Photo by Ron Sinfelt

April is a month where outdoorsmen find themselves trying to figure out what they should do. Spring gobblers are calling in the big woods, bass are in the pre-spawn mode and crappie are thick in the shallows just waiting for a minnow to cross them as they do their procreation ritual. Each portion of the state has its own honeyhole just full of specks waiting to be tugged into boats and loaded into coolers. We have the latest creel and sampling data that will help point the way to the more productive waters this season.

TIDEWATER REGION
Anglers in the Tidewater Region know that there are a slew of good crappie destinations here. The tough part is to find out which ones are shining from year to year. For this information, we turned to Region 1’s fisheries biologist Bob Greenlee. Greenlee spends quite a bit of his time surveying the tidal rivers in the region. In our conversation, he noted that during his fall electrofishing surveys, he saw some great black crappie in the tidal tributaries of the James River. Specifically, the tributaries that enter the James from Hopewell to the mouth of the Chickahominy River showed some real nice fish.

“The black crappie in these tidal streams are in outstanding condition -- real slabsides,” he said. “The abundance of fish are in the 10- to 13-inch range, with many weighing over 1 pound.”

Greenlee went on to say that most fish top out around a pound and a half.

So where do anglers go to find these slabs in April? According to our source, the fish position themselves near structure such as downed trees and old pier pilings. Downed trees over channel dropoffs are particularly productive. While not every piece of structure will hold fish, the structure where the fish are found will hold loads of them averaging a pound or better. Most of the crappie are feeding on shiners in the tributaries, so minnows dunked or jigged vertically in front of the fish will be effective.

Warmer waters will hold the fish in the early spring. Such areas include backwaters and marsh channels. These areas are productive as early as February for a variety of species of fish.

In a final note, the fisheries Greenlee said he would like to see more anglers target are tidal crappie. The fishery is underutilized. While the fish are not monsters like the ones found in Buggs Island, they are fat, 12- to 13-inch fish.

To cover landlocked waters within the district, we turned to the other fisheries biologist from VDGIF, Scott Herrmann. Herrmann gave the nod to Diascund Reservoir as his choice crappie destination.

Diascund Reservoir was very productive when Herrmann sampled it this past year. The catch rate was 228 black crappie in two nights of work. The survey showed that there is an abundance of fish in the 9- to 11-inch range. The largest crappie collected during the survey was 13 inches and weighed 1 1/3 pounds. The sampling was done in March.