Most anglers are on the water by now, and in April the crappie fishing is heating up with the fish very willing to eat, if you can find them. They are not quite ready to spawn, but have vacated their deep-water, winter-holding areas.

So where does that leave the aspiring crappie angler?

Catching just as many fish as they do during the spawn.

But the key to successful fishing for crappies this month is to be versatile, and mobile. Move from creek to creek until you locate a school. Deeper fish are still not that active, but the crappies you see schooled up in water about 10-12 feet are going to be the type of congregation you want to target.

Location
Fish are in transition areas now somewhere between their deep-water haunts and the spring spawning flats. The good news is they’re never far from those such flats. Something as simple as a creek channel with a little deeper water will hold these fish. You want to pay close attention to the insides of those creek channel turns all year, but especially in the springtime.

Lures
Although the old standard minnow and bobber will always catch fish, a moving presentation is more productive. Curly-tailed grubs, small soft plastic shad imitations and paddle-tail grubs are going to catch your dinner now. Productive colors are going to be gray, pearl, chartreuse and black/pink. My personal go-to soft plastic is the Kalins Triple Threat Grub—simply put, it’s the most durable grub I have.

Presentation
Trolling is the most effective method, as you can cover more water and locate feeding fishing in an efficient manner. Spider rigging also works well, but in this time of transition I want to be able to move around until I find the more aggressive fish.

The best speeds for trolling are around .8 mph. This will allow your jigs to get down to where the fish will be holding. My bread-and-butter jig head is at 1/8 ounce, but I’ll never leave the house without some 1/16-ounce heads, just in case the spring fish are suspended over deep areas in a channel, and not necessarily near the bottom.

Water temperature
Even though the weatherman says it’s going to be 60 degrees all week in the air, you still must pay attention to the water temperatures below. Crappies will go on the move when lakes warm to 50 degrees and higher. Once we get a week or more of rising water temperatures, the fish go into their pre-spawn “feeding mode.” But when Mother Nature hits us with a cold front and the lakes drop below 50 again, the normally active fish will move back out to the deeper water. Once the water hits 60, though, look for the white crappies to move in shallow and spawn with black crappies following in when the water rises to around 67 degrees.