On larger rivers like the Mississippi in Minnesota and Wisconsin, crappies also spawn out of the current. The habitat of choice most of the time is within large, sprawling backwater areas. Crappies here occupy woodcover almost exclusively during the Spawn Period, when available. Some backwaters and embayments hold the fish all year. Current is too strong in the main-river areas of the Mississippi to hold crappies most of the time—until water levels drop quite low. But prior to spawning, crappies sometimes move 2 to 4 miles, farther in some cases, to reach spawning embayments.

In some instances, northern river crappies spend winter in natural lakes connected to the river by short canals or streams. In rivers with dams, crappies may drop down into a reservoir to spend the winter. In the northernmost latitudes of their natural range, river crappies tend to have two critical requirements: To get as far away from current as possible, and to find areas at least 20 feet deep. Crappies forced to winter in areas less than 15 feet deep in far northern climates generally suffer more stress and higher winter mortality rates—and it often happens, since the only available backwaters completely out of current often are less than 10 feet deep. However, ice-fishing for crappies is popular and productive in many northern Mississippi River backwaters.

As water temperatures climb into the 60°F range in spring, those crappies with options involving deeper winter habitat begin to migrate, usually downstream to bays and backwaters where they stage and eventually spawn. After spawning, they move directly to areas adjacent to the main current—or as close as they can get while still occupying woodcover. Big-river crappies often move throughout the summer, but continue to utilize backwaters, especially edge areas where still water borders the main flow of the river.

In these areas woodcover provides important habitat. A deadhead log may drift in, provide habitat for several weeks to several years, and harbor crappies during summer. When floods wash the deadhead away, crappies may not be found there again until the river deposits more woodcover. Those that stay in backwaters during summer become more difficult to approach, as many of these areas become choked with vegetation.

Ronnie Capps is a Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officer when he’s not busy winning crappie tournaments. Between traveling to and from tournament sites, he chases oxbow crappies in the lower Mississippi River. Typically, in truly large rivers like this, crappies avoid the current of the main channel whenever possible, preferring sloughs, backwaters, and oxbow lakes.

“Oxbow lakes are created by exceptionally high flows that suddenly flood several hundred acres of land above an outside bend in the river,” Capps explains. The Army Corps of Engineers piles up huge walls of rock where the banks of the Mississippi often blow out, but loss of wetlands, lock-and-dam mistakes, and other poor excuses for engineering over the years have caused floods to be much worse than in the past, so the water often rolls right over these rockwalls in a big flood. “The river then gouges deep holes in the tilled soil behind the ****s,” Capps says. “Sometimes these holes are over 40 feet deep. These oxbows look more like rainbows. They’re big, bow-shaped areas, long and narrow, from 1/2 to 2 miles long and up to 400 yards wide.

“Some oxbow lakes are connected to the river in times of high water,” Capps notes. “But during summer, crappies are trapped there. The biggest crappie I’ve ever seen came out of an oxbow. If they had to live in the river proper, I don’t think we’d see many of them in the Mississippi. Catching one out in the main river in that turbid, heavy flow is unusual. They would rather remain in the oxbows year ’round. And actually, oxbows create the finest crappie fishing in my home region of Tennessee.”

In exceptional high-water events, crappies can be flushed out of oxbows. Rock ****s that follow the banks of the river are submerged in high water when spring floods wash out deep cuts behind the riprap. “Crappies often hold right there, behind that rock face,” Capps says. “About 60 of these ****s have been placed near Dyersburg, Tennessee, to keep barge traffic moving through the resulting distinct channel.

“Crappies spawn in these oxbows and try to live there year ’round, if the river lets them. They spawn late in these environments. Males remain in spawning colors as late as August. In fact, the best fishing occurs during July and August, when the water drops to fishable levels. Much of the year, it’s neither safe nor fun to be out there. I do better when the water drops and clears enough for fish to see lures.

“When the water’s high, oxbow crappies move into secondary channels and sloughs, where they hug the bank. Most of them position behind points and bars and out of the current in 5 feet of water. But in times of high water, current is everywhere and crappies can’t escape it. In April, May, and June, they’re blown out of the oxbows and into the trees. The best time to concentrate on oxbow crappies in the southern portions of the Mississippi River is during the dog days of July and August, when the fish are concentrated, comfortable, and active.”

Flowages and River Runs

John Kolbeck, guide and avid crappie angler from Wisconsin, likes to fish flowages, which are basically small hill-land or flatland reservoirs that usually have small dams and substantial current. Often dams are located at both ends, and flow is especially strong in spring, when snowmelt and rain send runoff through these narrow riverine environments.

Flowage crappies in northern habitats seek backwaters and large bays well away from the main flow of the river during winter. Crappies seem reluctant to leave these backwater areas until the surface is completely ice-free. When the ice is gone, with surface temperatures approaching 50°F, they begin moving out to current breaks in the main channel of a flowage.

“After ice-out, crappies move behind islands in the lower, downstream end of the flowage,” Kolbeck says. “Around the end of April, as water temperatures climb into the mid-40°F range, they begin migrating upstream to the dam, where some stay into early summer. They move against the current by using a trail of classic breaks along the way, such as eddies, fallen trees, and stumpfields. They hold there for a short time in May, on their way to and from the dam. But the largest prespawn concentrations occur behind the dam, where they’re full of eggs when we catch ’em.”

Like all other species of fish that migrate into current, crappies always take the path of least resistance. Steelhead, salmon, smallmouth bass, walleyes—all fish faced with a major upstream migration—utilize inside bends, woodcover, concrete abutments, flood plains, undercut banks, deep holes, and the side of the river farthest from the main channel during upstream migrations. Where possible, they string these current breaks and reduced-current areas together to form a trail, one they use year after year when the time comes to move. Of all these species, however, crappies are positioned farthest from the main current. While a trout may use the outside edges of branches dangling in the main flow, and smallmouths the heavier branches in the midsection of a fallen tree, crappies often huddle right where the trunk intersects the bank. And it should be remembered when chasing migrating river fish that friction with the bank and stream bottom reduces flow. Current is often slowest near bottom, the reason river crappies are often found there.

“Most crappies hold below the dam until water temperatures reach almost 60°F,” Kolbeck continues. “Several weeks later, some are still holding below the dam. Throughout May, the uneven bottom areas below dams hold the highest concentrations of crappies, which tend to lie right on bottom, out of the current behind structure. Once the water warms to about 60°F, the current is typically reduced from what it was a few weeks earlier, and crappies may no longer avoid the main flow, which is not that strong in most flowages to begin with. Some may position in front of a bar—on the upstream side—in 1 to 2 feet of water. In fact, we catch smallmouth bass in the same areas. This pattern holds into the low-60°F range. In years when crappies don’t spawn due to extreme conditions or a series of severe cold fronts, they can be caught well into June, still stacked by the dam,” Kolbeck says.

During early May, various species of minnows swarm into bays off the main river. In the afternoon as sunlight warms the water, some crappies leave the pool below the dam to take advantage of minnows concentrating in bays, shoreline cuts, and areas where the flowage widens. “Surface waters are warmer in those bays, attracting more baitfish,” Kolbeck says. “Crappies tend to suspend high in areas out of the current, to take advantage of the warmer surface water. If the water in the main channel is 50°F, the surface of bays may be 65°F, and crappie activity increases proportionally. These bays may be 10 feet at the deepest point. Some crappies suspend in open water while others hole up in tall woodcover.”

Bays might be inlet areas for feeder creeks, but one of the principle keys to finding the right bay is to seek spots without current. Bays with running creeks don’t warm as fast and may have substantial current, which crappies try to avoid at this time. Prime bays tend to be off the main channel, according to Kolbeck. But he also likes areas where bays create wide, slow, current seams well offshore. “At some point, the still water of the bay meets the current of the main channel, and it could be a mile from shore,” he adds. “Crappies scatter along that current edge throughout May.

“The exact location of a current seam varies from day to day, especially when water levels fluctuate. The best way to find it is with a bobber. A current edge can be 40 feet wide or very difficult to find. Just prospect with a jig and a bobber until the bobber begins to ride slowly downriver. The best spots are where the mouth of a bay narrows the channel against the far shore, while the land point of the bay blocks the flow over a large area behind it. The river wants to flow straight and the channel being created is narrow, focusing the current, with a big nothing pancake bay on the side of the flowage opposite the channel.

“Just fish toward the channel until you find current. It’s like fishing by the dam, except that current seams by the dam are easier to find visually. In June, crappies move into side bays and hold around stumpfields in 7 feet of water. Apparently they spawn in there because it’s completely out of the current, and the water is in that prime temperature range of 64°F to 70°F. I think they spawn at night and leave soon afterwards.

“In July and August,” says Kolbeck, “crappies don’t seem to bite as well, but I can find them in eddies on the edge of current seams off the main flow. Wood may improve a spot, but an eddy is a more important element of crappie location during summer. A current break off a shoreline point, a giant boulder, a bridge abutment, or anything that creates an eddy, becomes critical. And if you find one crappie in summer, you find a bunch. In fall, they return to their backwater wintering areas and stay until they move to islands in the main channel the following spring.”