Open Water Crappie

[Atimm693]

Side imaging covers the widest swath by far. Get it dialed in and you can find the schools in an area, drop a waypoint and come back around to pick it apart with LS.

[Bricks]

Side imaging covers the widest swath by far. Get it dialed in and you can find the schools in an area, drop a waypoint and come back around to pick it apart with LS.

Exactly get good with side imaging, many of our northern lakes Crappies are suspended out in the middle of no where. Might spend 2 hours using SI searching for schools in open water once you do find them it can be so much fun, and some times not. Usually the biggest Crappies are the ones out in open water.

[bamahound]

Use the wind direction from the day before you go to tell where all the big crappie will be on the day you go. The sun drives the wind and nights are mostly calm so they will be where the wind takes the baitfish food and the baitfish follow with the slabs following them . If the wind is out of the notheast before dark the baitfish will mostly be in the waters in the southwest the next morning. Any pockets with creeks coming into them on the downwind side of this plan is the 1st place I start. If you have 2 or 3 days of wind coming from the same direction this will get you a limit easy. Sometimes fish locations look random but its not when it comes to big crappie. They didnt get big waiting in a brush pile for a snack to swim by

[Roy]

Follow the main channels out of the creeks the fish spawned in. I'm catching them here in 30 to 60+ fow suspended down fro 15 to 30'.

[TreednNC]

Side scan! Learn what they look like. That often means scanning an area, turning back and looking at it with the scope, then truthing it by trying to catch whatever you said. After that, you'll gain confidence in side scanning and it's a lot faster to find fish at 5mph than 1.5mph. I bought Roy's old Helix 10. He had it dialed in for him, but once I got it, installed it on my boat, I had to set it to my liking and what worked for me. YouTube is your friend for fiddling with settings and what they do. Time on the water after that, playing with it, and verifying what you saw with downscan or live scope.

[Roy]

I love side and down scan for finding fish on brush and docks, not so much individual fish in deep water. I turn my trolling motor up to 7 or 8 and get moving while scanning left to right with my AT2 till I see a fish out about 70'. I then slow down and get within casting range. Fish here are really spread out, this is what works for me.