Thread: crappie hitting banks after dark when spawning?

In my experience, it's more about water temp than daylight. For example, water warms up throughout the day, so early in the spawn, my preference is to fish mid day to catch the warmer temp water. Bite could be slow early morning and evening time since the sun is going up and down. Later spawn, morning bite gets better since the nights (typically) are warmer and the mid day bite seems to get a little tougher since the water is even warmer. I don't usually fish after dark, so I am curious as well to see if others find fish on the banks after dark later in the spawn. More seasoned veterans should be around shortly to give their take. Happy fishing!

Their as many ways to fish the spawn as their are fishermen. Spawn is reliant on length of daylight and water temperature as well. I have had good luck early.
I don’t do after dark. Well hardly ever.


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Yes they bite after dark. My experiance around my local lakes (pomme, stockton, truman) is the bite in the last hour of daylight is best. If we havent got a limit and stay past dark i will pick my spot, drop an anchor and set out a green light. usually a slow period of 30-60mins after dark then the bite is on. Catch some of the bigger ones doing this. As a kid growing up ineast kansas we fished pomona and melvern lakes. Very similar to truman as far as water clarity and structure. We did best at night just fishing off the banks. We would set a coleman lantern right on the bank at the edge of the water. It always had a half a folgers can mounted to it as a deflector. Basically all the light was forward and we were in the dark. Set a minnow about a foot under the bobber and have at it. They would always be in 12-24" of water. Back then you could keep 50 fish per day. We almost always got the limits. That would be 200-250 crappie depending on whether my mom fished !! Miss them days for sure !!