Early Spring This Year!

Most of the ice was off the ponds by the beginning of this month, here in Massachusetts. The water has warmed up quickly and the bite has been intermittent and very hit or miss on any location. Today, the water temp was 49 degrees with stained water. Sunny with air temps in the 70's today and for the rest of the week; so things are warming very quickly - very unusual for this time of the year. Our normal daytime high temps are suppose to be in the mid 40's!

Today, I found several large schools of crappie (50+ fish in each group) suspending just under the surface of the water, over quick drop-off points. Tried casting to them with small jigs & plastics - nada. Not even a touch. They'd just move out of the way! Tried a 1/32 oz. marabou, suspended under a small bobber. Again, nada! Some of these fish had their dorsal fins sticking up out of the water even!

I've seen them behavior in seasons past, but usually around mid to late April (when the ice normally leaves the ponds around here), not March! Now I'm assuming they are simply warming themselves up, after the long winter, but I'd also think that with these daytime temps, I should be able to catch a few of them anyway. Am I wrong? Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!

The water warms up quickly. When I fished on Saturday the water temp was 55 deg; this morning it was 61 deg. Six degrees in 3 days. Of course, my homelake's average depth is only 10 feet and that might have some impact. Got skunked on Sat but hope to do better later this week.

I don't have any suggestions for you since I'm pretty new to the game, but best of luck!

A guy on a kayak at my local lake told me a similar story yesterday. He said he saw a school of 100 crappie right under the water that wouldn't bite anything he threw at them. Yesterday and today I was catching them on crappie nibbles on a #8 hook and they didn't seem to want to bite anything else I threw at them. Might be worth giving that a shot.

Hope you catch them next time!