Will Hutto uses new techniques to take crappie at night on the lakes where he guides.
Will Hutto of Bentonia, Miss., with Crappie Brother’s Guide Service in Yazoo County, fishes for crappie seven days a week and catches the daily limit. He believes in using the Solunar Tables to identify when crappie will be actively feeding.
“I’ve fished according to the Solunar Tables for most of my life and can tell the party I’m guiding, ‘The crappie will start biting in the next 10 minutes,’” Hutto said. “Almost 100 percent of the time, that’s when the crappie start biting. If you’ll fish the best feeding times, according to the Solunar Tables, you’ll hear bream and bass also breaking the surface and feeding on a calm night.
“The most productive times to crappie fish are at night, six to eight days on either side of the full moon at Washington, Ross Barnett, Grenada and Eagle — all well-known crappie lakes. My favorite to fish is Lake Washington. I know my way around it well and have learned where the crappie are most likely to be and bite any night we fish.”
Hutto and his buddies began fishing at night for crappie in farm ponds in 1985. His love for catching crappie has continued for 35+ years, as he’s modified his crappie-catching tactics to use new techniques to take more crappie after dark on the lakes where he guides. Hutto and clients catch white crappie at night, weighing 1 ¼ to 2 ¼ pounds each, and black crappie with an average weight of 1 ¼ to 1 ¾ pounds. Hutto and his anglers may only catch 20 keeper crappie on a bad night but may take 60 keeper crappie for a two person limit on a good night. A night fishing session will last six to eight hours. Hutto runs both daytime and nighttime crappie trips.
How Hutto fishes for nighttime crappie
Hutto finds crappie before he fishes for them at night with his Humminbird HELIX 9 depth finder after setting it on side-imaging to scan under docks and piers.
“I next identify which dock or pier holds the biggest crappie under it with my Garmin LiveScope,” Hutto said. “I also want to know the depth where the fish are holding, and how far under the boathouse or the dock the crappie are concentrating. Lake Washington has a thermocline at 5- to 5 ½ feet deep all summer.”
Hutto mentions that one of the reasons Lake Washington’s thermocline is so consistent, and the lake is so productive for night fishing, is because it’s not fed by a river, a lake or a creek. No current, except wind current, moves through the lake, making Lake Washington’s crappie more shallow than at most other lakes.
Catching crappie under docks, piers and boathouses
“The wind is our friend at Washington,” Hutto said. “If the crappie are concentrating under a dock, I’ll hold my boat on the upwind side of the dock and let the wind blow our lighted slip bobbers baited with minnows or jigs under the dock. Our baits will be right in the faces of the crappie by my keeping my boat the length of my rod (6 feet long) plus another 1 to 1 ½ feet or more away from the dock. We pitch our jigs on slip bobbers under the dock or let the wind carry our bait and bobbers under the dock.”
Hutto fishes jigs under the lighted bobbers, if the crappie are actively feeding. He likes a 1/32-ounce jig in clear water. He puts a BB shot up the line to help the jig travel down quicker to the depth where crappie are holding. He’ll use a 1/8-ounce jig that’s easier for the crappie to spot, if the water’s muddy. Hutto’s favorite jig colors are yellow, black, black/chartreuse, red/chartreuse and blue/white. His jig heads are yellow, pink, orange and/or a color called yellow treuse, a combination of yellow and chartreuse.
“When the crappie are reluctant to bite, and we have to fish live minnows, I prefer a medium sized minnow but take small minnows with me too,” Hutto said. “Downsizing minnows helps us catch more crappie quicker on the nights crappie aren’t biting actively. I’ve also learned that crappie not biting actively in the daytime generally means they’ll feed heavily at night. If daytime crappie fishermen only catch two — three crappie all day in hot weather, we may catch and release 100 crappie at night, keeping a limit per person of the biggest crappie, while dodging the sun’s heat.”
Pulling crappie up from deep water
Hutto fishes lakes other than Lake Washington where he locates crappie in deep water. He uses a Hydro Glow Fishing Light from Bass Pro Shops when there’s little or no wind to pull crappie from under docks, piers and boathouses or up from deep water.
“This light helps pull the crappie out from under the dock and closer to our baits, “Hutto said.
“The cord attached to the light runs off a car battery in my boat. I can let the light down to a foot under the surface. This light comes in four different sizes — an 80-amp LED light, a 162-amp LED light, a 324-amp LED light and a 648-amp LED light. I use the 162-amp one when fishing around piers, docks and boathouses.
“I like the 648-amp LED light in deeper water when I want my light held high enough in the water to cause the crappie to come up from deep water, get under the light, look up or stay right on the outside edge of the light in the dark to spot the live minnows with which we’re fishing. I also use red LED lights in my boat, so my party and I can see to dip up minnows, bait our hooks and find anything in the boat we need.”
What’s Hutto’s other night crappie fishing equipment
Hutto fishes with a 6’ B’n’M rod, and on the bottom of his line, he ties either a Tru-Turn or a Mr. Crappie No. 2 or a No. 1/0 wire hook. He prefers to use larger hooks, especially on Lake Washington with its big crappie. He’ll fish with 6-pound test line with a BB shot about 6 inches above the hook to help get his minnow or his jig down when fishing with a slip bobber. The bobber causes the minnow to stop falling at 5 feet, putting his bait ½-foot above the crappie.
“I always like to have my bait about 6 inches above the crappie’s head,” Hutto said. “Then I can set the hook with my reel and reel the fish right to the boat when the crappie bites, instead of having to jerk my pole up to set the hook. The bobber will slide down the line close to the hook and allow me to reel in the fish much easier than if I have a longer pole.”
Dodge the sun, fish according to the Solunar Tables, have more fun, and often catch more and bigger crappie at night with Will Hutto’s tactics.
How Hutto fishes from docks at night
Hutto mentions that some of his friends have docks outside their Lake Washington cabins, and these techniques also will work on public wooden docks.
“Some nights we take screw-in rod holders and put out eight B’n’M poles around a dock,” he said. “Then we unscrew the rod holders in the morning and take them with us when we finish fishing.”
Hutto uses a 10’ B’n’M pole when fishing from a dock to get his bait out in front of the dock. He tightlines minnows, instead of using lighted corks.
“We aren’t just catching crappie that come out from under the docks,” Hutto said. “Crappie move in and out of shallow water all night, and we catch the crappie coming and going. They’ll come out from the docks to feed and move to deeper water or swim from deep to shallow water to feed.”
Hutto and a partner may catch only 15 keeper crappie on a night when crappie aren’t biting well at docks. They may catch 30-40 crappie with this tactic when the crappie are active. A mistake nighttime crappie fishermen may make is that they only fish docks with lights shining into the water.
“I’ll often catch more and bigger crappie on the docks without lights because most night crappie anglers don’t fish them,” Hutto said.
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