Lake Fork crappie guide Bob Young: I never tie my boat up to a bridge.  I just keep moving with the electric motor, looking for the best spot.

It happened one day when Young was working hard at tempting a big largemouth.  As frequently happens, the moody bass were not holding up their end of the bargain.  Young got the feeling he was trading freeway stress for bass-boat stress.

"While I was feeling stressed, I ran into a guy who was catching some big crappie and asked him how he was doing it," recalls Young.  "He told me I needed to trade in my pool cue bass rod on an ultralight rod.  Once I did that, I discovered that catching a 2- or 3-pound crappie is just as much fun as catching a 10-pound bass."

Three-pound crappie are about as rare as 10-pound bass, but Young found he could catch lots of nice crappie between 1 and 2 pounds while awaiting the rare bite of a really big one.  Fork has a national reputation as a big-bass lake, but it's probably just as good for crappie.  The popular panfish reproduce extremely well at Fork, and that's a good thing because fishermen take them out by the thousands.

Young guides about 200 days a year and averages about 50 keepers a day from his boat.  Some days, three anglers will catch a full limit of 25 crappie apiece, 75 total.  Except during cold months, the minimum-size limit for Lake Fork crappie is 10 inches.  For every keeper he catches, Young catches at least one fish smaller than 10 inches.  That gives you an idea of how good the average fishing day is.

Bridges make excellent crappie structure because they span deep-water channels the fish use as freeways, says Young.

Young makes his own jigs, which differ from most jigs in two ways.  Young's jig head has a wedge-shaped face, the sharp angle of the wedge being the leading edge.  Young believes this design creates a more natural action in the water.  The second thing he does a little different involves color.  Young likes blue, gray and white combinations that resemble a ghost minnow, a favorite crappie snack.  He'll also slip in some unusual colors, like cinnamon and blue.

Young favors jigs that weigh about 3/16 ounce.  He fishes them on ultralight spinning tackle with 6-pound-test line.  Young believes 6-pound line allows the jig to sink faster and work more naturally than heavier lines.  Four-pound line works even better, but it's too fragile when rubbed against abrasive bridge pilings, a frequent occurrence in Young's fishing day.

There are no real secrets about crappie fishing around the Lake Fork bridges.  Even when the weather is threatening, there are generally six or more boats sharing Young's favorite spots.  None of the other anglers, however, seem to catch as many fish as Young, despite the widespread use of live bait.

"Bridges make excellent crappie structure because they span deep-water channels the fish use as freeways," says Young.  "Fork is not unique in this respect.  I've caught crappie around bridges at every lake I've ever fished."

Not only do bridges have vertical structure in the form of support pilings, most of the pilings have braces that form horizontal structure as well.  The fish will hold on the horizontal braces.  Sometimes they're under the braces and grab the jig as it falls off the horizontal structure.

"Some bridge pilings are better than others," says Young.  "That's probably because of brush, water depth or bottom contour.  I never tie my boat up to the bridge.  I just keep moving with the electric motor, looking for the best spot.  The pilings that are best today will probably be good tomorrow, next week or next year.   Always remember where you caught the fish and come back to those spots."

When fishing bridges, Young never makes a conventional cast.  He uses a slingshot delivery to propel crappie jigs with amazing accuracy.  Here's how the slingshot cast works.  Open the bail on your spinning reel and hold the line with the index finger of your rod hand.  Release a little less than a rod length of line, and hold the jig between your thumb and index finger of your off hand.

Now pull the jig to bend the rod.   Point the rod where you want the jig to land. By releasing the jig with your left hand and the line with your right index finger at about the same time, the rod propels the lure in a whip-like motion.  Once you get the timing down, you can make a fairly long cast with the slingshot delivery, but it works best for short casts, where there's no overhead room -- under a low bridge, for example.

Be careful how you use the slingshot cast.  Young has dug crappie hooks from the hands of several clients who were careless about how they held the jig.  They wound up with the hook buried deeply in their own flesh.  Hold the hook by the lead head.  

When you fish the bridges is just as important as how you fish.  Young checks the solunar tables to see when minor and major feeding periods are predicted.  He tries to be fishing at one of his best spots during the predicted feeding period.

"The solunar tables coincide pretty well to crappie feeding periods," he says.  "You can catch a few fish when they're not biting aggressively.  When they turn on, you can catch them on just about every cast."

Young has found that crappie orient differently to the structure at various times of the day and in differing weather conditions.  Early and late, or on a cloudy day, they may be farther from the bridge pilings.  As the sun brightens, they move to the shady portion of the overhead cover.  When fish are actively feeding, they tend to move upward in the water column.  Crappie sometimes bite jigs aggressively.  At other times, the bite is subtle.  Watch your line for clues that you've had a soft bite.  If a jig stops falling before it reaches bottom, Young sets the hook.