Sometimes it all comes together—the right location and presentation choices merge, making for good catches of crappies. Once it’s over, crappies become enigmatic, being difficult to find or ignoring your presentation. Part of the riddle lies in their adaptability to thrive in different habitats—from open-water suspension to bottom, on structural edges, and in near-shore cover—reflecting their strong and flexible connection to forage.
Food-habits studies show that crappies, while young, have similar diets just about everywhere. The youngest feed on various types of zooplankton—tiny microscopic animals—in open water, and when they reach a larger juvenile size, insect larvae and other invertebrates become components of the diet.
As crappies continue to grow, smaller baitfish become potential forage. While crappies as small as an inch have been found to eat fry, the more typical size at which they begin to eat fish readily is around 5 to 8 inches long, depending on what types and sizes of baitfish are available. Fish is a key component of the diet in the majority of systems that contain quality crappie populations, contributing the necessary calories for individual fish to achieve slab status.
Many anglers rely solely on baitfish patterns for crappies, assuming that all big crappies eat only fish. But forage can vary across space and time, so crappies can be feeding mostly on fish, or mostly invertebrates, or a diverse diet from zooplankton to various types of macroinvertebrates (insects, worms, crustaceans), to fish. Understanding the flexibility in crappie diets and the creatures they eat can help make your crappie catches more consistent.
The Shad Factor
In lakes with gizzard and threadfin shad, young shad are often the most important food for crappies. Gizzard shad are common in the eastern half of the U.S., ranging to northern tier states, including the Great Lakes. Threadfins are restricted to the South and Southeast because they’re less tolerant to cold water and can experience die-offs during cold winters. Gizzard shad generally spawn around April in the South, May and June in the Midwest, and June to July farther north. Threadfin spawning generally lags behind gizzard shad by a few weeks.
Shad are often seasonally important when fry and juveniles are available for predation. Because age-0 gizzard shad can quickly outgrow an eatable size, they’re often available to crappies only for a shorter time, typically for a couple of months after spawning. In some populations, gizzard shad may have multiple spawning bouts, making young shad available to crappies for longer periods.
Threadfins, considered bread-and-butter food for trophy slabs, are typically available to crappies for longer periods than gizzard shad, because the spawning season for threadfins is wider and they reach a smaller maximum size. In Dewey Lake, Kentucky, for example, Scott Hale of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife found that abundance of gizzard shad capable of being eaten by white crappies peaked in late May and June, before declining sharply. When threadfin shad were stocked as supplemental forage, they were available to crappies into fall.
