Lake Marion is known for the huge crappie it produces. Not too long ago, I fished with a father-and-son operation (Pete and Barry Pritchard's Guide Service) out of the Goat Island Resort, and had a fishing experience I will long remember.

This father-and-son team has around 300 brushpiles in Lake Marion. Most of the brushpiles are made from oak trees that still have the green leaves on them; crappie will often go to these trees overnight. The Pritchards like to stick the butt of the tree into the hole of a cinder block to make the brush stand up straight. Brush installed in the winter months when no leaves are on the wood has to wait several months for the slime to accumulate before these brush really produce.

The Pritchards fish from a pontoon boat that has a cover on it. They use fly rods like cane poles. Pete tells customers, "The reel is strictly on the rod to store line, and not to crank."

The reels are loaded with 14-pound-test line. The line has a large clamp-on sinker and a 1/0 hook at the business end for use with live bait, though when crappie are really aggressive, Pete Pritchard will use jigs (he notes that any color is good, "as long as it has chartreuse in it"). In April, he usually finds fish in 20 feet of water as measured from the floor of the lake to the surface of the water, but the brush, of course, rises above the lakebed and he'll be fishing at the 10- to 12-foot depth.

Pete said, "If you are not bumping the brush every now and then, you are not over the brush, or you're fishing too shallow. Some fish will be down in the brush, and some on top."

The Pritchards fish vertically, and when they feel a strike, they set the hook immediately, raising their rods straight up as far as they can reach. With this equipment, the angler's free hand catches and pulls on the line. The combination of the rising rod tip and the shortening of the line will lift the fish right into the boat.

Pete will drive over his brush, and drop a marker in it. He will motor downwind, and return to the marker using an electric motor to hover over the brush.

He's looking to fish in the 10- to 12-foot range even in April for a reason.

"Fish don't all spawn at the same time. Sometimes the spawn will be scattered out over several weeks. Fish seem to be spawning in deeper and deeper water these days," he said. "You can catch some crappie around cypress trees in 3 feet of water in April, but the big numbers are caught in 20-foot depths fishing down 10 to 12 feet."

Obviously, not everyone who fishes has hundreds of pre-set brushpiles in the lake, but that needn't stop you from finding fish, Pete said.

"If you don't have your own brush in the lake, you might want to try around exposed trees, and snags that are in 20 feet of water fishing 10 to 12 feet deep. If you don't catch a fish within five minutes, move on to another spot."