Have you seen the new Wedge Tail Minnows by Stanley Lures? Well I’m telling you that if you haven’t then you are missing out on the finest crappie lure ever made.
Let me tell you about them and then I will tell you how I am using them and how you to can catch more giant crappie than you ever have in the past with other jigs.
The Stanley Wedge Tail Minnow is small one inch soft plastic bait that is shaped like a small minnow or bait fish. The Wedge Tail also comes in larger sizes as well, but for crappie I love throwing the one inch. The Wedge Tail comes in several colors and can be fished on painted or unpainted jig heads. The size of your jig head depends both on the size lure you are using and the depth that you are fishing. With the one inch I like the unpainted 1/16th oz. with a red hook I will also tip it with a Berkley crappie nibbles for a scent attractant and I will also ad even more scent by spraying the Wedge Tail with the new Stanley garlic spray. This really works!
Now for things to do to help you catch more and bigger crappie. I like to brush up fishing holes or put another way I like to put out brush piles to fish. You can use several different things as attractors such as willow trees, cedar trees or Christmas trees, bamboo poles, one by four board, tires, the new plastic attractors and the list can go on and on. What I like best is the willows and cedar trees. It just seems to me that these will attract more fish but all are good.
Next in placing my brush I like to start early in the year, but you don’t have to, this is just my own rather. Next you will want to get a good lake map and look for out of the way places where you have creek channels, sloughs or even river channels close by. Now I said out of the way places, meaning behind points or just in places you can fish even in the wind. After you locate these spots on your map then motor your boat out to the places you want to mark to place your brush and look at them very good with your Lowrance electronics and make sure that you are in a good place. Then weight your brush down and drop it into the lake. Now that you have dropped your brush into the lake you will either need to make land markings to remember your spot or do as I do and store it into your Lowrance GPS unit and name the spot. If you do this you can always find your location and cut down on your looking time and this means a lot when you only have a short time to fish as many folks do.
Next how I rig the Wedge Tail Minnow on the jig head and how I fish it. First I hold the minnow up right so that it has its top fins up right. I then will insert the jig head hook into the minnow bringing the hook out through the top of the minnow just behind the top dorsal fin. After this I will spray it with the garlic scent and then place the Berkley nibble on the hook. Now I am ready to fish.
Now I locate my boat to one side or the other of my brush pile and cast out my Wedge Tail Crappie jig and let it sink down to the top of my brush and when I feel it bump the top of my brush I then will start my retrieve back to the boat giving the jig a small twitch with my rod and I repeat this all the way back to the boat. The rod and reel I use for this is the Shimano 500 reel and a five foot ultra lite Shimano Compre Spinning rod and six pound test Berkley line in a clear color. With all these combinations all you have to do is chunk and wine.
This month try the New Stanley Wedge Tail Minnows and see for yourself that the Wedge Tail Minnow is the very best crappie bait on the shelf today.
Hey if you’re not a crappie fisherman and you just like catching bass well here’s what you will want to do this month for bass. You will find the bass doing good early and late up in the shallows on Stanley 3/8ths oz. blood spot spinner baits and on the Stanley Ribbit Frog. Up during the day you will find bass doing well on Carolina rigs and DD22 crank baits.
Sand bass and Hybrids are good on Rat-L-Traps early and late in the shallows and on the main lake points and up during the day you can catch them on spoons and on shad colored swim baits.
Fish slow for best results no matter what type of fish you are going after.
If you’re coming to Lake Palestine or Lake Fork and need a guide then give me a call at (903)561-7299 or (903)530-2201 or email me [email protected]
Until next time remember to keep only the fish you can use and release the rest so our children to can enjoy the great sport we call fishing
Your Lake Palestine and Lake Fork Guide
Ricky VandergriffBy: Ricky Vandergriff
