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Thread: shallow water crappie

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
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    Default shallow water crappie


    Like most everybody else I too can't seem to buy a decent crappie bite. I've tried all my good brushpiles and cane beds and can't even find the little ones that were so plentiful earlier in the year.

    My father-in-law, who fishes Nimrod Lake where we both live, says I should try spider rigging minnows and jigs in shallow water (3 to 6 ft. deep).I have to consider trying it because he has produced nice stringers during the summer months with this pattern before. He has not been able to fish any this summer so I don't know if this will work now or not.

    I would like to hear from some of you guys on why crappie go into this shallow water during these hot months. Lake Nimrod is a 3500 acre river fed lake with a dam to control the lake level. Average depth 12ft. River channel depth 25 to 30ft.

    It just puzzles me why crappie do this. But there are guys here that fish these shallow flats all summer long. CATCH A BIG-UN
    CATCH A BIG-UN

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2004
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    Quote Originally Posted by slabbandit
    Like most everybody else I too can't seem to buy a decent crappie bite. I've tried all my good brushpiles and cane beds and can't even find the little ones that were so plentiful earlier in the year.

    My father-in-law, who fishes Nimrod Lake where we both live, says I should try spider rigging minnows and jigs in shallow water (3 to 6 ft. deep).I have to consider trying it because he has produced nice stringers during the summer months with this pattern before. He has not been able to fish any this summer so I don't know if this will work now or not.

    I would like to hear from some of you guys on why crappie go into this shallow water during these hot months. Lake Nimrod is a 3500 acre river fed lake with a dam to control the lake level. Average depth 12ft. River channel depth 25 to 30ft.

    It just puzzles me why crappie do this. But there are guys here that fish these shallow flats all summer long. CATCH A BIG-UN

    slabbandit.......I've spent some time on Nimrod, but it has been several years past. For the years I was there I was always able to catch crappie shallow, including during the summer and winter months. During winter, look on the North side of the lake, follow points and creeks to 6 to 10 feet of water and look for structure (submerged brush, rocks, ditches, etc.) The North side will be warmer due to the sun being southerly in it's winter path, and you can find them as the sun warms during the day. During summer, drifting in 8 to 12 ft of water along the edge of creek beds and the main channel anywhere you see stumps or brush piles. Some of the best catches I had were in summer on jigs tipped with small minnows. You can also find summer crappie early and late in even shallower water as long as the main channel is very close. For example, there is a place on the left side of the lake if you're heading up the creek that has a tall rock cliff that's ideal. The creek bed is just right off the cliff about 30 yards out. I've casted Beetle Spins from the deep water to the shallow and let it bump the rocks on bottom as it gets deeper and have easily caught limits in less than an hour, most were in the 2lb and + size. There is an island almost straight out from the County Line camp in the center more or less, and there is a rock face on the deep side there. Try casting a red and white Roadrunner there working it deep. None of the fish stay in these places constantly, but will go there to feed. You just have to be there when they are feeding. Try them early in summer, and up in the day when it's winter.

    As to why they're that shallow, all of them had been stuffed with last spring's shad, and I assume they are going shallow to feed on them around stumps, rocks, etc. Hope this helps you get on them, you will have a blast. :D
    I'm sure you already know this, but Blue Mountain Lake also has some great crappie too.

  3. #3
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    Food and oxygen if there are underwater weed growing (Submergent vegetation) in the shallows flats.

    The submergent vegetation like coontail, millweed and others can host many scuds and other aquatic invertibrates. They are home to mayfly larvae, cadisfly larvae, dobsonfly larvae and a host of other insects and mollusks. If you were a cray fish and you were looking for food you would head into the shallow weeds to find food. If you were a fresh water shrimp or scud you would hide in the weeds and feed on that plant material.

    Also the weeds are consuming carbon dioxide (CO2) from the water putting back Oxygen (O2) into the water. This will increase the amount of dissolved oxygen water in the area surrounding the weeds. When you take CO2 out of the water the pH of the water can be raised. CO2 can combine with water (H2O) and form carbonic acid. This acid can lower the pH of the water if the water has a low buffering capacity.

    Summer is the time of life. Waters are teaming with microscopic life forms in the hot summer months. The minnow have spawned by now and things are moving fast. Life is at moving fast at this time of the year. Cold blooded animals adjust to the surrounding water temps in these lakes. Food production in the shallows around these weeds it at it's highest at this time of the year. At High Noon on June 21st the sun it at it's highest point in the sky in North America. Submergent vegetation needs sunlight in order to grow and survive. When you have dirty water the dirt in the water filters or blocks the suns light rays from penetrating deep into the water. Clear water will allow those same sun rays to penetrate well into the water. So the weed can only grow to a depth where they still can receive sunlight. Below this point the weeds will die and won't grow. So water clarity determines how deep the weed can grow. Also the bottom soil of the lake will determine what type of weeds can grow there. Weed also need nutrients from the soil to live. Without those nutrients the weeds can't survive.

    Now the crappie will come up into the weeds where there is shade from the sun and good dissolved oxygen levels, food in the form of insects and bait fish such as chubs and other small minnows.

    So you see the crappie can move into these shallow water shelfs if the conditions are right.

    Now in lakes that have a lot of the lake area covered with submergent vegetation you may has to find a spot where the crappie are located. There is so much good weed area that the crappie can't be in all of those weed. Remember the saying that 90% fo the fish are located in 10% of the lake. Well that may be true here as well.

    Look for weed areas that are different from other areas. Like if a ditch or creek runs though the flat. There maybe a change in the bottom soil type or some scattered rocks or boulders laying on the bottom where the weeds can't grow as thick and there are opening in the other wise heavy weed growth.

    Look for inside bends in the outer and inner weed line. Also outside bends can produce at times. Look for a point that projects out in to the lake that has weeds on the point. Fish the edge of the weeds and then work into the weeds a way to check for fish inside the weed.

    I can remember fishing the weeds at Patoka Lake a long time ago. Back where there were not gizzard shad in the lake and bluegills were king at Patoka Lake. Pre 1996. I use to cast maribou jigs 1/16oz over the top of the shallow water weed beds and catch lots of the lakes black crappie.

    And if you find some shallow water laydowns you can also find the crappie up in shallow water. Algae is a plant and it too puts out oxygen and consums CO2. You and I would think that most of the worlds Oxygen is produced by the world's trees but we would be wrong. Most of the world's oxygen is produced by plankton floating in the world's waters. Oceans being the prime producer of oxygen. So maybe the algae is producing lots more oxgyen that we know about.

    I wish my DO meter was fixed so that I could go out and test some waters for dissolved oxygen levels. I would be very interested in doing that. I would love to go stick my do probe in the shallow water weed beds and get some Dissolved oxygen readings during the heat of the day and then compare those DO levels with the deeper 20ft levels and see how the stack up against each other.





    Sideline:
    If you blow though a straw into pure water you will be adding CO2 from your breath and forming Carbonic acid in the water and that will IMMEDIATELY lower the pH of the water there. Industries like Mead Johnson Company use CO2 to lower the pH of the water discharges into the city sewer system in order to keep the effluents pH below certain limits. ie the city has an ordinace that deals with industrial discharges in order to protect the bacteria that live in the sewage treament plants. Those bacteria are what eat the raw sewage . Without the bacteria in the plant the rivers of the USA would be more polluted. So the treatment plants much control what comes into thier plants. They do this by requiring the industries to control the pH of their effluents.


    Quote Originally Posted by slabbandit
    Like most everybody else I too can't seem to buy a decent crappie bite. I've tried all my good brushpiles and cane beds and can't even find the little ones that were so plentiful earlier in the year.

    My father-in-law, who fishes Nimrod Lake where we both live, says I should try spider rigging minnows and jigs in shallow water (3 to 6 ft. deep).I have to consider trying it because he has produced nice stringers during the summer months with this pattern before. He has not been able to fish any this summer so I don't know if this will work now or not.

    I would like to hear from some of you guys on why crappie go into this shallow water during these hot months. Lake Nimrod is a 3500 acre river fed lake with a dam to control the lake level. Average depth 12ft. River channel depth 25 to 30ft.

    It just puzzles me why crappie do this. But there are guys here that fish these shallow flats all summer long. CATCH A BIG-UN
    Regards,

    Moose1am

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