Idling along the shoreline of Crooked Creek Lake, the screen of my sonar unit lit up as we passed over a large tree limb imbedded in the lake bottom in 22 feet of water. I lowered a drop-shot rig down to the bottom, cranked it up with a few turns of the reel handle, and was rewarded with the bite of a 10-inch white crappie.

Panfish like crappies receive their most intense attention during the spring when they are in shallow water to feed and spawn. By summer, they are mostly neglected. But for those willing to fish deeper waters, there are still fish to be caught.

In dingy, relatively deep reservoirs like Crooked Creek, expect the bulk of the crappie population to be relating to cover such as wood and rocks along channel ledges. During the outing described at the outset, Sid Brown and I caught crappies in depths ranging from 20 to 30 feet. Nearly all the fish were close to some form of cover, though often hovering a few feet above it.

In depths such as these, it makes the most sense to fish vertically, directly under the boat. Drop-shot rigs and blade baits took all our fish.

For those unfamiliar with the drop-shot rig, it’s comprised of a sinker located on the end of the running line and a hook tied in one to three feet above the sinker. A Palomar knot is used to tie in the hook, cinched in a way that the open hook gap is positioned on top. Secure the sinker after the hook is tied on.

Though specialty drop-shot sinkers are available, a simpler Water Gremlin dipsey sinker works fine and is cheap, a good thing as sinkers often snag. We baited our drop-shot rigs with two- or three-inch Berkley Gulp Alive minnows.

Besides ones taken on the drop-shot rig, we also managed a few on blade baits, which are compact, metal vibrating lures that can be fished in a variety of ways, including vertically jigged.

With both the rigs and blades, nearly all our fish were taken by presenting the lure/bait a few feet off the bottom or cover. Crappies tend to feed upward, likely the result of the position of their eyes. If you fish at or below their level, don’t expect much action. But if you hover a lure above them, you’ll often be in business.

In deeper water, crappies show up well on a sonar screen. In 25 feet of water, the sonar beam is looking at a circle roughly 10 feet in diameter. The fish are off the bottom and are easy targets.

On my Garmin Echomap chartplotter, I split the screen to show both traditional 2D sonar and ClearVu down imaging. Comparing the two views provides the user with a clear interpretation of what’s being shown.

In weed-rich and clear-water lakes like Keystone Power Dam, expect crappies to be holding off the deep edges of the weedbed. In this case, a good presentation would be a light jig and minnow suspended below a slip-bobber.

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle