http://www.LouisianaSportsman.com April 2015 | Louisiana Sportsman 177
If sac-a-lait are off points, Fontenot motors over to hyacinth mats and other
grass patches and use a homemade, pronged aluminum rake to make holes
in the mats about 12 inches in diameter.
He uses Uncle Buck’s or Mister Crappie poles to drop baits into those holes in
the vegetation.
For fishing vertically, Fontenot favors Mister Crappie reels with 8- to
15-pound Stren or Trilene. He often uses gold or orange monofilament so he
can see his line and better detect subtle bites.
Despite the noise and disturbance caused by raking holes in the vegetation,
fish will often be
caught during the
first drop of a jig.
Surprisingly, anglers
also can catch bass
this way, but mostly
as a bycatch.
In addition to his
Jenny’s Jigs hair
jigs, Fontenot will
also use tube jigs
by Midsouth Tackle
and H&H Lures’ solid-
body, crappie tube
jigs.
He sticks with 1/16- or
1/32-ounce jigheads.
“I have taken up
to 20 crappie on a
single H&H Lures’
solid-body, black/
chartreuse tube jig,”
Fontenot said. “So
when I use tube jigs,
I’m kind of partial to
those.”
Lavergne is a
light-tackle special-
ist, using Apache
Tomahawk fly rods
equipped with Pfleu-
ger Underspin reels.
When vertically jig-
ging through foliage, Lavergne uses an 8-foot, 6-inch Apache Tomahawk with
his plastics on 1/16- or 1/32-ounce jigheads attached to his line with a loop.
Lavergne prefers blue/white and solid-chartreuse tube jigs and Egret Baits’
Wedgetail Crappie Minnows under the grass mats of alligator grass, hyacinths
and pennywort.Rakes, jigs and poles
ABOVE: Lavergne uses his a loop-pronged alu-
minum pole to make holes for jigging vertically
to catch crappie from beneath the vegetation.Chris Berzas“How y’all doing B.J.?” Lavergne asked.
“Well, Glynn, we got a few,” Fontenot said.
Fontenot took a few from his cooler for
pictures, and said his success came on
a Jenny’s Jigs hair jig in a new color (No.
JJ033).
Jenney’s Jigs can be found at http://www.jen-
nysjigs.com.
“Man, I caught them on that new hair
jig today,” Fontenot said, as he placed
one in his hand so I could take a quick
photo. “But Glynn, I am still finding a
few with small egg sacks in them. They
are not in the trees yet; they’re still here
under the grass.”
“We caught two males with black heads
in the trees,” Lavergne said, referring to
the deep, black coloration phase that
develops in male sac-a-lait during the
spawn. “For the most part, Chris and I
found them under the grass too.”
A discussion ensued about whether or
not somehow they had missed fishing
during the spawn, or the possibility that
it may have not happened as of yet.
After all, it was late — April 1, 2014 —
and usually Chicot Lake’s crappie would
have already run shallow near tupelo
clusters on the north end of the lake to
spawn.FACING pAGE, lEFt: Charles Hazard of Ville
Platte and buddy B.J. Fontenot know there are
Chicot sac-a-lait to be caught. FACING pAGE,
RIGht: Ville Platt’s B.J. Fontenot spends a few
days each week catching sac-a-lait on his home
lakes of Chicot Lake and nearby Miller’s Lake.