Finiky Crappie

[davidbrown]

I live in Cordova, TN and have a 50 acre lake in my back yard. I have multitudes of crappie in my lake, but they have attitude. I had a lot of success last week and the week before trolling with crank baits. The first week they were down at 8-10', and last week they had moved up to 4-5'. The female's eggs had just begun to get bloody so I thought by this past weekend they would have begun to move into the shallows. Instead we had some cool weather and they moved back out to deeper water.
We have had a much warmer than normal spring and I thought the crappie would spawn early, so far they have not. With the short cold spell last week they moved back to deep water (16-20') and much further away from shore. They are hanging around 10' deep and not moving back in. The bass are beginning to spawn now. Are the crappie maybe having the jitters and afraid to move back in because of the bass?
Any ideas out there? And any thoughts of if they might not spawn because of this?

[sls]

has yourwater level dropped. is the water real clear . 2 things that will amke them go deeper

[deedoe]

they should come back to the shallows to spawn. crappie seem to be more affected by cold fronts than bass. the bass don'tseem to pull back to deep water like crappie.imo

[BIGG ANT]

We experience the same out here.....slamming one day.....cold weather....they disappear!!

[brushnjigs]

Bass will suspend or get real tight to cover with cold fronts. Crappie will pull out to the first drop. A touch early for the crappie to spawn in Tn, I would look for them to start during a 6 day period of 3 days before to 3 after the next full moon. You will have early and late bloomers but the bulk will come during the full moon period.