Colayn ... I've never had a confirmed sighting of such activity from Crappie. But, even though they're not slash/dash predators, it wouldn't surprise me to see them intercepting fleeing Shad ... even on the surface. I have seen small White Bass & Hybrids do this, and their coloration can easily be confused as 'looking like' a Crappie ... but, they usually "smack" the water. I wouldn't expect Crappie to make much of a surface splash, maybe only porpoising at the surface & creating a small disturbance.

I did, however, once see what, for the life of me, looked like Bluegill's making little dimples on the surface. There were hundreds of flying ants that had swarmed & ended up on the water. I can't remember how we caught them ... but, we did catch several White Bass in the area, and when we cleaned them .. we found their stomachs to be full of these ants Doh It wasn't Bluegills, after all ... but, White Bass that were so delicately plucking these ants from the surface Rofl Since then, I'm skeptical of "calling" (identifying) a fish by it's splash ... unless I can actually SEE the fish, up close & just under the surface. I don't even ID the whole school as one particular species, either ... since I've seen several species involved in "jumps", at the same time. So, yeah ... it "could" have been Crappie picking off the wounded or stragglers of the school of Shad.

... cp