't need the casting distance, stay with the smaller 1/32.
Something else I found, Berkely Crappie Nibbles do make a difference. Also recommended to me by many on this board.
Direct link to the product- LINK
You will need 1/16 and/or 1/32 oz jig heads, I have both chartreuse and black, I haven't noticed a difference in jig head color between black and chartreuse. Use the 1/16 if you need the extra weight for casting distance or into the wind, but if you don't need the casting distance, stay with the smaller 1/32.
This post was edited on 2/2/26 at 3:25 pm
Posted on 2/2/26 at 5:55 pm to deeprig9
Ive always heard color matters too and the people I’ve heard it from are respectable crappie anglers. Not sure why it doesn’t matter on the lakes I fish, maybe because they’re private.
Posted on 2/2/26 at 6:37 pm to RetiredSaintsLsuFan
I’ve just never had a ton of luck with any artificial lures or jigs on crappie and bream. Live crickets for bream, live minnows for crappie. Just can’t beat it imo
Posted on 2/2/26 at 7:00 pm to deltaland
quote:
I’ve just never had a ton of luck with any artificial lures or jigs on crappie and bream. Live crickets for bream, live minnows for crappie. Just can’t beat it imo
We will definitely try crickets and live minnows first. I was raised on a bayou in North Louisiana and I know nothing about the lakes around me. The fishing piers are all on the dam side of the lake. I have no idea how deep the water is there and if there are even any fish there. But the fishing piers are there for a reason.
Posted on 2/2/26 at 7:22 pm to deeprig9
Receipts-
This one on a Monkey Milk Bobby Garland during one of my test runs trolling..
This one on a Monkey Milk Bobby Garland during one of my test runs trolling..
Posted on 2/2/26 at 7:24 pm to RetiredSaintsLsuFan
Wager Baits jigs is what we use, they catch everything that swims in the local ponds
This post was edited on 2/2/26 at 8:14 pm
Posted on 2/3/26 at 5:46 am to deeprig9
My wife and I caught more fish than we ever caught in a 12' aluminum boat with a five horsepower engine. This is the same boat I had growing up. After getting caught in a storm on Caddo Lake I sold it and got a bigger fiberglass boat. This was a huge mistake. One year we got into a bream spawning bed and we loaded up on bream, but this was in the smaller 12' boat.
Posted on 2/3/26 at 9:32 am to RetiredSaintsLsuFan
Size 1 Classic Regular Panther Martin, Gold Regular Pattern (black body, yellow dots, gold blade for bream. Will catch LOADS of anything that swims but is blue bloody murder on bream. Bass and jacks love them also...trout, white bass, catfish, crappie, white and yellow perch, drum....if it swims and eats baitfish it will eat that Panther Martin. Very versatile - can fish it top to bottom, in cover, ripping or slow.
1/16 oz black jig head, #4 hook, and either a black and chartreuse tube grub or flip tail grub about 1 -3/4 inches to 2 inches long for crappie.
There options for the latter are LIMITLESS but for me, if I have to have only one for crappie, its that combination with the flip tail. 2 inches long so I can bite 1/4 inch off the front of it when its been eaten a couple of times and won't stay on the hook...
1/16 oz black jig head, #4 hook, and either a black and chartreuse tube grub or flip tail grub about 1 -3/4 inches to 2 inches long for crappie.
There options for the latter are LIMITLESS but for me, if I have to have only one for crappie, its that combination with the flip tail. 2 inches long so I can bite 1/4 inch off the front of it when its been eaten a couple of times and won't stay on the hook...
Posted on 2/3/26 at 10:05 am to RetiredSaintsLsuFan
quote:
Once it starts to warm up and the fish start to spawn I want to be ready.
Unless its a rare pier it won't be in spawning habitat for bream and not likely to be in spawning habitat for crappie. If it is its liable to be over fished badly. On our large COE lakes in Georgia most piers are pretty close to pre-spawn areas for crappie....some are perfectly situated with brush piles added. In that situation they are mostly adjacent to boat ramps unless they are designated fishing piers. If its the latter they will usually have brush piles near them to hold fish....and can get LOADED with crappie in February and March, the colder and nastier the weather the fewer people. The bream bedding areas around those piers will be at the backs of the coves, preferably with some very soft bottom material, sand being top notch but here clay is more typical and bream will fan beds on clay bottoms that are not like concrete. If there is vegetation present the bottom is soft enough for them to fan beds. Here the lakes are dropped during the winter and you can find those beds high and dry...can't mistake them, almost perfect circle up to a couple of feet in diameter....if you find some high and dry in January there are others in the same area that are deeper....they use them year round here so they have fanned beds where there was water and return to the same areas month after month. Crappie are liable to spawn anywhere between a transition flat and the same areas bream will spawn....in out area they prefer brush because there isn't a lot of vegetation because of the winter drawdown. They will also spawn in gravel but they seem to prefer brush...trees, stumps, that sort of thing. Finally, in our area, there will be crappie in these areas all day during the spawn...but they will be THICK as cordwood in those areas for a couple of hours before sunset. It is possible to catch them as fast as you bait hits the water for a couple of hours before sunset. They are there all day but the evening is the time to get them....on my "home lake" there is also liable to be a mud line along spawning areas due to boat traffic, especially on weekends. That line is PERFECT for catching loads of spawing crappie.....it is perfect cover for them to be in very shallow water...and the line between the murky water and the clear water is an ideal place to ambush prey and is perfect casting distance from the bank usually. This is often overlooked by very good crappie fisherman in my area but I can usually find crappie using this type of situation to spawn without a bit of what is usually considered prime spawning cover....the muddy water is slightly warmer and there is less light penetration....its the perfect combination, at times, for crappie to get romantic. Good luck!
Posted on 2/3/26 at 10:11 am to AwgustaDawg
Each year the small town (Bella Vista) puts old Christmas trees in the five lakes. I need to check to see where they put them at.
Posted on 2/3/26 at 7:09 pm to RetiredSaintsLsuFan
quote:
We will definitely try crickets and live minnows first. I was raised on a bayou in North Louisiana and I know nothing about the lakes around me. The fishing piers are all on the dam side of the lake. I have no idea how deep the water is there and if there are even any fish there. But the fishing piers are there for a reason.
Tell us the names of some of the lakes so we can give you even better info. We can tell you a lot more than just what lure choices.
Posted on 2/4/26 at 5:37 am to deeprig9
quote:
Tell us the names of some of the lakes so we can give you even better info. We can tell you a lot more than just what lure choices.
I would be surprised if anyone here has fished these lakes being they in Bella Vista, AR.
Lake Avalon - this one has the most piers. It even has a heated one. The piers are at the dam.
Loch Lomond - this is where the marina is and they rent boats. It has several piers and boat launch areas. This one is the closest to me.
Lake Windsor - I know nothing about this one
Lake Ann - This has a fishing pier at the dam.
Lake Brittanny - I believe this one has trout and they put more in every year. I don't know where the fishing pier is.
Lake Rayburn - this has two fishing piers.
This post was edited on 2/4/26 at 5:45 am
Posted on 2/4/26 at 10:32 am to RetiredSaintsLsuFan
White perch(crappie) can be very fickle.I used to fish Saline-Larto a lot.Most of the time I used tube jigs.If they weren’t biting I would go buy some shiners.I saw days the only way they would bite was to lip hook a shiner on the back of a tube jigs.
I had a couple instances where they wouldn’t bite anything.Start throwing a Beetle Spin with u.l. rod and they would hit that. Go figure.
Crappie nibbles definitely help with jigs.
Something that always puzzled me- friend got me started out there always used red and white tube jigs.That was the main color for several years and then it got to where they wouldn’t touch red and white.I’ve still got some unopend bags of r&w.
I had a couple instances where they wouldn’t bite anything.Start throwing a Beetle Spin with u.l. rod and they would hit that. Go figure.
Crappie nibbles definitely help with jigs.
Something that always puzzled me- friend got me started out there always used red and white tube jigs.That was the main color for several years and then it got to where they wouldn’t touch red and white.I’ve still got some unopend bags of r&w.
Posted on 2/4/26 at 11:43 am to RetiredSaintsLsuFan
quote:
Lake Rayburn - this has two fishing piers.
Looking at this one on google maps it would appear to be mostly private docks with 2 possible public docks on the dam. If those are the two they would probably be pretty good pre-spawn crappie fishing, depending on the water depth, and probably really good bream fishing anytime of year except the spawn. It looks like there is rip rap on the dam, normal, and rip rap is very attractive to bream. They will leave those areas though when spawning unless there is proper depth of water and satisfactory bottom composition. Crappie will spawn in gravel, I have never heard of bream doing it but if they have no other choice I suspect they would. The interesting area of that dam and all similar dams is the corners...they tend to silt in and provide perfect spawning areas for bream. If that pond were in Georgia it'd most likely be FULL of hand-sized bream (bluegill and shellcrackers) because of the number of houses on the lake....that tends to increase pressure which, in Georgia, tends to mean fewer bream but far bigger bream. If that same lake was in an isolated area of Georgia the bream would most likely be stunted...too many present for healthy growth rates. This is also true of bass which are actually just odd shaped and bigger bream. That size lake in Georgia would be hit or miss for crappie at all and if they were present they would probably be smallish....lack of sufficient forage. Crappie breed like fleas (bream do also) in Georgia but crappie are slightly more difficult to harvest with the exception of the spring spawn. That means more suvive to breed like fleas and they will take over smaller bodies of water. They used to be unheard of mostly in lakes that size in Georgia because of this....no one would stock them....but that has changed and that size lake could have a good crappie fishery, none at all or loads of small crappie.....
Another interesting area of that lake, if it is accessible, is the spillway and creek that is damned up below the dam. It is liable to be FULL of big bream and no one may ever fish for them. If it were in Georgia that'd be the case...the harder it was to access the better the fishing. Good luck!
Posted on 2/4/26 at 11:50 am to RetiredSaintsLsuFan
white Red Dot Beetle spin cant be beat for Bream
Posted on 2/4/26 at 12:17 pm to AwgustaDawg
Rayburn Lake BV Arkansas
This is a link to a contour map of Lake Rayburn. You can use that site most likely to find any lake you're interested in. It looks like on the map that the dam runs south to north (yes, I am from the south, it comes first LOL). The south corner of the dam would be IDEAL spawning habitat in Georgia for bream. There is a steep drop off of in that area on 2 sides that would allow pre-spawn bream an escape from predators and the depth is PERFECT for bream in Georgia. That "flat" close to that deep water would also be PERFECT for pre-spawn crappie in Georgia - they'd stage in that area, slink back to deep water as temps drop and ease into that rip rap when temps rise...and that rip rap will warm up slightly quicker than the rest of the lake. And its fill of nutrition. Rip rap is a fisherman's friend....it'be entirely possible to feed yourself as much fish as you could eat, year round, on most lakes, fishing visible rip rap. Most boat anglers fly by it because they like riding in boats more than fishing....
This is a link to a contour map of Lake Rayburn. You can use that site most likely to find any lake you're interested in. It looks like on the map that the dam runs south to north (yes, I am from the south, it comes first LOL). The south corner of the dam would be IDEAL spawning habitat in Georgia for bream. There is a steep drop off of in that area on 2 sides that would allow pre-spawn bream an escape from predators and the depth is PERFECT for bream in Georgia. That "flat" close to that deep water would also be PERFECT for pre-spawn crappie in Georgia - they'd stage in that area, slink back to deep water as temps drop and ease into that rip rap when temps rise...and that rip rap will warm up slightly quicker than the rest of the lake. And its fill of nutrition. Rip rap is a fisherman's friend....it'be entirely possible to feed yourself as much fish as you could eat, year round, on most lakes, fishing visible rip rap. Most boat anglers fly by it because they like riding in boats more than fishing....
Posted on 2/4/26 at 2:50 pm to deeprig9
great post deeprig... 
Posted on 2/4/26 at 4:44 pm to AwgustaDawg
Here is a link about the lakes of Bella Vista. If you click on "Lake E-News" there is a facebook link for the heated fishing pier at Lake Avalon.
LINK
LINK
Posted on 2/4/26 at 5:24 pm to AwgustaDawg
Can you take a look at my home pond/lake and tell me where I should be looking for them at? I've got an ultra light set up and have only caught 2 or 3 over the years. But I've never been able to get on a good bite over the 30 years I've fished it.
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