I'm not an outstanding crappie fisherman but I have found a pretty good method method for catching big crappie. It's simple enough. I suspend a 1/16 oz deer hair jig under a bobber. It seems to work the best when there's a bit of a chop on the water to impart some action. Most of the time the hit is on the initial fall or shortly thereafter but not always. Most of my largest crappie have been caught using this method.

I have seen that work, add a crappie bobber, sometimes works a little better.

if you have not seen these, they have rattles in them. So you twitch the bobber a little bit, and it rattles.

I'm not an outstanding crappie fisherman but I have found a pretty good method method for catching big crappie. It's simple enough. I suspend a 1/16 oz deer hair jig under a bobber. It seems to work the best when there's a bit of a chop on the water to impart some action. Most of the time the hit is on the initial fall or shortly thereafter but not always. Most of my largest crappie have been caught using this method.

About how far below the bobber is the jig ?

I have seen that work, add a crappie bobber, sometimes works a little better.

if you have not seen these, they have rattles in them. So you twitch the bobber a little bit, and it rattles.

I'd seen something like what you describe on Bill Dance numerous years ago.  I've been meaning to try it.

I'm not an outstanding crappie fisherman but I have found a pretty good method method for catching big crappie. It's simple enough. I suspend a 1/16 oz deer hair jig under a bobber. It seems to work the best when there's a bit of a chop on the water to impart some action. Most of the time the hit is on the initial fall or shortly thereafter but not always. Most of my largest crappie have been caught using this method.

About how far below the bobber is the jig ?

Well, usually around 3 feet but it depends on where the crappie are.  Of course, the deeper you go, the more difficult it is to cast.  I prefer to put the jig above them.  I think crappie prefer to swim up to feed as opposed to going deeper.  I may be wrong but that's my guess.

That is correct, their vision is set for them to see above and not below them.

The other thing I found that rig to catch are nice catfish. I have hauled in some BIG ones crappie fishing.

I use that almost excact rig for all my crappie fishing with the exception of the deer hair jig, I usually use a small tube on a jighead.

The crappie rig has done it again!  My brother and I went out this past weekend and caught another 35 crappie + 2 bass + 1 (one) 4 lb channel cat.  (We released all of them).  Only this time I/we used a marabou jig rather than a deerhair jig.  The bite was much better when the wind was blowing than after it calmed.  I broke off on something pretty big but that may have been more a factor of damaged line than size of fish.  All I know is my bobber made  a fast exit down into the depths.   Ah, c'est la vie!