I have seen them do that on a small lake (784acre), here in Central KY. Black Crappie making water dimples out in the main lake open water. We caught them trolling Roadrunners. I've only seen it once, and only at that lake, but if they'll do it in these small waters ... then it's possible they do it on bigger bodies of water, but may go unnoticed.
I'm not sure if they were feeding on tiny Shad, or some kind of emerging bug as I don't remember seeing any of either of those things.
... cp