While many casual fishermen target the period from late February to mid April, fishing for crappie on Eufaula remains good year-round. The late fall provides another of the yearly peaks for crappie fishing, and the bite generally remains good unless some unusually cold weather impacts the region.

“Crappie fishing is always good on Eufaula, but the fall can be especially good,” said one of Eufaula’s crappie experts, Mark Martin.Mark has long fished Eufaula, transitioning from bass fishing years ago to crappie fishing more recently. He mentions several reasons for the good crappie fishing late in the year, one of the main ones being a lack of competition on the water. Eufaula is surrounded in both Georgia and Alabama by prime hunting lands, and the number of fishermen dwindles during hunting season.Fall weather can also be more stable than that of the spring, regularly offering idyllic days with little or no wind.

I’ve experienced both the spring and fall bite over the last couple of years, and the crappie do indeed seem to prove more finicky at times in the spring, especially when cold fronts roll through the lake region.The vagaries of weather don’t seem to affect the crappie as much in the fall, when the fish normally hold in deeper water.“Sometimes you find yourself alone out here later in the year,” Martin said. “Usually the weather cooperates, and the fishing is almost always good.”

Mark and I tested the crappie on Eufaula earlier in the fall, working minnows and jigs through a series of submerged brush structures during a half-day trip. The bite actually started somewhat slow but built to a crescendo with the numbers and quality of crappie peaking on our last stop of the day.

Mark keeps his boat in a private marina in Chewalla Creek inside the city limits of Eufaula, and we idled to the first stop of the day just inside the creek mouth. Mark has dropped an abundance of structure in various locations in the mid-lake area, mainly from the Highway 82 causeway that connects Georgia and Alabama up to near Lakepoint State Park.“We’re fishing some hardwood and some cedars here,” Mark said. “You never really know from day to day what sort of cover the fish will be relating to.”

“It’s kind of surprising,” Mark said. “At times, you can’t keep them off the hook early in the day. I really like to be out here at daylight. Even when the weather gets colder later in the year, the fish seem to bite better early.”The sporadic bite continued for a couple of hours as we bounced around to various stops just off the main river channel. Especially when he’s after bigger fish, Mark stays relatively close to the old river run of the Chattahoochee.“You can catch plenty of fish in the creeks,” he said. “I can’t explain why, but for some reason, the bigger fish stay closer to deeper water near the main channel.”

Despite the relative slow bite, we caught fish on just about every stop. Mark pinpointed the fish with his electronics, and he could call our shots at times. The numbers of fish that Mark had been experiencing on previous trips were missing, however. In fact, catches of white bass or small stripers—or the occasional catfish—interrupted the crappie bite on several stops.

The sustained flurry that Mark anticipated finally occurred late in the morning, the timing a bit unusual considering that the sun was directly overhead in bluebird skies. Mark had worked his way upriver to a flat off the channel on the Georgia side of the lake. He had a series of waypoints diagonally across the lake from Cowikee Creek, where Lakepoint is located.

This is one of those spots that doesn’t always produce a lot of fish, but it usually holds good fish,” Mark said.His words about the quality were prophetic, although the quantity showed up, as well. With perhaps 20 fish in the livewell when we started on the spot, we easily doubled that number over the next hour or so. Earlier in the day, most of the fish hit the minnow rigs, but the crappie on this stop liked a slow-moving jig reeled near the bottom and through the structure. Fish after fish produced line-bouncing hits on the jig.

"I love it when they hit the jig,” Mark said. “It’s the easiest type of crappie fishing that there is.”He got the action started on one of the first casts to his scattered tops. The crappie hit the jig and immediately buried in the top, only to swim into open water seconds later.