Taking my 4 year old out for his first crappie trip to fork the weekend after memorial. Any tips would be appreciated. I typically bass fish but want to get him excited about the sport.

Hit the timber with minnows. They will be 10 to 20' deep. Start out at 10' down, or 10 pulls down, then drop 2, then drop another 2 until you start getting hits. Once you find the depth repeat and repeat, rule of thumb hit 50 trees to catch 50 fish, some will produce better than others, some you will get skunked on. Early morning they will be on the sunny side of the timber, as it gets towards 10:00 am and afterwards they will be on the shady sides. Look for trees, near points, channel swings, and humps the bigger the trees the better it will be. Cedar trees are good too. They will get right in the middle of Cedars so fish with a Texas toothpick right in the middle, the Texas Toothpick rigged on 50' braid will allow you to not get hung up so much. I've caught about 10,000 crappie out of the thickest cedars using them. Kids love the minnow thing.

Texas Tooth Pick

If it was me, I would go straight to one of the bridges and drop some minnows down. Definitely don't want to make things too complicated and it will be cooler for the kid with plenty of action and nothing to get hung up on

I need more info on this Texas toothpick!

This is what I would do! Focus on 154 and East and west 515. Usually around the crossmembere but with the lake down maybe not as much. Probably 12-15’ down on the shady side of the bridge!

Slew

So do I.

Texas TP looks like a metal rod for a leader ?

!st time out at four years old= keep it fun!! If he is having fun -you'll have a partner for life! Bridges/shade and minnows are a great way to invest in fun at this age. When my girls were little, this worked well. The minnows were "fun" to play with on the days the fish were not co-operating
My oldest came home from college( for the weekend) and one of the things she wanted to do while home was go out and "thump" some crappie! Of course , my youngest-who is still at home was in on the deal. We went out on Sunday morning and put 25 in the boat with jigs.... Keep it fun and theyll keep coming back!

https://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/9209934/Rod_Bumping

David explains his toothpick method on a thread back in 2013!

Ended up with 72 crappie over 2 days. Freezer is full and the kid is ready to go back. Caught most of the fish on main lake points/humps in timber in 20’ of water

Wow! Sounds like a great trip and look at that happy kid!

Nicely done sir. Making lifetime memories. It doesn't get any better.

It looks like you had a great time, making memories. If you want to really get him hooked on fishing, take him white bass fishing. The action can be fast and furious and they will bite anything when they are in a feeding frenzy.

Lake Fork Marina Beach in the background is a nice touch...