Ron Sinfelt

Finding a good crappie lake can be tricky these days. After all, a lake that was booming just a couple of years ago can be a bust today. Though no one can say for sure just why a great crappie lake bottoms out and a few years later is producing monster-sized slabs, we know that it works that way. So getting on the right water at the right time is crucial to success.

Jim McDonnell has been catching crappies all of his life. Few anglers can bring both expertise and common sense to the table like McDonnell can.

“First and foremost, you have to find the fish,” McDonnell said. “That means going right up into the canals and shallow bays after ice-out. The crappies aren’t interested in spawning quite yet. What they’re interested in are the insects and minnows they can find as the water warms up, and this is where it warms up first.”

Crappies are relating to structure and are on the prowl after a lean winter. Find both structure and food together in one place and you should be on the papermouths as well.

Here’s a look at five lakes that will be producing crappies this year -- and how you can get in on the great slab-sided action.

SUMMIT LAKE
“Summit Lake is a consistent producer of just about everything, including crappies,” said Southern Region fisheries supervisor Brian Schoenung.

Most of the fishing action will be during the spawn that occurs during late April and early May, but crappies can be caught long before that time.

Summit Lake crappies are subject to the cyclical ups and downs of crappie populations but tend to be fairly consistent, much more so than in some smaller waters, Schoenung said. It’s next to impossible to “fish out” the lake, since a single female crappie can lay several thousand eggs at a time. Good habitat and a solid forage base help to keep crappie numbers up to avoid the downswings other waters experience on a sporadic basis.

“Early in the spring, I’d send fishermen to the Beaver Creek area, which is really just a cove,” said Ashley Miller of Miller’s Great Outdoors.

“If the fish aren’t biting there, move to the area around the shoreline curve near the campground; and if that isn’t producing, go to the southeast side of Goose Island. As the season progresses, crappies seem to bite in these areas, moving along as the weather warms up. Some years, the fish will go as far as the shoreline up along the dam.” (Continued)

Miller points out that the crappie fishing really gets going in mid- to late April. There are good numbers of fish present, so if anglers know how to approach Summit Lake, going home with plenty of fish is a real possibility. Miller knows of a five-brother team that targets crappies all year long. They’ll keep up to 90 fish or so on each outing. The only special tactic these anglers use is to keep moving around until they connect with the fish.

Miller sells many minnows to spring crappie anglers, with red wigglers and bee moths coming a close second and third place. When anglers are using artificial baits, they’re usually colored jigs with the color preferences changing from year to year.

“Two years ago, everyone wanted pink jigs. Last year, it was a chartreuse and white combination,” Miller said. A relatively new tactic on Summit is to use ice jigs all year long.

Doing a little pre-scouting for good crappie locations is a practice that Jim McDonnell picked up a long time ago. He feels that even excellent anglers fail to take advantage of this aspect of papermouth angling.