Winter to spring transition

I’m hoping to get some advice from the experts on here. Seems the crappies just vanished over the past week.

so here in the north we were still in winter pattern until about a week ago. Water temps for the most part we’re still low 40s and crappies were still stacked in their winter grounds.

fast forward a week and a half and now water temperature is nearing 50 and not a crappie to be found where they’ve been all winter.

my last trip before today the temps we’re getting mid 40s and I started noticing schools suspending more along the creek channel. Even they were gone. I scoped about 3/4th of this smaller lake and could not find one crappie. Where the heck do they go?

I looked up into the shallower creeks and flats. Didn’t see much. Do they scatter out more approaching the spawn? Are they not feeding heavily?

I would think they would be on the bait. Where the the forage fish are the crappie won't be very far away

Look for shallow weeds or wood. They heat up faster than open water and baitfish will go there. Crappies will follow. I fished two days ago in 4ft water with weeds. Only caught 4 fish but it was cool and windy. When the sun comes back out I know the fish will use this area.

I find as the water temps near the spawn temps they'll stage near spawning ground. Look for those 6 to 15ft areas just off the shallows that still have some structure.

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I don’t have a solid answer. This is first year I’ve boat fished with a live scope and I’m surprised at the amount of single roaming fish we are catching. I havent seen a school of crappie except under docks. I always thought they just stayed in schools.


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Here in north Texas we are having a late winter. My Bradford pear tree has no blooms and is a few weeks away from leafing out. I know it's spawn time when the Bradford pears are in bloom. Looks like our spawn is not going to get going til April.

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Originally Posted by Grainraiser

Here in north Texas we are having a late winter. My Bradford pear tree has no blooms and is a few weeks away from leafing out. I know it's spawn time when the Bradford pears are in bloom. Looks like our spawn is not going to get going til April.

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our prime time stuff is running late here , this is fact . many of our fish still look to be in the I dont think so format .
it is odd and it is not easy to get on fish when the transition begins . saw a guide actually admit to getting skunked really bad on fork the other day .
there is no silver bullet on fish when they get all confused about what they actually want to do , one fella that is a great guide on another lake ,gave a synopsis of his lake this week and it was like reading 4 paragraphs of tips with a touch of good luck out there .....
he mentioned fan casting and maybe ketchn one per 20 or 30 casts !:yikes

I went this past weekend.... water temps in the creek I fished were low 50s. I had been catching fish around the mouth of the creek in standing timber pretty consistently on previous trips. This weekend the creek was absolutely loaded with shad.... talking insane number.... live, dead, and dying...

There were still fish there but they wouldn't eat. Caught 2 in about 2 hours and they were both so fat they looked like they were going to explode.

I left to go see what the upper end of the lake looked like and idled past some main lake laydowns. They were loaded with crappie.... caught 50+ in the next 3 hours.

Here's the thing.... water was 5 degrees colder than the creeks and there wasn't any bait. Traditional wisdom would tell you to fish the warmer water with all the bait.... but I found more fish that were willing to ear in the colder water where there was no bait.

Obviously that won't work all the time but it's something to keep in mind while you are looking.

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Originally Posted by Ketchn

our prime time stuff is running late here , this is fact . many of our fish still look to be in the I dont think so format .
it is odd and it is not easy to get on fish when the transition begins . saw a guide actually admit to getting skunked really bad on fork the other day .
there is no silver bullet on fish when they get all confused about what they actually want to do , one fella that is a great guide on another lake ,gave a synopsis of his lake this week and it was like reading 4 paragraphs of tips with a touch of good luck out there .....
he mentioned fan casting and maybe ketchn one per 20 or 30 casts !:yikes

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We have had warm days but what we really need is warm nights. 72 degree day weather means nothing when the night temps are below 40. Things are turning around and the blooms are right around the corner.

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Originally Posted by Grainraiser

We have had warm days but what we really need is warm nights. 72 degree day weather means nothing when the night temps are below 40. Things are turning around and the blooms are right around the corner.

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algae blooms are commencing in some spots , this is a good sign,it starts when the water temps begin to creep past 60

I noticed yesterday some dogwood trees starting to bloom. They say around here when the dogwoods bloom it's spawn time. :highfive

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Originally Posted by SuperDave336

I noticed yesterday some dogwood trees starting to bloom. They say around here when the dogwoods bloom it's spawn time. :highfive

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Up here they say when the Oak leaves are the size of squirrel ears, it`s time to go.