Social media chatter is getting louder as anglers throughout our region are asking where and when the autumn crappie bite is kicking in.

The home range of white and black crappies includes northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Healthy populations of the popular panfish thrive in our local reservoirs.

As the days get shorter, the leaves start turning and the prevailing breeze swings out of the northwest, crappies instinctively follow schools of baitfish and other food sources migrating to shallow cover. The fish anglers found in their springtime outings return in October to eat as much as they can before the lakes freeze and food gets scarce.

Always on the prowl for information, anglers turn to social media platforms to spy for hints of success by other people. Based on recent posts and discussions – and, of course, the history of patterns of behavior on our local waters – it is clear that crappies are schooling within reach of most locals, whether they fish from a boat or on foot.

Docks are especially productive this time of year. Their posts provide the kind of vertical cover around which crappies school. The platforms create overhead shade where the fish can hide to ambush minnows, young-of-the-year shad, insect nymphs and freshwater shrimp.

Once boaters have pulled their watercraft for the season, unoccupied docks provide convenient access for anglers, who venture out with jigs and minnows to dunk and dabble.

Savvy anglers know they need to be on the move during a dock-fishing day, as the crappies will let them know right away whether it’s worth making more than a few casts. The fish tend to school up wherever they find the most productive intersections of food and cover, so if you go more than five minutes without a bite, it’s time to move to another location.

Fall crappies can be relatively easy to pattern. If you find them 4 feet down over 7 feet of water, then it’s highly likely the other fish in the vicinity will be hanging in the same range elsewhere.

Good crappie fishing opportunities abound around Youngstown and Warren.

Mosquito and Pymatuning are especially popular, as their crappies are numerous and large. Limits of 11-inchers are not uncommon, even if anglers need to sift through a fair number of 8-inch sub-keepers.

The docks in the various state park marinas and Pymatuning’s campgrounds are popular fishing locations. Anglers also set up chairs around Mosquito’s Ohio 88 bridge and causeway and the Pymatuning causeway, and prop rods rigged with floats from which they hang minnows and pin-mins sweetened with waxworms or maggots.

Lake Milton also is a good fall crappie spot. Anglers can venture out on the docks where they can plumb vertically for suspended fish. The Mahoning Avenue bridge and causeway also are popular spots, along with the Interstate 76 bridge for anglers in boats.

Berlin crappie anglers catch fall crappies around the Ohio 14 and U.S. 224 bridges, as well as the railroad trestle. The annual drawdown pulls water from the shoreline cover where crappies congregate in the spring, but scattered Christmas-tree-littered flats that still have water will yield good catches.

In western Pennsylvania, Shenango Reservoir is a favorite crappie lake. The various bridges are good spots to check, along with points and flats littered with stumps and the steep banks with the trunks and branches of toppled hardwood trees.

So the crappies are on the move and the fishing pressure has subsided as many anglers trade their tackle for hunting gear. There can hardly be a better time to test your talents and bring home the fixings for a mighty fine fish fry.

Vindicator and Tribune Chronicle columnist Jack Wollitz answers questions from readers. Contact him at jackbbaass@gmail.com.