Though crappies provide consistent fishing during the spring, when forays to feed and reproduce draw them into shallow water, come summer their location often becomes a mystery.

Combing trolling tactics to find crappies, and then a casting/jigging approach once located, can keep the action going through the warm weather months.

For trolling, consider a spread of baits that covers various depths in the water column. I like to fish three rods, each one rigged to target a specific depth range.

Crappies feed upward, so it’s important to not fish below them. So, for the first rod, I rig either an eighth or 3/16th ounce jig dressed with a soft plastic body. Underspin jigs like the Blakemore Roadrunner excel in this instance.

Bodies like Bobby Garland Baby Shad couple nicely with the jig. Color wise, I’ve had good success with chartreuse jigs and pink bodies. This outfit is fished about cast length behind the boat, roughly 40 feet.

Moving at .8 or .9 mph, I figure this jig/plastic combo, which I fish on eight-pound test Sufix Nanobraid, to run a few feet under the surface.

A second outfit is also rigged with a similar jig/plastic body, this one with a larger bait such as Bobby Garland’s three-inch Slab Slayer. This one is set up as a Carolina rig, with an egg slip sinker in the 1/8 or 3/16 ounce range. Depending on the size of the weight, this rig gets down in the 10-foot range.

Finally, I rig a longer, soft action casting rod with a three-way swivel. One eye of the swivel goes to the main line, one to a six-inch dropper for the sinker, and one to a small crankbait like a Rapala Shad Rap of 1.5 inches.

Both the sinker dropper and the bait dropper are finished with a small snap, so it’s an easy matter to switch lures/baits as well as sinker (I prefer a Water Gremlin Dipsey) as needed. With a quarter ounce sinker, this rig runs about 14 feet down.

Combing the water column with this setup is an efficient way of finding both fish and fish holding cover. Once located, trolling can be put on hold to target such specific areas with casted jigs, vertically fished with small blade baits, or targeted with jigs suspended under a slip bobber.

Keystone Lake Fisheries Survey

During the first week of April, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission conducted a netting survey to assess the walleye population in Keystone Lake.

Fish and Boat Commission Fisheries Biologist Brian Ensign noted:

 “We did quite well for Walleye (16-29 inches), Tiger (16-40 inches) and Purebred Musky (27-42 inches), White and Black Crappie (8-15 inches) and even caught a few really nice sized Smallmouth Bass up to 20 inches in length.

“Our staff returned to Keystone Lake during the week of May 3 to assess the panfish population utilizing trap nets. Results are preliminary, but it appears that the panfish fishery is doing quite well.

“Black Crappie (512) and White Crappie (250) were captured in high abundance with a substantial portion of each species’ catch over quality size, including several fish up to 15-plus inches. We also captured three additional muskies that ranged in size from 18 to 27 inches and 29 adult Walleye, all of which were of good size and greater than legal size including our largest fish that measured 30 inches, weighing 8.6 pounds.

“The highlight of these surveys was the impressive Large and Smallmouth Bass fishery documented in Keystone Lake. We captured a total of 1,258 bass which far exceeded the previous survey in 2009 with 521 total fish.

“Captured bass ranged in size from 4 to 20 inches for a total catch rate of 344 bass/hr., which also far exceeded the previous catch rate in 2009 of only 130 fish per hour. Catch rates for legal size bass (375 mm/15 inches) TL were much improved in 2021 with a catch rate of 25.5 fish per hour compared to 2009 at 5.5 fish per hour.

“Two of our largest bass included a Largemouth measuring 20.1 inches that weighed 4.2 pounds and a Smallmouth at 18 inches weighing 2.7 pounds.”

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle