Okay,

I love the taste of Crappie. But I have only caught them the boring way -- with minnows on a regular rod and setting the depth.

Can you catch them on the fly? I bought a sinking line (last 25 feet sinks), so I was thinking a small Clauser and my sinking line might work to get to the right depth, and then the speed of the retrieval would set my depth.

But it is always more fun to catch fish on top action.... Any thoughts?

yes, brazos, it can be done. have been catching a lot of small crappie at dalworthington gardens here in town, on a fly. sinking lines, small clouser, or i use micro jigs, will work. just have to find them, and work the fly at the speed they like. let us know how you do.
later, troutbum

Crappie like jigs a lot. If you can get something that looks like a jig, you will be in business. They also love minnows. I have seen a fly that looked like a minnow....called a gummy minnow or something like that. I am sure they would like a woolly bugger.

They also love worms, forgot to say that. But then again, don't all fish?

I've had good luck catching crappie on a small white wooly bugger. Silver hook and beadhead, white tail, white chenille or ice chenille body, wrapped with grizzly hackle. Size 10 or 12, and keep the tail short.

I wonder if the worms are by smell r sight, cuz there's always this...

The only thing thats stopped me is those dang bluegill.....

I have good luck with a floating line, strike indicator, and a hare's ear nymph. I move it just enough to keep the floating line, well, floating.

Robin that looks like a San Juan worm, and I don't know if it would work for sure, but I would SURE TRY IT OUT! Yes I have wondered about that too. I would think it would be best to put a little weight on it and fish it off the bottom though.... But you could make a bigger worm, and make it look more like a nightcrawler...if so it could be fished higher. This is just a guess though on my part. Sometimes fish are fickle......lol....as we all know.

This leaves me with lots of questions:
1) Any pics of microjigs?
2) What is a strike indicator?
3) Any pics of "small white wooly bugger. Silver hook and beadhead, white tail, white chenille or ice chenille body, wrapped with grizzly hackle. Size 10 or 12, and keep the tail short" would be welcome...
4) All the small jig-like lures I have are weighted pretty good (more than a Clauser). You use these with the floating or sinking fly line?

Any of these hare's ear nymph's would work? What about color? These look a lot like my trout lures I use in NC. I have a number of these.

http://images.google.com/images?client=s...m=1&sa=N&tab=wi

Question 2. Here's a link to a good indicator you can make http://globalflyfisher.com/fishbetter/indicators/ You can really use anything that floats, you can see, and isn't too heavy. I use tiny plastic bobbers sometimes. Don't laugh, they work and are castable.

In the next post, you ask which hare's ear. Any of the ones pictured are good. I usually use one that looks a lot like the first one or a bead headed one. Yep, they came out of my old trout flies. Work great on crappie and bluegill. The trick is top move them as little as possible.

a few weeks ago, I caught a ton of crappie on a clouser minnow. They were in shallow water so it was a little easier, but I would guess if you can get it in front of them, they would take it in deeper water too

I've caught a lot of small crappie recently on micro jigs. My bigger crappie have been on clousers or cats whiskers.

Folks

Having never targeted crappie on the fly, would you say it's mostly how and where you present the fly? It seems like crappie have a different feeding strategy than their bass or bluegill cousins.

crappie are feast or famine regardless of the equipment. Its all about finding them.

strike indicator is a fly fisherman's term for a cork

I got some tiny little thill bobbers a while back. I haven't tried them out yet. I mean they are TINY. I have never seen any that tiny, I thought they would be perfect for fly fishing.

I caught a bunch of Crappie yesterday at bob woodruff park in plano. they were all hanging about 4 feet off the bank, throwing a #10 olive brimanator and slowly stripping. I couldn't ever catch more than one in a particular spot, but it was fish all along the bank. Not much size, pretty common for crappie in a pond, but better than small bluegill.

With the crappie spawn it should be not to hard to find them. The only problem for some of us has been the fluctuation lake levels has caused the crappie spawn to get screwed up. But normally I will fish white or yellow weighted wooly buggers along any shoreline submerged brush or stump in shallow water and find them sometimes this time of year. Later in May, I'll find them along rocks sometimes, pretty shallow. Another good fly is this:

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytying/fotw2/052801fotw.php

Yep...

here is what I love to do... instead of using a useless "cork", I will actually use a small popper to act as the cork. I've caught bass this way while crappie fishing. Kills 2 birds with 1 stone.

crappie candy are easy to tie...I love them....good idea on the popper, that would be awesome if I could throw all that at once. I would need an 8wt for that I think though.

The fly I've caught the most, and biggest, crappie on is the venerable wooly bugger. Several years ago at Caddo I caught a limit several times on a conehead black #10 wooly bugger. These crappie averaged 1 1/2# ea.

kelkay, not really. Just make the crappiecandy fairly small, with light hooks, and small beadchain eyes. A walmart dial-a popper can hold the weight of it. You should be able to cast this rig on a 4wt rather easily. I like to tie some light mono (4-6lb test) on the hook bend of the popper, and then down to the fly beneath. 1 to 2 ft of mono should be good

BPS has some micro jigs in the Fly Shop. They currently hold two lake records for crappie on the fly. They work well. I use them during pre-spawn/spawn/post spawn. After that (June) the crappie move to deeper water and standing timber. Tough on us flyrodders, I usually go conventional from June til next year's pre-spawn.
For the larger fish during spawn/post spawn find the males in shallow water, turn around and fish the wood in the deeper water nearby if you can find it. That's where big mama holes up til her "water" breaks and she has to pop into shallow water to download.