Thread: What water temps will get our crappie out of deep water?

@Roy - it has been like you said - they first moved up the water column, although it has been even harder to target them that way as they seem less grouped up. The past couple weeks the water warmed up into the mid to upper 40's and has been even harder to find them. Since I couldn't find them deep anymore I thought they were moving to mid-lake level depths, but it's like they all left the lake. I've tried deep water (fishing bottom and suspended), mid-lake, mouths of creeks and even gone into coves wondering if they went shallow. Nope, nope, nope and nope.

These smaller bodies of water really can confound me. They lack any shad for forage, not even sure what the crappie eat here. The steady sunshine this past week has been nice but every overnight it has also been down into the low 20's. I feel like if the temps can get above 50 I might be able to find some again.

Originally Posted by wasabi

@Roy - it has been like you said - they first moved up the water column, although it has been even harder to target them that way as they seem less grouped up. The past couple weeks the water warmed up into the mid to upper 40's and has been even harder to find them. Since I couldn't find them deep anymore I thought they were moving to mid-lake level depths, but it's like they all left the lake. I've tried deep water (fishing bottom and suspended), mid-lake, mouths of creeks and even gone into coves wondering if they went shallow. Nope, nope, nope and nope.

These smaller bodies of water really can confound me. They lack any shad for forage, not even sure what the crappie eat here. The steady sunshine this past week has been nice but every overnight it has also been down into the low 20's. I feel like if the temps can get above 50 I might be able to find some again.

I went out Thursday to a small creek spot for exploratory fishing just before sunset. No one, but me out there. I had been fishing for herring up in NJ so, I had my saltwater set up and a sabiki rig in the car.

Tossed the sabiki out with a 3 oz. sinker and start slowly reeling it in. BAM! Got a 10 inch white crappie.

Had to go back up to NJ, but got back Sunday to fish arund lunchtime. Three guys in the spot!

One guy said he was there Friday and Saturday and got 20 fish each time.

Fished Sunday for 4 hours and got 3 small crappie and 1 bluegill.

The other guys only got 1 big one. I think they fished it out the days before.

Waiting on warmer weather now.