Monster Pans

It Opens

Early prespawn crappie bites are awesome for trophies but so-so for numbers, in many places. The movement is from deep winter haunts toward shallower water, closer to spawning habitat. Big clusters of fish become easier to find as they mill in traditional spots, staging at the mouths of creeks or shallow bays. Females are heavy with eggs, the bite becomes more aggressive, and fish are concentrated. Shallow crappie activity occurs first each year down in Florida, usually sometime between mid-January and early February, and progresses quickly up the coast with the Gulf Stream.

Santee-Cooper, South Carolina, benefits from the Gulf Stream. Situated about 50 miles or so from the Atlantic, the climate warms almost—but not quite—as fast as Florida’s. It’s a shallow flatland reservoir, with indistinct creek channels in the back ends of creek arms. Most of the lake is less than 25 feet deep. Pete Pritchard, a former fireman and a guide on Santee-Cooper for over 30 years, says crack-of-the-bat crappies appear in early March. “I don’t book any crappie trips before March,” Pritchard says. “In February, crappies are laying low in the main lake, holding right on bottom in 25 feet of water in the dead forests. It’s hard to locate them in February, and few people try.

“When the water temperature hits about 58°F, crappies start moving and congregating. The time to be here is when they start staging around the mouths of creeks in 15 to 20 feet of water. That first bite in spring is all about trophies. You won’t catch big numbers early on, but you catch good-sized fish. It’s not uncommon to see a 3-pounder in March. When the water warms into the high 50°F range, I start looking for suspended fish on 20-foot flats leading into mouths of creeks. Unless you see crappies suspended, the bite’s slow. The best bites occur when fish are suspended 10 to 15 feet down over those 20- to 24-foot flats.

“I put out 15 rods during that early bite, tightlining with no floats, putting lines at different depths with the rods in holders, trying to find out which depths the fish are biting at.” Pritchard baits with live minnows on #1 Aberdeen hooks, placing split shot 6 to 8 inches above the bait and presenting it with short ultralight rods, 5 to 6 feet long. “I like that length because we’re fishing vertically. We catch 25 apiece on an average day, ranging from 3/4 pound to 21⁄2 pounds or bigger. They don’t bite too well until they rise off the bottom.”

The true shallow exodus comes a little later. “When the bite heats up on the brushpiles, the water will be 64°F or so,” he says. “We’ve got brushpiles positioned strategically to intercept crappies as they move from the main body of the lake into the creek arms. They begin to spawn at 68°F, about the second week of April. Black crappies use cypress trees and root structures in 3 to 5 feet of water. White crappies look for bushes, old pad stems—something to stick their eggs on. I believe some of these white crappies, however, spawn unbelievably deep. In late March and early April, you’ll catch fish with milt and eggs running out of them in 20 to 24 feet of water.