Page 14 - Crappie NOW - May 2018

by Vic Attardo

or vice versa. Anglers working corners
A s I kid, I never hung out on street should know they will be dealing with
corners. Of course, where I came from in one or the other of these features, and
farm country, street corners were rarer often both. In fact it’s the features of
than brown cows that gave chocolate current change and/or light and shade
milk and geese that laid golden eggs. that make corners so attractive to
But still, I always thought that street crappie and crappie anglers.
corners were dangerous places. You
could be pleasantly walking along one
side, turn a sharp bend, and who knows Corners, particularly really sharp 90
what or whom you’d run into. degree corners, are where you find them
If minnows could think such
thoughts, they might come to the same
conclusion. The bully or beast minnows
confront, coming round a turn, is a hungry “Whenever I see a corner caused
crappie. And since crappie apparently by some man-made structure, I know I’m
think this way, corners -- of any degree going to fish it hard,” says Pennsylvania
or measure -- are great places for them guide Joe Turner. Turner does both
to lurk. his pleasure fishing and guiding on a
Corners can be defined in many collection of natural and enhanced
ways starting with either hard or soft lakes in the Pocono Mountains in the
corners. Hard corners include things like northeast corner of the state.
bridge abutments, rip rap faces, dock “Up here,” he said, speaking to a
corners, submerged hard structure and downstater, “we’ve got corners all over
other similar structures. Soft corners the place. Everybody works the bigger
could be any piece of land that starts bridges but I like the smaller stuff like
straight then turns a sharp left or right. where a low road comes over a culvert.
There are two aspects that seem If there is flow on both sides, I’m going
to be regular features with the majority to zero in and look for fish there.”
of corners. They are: first, a change in I fished with Turner on a pleasant
current speed or current direction and May day when the crappie were in the
second, a change from light to shade process of sliding towards shore for

14 Crappie NOW May 2018