SUNFISH MOVEMENT

[irishwalleye]

Twice this past week -- on two different lakes -- about 2:30, fishing a hot shallow bite, they all disappear. Drilled some holes in some deeper water right next to where I was and there they were.

It still seems strange to me that they moved deeper.

Does anyone else notice this? And what do crappies do prior to dusk? Move shallow? Move deep?

[Deitz Dittrich]

I have a few theories.. But they could be wrong.

#1- were you making any noise? In shallow water, I think its quite important to be as quiet as possible.

#2- Were you in a house or out? Sometimes I feel its not a great idea to remove all the slush from your hole. This way there is not abnormal light down the hole.

#3- I assume you were practicing catch and release, its possible you let one fish go and it was bleeding or something which then moved the school.

#4- Larger fish moving to the shallow to feed, thus pushing the gills and such to deeper water.

#5- Bait moved, so did the panfish.

again, all theories, could be wrong, but if I had to bet, it was one of those above that happened, or a combination of any of them.

[irishwalleye]

Deitz --

All of your theories are what I was going with also on the first lake. When they disappeared from the first hole - I kept moving around the shallow flat and they were no where. dropped the camera down and didnt see anything. So I figured it was just me.

Then the next day -- different lake -- same depth and weed structure. They just disappeared. So I went 50 feet away into the basin and there they were.

It seemed very strange to me and still does.

Oh well,

Thanks Dietz

[irishwalleye]

FOUND THIS IN ANOTHER THREAD

Crappies are known as night biters because they have some of the best night time vision of MN game fish. Bluegills and sunfish will also turn into night biters on lakes where there is a good evening zooplankton vertical migration. In short, it's generally in clear waters where those organisms are at risk of fish predation by sight...they sink down and hang out near the bottom and then raise up at night to feed on phytoplankton.

BOTH LAKES ARE EXTREMELY CLEAR AND THIS COULD EXPLAIN BOTH SITUATIONS...

[fishcast]

Many lakes I fish have better times of the day in specific areas of the lake. Some places are good mid day while some are good at dusk.

A few lakes I fish have a real good weeline bite during the day, but as the sun starts setting the fish slow down and I move deeper and get on fish like you mentioned. A lot of times this is something like 10-13 feet during the day and 16-22ft at dusk/night.

You mentioned whether crappies move shallower or deeper at dark, and that all depends on the lake your on, not to mention crappies within the same lake might be doing different things.

[Craigums]

I was catching Big sunnies in 40fow suspended 15feet off the bottom around dusk a couple weeks ago. They thought they were crappies, maybe the sunnies in your lake are confused on what species they are also

[Deitz Dittrich]

Sunnie will often suspend like that. It happens quite a bit in the Chisago Lakes area as well.

[FishinChad]

I been getting bigger than average sunnys right at sunset suspended like crappies in a crappie spot, then the craps move in after sunset.

[lovebigbluegills]

I would say that the majority of the bluegills I catch are suspended at least 5 feet off the bottom, much like you would expect with crappies. This goes for both shallower (10-15 fow) and deeper (20-22 fow) waters. Also, as was mentioned earlier, the fish that come in higher do seem to be the bigger ones-if there's one that comes in above the rest of them, I crank up to it right away.