You usually will find them easing along a creek or river bank or the nearshore shallows of a pond or lake.

Crappie fishermen.

They will be quiet, “tiptoeing” along softly and slowly. And suddenly lifting fish after fish into an icy cooler.

No noisy, rooster-tailing, go-fast bass-boats for these folks. No big-water Great Lakes walleye or salmon rigs either. Just a small boat or canoe, an electric motor or paddle for power. Or bank or dock-fishing on foot, tackle in hand.

May is crappie time in northern Ohio, and anglers with the patience will slip along banksides and submerged structures for a morning or afternoon, or all day. There is good reason for the slow-and-easy, stealthy approach to crappie fishing. Your targets may be shallow, just mere feet away, and may spook into deep water if you are noisy.

During this month and into June the fish will have moved from deeper water holding areas into shallows to spawn. Some outdoors folks hold that crappies start their spawning moves about the same time that morel mushrooms are ready for hunting, perhaps late April.

Crappies - pronounced “croppies” - have a dedicated following, such that their fans have their own clubs, tournaments and contests. It is rare to find crappies referred to in the singular - they are a school fish, and if you find one you often may find a lot of them.

The trick is to keep moving until you find where they are hanging out. The fishing often is shallow, just one to five feet, though crappiemen will slide deeper, to 10 or 15 feet, if they find no schools up high.

Tackle is simple: Light or ultralight spinning outfits, with a bobber and a hook tipped with a minnow. Or a stacked, tandem-hook “crappie” rig, each hook tipped with a minnow. It can be jigged or just moved slowly around.

Or you can use a small jig and minnow, or cast small spinners, such as the smaller Mepps in chrome or white.

Northern Ohio is home to white and black crappies. They are close cousins, but the white crappie will tolerate a wider variety of conditions, including silty and turbid water. Black crappies tend to prefer clearer water.

White crappies tend to have five to 10 vertical bands on their sides and backs, and black crappies have deeper bodies with dusky or dark blotches. But the best way to tell one from the other is that white crappies have just five or six dorsal spines, and black crappies have seven or eight.

Either species averages 8 to 12 inches. The state record white crappie is 3.9 pounds, 18.5 inches long. The black crappie record is 4.5 pounds, 18.12 inches.

One of the better areas to start a crappie trip in the Toledo area is Mary Jane Thurston State Park on State Rt. 65, west of Grand Rapids, on the Maumee River. The marina and docks there usually are worth a try. Some crappies also can be taken nearby, below the Grand Rapids Dam on the river.

Somewhat farther upstream, on either side of the river, are South Turkeyfoot Creek and North Turkeyfoot Creek, both of which hold spring crappies.

“They are pretty much anywhere you have little tributaries emptying into the river, in combination with brush or submerged structure,” said Larry Goedde, fish management supervisor for Ohio Wildlife District 2. The boat-ramp area at Farnsworth Metropark at Waterville, for instance, also produces fish.

The lower reaches of the Auglaize River, where it empties into the Maumee at Defiance, also is good. Try the power dam area just south of town, and the Five Mile Creek Access. Flat Rock Creek is another Maumee tributary that is worth a try.

Well southwest in Auglaize and Mercer counties at Celina, Grand Lake St. Marys is crappie heaven, especially around shallow side-canals.

Other inland impoundments and lakes worth a crappie quest include Harrison Lake, Fulton County; Nettle Lake, Williams County; Findlay Reservoir No. 1 and Reservoir No. 2; and in the Mansfield area, Pleasant Hill and Clear Fork reservoirs.

Along western Lake Erie, crappies have been stocked in the fishing ponds at Maumee Bay State Park. Cooley and Ward canals in Jerusalem Township also produce the feisty panfish. Launch at the Lucas County boat-ramp at Anchor Point, or the state ramp at Metzger Marsh State Wildlife Area.

The lower Portage River in Ottawa County, with a good number of access channels and canals, is a crappie producer as well. Too, any private marinas and docks may hold crappies, but anglers are reminded that they must obtain permission to fish there.

Sandusky Bay is a sleeper, as are all the tributaries flowing into it, Goedde said. The back-bay areas and channels at East Harbor State Park also can produce.

Oh - and go easy on the hook-set with crappies. Their nickname- “papermouth” - is well deserved. It is easy to lose a fish by pulling a hook right out during hook-set or reeling.

Fishing elsewhere - White bass continue to run well in the Sandusky, Maumee, and Portage rivers, though high water from recent rains temporarily may slow fishing.

On western Lake Erie, purple or blue hair-jigs and minnows, jigged vertically, still are working in the inside reef areas in the Davis-Besse area. Maumee Bay was too murky to fish at mid-week and may remain so if winds remain east-northeast. Trollers with crankbaits or worm harnesses with bottom bouncers are taking some walleye north of Kelleys Island to North Bass Island, southwest of Kelleys, and around the reefs.

Yellow perch action remains good between Marblehead and Kelleys, and smallmouth bass are being taken on tube jigs in 8 to20 feet of water southeast of Kelleys, the Ohio Division of Wildlife said.

First Published May 9, 2003, 11:42 a.m.