North Louisiana Crappie Fishing Report with John Godwin

March 17, 2025

North Louisiana Crappie Fishing Report with John Godwin

Phillip Gentry

 

Last time we brought you the news that famed Duck Dynasty TV personality John Godwin had made the switch from making duck calls to catching slab crappie for a living, all the while wielding his new signature B’n’M fishing pole - Godwin’s Crappie Cast.

As promised, this time Godwin wanted to talk about the awesome crappie fishing available on his home waters at Lake D’Arbonne, located in the northern part of Louisiana, and a couple of the other local venues that have secret stashes of crappie.

“Since I started guided for crappie a few months ago, it’s been mostly on Lake D’Arbonne, which has a good population of both black and white crappie in it. D’Arbonne is a great lake for longline trolling, which will heat up once the water temperatures get into the 50’s,” said Godwin. “The other lake I fish is Caney Lake, located east of the town of Jonesboro.”

For long line trolling, Godwin prefers B’n’M’s line of Duck Commander trolling rods.

Caney Lake is a deep clear lake that is well known across the state for its good population of trophy largemouth bass, including the state record 16-pounder. Godwin refers to it as a hilly lake with an average depth of 25 – 40 feet in most areas. Due to its mostly black crappie population, his preferred tactic on Caney is to seek out fish on forward facing sonar and pitch baits to them with his signature crappie pole.

“I do some electronics classes here, showing folks who are interested in getting the hang of Livescope fishing,” he said, “but this rod is also good for throwing a whacky rig to those largemouth bass, it’s got the right amount of backbone and taper to handle a good bass or boat flip a 2-pound crappie.”

Godwin said his favorite style of crappie fishing is long line trolling. When the water begins to warm in March he’ll head over to D’Arbonne and start pulling jigs. As more of a lowland reservoir, the lake offers plenty of shallow bays and bayous that are studded with stumps and stickups along the lake floor. Slow trolling crappie jigs behind the boat is a great way to entice crappie as they suspend around and above this bottom structure.

Godwin sets up his Sea Ark Flex fishing boat with eight poles. On each side of the boat, he will start with the shortest rods toward the back and the longest rods closer to the front of the boat. He uses a 10-foot B’n’M Duck Commander Trolling rod closest to the stern, followed by a 12-foot Duck Commander next in line and a 14-foot Duck Commander trolling rod after that.

“Big crappie will hold real shallow in the old sloughs as the water warms up, when you troll over them, you tend to push them out to the sides of the boat. That’s why I like the longer trolling rods,” said Godwin. “I even started using a 16-footer all the way up. It’s a B’n’M Prostaff Trolling rod. It seems like those outer rods end up catching all the better fish.”

Godwin said expect big crappie to suspend shallow during the pre-spawn in D’Arbonne’s old sloughs and bayous as the weather warms.

Godwin said he like to troll in locations that are also holding some bait but not too much bait. He doesn’t want to compete with huge schools of easy prey for the fish’s attention. He also has some historical spots that he fishes because it seems like they always hold fish. He said there’s no real rhyme or reason to it, but he likes to know there is at least some bait in the area before he sets poles out.

“It’s hard to see the bait on the graph, they’re so high up in the water,” he said. “The 1/32-ounce jigs will get down to about 3 feet when you pull them at one mile per hour and the 1/16-ounce jigs will get to about 6 feet at one mile an hour. That’s with using 6-pound test line.”

Lake D’Arbonne is an established slab crappie fishery and very accommodating to long line trolling.

Godwin said his top pick of baits are the Slab Curlies made by Crappie Magnet and that bait colors are typically based on water clarity. His favorites in clear water are purple and chartreuse and a color called Sho Nuff which he describes as the color “Monkey Milk” with a chartreuse tail.

Godwin is proud that his guide business is really taking off and folks who’d like to get on the water with him can contact him through his website at godwinguides.com where they can book online. He also said to hurry because spaces are filling up fast.

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Where ever fishing takes you, B’n’M has been there. Visit our website at bnmpoles.com

 

 

 

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