OK I’ll admit it, I am a terrible Crappie fisherman.
I’m not looking for any secret spots.
I’m looking for advice on how you find your spots.
Mostly when I find Crappies it’s by accident.
I tried using my side imaging a couple weeks ago but to no avail.
Was I doing it wrong or just the wrong time of year?
Any and all advice on how to find Crappies will be greatly appreciated.
What lake are you fishing? Have to start with a lake where the #s are good. I find a lot of fish with standard sonar. Every month is a good month for crappies!
According to DNR lake survey it should have been a good lake.
I am not great at locating them by any means. 1 lake I frequent there are good numbers but hard to find on sonar. What I learned on this body of water was the crappies will lay right on the bottom almost in the mud. This lake is shallow and gets warm quick. Your sonar will light up just before dark and then the bite is on . It is very hard to get bit during the day in the summer here. Not sure if your lake is maybe similar
Spring time is a lot easier to crappie fish. They are moving into the shallows as the water is warming and will usually bite. Midsummer I can’t help ya.
Right now on lakes I fish my tactic is look for a light chop with the wind blowing into weeds and fish in 14′ to 16′ of water close to the weed line. They seem to be suspended at about 12′.
Go with Pat’s advice. Maybe a bit shallower at times. Run the trolling motor and either fan cast light jigs and plastics or slow troll them. Make sure to fish real early or after 7.
I’m not sure. I only really target them in spring and winter.
If I had to find them in the summer I’d be searching basins firstly and deeper weed lines secondarily. And look for the marks on a graph(if you have one) to be suspended during prime feeding times like dawn and dusk, and after dark for an hour or two.
Agreed with what most have said here. They are either suspended in the basin or on the backs of the weeds. Sometimes they get real tight into the weeds so a slip bobber and minnow can be a good tactic. Drop it into any holes in the weeds you can find.
Low light, chop, or clouds is when I would target them.
Lakes are different so it’s not a one size fits all answer. Spring as mentioned is easy cause there all up shallow in some stage of spawn. Later they roll out to weed edges or basins. Cruise around and look for pods of fish they are often suspended and some of those will bite, pay attention to what depth they are in and try to find that same depth close to weeds or structure and the active fish are generally there. One lake I frequent for crappie all summer you can troll a plastic it has to be ticking the top of the weeds to get bites, on this lake it seems like they don’t fire up until 8-10 but can go all day. Another way to keep on the move and locate fish is set up a bobber with a flu flu and minnow set it for bottom but drift or troll around with that to locate fish. If you have a specific lake pm me and I will tell you what I think and where I would try. Hope this helps.
Agree with John and others, every lake is different AND different patterns might happen on the same lake-if you have faith in the lake you are on stick with it and learn it. Crappies to me do not even look like much of a predator, wide body, no teeth, what they do have is great vision esp. in low light, go very early (before sunrise) stay late (after the sun has set) fish where there is a chop or fish a dark lake. You hear so much about all the different ways to catch bass, crappies are just as adaptable and variable, makes it interesting—Good Luck!
I think the easiest way to find them is to slow troll with your electric a beetlespin around areas you think they might be. Otherwise, just try areas at dusk with a crappie minnow and bobber. So many times they don’t bite until just at sunset when you have an hour before dark. But then they hit fast and heavy.
Crappies are usually there in spots where you have found them before. Actively feeding can be a different story altogether.
I have had them active most any time of the day, but the last 3 hours to dusk are usually the best. I have found that dark thirty crappie fishing can be hit or miss.
I think the easiest way to find them is to slow troll with your electric a beetlespin around areas you think they might be. Otherwise, just try areas at dusk with a crappie minnow and bobber. So many times they don’t bite until just at sunset when you have an hour before dark. But then they hit fast and heavy.
X2
I prefer a 1/16oz mooneye w some gulp minnow.
Lucky to have a dad who is a big fan of crappies. Trolling around w him it seemed like they’d hang tight to weeds most of thr day, then the end they school up and suspend off the weed line and feed heavily. Just caught a limit worth off the dock at work here applying such tactics. 
A lot of crappie schools are out in the same areas they’d be mid winter, deepest part of the lakes in basin areas. Slowly trolling beetle spins or jig and plastics or gulp is a good way to find schools. Can take a little moving around and it can be a time commitment to just keep at it to find where the schools prefer to roam and at what depths. Typically once you find general locations that hold fish you just keep working those areas. Summer is very little like the spring time spawning bite. Instead of shallow and easy, it’s deep and can be a grind. Bit once you iron out the details of the lake or lakes your fishing it’s pretty predictable. A lot of lakes once you find fish you can have a milk run of spots to jig, cork or slow troll jigs or even small crankbaits which are highly effective at locating fish. Especially if the fish aren’t really on fire and a good way to get the biters. Sometimes and on some lakes once you find preferred locations it’s actually easy. Bullet sinkers with either short or long leaders and minnows kept in the strike zone can really catch pressured or finicky fish. Some lakes it’ll change day to day, others it’s fairly predictable as far as tackle and techniques to pick fish off. Not uncommon for fish to relate to weed edges or basin edges. Or both. Sometimes they want bigger and faster, other times finesse and smaller. Sometimes live bait is the only thing that works, sometimes it doesn’t work at all. Plastics and gulp is such a good option. Have caught a lot of summer crappies tight to the bottom and a lot very high in the water column. And everywhere in between. If what your doing isn’t work keep changing things up and moving. Don’t be afraid to go deeper into no man’s land or shallower or on humps or points or tops or bottoms of sharp breaks. It takes time and experimentation on each lake to gain experience to figure crappies out. Once you start getting it to work things will start clicking more. Good luck with it!
Thanks everyone. I have been trying most of the ideas except the small cranks. I will just have to keep working at it and push more for prime time.
The midday basin has really surprised me as I thought I would be able to find them with the side imaging.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
