Once you find a really good crappie hole, the fish are always going to be pretty much right under your nose -- you just have to figure out whether they're deep or shallow on a given outing.

As it turned out, Austin was in for still more of a surprise. "I shocked that same male up again the next day!" the biologist exclaimed. "He had covered the seven or so miles from the dam up to that area on the North Fork two days in a row! The tags are numbered, and we record them, so we knew with certainty it was the same white bass.

"That guy was one determined white bass. We captured him in the morning, and the two releases at the dam happened later on in the afternoon. He covered that distance two days in a row in no more than 16 to 18 hours. It was just amazing."

It also was just not something any Kansas crappie would ever do. "When I was in the field and would have a good year-class with a lot of crappie in the 3- to 5-inch range, I'd find them in pretty much the same spot if the habitat and food they needed were available," Austin said. "It became obvious to me through all the time on the water and talking to so many crappie fishermen that our crappie just aren't moving very far around a lake."

Maybe the most important message from this is that, once you find a really good crappie hole, the fish are always going to be pretty much right under your nose -- you just have to figure out whether they're deep or shallow on a given outing.

"Another thing about our crappie is that a hard rain will turn them on, especially around the spawn," Austin offered. "It won't trigger them during the time the front is moving through. But when the weather stabilizes, they'll really get going.

"It seems as though there's something about the freshly flooded structure that gets them active. You seem to always find this in areas with rocks, gravel or hard clay. It's not going to happen on softer mud banks, because crappie don't use them for spawning unless they have absolutely no other choice. The siltation you get in areas like that will cover up their eggs and destroy spawning success."

Austin suggests that you imitate the crappie you're after and not move very far from where you find them during the spawn when you go out this month. Concentrate your search on areas close to the spawning banks that offer the fish structure of some type in 12 to 15 feet of water. If you don't find them, check out deeper water -- but look for them to be suspended in that 12- to 15-foot range.

Do you have a favorite Kansas crappie lake? The pattern that Austin outlines should apply no matter where you fish. But some lakes around the state will stand out this season as offering some excellent prospects for crappie. They were featured last month in a crappie-fishing preview, but here's a quick recap.