Crappie condos

If you own property around the lake and want to attract some spring crappie within casting distance of the bank when the water in Lake D’Arbonne comes back up, now’s the time to get out there and put up some crappie condos. No construction permits needed. But don’t wait too long. A couple more rains like yesterday and you’ll be wading out to put them up.

There are lots of ways to do it. The most common way to is cut 3-4 foot lengths of PVC pipe, some sort of cane or wooden tomato sticks. Wood has a rougher surface and probably works best. But PVC pipe gets algae on it and attracts fish as well. The advantage of PVC is that your jig hooks don’t hook into the plastic pipe. Not so with wood. Put them in buckets with concrete or sac-rete them into cinder blocks. Then dig a hole and put the bucket or cinder block in it. If you don’t “sink” the bucket or block, the waves and boats will turn them over, making them much less effective.

You can drive PVC pipe into the lake bottom, but if you are doing that, you need to put them 2-3 feet into the ground to ensure they stay. Make sure you keep these away from areas where you will be loading or unloading your boat or where people might jump off your dock or pier to go swimming.

These are two examples of crappie condos that are normally in three-four feet of water, but are exposed right now during the drawdown.