Springtime!

Because most canals tend to average somewhere between 3 and 5 feet deep, with a few key areas of greater depth, it pays to keep an eye on the depth-finder, too. Crappies might be relating to the deepest water, the water with the most cover, the warmest, or the water where forage is thickest. Pay attention to all the clues, and you begin to piece together a reliable pattern that will help you catch crappies in that canal and others for years to come. And, because canals are so shallow, it’s often possible to visually locate them. Move slowly and stare deep into the brush, grass, or under the dock pilings as you pass. Even a very subtle swirl or the appearance of any “nervous water” should be probed with a bait before moving the boat through the area.

As water temperatures in the surrounding bays climbs into the mid-50°F range, crappies inhabit canals less and less and soon vacate them, not returning until ice-out the following year.

Bays

About a week to 10 days after canals begin to attract Cold Water and Prespawn Period crappies, main-lake-connected bays may also warm enough to draw fish. Bay location can be more perplexing than canal location. No set water temperature can guarantee crappie activity or location, but the 50°F mark can be highly indicative that crappies are in the bay—if it’s a bay they traditionally use at all. Some bays never have crappies in spring and some are inconsistent.

The best warm most quickly, have multiple cover options (weeds, wood, docks, rockpiles), and have at least one hole with 8 feet of depth or more for crappies to retreat to during cold fronts. The bigger and more complex a bay like that is, the better—up to a point. Small bays warm fastest, but big, complex bays typically draw more fish in the long run. Bays with only the first two prerequisites are not as consistent as bays with all three. Once you find a bay that attracts crappies, it’s likely to attract them each year. However, some attract crappies for a short time during the Cold Water and Prespawn periods before fish quickly vacate them. These tend to be strictly foraging sites without adequate spawning habitat. Often these bays are of the soft, dark-bottomed, mucky variety that warm fastest in spring—speeding up the development of a food chain. Crappies can spawn on mud if they have to, but not on silt or muck. They tend not to probe deep into such bays, so confine your fishing to areas directly adjacent to the mouth area of such bays—where they open into the main lake. Fishing can be especially productive near necked-down mouth areas where current can develop.

Bays can be fished from shore—on foot or in waders—or from a boat or smaller craft like a canoe. When searching for spring crappies in a bay, be systematic. Start where the wind is blowing into shore, where the water is likely to be warmest. From that point, move along slowly, controlling the boat with an electric motor, anchoring and casting out ahead. Or, if on foot, make a series of casts from short to long, then move down the shoreline about one cast length to start all over. Crappies can move quite a bit in spring. Don’t let them slip right past you!

In early spring, a one-degree water temperature change can be a very big deal for a crappie. It’s a much bigger deal than it will be later, during summer. If 90 percent of a bay is 48°F in spring, it will have no crappies at all if the remaining 10 percent is 50°F or warmer. That’s where all the crappies are—in the water that’s just one or two degrees warmer. It’s especially true in early spring that the best locational tool for crappies is a good temperature gauge.

Bay fishing usually begins about midday, gets progressively better during the afternoon, and peaks as the sun begins to sink below the treetops. Until later in the spring, calm, sunny days are generally better than dark days. The best daily period is usually late afternoon to sunset because the water remains warm enough to stimulate fish activity, yet decreasing light penetration allows the big “C” to take full effect.

Many bays have smaller feeder creeks running in. These areas are crappie magnets, unless the incoming water is extremely cold. Bay fishing will continue to produce for half a month to six weeks with adequate spawning habitat such as reedbeds, pebble-sand substrates around weedbeds, or other soft-to-hard bottom transitions around docks, fallen trees, other woodcover, or rocks. Crappies prefer to spawn around cover whenever possible.

Main-lake Reedbeds

Some of the most exciting spring crappie fishing in natural lakes takes place around main-lake spawning areas. Reedbeds on the main lake produce some of the largest crappies caught in natural lakes during this time frame, and the fishing can be highly visual. Spotting crappies with the naked eye then dapping baits in front of them with a long, extended pole continues to be the prime method for catching them in main-lake reedbeds during spring.

An entire chapter could revolve around how crappies relate to reedbeds and adjacent drop-offs. We’ve distinguished four patterns of progression into these areas that will keep you on crappies throughout spring. It’s possible to find reedbed crappies before they move into the reeds, but it’s easier to take advantage of better concentrations in canals and bays until main-lake temperatures broach 50°F.