I’ve read numerous recent reports of the brush piles being stacked with small crappie and the big fish being scattered and hard to find. I’ve observed the same thing on my last two trips. About a week ago I tried a new lake. I caught 20 on standing timber and 16 of them were dinks. I changed lakes yesterday and spent lots of time with my electronics looking at brush piles and standing timber. It was unbelievable how many small crappie I saw holding to the brush piles and standing timber. I managed to catch 10 nice crappie, but they were few and far between. Four of them still had a few eggs in them, but the eggs were not the same vibrant bright yellow color that I had seen in the crappie that I was catching prespawn. I’m seeing this pattern from 10’ to 28’ of water.

Is this the normal patten for this time of year? When will the big fish move to the brush piles and standing timber?

I think a lot of them are in the transition back to timber and brushpiles. I have also found a lot of dinks with a few postspawn keepers mixed in. I think DFW area is a little behind normal due to the rain and lingering cold weather that we had.

Where I’ve been fishing there are plenty of keepers on brush right now.

Thanks guys. Mckcc, do you recall the water temp where you are catching nice crappie on brush piles? I wonder if the move of the bigger fish can be related to water temperature.

71-73 where I’m at

I just looked back in my diary and the first trip I referred to was on April 25th, so it was about 2 weeks ago. Water temp was 67 early that morning. Like a dummy I didn’t look at the water temp yesterday. I’ll be sure to check it next time I go. I think it will be interesting to go back to the same places and check them for bigger fish and correlate that to water temperature. It may have nothing to do with it, but it’ll be something fun to track.

Hopefully some of the other folks on here who are also seeing lots of small crappie on brush piles will share their water temperatures too.

Water temp here was 72 yesterday, when i fished.

As you stated a lot of little crappie on the brushpile with a 12" crappie very 25 fish or so. Some crappie did have a small amount of eggs in them which they will retain to dissolve back into their body.
I think the bigger fish are scattered right now and feeding to get their weight back up after the Spawn.

When the day time temperature (for you) becomes unbearable the big crappie will move back into the brushpiles. You can catch them but you'll need to go early before the day heats up.

This I will disagree with, the best time to fish during the late spring and summer is on super bright days in the afternoon during the hottest part of the day.

I think it depends on the Lake. Not all lakes fish the same.

x2 exactky some one said dfw may be little behind, due to weather , 2 yrs ago I caught fish full of eggs& big males the first 2 weeks of may in 4to to 8/ 9 ft 0n lavon. incredible. 37 in afew hrs, have done it before also maybe justperfect timing ???

Monday I was finally catching crappie at L-ville on brushpile(14 fow) but were dinks, only several keepers..Water Temp was 72...it will get better.

71-72 degree water is not enough to send big waves of fish into the summer pattern. They are just sorta swimming in that direction. With that being said, this year things are running a couple weeks late from what I have seen. Checked some spots last week that should be full of post spawners but they were empty. Once we get some steady heat, it will pick up. On other lakes I am catching keepers in the brush and summer spots just nothing stacked up.

Definitely agree with this. The fish haven't gone into the full post spawn/summer pattern. Most or more than half the fish I've cleaned still have eggs.

glad others are seeing this elusive fish playing games with us. i have not been able to pattern them. surface temp at RC was ~75 on mothers day. but this week is more rain and mild temps so.....who knows.

I cleaned 7 Monday. 5 had eggs, including 3 over 15". Water temp was about 73. Caught off dock in about 4' of water. Caught them over 2 day period... slow. Cedar Creek.

Ready for a pattern to get formed better.

Good luck all
Ken