Originally Posted by redearhoosier
Check out www.crappie.com and you will find the answer if you do a search for "crappie spawning"
There are a lot of variables to consider but water temperature is one of them. Water clarity, turbidity, color and bottom type all effect the water temperature and depth that the crappie spawn.
Somewhere between 62 and 65 Deg F is where the Crappie will be spawning. Just remember that water at the surface can be much warmer than water at the depth where light penetrates deep enough into the lake to help the crappie eggs hatch.
Prespawn temps from between 55 deg F and 62 deg F is also a good time to catch lots of big crappie. You may have to fish the breaks off the spawning areas to catch these bigger females which are laden with eggs.
Remember that the North Side of the lake gets longer exposure to the Southern Sun and warms up first. Especially since it's protected from the March cold North Winds. Find an area which has a marl type bottom that's dark and on the Northern Shoreline or in a protected shallow cove and you might have a good spawning site. Especially if it's near a river channel with a big ditch or creek channel coming up out of the old river channel and into the cove.
The males will come in first to build the nests and then the larger females will swim in and deposit their eggs.
Most Spawning depends on the amount of sunlight so the further South you go the early the crappie will spawn. So your latitude can determine the time of the year (every year can be a little different too). You can have crappie spawning in late Feb in Arkansas or TX and in July in the Northern US.
Hope this helps you somewhat.
The best way to find out when the spawn it going on is to talk to other fishermen and be out on the water's you fish as much as you can.
But Generally Speaking the Month of April is when the crappie spawn in this area of Southern IN and Western KY. They can be caught in March also. The last two weeks of March you can catch the prespawn crappie.
Not all the crappie will spawn at the same time or in the same area. Some deeper humps in larger lakes can have late spawning crappie when those deeper clear waters finally warm up into the 60 deg F range at the top of the humps.
By May most of the Larger Female Crappie are probably all spawned out. You may find some smaller females still spawning in the month of May. Again it depends on the weather patterns each year.
Some guides will recommend that you fish in Dec and Jan for crappie as they school up in huge schools during the winter months and stay in the same area during that time. Once you find them you can catch a limit. The bite is a lot harder to detect in deeper water though. You need to have a sensitive rod during that time of the year. Well any time of the years a good sensitive rod helps you catch more crappie.
Check out the Sam Heatons Super Sensitive Rods from B and M rod Company.
A good 7 to 12 ft Graphite rod with 6 lb test mono (Stren Magnathin) helps you catch a lot more fish.
I fished Patoka with a good friend this year well into late Nov and we caught limits of crappie off the main creek channel fishing brush piles on the edge of the creek channel. This spring I hope to fish with him again in some of the shallower bays. We use the Humminbird Side scanning Sonar units to locate and mark these big brush piles and then we return to these spots and fish tight line using minnows.
BTW. I fished for Largemouth Bass for over 40 years here in IN and KY. After a while I got tired of catching bass and throwing them back. I still catch lots of bass using live bait but return them always. But 40 years ago I would catch limits of LMB and eat them. I like to eat what I catch and I like to catch lots of fish and have lots of action all day long. Crappie fishing gives me fillets and fun. It's less tying that casting all day long.
I still fish for bass from time to time but with 4 lb test ultralight or fly rods. Now that's fun.
But I'm older and don't want to fish hard like I did when I was a younger man. Justin will find this out someday when he's in his golden years. Until then let him enjoy his bass fishing. There is plenty of water in these lake for all types of fishermen.
If you want to know more about crappie fishing (especially Northern Waters) get the In-Fisherman Crappie Fishing Books or the book called. "Crappie Wisdom"
Perhaps the Muskie that's stocked in Bluegrass's Pits will help control some of those gizzard shad. I wish we had thread-fin shad in there instead of the gizzard shad as both the bass and the crappie could feed on them.
In the future we may all have to unit in order to figure out a way to get rid of those exotic carp that fly out of the water when your boat gets near them. Those **** things are going to ruin sport fishing in the Ohio River Valley.
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