If you are an angler who tries to gain as many advantages as possible, here's a idea for you.  Why not try chumming for crappie?  Chumming is common in saltwater fishing, and it works for freshwater fish also.  Since I started chumming, I've increased the numbers and size of fish I catch.  I use the chum while fishing for crappie at night with submerged lights.

Here's how it works.  Come up with an old fashioned metal meat grinder.  Usually, you can find them at garage sales or flea markets for three to fifteen dollars.  For chum, carp, small bluegill, minnows, old meat out of your freezer, shad, an occasional crawfish or any type of meat or trash fish you prefer, can be used.  Check with your local Conservation Department to make sure the fish you use chum for are legal.  Cut the fish into small pieces that will run through the grinder.  Filleted carp work great and open up another species to fish for.  When the bait is run through the grinder, deposit it in a one gallon plastic bag.  Add water until the bag is two-thirds full and freeze it.  Locate some mesh bags, I found mine at the dollar store, and you are ready to fish.  After you hit the water and get your rods and lights set up, it's time for the chum.  Don't put it in the water until about one half hour after dark.  Place the chum in the mesh bag and lower it to the depth you think the fish will be.  Where I fish, it's usually twenty feet, and the fish move shallower as the night goes on.  I raise the bag occasionally, and sometimes use a second bag of chum.  I fish over plastic fish attractors so it is easy to have several rods out and not hang up.  The chum attracts minnows and small gamefish.  Once that activity starts, the larger crappie and white bass show up, and the occasional walleye and catfish.

Chumming works for me, and it seems crappie and other gamefish are more aggressive when chum is in the water.  I've caught crappie, walleye, bass, bluegill, white bass, catfish, and carp using plastic attractors/cover, underwater lights and chum.  It doesn't take a lot of effort to make the chum, and I think it definately give the angler an advantage. 

Thanks for your time, be safe, and good luck on the water!

To see J & J Habitat's wide variety of plastic fish attractors, click here.