Millions of anglers sit at home in winter waiting for spring to bring crappies into the shallows. Why wait? Many places have shallow, open-water crappies all winter long. From the flatland reservoirs of Oklahoma and Kansas to the marshy lakes, backwaters, and channels of Florida, shallow crappies can be easier, even more numerous than deep fish, even in hill-land reservoirs.

Most rivers that feed Midsouth, Midwest, and far-southern reservoirs have crappies. River crappies tend to stay in the far upper reaches of the reservoir, wintering in the areas just below (downstream of) the farthest upstream reach of the river channel. For the most part, these fish are ignored in winter, making them all a little less spooky. Contrary to popular wisdom, winter crappies can be aggressive, actively hounding schools of shad, suspending on flats, and hunting through shallow brushpiles. For the anglers discussed here, 50 crappies or more from 12 feet of water or less is a pretty typical day at the office between December and March.

Kansas

Ned Kehde, Field Editor and longtime contributor to In-Fisherman on many fishing topics, lives in Kansas, right on the ice-fishing boundary. “I don’t ice-fish for crappies any more,” Kehde says. “I’m getting too old. But, if I wanted to do it, I could still find crappies in 8 feet of water in the far back end of creek channels from December right through the first of March. We have deep patterns in 25 feet of water all winter, too. But we have shallow fish on brushpiles up in the rivers, and crappies can suspend 10 to 12 feet down over mainlake brushpiles in 18 feet of water. As mentioned, crappies can be in feeder creeks as shallow as 8 feet, on the far upstream edge of the river channel where it breaks off.

“The most prolific shallow pattern occurs way upriver, at the top of the reservoir in the riverine portion, where the deepest holes are about 20 feet deep,” Kehde says. “Brushpiles occur in all depths, from 20 feet up to 10 feet. Most people look deep in winter, but crappies use those 10-foot brushpiles. Later in winter crappies go shallower and most anglers fish those brushpiles. Shallow crappies are largely ignored from December through February.”

Shallow crappies mean spending less time prospecting, less time waiting for a jig to drop and less time playing fish, which all adds up to less time spent on each spot. That frees anglers to try more spots. Finding crappies in shallow water isn’t just luck in winter. In fact, it should be the goal, but crappies may not use the same shallow water spots every day, so the next logical question for Kehde was: Do conditions play a part in bringing crappies shallow during the cold months?

“I can find no rhyme or reason as far as conditions are concerned. I can’t quite peg it down,” Kehde admits. “Barometric pressure, the full moon and weather patterns seem to have nothing to do with it. I still find them through trial and error by searching brushpiles and drifting flats for cruising crappies that are chasing shad or hunting invertebrates. In Kansas reservoirs, though, I can find fish somewhere in shallow water every day between December and March.

“Shallow crappies can be pretty darn aggressive during winter,” he adds. “Most of the time I’m fishing vertically in brushpiles situated in 8 to 12 feet of water, with 1/16- to 1/32-ounce chenille, marabou, or tube jigs, depending on which is working best, and primarily we jig vertically in these rockpiles. Sometimes the best brushpiles are on a channel bend, sometimes on a flat, and sometimes on the most gradual slope into the river channel. The secret is to have a lot of brushpiles in a variety of places and not necessarily on the lip of the channel break. Flatland reservoirs have gradual tapers to the channel in many places, with sharp drops on the bends. It’s all trial and error. On a good day you can whack a bunch of fish, but you never really strike out for crappies down here even in shallow water, even in the middle of winter.”

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.

“Crappies can be very active at night, even in 40°F water,” Huckabee says. “The bite may not last all night but generally lasts a few hours. It may suddenly turn on at 10 p.m. and last until midnight; the next night it might be 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., and the next, 9 to 11. I’ve not been able to discern any rhyme or reason to the timing. It has nothing to do with the moon, the conditions, or the barometric pressure. You just have to fish until they start biting.”

Huckabee uses the same tandem rig (two tube jigs about a foot apart) on 8-pound mono for fishing vertically in those same kinds of riverine habitats at the top of reservoirs that Kehde talked about. “Most of my fish are in the river or the riverine portion of the upper reservoir,” Huckabee says. “We catch some trophy crappies in winter, mixed in with smaller fish. I don’t think I could target bigger fish, especially at night. You just weed through them. When vertically jigging, I use a 10-foot Dippin’ Stick, a signature Todd Huckabee Quantum rod, and in winter I generally use two 1/8-ounce jigs. I never need bait. Tubes work just fine in cold water.”

In Texas, John Hale of Stanley Jigs finds crappies use the same pattern, with river crappies dropping into the upper end of the reservoir at the onset of winter. “On the upper end of the lake, during a warm spell you can find crappies 8 to 12 feet deep,” Hale says. “But on Lake Fork and Sam Rayburn, those river crappies enter the top of the reservoir and scatter. You can still find them in the river channel on Toledo Bend. To me, there’s no rhyme or reason to it. It makes no difference what the water temperature is. Crappies start to scatter in December, making it hard to find concentrations of fish. In February and March we begin to see concentrations again on natural cover, like bushes and grass.”

Lonnie Stanley, president of Stanley Jigs, often finds crappies in depths of 8 to 12 feet in the upper reaches of Sam Rayburn during winter. “Crappies that drop down out of the river suspend 8 to 12 feet down off the edge of the river channel, right at the same level as the lip of the bank,” Stanley says. “On warm days they leave the river channel and wander up little branches and sloughs with water temperatures in the 42°F range, and they stay there until the next cold front comes through. Pitching a little Stanley Wedgetail on a 1/8-ounce ball-head jig and lifting it off bottom in 8 to 12 feet of water is one of my favorite tactics. I pull it 2 feet off bottom and ease it back down, using 6- to 8-pound line on a medium-light All-Star rod.

“In mid-January, when it’s as cold as it can get down here, crappies group in the river channel, but they remain in 8 to 12 feet of water. A cork and live minnow drifting along the breaks of river channels in the upper portions of any of our lakes down here can put a ton of fish in the boat in the wintertime.”

Florida

Jim Porter, a crappie guide in central Florida, works natural lakes, sloughs, canals, and the Stick Marsh during winter for crappies. “The Stick Marsh is a manmade water-control impoundment,” he says. “It’s a shallow grass bowl, and that kind of fishing is prevalent around here. Crappies seldom have the option to go deep, but even where they have that option in Florida, active fish won’t be found much deeper than 12 to 15 feet. In Florida, crappies come to grass or wood by mid-afternoon or late in the day like clockwork, mostly being caught 6 to 10 feet down over or along the edges of the cover. They use grass lines as edges.

“They spawn from the end of February through early April. From November through February, crappies are out in open water in big schools following baitfish with no other discernable pattern to their movements. The best way to approach them is to control drift. Early and late in the day you can key on grass lines and the rest of the time you search until you find them, generally suspended. I control-drift 8 to 12 feet down, keeping minnows 2 to 3 feet off the bottom. Crappies situate just below a certain level of light penetration. I drop a bright white jig or spinnerbait, and the depth where it disappears is generally the depth active crappies are using, so that’s where I might start.

“The water is fairly dark, so 7 to 8 feet is the magic depth most of the time all winter long,” Porter says. “When you find a school of crappies using sonar down here, the school looks like a plate, with all the fish spread out at the same depth. I use a 1/16-ounce jig with a couple of split shot above it and control-drift, with about 2 rods per person. I use little 2-inch tuffy or hard-head minnows. They’re so small, if you lip-hook them they die—I tend to hook them through the back near the tail, and about the only thing that kills one is a crappie.

“From mid-morning through late afternoon, I go to the deepest water in any Florida lake and start drifting toward the shallow zones, but I don’t go shallower than 8 feet. As soon as I see grass on the depthfinder, I pitch a marker. Crappies like to get over the top of the grass in Florida. In January I have 30 feet of line out with a couple of BB split shot. If I have a breeze, I don’t use the trolling motor. The slower I can move for crappies, the better. On windy days, I use driftsocks fore and aft to drift the boat sideways. And the fish don’t spook when a boat passes overhead, down here. I use 10-pound mono to drift and I pitch with 6-pound FireLine. Late in the day, if I find crappies around wood, I pitch a 1/16-ounce feather jig, without bait.

“If I don’t have clients, I go fishing for crappies just for fun, all winter long,” Porter says. “There are so many of them, you know you’re going to catch some and 90 percent of the time we put 50 to 100 fish into the boat. If you hit the right group of fish, you can average 2 pounds.”

Perhaps no rhyme or reason exists for it, but if you search for crappies in the upper ends of reservoirs, you can find them biting shallow all winter long. So excuse me, please, while I order some plane tickets.