But, come winter, crappies in flowing water everywhere tend to seek backwaters, oxbows, pools, marinas, reservoirs, connected lakes, and other areas completely out of the main flow. In fact, the farther they can get from the main flow the better. So, current presents problems for crappies. Yet some populations shun the option to stay in reservoirs and lakes during the warmer months, preferring instead the feel of water sweeping across their broad sides and becoming true river fish.

Crappies maintain a unique relationship with current. Flowing water places more restrictions upon them than it does trout, smallmouths, walleyes, or catfish. Finding them in a river system involves understanding those restrictions. Though crappies may move more in rivers, summer habitat tends to be within 3 miles of spawning habitat. Understand the habitat they require during winter, the habitat they require for spawning, and the amount of flow they can tolerate at any given temperature, and finding them becomes much easier.

Small Rivers and Streams

Joe Monteleone is among the more highly regarded anglers in our In-Fisherman databanks under the classification Riverine rodentia (river rat). He lives in Tennessee, near rivers large and small. One of his favorites, the Stones River, is relatively small and slow. In such environs and at that latitude, crappies live mostly in or near the main river channel all year.

Stones River feeds Percy Priest Reservoir, yet crappies inhabit it year ’round.

“These are true river crappies that rarely drop down into Percy Priest,” Monteleone claims. “In some places, the river can be waded across, while other spots are 35 feet deep. Most years, heavy current occurs only in spring during the rainy season, which is when crappies burrow deep into cover near the bank to avoid current. Otherwise, current is rarely strong enough, or the temperature low enough, to sweep fish out of the downed trees in the main flow.”

In spring, crappies move off ledges bordering the deep pools where they’ve spent the winter. In high water, they probe deep into shoreline cover. As the water warms above 60°F, they move to small backwaters to stage. “They won’t spawn in current,” Monteleone explains. “They use little backwaters. Stones River has no big embayments or sloughs or oxbows, just little cuts about the size of an average driveway. Crappies use these to avoid the increased current of spring and to get more sun, then stay to spawn.” As in most river environments, peak spawning activity takes place in water temperatures of about 66°F to 70°F. Crappies find whatever cover they can to spawn within, which typically means woodcover, in river environments.