Crappie on Sonar

[hambone]

Hey guys, does anyone on here target crappie other than spring time when they are on brush? Kinda of a new challenge for me is to figure out how to catch them year round. I’ve always done very good when they are on brush in spring time and also done ok early summer around boat docks but once they make their transition back to deep water I am lost. We been trying to locate them on sonar, but not really sure that what we are seeing are crappie, or maybe just schools of big gizzard shad. What is some things you guys look for if you where trying to locate crappie on sonar?

[johnr]

I’ve always found that crappies tend to look vertically oriented on sonar. And I’ve found that they like to be on cover that is vertical as well. So I look for a tall, narrow school of fish closely related to something hard. If in doubt, scan it a few times as bait will usually come and go but crappies will always stay on it.

Very rarely do I find them not associated to hard cover, but when I do they are almost always on bait, which makes it hard to distinguish them from bait. In this scenario, they’re still gonna be pretty close to their home cover.

At SML, they don’t have to go real far from shore to find deep summer water, which tends to keep them on brush or deep docks. I rarely look outward from shore, but rather I tend to move outward from their spawning grounds towards deeper water while still searching for brush near shore. Gotta remember, they won’t be far from bait or cover. In summer, there are concentrating features around here. Dock lights, brush on the first steep break coming out of a creek, brush on cliffs, deep docks with big platforms.

I’ve found that they won’t be as scattered in summer, but when you find them you can load the boat because they’ll all be there.

[31Airborne]

+1 to johnr's observations. Crappie schools look like footballs standing up on a tee. You'll be able to discern individual fish, a lot like a gizz pod. The give-away is the presence (or absence) of cover. If you see the football-shaped pod over a brush pile of standing timber it's prob crappie.

I use HB electronix - their web site has a number of online tutorials to help users get better acquainted w/ their units. One of the modules is about templating fish (bait and predator). Gizz, alewife, herring all have distinct patterns. Same-same w/ crappie, white bass, perch. A little time on your (or any other) manufacturer's site would go along way to helping you understand what you're seeing.

[hambone]

Mar 22, 2018 12:12:14 GMT -5 johnr said:

I’ve always found that crappies tend to look vertically oriented on sonar. And I’ve found that they like to be on cover that is vertical as well. So I look for a tall, narrow school of fish closely related to something hard. If in doubt, scan it a few times as bait will usually come and go but crappies will always stay on it.

Very rarely do I find them not associated to hard cover, but when I do they are almost always on bait, which makes it hard to distinguish them from bait. In this scenario, they’re still gonna be pretty close to their home cover.

At SML, they don’t have to go real far from shore to find deep summer water, which tends to keep them on brush or deep docks. I rarely look outward from shore, but rather I tend to move outward from their spawning grounds towards deeper water while still searching for brush near shore. Gotta remember, they won’t be far from bait or cover. In summer, there are concentrating features around here. Dock lights, brush on the first steep break coming out of a creek, brush on cliffs, deep docks with big platforms.

I’ve found that they won’t be as scattered in summer, but when you find them you can load the boat because they’ll all be there.

So John is it fair to say in your opinion that whatever creek you usually catch crappie insuring the spawn, that once the spawn is over they won’t travel very far? Do the generally stay in that same creek year round? Just maybe moved out to creek channel?

[johnr]

Pretty much.

I find that they’ll spawn in certain coves within a creek system. I find these coves during spawn, and I mark them and have a running list of them. From there, I locate the closest hard vertical structure in 10-15’ coming out from that spawn cove. They’ll hang there for a while. Sometimes till July. Once they leave there, I move out looking for the next hard vertical structure, in 15-25’ Typically it’ll be on the cove mouth where it intersects the main creek channel. They’ll hang in that area all summer usually. Sometimes they push out into the maincreek and travel a bit to a more suitable structure and that spot is usually the motherload and hard to find. But if you know there are spawners in the area, it’s obviously worth looking for.

Eventually as summer progresses into fall, they’ll be moving back towards those spawning coves for a little while because they are once again holding bait.

In winter they push out towards the main creek channels and they really love to hang right on the channel edge, on whatever brush or structure they can find there. But still, they aren’t going to be more than a couple hundred yards from the spawning grounds unless they’re spawning in the very back of the main creek.

Of course, there are also crappies that live on the main lake. Same deal, they utilize coves to spawn and just move out to the main lake as summer progresses. They can be a bit harder to locate, and might not be as numerous. But they do exist. As far as I’ve found, there are crappies in every creek on this lake.

[johnr]

By the way, it also works in reverse.

If you find crappies on a deep dock in summer, or on deep brush, pull out the map and see where they might go to spawn. Then go to that place and start looking for the things I mentioned above. You just might find more crappies on deep docks or brush nearby.

One other thing, I prefer to fish for them when the sun is BLAZING. If they're on a dock, they'll be stacked under it hiding from the sun. If they're on brush, they'll be tight to it. If they're hanging on a rock point at a cove mouth, they'll be on it. When its cloudy or rainy, they tend to get out (and up shallow) and roam a bit, and it seems like they are suspending in open water. In reality, they are just out on the prowl. In this situation, spider rigging would be my go-to, but I'm not setup for that.