How clear is the water in your lake? If it's clear the fish may hold deeper than in a murkey water lake. Small lakes are much easier to figure out if you fish them over a period of time.
I found that when the weeds die off in the fall and at the start of winter that the fish will suspend out over deeper water. But they may not hang out on the bottom unless the lake is frozen. I found them in 10ft to 15ft depths below the surface over 35ft of water depth. They often suspend not very far from those places where you caught them before. Then they can move horizontally back to the shelf to feed and then move horizontally back out over open water to suspend again. Those movements are not very long and they may be within 100 yards of where you caught them all summer. During the winter months the fish are much easier to catch if you can locate them. They may bit soft but they still have to eat and the fact that they school up in huge schools together means that once you find them you should be able to fish for them all winter long. Once they get into their winter staging areas they will stay there for several months or until ice out. You catch them by getting your bait at the right depth. If they are at 10ft below the surface then your bait needs to be at 10ft and not at 11 ft. fish above them a little maybe but not below them. They won't go down to get a bait from what I have heard. Slow speeds are just hanging a jig right in front of them is the key. Troll no faster than .05mph I set my Minn-kota on the lowest setting possible and then use it only to keep me barely moving. On windy days you can drag a bucket or wind sock behind the boat to slow you down. Maybe use two windsocks to slow the boat down if it's really windy. I don't fish when it's really windy even when I fish small lakes. One a nice winter's day when the sun is out and it's calm you can catch a lot of suspended crappie by just hovering over them. Troll around using the depth finder to locate the schools and then throw out a marker Bouy close by. I would throw the bouy out upwind of where the fish are schooled and then fish into the wind with the trolling motor. That way the wind will blow you away from your marker bouy and you won't get tangled in it if your blown backwards by gusting wind. Use your light lines that are invisible and if they don't bite on plain old jigs try switching colors or adding some minnows to the jig. Fishing minnows alone on a #4 size hook really works too. Sometimes better than a plain old jig. And don't forget to add some Berkely Power Bait Crappie Nibbles (Chartruse) to the hook of your jigs. That can really make the crappie bite better.
Originally Posted by jcass