Arizona Crappie Fishing

ARIZONA CRAPPIE FISHING

Almost every area of Arizona has a pond or lake inhabited by crappie. Fun to catch and good to eat, these fish are a bonanza to Arizona’s anglers. There is no limit on crappie except for these waters: on the Colorado river from Separation Canyon to Davis Dam, including Mead and Mohave the limit is fifteen, on Lake Powell it is ten, on Roosevelt it’s fifteen, and on the Colorado River from the California/Nevada border to the international boundary with Mexico, including Havasu and Topock Marsh, the limit is 25 in any combination with sunfish.

Crappie fishing really takes off in the spring as the fish move up into shallow water to spawn, and this is when shore fishermen with bobbers and minnows can fill the cooler with good-sized fish. Fly-fishermen on the ponds near Williams and Payson often catch crappie while trout fishing, and the central Arizona reservoirs are full of crappie fishermen.

Curt Rambo is easily one of the most famous crappie fishermen around, not just in Arizona, but all over the country. Curt lives in Tonto Basin, so Roosevelt lake is his home water, but his crappie techniques will work for you no matter where you fish.

“The three most important things to a crappie fishermen are his jigs, his line, and his buoys,” states Curt. The size of your jig affects your casting, the rate of fall, the depth you fish at, and the speed of your retrieve. As a general rule, Rambo prefers a 1/32-ounce (or even lighter) jig for fishing from one to twelve feet deep, a 1/16-ounce jig for twelve to twenty-two feet, and a 1/8-ounce jig for twenty-two to forty-five feet.

Curt fishes for crappie with 2″ Berkley Power Grubs, either chartreuse or pearl white, and white and blue pearl 1-1/2 inch Creme Lures Lit’l Fishies —  he’ll rig a whole bag full of them on the jigheads before a trip. He usually starts with the chartreuse grubs, occasionally switching to the pearl white if the fish seem to want something different.

Your line, says Curt, needs to be strong, thin, light, and have some, but not a lot, of stretch. He uses Berkley Trimax or Trilene XL in four-pound-test. Light line helps the small jigs fall better and move more naturally in the water. A thin diameter keeps the line invisible to fish, and the stretch keeps the hook from tearing out of the crappie’s mouth when you set the hook. He also uses braided line — it lets you set the hook well even in deep water, and if you pull steadily on a stuck bait you can usually get it free on braid.

As for buoys, Curt says that most of the year the crappie will be concentrated in schools, sometimes on a single bush or rockpile. Once you find the crappie, you have to mark the spot or you’ll lose the fish.

When the water reaches about 62 degrees, Curt explains, the crappie start moving up shallow. The rest of the time they stay deep, usually even deeper than bass do. When crappie are shallow, Curt ties on a 1/32- or even a 1/48-ounce jig and casts up into brush in the backs of coves or on flats where crappie might spawn. The rest of the time he starts looking for the crappie with his graph.

When searching for crappie, Rambo begins by looking for a tree or some brush in 17 to 22 feet of water. At Roosevelt, this is the level that most of the crappie use most of the year, he says. He’ll fish a good tree or brushpile even if he doesn’t actually see fish around it, because sometimes they hold so tight that they don’t show up on the LCR.

“I throw a buoy out on the spot,” he explains, “then back off and cast past the buoy, letting the lure fall to just above where I think the fish are before I start retrieving it. Crappie feed up and out, so it’s better to keep the lure above them. When the bite slows down, then I move right over the tree or bush and work the lure vertically.”

Detecting a bite takes a bit of practice, because most of the time the crappie are not tugging–they just come up under the lure and suck it in. Once you make your cast, it’s vitally important to watch your line. A twitch or sudden slack in the line means you better set the hook, and Curt sets almost like a bass fisherman.

“I had a guy tell me once that you can’t set the hook on a crappie like that,” Rambo says with a grin, “but I’ve caught plenty of them that way.” He keeps the rod tip up, especially when the bite is really light, and that makes it easier to watch the line. When he sees or feels a bite, he snaps the rod up and starts cranking.

Rambo says the rod you use for crappie fishing needs to be an ultra-light that can cast very light lures but still have enough backbone to set the hook and get a two-pound fish in the boat.  The slip-on rings that some ultra-light spinning rods use are often apt to slip-off,  he says, leaving you with a rod in one hand and a reel in the other, so make sure you tape the reel into the seat or check the rings constantly. (continued after photos)

Crappie on a Lit’l Fishie
Netting crappie is recommended, especially if it’s a big one — they don’t call them “papermouth” for nothing!
John Anderson (l) and Curt Rambo (r) at Roosevelt with a couple of nice crappie.
Another crappie on a Lit’l Fishie.
This is Curt’s favorite Lit’l Fishie color. He glues them on the dart heads by the dozens to save time on the water.
Curt with a really nice crappie by Haystack on Roosevelt.

We were out with Rambo in February.  Several warm days had started moving the crappie up, and Rambo headed straight for the Salt end of the lake, zeroing in on a certain bush he’d scouted. This bush was out in front of the mouth of a large cove, and it held some nice fish. Getting the knack of letting the lure fall far enough down without getting it snagged in the bushes took some time, but not as long as you’d think.

We were using 1/16-ounce jigs with chartreuse Power Grubs, and the fish were taking them very lightly–there was no feeling of a bite, just a slight line jump when the fish took the lure. Fishing was a bit slow, Curt said, but he added that a few warm nights would make all the difference in the world.

“Crappie move up quicker than bass when the water warms up,” he told us, “but a cold front will move them back down even faster.” If crappie are really deep and the bite is tough, that’s when Curt switches tactics and starts vertically jigging the tiny leadheads for stubborn crappie.

“When crappie are deeper than twenty-five feet,” he explained, “they are probably suspended a couple feet off the bottom. I don’t start fishing until I see something–either fish or a good tree or rockpile. Once I see one, I throw my buoy out, then get right on top of the tree and start jigging.”

To vertical jig these deep crappie, Curt says, start by dropping the jig right down to the bottom. Put the rod tip on the surface and crank your line taut so the jig is still on the bottom and your rod tip is still on the surface. Now crank the reel handle once around, lift your rod until it’s horizontal, then start jigging by slowly raising the rod tip up a foot or two and lowering it back to the horizontal position.

“Nine times out of ten the fish will bite when the lure is falling,” he declared, “but if they are up four feet or more off the bottom, sometimes they want to hit the lure as you lift it past them.” When the fishing is reallytough, he says, just keeping the lure a few feet off the bottom and moving the boat around slowly without moving the rod at all is the key to getting bit.

Curt finds crappie by searching carefully with his graph. He concentrates on likely areas for season, the water temperature, and the weather conditions. There are short periods of time in fall and spring when crappie are shallow, and the rest of the year they spend in deeper water. Most of the time they’ll be in the bowl of the belly of a cove, he says, right where the brush grew before the water rose over it. Get in the middle of a cove and look for brush or rockpiles and fish them, he says. If the fish are shallow, you’ll just have to cast to shore until you find them.

The reason Curt prefers the really light jigs for shallow water is that you can’t fish a heavier one slowly enough, he says. He’ll go so far as to drop down to a 1/48-ounce jig head to fish in very shallow brush. If the fish are scattered along a bank at ten feet or so, he’ll tie on a 1/8-ounce jig and move the boat slowly along the shore, keeping the lure at the right depth without jigging it.

When the crappie are deeper, he says you just have to search around for brush and try everything you find. There may be only one or two good crappie bushes on an entire flat, but once you find them, you can alternate between them all day and catch fish. If the bite turns off on one bush, go to the other one. By the time the fish turn off there, the first bush should be good again.

Curt Rambo has gained a national reputation as a crappie expert by hard work and practice. You can become an expert on the pond or lake near you the same way. Get out there and look for brush and trees. Use the right equipment, pay attention to your line, and you’ll soon learn where the crappie live on your home waters all year long.

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Margaret Anderson

I'm an Arizona native and daughter of an Ojibwa Indian dad who took me camping, shooting, and hunting all my life. My husband and I love to hike with our grandkids, fish, hunt, shoot, and explore in our Hella Yella Jeep Wrangler. I've been an outdoor writer for over 30 years and have written for pretty much all the major fishing magazines, The Arizona Republic (I did the outdoor page til they discontinued it), and many online sites. I absolutely love to help people find fun things to do with their kids and grandkids. I've received the Arizona Outdoor Writer of the Year award three times and in 2021 I was inducted into the Arizona Outdoor Hall of Fame.