Pre spawn or Spawn?

When do you guys like to fish for slabs the best? I've always loved catching crappie during the spawn but it's hard to hit some years at it's peak. I've also caught my biggest females during prespawn. I crappie fish all year long really trying to figure out winter crappie fishing right now. I really like the prespawn to because there are not as many boats and people and I can usually have the honey holes all to myself. When do you guys like to fish for them the best during the spawn or pre spawn?

All I do is troll now. I like pre spawn. I can catch more fish, day in, day out jig polling when the spawn is on.

I prefer anytime there is open water! Right now we have about 2 1/2' of ice over all the water. :(

I fish all year and do good most months . I love fall fishing because of stable weather. Pre and post spawn both can be fantastic. :fish

Reasons spawn is not at the top of my list. Too hard to predict , weather in spring unstable most years , too often rapid lake level rises with heavy rain, and too many fishermen out:twocents.

I like both on my lake.

Both are good for me but I tend to release more of the females til post spawn when I troll cranks. Rather they leave the babies first. Pre and spawn are a blast here.

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Originally Posted by skeetbum

Both are good for me but I tend to release more of the females til post spawn when I troll cranks. Rather they leave the babies first. Pre and spawn are a blast here.

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I release the fish prespawn and spawn also. Looking out for the future.

I catch crappie both during pre-spawn and spawn. I prefer pre-spawn to spawn as the fish are "staging" close to shore and holding on structure which I find easy to catch. Some people like the spawn since they can toss a cork out in really shallow water and catch all the fish they want. I fish the shallow areas and if I catch a big male I usually keep them. If they are female and fat full of eggs I drop them back. It is easier to target shallow fish than deep fish so the time is ripe for all anglers, both on shore and in boat to catch crappie.
I am not sure that catching and keeping crappie in the spawn hurts the population as all fish spawn at one point or another to reproduce. If it affected the population I would think the Wildlife and Game departments would limit the catch during the season. They do studies all the time and can adjust their rules based on their findings. They have not changed any rules so I can't see where it hurts to keep them. Just my thoughts.
Good luck on catching them spawning crappie!!!