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.

I'm out here on the eastern basin of Lake Erie with a bucket full of live minnows and a T-Turn Bait Rig made especially for catching perch and panfish. I bait up the rig with live minnows and talk ...