Treetops extending into 5-foot depths are prime. Tides apparently have little effect on spawning activity, as these backwaters are out of the current. “As soon as crappies finish spawning, they move into the main river, where they find sizeable current breaks,” Zaleski says, “such as pilings and breakwalls next to the main current.”

During early summer, crappies in some tidal rivers may concentrate in tight groups in spawning areas for a few days, before moving back into the river proper to hide behind those big current breaks. “The stronger the current, the more important big, stout, vertical current breaks become,” Zaleski says. “Bridge abutments, seawalls, wing dams, or rockbars that extend above the surface and totally block the flow become key areas. The best vertical breaks extend above the surface and create large eddies on the downstream side of the structure. Bigger is better in most cases. A current break should be big enough to create enough slackwater to comfortably provide for 10 or more crappies at a time. These crappies are sociable, trying to maintain contact with the most abundant forage and with each other at the same time.

“Crappies move a lot in rivers during summer. One bridge might be productive for two or three days, but before your next visit, the fish have moved 1/2 mile to 2 miles upstream. Within a few days they might move a mile or so back downriver and finally locate on that original bridge again. Same school? Hard to say, but it’s suspicious. For a short time when the water really warms up, crappies in rivers can be tough to catch. Or, perhaps I should say tough to find. If you can find them, you can generally catch good numbers,” Zaleski says.

“Crappies seem to stay near the main channel in early fall, but the main river gets nasty in winter. Big concentrations of fish begin to form. Unlike river crappies in Canada and the far northern states, however, these tidal-river cousins don’t go into the far ends of sloughs or backwaters to spend the winter. They usually stay in areas large enough for the entire school to congregate. That generally means bays adjacent to the main channel with minimal flow. And they don’t seem to require extreme depths to winter in. Often an area with a maximum depth of 10 to 12 feet is adequate. A few hardy people get out on the water to chase them, as tidal-river crappies remain quite catchable all winter long.”

Other Flowing Environments

Crappies live in and around current in a variety of other types of rivers and reservoirs. In the hill-land reservoirs of Maryland, they seasonally move into and back out of current areas. They move upstream in spring, out of 20- to 35-foot depths in the upper third of the reservoir to woodcover upstream in the main river. As mentioned in Chapter 4 on hill-land and highland impoundments, crappies living in the upper third of many reservoirs in North America move into and back out of the main flow of the river on a seasonal basis, dropping down into the reservoir during winter, but living in current areas from the Postspawn Period through mid-fall.