You guys are going to have a blast once you nail down a few honeyholes. The crappies will start pre-spawn right around the end of March.

Most of these fish tend to stay close to rockpiles that are within spiting distance of deep wood cover (the many, many large wood piling docks around the lake). For the most part the crappies will spend the entire winter under these docks since a lot of them extend out to water that is up to 40 feet deep and the docks can contain hundreds of wood pilings.

As soon as the weed growth begins in mid-April the crappie will move off the rocks and stack up on the emerging weedlines. This is when you'll begin to have 30+ catch days of large pre-spawn females. They don't move into the shallows here like many other lakes because the water is so clear. I've seen them spawning on the top of logs located in 25' of water.

I would stick to the westside of the lake for pre-spawn. The entire west shore is made of large rocks and rockpiles, rocky flats, and hard drop-offs with plenty of docks that you could fish for weeks. The bay in the SW corner of the lake is a good place to figure out as well. There are many old pilings in the water that go out to 15' of water and the entire bottom of the lake there is made up of rock. Rocks, weedlines and wood are the secrets words here, find places that have all three and you'll find crappies (and 3lbs+ smallies). Make sure you use good line, you'll often catch monster bass from the same locations.

I've been bust'n my butt all winter long to put together a new fishing rig (2 years without a boat was 2 too many lol!) so I'll see you guys out there this year.