During late summer, crappies spend increasing amounts of time suspending off main-lake breaks in natural lakes. The portion of the water column they suspend in tends to become gradually deeper as summer draws to a close. If the break is from 15 to 25 feet, crappies tend to hover at 20, below the lip of the break.

When the leaves begin to brighten, the air clears, and the mornings become brisk, change becomes the norm within the aquatic world. But crappies love stability and move until they find it. With autumn comes another period of transition for them, in this case from summer habitat toward and into wintering habitat. In many cases, especially in small lakes and ponds, this “transition” means nothing more than crappies eventually moving deeper and suspending closer to bottom, very near the areas they occupy all summer. In larger mesotrophic and oligotrophic lakes, the fall transition can entail actual migrations over considerable distances.

As the water cools, crappie metabolism slows, yet nature encourages fish to feed quite aggressively to build energy reserves for approaching winter. The stress of extreme cold takes a toll on crappies. The fact that their natural range ends in the southern extremes of Canada suggests how much cold water crappies are willing to put up with. Studies reveal that, when caught in water reading 35°F or less, they begin to lose fine-motor control, making it difficult for them to remain upright and swim straight.

Summer patterns tend to remain in place until the onset of turnover, though crappies may increasingly concentrate on weedlines, deep weedflats, rockpiles, and larger structural elements during late summer into early fall. Turnover represents a major change in the crappie’s world. When surface temperatures descend to about 60°F, the difference in density between the upper layer of the water column (epilimnion) and the top of the thermocline begins to disintegrate.

A big wind can churn the water at that point and begin the mixing process called “turnover” that eventually drives oxygenated water into the deepest portions of the lake. This period of circular, vertical currents, punctuated by odd smells and the sight of bottom detritus floating on the surface, lasts about 5 days. It can be a poor time to go fishing. The key to location at this point is to find a different type of lake—a deeper, larger one still weeks away from turnover, or a shallower lake that has already turned over and stabilized.

Transition Zones

Once a lake stabilizes, crappies can find oxygenated water on deeper flats that were, just weeks ago, out of reach. Down on those flats they find fields of invertebrates that may have remained uncropped by any kind of fish life for several months. The emergence of new feeding grounds attracts various species of baitfish, which in turn draw crappies—all predictably structure-oriented. As pointed out earlier, a variety of substrates coming together in one area offers a more diverse selection of invertebrates—one of the primary reasons “transition zones,” where hard bottom meets soft, attract a variety of species in fall, including walleyes, bass, perch, and bluegills, as well as crappies.

Hard-to-soft transition zones ring the basins of most lakes. Basins are another piece to the puzzle, offering the best winter habitat for crappies in most natural lakes. As the water continues to cool in fall, crappies move closer and closer to areas of the greatest environmental stability. Needs for stable temperatures, stable ph factors, stable food supplies, and protection from wind-driven currents begin to corral the fish in predictable locations. Crappies are not well equipped to handle benthic depths of 80 feet or greater, so they tend to prefer enclosed basins of moderate depth—basins no deeper than about 50 feet. In many lakes, they concentrate in basins found in bays. In other lakes, they find large depressions on otherwise shallow flats. These basins and depressions tend to max out between 20 and 45 feet in depth in most cases. However, some lakes have no such basin areas and crappies are forced to find flats in that 20- to 45-foot depth range that borders much greater depths.

Odds are good that the bottom of an enclosed basin or of a large depression on a flat is soft—made up of muck, silt, or some composite of other soft substrates. Structural elements that hold crappies most of the year—points, humps, islands, rockpiles—tend to be composed of some combination of bedrock and/or broken rock blending into gravel, then sand, clay, or similar “hard” substrates. Where these substrates blend into the softer types carpeting the basin itself, crappies can concentrate. But it’s a linear concentration, spread out along a narrow, snaking transition zone between hard and soft bottom types.

Bottom transition zones can be located quite easily, in most cases, with sonar. Hard bottom produces a “hard” reading on a depthfinder screen, and soft bottom produces a thinner, more diffuse signal. The sound emitted by the transducer on a depthfinder doesn’t “bounce” off muck very well. Much of the energy of the signal is absorbed. So, with the gain turned up on a sonar unit, it’s possible to visually see (and place markers along) the demarcation between hard and soft bottom types. An underwater camera can further clarify precisely what types of bottom are actually coming together below the boat. It can be important, when trying to develop angling patterns for crappies, to know whether they’re holding on clay or sand, muck or gravel, and so on.

Bottom transition zones around these basins and flats can exist anywhere from 8 to 70 feet down, or even deeper. More commonly, the transition zone (which is only a few feet wide, in most cases) occurs somewhere between depths of 15 to 40 feet. It’s common, too, to find transition zones along edges where the bottom begins to flatten out. Where the breaks (drop-offs) leading down from structures crappies use in summer—such as main-lake humps, shoreline points, islands, and rockpiles—meet the softer substrates of a basin, they become principle holding zones. Crappies can become structure-oriented, and often hold so close to bottom they cannot be marked with sonar—especially when active along transition lines. Active fish can be right on bottom when feeding, while inactive crappies may suspend within 2 to 10 feet of bottom.

Key areas also include the mouths of bays and openings to sloughs, backwaters, or any protected, shallower area crappies use during the summer months. Places to look include the widest areas between 20- to 40-foot contours outside the mouth of a bay on the main lake. If the contours form a cup or crease of slightly deeper water pointing toward the embayment area, the entire area can become important for crappies. Here detritus from weeds tumbling down slopes during turnover in past years has mixed with the varying bottom contents to create rich fields for aquatic life. Surrounding structure and depth serve to stabilize the environs as well.

Transition bites almost always take place over the softer substrates on the basin side of the zone, but the best bites seldom occur far from areas where breaks meet the basin. Bloodworms, insect larvae, and other invertebrates are the targets, so the softer side of the substrate divide tends to hold the most active fish. In some cases, transition-zone crappies can be marked 1 to 3 feet off bottom with sonar, but they often peg themselves to the muck. Anything that looks like a bump on the bottom reading could be a crappie, a perch, or another variety of panfish during fall. Underwater cameras can be very useful in determining what these areas look like and what the bottom is composed of, so no rocks or other anomalies can be mistaken for feeding fish during future sweeps through the area.

Other Fall Patterns

Crappies in many systems react differently to the same set of circumstances. Canadian Shield lakes, the northernmost frontier for giant crappies, cool soonest within their natural range and serve as a model for many deep lakes that hold the fish far to the south of these rocky, wilderness-enshrouded lakes.

Cooling water slows crappie metabolism here, as everywhere else. They tend to locate in huge bays during summer, occupying the shallow water that’s denied to them for half the year in these harsh, northern environments. As the water begins to cool (in August, most years) fish move slowly toward winter habitat, generally within the bay itself, or outside a smaller bay into a larger one. They move slowly within a general area, foraging. Once found, they generally remain in the vicinity for a week to several weeks.

Fall location centers around quick access to deep water. Sharp drop-offs that eventually break into 20 to 40 feet of water tend to concentrate the most fish. Gradually tapering flats are less appealing. The “elevator theory” of autumn location holds for many species of fish in Shield lakes, including crappies, which seem to prefer to descend straight down 10 to 25 feet when conditions get rough, rather than be forced to travel horizontally for several hundred yards or more to reach preferred depths. And conditions can get rough in a hurry on the Shield.

The sharp-dropping edges of shoreline points, the steep edges of deep (20 to 25 feet down) rock humps, and the saddles between reefs or small islands situated within or just outside bays that provide good summer habitat are the most logical places to begin hunting for crappies in late August and September. As in other natural lakes, the transition zone from soft to hard bottom at the base of the drop-off surrounding these and other structures is a key area. A school of crappies using a sunken hump, for example, might slowly circle the base of the hump, foraging on invertebrates or on baitfish attracted to the area for the same reasons. Crappies follow the transition zones around structure like a trail. They can be anywhere in relatively close proximity to the transition zone—feeding on bottom 25 feet away (usually on the soft-substrate side of the transition), suspended 2 to 10 feet above the transition, or anywhere just off the structure.

Crappies can, in fact, locate anywhere over the deeper flat (20 to 40 feet deep, in most instances) around the structure. When they suspend, they won’t be in the middle of the bay a mile from structure but generally within 200 feet of it. Crappies can be found suspending in saddle areas between two islands, or between the tip of a shoreline point and an adjacent sunken hump, or off a deep cabbage bed, or between two rockpiles on a 20-foot flat, or within any other example of confined open water in the bay. In other types of lakes—shallower prairie lakes, mid-latitude mesotrophic lakes—crappies can be found suspending in very similar (if not identical) areas in fall, but these areas tend to be within the main lake on those other bodies of water.

Suspended crappies generally can be caught in fall, even within a day or so after a cold front passes. (Cold fronts can have the opposite effect in fall, actually inspiring fish to feed more aggressively.) Contact can be made with these fish by drifting, control-drifting, or slow-trolling with small spinner rigs, ultralight crankbaits, or suspending baits while keeping an eye on the depthfinder. They may position near bottom or suspend 5 to 15 feet above it.

Crappies tend to be closer to drop-offs by early evening. During morning and evening, fish tend to hold fairly tight to structure and close to bottom. On dark, cloudy days, Shield crappies tend to hug the bottom tighter for longer periods throughout the day and bite more aggressively. They tend to move less on sunny days in these environments. On sunny mornings and evenings, and during most sunny afternoons, crappies tend to rise up, and it’s typical to find them 5 to 15 feet from bottom in 25- to 40-foot depths. In this position, they become extremely active and catchable, especially when it’s calm or a slight chop breaks up the surface.

The midday, sun-related activity is probably due to the stained, tea-colored water common to Shield lakes. Sunlight makes it easier for crappies to see their food. The increased light penetration generates more activity among zooplankton, resulting in actively feeding baitfish. By late afternoon or early evening, crappies tend to move back to those drop-off areas surrounding points, humps, islands, or rockpiles, where the action can be fast for the last hour or so before the sun sets. This describes the same, roughly circular pattern of daily activities they follow in summer, from structure to suspending in confined open water, back to structure—except everything happens 5 to 15 feet deeper in most cases during fall.

Winter

The best way to locate winter crappies is to stay on them throughout autumn, because wherever they end up by late fall (mid-October Up North to late December down South) is where they’ll be for the next 3 to 5 months.

Crappies are forced to subsist on things other than minnows during winter in many natural-lake environments—another reason they’re drawn to basin areas with soft substrates harboring large supplies of invertebrate life. If enough baitfish persist through winter to keep crappies satisfied, they, too, will be drawn to basin areas, where water temperatures and food supplies remain most stable through the cold months. Water is most dense at approximately 39°F, and the densest water sinks to bottom. It’s least dense at 32°F (ice stage) and this floating layer serves to insulate both the lake and its inhabitants. Extreme atmospheric cold serves to thicken the ice from the bottom of the ice layer. But the thicker the ice, and the more snow that packs on top, the greater the degree of insulation and the more constant the water temperatures below the ice. The surface water is coldest; the bottom water, warmest.

In shallow lakes and ponds, crappies may not have the option of spending the winter any deeper than 12 to 18 feet. In shallow eutrophic lakes, crappies tend to settle in and near the deepest portion of the main-lake basin, and may continue to relate to any remaining deep, healthy green weeds. In larger, deeper lakes with more options, crappies tend to winter on basin flats or wide main-lake flats in depths of 20 to 45 feet. Though crappies can winter at 50 feet or deeper, it’s rare.

One of the most interesting things to note about wintering crappies toward the far northern end of their range is their seeming ability to predict just how severe the winter is going to be. Picture a chain of lakes, all connected by a large stream or canal. At the top of this watershed is a shallow lake only 12 feet deep, where “fish kills” occur due to oxygen depletion during the harshest winters. In the middle of the chain is another shallow lake, but with a slightly deeper basin of 15 feet. At the bottom of this chain is a large mesotrophic lake with some basins over 50 feet deep. Crappies can pass freely between the lakes. During late autumn just prior to a very harsh winter, we find no crappies in the top two lakes, even though they used these waters all spring and summer. Ice fishing for crappie is a waste of time on the top two lakes. But, during late fall before a mild winter, crappies can be found in the top two lakes of the chain and will remain all winter. This scenario has played itself out for us many times over a variety of chains in Michigan, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. This is just one more thing about crappies that makes you say, “Hmm,” reminding us that the more we learn about living things, the more we realize how far away we are from completely understanding them.