During the spawning season - where is the best place to fish for Crappies?

If you are looking for crappie during spawning season, you’ll want to target the shallows, especially where there is heavy vegetation and cover.  Try areas near the upper end of a reservoir, near a dam or a bridge, or in other spots where crappie are somewhat shielded from the heavy current.  In pre-spawning, you’ll find the fish in deep flats, but as the season begins, migration through river bottom channels begins, and most of them will congregate in a shallow area hidden in a lot of cover – grass, moss, and lily pads all provide great cover for crappie – to spawn.

Note that spawning won’t start until water temperatures are warm enough (usually around 68-70 degrees Fahrenheit), so just because the official season starts in March doesn’t mean you’re going to find crappie in the usual places if it’s been a particularly cold season.  They’ll most likely be running behind schedule, waiting till April if necessary for the right temperature in the lake or river.

You can also look for spawning crappie near bottlenecks, where they are striving viciously to get through to the upper part of the river, becoming road blocked as it were by the high traffic volume of other crappie trying to do the same.  Sandy bottoms and rocky bottoms are preferable to muddy bottoms as far as crappie are concerned, so keep this in mind when fishing during spawning season and don’t target muddy shallows.  You’ll be more likely to find them in clear waters, which are still not preferable, than lying in a bed of mud.

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