SPRING TO SUMMER

The genetic history of most reservoir crappies extends back to a time before the water was impounded and they were living in a river, where extensive migrations were required to find suitable habitat during each of the four seasons. In flatland reservoirs, the need to travel persists, and crappies may move miles between spawning grounds and summer haunts after the water warms into the low to mid-70°F range. During this migration phase, which can last days or weeks, crappies are often tough to locate and tougher to consistently pattern.

Even in summer, flatland reservoirs produce a breed of strawberry bass that amaze, amuse, and baffle most anglers. Call ’em papermouths, speckled bass, or calicos, if you prefer (someone once said that crappies have more aliases than a roomful of criminals). Point is, even crafty old locals who spend copious hours of free time chasing flatland crappies can come up blank during summer.

Ned Kehde, former archivist for the University of Kansas and a longtime In-Fisherman contributor, studies the stupefying ways of flatland crappies year ’round. In summer, he admits to spending most of his time hunting them on mudflats. “Most fishermen focus on channel edges,” he says. “Lots of crappies cruise these drop-offs into 25 or 30 feet of water along the river channel during summer, but I’m finding larger fish on brushpiles in 14 to 20 feet of water in the middle of expansive, uneventful mudflats most years.

“Most crappies in the flatland reservoirs of Kansas evacuate coves sometime in June,” Kehde says. “The water in the shallows becomes too warm. Though flatland reservoirs can have maximum depths ranging from 45 to 55 feet, the best flats are in mid-depth areas.”

The best brushpiles are frequently the ones placed in the middle of nowhere, a long distance from any appreciable structure or depth change. Crappies also find a brushpile balanced along the edge of a minor drop of only 2 to 4 feet very appealing as well—as long as it’s in the middle of an otherwise homogeneous mudflat. But some of the best spots coincide with shoreline points, where the widely spaced contours of a gently sloping mudflat bend out toward the main river channel.

Sometimes we’re lucky enough to stumble onto an old brushpile out there, but (in states where it’s legal) it’s best to place your own, made with hardwood and cinder blocks, buckets of brush filled with cement, or just a pile of limbs bundled together and weighted down with rocks. (Be certain to mark each one with your GPS, while also triangulating its location with shoreline objects or highlights.) “The best brushpiles are made of willow,” Kehde notes, “though cedar or hedge lasts longer. I don’t know why, but crappies seem to prefer willow.”

Crappies often suspend vertically near the tops of brushpiles, but they might also be found suspended anywhere within 20 feet or so of the pile. When they’re up high in clear, calm water, boats spook ’em. Under those conditions, Kehde likes to put a marker near a brushpile and anchor a short cast away. He then pitches jig/plastic combos and swims jigs horizontally over and around the cover. But most days and in most conditions, Kehde prefers to jig vertically with 1/16- to 1/8-ounce jigs tipped with 2- to 21⁄2-inch tubes. “During summer, your presentation should be vertical about 80 percent of the time and horizontal about 20 percent,” he adds.