Quote Originally Posted by INTIMIDATOR View Post
You do have some smaller sized natural minnows in all lakes!
In our lake we still have 3 inch shad swimming around from the different spawns they have!

So NO, I do not downsize until the water is lower than 40 degrees.
At water temps of 39 degrees, Crappie start to have issues swimming....so they slow their metabolism, suspend, and just eat enough to survive...then you have to really slow down and just basically ice fish!
Correctamundo !! And I've even seen Shad less than 2" long in Oct/Nov ... in a lake in East Tenn.

There may also be a factor in the fact that Crappie can see clearer/better/farther in cold water, so they may be able to discern the "fakeness" of larger baits more easily than smaller ones.

... cp