Wher are they?

[joejv4]

Seems like almost every article I read about crappie talks about cover. About 90 percent talk about submerged wood or docks, the rest talk about cover that folks build and sink. That's part one leading up to my question.

Part two has to do with water depth. Folks always talk about how the crappie move deep in mid summer (15 -30 feet down), and how they like creek channels, and so on.

Now when I read these things, one kind of lake comes to mind: man-made lakes, usually created by hydro dams.

My problem is this, I mostly fish small (250 acres, give or take), shallow glacially made lakes (we live in the drumlin field south of Lake Ontario). These lakes have average depths in the neighborhood of 6 to 8 feet, only around 10 - 14 feet at their deepest points. There are no flooded beds of stumps, there are no creek channels, they are protected, so man-made cover can't be sunk in them. Quite the pickle eh?

Now, having fished them a lot, I've managed to do well in the spring and early summer. I know where they bed and I know where to troll up through early summer. What I don't know, is where the heck they go when we get into the "dog-days" that start around mid July and go through mid August (short summers up here folks), or where to find them once things start to cool down.

Now, what I didn't mention is that these small-water gems do have a healthy supply of weeds but I can't seem to pattern where to find them when it gets hot. I'm lucky if I manage to find 2 or 3 of them in half a day of looking. A couple of these lakes are stained water, the rest are fairly clear.

Here's the challenge: Let's see just how knowledgeable a group of members we have here in the internet's best online community. Have any members figured out how to fish this type of water when it gets hot out? If you have, please feel free to share them so as to maybe keep me from switching over to those green carp when summer is in full swing.

By the way, this isn't about using electronics to find them, this is about their behavior in this type of water and finding their pattern - I don't have sonar on my little row boat, likely never will.

[Crappie Chatt]

Watch the Midwest Crappie show at Pomona. It will open your eyes. It's one of the free :Dones on www.myoutdoortv.com/new/midwest-crappie-3.html <*)}}}><

[Darryl Morris]

Tough one for sure. But, my rule of thumb still holds true -- find their comfort zone -- water temp, food source, oxygen content, protection, etc. Sorry you don't have electronics. It would make it easier but there are other ways too. Where ever that comfort zone is, there they will be. You mentioned weeds. Aquatic vegetation puts off oxygen, holds food and serves as cover for protection. That certainly would be a good place to start in the hot summer. Now, finding where they are in it, how deep and developing a presentation technique to get'em out of it is another story.