Been doing a lot of deep water crappie fishing. Our reservoir fish stay in their winter haunts usually through the end of March. It's always fun fishing jigs on light line in 20 to 35 foot depths. Went yesterday and as expected, the deep schools are starting to break up. Still managed some nice fish while battling 20-25 mph wind gusts, but a lot of the fish have left and started their wandering ways toward the shallows. We've also had a lot of rain, and the water visibility was about 4 inches, so you had to hit them right on the head to get bit. Will likely start chasing the bass more now until the crappie settle down again in another month after they start staging around their spawning areas.

 

Here's a few pics from yesterday's trip:

 

 

Nice.  I “might” be willing to harvest some here in Virginia but I like them when there is still ice on the edges of the creeks.  

Nice Crappie.

Once I catch one on a spinnerbait " happens often " I grab my Crappie jigs.

They are a blast to catch. 

Is crappie regularly on cycle like one year good two year bad? Last year by this time I caught about 100-200 plus some very big mama already. I didn’t spend a lot of time this year though, too many ppl fishing for them most every evening. Also most of the crappie, I caught from running roadrunner along the bottom, not so many shallow under float. 
This solo crappie I spend almost two hours searching for, running float with different depth, pan casting every where, crappie nibble, slab source, different color. Until I switched to roadrunner.

11 minutes ago, Bass_Fishing_Socal said:

Is crappie regularly on cycle like one year good two year bad? Last year by this time I caught about 100-200 plus some very big mama already. I didn’t spend a lot of time this year though, too many ppl fishing for them most every evening. Also most of the crappie, I caught from running roadrunner along the bottom, not so many shallow under float. 
This solo crappie I spend almost two hours searching for, running float with different depth, pan casting every where, crappie nibble, slab source, different color. Until I switched to roadrunner.

 

Crappie populations due tend to be cyclical, but not on a regularly set schedule. Seems like about a 3-5 year cycle in my parts, with some lakes more dramatic than others. Fishing pressure, which is usually tied directly to harvest with crappie, probably plays some role. They also tend to have a shorter lifespan than fish like bass, so they tend to grow quick, but you also lose year classes because of it.

3 hours ago, Team9nine said:

Fishing pressure, which is usually tied directly to harvest with crappie, probably plays some role.

 

That plays the primary role here.  Especially in the winter.  They get hammered through the ice here and when there's a hot bite people find out about it quickly and deplete them.  And since very few people release them, overall size and population suffers.  I've been fishing here for 22 years and I've never caught one over 13 inches.

Here fishing pressure is not as bad but the spot for crappie is kind of limited unless you have a boat. I just don’t like the crowd and I don’t wanna confront them when they start keeping 6-7” ones. Sometimes it’s as bad that they cast cross my line on cut in between me and the spot. I’d rather move or fish somewhere else.

Anyway this evening went out and saw no one so I started searching for big ones. As I said it seems tougher to find them and even you find one, doesn’t mean you find a school, unlike last year where I got fish back to back to back. This might be biggest crappie of 2021 for me, sad but I will settle with more bass lol.