How to find crappie in deep clear water?

[RoadrashPaul]

I am at my wits end with these stupid fish I spent all day trying to find crappie on Dale Hollow today and blanked although I caught a couple nice largemouth. Anyway I can’t figure out what I am missing. If you are not familiar with the lake it is very clear and rocky bottom. Extremely deep in parts 100’+ with not a lot of wood structure. I started my morning over a big grass flat that I marked shad on. I used a roadrunner and a Bobby Garland grub with a slow retrieve and making sure to let it get to the depth I marked the shad. Nothing

I then moved up in a big creek as I thought the warmer water may have them up in there. I found tons of shad but fished structure, points and drop offs best I could. Vertical jigging and slow retrieve. Nothing.

I burnt an entire tank of gas between running and idling around using my side scan. I have come to the conclusion I don’t know what I am doing. I see things I am certain are structure or fish, I pause the scan and drop a way point. Turn the boat around and can’t find what I saw on the first pass. I zoom way in on my nav screen to make sure I am on my waypoint. Very frustrating.

Any pointers? It was a day after a front went through last night so I know it could just be a bad day but this is the 4th trip with very little success.

[CatFan]

Usually winter crappie fishing is finding them in tight balls in areas of the lake that have shad.

What kind of sonar do you have on the bow? Without down scan/down imaging, it can be hard to find fish with shad around. The shad fill the wide 2D beam, where the Down image/down scan has a narrower beam.

On your units, where are the GPS receivers relative to the transducers? If they are far apart, it can skew where the waypoint is relative to the structure.

It can pay off to go out and leave the poles in the locker and just play with the electronics. Find some obvious targets like stumps, brush piles or logs and practice marking them and then finding them on the bow unit.

[RoadrashPaul]

Usually winter crappie fishing is finding them in tight balls in areas of the lake that have shad.

What kind of sonar do you have on the bow? Without down scan/down imaging, it can be hard to find fish with shad around. The shad fill the wide 2D beam, where the Down image/down scan has a narrower beam.

On your units, where are the GPS receivers relative to the transducers? If they are far apart, it can skew where the waypoint is relative to the structure.

It can pay off to go out and leave the poles in the locker and just play with the electronics. Find some obvious targets like stumps, brush piles or logs and practice marking them and then finding them on the bow unit.

Thanks for the info.
On the bow I have a Lowrance with 2d and downs scan. However at the helm I have a Garmin unit so they aren’t linked. I should have clarified that sometimes I can find what I saw but sometimes I cannot.

I honestly have no idea where the GPS receivers are? I assumed they were inside the head unit. This is a used boat that I bought with all of this already installed. Maybe I need to crawl around some more and see where everything is.

One more thing I got to thinking about and this is possibly a dumb question but I am asking anyway. When I find something on side scan (tree, log, rock whatever) and it’s in 40’ of water. Do you take the cursor over to where it is on the bottom or can you drop the point in the water column? Maybe I am over thinking this but I would think you would get two different locations based on where you put the waypoint mark.

I agree with going out and playing around with the units. I should do that sometime. I also think I may have not been fishing deep enough. I watched some more videos and read some more and feel like I make have saw what could have been crappie 40-50’ deep and I didn’t target them cause I thought that may be too deep for them.

[CatFan]

Being able to mark the same waypoint on both units is pretty helpful trying to find and fish a deep spot.

If you don’t see external GPS receivers, odds are they are using the internal receivers.

Cursor to the object you want to mark on SS.

[Solitario Lupo]

Looking for the crappie schools. Just some tips. When you drop your bait lure try to see it on your screen (if can)so you can tell where your at in the school. I mostly try to go for the middle of the pack. Another thing is try not to turn around as you will lose the spot but stop and just backup.

Another thing is having a ruff day with the fishfinder. Leave it on but troll. Then when you hook up you’ll know what your looking at.

[Bass Junkie]

Find brush piles!!! Not sure what you water temps are right now but you probably need to be looking for fish in 20-30' of water in, over, and around brush or standing timber. I fish in deep clear water too and our water temps have been mild so far this year and they haven't been as deep as normal. I've caught them as deep as 46' of water here but they are not close to that yet this year. Channel drops in swings, underwater humps, points are all good places to look if they have some cover but a brush pile right in the middle of a creek channel will work right now as long as there is food around. If you find them on sidescan, mark the spot and come back over it with downscan and verify what you saw. Throw out a bayou marker so you know you are on the exact spot. Slow roll 2" grubs on 1/16, 1/8, or 1/4oz jigs depending on depth and/or wind.

[Dale Hollow Nut]

Yep. Brush piles

[pmcanally]

I am familiar with fishing a clear water lake for crappie. It is not unusual for them to go as deep as 50 feet of water when the water gets real cold. I haven’t seen them go any deeper than that on the clear water lake I fish. Typical depths are mid 30’s to 40 feet most of the time. You will have to use bright colors when fishing that deep. I am fond of glow in the dark baits in 35+ feet of water. They will only go this deep in winter time. Thermocline in summer will have them in much shallower water. Deepest I’ve ever caught them was 46 feet deep in 51 feet of water over a large tree that was blown into the lake by a tornado some years ago. The fish were tucked down in the tree close to the bottom but would rise up to the bait. Use a light braid with a flourocarbon leader so you can feel bites that deep. You will have a hard time feeling bites with mono.