what is the best, cheapest thing to use with a brush pile? i have always heard alfalfa hay was good, but it seems that would be hard to weigh down, and certainly would be cumbersome in the boat.

I use crappie call.

What is crappie call?

Never heard of that one. Would it be "here fishy, fishy"? I've tried that...don't work. lol

I am not much on baiting brush piles, but I have seen folks use canned dog food with small nail holes poked in it. The theory was that only minnows could feed on the tiny bit that made it through the holes. I have tried the same bait in my minnow traps during long camp-outs and it seemed good enough to fill the traps. But so does almost anything you put in it.

good luck, Phill

Canned cat food is cheeper.

I have used cheap dog food and 5 gal buckets with 1/4 hole drilled in every 2" all over it. I have also used old potatoe sacks full of dog food and they have worked.

Alfalfa is one of the best ever as well as powdered molases.Take a bead of alfalfa and break it up in an onionburlap sack then add a gallon or so of dried molases along with a berry flavor of dry KOOLAID such as strawberry you will see the difference

when you guys do this, do you intend to stay in the area for awhile? or is it something that works pretty fast.i saw a bag of that crappie call the other day and was thinking about picking it up. i used the catfish call before and seemed to work alright.

just to clarify the catfish was for when i was fishing catfish

Simply put; if you put any kind of "bait" on a brushpile, you just ruined it for crappie fishing (until it's all gone). Now if your goal is catfish, carp, or any of the other bottom feeders....your thinking is correct. Otherwise, take Darrell's advise; use a crappie call

do you know if the crappie are around the 380 bridge on lavon yet, I tried it last week and didn't have any luck.

sorry i was thinking darrell was talking about the actual burlap bag with i guess some type of attractant in it, that is actually called "crappie call" if you say it is all garbage i will stay away.

In order to practice "Selective Harvest" it would be "Here Crappie, Crappie, Crappie"