Slab crappies are meat eaters—sure enough minnow munchers. They take artificials well at times, especially jigs—but big crappie will turn their noses at even the best of the best crappie lures.

. Soaking cut bait has a bit of a stigma of being dumbed-down fishing, but there’s actually a lot of science and technique that goes into the proper hacking, rigging, and fishing of a bloody, dripping ...