Summertime when the fishin’ is easy, catfish are jumpin’, and the water is high – apologies to George Gershwin who penned the song “Summertime” in 1935, but it’s May and the bass and crappie fishing is easy. Well, at least it should be if you understand fish behavior during this transitional period.
My favorite fish to chase during May are crappies and panfish. They’re at the top of my hit list in May because they’re actively feeding and their hangouts are fairly predictable.
As the days get longer and the water warms up, panfish and crappies leave their deep, winter dwellings and move into shallow bays to get ready to spawn. Crappies usually spawn around May 10th and panfish usually spawn a week or two after.
During this time of year the fish try to replace any body fat they lost over the winter. They also build up an extra supply of fat before they spawn, because reproducing requires a lot of energy. In other words, the fish are looking to chow down.
When crappies are actively feeding it seems like you can close your eyes, cast and pick up a fish next to almost any sunken log or patch of vegetation. However, there are features that make certain areas of a lake more fishy than others. Crappies are generally warm water fish, so secluded bays on the north or northwest side of a lake are good places to start your day on the water. The north side of a lake gets the most direct sunlight, so bays on the north side naturally warm up the fastest.
My ideal May crappie and panfish spot is a quiet, shallow bay rimmed with a few boat docks and plenty of green bulrush reeds. Such a bay is a Super Wal-Mart for fish – just like we can get anything from a new bedroom set to a pair of truck tires, the fish can get everything they need in just one place.
The newly grown vegetation provides cover and oxygen, and it also attracts baitfish that crappies feed on. New early-summer vegetation is especially attractive to fish because during May most of the winter vegetation is decaying and not producing much oxygen. The boat docks also serve as excellent cover for crappies to hide beneath and ambush passing minnows.
I have been the most successful catching crappies on road runners and flu flu jigs. I like to work a shoreline with a road runner because I can cover a lot of water in a short time and find out where the fish are. Once I locate a school of crappies I switch over to the slower presentation of flu flu jig tied under a float bobber. I occasionally tip the jig with a wax worm or spike, but I usually have no problem getting crappies to bite fishing it plain.
While a good crappie bite is tough to pass up, I can’t help but trade in my ultra light for my bass rod to hit the bass opener in the last weekend in May. By the time the opener roles around bass are in all different stages of the spawning cycle. In northern lakes most bass probably have not spawned yet, while in the southern lakes they’re generally done spawning already.
But even if the bass are done spawning, the name of the game is still shallow. Bass like to spawn on shallow, sandy lake bottoms that have cover like boat docks or sunken timber near by, and even when the females are done spawning they hang out in the shallows for about a week before they move out to the first break line.
Male bass hang out in the shallows after the females move out to deeper water to protect the newly hatched fry. If you see what looks like a small cloud of minnows hovering over a bed in May, there’s a good chance that it’s a school of baby bass and daddy is lurking nearby.
So whether you’re after crappies or bass grab your pole and find your own favorite bay. And maybe on your drive out to the lake pop a little George Gershwin in your CD player because it was he that came to the conclusion that there are times when the fishin’ is just, you know, easy.
Adam Johnson is an Aquatic Biologist and a Power Stick on the Ice Team.By: Adam Johnson
