How does your catch change season to season?

[2KanZam]

Just wondering how your catches differ from season to season. Spring and summer I usually bring home a nice mess of crappie per outing....but once the water temps drop by mid-fall my bite slows considerably. I've never really fished for Crappie in the winter so I can't attest to that.

But do you fellas bring home just as many papermouths in the fall and winter as you do the rest of the year? If so, are you fishing longer/trying harder than you would at other times of the year? Maybe you bring home fewer but they are larger?

I'm sure my coldwater crappie techniques need some fine tuning....I do have a lot of trouble slowing things down, especially letting a jig just sit...but I want to do some Crappie fishing this winter and trying to figure out how much effort to put into it.

Thanks!

[BigMack]

At least is does down here in Tejas.
2 months of 100+ slows them down.
Thumbs Up

[bdorman]

On my home lake the bites dropped to almost nothing for most of July. August and September were very good, and now it's tailing off again; but nothing like the shutdown in July. The lake's deepest point is only 15' with an average of 9' so it reacts to airtemp changes pretty quickly. I'd be surprised if it even has a thermocline zone.

[Spoonminnow]

Summer heat and frigid water in winter in NY puts them down big time, except sometimes in late winter you get lucky finding a monster school of active crappy. The rest of the year is great, like now.

[Sweet Lucy]

I also have not done any winter fishing mostly hunting but I would love to hear how some of you die hards catch limits in the winter time Deep, drops, stake mats, brush piles, etc?

[justcameslabdaddy]

Here in Ill its the best time to crappie fish we have coal fire lake they use too cool the turbine the bite is good on them till spawn nice 14" load the boat if you didnt have a limit

[deathb4disco]

I don't fish as much in the fall and winter for crappie, but that's the best time of year for bluegill, IMO.

[no1son]

Fall is spotty here depending on the weather quite a bit, but it can be the best of the year, often with the best fish. Mostly the difference is that the fish move around during the year. Spring through spawn is the easiest time to find them shallowest. I don't normally fish bedding fish, though. My all time best individual outings have come through the ice in the winter, although since I usually release everything I don't fish the deep schools then. Some of my slowest crappie fishing outings have also come in the winter. Day in day out year around the best time of day for me is generally the last hour or two until true dark, sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later. Our best Metro fish this year were definitely after dark, but not the best numbers.

The catch doesn't vary all that much in numbers, but the spots they use and the specific baits and presentations they take does, and many times the part of the day they are active does, too.

[Bronson]

Biggest crappie I catch at Kentucky & Barkley Lake usually are caught at the end of March and 1st week of April. Late fall is usually a good bite but it mainly depends on water temps. High 50's will have good numbers of nice crappie moving in 10-15' of water.

[no1son]

Normally around here the general crappie population runs to 7-10" with rare larger fish up to an very outside of maybe 12 or 13 joining the group in prespawn or late fall. Numbers remain available all year around for those who spend the time to pattern them and search them out. BUT this year our largest crappies up to 15" came from different patterns than the common fish and from middle summer. We do not find the biggest fish except in very small pods which generally yield only a single fish or two and all of those this year have been at or well after dark and well distinct from other more general crappie bite. All of ours were very shallow, too, even showing up in similar forage areas to other average crappies used, but not with them. True crappie trophy hunting is just that trophy hunting and IMO requires that a fisherman either carefully select waters where the average size exceeds others or do a special targeting and very likely both. I fish convenient waters and almost exclusively on foot in short outings, but take enough numbers that sometimes really nice fish show up, but in these waters they almost never show up with a active crappie bite involving average fish. That should be no surprise I suppose, since it is true of most fish species.

Generally around here a 10" crappie is considered big and several of those are even abnormal for those few who can catch crappies regularly. FWIW everybody can catch crappies around here at certain times of the year and normally take a scattered one year around and from a very large number of local waters. The populations are healthy, but most fishermen do not make the necessary effort, when the harvest isn't easy. When it is the fish get massacred, but they are still there the rest of the year anyway.

Personally I will fish catch and release, taking the numbers which will eventually produce some exceptional fish, but you gotta be there year around to make the numbers really pay off in part so you can be there outside normal bite to have a chance at the occasional trophy. It takes learning the full crappie pattern on most waters, and that even goes beyond general crappie behavior.