Sometimes it all comes together—the right location and presentation choices merge, making for good catches of crappies. Once it’s over, crappies become enigmatic, being difficult to find or ignoring your presentation. Part of the riddle lies in their adaptability to thrive in different habitats—from open-water suspension to bottom, on structural edges, and in near-shore cover—reflecting their strong and flexible connection to forage.

Food-habits studies show that crappies, while young, have similar diets just about everywhere. The youngest feed on various types of zooplankton—tiny microscopic animals—in open water, and when they reach a larger juvenile size, insect larvae and other invertebrates become components of the diet.

As crappies continue to grow, smaller baitfish become potential forage. While crappies as small as an inch have been found to eat fry, the more typical size at which they begin to eat fish readily is around 5 to 8 inches long, depending on what types and sizes of baitfish are available. Fish is a key component of the diet in the majority of systems that contain quality crappie populations, contributing the necessary calories for individual fish to achieve slab status.

Many anglers rely solely on baitfish patterns for crappies, assuming that all big crappies eat only fish. But forage can vary across space and time, so crappies can be feeding mostly on fish, or mostly invertebrates, or a diverse diet from zooplankton to various types of macroinvertebrates (insects, worms, crustaceans), to fish. Understanding the flexibility in crappie diets and the creatures they eat can help make your crappie catches more consistent.

The Shad Factor

In lakes with gizzard and threadfin shad, young shad are often the most important food for crappies. Gizzard shad are common in the eastern half of the U.S., ranging to northern tier states, including the Great Lakes. Threadfins are restricted to the South and Southeast because they’re less tolerant to cold water and can experience die-offs during cold winters. Gizzard shad generally spawn around April in the South, May and June in the Midwest, and June to July farther north. Threadfin spawning generally lags behind gizzard shad by a few weeks.

Shad are often seasonally important when fry and juveniles are available for predation. Because age-0 gizzard shad can quickly outgrow an eatable size, they’re often available to crappies only for a shorter time, typically for a couple of months after spawning. In some populations, gizzard shad may have multiple spawning bouts, making young shad available to crappies for longer periods.

Threadfins, considered bread-and-butter food for trophy slabs, are typically available to crappies for longer periods than gizzard shad, because the spawning season for threadfins is wider and they reach a smaller maximum size. In Dewey Lake, Kentucky, for example, Scott Hale of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife found that abundance of gizzard shad capable of being eaten by white crappies peaked in late May and June, before declining sharply. When threadfin shad were stocked as supplemental forage, they were available to crappies into fall.

Finding crappies in shad systems is often a matter of finding small shad. Young shad typically inhabit open-water areas where they feed on zooplankton, suspending at depths where plankton abundance is high. Among several studies, the highest densities of gizzard shad fry were at depths ranging from right under the surface down to 20 feet or more, depending on the body of water.

The depths shad use have been linked to water clarity. In more turbid water they’re found closer to the surface, where brighter conditions improve feeding efficiency. Both shad and crappies were found moving shallower towards the surface, after heavy rains caused muddy conditions in normally clearer reservoirs.

Locational shifts in young shad also are affected by vertical migrations of zooplankton. Zooplankton tend to be deeper in the water column down to the depth of the thermocline during the day, and migrate towards the surface during low light and into the night. Also, after a period of strong wind, plankton densities are often highest on windward shorelines, and young shad and crappies often follow.

To locate crappies on shad patterns, search areas from confined open water to off-shore with electronics. Watch for baitfish clouds that coincide with discrete fish marks, which could be feeding crappies. Activity can be at any depth above the thermocline, likely becoming shallower in dim conditions. Finding little on sonar, along with dimpling activity on the water, may mean that shad and crappies are near the surface.

These crappies are used to chasing down baitfish, so a wide variety of presentations can be effective, from livebait to artificials. Drifting livebait, casting or vertically presenting small tubes or jigs tipped with small plastics, and casting or trolling crankbaits are all good ways to catch crappies feeding on small shad. Spider-rigging with multiple tubes and livebait rigs is popular in the South for pursuing open-water slabs. Small shad also use shoreline areas periodically, often at night, so don’t overlook potential near-shore patterns.

Other Baitfish

In waters where shad don’t exist, which include many natural lakes in the northern U.S., crappies eat a variety of baitfish species, including shiners, minnows, and the young of gamefish species. This also can be the case in shad waters, in years when poor spawning results in low shad abundance. It’s a pattern that can emerge in rivers, as well.

In Grove and Maple lakes, Minnesota, foods eaten by black crappies were investigated by Minnesota Department of Conservation researchers Keith Seaburg and John Moyle. Fish, including small perch, bass, sunfish, and crappies, made up to 61 percent of stomach volume in larger crappies. In a Canadian study from the University of Ottawa, Ontario, the most common fish species in the stomachs of black crappie from the Ottawa River were golden and emerald shiners and silvery minnows.

Some shiners and minnows only reach a length of a couple of inches, making them vulnerable to crappies year-round. Others, like golden and common shiners, grow quite large, so it’s the young of these species that are important to crappies. Shiner spawning can last for months, beginning in spring and continuing through summer, which provides longer-term availability of smaller shiners.

Many shiner species, like emerald, common, spottail, and rosyface, spawn over gravel and sand bottoms in lakes, while golden shiners spawn in near-shore vegetated areas. These areas, when young-of-the-year shiners are abundant, can be top spots for crappies. Some shiners school in shallow nearshore areas; others, like the emerald and spottail, are often pelagic—schooling and feeding in open water—where they operate much like small shad.

The same presentations used for shad-eating crappies work well for crappies keying on shiners. Look to tubes, jigs, jig-spinners, smaller crankbaits, and small rattlebaits for plying open water and near-shore areas. Black-chrome-silver color combos mimic shiners, as does the flash of smaller hairpin-style spinnerbaits like the Johnson Beetle Spin.

A food-habits study done by Iowa State University researchers in Spirit Lake, Iowa, showed that young yellow perch dominated crappie diets in fall, presumably as a strong year-class of perch grew to the preferred size for crappies to eat. When crappies key on young-of-the-year gamefish, try patterns that replicate forage, like perch or bluegill patterns in smaller diving or suspending hardbaits.

Invertebrates

Wading through a stack of literature reveals no cases where one food type was exclusive to diets of crappies overall. Depending on the lake or season, invertebrates can dominate or at least make up a good portion of the diet.

A closer look at the Spirit Lake study, for instance, shows that although large black crappies ate fish during certain periods, the most important foods overall were insects and other invertebrates. In Lake Goldsmith, South Dakota, larger crappies ate more fish compared to smaller size-groups but consumed substantial amounts of insect larvae and zooplankton, noted South Dakota State University researchers Chris Guy and Dave Willis. In two Kansas reservoirs, Tom Mosher of the Kansas Fish and Game Commission found that mayflies (Hexagenia) were important during the spring and early summer, before fish were eaten more heavily later in the year.

Crappies feed primarily on the larval stages of insects. Those known to be favorites include Ephemeroptera (mayflies), Diptera (known as “true flies,” including midges), and Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies), among others. Other important invertebrates include amphipods (scuds), annelids (worms and leeches), and zooplankton (cladocerans like Daphnia, and copepods).

The connection between crappies and invertebrates, although there much of the time, can be difficult to establish from an angling perspective. Most of what’s happening down below is invisible. At any one time, crappies could be feeding on bottom for midge larvae or mayfly nymphs, picking off insects in the water column as they migrate towards the surface to emerge as adults, or feeding on amphipods from near-shore to open water, depending on what’s available, which can be different from lake to lake.

But in many cases, lakes become known for seasonal hatches, giving you a heads-up on a potential pattern for crappies. Mayfly species each have their own hatch pulse, so when you find evidence of a hatch, it may be a clue to catching more crappies. Many species of mayflies become especially vulnerable from spring into summer, but crappies could feed on mayflies at any point during the year.

Even within the same water body, crappies may key on a particular food in one area and another food elsewhere—something to watch for if you’re familiar with the bottom content of the waters you fish. In vast Lake Okeechobee, Florida, for instance, Lothian Ager of the Florida Freshwater Game and Fish Commission found that black crappies ate chironomid (midge) larvae and Chaoborus (phantom midge) larvae in one area with mud substrate, but these were missing from diets of crappies collected in an area where the bottom was marl and rock.

Finding the Key

Locating the right pattern for crappies is more straightforward on certain waters, such as those with a strong base of shad or other baitfish, where crappies are more predictable and patterns fairly consistent from year to year. Seek advice from a local baitshop and they’re likely to offer up a bucket of minnows, a handful of jigs tipped with plastics, or jig-spinners—anything mimicking the dominant baitfish.

In other waters with a more mixed bag of potential forage, patterns can be harder to establish. Staying on crappies can require keeping an eye on what’s happening and a fair knowledge of what forage types are available. You might be on a strong minnow bite, then the pattern shuts off or the crappies move. If you observe a hatch of mayflies strengthening, try switching tactics, with a fly or an insect-imitating plastic under a float. Crappies also might be plucking larvae off bottom, or tucked up close to shore, feeding on schools of newly hatched shiners.

Get to know what critters live in the lakes you fish. Natural resource agencies often have reports available describing what forage base a water contains. Becoming familiar with scientific names can help decipher inventories. More information about specific lakes and research reports is becoming available on the Internet, so a bit of surfing might help provide clues to help your crappie fishing.

Check out what crappies are eating. They often spit up gut contents in livewells, or you can check the stomachs of those you harvest. You might find foods that you wouldn’t have thought about in your fishing. Learning about some of the more common groups of invertebrates and baitfish can help you determine what might be available, and when.

Crappies can change habits quickly, having the advantage of being one step ahead. The more you know about what they might be up to, the closer you are to staying on their tails.