Thread: Questions For Tennessee Crappie Fisherman (any and all comments welcome)

The answers can get somewhat complex because all fish, meaning crappie and baitfish in this example , don't do the same thing all the time. You are not experiencing fish staging early. Fish are dialed into the solar table. They aren't going to shoot eggs until the sun is right. Crappie start putting on eggs late summer. We are catching fish that are visibly showing eggs now. Some baitfish will move up into the warm shallows. Some crappie will follow them. One guy can be catching fish in 10ft. of water and another in 2ft. of water. The quality and quantity however, may be the difference. I have caught crappie in 2ft. of water at the Tenn. River while it was snowing. I couldn't believe it but it did happen. Some large fish are caught out of skinny water in the winter. One day they may be there though and the next they are gone or rather may have lockjaw. Shallow fish are going to be more moody, I believe because conditions are less stable the closer you get to the surface. Deeper fish seem to withstand a "little" more instability but even then big fronts can effect it all. What you are experiencing is fish moving up and down in the water column as conditions change. I caught a fish in 2ft. of water last Sunday afternoon. It happens.

I've been catching crappie that are 30' to 40' deep for close to two months now in south central Tn. All are feeding well as they have big bellies. The females have maturing eggs sacks which is normal for this time of year. Lately I've noticed a lot of gulls feeding on shallow water baitfish which may explain why some of the crappie are shallow. I doubt that anyone knows why crappie always do the things they do and as the saying goes "that's why we call it fishin".

Fishawk has been reporting catching fish 25-40 ft deep for the last month or so. I fished down river from him and was catching them in 3-8 ft deep. I have no explanation. I tried to fish 25-30 deep and got nothing. Fish were there as were bait fish just not hitting what I had to offer. During the tournament on the 7th fish were being caught anywhere from 2 ft deep -35 ft deep. This is my first year for fishing winter crappie in open water so lack of experience on this end. Still manage to catch fish.

I caught this one and a few others like it suspended in 15 fow last week. Kinda weird to see egg sacks this far down this early. They weren't as "full" as I think they'll get but seemed to be about ready to pop out. I dunno...

Looks like they are ready to go to the bank to me lolw

Originally Posted by Splitshot82

I caught this one and a few others like it suspended in 15 fow last week. Kinda weird to see egg sacks this far down this early. They weren't as "full" as I think they'll get but seemed to be about ready to pop out. I dunno...

Splitshot, The ones Cracker and me caught had eggs also.

Looks like what I been seeing, but it still takes time for eggs to mature.

Originally Posted by Cane Pole

Looks like what I been seeing, but it still takes time for eggs to mature.

I agree Mr. Tom. The egg sacks weren't runny or laced with blood yet, but it was weird to see them protruding. Maybe I need to ease up on my hook set a little.