Photo by Ron Sinfelt

Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia, Smith Mountain Lake comes to mind when most Virginia anglers think of either largemouth or striped bass fishing. The lake is deep and clear. Smith Mountain Lake’s deepest point is about 250 feet, near the dam itself. Outside the lake’s many coves, 100 to 150 feet is typical.

Bass aren’t the only fish worth pursuing here, however. And from a crappie angler’s point of view, the structure of the lake makes things a little easier than in some lakes. Crappie are cover-loving, schooling fish. Water depths in excess of 40 to 50 feet where predator fish can slip in below them are not very favorable to long life spans for crappie.

Knowing this simple but useful fact is what helps many SML anglers key in on the lake’s crappie.

“A lot of Smith Mountain’s crappie are caught in the secondary channels and bays off the Blackwater and Roanoke River arms,” said Dan Wilson, biologist for the Virginia Department of Game & Inland Fisheries. “Beginning in April, depending on water temperatures, crappie begin staging in the mouths of these secondaries and will make their way toward the backs of the areas looking for spawning cover.”

The best places to begin searching for Smith Mountain Lake crappie as the waters warm in late March and into April are along creek channels that lead back toward favorable spawning cover for crappie. To narrow this search down, look for irregularities, such as inside or outside bends in the channel or areas where feeder creeks intersect with the secondary channel. Locating these areas narrows your search down from a couple of miles of creek channel to a hundred yards.

Once your search is refined to a 100-or-so-yard area, it’s time to begin looking for cover such as submerged timber, stumps or brushpiles to pinpoint fish. Some anglers take the approach of beginning near the mouth of the secondary creek and locating and eliminating areas one at a time while heading toward the back of the secondary creek. While detailed lake maps make this task a little easier, once you are on the water, a good sonar unit spells the difference between a cooler full of slabs and trying to guess where the fish are.

J.D. Abshire of Rocky Mount knows all too well how important good electronics are. Abshire spends a great deal of time on Virginia waters, rotating much of his fishing efforts between walleyes on Philpott and stripers at Smith Mountain -- but he foregoes both when Smith Mountain’s crappie begin to move shallow in the spring. He’s been there for the last 25 years.

“This time of year I have a pretty good time-tested system,” Abshire claimed. “ I look for the outside edge of a creek channel, then I look for brush or timber hanging right on the edge of that edge.”

The veteran crappie angler said that if he can find the right kind of structure in the right water depth, the fish are usually there. He starts by looking at water depths in the 30- to 40-foot range early in the pre-spawn stage and will move shallower to the 15- to 20-foot depths as the water begins to warm. Then it’s time to get down to business.