Crushin’ crappies
Black and white spawn is on in local waters
PORTERSVILLE, Pa.— On a brisk spring morning shortly after dawn, Joe Fazio of Mount Washington launched his aluminum boat on the northern neck of Lake Arthur at Moraine State Park, Butler County.
In March, he reported “great success” pulling slab crappies in the 12- to 15-inch range through the ice at Lake Arthur. In April while searching for crappies, he caught and released more than 60 yellow perch in a single afternoon. In early May, he told the Post-Gazette Fishing Report that he was catching and releasing 40 to 50 prespawn crappies per day.
I happily accepted Mr. Fazio’s recent invitation to do some fishing.
“I love crappies. They are the moodiest fish I have ever encountered [and] I truly love the challenge,” he said. “I catch a lot of bass, but it’s by mistake when I’m trying to find crappies.”
Because he runs his own company, Mr. Fazio said he’s able to take a day off work when the conditions are right. He finished well in regional crappie tournaments and has started building a following on his “Crappie Crushin’ TV” YouTube channel and Facebook page.
A cold front had crossed the lake days before our arrival May 11. We expected a slow bite, but he expected it to pick up after noon.
“Look at this, 61 degees after a cool night that was down in the 30s,” he said, glancing at the boat’s electronics. He switched off the motor, and we glided into position 20 yards off a patch of grassy shallows.
“Sixty-three is the number,” he said. “From experience I believe that’s [the temperature] when the spawn will start. Until then crappies are tough to figure out. Some days they’re deep, some days they’re shallow … sometimes you can’t buy a nibble.”
The black crappie (Pomoxis nigromaculatus) and white crappie (P. annularis) are native to the Mississippi and Great Lakes watersheds. They’ve been widely introduced in impoundments like Lake Arthur and across North America. Crappies are prolific breeders. In Pennsylvania, the whites are slightly less common than blacks but more apt to overpopulate, requiring aquatic wildlife management actions to rebalance the fishery.
Pre-spawn crappies gorge on shad. Black crappies generally spawn a couple of days earlier than whites. The males colonize an area in coves or slow pools protected from the wind and often under woody cover. Spawning waters are usually 4-8 feet deep with a sandy or gravelly bottom near vegetated shallows.
Like their sunfish-family cousins — largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass — crappies spawn on beds that have been fanned clear of mud, sand and gravel by the males. As the optimal water temperature nears, females move closer to shore. When the time is right, the females swoop through the shallows, each depositing 10,000-160,000 eggs in several beds. The males follow, each fertilizing eggs in multiple nests and providing overlapping protection during incubation. Hatching occurs in two to five days, and the males continue to guard the fry for a few more days.
“They spawn in waves, not all at the same time,” said Mr. Fazio. “Once the temperature is right, the spawn lasts about a month. They’ll take bait before and after spawning. During the spawn, that’s what they’re focused on.”
His 7-foot ultra-light spinning rod, with a nimble tip for throwing light weights, was spooled with red 4-pound test monofilament line. A bobber stopper was attached above a slip bobber, and at the end he tied a No. 8 hook.
Following days of rain, Lake Arthur had a slightly muddy tinge that made small baits hard to see. His minnie bucket splashed with several dozen fatheads of 1-1½ inches. Mr. Fazio pressed a hook upward under the jaw and through the nose, and pinched on a split shot to keep the bait down. The bobber stopper slid easily up and down the line, positioning the float at a point where the bait would hang about 1 foot off the bottom.
If the bobber didn’t go under within about a minute after casting, he reeled in, changed his depth and cast again. After several good casts at various depths with no bites, Mr. Fazio motored to another known spawning area, testing several within a few hours.
Shortly after 10:30 a.m., for the first time this year, he said, the subsurface temperature on our neck of Lake Arthur hit 63 degrees. In the next hour, we boated three white crappies and one black, a couple of small bass and a yellow perch. My male black crappie was particularly dark, which he said was a good sign it had been “rubbing bellies” with a female preparing to spawn.
He looked up at the bright blue sky.
“I play the moon,” he said. “I’ve learned that the moon phase has a lot to do with when [crappies] will turn on and turn off. Two distinct times are best — within two hours before and after moon rise and when the moon is crossing the meridian. I don’t know why — reflected light, gravity — but I can usually tell when the bite will start.”
Moon phase becomes less important, said Mr. Fazio, when crappies grow hormonally addled just before spawning. But he noted that on May 11, moonrise over the Pittsburgh region would occur at 12:14 p.m.
About 15 minutes later, the crappies turned on like someone hit a switch. He quickly ran out of live minnows and dead floaters and switched to self-painted 1/32inch jigs with pink soft plastic tails. By 5:30 p.m., Mr. Fazio had released about 70 black and white crappies, all males. The biggest slab was just over 13 inches.
The day’s success wasn’t because of the tactics, the bait or the moon, he said. It was knowing that part of Lake Arthur and being in the right place at the right time.
“It is imperative to understand that one needs to learn … a body of water. Know the bottom contours like your own house as well as the superstructure,” he said. “Crappies behave differently from one body of water to another, but the principles are all the same.”
In most of Western Pennsylvania the crappie spawn was expected to be fully underway this weekend, said Mr. Fazio, and will last for about a month.