Details overlooked by most anglers are difference between catching a boatload or going home empty-handed.
Brad Chappell watched his graph and lines simultaneously as he slow trolled the bountiful waters of Lake Washington.
Chappell’s rods suddenly began jerking down,
and as he reached for one of them, another started jerking towards the water. In short order Chappell had landed a couple of super-sized Lake Washington slabs. He continued his route picking up crappie with seemingly no rhyme or reason. It almost seemed like they were biting at random spots as the open water gave no clues of what it held deep below the surface.
“I’ve spent thousands of hours on the water of Lake Washington learning the lay of the lake and learned the tendencies of the fish,” Chappell said. “I know that the fish are there, but you have to find out where they are and what they want on the day you are fishing. It’s like a game that starts again each time you are on the water.”
There’s just no substitute for time on the water and Chappell pays attention to minute details that are often times overlooked by most anglers. It is precisely those details that mean the difference between catching a boatload or going home empty-handed.
“I’ve got a camp on Lake Washington, and I like to spend the winters up here catching fish and relaxing,” Chappell said. “It may take me a little while but if I have a few hours, I’ll find out where they are and what they want to eat on that particular day.”
While he’s relaxing from the rigors of his daily guided fishing trips throughout most of the year, he’s also looking for new hot spots. He finds them the old-fashioned way by fishing under various circumstances in all weather conditions.
Chappell employs a variety of fishing techniques throughout the year when fishing for crappie and will try several until he finds what they want. He’ll slow troll his long poles when he gets the chance, but he also likes to spider rig jigs from the front of the boat. When the weather and conditions allow, he really enjoys casting Bobby Garland jigs to the hidden slabs that he finds on some of his hot spots.
“If I can find a concentration of crappie around a submerged stump or top, I’ll get about 25 to 30 feet from them and cast to them,” Chappell said. “You can watch your jigs slowly falling on light line on my LiveScope screen and watch the crappie strike the jig. Sometimes you have to get them to bite by enticing that first bite by jerking the jig up and letting it fall as it descends upon them. If you can get them into a feeding frenzy it will set the school off, and you can load the boat.”
I’ve seen Chappell’s expertise firsthand and he’s a pro at catching crappie from deep water brush piles and stumps.
Finding suspended crappie
“From mid-February through mid-March, I’ll target suspended fish that are in the pre-spawn pattern,” Chappell said. “I still like fishing for them in deep water, but they’re just starting to get aggressive and they’re starting to feed up and get that little burst of energy before they go into the process of actually spawning. I’d call that a good pre-spawn pattern and it would be mid-February to late February.
“I’m usually pulling two 1/8-ounce jigs about 1.2 mph and the jigs are going to hit about 12- to 13-feet deep. Some days they may be a little bit shallower, so I’ll use a 1/6- and 1/8-ounce jig.”
After he finds the depth that they’re at, he’ll fish the areas of the lake that have that certain depth. Usually he’s keying on 13 to 16 feet deep water and will target that range and hit those contours as he works his way around the lake.
“After I find an area that has a concentration of the fish that are biting, I’ll work that area back and forth, say maybe a 500-yard area, until they quit biting or we limit out,” he said.
Long line trolling out back
During February and March, Chappell is going to be long line trolling out of the back of the boat.
“I’ll use a 6-pound diameter Hi-Vis line and alternate between a clear line and Hi-Vis line on each pole,” Chappell said. “That way if we get the lines tangled up on a couple poles, we can separate them easier by telling the lines apart.”
Chappell uses rods of various lengths starting with a 9-foot pole straight out the back. Then he will use 12-foot poles on each side, then 15-foot, then 18-foot-long poles to cover more water with less tangles between the rods and lines. Chappell lets out about 70 to 80 feet of line out the back of the boat and the lures will sink to the preferred depth and stay there until they’re bit.
“I typically use a Brad Chappell Signature Series rod that I designed for them,” he said. “You can find them for sale at Grizzly Jigs. This pattern will work all spring.”
During February and March, when the crappie are deep, the sudden cold fronts and weather changes don’t affect them as bad, according to Chappell.
“Cold fronts don’t affect deeper fish as bad,” Chappell said. “If the fish are spread out you can pick them up all along no matter how many boats are out there. Wind doesn’t seem to make much difference to the deep fish either.”
An important thing to remember is that all of the fish in the lake don’t spawn at the same time. Even in March anglers can catch some fish deep. When the spawners have finished and are moving back into the deep water, others are moving shallow to spawn as well.
Chappell’s preferred bait
“I’m a Bobby Garland fan and use those jigs,” Chappell said. “I like the Bobby Garland Strollers for trolling, and I’ve caught tens of thousands of crappie on them. They are a curly style bait, and they create a lot of vibration and that attracts a lot of bites.”
Chappell likes to fish a variety of jig colors on Lake Washington. Some of his favorites are Vegas, Bluegill Fire, Keystone Candy, Glacier and Horse Fly.
LiveScopes
LiveScopes have changed the way top crappie anglers’ fish during tournaments, and it allows anglers to fish for the big crappie. It’s rare these days to see an angler win a tournament who doesn’t prefer fishing the LiveScope. They can target the lunker crappie and weigh in their best five or seven fish with strings that often rival bass tournament winning weights. The technique is just that good.
Some say that the LiveScopes should not be allowed, because they are just that good. But they are just a tool, and it allows knowledgeable anglers the ability to catch those lunkers and release the smaller ones to grow and catch another day. The veteran tournament anglers don’t keep everything they catch so there should be no problem with having plenty of fish left for everybody to catch.
Catch and release
“The limit on Lake Washington is 30 fish per person,” Chappell said. “But I catch and release when I’m just fishing and searching for new spots, and I don’t have to keep 60 fish a day when I go fishing to have some to eat. There’s so many fish in this lake that you can keep a mess almost any time you want so I’ll keep seven or eight fish to eat when I want some and eat them fresh.”
Chappell prefers to catch and release because it allows him to look for bigger fish while releasing the smaller ones so that they can grow up, too. Thankfully, most crappie anglers aren’t gluttons, and they keep a few to eat and throw the rest back to catch another day.
Whether you prefer fishing with a cane pole and minnow, long poling, bottom bumping, casting jigs or single poling, you can be successful at catching fish but you’ve got to spend the time on the water to learn the lay of your lake, what the fish are doing and where they will be located during the time you are on the water. There’s just no substitute for time on the water. You can catch crappie on various techniques on the same lake at the same time.
Chappell’s best crappie was pulled from the bountiful waters of Lake Washington and weighed nearly 4 pounds! If you are looking for some fantastic fishing action, then head to Lake Washington this year and you might just catch the largest crappie you have ever had on a line.
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