Perry Reservoir in Northeastern Kansas close to Topeka is a classic example of this type of fishery, Kehde says. “It has two secondary tribs, and the channel edges can be anywhere from 5 to 15 feet deep in the upper portions. Sometimes you can catch them in extremely shallow water, like 4 feet. When fish aren’t associated with brushpiles, they suspend or are on bottom just cruising the flats, but they can remain in one area for longer periods in winter, and they’re active when suspended. We can stay on top of them a long time, over half an hour at times. Sometimes they move every 5 minutes, sometimes not. With winter crappies, it’s all trial and error.

“We use short rods, but lots of anglers like 9- to 12-foot light-action sticks. I grew up in the Charlie Brewer years and I like the short stuff for vertical fishing, in the 51⁄2- to 6-foot range. I use 8-pound Stren Super Braid with a 4-pound mono leader to present my jigs. I do a lot of gentle things to trigger strikes, like squeezing the rod handle until the tip shakes. I do that almost incessantly, but some days you’ve got to deadstick it. I prefer to find active fish, so I keep moving, but sometimes deadsticking pays off. If we’re not vertically fishing, we pitch and let it swing in a natural pendulum back under the boat.”

Oklahoma/Texas

Professional crappie guide Todd Huckabee works all the reservoirs around Tulsa and for many miles around. “I find a lot of fish at 10 to 12 feet and even shallower, up to 3 or 4 feet of water, all winter long, even when the water temperature is in the 30°F range,” he says. “I do a lot of night-fishing in winter. On some lakes it’s better at night. On lakes where they won’t bite during the day, they often bite at night. Winds tend to be calmer then, so I think crappies can see better and they seem more active. And a lot of my night-fishing is done from docks, just fishing vertically with Vibra-King 2-inch tubes and two 1/8-ounce Crappie Pro jigheads tied into a tandem rig. When I started doing it I found out it’s kind of a cult deal. A lot of people fish crappies at night in Oklahoma, even during winter.”

Huckabee says that proximity to the river channel or the depth of the water around a dock has little to do with choosing the right one. “The dock doesn’t have to be near the river channel, but it does have to have a light that comes on every night. People that hang their own lights on docks often tell me they don’t do well. It has to be on consistently, every night, coming from the same source in the same spot. The light can be anywhere on the dock, just as long as it always comes on and stays on at night. Lights on dams create the same kind of pattern, in the shallow water near riprap in 4 feet of water in the winter. I’ve caught many crappies around dams in this part of the country at night, using a cork and the same tandem rig of tube jigs, pitching it out and slowly reeling it in through water 4 to 6 feet deep. That pattern holds up all winter long.