While winter depths of 40 feet are most common, crappies in spring often hold 15 to 20 feet deep, depending on water clarity. In cloudy water, they may move much shallower and stay there for longer periods of time. Active fish often suspend near secondary elements like logs, trees, and brushpiles as the water warms from the low 40°F range into the low 50°F range. Where cover is scarce, crappies hold and suspend on breaklines from a shallow shelf into deeper water. Breakline fish often immediately move shallower into areas that warm most quickly—channels, canals, and shallow, dark-bottomed bays—in this temperature regime. Cold fronts can drive them out again in spring.

Crappies throughout their range spawn in temperatures of about 68°F up to about 74°F, though temperature is not the main determining factor. Day length, in fact, is probably more critical. Science is discovering that most fish, including crappies, have a sort of internal calendar triggered by the length of the day. As the days grow longer in spring, they spawn within a certain window. That window, which may be influenced by events like full or dark moon phases, falls between certain calendar dates each year and has been determined over time, as well as and through genetics. It’s Mother Nature’s way of ensuring survivability—of making certain young-of-the-year fish attain a safe size by autumn, leaving them better prepared to make it through the winter.

In all reservoirs types, crappies look for sand and marl bottom—soft but not mucky—to carry out their spawning activities. A mix of gravel and sand is preferred over silt and other fine particles that allow eggs to sink to levels where oxygen is deficient. Though crappies have been observed spawning on the branches of woodcover in some environments, they seem to prefer spawning right on bottom where proper substrates can be found. If such cover is available, crappies spawn in and around reeds, brush, bulrushes, cypress trees, stickups, stumps, or maidencane in 2 to 6 feet of water. If no cover is available, crappies may spawn a little deeper on open sand, sand-marl, or sand-gravel flats.