(upbeat music) Hey, everybody, welcome to tonight's Naturally Wild.

My name is Steve Wildman Wilson.

I'm your host here on the show each week.

I want to thank you so much for watching tonight.

Now, if you've been watching this show for the last few weeks, you know we've been talking quite a bit about the upcoming hunting seasons and for good reason.

It's fall in Arkansas.

Hunting seasons are getting ready to really get cranked up.

But did you know that this time of year is also prime time to go fishing?

Yeah, it's a great time to go fishing here in Arkansas.

Here with me this evening to tell you why it's a good time to go fishing is Andy Yung.

He's a fisheries biologist.

Welcome, Andy.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for coming on.

Everybody is getting ready to go hunting.

It's time to go fishing.

Isn't it?

Exactly.

That's right.

You can get out there and have the place to yourself.

All to yourself.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

How long you've been with Game and Fish?

Where did you come from and what do you do?

Yeah.

So I'm a transplant.

I moved down from from the state of Illinois, went to school in Illinois, and I've just continually worked my way south through the years.

Took a job about 13 years ago down with Game and Fish, down in our Camden office.

And then here recently, in the last 4 or 5 years, I moved up to our Hot Springs Regional office, where I'm currently at and stationed out of now.

So you're a fisheries biologist and you're also a supervisor?

Yep.

I'm a district supervisor too, so I kind of wear two hats depending on the day, I've got some folks that work underneath me and with me and dragging them around from lake to lake.

So you manage fish and people.

Fish and people and and yes, fish are the easy one.

I started to say, which one of those is the most difficult?

For sure.

The fish, they're a lot easier to predict, I can tell you that.

And you've been with Game and Fish for how long?

Almost 14 years.

14 years.

Well, good.

Well, welcome to Game and Fish.

I've been gone about that long.

Pretty much, pretty close to it.

Well, we're going to talk about fall fishing here tonight, and I want to know why fall is such a good time to fish in Arkansas.

We don't think about it because we're thinking about deer hunting and duck season coming along.

Why is fall so good?

Yeah.

Those fish, they, they know that that winter is coming.

And so they're on a feeding frenzy.

The weather's starting to cool down a little bit.

It's a little easier for them to move around.

The heat tends to to hold them in place a little more in the summertime.

But come fall, it's time to turn it on and pack on some pounds.

Apparently I'm trying to do the same thing.

So, they're on a feeding frenzy, which makes them a little bit of an easier target for our angler.

Now, I've heard that before about crappie, which we're going to be talking about tonight, mainly crappie.

But is that true for all fish?

I know bass do the same thing.

For sure.

I'm a brim fisherman.

Do brim do that as well?

Brim will fatten up as well.

They're not as pronounced.

They're just not as large of a fish.

They, they eat a lot throughout most of the year.

Yeah, but yeah, everything in the water right now is thinking it's time to pack on the pounds because times are getting tough.

Well it's fall once again I think the, the water temperature is changing.

Everything is changing.

And that, is that what the cue is?

I know fall was official here a couple weeks ago.

Is there a certain date and time or is it a temperature thing?

Well, so, fish are a lot like a lot of our other animals, where you've got fish that are that are triggered more by daylight hours, they're fish that are triggered by temperature swings.

And it largely just kind of depends on the fish.

With, with crappie being one of the you know, I always argue they're kind of one of the most finicky ones out there where they they're really sensitive to things like that, whether it whether it is a daylight hour change or, or a temperature change or front moves through.

And so they're pretty tuned in to what's going on.

You know, Andy, after being around biologists, whether it's wildlife biologist or fisheries biologists, I found out that the length of daylight has a lot to do with the like the deer coming in the rut and things like that.

So pretty much controls wildlife.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It's it's a major driver and one you just don't think about because yeah, the days are going to get shorter or longer and there's not a whole lot we can do about it.

They don't go by Daylight Savings time, do they?

No, they don't.

All right.

Now, even though all the fisheries that we're going to talk about crappie tonight and something that I've learned a lot about crappie, I'm not a crappie fisherman.

I grew up brim fishing, I bass fish, I'll go crappie fishing if you take me.

But I'm not a, I guess a progressive crappie fisherman.

But, I've always, I learned from you guys that there's really two species of crappie we have in Arkansas.

A black crappie and a white crappie.

That's right.

Tell me about that a little bit.

There's obviously one's white, one's black sometimes I've learned.

How do you tell the difference?

What are some different characteristics about each one of them?

So the, the the easiest and the most surefire way to tell the difference between a black crappie and a white crappie are the hard spine counts.

So in the dorsal fin, the fin on top, there will be some hard spines in there.

And a white crappie has five.

White crappie.

It'll have 5 to 6 hard dorsal spines.

Okay, I'll see them there.

And then the black crappie will have 7 to 8.

So it's a pretty close count.

But that's your surefire way to tell the difference between them.

Now a hybrid between the two, which do exist, they can have somewhere in that 6 to 7 range, which makes them a little, a little hard to tease apart.

Now you're black crappie, it looks like some of them are blacker than others as well.

What causes that?

Yeah, there's a few different things that come into play there.

And actually one of them is sunlight.

You know, fish will kind of tan, for, for lack of a better word.

Really?

Like we do.

And if you have very clear water and those fish are very close to the surface, those fish will look a little bit different than one that's down in muddy, murky, deep water and doesn't get a lot of sunlight.

Lake Columbia in South Arkansas is a great example.

Those are some of the most beautiful black crappie I've ever seen.

They're almost green and very dark, and then they get a real nice color on the bottom of them.

But yeah.

So the easiest way to tell them apart is spine counts.

Now, they do behave a little differently.

Black crappie tend to be a little bit clearer water, shallower.

They like dense vegetation.

So anywhere you can get them up in the weeds.

Black crappie are a lot more tolerant of what we refer to as turbid water.

So kind of the chocolate milky type stuff.

They'll sit out further off the bank, heavy woody debris, things like that.

So they do even behave a little bit differently.

They eat the same things?

They both taste extremely well, though.

Yeah, well, they eat the same baits and they both, but can you tell the difference when you're eating the white crappie or black crappie?

I can't.

Maybe I just don't have that refined of a palette.

But no, they, they all go into the same filet bag for me.

To confuse people a little bit more, did you tell me that a white crappie actually turns black sometimes?

Yeah.

So fish species, they'll kind of pretty themselves up in, in the springtime when they're trying to spawn and crappie are no exception to that rule.

Really?

And so a lot of times the males will get very dark colored, especially around their head and into their back.

The white crappie will.

Yeah.

And they will almost look like a black crappie.

Whereas, you know, a lot of a lot of folks use the the dark barring on the side.

Well, that's a white crappie.

And if it's all kind of uniform with spots, it's a black crappie, well, in the spring time a lot of those, those especially the male white crappie, they'll look pretty darn close.

Yeah.

Well that's interesting.

The year in the life of a crappie, what do crappie do during the winter time?

Where do they go?

Yeah.

So so throughout the year crappie certainly move around.

In the wintertime, they're going to stay deeper.

They're going to be out.

And depending on the water body, they're going to be as deep as they can get and have good oxygen.

The water temperature down there is a lot more stable.

And usually in the wintertime it's warmer.

So they can actually sit down there in that warmer water at 20, 30, 40ft.

And it's just a little easier for them to survive through the winter.

Bait moves that way too.

Yeah.

And and you know you're going to follow food.

So they follow food as well.

And they'll move and they'll sit out there in those deeper waters.

That's during December, January.

When do they start, I guess springtime, what do they do?

Yeah.

So of course, water temperature dependent.

But when those water temps start creeping into the 50s, it's time to start looking for those fish moving shallow.

Upper 50s, your crappie species will start spawning, so they might be in as little as 6 to 8in of water.

Whereas, you know, a month and a half ago, they were in 40.

And so they, they'll move up.

Again, they're pretty finicky.

They like to get pushed around by cold fronts and weather changes.

And I've been out fishing before and just, just really hammering on them.

And ten minutes later the wind switches directions and you can't buy a bite.

And it's frustrating, but it makes it fun.

Because they move in, the water temperature changes, they move out, and then they might move back in.

They are finicky.

That's maybe that's why I don't like them.

Yeah.

Well.

There's a lot of folks that get a little frustrated with them.

Now in the hot summertime, we just went through a drought, pretty good drought, what are they doing during all that heat?

Yeah.

So once they they get done doing their thing spawning, they'll actually start to push their way back out and they move back into that deeper water.

And they'll hang out in those deep spots.

Now another place, I've learned this as I've moved to the the Hot Springs region, is is docks make tremendous tremendous crappie targets.

Habitat.

Start shooting docks in the summertime because... Wait a minute.

Wait.

When you say shooting docks, that don't mean shoot the docks.

That's just the term.

Throwing bait underneath them.

Fire bait up there.

Those crappie like that shade as well.

Because again, it's all about cooler water when you get into, you know, the hundred degree temps.

As I was trying to find cooler water this summer too.

Makes sense.

Just think like a fish is all you got to do Exactly.

So then push back out deep and move up.

They'll hang under some docks.

But in general, if you're looking for crappie in the summertime, they've moved back out offshore.

And this time of year, like you said, they're getting ready to feed up for the winter.

So it's a good time to go fishing.

Exactly.

Yep.

And, you know, crappie fishing is real popular.

Like I said, I grew up brim fishing and didn't crappie fish.

But every time I see a seminar on crappie, it is packed.

People are are just dying to find out more information.

And I guess some different reasons, the fact that there's tons of stuff written about bass fishing, you see, and crappies kind of taking the back seat to that.

But there's other reasons people, I think, that is so popular.

For older people like me, I mean, you go out there and you cast a bait all day long.

It gets tiresome, but crappie fishing is pretty easy, isn't it?

For sure, for sure.

And there's a lot of benefits to it.

They're good fish to take home.

Yeah.

You know most of our, our black bass anglers, for the most part they're catch and release.

And so if you want to take home some fish to eat at the end of the day, they make excellent table fare.

They tend to school up.

So when you find one, it's usually a pile of them there.

There's a lot of different techniques you can employ.

That's true.

And and so there's just a lot of versatility to it.

And I think the combination of the two, between excellent table fare, and brim kind of fall into that same category.

They're just, and they're good introduction for kids too.

I have a four year old daughter and she loves to go crappie fishing.

That sounds good.

I think a good word we can use when I describe a lot of people that get into crappie fishing, they're obsessed with it.

I mean, there are some people that actually get obsessed with it.

I want you to watch this video.

I want to introduce you to a guy named Eric Watts, who he'll admit he's obsessed with it.

Listen to him.

I'm a Natural State fishing guy, I'm Eric Watts.

I'm completely obsessed with everything crappie fishing.

It's all about the details with crappie.

You have to really key in on the smallest little details to be able to catch them consistently and kind of predictably.

Crappie are vertically oriented.

They can see exceptionally well, especially here across central Arkansas where we have so many clear water lakes and reservoirs.

These fish know when you're there, and they know when their bait is there, and they know when something's not right.

The better you are at camouflaging that or your presence even, the better your chances are catching this fish.

Crappie are just like you and me, I mean, they've got to eat just about every single day, so there is no peak season or prime season for crappie fishing.

When you can go is when you can go.

As the water temperatures drop, crappie get more and more active.

They're out on the move.

They're chasing shad around.

The number one phrase you'll hear in crappie fishing is the thump.

That initial bite from a crappie is just a dupe.

You feel that and then you know it's game on at that point.

You set the hook, start cranking that guy in.

You know you have a crappie on the line.

(upbeat rock music) They are arguably the number one tasting or best tasting fish in fresh water.

I mean, you'd be hard pressed to find a better tasting species of fish in freshwater across any of the states.

I mean, it's it is known and recognized as just the cleanest, leanest, flakiest white meat.

And, of course, you can get them in abundance.

So, you know, you get fish fry, you get all your family and friends together and have a ton of people to enjoy that experience.

Every day is a little bit different.

The water temperature is different.

Your water clarity is different.

Your water levels are different.

Your pressure is different.

You may fish in one area today, then in a completely different area another day.

And getting out there and figuring out what's it going to take to catch a mess of these fish.

You're able to help clients catch numbers like that.

That's a different ballgame.

And that's what I really kind of caught my attention about crappie fishing over the past, I guess I really keyed in on it about eight years ago now, and I've been obsessed with it ever since.

Just really obsessed in a healthy way, of course.

(laughter) He says in a healthy way, obsessed.

Now you're a fisheries biologist.

You manage them all.

Are you obsessed with crappie?

Is that your number one?

That's my number one by far and away.

I'm totally with him.

I'm crappie obsessed myself.

Yeah.

He's making me hungry.

Making that.

You know, my favorite way to fix fish is I like either fried or deep fried.

One of the two.

I'm a fried fish guy, but I also have, over the last few years, moved towards the fish tacos.

I've heard about that.

Got some grill mats that you can use and grill those filets and make great tacos.

All right.

You cover the whole state.

Let's kind of run through for our viewers tonight maybe your top five picks for lakes in Arkansas for good crappie fishing in the fall.

What's your number five?

We'll start with five and go all the way to number one.

Well, I'm going to cheat a little with my my number five here because I'm going to say any lake that we have recently renovated.

So lakes like Monticello.

Monticello has really come on both in bass fishing and crappie fishing.

Lower White Oak Lake, it's renovated about a decade ago.

It's still kicking out some really good fish.

Poinsett up in the northern part of the state.

The northeast.

Yeah, yeah.

And so any lake that we've renovated, there's always that, that new lake boom that is associated with it.

And so those are always prime targets to hit.

Okay.

I guess just fresh vegetation, kind of like starting over?

Yeah.

There's a large nutrient release associated with renovating that lake and refilling it.

And then you combine that with the fact that when we stock a lake to start those populations, it's very, very low density.

There's very few fish per acre.

So it's all the food you could ever eat and no competition.

Sounds good to me.

Exactly.

What about number four?

So number four, I'm going to again skirt the line here a little and say a lot of our core reservoirs De Gray Lake, Greers Ferry, Bull Shoals.

These large core reservoirs tend to hold very large crappie populations.

There's always a chance to get out there and sneak into a two and a half, three pounder.

And then usually there's lots of fish available for table fare.

Of course, those are large bodies of water, deep, so you got a little bit of everything in there, a lot of structure, cover, habitat.

Yeah, a lot of those lakes, when they're built, they flooded out hundreds and thousands of acres of, of timber and other structure that, that crappie just loved to associate with.

Go number three.

So number three, I'll finally give you a true lake.

I'm going to pick Blue Mountain.

It's one that has traditionally had a very good crappie population.

Let's tell them where it is first, Blue Mountain, a lot of people you know, it's not real well known.

I knew about a long time ago.

It's over around Booneville.

Yeah, it's over in the western part of the state.

And there's also been the addition of some habitat work going on out there right now.

Those folks working in that region and our habitat team and our fisheries division have put in a lot of time and effort out there.

And in the 100 degree heat this summer, building fish habitats.

But that's Blue Mountain was number three.

What about number two?

So I'm going to go with Millwood for number two.

Millwood.

That one is southwest again.

Southwest.

Yep.

Down in the southwest.

It's kind of a traditional powerhouse.

You know, it just turns out a lot of really good fish.

It's very fertile water body.

It's pretty shallow.

It's just got a lot of habitat that leans itself towards crappie production.

You know, that thing is great for bass.

And, I mean, it's a producer for that legacy lunker.

That's right.

It's a big lake down there though.

A lot of cover on a lot of stumps.

So you've got to be careful.

If you go down to Lake Millwood.

It is.

It's hung up a boat many a time out there during trips over there.

So okay, your top lake for fishing for crappie this fall.

What would it be?

If I was going to be able to go to one place, I would go to Lake Ehrling.

Ehrling.

Southern part of the state.

EHRLING I've never been there.

Is it south or southwest?

Southwest.

Southwest.

It's down in Lafayette County.

What makes it so good?

Man, that place is just phenomenal.

It's again, it's kind of a shallower lake.

A lot of flooded out vegetation out there.

And it drains an extremely fertile part of Arkansas.

So the productivity out there is very high.

So when you think back to the old food pyramid at the very base, that base is massive because there's just tons of primary production going on out there, which then leads itself to more, more bait and then and then more predators.

And so it's a phenomenal fishery in general.

So a lot of it's natural runoff and just rich soil over there and that's good food for good habitat.

Yes.

A lot of brush in that Lake Ehrling as well?

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

They've got boat lines cut through it and marked to keep you from.

How big is that lake?

About 7000 acres.

So it's pretty good size.

A pretty big lake.

Yeah, I would imagine.

Yep.

All right.

Now that's our top five.

Lake Ehrling won out.

Now you know where to go.

Now we're going to talk with Eric again about the top five baits to use once you get there.

So as you can see here I've got tons of bait options.

And this is just a fraction of what I actually have in my boat at all times.

There are three things I like for people to think about.

Number one is profile.

Number two is going to be color, and number three will be presentation.

When I talk about profile what that means is just what is the shape.

What is the size, what is the action of the bait that we're using.

So this two inch bait here you can tell has a lively tail on the back of it.

This is a great fall bait option.

It's a natural looking bait.

It matches most of your forage that are going to be in your lake that your crappie are naturally feeding.

Great option.

Probably my go to bait for the fall.

This is actually a curly tail.

So this is something that is more of your traditional style of crappie bait with just over two inches on this.

It has a little paddle tail on the back of it.

But that tail is designed to just spin through the water and draw the attention of crappie that are out on the move.

So whether you are casting this bait or you're trolling with it, you know, this bait is designed to get a crappie's attention.

This bait is actually 2.25in.

And you can tell it's a little b broader profile on that.

And it has these contrasting colors to it as well.

Colder the water is, the more bang crappie want for their buck If they're going to have to exert energy to capture food, then it needs to be something that will sustain them.

So a larger bait profile tends to work out a little bit better.

Want to give them something that they can see, but it doesn't stand out to them too much.

So something like this on a overcast fall day where the water may have a little bit of color to it, maybe, you know, a little dingy.

Something like this purple and chartreuse is a dynamite color option in a bigger profile, something that is an easy choice for hungry crappies out on the prowl.

This particular style of bait is fairly new on the market, but this thing has been dynamite.

Now again, it's a smaller bait.

This is 1.75in bait, but it is a swim bait.

It's a small swim bait.

It's got a natural minnow body to it, but the tail itself is hinged and it has, you know, a little bit of a paddle on the actual tail.

There you can see it.

Since I've been holding this thing, it just won't be still.

It gives this really tight wobble through the water.

Very natural looking bait if you're casting it through the water.

I actually started using them back in the summer, and I was amazed by how well they captured the attention of crappie.

Generally speaking, we're going to use a crappie jig, so it's going to be just a lead weighted jig.

They'll come in a variety of colors.

Now everyone has an opinion about colors and, you know, what you should and what you shouldn't use.

I'm going to tell you straight up.

Orange is the color.

If you're not using orange, you lose.

That's just my personal preference.

I don't care what color you use, so long as it's orange.

Take that jig head and just slide it right through the head area there.

And then right as it starts to bend, make the bend of the hook.

We'll just come right out of the back and push all the way up on the collar.

There she is.

An objective is to try to get that bait as straight as possible, because that's going to be a very natural presentation.

Hey, a special thanks to Eric.

And he says orange is number one color.

What do you think?

I don't, I don't disagree with him.

But you know, I have some of my own favorites as well.

What's your favorite color?

Well, I'm not sure I can reveal that here.

We won't tell anybody, just go ahead.

Yeah, as long as it's not on TV, I'll go ahead and say I tend to fish a lot of shad colored baits on jigs, just similar to what he was talking about.

Yeah.

And then kind of my, my catch all, if I was going to be able to fish one throughout the whole year, I'm, I like black and chartreuse.

Okay.

I'm a black and chartreuse guy.

You pick up the occasional brim on those too, it seems like.

Okay, I'll go to that.

I'm there for that bonus fish too.

You know, it's always funny when I, when I worked at a local sporting goods store, people come in and buy about ten different colors of crappie baits.

So I'd go over there and see what they're, what they have in there.

And I said, which one of them you use the most?

And he said, I only use one of them.

The other nine are just are just decoys.

So you won't know what I'm getting there.

Exactly.

Everybody has a different favorite baits, whatever catches fish.

But I think the main thing here is just think like a fish, like you were talking about.

What are fish biting or eating that particular time of year and the size.

I think that was a key profile because the shad, the young shad aren't very big, but as the time goes on, they get a little bit bigger.

So you need to change that.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Pay attention to what those fish are eating.

That's the key.

Before we run out of time, talk about rules, regulations, very important on crappie because it's different for, every lake has its own regulations, especially on crappie.

Yeah, yeah.

So in Arkansas we have our statewide regulation which is 30 fish a day.

30 fish a day.

No size limit.

That covers, if you don't see a special regulation in the back of the book, that's the statewide regulation.

Okay.

Now when you go to a specific water body, the easiest thing to do, And I work for Game and Fish and I do the same thing, open up the back of the book, go to the lake or the river you're going to, look it up.

It'll tell you if there's a specific regulation, because we have lakes with no limit on crappie.

We have lakes with no limit on crappie?

We do.

We have some with some stunted fish populations.

You can keep as many as you can put in the boat.

What lake is that?

That one would be Frierson, I believe.

Northeast.

Yeah, it's a northeast.

It's up there in the Delta.

And so we've got a lake with no limit.

We've got lakes with 15 fish limits, a lot of the the northern core lakes, they're 15 fish limit.

We have some with ten inch minimum length limit.

Wow.

So there's a variety.

The bottom line is check those regulation guidebooks.

Andy, it's been a lot of fun.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Of course.

Anytime.

You bet.

Thank you all for joining me as well.

And we'll see you next week right here on Naturally Wild.

This program was made possible by Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry, East Harding Construction Company, David's Burgers, Greenway Equipment, Arkansas Farm Bureau, and the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas.

(upbeat music)