How deep do they go on Rez?

While fishing the rez last Friday I did some scouting around with the 898. With the water temp at 48 degrees I saw no shad on the deep drops, shallow drops, or in the marina area. If I crossed a tributary that led to the main channel it was loaded with shad. On one particular tributary I saw lots of shad and what appeared to be some large schools of fish. First I thought it was stripers but not big enough.. then large shad... now looking back it might have been crappie. They were all pretty deep ranging from 16 feet to 20 feet. Do the crappie get this deep in the winter on the Rez? I let out 150 foot of line to try and get my cranks that deep but had no luck. I will post up some screenshots later on for you to see.

DoubleG

I've caught them fishing 24 to 26 foot deep in 30 FOW before and have heard about them having mud on their undersides on 30 FOW cause they were on the bottom in thew winter. If you'll come up 6 or 8 feet above your crank with a 1 oz slip weight, you can get a couple feet deeper 00G. Don;t have to have as much line out that way

Thanks DD... I wasn't sure how deep they went in the winter time since this is my first year to chase them. Maybe it was crappie I was seeing. Will try to get the iimages loaded tonight.

yep they will get deep! And now to really confuse you, there is an elderly man at our camp in alabama that will catch them in 8-10 feet in the dead of winter....make that make sense

Man, I've caught them in Late January in 30 FOW down deep and in 25 FOW, fishing 7 feet deep. You NEVER know where they';ll be this time of year. just find the Shad and fish just below them. If you see Shad from 12-15 foot deep, Fish 14 1/2 to 15 foot deep and you should be on the Crappie