Trying To Reason With March Snow

I had an interesting discussion with Wade Mansfield over the weekend. Wade is the younger generation behind Grizzly Jig Company, the largest crappie fishing supplier in the country. Wade is also a formidable tournament angler and a member of the American Angler pro-staff fishing team.

Wade’s home lake is Reelfoot in Tennessee — the quake lake that’s been touted as one of the most fertile crappie factories in the country. Team American Angler has been trying to get a few pre-fish days in before the next Crappie Masters one-day on March 7. We were lamenting the typical spring patterns where nice warm weather over the last few days had started to warm the crappie fishing up and then a hard cold front like the one that’s just spread across most of the country loaded with snow and ice will be sending the fish deep again. Since 10 feet is considered deep water for Reelfoot, Wade figures they’ll be back to tight-lining near the bottom once the weather clears but hopes the fish will come up again by the end of the week.

That discussion prompted a question about tight-lining for suspended crappie. Mansfield and his partner have had the best success with either straight minnows or jig-and-minnow combos. I asked him how he kept from spooking crappie when targeting crappie that are suspended only a few feet below the surface.

“We really rely on the long rods in these situations,” Mansfield says. “We’ll use up to 20-footers to reach way out away from the boat.”

I thought about my 12-foot rods and how I love to fuss when the line wraps around the tip and I have to hand-over-hand the rod to unwrap the tangle. I cannot imagine handling a 20-foot rod.

“It takes practice,” Mansfield says, but he insists the learning curve is far offset by the reach that was afforded by the extreme-length rods.

“I don’t think many anglers realize how spooky crappie can get when they get shallow,” Mansfield says. “The shadow of a big boat plus the noise and commotion created by the trolling motor will scatter crappie. I’ve seen what happens first hand while scuba diving or snorkeling around the dock, the slap of a boat paddle or any commotion will make them dart off. They’ll return, but it takes a while.”

Good luck to Wade and all the competitors this weekend. In the meantime, I guess I’ll go back to re-lining reels and pouring jigs and hope that the 3 inches of snow we got tonight won’t send us all back to square one.

Phillip Gentry
pgentry6@bellsouth.net