In my experience crickets will just keep you catchin bream. If you want to catch specks (crappie), use small jigs ( buck tails or plastic) or missourri minnows. I use jigs during the day and minnows at night with lights shinning the water ( it attracts them). Missourri minnows are usually at your local bait store. If you are fishin in a lake, you can catch specks near weed lines if they are bedding. You can usually smell them! Or go to deeper water if the weather is warmer. Try to find sunken trees or limbs, they like them for cover and usually stay in schools, so when you catch one, keep fishin in that spot. You'll usually catch a few more. Hope this helps and tear em up!

Go to a bait shop or Bass Pro and get some crappie nibbles...they come in different colors. I have found the pink ones on a jig work really well.

thanks for the tips, guys. the boys and i went to our "spot" last saturday. the crappie were biting the minnows, but my older son must have found a bed because he would catch one every time he cast his rapala in the water. he caught 6 in a row and a total of 8. we ended the day with a string of 18, mostly crappie and a few bream.