njbailes, It will be tough to catch crappie from the bank right now unless you have a really good game plan. In the spring the fish spawn for a few weeks and fishing from the bank in many areas can be good but once the spawn is over the largest number of fish head out to the creek and main river channels. There are specific areas where fish will be, many of them are not reachable by shore based fishermen. That being said there are still some possibilities where crappie can be caught where the creek channel is found close enought to the bank where it can be reached by shore fishermen. There are good maps of the lakes on line and that can be bought at Wal-Mart and other stores that will show you where the creek and river channel are accessible to public access. Even if you have a "belly boat" or kayak or canoe, it can really open up areas that hold huge numbers of fish. Some of the most fun that I have catching fish is catching them in places that others just ride right by in their boats and many are within access of small crafts and some from the shore where it is public. As someone said, Wolftever bridge can be very good from time to time and there are some good spots where the channels some very close to shore at Harrison Bay State Park, Booker T. Washington Park and at Chester Frost Park too. I would expect that there are many others but I haven't looked at the maps looking for shore access in a while.
Wolftever bridge is a good place and I would expect that there are crappie close there as I have marked lots of bait there the last few times that I've been through there on my boat. The water under the bridge is deep, greater than 25 feet near the pilings, and the thermocline is probably between 12 and 15 feet deep right now. In the mid creek area most of the fish seem to be suspended at about 12 feet and I would expect that the crappie at the bridge would be at a similar depth. I would either use minnows or cast panfish assassins to the bridge pilings if you can reach them. Most of the people that fish on the banks there at WT bridge don't catch all that much because they usually fish either too shallow or too deep. When they fish with bobbers they fish too shallow and if they fish on the bottom they are usually fishing too deep. If you use live bait I would plan to use slip floats or bobbers that will slide up the line until they hit a bobber stop that you affix to the line. I would affix the bobber stop, to start with at about 12 feet and if you don't catch fish right off I would move the bobber stop up or down at two foot intervals or so until I caught some fish. Once you find the right depth try to fish at that depth until the fish stop biting then move up or down to the next piling or onto the other side of the channel and I would assume that the fish will be at that depth most of the time that day. They may move up or down a little but not much usually. If you fish with panfish assassins I would use a 1/32 oz jighead and start at a count of 18 seconds before engaging the reel and starting the retrieve. That is assuming that you are using 6lb test line. That count seems to correlate to about 12 feet depth, or a drop rate of between 1/2 and 3/4 ft of drop per second. I would move the bait slowly and pause frequently in the retrieve and if you cast 10 times or so and don't catch a fish I would decrease or increase your drop count by 2 or 3 counts and experiment with different depths until you contact the fish. I wouldn't fish on the bottom for crappie as they usually don't sit on or near the bottom, at least this time of the year at the bridge. You can use the same advice anywhere the channel comes up close to the shore and if there is cover I would fish it too.
I hope that this will help you to get on some fish, let us know how you do.
t
