If you have never hit crappies at just the right time in early spring, when they are bunched up on the “beds,” you really don’t know what great crappie fishing is. Oh, there are times throughout the year, even under the ice, when fishing for these panfish can be fast and furious, but nothing matches that fleeting period in spring when the spawn is in full swing.

That is when you cast a jig and minnow under a slip bobber and when the bobber hits the water it never stops. Before the bait gets all the way down, a fish has it and the bobber simply plummets out of sight. On other casts, the bobber will settle on the surface and all at once dart off to the side after an aggressive crappie has grabbed the jig.

On those magical days an angler’s biggest challenge is to keep an accurate count of the number of crappies he slips into his fish basket. Depending on where you are fishing, there are rules about when enough is enough, and there are consequences when enough becomes too much.

How hot can spring crappie fishing get? Well, I remember a time years ago when a friend and I, desperate to cure a bad case of cabin fever, bought a couple of dozen fat head minnows and headed out to a small, nearby lake. It was early April, but the sun shone, and the thermometer crept up around 60 degrees. We were after crappies.

We worked around the shoreline for half an hour, but the old weed beds, docks, and occasional downed tree weren’t producing at all. Then we noticed a boat anchored over a shallow sandbar in mid-lake. That boat had been there when we arrived, and it hadn’t moved. With suspicious regularity the two men on board would retrieve their lures and quietly slip something over the gunnels. They were on the fish! More accurately, they were anchored right over a big log that was covered up with big crappies.

Being young, and in the throes of the aforementioned grip of cabin fever, we had no compunctions about moving right in to within 50 feet of them. Those anglers didn’t seem to mind our presence and kept right on hauling good-sized fish off that log. We tried not to crowd them, but soon realized that if we didn’t get a jig/minnow combination on that log we were not going to catch any fish.

Luckily, they reached their daily bag limit and left about the time our jigs began bouncing off their boat. Otherwise, I think we would have gotten to know those strangers a lot better.

The only excuses I can offer for our rather boorish behavior are: we were kids, it had been a long winter, and oh, boy, were those fish biting.

The key to timing the onset of the crappie spawn is the length of the day wherever you are fishing. Known to the fishery biologists as the photo period, this is simply the time that elapses between sunrise and sunset, and is the critical factor in triggering the spawning instinct in most fish.

Since the sun slowly moves north in spring, the photo period will reach the proper length in southern climes a few days earlier than in northern areas. As a general rule, you can expect crappies to begin moving toward their spawning beds in mid-April.

About this time you can look for fish to begin congregating along the northern shore of the lake, where the sun, still in the south, will heat the water more quickly. Dark, agricultural bottoms will retain more heat than rocky shores, and the fish usually prefer some sort of solid structure, such as brush, logs, or piers and docks to lay their eggs.

Once the fish have positioned themselves to accomplish their spawning chores, two other determining factors come into play. The first is water temperature, and the crappies won’t begin the actual spawning ritual until the water heats up into the mid-fifties. While they generally spawn in 3 to 4 feet of water, they will often congregate 8 to 12 feet deep near their spawning site, until the water warms appropriately. An inexpensive temperature gauge is well worth the investment.

The other factor that affects the crappie spawn is water clarity. It would be difficult to describe acceptable water clarity, but you can make a suitable test by tying a cord around a white dinner plate so that it can be lowered into the water flat side up. If you can still see the plate one foot down, you are in business.

Especially early in the spawning season, the fish may move on and off their nests as the temperature and water clarity fluctuates. However, they won’t go far, and often all you have to do is present your offerings in slightly deeper water on the other side of the boat.

The crappie spawning period will last until mid-May, when the bass, and then the bluegills move in to take their place. At that time the crappie will move off to their summer haunts, and the big party will be over. Get your gear together now, and don’t miss out on the big party.