And even that can change. “When heavy snow comes early, look deep. When snow cover is light, look shallow,” Genz advises. “Mild winters tend to promote shallow patterns, while harsh winters tend to drive panfish deep in many of these systems. The key is knowing your lake.”

Pattern Identification Systems

The keys to winter patterns for panfish are oxygen, food, and environmental stability, which includes water temperature, sunlight penetration, and mixing effects caused by convection. Certain systems and their characteristics tend to promote shallow panfish patterns in winter. River backwaters probably comprise the best-known shallow patterns for bluegills and crappies during the cold months. Some of the finest ice and shallow open-water fishing for big crappies from Minnesota to Louisiana occurs in 6 feet of water or less on backwaters of the Mississippi River.

Panfish really don’t want to deal with current during winter. When the water is cold, current becomes for fish what wind chill is for humans. In long stretches of river between dams, where panfish have no lakes or reservoirs to retreat to, they push back into oxbows and backwaters off the main river, as far from current as possible. In many cases, these backwaters are no deeper than 5 or 6 feet throughout.

A 10- to 12-foot hole can stack panfish dramatically in these environments. If no deeper holes exist, panfish tend to find areas (1) protected from north winds, (2) with islands, reeds, or cane between them and the current, and (3) with a mix of substrates. Different bottom types hold different kinds of invertebrates, so a mix of hard and soft bottom is good to find when hunting backwater panfish in winter.

Even though river backwaters become encased in ice in Minnesota, North Dakota, and northern Wisconsin, panfish populations can flourish in 6 feet of water because the main river delivers oxygen and plankton to the periphery of these environments, and it mixes in through the process of convection. If oxygen content drops in backwater areas, panfish are forced to relocate in areas closer to (but never in) the main current.

In southern reservoirs that never ice up, crappies still tend to locate deep. Here, vertically jigging for crappies in 50 feet of water is not uncommon during January and early February. These fish tend to congregate near primary and secondary points, near the confluence of creek channels with the main river channel. But creeks entering secondary arms within these major creek arms can sometimes collect large numbers of crappies in water 10 feet deep or less. Flowing creeks become solar collectors, pushing warm or highly oxygenated water into the reservoir.

As Genz mentions, clear lakes permit more sunlight to reach weeds even with a layer of ice on the surface. And in latitudes where ice cover lasts only two months or so, panfish can survive in much shallower environments. In Canada and Minnesota, it’s rare to find panfish in lakes with main basins shallower than 20 feet—shallow lakes “freeze out.” Oxygen content becomes too low during winter to support anything bigger than a minnow. As you move south, panfish can persist in increasingly shallow environs.

In the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge in Nebraska, for instance, lakes with basins no deeper than 8 feet support trophy bluegills—some weighing more than 2 pounds. Genz, who has fished the Valentine lakes, says the key is just to keep drilling holes and looking for the thickest patches of green weeds, then concentrate all your effort there. Most trophy bluegills are caught in 5 feet of water.