Springtime!

Crappie fishing and the rites of spring go hand in hand. When crappie fishing peaks, the dogwoods are in bloom and forsythia are bright gold. Wildflowers punctuate the gray forests and the songbirds return. Crappies lead us into the midst of these spring events, just as they flock shallow in vast numbers to create some of the best fishing of the year in natural lakes.

That opening may sound a bit biased toward the northern experience. And well it should. The great majority of all natural lakes in the United States are found in the North. Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin lead the way, averaging well over 10,000 lakes apiece. The Dakotas, New York, and Maine come next, for sheer number of lakes, followed by Vermont, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. But natural lakes can be found in most states and exist from Florida to Oregon. If we tallied up all the lakes and took a census of the creatures that live within them, we would probably find that crappies inhabit about 70 to 80 percent within the contiguous 48 states. The southern rim of Canada is dotted with crappie lakes as well, and some of the continent’s best crappie fishing can be found there.

Crappies living in natural lakes from Okeechobee in Florida up to Rainy on Minnesota’s northern border share many common bonds and travails. Studies reveal that crappies, while well suited to relatively cold climates, do not perform well in extremely cold water and begin to lose essential motor function in the low 30°F range. Those two facts—living in cold climates, with loss of function in the coldest water—point to the need for depth in winter, down where the water is at its warmest (water is most dense around 39°F, and water at that temperature drops to the lake’s bottom). And crappies do tend to drop deeper during the cold months throughout their range.

Latitude and lake types have a lot to do with how deep crappies winter. When the ice is leaving in spring, they can already be found shallow in many lakes, but most are still found near wintering habitat. In big, sprawling, mesotrophic lakes with a complex depth profile, crappies tend to winter in depths similar to those used in big reservoirs—at 40 to 50 feet. In smaller lakes and shallower lakes, even near the northern fringe of their range, they tend to winter in depths of 20 to 36 feet. In Lake of the Woods, which crosses the U.S.-Canadian border in Minnesota, most seem to winter at 40 to 46 feet. In nearby Rainy Lake, the fish move during late fall to enclosed basins with a maximum depth of 24 to 36 feet. Though both are very large lakes at the same latitude, Rainy is quite a bit shallower than Lake of the Woods. Yet both lakes maintain healthy populations of crappies that include significant numbers of 2-pound individuals.

Ice-out water temperatures at the surface of a lake tend to register right around 40°F by the time anybody gets out in a boat. As mentioned, some crappies—the vanguard of the spring foraging run—already are shallow. The first shallow crappies almost always show up in black-bottomed bays, marinas, boat canals, and other shallow, sheltered waters on the north side of a lake, where sun exposure is longest throughout the day and where the strongest winds can’t quickly push that water back out into the main lake. Wintering crappies will migrate toward some of these areas in waves as the water warms into the 50°F range, and many stage outside these areas. Staging crappies typically suspend in 10 to 25 feet of water off a point, hump, or other structural element.

Similar movements take place in bays, canals, and marinas on the south side of a lake and toward main-lake areas, but these movements might be delayed or slower for a week or two. When cold fronts pass, crappies may move back to staging positions outside the bay or whatever area they’re in, and suspend. These fish can be very difficult to catch, but it can be accomplished by jigging vertically with patience, long poles, light line, and sensitive gear. The most active crappies tend to be shallow, on flats 2 to 8 feet deep, and a wider variety of tactics can be employed to catch them.

Protected, shallow bays and canals with dark, soft substrates warm fastest and harbor a variety of tiny lifeforms crappies may use for food, such as plankton, burrowing insect larvae, and aquatic worms. These life forms also provide forage for the many minnows that gather in these areas, which can properly be called solar collectors. Crappies find warmth and a bounty of food in shallow, protected waters with a dark, soft bottom during spring. Within six weeks or so, they may abandon these areas as the water warms and chokes with weeds—and not return until the following spring.