I’m curious (Crappie fishing)

We fished in about 20′ of water this weekend, and found the crappies to be suspended. No surprise there, but as the afternoon drifted into evening, the fish went away Where do they go? If they were on the bottom, they weren’t biting. Do they move to Shallower water?

If you were to head to the lake, targeting crappies, say around 3ish, Where would you setup? Shallow, or deep? What do you consider Shallow or deep?

I would look for the deeper part of the lake, preferably a hole and around 30-40’… I would target the 20-25 foot area… and anywhere the Marcum showed me a fish My guess is that they go deeper, but I don’t know for sure… my nephew was seeing crappies on the camera on the bottom, but they would not bite… when they came in at 22 feet, they were slamming it

Troy:

I guess your question begs another question… Are you fishing deep near structure or not really… If you are fishing near structure, they may be moving up onto it later in the day… If you are not really near anything, then they could be moving around the hole that you fishing and there may be nothing to hold them in your area…

Also later in the day did you notice the increase of clutter on your vex/marcum screen??? If its not happening in the area you were fishing it may be happening close by, but late in the day the chironomids come off the bottom and those are crappie candy. Not that you can’t catch anything, but it becomes increasingly more difficult. I have experimented with some things, but am going to try some larger baits after dark to keep track of them rather than the smaller stuff.

Mark

In my opinion, if you are fishing and they aren’t biting but you see them their you have a bait that they are not interested in. If you see fish, and have the right bait, they will bite.

If they wondered off they aren’t interested in your presentation or bait. Just keep moving until you find fish that commit.

just my 2 cents

During the day it seems they tend to roam around suspended in deep water that is near a significant depth change, as the afternoon wears on they seems to pile up on that depth change. A classic example of this is a point that sticks out into deep water (20+ fow), during the day i will be around the point but out in space more…fish tend to come and go. In the afternoon i will get up on the point more (8-15 fow)

I find much of the same as stated above. One lake I hit has about 40 fow and is nothing more than a fish bowl, with the exception of deep weeds around the entire shorline. Other than the weedline, there isn’t much structure. The crappies sit suspended all day, and near dark, they move up and invade the weeds. Tough nite bite to stay on them. Another lake is very similar, but lacks the weeds. The crappies roam around the deep holes and its just a matter of punching holes and chase them.