Was going to post as a reply in"What have you learned?" thread, but didn't want to steer it off course, so here's my question:

I have stayed on a BP the past couple of evenings because it's producing big numbers of small crappie, figuring the big'uns are there. It's been a failed strategy. I think Ernest Paty, or someone, posted recently about BIG jigs for big crappie. I need to try that. What jigs should I try?

(or should I stop assuming there are bigger fish where I'm catching tons of dinks?)

Sometimes just the small ones will bite. Usually there are some big ones present. I use 2.5" to 3" plastics most of the time. Today we caught 92 fish with 14 over 12" off three brushpiles in three hours.

Monday we caught 54 with none over 12" from same piles. Most were 8"-9".

Same problem on one brushpile in 12 foot on tawakoni but the one 200 yards away in 10 foot all good fish.

I have a hand tied , bucktail in orange, chartruse and black. It is on a 1/4 oz head
and is almost 3 inches long. Many times it will pull a few big fish off a pile
that is covered in dinks


MO

When the dink happens I go to 3 inch bonehead and heavier jig to get it past them I found the bigguns are usually below dinks IF they are there.

Your location is more important than the jig you're using based on what I saw at CC last week. If I fished brush over 12 Ft deep it was dink city. Also, if I was shooting docks way in the backs of coves, that was dink city too. I was using a Thump Chubby, which is shorter than two inches. Once I got away from the dink areas, the quality was much better. Saw over a hundred 12 to 15 inch fish on Friday.

This ^^^ It was a good morning both on piles and in the marina.

A couple of piles had the nicer fish, but the others were mostly smalls, but fun as heck to catch anyway.

If you are catching dinks on a brushpile, I truly think you are in the wrong location or too deep/shallow. Usually, the first few fish will typically be the bigger fish.