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Here’s how to fill up the livewell after crappies wrap up their spring spawn

If you have your heart set on a fish fry, it’s tough to beat slab crappies. Finding them this time of year might be as simple as cruising shallow spawning bays while looking for fish, or it might take some deeper-water work. Either way, vertical cover at the right depth is the ticket, so plan your fishing days around starting shallow and backtracking their likely migration routes. Then, use a combo of artificials and live bait to zero in on the schools no matter where you find them. (Photo by Eric Morken)

With the funky spring weather we saw in the Upper Midwest this year, it wouldn’t be crazy to think you could find crappies in all stages of the spawn throughout Minnesota right now.
While they’ll start sliding into the shallows when the mercury breaches the 50-degree mark, they won’t start making nests until it’s in the low 60s. Their travel from deepwater wintering holes to the spawning shallows, and then back again, is somewhat predictable. But there’s a lot of nuance to finding slabs.

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