Tony “Big T” Sheppard is a competitive crappie angler and crappie lure designer that shares some great tips on targeting crappie as they transition from spring to summer. In this video, he talks power trolling, subtle presentations, and vertical jigging while using your electronics to pinpoint crappie. As well as casting lighter jigs to shallower crappie you see on the screen to avoid spooking fish. He also plays around with colors and explains why he uses a bigger jig than a lot of other anglers with his power trolling technique.
He talks crappie behavior as well around the spawn and post spawn when moving out on deeper cover as the water warms up and stabilizes going into the summer.
Some good discussion on his favorite jig setup which is a 1/4 ounce Jenko Big T Slasher jighead with a Jenko Big T Mermaid tail on 14-foot Jenko Slab City rods and 8-pound hi-vis line and Daiwa CR80 reels.
He uses his Humminbird units to find brush, stake beds and stumps, and then uses a combination of his waypoints and 360 imaging to get on milk runs of cover on these deeper flats coming out of spawning bays. Then uses Garmin Panoptix units to pinpoint the fish around the cover as well as make sure his jig stays in the strike zone longer.
