Following the elusive Crappie

I would say ” there they are ” then we both would go on point in anticipation of another Crappie bite or taker. You can fish all day for suspended Crappie in open water but if they arn’t where your fishing then forget puting some in the boat. We spent a lot of wasted fishing time first locating crappies with the X85 Lorwance & then trying to stay with them, ending up with probably 30 in the boat.
Is there any one out there with side finder info or sonars with capabilities of seeing horizontally in search for suspending crappies?
I find them tightly schooling every spring & fall and usually catch a fair amount but could greatly increase the catch if I knew which direction they are swimming. Thanks John

I’ve read books (most notably Bill Dance’s book on crappies) that say to tie off a balloon onto the first one you catch and get it back into the water ASAP so that it can follow the school.

Does anyone know if this is even legal in Iowa?

whoa; great Idea Gianni I forgot all about that tactic. A friend of mine tried it when we were fishing down by the Marina on coralville lake. A little different situation as he caught that fish on cover then we ran the boat out a ways and released the fish with the bobber attached, the fish went back to the same cover. Amazing!!!!!! I don’t get how that fish knew which way to go. Maybe a schooling Crappie would go back to the same school?

“I’ve read books (most notably Bill Dance’s book on crappies) that say to tie off a balloon onto the first one you catch and get it back into the water ASAP so that it can follow the school.”

Works on white bass. . . . don’t know about the legal aspect though.

Never thought about using it on whites.

Hmmmmmm…..