It’s Live Action For Lake Oconee Crappie

Editor’s Note: For lots more Oconee crappie fishing information, download Scott’s interview at the GON Outdoors Podcast.

About the time this issue of GON finds itself on coffee tables, my buddy Scott Williams and his dad Billy will be in Grenada, Miss. competing in the Crappie Masters National Championship. That tournament is slated for Sept. 27-28, and I certainly would like to see the boys from Cochran, Ga. bring home that national title. Trust me, they’ve got as good a chance as anybody.

“This tournament has eluded me and daddy for 10 or 12 years,” said Scott. “We’ve been really close several times. Before my dad retires, there is nothing more I’d rather do than win that national championship, and we’re gonna try, but there’s a bunch of good fishermen there trying to do the same thing.”

Scott and his dad Billy finished second at a Crappie Masters tournament on the Alabama River this past spring. They had 14 fish that weighed 31.17 pounds.

Scott, 38, and Billy, 69, are certainly in conversations when you talk about top crappie fishing teams in the Southeast, competing not only in Crappie Masters tournaments but in Crappie USA events, tournaments that send them regularly as far away as Texas. They’ve both won Georgia Slab Masters and the Peach State Crappie classics, some Crappie USA tournaments on Clarks Hill, and Billy won some of those bigger national events on Lake Oconee years ago.

In addition, they are two-time Crappie Master Florida state champions, winners of an Alabama Crappie Master state championship and Crappie Masters anglers of the year. 

“They’re not your normal fishermen,” said Troy Davis, a good friend of mine, also from Cochran, who says these boys have an uncanny sixth sense when it comes to catching crappie.

That was worth a phone call to Scott to see if he’d take me fishing. He agreed, and we met at Lake Oconee at daylight on Sept. 10. We put in at Lick Creek and motored out to the Oconee River run in search of deep, late-summer crappie. The pattern he showed me is the exact pattern that will work in October.

“These fish are about to start feeding heavily to prepare for the cold water that is coming,” said Scott. “Right now these fish are loaded on brush, standing timber, under docks, on bridge pilings. Any structure that will grow algae and attract the baitfish, you’re going to have crappie. It is a prime time right now to catch a limit of crappie.”

Scott said the fall is his favorite time of the year based on the numbers of fish he catches and the quality of fish.

“The later it gets in the fall, October up into November, these fish are going to be putting on weight,” said Scott. 

So it all comes down to how in the world to catch ’em. Scott mentioned four or five ways that will work, but our focus was on vertical jigging in standing timber and shooting docks. 

“I believe anybody right now can go to that timber—whether it be in Sugar Creek or in Richland Creek or up the Oconee River, wherever there is standing timber in that deeper water—and if you know anything at all about fishing, you’re going to catch some fish,” said Scott. “The fish are there.”

Scott said to look for timber that is in 18 plus feet of water. Timber as deep as 40 feet is no problem, but expect most of your crappie to be suspended about 10 to 12 feet from the surface.

LiveScope

“The key to it is knowing you are fishing in productive water,” said Scott. “For so many years without all the technology we now have, I’d say 60 to 65% of the time, we were fishing where there was not any fish. I know with the technology we have now that with every cast, or every time I lower a minnow in the water, it going to be in front of a fish.”

If Scott is going to be competitive on the national tournament scene, he must run some pretty elaborate electronics. If he doesn’t, then he’s just donating money every time he goes to the ramp. Scott uses four different pieces of electronics to help him locate and stay on crappie: 2D sonor, Humminbird Side Imaging, Humminbird 360 Imaging  and the Garmin Panoptix LiveScope. Each piece of equipment serves its own purpose.

Humminbird 360 Imaging

“LiveScope is a cool tool,” said Scott. “It is a live feed, it’s almost like a  camera or a sonogram under the water.”

I’d never been in the boat with LiveScope, but after fishing with it, I can understand why the $1,500 piece of equipment is a game changer for tournament and pleasure anglers. I could watch my jig or minnow travel down in the water column right into a treetop. I watched multiple times as fish came up to meet my bait. One time I watched a crappie eat my bait and then a larger fish chase my crappie to the surface. I looked over the side of the boat and a big striper was about to take a bite out of my crappie. It was unreal.

“As cool as LiveScope is, I understand the average crappie angler simply doesn’t have LiveScope on their boat,” said Scott. “Somebody reading this article shouldn’t be discouraged if they don’t have all the technology. While you may not go out and catch 60 or 70 fish in a day, you can still go out and catch a nice mess of fish right now. It’s just too easy right now not to.”

Before you launch your boat, you’ll need to load up on jigs and minnows. 

“This time of year, you’ll catch so many fish that rarely will I go without at least 100 to 150 minnows in the boat,” said Scott.

Before ever fishing, Scott makes sure the timber he’s looking at has fish in it. Once he finds what he likes, he’ll chunk a marker buoy overboard.

Keep in mind that 100 to 150 is for when Scott is just pleasure fishing and only fishing a rod or two at the time. If you are planning to fish with four of your buddies, you’ll want to bump up that minnow number. Scott kept his minnows in an aerated cooler, and most of them stayed alive on a 95-degree day. He also kept adding ice to the cooler since water that remains cool has more oxygen, resulting in livelier bait.

“For the minnow rig, I like a No. 2 Eagle Claw gold hook on 6- to 8-lb. test. I like that heavier line just because you’re going to be getting hung up some, and I can straighten that hook. I use a 1/2-oz. Water Gremlin made by Bull•Shot. It’s a very simple, single minnow rig,” said Scott.

Scott uses a variety of jigs for vertical jigging timber. Not only does Scott make his own jigs, but he uses Ricky Willis’ SugarBugs, Tony Allen’s A & R jigs and Skipper’s Jigs. Scott uses 1/16-, 1/24- and 1/32-oz. When we fished, we used black/chartreuse, acid rain and pink colors. 

“Color really doesn’t matter. It’s a competition to the bait,” said Scott. “If you have three or four dogs and throw a hot dog in the middle of those dogs,  they are going to race to it. Same thing with those fish. You put one piece of snack down there, and one is so scared the other is going to get it that he is going to try and beat everybody to it. This time of year they are greedy. They want to feed. They are hungry.”

With the bait in the boat, you’re about set. You won’t have to bust the bank to have the right rod and reel setup for this. While Scott was using a 16-foot H&H Pushing Rod, you could take a rod/reel combo from your garage and do the same thing. 

“Vertical jigging is glorified cane pole fishing,” said Scott. “I had a reel on my rod, but I never used the reel. When we started, I stripped out about 12 feet of line and never touched my reel after that. It was just there if I needed to go a little deeper or reel up if I needed to go a little shallower. It is a very simple, yet effective technique.”

With bait and fish catching equipment in the boat, you’re set. Make sure you’ve got a marker buoy as you start idling around in the timber. Even with all his electronics, Scott likes that visible buoy marker in the water when he finds timber, especially timber that tops out below the surface.

“If you see a tree with some rope tied to it, that’s an indicator. Somebody has tied up to that tree and fished there and is planning to come back and fish again,” said Scott.

“A lot of timber is just below the surface. If you can see a cluster of trees with like four or five limbs sticking up, that is a good, thick spot. Fish will generally like to be on that instead of just a single pole a lot of times. That’s a good indicator to fish there.

“Just bump around, just use your  fish finder. You may not have Side Imaging or Down Imaging, but most everybody has 2D sonar, and you’ll see the fish when you get close to it.”  

Once you locate a tree with some fish, chunk out your marker buoy and go fishing. You can start with either a jig or minnow. Some days they will prefer one over the other. The key here is to present your bait in the fish or just above the fish. Your graph will tell you how deep they are.

“Before LiveScope, I used to use the count-down method,” said Scott. “I would count down to 10, let’s say, and then I would start slow reeling it or bouncing it until I got a bite, and then I would duplicate that.” 

The LiveScope did teach me something about crappie. You really need to nail down how they want the bait presented on a certain day. For us, it seemed like most of the fish wanted the bait slowly reeled through the heart of the tree.

“It’s just a trial and error until you get a bite, and then you just duplicate that,” said Scott. “As long as you present that jig in a way that looks natural, that looks like an injured baitfish, those fish are going to bite it.”

For lots more Oconee crappie fishing information, download Scott’s interview at the GON Outdoors Podcast.

October Docks

Scott Williams said October is a great time to shoot docks for crappie that are feeding up for winter.

“You don’t need a depthfinder, just start fishing docks,” said Scott.

In October, look for docks that are in 12 to 18 feet of water. While fishing with the author, Scott just happened to run across a dock in 17 feet of water, and it was easy to catch a dozen crappie from it. Yes, it can be that simple!

“I like a 5 1 /2- to 6-foot H&H rod,” said Scott. “It’s specifically designed to shoot docks. It’s got a fast tip with a good backbone.

“I like a light jig, a 1/32- or 1/24-oz. I can keep that jig in the strike zone longer before the jig goes below the fish. Color really doesn’t matter. I like red and yellow under a dock, but it’s a confidence bait for me. I know guys like white/yellow.”