A kayak is the perfect platform for crappie fishing, allowing you to get close to the vertical structure that crappie love without spooking them. A kayak also places you low to the water, enabling side-arm casts that can skip a jig way up under a dock in search of fat slabs that hold to the shadows.
If you’re new to crappie fishing, or just new to ‘yaks, you might want to know more about fishing for crappie from a kayak.
If so, keep reading – we’ll cover everything you need to to know to get started!
Table of Contents (clickable)
Crappie: A Very Brief Introduction
The genus Poxomis has two very popular species, P. annularis and P. nigromaculatus. Whether you know them as sac-a-lait, papermouths, calico bass, or any of their dozen or so nicknames, they’re all crappie.
The black and white crappie are among America’s most beloved game fish. Easy to catch, fun to fight, and delicious to eat, I know very few anglers who’ll turn up their noses at catching these speckled predators.
Like most species, crappie spawn in spring, beginning their life cycle as tiny fry. As they grow, they graduate from a diet of marine invertebrates, eventually becoming almost entirely piscivorous or fish-eating.
Live minnows are among the best baits you can use to catch mature crappie, with artificial jigs running a close second.
According to Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources, “White crappie tolerate more turbid water and tend to inhabit more rivers and reservoirs, while black crappie are more often associated with more clear water lakes. White crappie are more often associated with brush and standing timber while black crappie tend to be found in and around weed beds.”
That’s generally true in our experience, with crappie sticking close to vertical cover like stumps and trees, as well as live weed beds and submerged brush piles.
Crappie have the habit of schooling, and they’ll often suspend at a particular depth.
That makes a good fish finder especially valuable for locating an active school.
If you’d like to read more about crappie, check out these articles:
Trouble Catching Slabs? Our Top Crappie Fishing Tips & Techniques Are Guaranteed To Help!
What Is The Best Time in Each Season To Catch Crappie?
Getting to Know Crappie: The Black and White of Identification
What Do Crappie Eat? A Quick Guide
Our Top Tips for Crappie Fishing from a Kayak
Get in close
One advantage kayaks have over power boats is stealth.
A quiet kayak can get in close, allowing for precise casts.
Even the quietest trolling motor makes more noise than a paddle dipped carefully into the water, and a kayak gliding into place near a forest of half-submerged stumps simply won’t spook slabs into running for cover.
That allows kayak anglers chasing crappie to move in close, make shorter casts, and place their jigs with pinpoint precision.
Learn more about kayak fishing here: Kayak Fishing – Top Tips For Angling From A Kayak
Find the brush piles
Crappie stick to vertical structure, live weed beds, and brush piles like a stain on your favorite shirt, and wherever you find these features, you’re going to find slabs.
Trees, stumps, and pilings are pretty obvious, but submerged brush piles and weed beds take something extra to locate.
You’ll want a top-flight fish finder like the Lowrance Elite FS 7 for your ‘yak, and you’ll want to use its sensitive sonar to find brush piles and mark them on the contour maps it’ll create.
To see all our recommending fish finder options please check out our full buying guide: Best Kayak Fish Finders – Real Reviews By Kayak Anglers
Use your fish finder to find and mark every brush pile on your lake.
With a super-detailed contour map created by the Lowrance’s software, you’ll have every advantage against the slabs.
And when you are fishing a submerged brush pile, the high-tech sonar on the Elite FS 7 is simply amazing, especially in Active Target mode, where it creates a live-action picture of what’s going on down there.
You’ll see every crappie, watch your jig in action, and know exactly what’s happening at every moment.
Use the right hooks
Crappie often go by the nickname “papermouths.” That’s because their expanding jaws are composed of thin membranes that tear easily.
Paper-thin mouths have earned the crappie a reputation.
If you want an in-depth analysis of hook selection for crappie, check out this article:
Hook More Crappie More Often: Best Hooks For Crappie Reviewed
The basics are that you need to use a larger hook than you’d think given the body size of crappie, starting with sizes like #2 and #4, and moving up to even #1 when we’re rigging really big minnows.
For a variety of reasons, Aberdeen-style hooks are the best bet.
Most crappie anglers prefer Aberdeen-style hooks.
First off, they feature a wide gap – the measure of the distance between the shank and the point. That distance creates more surface area, spreading the load across the crappie’s lip and preventing a tear-out.
Second, they’re made from light wire, which has two advantages. Not only do they keep minnows alive longer than thicker designs, but they also can be bent and unbent with relative ease, allowing you to snag them on brush piles and still get your hook back – and back into shape!
Light lines and light rods
Good crappie rods are extra sensitive.
Ultralight and light rods are just perfect for papermouths, especially since they provide a bit of give on the hooks and fight, helping you avoid tearing your hook loose.
These rods are also sensitive enough to allow you to feel a shy strike, a gentle bump, or the almost undetectable suck of a slab swallowing your jig.
For my money, nothing beats a 6-foot, ultralight St. Croix Premier. Long enough to cast well and sensitive enough to feel every twitch of my jigs, it’s just an amazing rod for panfish of all kinds.
A good ultralight or light rod is a must for crappie.
But if that option is too spendy for you, no need to worry. I own and love a Bass Pro Shops Micro Lite that just plain works, and from handle to tip, it’s an excellent rod that won’t break the bank.
I’ve been fishing a Bass Pro Shops Micro Lite Elite Spinning Reel for years, and it’s never given me any trouble whatsoever.
Small reels are the way to go for paper mouths, and you don’t need to spend an arm and a leg to get a good one.
For more of our top picks for a good crappie reel please see our full buying guide: Best Crappie Reels – Tiny Reels That Are Huge On Performance
Jig, jig, jig
Two techniques dominate crappie fishing: rigging a live minnow on an Aberdeen hook beneath a slip float and the humble, but super effective, jig.
A jig is a simple idea, and it’s nothing more than a weighted head with a small hook attached. When combined with a soft plastic trailer, however, it can summon crappie for a strike like a flagpole in a thunderstorm.
Jigging is a precise science, and you’ll want to know exactly what you’re doing. The good news is that we’ve covered this topic before, so take a look:
How to Jig for Crappie: Basics, Tips, and Techniques to Help You Catch More Slabs
The basics are easy to understand.
While our advice about hook size is to go big, we recommend the opposite with your jigs. Stay as small as the wind allows, starting with 1/32 and 1/16 ounce heads.
Tiny jigs with big hooks are just what you need for crappie.
Crappie-specific jigs like Strike King’s Mr. Crappie Jig Heads come with larger hooks like a #2, making them just perfect for slab hunting.
Slip a good soft plastic trailer on your jig, and you’re ready to go. My pick is a Bobby Garland Slab Slay’R. These little guys have a cult following among papermouth addicts.
Slab Slay’Rs do just what their names suggests!
Shootin’ jigs
Once you’ve got your jigs ready to go, you can always suspend them beneath a slip float, cast them next to stump, tree, or piling, and give them a gentle twitch every now and then.
That’s amazingly effective, no question about it!
But if you can find a dock, you’ve got a deadly trick up your sleeve.
Grab the tail of your soft plastic in your off hand, and gently bend your rod to create tension. Then, aiming your bait to skip across the water and up under the dock, let go of the lure.
Pow! You’ve just shot a jig!