Danna: Geared to go

(Second of a two-part series)

You can catch crappie with a 12-foot cane pole and shiners some of the time. But if you want to catch a lot of fish a lot of the time, it certainly helps to be geared to go. Combine the right equipment with the natural knack for finding fish like Steve Danna and it’s a deadly combination. Steve fishes out of a new 2016 War Eagle Predator boat which he even helped design for crappie and bass fishing with War Eagle’s Mike and John Ward.

Steve depends on top line electronics, a dual-screen Lowrance HDS-12. to see the actual sonar showing schools of shad and fish as well as a screen with clear, high resolution images of brush piles and depth variations. It also has a feature that allows you to set way points where you can almost effortlessly go from one good spot to the other, depending on the unit’s memory (you know, instead of, well, you remember putting a Coke can on top of a stump to find your way back to a fishing hole?). Yes you do.

It’s amazing what today’s modern technology has done to help crappie anglers make the

best use of their time and catch more fish – in amazing comfort. Such equipment is expensive and using it takes time and practice. But guys like Steve can look at those screens, read them with the precision of a radiologist reading an MRI and stay on the fish. The results are amazing. It almost isn’t fair.

“We have come so far so quickly that is is sometimes overwhelming, but units like this Lowrance give you a definite advantage,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to go fishing with it today.”

On our trip, I can’t tell you how many times you would be looking at the screen and see a school of shad, then see smaller “blips” that are crappie.

“We should get bit right here,” Steve would say. Then, within seconds one or more of the B’n’M poles we had out front would show a tiny bend, we’d set the hook on the Bone Head jig and here comes Mr. Crappie.

“For a long time, people just didn’t realize what a great lake this is,” he says. “It’s one of the top crappie lakes in America.”

Steve’s fishing adventures are sponsored by War Eagle, Lowrance, B’n’M poles, BoneHead Tackle, Evinrude, Power Pole, Atlas Jack Plates and Ludwig Marine.

Some of Steve’s favorite D’Arbonne colors

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• Note:  If you want to learn tips from Steve on catching D’Arbonne crappie all year, put his name in the “Search” Bar on this page and it will take you to a series of articles from a Crappie Seminar he put on a while back at the Union Parish Library.

Good Fishing!