[sandbadger]

I fish frequently for LM from a kayak and do well enough to keep me entertained, but I am looking for another challenge. I'm thinking of trolling for muskie....j/k. I've never had much success fishing for crappie. I've landed a few here or there while fishing for bass. I'm looking for information on how to locate them. No pond or lake in particular. I don't have a sophisticated depth/fish finder so I am limited to charts, gut feeling and previous luck. I also can not cover as much water as the rest of you!! I know that they tend to like deeper water and like to strike upwards. I rarely fish using live bait. I have seen that "Big Daddy" has good luck with micro spoons but I still have to find them!

All in all any thoughts that you guys can give me would be appreciated the next time I head out!!

 

[silverbullets]

This time of the year, the crappies are either pre-spawn, spawning, or post spawn. When the crappie are spawning, they are in shallow water, and coves. Weed beds are defenitly a bonus if they are around any of those areas. I've caught crappies in 6" of water in brush along the shoreline when they are spawning. They are schooled up when they are spawning in the shallow water. I could be wrong on this, but I don't think that they are done spawning yet. The weather really determines this, and it has been so inconsistent for the past month. I've caught them the first week of May spawning, and towards the end of June in the years past, it all depends on weather consistency and water temp.

After they spawn, they head towards deeper water where they school up and begin to feed. Hope this helps, good luck

 

[sandbadger]

So finding a school post spawn is the true challenge then? Is that just gut feeling mixed with trial & error? Or are there crappie everywhere?