Reservoirs come in all shapes and sizes, with myriad depth profiles. Depth and structure, of course, are dependent upon the lay of the land before an impoundment is filled. Mountainous regions tend to have deep, clear reservoirs loaded with rocky, vertical structure, while flatlands tend to have shallow, relatively featureless reservoirs with gradual breaks. Between these extremes, reservoirs take on every imaginable shape and depth profile, with structure formed by everything from muck to rock.

Crappies exist in every type of reservoir. While the overall environment may vary considerably from one reservoir to the next, crappies locate and behave in a very similar manner across the board. In most cases, crappies indigenous to reservoirs descended from populations of river crappies, and river fish are notorious for making seasonal migrations. This age-old habit does not change simply because the environment does.

Reservoir crappies typically move to deeper areas, toward the main lake or main basin of a reservoir, just prior to winter. During spring, this migration reverses itself as crappies once again move shallow. During summer and early fall, crappies make use of the best cover options available while hunting the most prolific forage items the reservoir has to offer. When migrating,they use the same “roads” they used before the reservoir was created: old creek and river channels. Most of the time, they can be found on or just off this road.

Reservoir crappies also tend to suspend over creek and river channels a lot during every season of the year. And, because river crappies are often far more dynamic in terms of movement than lake crappies, overall location patterns can be much trickier to develop—especially during the transition periods of winter-to-spring and fall-to-winter. The following chapter outlines the fundamentals for finding crappies within each season and within each of the main types of reservoirs they inhabit.

Winter to Spring

Flatland And Lowland Reservoirs And Flowages

Flatland impoundments typically fluctuate less than 10 feet annually; tend to have cloudy, murky, or stained water; and arise in broad, sprawling flatlands. Creek arms are usually wide but shallow, and creek channels are sometimes silted over, indistinct, and difficult to find. Water depth at the dam is typically in the 40-foot range, with increasingly shallower contours upstream. In most parts of the country, white crappies tend to dominate this type of habitat. Unlike their cousins in other types of impoundments, crappies in flatland reservoirs often use the main-basin area near the dam, especially in winter. A classic example of a flatland reservoir might be Santee-Cooper in South Carolina.

Lowland reservoirs are flooded marshes or bayous. A classic example of a lowland reservoir would be Black Lake in Louisiana. Lowland reservoirs often have dams on small, narrow creeks. The main river channel is seldom near shore, and 50 percent or more of the surrounding shoreline can be composed of marshland. Channel bends are often long and gradual, and the surrounding flats tend to be quite large. Bays and coves are usually very shallow and are often choked with weeds. The seasonal movements of crappies in lowland reservoirs are all but identical to those in flatland reservoirs.

There is no classic definition of a “flowage.” Most lakes called flowages arise in the North (most, in fact, are in Wisconsin, though some exist in Michigan, Minnesota, and other states). Some have all or most of the attributes of a lowland or flatland reservoir. But some occur in hilly country, employing relatively small dams that affect far less of the landscape than a hill-land reservoir. In Kentucky, this type of flowage is called a “river-run reservoir.” These are typically long and narrow with an easily distinguishable creek channel and lots of woodcover. Maximum depths at the dam may exceed 40 feet, but the deepest areas along the main river channel are in the 20- to 25-foot range. Flowages often harbor excellent crappie fisheries.

Somewhere between 1980 and 1995, most crappie anglers across North America’s flatlands gradually arrived at the same conclusion: Winter is usually the best time to pursue crappies in flatland reservoirs, because all the locational patterns merge into one. They coalesce into tighter groups during winter than at any other time of year. Because crappies everywhere seem to locate and suspend thickest in areas less than 50 feet deep, shallower flatland reservoirs offer the most habitat for them to spread out across. And their seasonal migrations in these types of impoundments tend to be longer than anywhere else.

In the latitudes of northeastern Kansas, winter fishing generally begins about three weeks prior to the winter solstice, which occurs 4 to 6 days before Christmas in most years. During late November in Kansas, crappies and their primary prey—gizzard shad—begin congregating in giant schools that gradually become even larger as winter progresses. By February, some schools of shad and crappies are 3 to 5 feet thick and 30 feet in diameter, suspended over submerged creek channels.

From such massive schools, anglers routinely extract 100 or more crappies per day. Perhaps crappies form such schools to increase predatory efficiency, just as the shad gather in tight schools for protection. Many Kansas anglers contend that such schools are more vulnerable to fishing pressure than they are during the spawn, and further contend that more restrictive creel limits need to be established for winter fishing.

Fishing can be so extraordinary in winter that a few crappie specialists shun big schools that suspend over creek channels, contending that suspended crappies are too easy to catch and rarely include the system’s biggest specimens. These anglers are looking for 2-pounders, which they believe assemble in smaller, looser groups. And bigger fish do tend to segregate themselves, spending more time near bottom, where a properly tuned depth finder is required to find them.

Schools of flatland-reservoir crappies can range from the dam to the upper reaches of feeder creeks and rivers. In lower Michigan, this behavior often ends during October, while it may continue until December in Kansas. As winter progresses, schools tighten and coalesce in the middle and upper third of the reservoir, leaving most of the waterway barren of crappies. During an unusual winter in Kansas, some schools of crappies and shad continue to hold less than a mile from the dam, suspended over depths of 30 to 35 feet. This typically occurs when crappie and shad populations are extremely high. In Michigan, lakes lack shad and may be iced over by early December. There it’s more typical for flatland crappies to remain in the lower third of the reservoir (closer to the dam) all winter. Latitude, climate, and forage all play a role in ultimately determining where crappies might spend the winter in flatland reservoirs, yet in all of these shallow lakes continent-wide, crappies group tighter during the cold months.

In Kansas, shad and crappies often remain in confined areas for days. Occasionally, schools move several miles in a day or two, sometimes merging with other large schools to form a megaschool. In Michigan, where conditions are harsher, it’s unusual for crappies to move several miles in any direction in a day or two at any point during winter—but they do move. A “migration” of 500 yards or so, however, is more likely in colder climates.

During the coldest spells of winter in Kansas, most can be found gathered in tight groups along river or creek channels. But whenever the water temperature is above 38°F, a substantial aggregation of crappie and shad will likely meander slowly across mudflats that stretch hundreds of yards from the edge of the channel. Schools on the flats in winter tend to be smaller than those along creek channels. An isolated brushpile on a flat in 14 to 17 feet of water can hold a wandering school of crappies for extended periods of time. As long as the water temperature remains below 42°F, the winter scenario just described remains intact. But as it climbs to 45°F, schools of shad and crappies begin to disperse, spelling the end of the winter bonanza. This usually takes place about 10 days to 2 weeks prior to the March equinox.

In Michigan, water temperatures on the surface often read about 40°F the first day a boat can get out after the ice breaks up. By then, crappies have already begun to disperse—often earlier than they might in Kansas. When the ice leaves in late March or early April, some crappies can already be found lingering in shallow coves where the water warms fastest. (Northern fish of many species react earlier to the approach of spring, in terms of water temperatures, than southern fish.)

Transition to Spring: As March and early April days pass in Kansas, schools of shad and crappies diminish in size. Eventually, countless single crappies and random bunches of five or six fish wander after small, loosely knit schools of shad as both species begin a slow journey to spawning sites. During the 50 to 65 days required for crappies to shift from winter feeding grounds to breeding grounds, inclement weather often erupts. Spiteful north winds usher in one cold front after another. A bit of snow flies now and then. Temperatures become frosty enough to ice rod-tips. Cold fronts may barrel across the Kansas prairie every five to six days, usually turning crappies sullen and making them reluctant to feed.

Most crappies and shad suspend across the mudflats and creek channels, ignoring structure like humps, drop-offs, and channel edges. Sonar shows countless black specks, and flashers display orange blips that should be interpreted as single crappies and small balls of shad suspended from 4 to 25 feet.

As this transition period from the end of winter to the beginning of spring unfolds, crappies and shad spread lakewide again. No longer do we find stretches of barren water. During this 50- to 65-day spell, crappies exceeding 12 inches become scarce, and the whereabouts of big crappies has most anglers puzzled. When asked about it, one veteran of many frustrating March fishing trips in Kansas reckoned that big crappies scatter so widely over thousands of square acres of water that finding them becomes an impossible task. In fact, crappie fishing in general becomes a pretty tough chore. Consider this common scenario: On any given afternoon in late April, a group of 10- to 12-inch crappies might be found in a foot of 50°F water along a rocky shoreline inside a cove. A small, inconspicuous spot like that might be the only shoreline holding catchable crappies in the entire lake. The next afternoon, that shoreline could become like every other bank in the lake—devoid of crappies, with no discernable reason anglers can deduce for the crappies to move.

In Michigan, larger crappies may mix with smaller ones in those same kinds of shallow venues, usually relating to shoreline cover like brush, reeds, bulrushes, and fallen trees in shallow, dark-bottomed coves. When these coves are fairly large, it’s possible that crappies may use the entire cove, if sufficient shoreline cover is available. Crappies can become concentrated in small areas when the wind blows in one direction for several days, warming the area where the wind is cracking directly into shore a few degrees more than all surrounding areas. As with bays in natural lakes, wind-driven current patterns can determine your final step when tracking spring crappies in water temperatures ranging within the low 40°F to high 50°F range.

Crappies can also become concentrated in small coves that have no shoreline cover. In this spring scenario, crappies tend to suspend right in the middle of the cove when it’s calm, or concentrate near the shoreline where a sufficient wind is causing waves to slap the shore. Of course, that’s assuming the weather has been stable and warming.

In most areas of the country, in both lowland and flatland reservoirs, one dynamic pattern stands out during the Prespawn Period. It involves what we call the Suspension Zone. Typically, crappies begin to move toward spawning habitat as the surface of the water approaches 50°F. In most flatland and lowland reservoirs, classic crappie spawning habitat is found in shallow embayments and coves. In the absence of anything resembling those options, crappies spawn in brush, woodcover, reeds, or weeds along main-lake shorelines. Before moving into shoreline cover to spawn in any of these habitats, when water temperatures at the surface read somewhere between 50°F and 59°F, they stage and suspend in open or somewhat open water away from shore.

In classic spawning bays or coves, crappies wander like nomads across featureless flats. When they hold for any appreciable length of time, they often loosely relate to brushpiles, cribs, or some other form of cover. It’s common to find prespawn crappies, scattered but in groups, suspended 5 to 10 feet down in 10 to 18 feet of water within spawning bays or coves (old creek arms that have silted in), in both lowland and flatland reservoirs. As the water warms above 60°F, you can find them with increasing regularity associated with shoreline cover until they finish spawning.

Spring weather can be harsh in the northern states, and crappies move out of coves entirely during nasty cold spells. The creek channels entering these coves may be silted in and indistinct. Crappies may move to the most precipitous drop-off they can find, which might be hundreds of yards away within the main lake, and suspend there. The most precipitous drop might be from 8 to 10 feet, but they seem to prefer depths in the 12- to 17-foot range to ride out a cold front. These particular suspended crappies, driven off by cold fronts, can be very tough to catch. As with natural lakes, the best bites usually occur during stretches of warm, stable weather.

Perhaps the most common spring pattern in all reservoirs involves the Suspension Zone. It’s common for crappies to move upstream from main-lake or near main-lake wintering spots into creek arms of flatland, highland, and hill-land reservoirs until they reach an area of maximum environmental stability.