Warming Water - Colossal Crappie

By Gary Nelson

You toss a yellow-green 1/16-ounce jig towards the shore. The lure lands on top of the dry part of a half-submerged “lay-down” log. You hop the jig off the log and it falls gently into the four-foot-deep water. Nothing hits after you’ve slow-retrieved it 10 feet. Suddenly, when the jig passes by the deep end of the log, you feel a tap at the line’s end. Not easily, you work in a head-shaking fish. You finally grab the lower lip of a black crappie, one of about two pounds!

March is a great time in many areas to be looking for heavy crappie. In fact, several state records have been set this time of year. Just to name two examples— a 4 pound, 9 ounce white crappie was nabbed by Samuel H. Barbee in Missouri in March 2000, and a four pound, 4 ounce black crappie was caught by Gerald Conlee in Mississippi in March 1991. Many panfishermen wait for certain signs of nature, such as dogwoods blooming or morel mushrooms emerging, to tell them it’s time to start chasing crappie. But when they do that, they’re really getting a late start if the goal is a hefty slab.

In late winter or early spring in much of the country, the water in streams, ponds, lakes, and reservoirs is warming. The few degrees of added warmth signals it’s time to hunt and catch possibly the heaviest crappie of the year–because heavyweight crappie are moving to relatively shallower waters where they’re more accessible to fishermen. In the shallower waters, the fish are looking for forage which will supply nourishment to help them through the rigors of the upcoming spawn. And, they’re especially here to start claiming ideal nesting places for that spawn. The big ones claim those choice spots before the littler crappie.

A great tactic to find these larger pre-spawn fish is to actually search out those nesting areas. The crappie won’t be on the beds until the water surface temperature reaches into the low 60s to low 70s. However, the pre-spawn fish commonly swim in water that is somewhat deeper than, but near, these future spawning sites.

To find spawning sites when the fish aren’t nesting yet, look first at a map of the lake. Determine from which direction the prevailing springtime winds come from, then look for areas on the map which would be usually calm and out of the wind. Often, crappie don’t have a good spawn at shores that constantly get bombarded by breezes. Look for out-of-the-way places such as inlets and outlets, narrow creek arms, protected coves and bays, backwaters, et cetera.

On the water, check out some of these calm places and especially look for ones with lots of vertical-type cover. This could be dock or bridge support posts, underwater trees, big brush piles, reeds and similar cover. Hotspot areas are those with the cover extending from real shallow to deep water.

A good depth to start hunting for big pre-spawn crappie might be double the spawning depth. To determine the spawning depth, measure the water’s clarity. Often crappie will build nests in relatively shallow water, just slightly deeper than the level at which a white disk disappears from sight when lowered into the water. Fish biologists use a standard Secchi disk, but an angler can get by with an eight-inch diameter sheet-metal or plastic plate, weighted with a heavy bell sinker or a rock. If the disk vanishes from sight at five feet down, the spawning depth is often around six feet deep. Therefore, in this case, a good depth to start pre-spawn fishing might be around 12 feet deep. (There are exceptions to the Secchi depth rule if there’s some extra thick overhead cover present. This area of extra darkness will cause fish to spawn relatively shallower.)

The starting depth can be modified by considering the current weather. If the weather is seasonably cool, the 12-foot depth might be appropriate, but if there’s been a several-day warm spell, it can pay to start fishing a few feet shallower. When a cold spell hits, though, the fish will go back to water below that 12-foot level. A sonar unit can help an angler mark the crappie and help keep position over the cover.

To nab big pre-spawn slabs, one good method is to use a slip bobber and simply slow-troll or drift a jig or minnow about a foot over the cover. Once you catch the first active crappie, you might choose to keep trolling or drifting, though many anglers like to really focus on the catch location by anchoring, then casting and slowly reeling in a jig, minnow-tipped jig, or a plain minnow on four-pound-test line.

When using a baitfish, it can pay to think big, especially considering we’re focusing on real slab crappie. Bring some standard crappie minnows along, but consider using threadfin shad if you’re fishing in one of the more southerly reservoirs, or three-inch shiners if you’re fishing lakes elsewhere. When larger crappie are active, they won’t balk in charging these big baits. However, if the crappie are finicky—as they will be when resting or during a severe cold spell—a smaller baitfish is often necessary.

When using artificial lures only, a soft-plastic tube jig or marabou jig is hard to beat in late winter and early spring. In quite clear water, good jig choices include 1/16- to 1/100-ounce jigs, with the lightest jigs being used when the weather is warm and fish relatively shallow. A chartreuse 1/16-ounce jig works well as a starting, attractor jig. After you’ve located fish, it’s often best to tie on a dull-colored jig, such as one in olive, brown or grey.