The Transition From Spring To Summer

As weeds reach their zenith during early summer, look for areas where various types come together. For instance, healthy stands of cabbage, coontail, and curlyleaf pondweed all found in a relatively small area, bordered on the shallow side by a field of lily pads, might be a key spot. It’s a good place to start looking. Diverse weed types coming together tend to form lots of pockets and open areas that crappies (and anglers) can use to their advantage. Even cruising past a shoreline at high speed, it’s possible to spot some of these biologically diverse areas. If a homogeneous shoreline of all cattails, all bulrushes, or all maiden cane suddenly breaks into a diverse mix of all those types with scattered pad fields just beyond, it often pays to slow down and take a closer look at the deep weededge.

Another key element is the surrounding structure. Weedline crappies tend to prefer confined open water to true open water. One example of confined open water would be an expanse between two underwater points that are relatively close together, say 100 yards to a quarter mile. If each of these points harbors a healthy deep weedline, it would be hard to imagine crappies not using the area in a good lake for that species, if it’s not extremely deep between the two underwater points. Crappies typically prefer to have some “deep” options in the area, like brushpiles, rock humps, weed humps, or reefs. Having these elements rising out of 15- to 35-foot depths is far preferable to having them at 50 feet or deeper. Confined open water might be found between islands, between sunken humps, or in the middle of a large, structurally diverse bay.

Confined open water can be a pattern in itself, as some baitfish increasingly suspend out among the developing fields of plankton. Many open-water or entirely pelagic species of baitfish, like threadfin shad, emerald shiners, and ciscoes, suspend all summer to take advantage of this bounty. Eventually, in a variety of lake types, some crappies are drawn to this developing food chain far off-shore.

Open Water and Wind Patterns

Weedline patterns eventually lead to other patterns as the environment continues to blossom with life. As veils of plankton explode into thick, viscous green veils visible to the naked eye, some crappies and bluegills take to the open seas and can be found scattered over depths of 80 feet or deeper at times.

The tiniest forms of plankton are made up of plant life called phytoplankton. Larger specimens include animals called zooplankton. Even the largest zooplankton remain barely visible to the human eye, but not to the eyes of crappies or bluegills, which often feed on large zooplankters. Plankton of both varieties undertake vertical diurnal movements in the water column, moving up as the light intensity decreases late in the day, and moving deeper again as light levels increase the following morning. Open-water schools of crappies tend to hover just below the thickest accumulations of plankton—and just below feeding schools of baitfish. Depths that open-water crappies use depend on cloud cover, wave action, water clarity, and color and time of day, but it’s most typical to find active, suspending, open-water crappies within 2 to 15 feet of the surface. Less active fish tend to be deeper than 12 feet.

The primary key to locating an open-water panfish bite is wind direction. The second most valuable bit of information is wind history. Plankton can pile up along a shoreline where the wind is blowing in. The bite builds exponentially for every day the wind blows in that direction. Where it’s blowing into a thick, healthy weedline, nomadic fish following the wind can mix with resident fish that stay on that weedline all summer, creating a double whammy accumulation of crappies.

In glassy conditions, nomadic schools of baitfish and crappies can be located by various means. Bluegills often broach and porpoise, giving themselves away. Crappies more often dimple the surface. Look for any kind of surface activity, however. Wherever small minnows are jumping out of the water over depths of 30 feet or more, chances are good that feeding crappies are the cause. And, quite often, the thickest, greenest veils of plankton can be seen in the water during calmer spells. These areas can be quite productive. It’s not uncommon to find big schools of open-water crappies hovering high in the water column over 50- to 100-foot depths during long calm spells, though it’s more common to find them over depths of 20 to 40 feet in those portions of lakes or basins harboring extensive shallow flats. It can be difficult to locate schools with sonar when crappies cruise just beneath the surface, but areas where sonar indicates lots of baitfish should always be checked. These open-water areas can be covered by side trolling, drifting, or spider-rigging, while slowly trolling forward. Any tactic that keeps the boat easing along is more likely to intercept these roaming schools of fish that aren’t held to a specific area by any kind of physical structure.