This is something I've always wondered about. When the whole lake is shallow or the whole lake is deep, how does that affect where the crappie are? Will a shallow lake narrow the depth at which crappie relate, and will a deep lake widen the depth range of crappie? I'd like to hear from you guys that fish both deep water lakes and shallow water lakes. The lake I fish, will hold fish in 18-22 FOW about 90% of the year, but another lake I fish has a max depth of about 27 ft, so most of the water is about 16ft.

If we throw out spawn , I believe crappie on Lake Palestine spend
most of the time in 12-20 ft , going deeper only during very cold
weather months. 25-30 ft.

MO

Mo, that's one heck of a backyard. I grew up fishing that lake, and I sure miss it.

Right on the mark Mo! In fact I believe you can narrow it down just a bit and say most of the time you'll find the crappie in the 12' to 17' range. That's been my experience anyway.

I think the term "deep" or "shallow" is obviously relative to the given depth of a water body. Lakes here are alot more shallow than back home where yall are at.. but the fish swimming in em dont know about all that.. they deal w the water collumn as it is.. if they live in a 20ft max depth lake or bayou as I now have to call em... Deep to them would be anything over 10ft. But that dont translate to "deep" to us. I used to think that lakes w less than 20ft of water weren't crappie holes... How wrong I was.

I am going to say there is no way to figure one pattern or depth for all lakes relating to deeper lakes holding deeper fish.

Average depth of fish, as mentioned above is a good rule of thumb.

With that said, Lake Texoma is a deep lake in my books and fish were caught in 2 FOW last Saturday???????

I am positive, I can not figure them out!

My grampa always said "its fishin, u ain't gona figure em all out"

Great thread, I recently fished a lake where the max depth I found was 21'. Navionics said there were locations 35' deep but I didn't go hunt them down. It was strange for me to sit in 8 FOW and look for crappie in the summer. As Don Henley so aptly put it; when trying to get down to the heart of the matter, the more I know the less I understand.

I have to stop fishing so many different lakes. It's getting hard to remember the specifics of where, how and what time of year. Throw in water level fluctuations, moon phase and barometric pressure and it gets real confusing real fast.

There's a fisherman I know who seems to always catch the fish shallow (4' or less). I tend to start my search in deeper water (20' or more).

my thoughts are this ...
there are times when you toss out the "pattern" ....
we found some crappie totally by accident last year in the summer when it was hot in a cove at 4 foot deep ? on benbrook
we left there scratchin our heads ....
we also found fish shallow in another lake in a brush pile I was convinced had probably bream in it on weatherford
then go around the corner to whatever lake and they are 14 down in 22 fow .....
I think average lake depth plays into the equation in some cases and then in some cases it seems to be of no consequence ...
2 deeper water bodies I have visited this year have had crappie in less than 4 fow in the last few weeks ....
and then the third one was super shallow and they were everywhere in the lake ....
go figure ...
I typically evaluate the specifcs on the lake and utilize what my friends have told me about the water bodies ...
then I ask the locals what they think ...
then I formulate a several option attack plan ....
sometimes it clicks and sometimes it don't
heck one spot we are producing real nise fish rite now and they are 25 foot down in 40 fow ...
I say find em ...drop jig ketch fish ....
don't git to locked in on whatever ....
patterns kan and will change at the drop of a hat with crappie fish
these lil crappie fishys are the most finicky fishes I have dealt with

They will be wherever the bait is on any lake. Find the bait, find the fish.

Yep, crazy fish this year.
On Texoma, one theory is they tend to be up shallow since they are trying to stay away from hungry Stripers!
So maybe also take into account whether a lake has stripers or lots of big cats.

Depends on water clarity as well. In Louisiana fishing muddy water, rarely would I catch fish in more than 5-6 ft of water.

Find cleaner water and they would be 10-12 ft.

One of my best trips ever was chocolate milk looking water fishing a foot deep during the middle of the summer. If your jig didn't hit the cypress tree you were too far away.

Not sure how true it is but was always told a crappie will always go up to eat a bait but rarely go down. So we always start shallow and work our way down even in deeper water.

I agree with Mo n' Pepop on Palestine we find crappie 17-22 FOW most of the time. With this heat we're fishing deeper.

I crappie fish at lake gladewater most of the time which is a fairly shallow lake, my brush piles are in 14 to 16 fow and generally hold fish year round. The thing that gets me is where the are on the piles from day to day, this morning they were sitting right on top but other times they are at the base or holding inside the brush. It's fun to figure em out and snatch a mess, this morning casting past the brush and letting the jig swing down to the brush top was the ticket.