“The fish underutilized the most are open-water crappie,” Paty revealed. “Underwater humps and islands will almost always have fish on them -- you just need to learn to use your graph to locate them.”

Paty and Lake Fork guide Roy Greer are electronics fanatics. “You can tell crappie from other kinds of fish because of the way they stack up on the graph,” Greer said, “and you can also tell larger crappie from little ones. Anybody can catch fish if they find them -- that’s the single most important factor.

“A fish looks like an arch on the screen. Crappie are arched higher than bass, because their body is smaller on either end than in the middle. A short, curved arch is probably a crappie; a long arch is probably a bass. A tightly packed group of tiny arches is often mistaken for brush, but it’s probably baitfish. You’ll often see a ball of baitfish with an arch or two beneath it. That’s crappie following the baitfish.”

In January, 99 percent of the crappie that Greer catches at Lake Fork are on the bottom near the dam. “The shad go there to escape the colder water,” he stated, “and the crappie follow. I typically try to fish in the middle of the level where the shad are holding.”

On either side of the January timeframe during which crappie are down by the dam, Greer advised that you fish for crappie as they funnel through the bridges -- and divulged a secret to catching migrating crappie. “My dad was a commercial fisher on Caddo Lake,” he said, “and we would catch crappie by the hundreds in traps set between a tree and the bank, but only at night. The fish come in at night and hold on bridge columns, and you can catch them from the first thing in the morning until about 10 a.m. -- and then they are gone.”

While minnows are deemed by many as de rigueur crappie baits, Greer is of the opinion that you can catch more winter crappie on jigs. “I believe it is because you are actively fishing -- aggressively moving the bait,” he suggested. “Plus minnows have only one color, and crappie are very color-selective. One day they will bite blue; the next day they want pearl or something else.”

Greer has designed a crappie jig called a Flash Fin, which he manufactures in models weighing from 1/32 ounce to 1/2 ounce. Featuring 3-D eyes, the Mylar leadheads imitate a 1-year-old threadfin shad. To purchase these, call (903) 765-2075, or visit www.thebassclinic.com.

Marshall offered some tips on the use of his favorite lures, the Blakemore Roadrunner and the Crappie Thunder. “A lot of people think because the Roadrunner has a blade, it has to turn,” he observed. “I want it to just wobble a little bit. I fish it vertically like any other lure, and I want the blade to just click against the head.

“The gold leaf willow blade is the key. A lot of Texas lakes are murky and stained, and gold really works. In the Crappie Thunder, my go-to Texas color is a chartreuse head with a blue and white body. My second choice is lime and chartreuse.”