Page 10 - Crappie NOW | August 2016

By Ron Presley

T he challenge of crappies in current.

Catching crappie in the nation’s rivers can be a challenge removed
with the right information. The strategic difference between crappie
fishing in lakes and rivers is current and ever changing conditions
it causes in the rivers.
Pro crappie anglers Jonathan and Alicia Phillips describe
river waters as a unique fishing experience. “A lot of people are not
good at fishing the river because it is ever changing,” explained
Jonathan. “The brush pile you find one day may not be there
the next. The big tree you found on Friday may not be there on
Saturday. Similarly, the brush pile bite that was active at 8:00 am
may dry up at 9:00 am because power generation stopped at the
dam.”

“You can be fishing 10 feet deep on one side
and 4 feet deep on the other.”

Jonathan and Alicia call the Alabama River their home
waters, so they have a lot of experience fishing changing river
conditions. “Weather and power generation are important factors
in river fishing,” continued Jonathan. “The current changes
throughout the day depending on how much rain or how much
power is being generated and moving water through the river.
The change in the river can also depend on how many feeder
creeks and branches there are. Here on the Alabama River there
is always some natural current from the numerous creeks and
branches.”
“Brush piles and lay downs in backwaters are usually a
good bet to stick around for a while,” offered Jonathan. “The main
river, however, can definitely switch gears on you after a period of
heavy rain. Lodged trees will stick for a while and get silted in, but
a flooding rain can change everything. Even those big trees will
move down river.”
“ Crappies do not particularly like current, so we look for a
hard bend in the river where an eddy backs up naturally off of the current. The swirl of
water pulls bait fish in and that pulls the crappie in there with them.”
Hard structure will cause crappie to accumulate too. “Sometimes you can find some
good hard structure to fish the backside where it breaks that current,” advised Jonathan.
“The crappie will set there behind it, or they will go hide on the bottom to get out of the
current. It might be a little hole, a rock or anything on the bottom that will break the river’s
flow.”
Jonathan and Alicia are spider riggers at heart and love to push in the river. “I expect
fish to be on the down current side of heavy brush, stumps or standing timber,” predicted

10 Crappie NOW August 2016