The crappie bite at Toledo Bend has slowed a little bit in the last week or two, but it hasn’t completely stopped. Several anglers are still bringing in slab-sized fish, and although many anglers have switched from jigs to minnows, the fake stuff is still working for a few folks.
Bassmaster Elite Series pro Dennis Tietje of Roanoke just finished up his rookie season, and he had been on the water about 15 weeks before finally wrapping up the year on June 20.
However, rather than head for his house like one might think, Tietje drove straight from his last tournament in Okalahoma to his camp on Toledo Bend. He put his boat in the water and fun fished for the next seven days. Only, he wasn’t after bass.
I had the opportunity to join Tietje this past weekend to sample some of the crappie fishing. The bite had been extremely good in May and early June, and anglers privy to the locations of some deep brush piles were reeling in limits of big fish almost every day.
After spending Saturday morning fishing minnows with guide J.T. Thompson with Living The Dream Guide Service, I hopped into Tietje’s still-tournament-wrapped Nitro bass boat. He had no minnows, but he had just about the closest looking pieces of plastic I had ever seen.
Thompson had explained that he fished only minnows, especially with customers. On the other hand, Tietje told me that he never fishes minnows, only Zoom Tiny Flukes. He carefully threads these narrow pieces of plastics on to 1/16-ounce jigheads and then sticks a chartreuse Berkley Crappie Nibble, crickets he called them, on the hook.
“By the time the fishing has slowed this time of year, you’re at a disadvantage if you don’t know where some brush piles are,” Tietje explained while searching for his landmarks that would lead him to a pile he had sunk a couple years ago. “Right now, the fish seem to be about 15 feet deep over 20-foot piles.”
Although not having your own piles can set you back, we found several piles as we idled into and out from Tietje’s piles from the Pendleton Bridge up to the 1215 area. They were easy to spot on his Lowrance electronics because they looked like a school of minnows hugging tightly to the bottom.
Fish arches suspended over the tops of these piles indicated that crappie were using these piles that Tietje previously didn’t know even existed.
“I don’t like to fish other people’s piles,” he pointed out. “But if you’re out here looking around and you come across some good looking stuff, stop and check it. You may find you a little honey hole that way.”
Tietje likes to position his boat directly over his piles. Then he casts his Tiny Flukes out about 15 feet and lets them sink back toward his boat. Once his bait is straight down under him, he steadily raises his rod up high.
“I guess they think that minnow is about to get away,” he continued, “because that’s when they hit it. If they don’t hit it on the first pull, I lower it to see if they want to hit it on a straight drop. Sometimes they’ll hit is as it falls, and the only way you’ll know you got bit is that your line will stop sinking before you know it should.”
Whereas Tietje would expect a bite almost every drop during May and early June, we were only getting bit about once every 10 drops or so this past weekend. That was enough, though, to put together some stringers of nice crappie. And by the reaction of friends that saw the pictures, we “smoked” them.
“This is good, but it’s nothing compared to a few weeks ago,” Tietje concluded. “If you really want to catch them, come back over earlier next year. Then you’ll see just how good Toledo Bend crappie fishing can be.”
I’ve already cleared my calendar.
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