From Crappie World Magazine
Locating Riprap Sweet Spots
Story & Photos By John Neporadny Jr.

It’s the easiest structure to find on a reservoir, yet you hardly ever see any crappie anglers fishing it. Head for the face of the dam at your favorite crappie impoundment and you’ll find long stretches of rock riprap that attract a wide variety of fish, including crappie.

“If you are having trouble catching anything, that is a good place to look a lot of times,” says Ronnie Capps, a six-time Crappie USA national champion.

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The Tennessee angler notes that the riprap along the dam has different contours within the man-made structure that provides maximum cover for crappie, bass, catfish and all sorts of sunfish.
Heat-absorbing rocks turn riprap into a fish magnet when the water is cold during spring.
“It attracts a lot of fish then because the rocks heat up a little bit faster, so the water temperature is a little bit warmer there,” says Travis Bunting, a Crappie Masters competitor from Jefferson City, Mo.
Dam riprap provides ideal cover for crappie because it extends from the shallows to deep water on most reservoirs.
“Each lake is different, but on a lot of them, the rocks will go out to 15 to 16 feet,” says Bunting.
Capps has discovered riprap extending as deep as 25 feet on some lakes.
“The riprap is typically a gentle slope on the same grade that you can see on the bank,” he describes.
Although the structure is easy to find, pinpointing the sweet spot on the riprap requires some searching. The riprap on some dams can stretch hundreds of yards and looks uniform on the bank, so anglers have to find the underwater subtleties that hold crappie.
Finding such a spot paid off in a second-place finish for Capps and his fishing partner, Steve Coleman, during a tough Crappie USA tournament a few years ago at Grenada Lake in Mississippi.
“It was almost impossible to get a bite at Grenada,” recalls Capps. “We fished the entire length of that riprap just to locate a couple of spots. The fish were relating to those spots because they were a little different so we sat there for two days fishing those two spots.”
On a return trip to the lake when the water level was low, they discovered the spots were caved-in areas where erosion had exposed some of the mud bottom along the riprap.
Any irregularities in the rocks, jammed logs and sunken brushpiles are also key spots to target crappie along vast stretches of riprap. Bunting relies on his electronics to find the riprap sweet spots.
“We basically make a pass with the Humminbird (997) Side Imaging, and that pretty well explains where we need to start,” he says. “Sometimes when we need to target fish in deeper water, we find the fish where the riprap ends.”
Bunting looks on his depthfinder for the area where the bottom changes from jagged rocks to slick clay. This transition area is where he likes to search for sunken brushpiles and logs that get stuck in the mixture of rocks and mud.

Riprap Tactics
The time of the year and water clarity determine how deep or shallow the crappie pros fish riprap along dams. During spring and fall, Bunting flips tube jigs to the shallow rocks in clear-water situations. For aggressive fish, he and his fishing partner pitch Southern Pro Hot Grubs because the added action of the lure’s curly tail triggers more strikes.
“If it is a little slower bite, we like to go with the (Southern Pro) Magnums because they have a solid, wide body and a lot slower fall,” Bunting says.
Bunting flips tubes and grubs on 1⁄16-ounce jigheads with either 7- or 10-foot rods. In murky water, he sets up for spider-rigging so he can troll a swath from the bank out to 10 to 12 feet deep. He uses a double-jig setup on all of his rods and spaces his jigs about 1 foot apart for trolling close to the bank.
For trolling in deeper water, he and his fishing partner use an inline rig that consists of a weight attached between two jigs. They rely on a 1⁄4- or 3⁄16-ounce Water Gremlin Bull Shot pinch-on bullet sinker for slow-trolling and switch to heavier egg sinkers (up to 11⁄2 ounces) when they want to troll faster. The inline rig usually prevents them from losing tackle if their jigs snag in the rocks.
“All we have to do when we get hung up is just go behind where we got hung and dip the line up and down and the weight will normally pop that hook loose,” says Bunting.
He uses 8- to 10-pound test line when working his lures over the abrasive rocks.
The riprap at Arkabutla Lake in Mississippi served as an excellent windbreaker and a big-fish producer for Capps and Coleman during a blustery March tournament. Capps recalls that they went to the riprap that day mainly to get shelter from the cold and wind but ended up catching several slab crappie in the slack-water areas of the rocks.
Their favorite tactic for riprap crappie in spring is to spider-rig and slowly push jigs so the lures barely skim over the rocks. They use 1⁄16-ounce jigs with 6-pound line for skimming over rocks in depths of 10 feet or less and opt for 1⁄8-ounce jigs and 8-pound test for trolling deeper than 10 feet. They sometimes resort to a 1⁄32-ounce jig if they find fish shallower than 5 feet. Fourteen-foot poles work best for Capps and Coleman when they slow-troll jigs over the riprap.

Trolling at the right speed allows Capps and Coleman to keep their jigs skimming over the rocks without snagging.
“Make sure you are always fishing vertically,” warns Capps. “If you are pulling and going too fast, you are outrunning your jig and will have trouble with snagging. But as long as you are moving ultra-slow and nearly fishing vertical, you can unsnag it by backing up. It will come loose fairly easy.”
Riprap along a dam has also been productive for Capps during summertime. He recalls a 100-degree day in July when he caught several crappie while pulling crankbaits along the face of a dam. The dam was pulling water that day, and the current caused the fish to suspend to 8 feet deep over riprap in depths of 18 to 22 feet.
Capps caught the suspended crappie by pulling a double rig consisting of a Jointed Rapala and a Bandit 200 Series crankbait. He rigged the lures on a three-way swivel with dropper lines and weights ranging from 1⁄4 to 3⁄4 ounce. The Rapala was tied on the top of the rig with the crankbait positioned at the bottom.
Most of the time, Capps pulls crankbaits with 12-pound line, although he has used as heavy as 25-pound test for pulling the lures along riprap areas mixed with brushpiles and logs. He favors trolling rods in 12- to 14-foot models for crankbaits he pulls closest to the boat and opts for 16-foot models for the crankbaits he wants to run on the outer half of his setup.

Wing-Dam Riprap
Rivers offer crappie anglers two types of riprap banks to target. Some crappie can be taken along the riprap of the locks and dams, but the most productive riprap for Louisiana guide Richard Lindsey is on the wing dams of the Red River.
Lindsey catches some crappie from early April to mid-May along the riprap close to the dam. He casts a 3⁄8-ounce casting spoon in the area where the dam wall connects with the riprap and lets the spoon fall 4 to 5 feet deep. Employing a slow retrieve usually produces crappie, white bass and big catfish for the river expert.
The wing dams or dikes are Lindsey’s favorite spots to try for river crappie in early March when the fish are moving from the river to the backwaters and from mid-October to early December when crappie are moving out of the sloughs back to the main river.
Since the Red River contains vast stretches of wing dams, Lindsey avoids fishing the long, straight sections and keys on points or any other spots where the riprap juts out.
“Usually you have to have some characteristic of the river changing its course or creating a little backwater up against the riprap,” says Lindsey. “Anything unusual will hold fish like an outcrop in the rocks or where the dike runs out more into the river.”
Riprap along these wing dams usually extends 30 to 40 feet out from the visible rocks. Keeping a close vigil on his electronics helps Lindsey determine how deep crappie are holding along the riprap.
“Most of the time the fish will suspend a little over the riprap or around the down side where the current is coming around, but sometimes they are really hugging right up against the rock, and it is really hard to see them on the electronics then,” he admits.
Lindsey’s favorite lures for wing-dam riprap are 1⁄8-ounce hair jigs in orange and chartreuse hues and Bobby Garland Baby Shads in green or perch colors. He dips his jig around the rocks with an 11-foot rod and tries to tap the rocks with the lure before pulling it out 3 or 4 feet to let the jig fall deeper. He tries to keep his line as vertical as possible to prevent the jig from snagging in the rocks.
While long stretches of riprap might look imposing to some, savvy anglers know they can catch plenty of crappie on this man-made structure if they pinpoint the hidden treasures in the rocks below.

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