Brush pile crappie bite starts

By Chester Moore, Jr
The Port Arthur News

May 07, 2008 09:26 pm

— Crappie fishing on the brush piles at Southeast Texas reservoirs has been picking up slowly but surely. The cooler than normal temperatures seems to have confused the fish a bit but they are starting to really gang up on the brush.
    Rayburn Lake guide Roger Bacon said the best days are those with lots of sunshine.
    “On overcast days the crappie tend to scatter on the outer edges of main lake brush and not concentrate over one particular point,” he said.
  “The sun gets them tighter to the structure and a lot more aggressive. A day can go from so-so to amazing really fast once the sun comes out.”
    Rayburn’s crappie are taking shiners and soft plastic jigs in albino shad and pearl colors.
     I have personally always caught bigger crappie on Rayburn on jigs and larger numbers on shiners and that seems to be what is happening now. Several reports from trophy hunting crappie anglers show that jigs are where it’s at for the big ones right now.
    Lake Livingston with its hundreds of planted brush piles is also turning on.
      Stick with the deeper brush in 15 to 20 feet of water during the first half of the month, particularly on the north end which tends to have water temperatures a couple of degrees cooler than the south end. Live bait is your best option during these periods on Livingston, especially if you want to catch large numbers of fish. Jigs will produce there but shiners are much more reliable. Fish with slip float rigs for best results.
      Boat positioning is such an important part of brush pile crappie fishing on any lake. If you get right over crappie-filled structured and vertically drop a live shiner or small jig down over it, your chances of catching a mess of slabs is high. Shiners are the most popular choice but 1/32 and 1/16- ounce tube jigs are fished right “in the zone” can yield big results on big water brush pile fish as well.
    A good way to fish the piles with the best fish is to use a depth finder to locate those that have big schools of shad around them.
    Crappie do not hang around spots that are devoid of baitfish very long and generally speaking, the bigger the bunch of bait, the more crappie will be around. They are gregarious fish anyway and like to bunch up really tight, so a difference of two or three feet in depth is a big one.