Catching Cold-Water Crappie With Joey Mines

February 06, 2025

Catching Cold-Water Crappie with Joey Mines

Phillip Gentry

 

Many years ago, on West Point Lake in Southwestern Georgia, B’n’M pro-staffer and crappie fishing guide Joey Mines made a startling discovery while trying to locate a few wintertime crappie. Water temperatures had settled decidedly below the 50-degree mark and West Point, widely known for its abundant crappie population, looked like a barren desert.

“Now this was years before we had the sophisticated sonar units, the Livescope and such that we use today,” said Mines. “Finding bait was no problem, West Point has always been full of bait on deep water flats anywhere from 15 - 30 feet deep, but it was hard to find a crappie.”

Out of sheer luck, patience, and perseverance, Mines finally happened to hook a crappie that started him on a wintertime fishing pattern that’s he’s still using, some 40 years later.

Calm days with little wind and no boat traffic work best.

“That fish was laying on the bottom, and when I say on the bottom, I mean right on the bottom in the mud with no stumps, no brush, no structure of any kind close by,” he said.

In observing the cold-water fish, he began to put together a few clues that helped explain what he had discovered. The first was the color of the fish, it was stark white with no hint of coloration except for what could only be described as mud stains on its underbelly. The second was that once he had managed to catch this fish, it didn’t take him long to catch another, and then another. The third was when he did get a bite, it was so light, he would have never noticed it if he wasn’t paying attention.

“It’s like they were schooled up tight, except they were all laying on the bottom. Like they were huddled up on that muddy bottom, trying to stay warm, and weren’t really feeding” he said.

Fast forward to today and Mines regularly books crappie fishing trips to catch wintertime crappie using a method he calls drop shotting.

The pattern starts when the water temps dip below 60 degrees and only gets better the colder the water gets.

“I’ve caught fish like this when the water temperature was 39 degrees, that’s pretty cold for this area,” he said.

1.      Winter crappie school tightly on the bottom, so catching one fish is usually the start of multiple hookups.

Mines uses up to six B’n’M Buck’s Graphite Jig Poles from the front of his guide boat, each one set in a rod holder. He’s found his tactic works best further away from the boat, so he uses either 12- or 14-foot rods, depending on the comfort level of the clients he’s fishing.

“I use 12-pound high-vis yellow line on a small baitcating reel,” he said. “The rig is a three-way swivel with two 18-inch droppers. At the end of one dropper is a 1-ounce weight and the other has a #2 Aberdeen hook with a live minnow. The droppers are the same length, so the weight is touching the bottom and the minnow if fluttering right down there with it, about a foot from the weight.”

Mines added a couple of tips that make this tactic work. He normally finds deep water flats near the mouth of a major tributary and he’s looking for muddy bottom with no structure around. He’s also looking for a layer of baitfish above the area. In the wintertime, it’s common for baitfish to layer up somewhere between the surface and ¾ of the way to the bottom.

“Crappie aren’t actively feeding on this bait, but they’re following it, or at least hanging out below it,” he said. “It also has to be pretty calm, no wind, no boat wake, no other waves to rock the boat.”

The cold water gives crappie and almost bleached white appearance.

Mines drops the baited lines to the bottom and tightens the line, then using his trolling motor, he’ll bump around the area, paying very close attention to the rod tip.

“You won’t see these fish on Livescope because they are right on the bottom and not moving,” he said. “They’ll just gently suck the bait in and if you don’t set the hook right then, they’ll let it go.”

The upside is that once you get that first fish on, it’s not uncommon to catch several more or even limit out in a 50 square foot area.

“It’s tough fishing and it requires you to really watch the rod tip to see the bite,” he said, “but for wintertime crappie, I don’t think you’ll find a more consistent pattern.”

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To book a guided fishing trip on West Point Lake with Joe Mines, contact him at (706) 402-3607 or on his website joeymines.com.

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Wherever fishing takes you, B’n’M has been there. For all you fishing needs, visit our website at bnmpoles.com

 

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