>>1663605To start we were fishing a lake that we have fished before when it’s open water. Haven’t fished it a ton but enough to know the depth changes and where the weed lines are. This was our first time fishing it during ice season. We stared out shallow, like 5 fow looking for the big gills we catch in the spring. Only caught dink perch. From there we kept moving deeper. We tried on the opposite side of the weed line but again just dink perch. At this point I thought hmm ok if they for sure arnt in anywhere from 5-14 fow then they have to be deeper. I then drilled a line of holes and checked the depths of each on to get an understanding of the grade. I set up in 19 fow with a hard bottom no weeds. Took us about 10 minutes of being patient and we started seeing 10 foot wide schools of crappies roaming around the bottom half of the water column. When we were in them we would hammer them quick one after another. Then the school would move on and you wouldn’t get a bite in that whole again. All we had to do to stay on them was continue drilled holes in a straight line parallel to shore so we stayed in that same 19 fow section. Every time we moved we ended up finding the schools again.
TLDR: keep moving, try various depths. Give a spot maybe 10 or so minutes if nothing then move. Structure isn’t necessary you just need to keep moving until you see marks
