With drought conditions and drawdowns affecting crappie fisheries across many areas of the country, crappie anglers are faced with less than ideal water levels. Here’s how to pull the plug on low-water troubles.

Depending on where your local waters are located, it’s likely that you either are experiencing or will experience an all-too-common occurrence — reservoirs at dramatically less than full pool levels.

A number of factors may leave your fishing grounds high and dry this summer. Blame it on global warming, excessive water consumption, changes in dam-reinforcement standards or any number of causes. The fact remains that low water is one more challenge many crappie anglers will have to deal with.

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To adapt to the challenges presented by low water, crappie anglers must go through an attitude adjustment, make some pre-trip preparations and changes to their tackle and equipment, as well as employ some special low-water tactics.

Whitey Outlaw is a noted crappie tournament angler and lifelong crappie fisherman. His home waters are the Santee-Cooper Lakes of South Carolina. Over the past winter and spring, Santee’s water levels hit their lowest level in 50 years. While most crappie anglers were left up on the beach, Outlaw continued to bring in his share of Santee slabs. The crappie veteran shares some of his secrets for catching crappie in places that most people have given up on.

Pre-Fishing
Before hitting the water, Outlaw spends hours pouring over topo maps — even on his home lake.

“I’ll go to the map and look for deeper channels and try to spot deeper structure,” he says. “Then once I’m on the water, I can spend time in this deeper structure trying to locate specific areas that hold crappie. Trial and error really comes into play where low water is concerned. I don’t overlook any small areas that could concentrate fish.”

While low-water conditions reduce the area crappie can utilize, it doesn’t reduce the number of crappie in a body of water. Because of this, crappie will be bunched up, and a very small area can hold a large number of fish. Fish will find places that most anglers would never think to look for them. Ditches, channels, washouts and even an isolated pool on the backside of a sandbar may hold low-water crappie.

“You’ll have to do a lot of moving around to find that one area that’s holding fish,” says Outlaw.

Crappie anglers can save themselves some searching time by using a highlighter and a map that shows elevation levels in specific increments. Contact your local climatological center and determine the number of feet the reservoir is below full pool. If this number is 10 feet, then the new water level will be 10 feet less than what is indicated on the map.

Also, determine if the map you are using indicates altitudes (shown by lines parallel to the shore) in 1-, 5- or 10-foot increments. In the previous example, if using a map that shows a line for every 5-foot increment, color in two rings from the water’s edge. The end result will be a graphical illustration of the new lake level. The inside edge of the area you colored in is the new shoreline. Now search for likely places that could hold crappie within the next two to four rings (10 to 20 feet).

While you’re scouting on the map, be sure to note the water depths around likely boat ramps that will be used for access. Many municipalities, utility companies or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers may provide a listing of boat-ramp closures or warnings that may save you some time trying to find a way to access the areas you’ve targeted.

Improve Your Tackle
For late-spawn or post-spawn crappie, normal water levels provide 5 to 10 feet of water overhead, creating a comfort zone that acts as a security blanket for crappie. Remove the security blanket and you have a bunch of spooky fish. In this scenario, finesse tactics become the norm. This requires the angler to downsize his baits and line, use more sensitive rods and employ a stealthy approach.
“Sometimes you may have to sneak up on these shallow-water fish, and for that I like a smaller boat,” Outlaw says. “Low water exposes a lot of stumps and rocks that will wreak havoc on a big fiberglass boat and heavy outboard motor. My personal choice is a small 16- or 18-foot aluminum johnboat powered with a lighter 30-hp Yamaha motor. A smaller boat means less equipment to tear up, and it is also more maneuverable to work around stickups and shallow sandbars.”

Outlaw also firmly believes in upgrading to a more sensitive rod when low water makes crappie spooky. Being a pro staff member for B’n’M poles with his own signature series of rods makes upgrading easy. The Whitey Outlaw Santee Elite rod was designed to deftly pick crappie from deep water within grass beds and out from under cypress knees. It’s also great for extending out to isolated cover and picking off spooky crappie. The Santee Elite has no guides, as the line runs through the rod blank. This design permits the line to lie directly on the entire length of the rod blank rather than on rod guides, which are only connected to the blank at intervals along the rod’s exterior. Any small tap or bump is telegraphed to the angler.


The typical line size for Outlaw’s Santee Elite rod is 10-pound test. For low water, he’ll drop down a notch or two, depending on how thick the cover is. His normal offering is a 1⁄16-ounce jighead with a solid-body tube jig. In low water, especially when fish are shallower, he’ll scale back to a 1⁄32-ounce jighead on 6- or 8- pound test, all in the name of finesse fishing and not spooking shallow fish.

Outlaw pours his own jigheads using a Do-It ball-head jig mold. He prefers to use a smaller No. 4 hook when scaling back on his baits. His presentation is straight down around the base of exposed cover. This is made easier by the Santee Elite rod, which comes in lengths as long as 12 feet so the angler can stay a good distance away from the cover being fished.

Low-Water Tactics
While it may sound simple to subtract the missing water level from the normal pool and then locate available structure, the way crappie relate to the exposed or reduced cover and the access issues that result from less water mean that the crappie angler will need to alter his tactics in order to catch fish. A submerged stump field may be an ideal place to troll for crappie under normal water levels but is a nightmare hiding in plain sight when the stumps and stickups are protruding from the water.

“During this past year, the crappie were limited as to where they could go,” explains Outlaw. “In some ways, they were easier to find, pattern and catch because they were stacked up on the closest structure to the shoreline. The fish wanted structure — formerly deep-water wood structure on the closest break. They’ll stay near the bank until the water comes back up because their instinct is to spawn on a shallow flat. If the water comes up, the crappie will go shallow to spawn. However, if the water level stays low or even falls, they’ll keep moving out to deeper water and spawn where they find suitable structure.”

This means that trolling or casting to the fish can be all but impossible. While vertical jigging may be the way to go, establishing a process of elimination helps to prevent spooking the fish before the angler even gets a chance to present a bait to them.

An often-overlooked factor during low-water conditions is a crappie’s propensity to relate to even the slightest breaklines.

“Normal conditions may require a 5-foot or greater drop to be utilized by crappie as a travel route and staging area,” Outlaw says. “Less water overhead makes a 1- to 2-foot drop just as appealing given the alternatives.”

The best approach is to start deep on a travel route that you had marked on your topo map. Using either a bow-mounted trolling motor, sculling oar or push pole, work your way along the break from the deep end, presenting your bait vertically on each piece of structure within reach as you work your way to the shallows.

Formerly deep brushpiles that are now only partially submerged should be worked in the same fashion. Start on the deep-water side of the structure and methodically work your way to the shallow side. Keep in mind that crappie may be lying flat on the bottom to maximize water depth.
“Work the area thoroughly, making sure you bump the bottom with the jig,” Outlaw explains.



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