Instead, the weather patterns following ice-out assert far greater consequences. Begin your ice-out panfish search by identifying staging areas. Sunfish and crappies, although similar in spring feeding behavior and preferred habitat, generally stage in different locations. Sunfish spend winter's final weeks grazing over shallow weed flats, milling inside bays, and hanging along the perimeter of any remaining outside weed edge. Productive weed flats and shallow bays typically hold late ice sunfish in depths ranging from 5 to 12 feet of water.
Weeds are the key to locating staging sunfish.
Both active and inactive sunfish can be found anywhere from the deepest remaining vegetation right up to shoreline, again it depends on where you left fish at the end of ice fishing season. The best weed beds lie either within or just outside shallow bays. Crappie staging is a whole different animal. The last known whereabouts of late-ice crappies was over the outside weed edge, hanging aloft deep water near spawning areas, or nestled in deep pockets within the weed bed itself. Outside weed edges and miscellaneous spots on a flat are the only likely staging areas where sunfish and crappies commingle.