Wintertime Locations And Tendencies

Ice forms on crappie lakes big and small, deep and shallow, clear and murky; on reservoirs and major rivers with frozen backwaters, and on ponds, too. Trying to spout rules about where crappies go and how to catch them throughout the ice season is difficult, because different rules apply to different types of fisheries that have varying physical makeup.

Crappies are ridiculously easy at times, even a great training tool for kids. Frustrating to find or stay with at other times, and downright throw-in-the-towel impossible in some cases. To further complicate matters, crappies can seem ghost-like, suddenly appearing in the middle of a group of anglers at prime time, when nobody on the perimeter saw as much as a fin flutter on their sonar. Talk about your perfect quarry.

The Crappie Movements Puzzle

Crappies can be hard to figure. They’re something of a cross between true ambush feeders and true open-water feeders. Their flat, compact body helps them make sharp turns in tight cover. But they’re also sleek head to tail, allowing them to be a successful predator in open water.

In-Fisherman Editor In Chief, Doug Stange, was the first to discuss how crappies tend to use confined open water, meaning they’re often relatively near some form of structure. “Crappies rarely use true open water,” Stange says. “An exception occurs at late ice, when crappies roam the basins of lakes or reservoirs relating only to forage.”

As with many wild creatures, we speculate about the forces that cause crappies to go where they go, do what they do. Water clarity, for instance, seems a powerful influence, for crappies are light-sensitive.

Changing light levels stimulate feeding behavior in these opportunistic fish. In clear water, they often bite best during twilight or after dark, and in deeper water, during early morning or late afternoon. Thick ice and heavy snow cover can reduce light penetration enough to make good midday fishing on many clear waters. In darker water, crappies may bite well in shallow areas right through midday. And although night fishing is often poor in darker water, they still may bite best at twilight.

These are guidelines that can help you choose to be on the ice at prime time, based on the characteristics of the waters you fish. But it’s possible to turn those rules upside down if you hit the ice determined to catch crappies at other times.

Forage Out, Crappies In

Stange describes one reliable winter crappie movement as the forage out, crappies in cycle. “Great crappie fishing often occurs at early ice,” Stange says, “and one pattern is outside large relatively shallow bays or creek arms with a narrow opening to the main lake. The opening should lead to a fairly deep and moderate-sized flat that has cover extending to its drop-offs into the main lake’s deeper water.”

When ice first forms on these relatively large shallow bays or creek arms, many minnows move away from the shallows, toward the main lake. The bay has to be shallow enough to cause this exit at freeze up; if there’s a deep hole or channel, the baitfish may relocate into that area, too.

When baitfish make their move, they tend to hold in the first main lake or reservoir cover they encounter, like weeds, timber or brush on main-lake flats—which is where crappies congregate to feed.

In a lake, the best scenario is a 7- to 15-foot-deep flat adjacent to a 3- to 7-foot-deep bay. In a reservoir, the best locale is a 7- to 15-foot-deep flat and creek channel adjacent to the creek arm. Inside the creek arm, the flats would be 3 to 7 feet deep and the channel no deeper than 7 to 10 feet.