shallow or still holding deep?

[Burnham]

do you guys think that the pannies are coming shallow yet or still holdin deep? i did some shore fishing today and didnt have ANY action, do you think they are still holding deep?

[Scott M]

I was ice fishing over the weekend and we had some major roaming crappies... they didn't come in and hang out, they were definitely on the move and suspended. As best as we could tell, they were moving in from deep water. Those were north central Minnesota fish on a lake with substantial ice cover. Might be different in the metro with open water.

Watch the weather. Warm days with direct sunlight and little wind and the water temps will be rising. Then you'll see plump females and dark headed males making their way shallower as temps continue to rise. Might be a little early still, but the only way to find out is to wet some lines. Good luck this spring.

[Burnham]

thanks for the help, yea it was really windy and chilly. hey i am very good friends with 8point(kevin) and he has told me some good stuff about ya lol..im tryin to get him to help me out on trying to start an ice fishing club at anoka high.

[south_metro_fish]

I was out shore fishing in the metro on a lake with no ice and they were shallow and suspended 2 feet from the surface.

[tacklebox7FF]

7-10 feet halfway down

[Larson01]

I've been checking the shallows with my FishTV, haven't seen a thing yet. Week or so and we should be seeing them.

[Bigslugger]

While I was fly fishing yesterday I noticed the smaller sunnies have moved into areas around trees/cattails that receive sun all day long. 10 more degrees in that water will make em Spawn Happy

[RonZych]

They move in first for food. Then later on spawn. I am going out today. I'm pumped!!

[Burnham]

i got the boat out on friday, i threw out a few crappie rigs for the heck of it and caught lil bass(10-12inches). obviously threw her right back. anyways i go back to the landing and someone showed me a 14" crappie they had caught pretty much just getting the boat ready like me. that was their only bite in like 20 minutes of fishing but its on a lake that isnt really that great of a fishery. and it was in 7fow by the way

[catflisher]

I've heard the biggest panflish go shallow first,..way before the main influx...

[Drewski]

I've been finding crappies in 3-5ft.

[New2TheFly]

Not sure who you're talking to...

The little crappies/pannies tend to move into the shallows first, followed by the bigger ones once the water warms more. The biggest panfish are likely holding in slightly deeper water (10-15 ft) until the shallows warm up a bit. I would guess that to be any day now.

[matthothand]

When it comes to crappies the larger fish (females) do move shallow first. I'm still catching all crappies in 20 fow. Where I am after ice out the wind blew out of the north and dispersed the warm water in the north sections of the lakes. With a change in wind direction and some warmer night temps I expect to be throwing a bobber in a couple days rather than working a jigging spoon/dropper under the transducer.

[tacklebox7FF]

I think it all depends on the lake

[half-dutch]

I think it all depends on the lake

Definitely. And more so with crappies than with sunfish.

The sunfish are starting to show up real shallow. It is about time to start working sun warmed channels and shorelines for them. If you have standing or fallen wood in the water on the n or ne shores and you can reach that in waders or even from the shoreline to probe that wood, you can have some fantastic fishing for both sunnies and often crappies, too.

We found lots of crappies relatively shallow all winter (8-12 fow) in one of the deeper metro lakes pretty much in similar areas where we caught them last summer. They were also pretty much all bottom oriented much as they were on that lake last summer. Ours did not school in the central basin; we took an occasional crappie in the afternoon, and then when the light dimmed to the point that the muskies quit roaming, the dusk bite came on and we hammered em. They virtually all came up off the bottom, too, with almost no suspended fish. The schools seemed to be both year-around resident in very nearly the same place as in open water and tightly concentrated with no stragglers or outliers and no associated fringe fish semi-active around a resting school. You had to be exactly on them to get any response at all. That is not exactly your normal crappie set of patterns, but it certainly is one of those possible.

It definitely pays to match your approach to the waters you are on. Just like tb says it depends on the lake.

[south_metro_fish]

The bluegills have definitely moved in to the shallows. I found out yesterday that we have been fishing in around 5 feet of water. But the big bull bluegills have been more aggressive then the crappies lately. We have been pulling them in one after another with a few crappies here and there. Just about all the bluegills have been monsters being in the 7-9" range I am guessing.

[timk]

i have been getting crappies the last two days in less than 3 FOW on a red hook under a slip bobber on minnows. They have all been 11 to 13 inch fish 3/4 to 1 lbs after dark

[Drewski]

Most of my fish have been coming out of 2-6'. The last time out I found some fish staging out off the first break. With the warm temps coming it won't be long before the fish transition to the spawn.

[Ely Lake Expert]

Has anybody up north tried any shallow water crappie fishing yet?

Last year the big crappies didn't seem to come in shallow until june, but since its 70 out i was thinking about just going and casting off shore a bit.

[fishhawk1750]

Sounds like Ham Lake to me

i got the boat out on friday, i threw out a few crappie rigs for the heck of it and caught lil bass(10-12inches). obviously threw her right back. anyways i go back to the landing and someone showed me a 14" crappie they had caught pretty much just getting the boat ready like me. that was their only bite in like 20 minutes of fishing but its on a lake that isnt really that great of a fishery. and it was in 7fow by the way

[Burnham]

nope..good guess tho lol..as im sure you see im from that area, and you appear to be also...ive actually never been out to ham lake

[Foreverfish1]

I have a question reguarding shallow water (less than 2-3 feet deep) crappies. Generally speaking, in a lake less than 20ft max depth and with very low water clarity and little to no weeds what water temperatures would they be expected to move shallow and until what temperature would they be shallow? I know they will follow the food but I don't know where the food is so I just wanted to know the typical time range I had for the crappies to be shallow?

[eurolarva]

Look for shallow bays with a mud bottom more likely on the northern part of the lake. It will be the warmest water and that is where you will find the panfish. Here in the metro the water is heating up and soon they will head back into the main part of the lake.

[south_metro_fish]

I am also trying to figure out what these fish are doing in the early spring. We found crappies and bluegills in shallow dark bays and we were catching them with small plastics from shore. Now after that week of extreme warm temps they seemed to have disappeared from same bays. We now have a boat and have been searching for where they are. We have been marking fish 15 to 20 feet down in 20 to 30 feet of water in what I am guessing is a weed line at a break in bays. I dropped a minnow down and pulled up a small perch. Had no other bites, and I cant imagine with the size of the school that they were all perch. So what are these fish doing??????????? Did they come shallow and go back deep, only to go shallow one more time to spawn? That last warm day we had before the cold front we had water temps in the mid to upper 50's in some of the shallow bays. Did this cold snap send them back deep to around there mid winter grounds? Just trying to figure out what they are doing and where to find them.

[ozzie]

weather will always push the crappies in and out of the bays....if they are in there and a cold front comes through they will usually drop to the first break outside of the bay or in the deepest hole of the bay......but the crappies currently are chasing minnows which are in the bays feeding on insects that are hatching out of the mud....if they were in the area already they should be still close by