Originally Posted by
etucker1959
No Minnows! How to troll for Crappie, crash course 101! You do know all the Crappie snobs are saying, "don't just tell him" make him figure it out over 20 years of trial and error! lol You know what would probably be very helpful is, if you were to buy a map of Lake Cachuma! They make one of those really good for about $8 bucks! You can buy them at your better tackle stores. Or just go to Bob's tackle in Norwalk. (he has them for sure) It will show you where Jack Rabbit Island is! Don't be afraid to watch other people when they troll for Crappies. (notice their trolling pattern and copy it) If you really want to cheat, find the pretty Bass boat that guide there. (watch what he does) Remember they almost have a zero tolerance for private boats there! So any private boats on the lake are going to be run by people who know what their doing!
How to troll for Crappies for Dummy's.
Use either 4-6 pound test. (if your worried about losing too many lures, use 6 pound) You do know what to do if you get a snag right? Go behind it and pull! Now you need 2 kinds of lures. Deep divers on their own, like Flicka shads that you can purchase at Walmart cheap! Or small sinking minnow lures like Rapalas or Lucky craft lures if your wallet is fat! Rapalas are priced in the middle. Walmart Flicka shads are $3.99 and Lucky craft lures are $12.99. Bob's tackle does have good small trolling minnow lures for sale. I like the colors of Black or Blue for trolling for Crappies!
How to troll for them.
Slow as the motor can go is the correct speed. We got 15 bites using their boats with their motors, so I know they go slow enough to troll. Where and how to troll them. Remember the closer you are to shore the shallower you are, so the Flicka shads don't need any weight pretty close to the bank. The further you get off the bank in open water, you need weight on your lines to get the lures down to the Crappies. Racer X figured a simple way to do that. Buy 3/8 ounce rubber core sinkers and put them 3 1/3 feet up from lure. Let a fair amount of line out and you're good to go in deeper water when trolling. That's all you need to know besides finding a good trolling pattern. The guides used a rectangle pattern from the shore opposite of the North tip of Rabbit Island. They went down that shore past the point and cut over to the other shore on the opposite bank. Ran down it back to Jack Rabbit Island and cut back across and repeated the pattern. I did a circle you know what? I went down a 1/4 of the way down the face of Jack Rabbit Island and did circles in the deep water. We started hooking so many Crappies the guide boat and friends came into our pattern!
Now if their no longer in the deeper water, you are going to have to Mini Jig them up. Once again take your map out and have the nice people at the boat rental mark on your map, where to start looking for them! Here is the best Crappie Jig I found and it's only sold at Fishermen s Access in Brea. It's called Collin's Micro Minnows. You want the solid white glow in the dark color. The Minnows and the jig heads are sold separately, but they have them both there. Have Jake who works there rig them up for you. You also want to put a white Crappie Niblet on there with a large Meal worm too! Fish it on 2 pound test and if you find a school of them, you won't be able to keep them off of your hooks! Good Luck and the rest is up to you to find them!