In my neck of the woods, it usually means..deeper..suspended..and more than likely, fishing at night, or very low light. Also, good patches of 'cabbage' weeds, the ones with broad leaves. YMMV
Guides here in Oklahoma say the crappie are on summertime pattern. So what does this mean and how can I find these summer crappie? They’ve moved out from where I was catching them a few weeks ago. Also the shad are spawning.
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In my neck of the woods, it usually means..deeper..suspended..and more than likely, fishing at night, or very low light. Also, good patches of 'cabbage' weeds, the ones with broad leaves. YMMV
Out in deeper water on structure....above the thermocline if there is one ...in the shade of timber and under deeper docks and or bridges during the bright sunshine days ...possibly suspended under bait schools as well in open waters ...but not for sure
Well on some posts they say summertime pattern and are catching them in 5’ of water.
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If your year has gone like a lot of ours has, then yeah .... they may well still be in shallow water or suspended shallow over deeper water. Most answers are given as to how a "normal" year's pattern would be. This year's weather has been anything but "normal" for most of us.
I might catch a few early, in shallow water .... if that water is in the shade for most of the morning. But, let the Sun shine on that water and poof ... they gone. Then your choice is to go find deeper cover, or get out the trolling rods & cranks/jigs and start Pushing/Pulling over the flats or along the channel edge (esp. when the Shad schools are present).
Other places, a Summer Pattern may be night fishing under lights (esp with little to no Moon present).
The last time I was out, the bites I was getting were "very reluctant" bites ... no thump, no hammering the bait, just all of a sudden there was a little extra resistance in the retrieve. Why ??? .... I think it was because most of the fish that bit that way were females still full of eggs and they were just instinctively biting the lures & not so much due to hunger. The quick change from cold water to flooded lakes to more cold and then almost instantly to hot weather just didn't give them time to develop their eggs before the water temps were quickly approaching the maximum temp range for any potentially successful spawn. At the lake I was at, the surface temps are in the low 80's on the surface to around 5ft deep and in the high 70's at 10ft deep. Around here that's mid to late June temps ... and we've had them most all this month.
Crestliner08 LIKED above post
Up here in the northeast, water temps are just starting to get up into the mid 60's. It's been a slow, very erratic spring, with highs & lows varying 30 degrees or more! Surely that's affecting the spring bite. But once the water gets into the low 70's, count on shade and water depth as your "summer pattern". If there is ample bait balls cruising the main lake basins, chances are that's where the crappie will be, down there below them, suspended over deeper water.
"A voyage in search of knowledge need never abandon the spirit of adventure."
sum kawl me tha outlaw ketchn whales
Texoma up around big mineral is well known for monster slabs in real shallow brush in the summer btw ...4 to 5 fow on laydowns and such ...been there done that
sum kawl me tha outlaw ketchn whaleshdhntr LIKED above post
Kind of strange but it was hot here Monday afternoon but wife and I didn't want to set around the house. We hooked up boat and headed to the lake. I thought I would go ahead and fish shallow in the areas that we had caught them during the spawn. We fished along rock in about 5 feet of water and we were picking up one here and there. Nothing to brag about but a cleaner every now and then. Came to a spot I rarely fish and bingo. We boated 20-30 really nice crappie, a couple right at 1.75 in about a 50 yard area. We went back and forth through it double dipping and caught fish every time. I scanned it with my HDS and there was really nothing any different about the area than the rest of the area we were fishing. So, I don't know that I learned anything about this "summertime" pattern??? Dem fish is cray....
Redge LIKED above post