Black Crappie
The brushy island edges are where Niapenco's black crappie set up. This shallow, eutrophic reservoir grows crappie in bulk — the single most abundant sport fish in the 2017 NPCA survey — and while white crappie carry most of that count, black crappie ride along at roughly one in fourteen fish sampled. They relate to submerged wood and weed edges, the classic crappie cover the flooded river valley scatters across its islands, offshoots, and back bays.
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Find the cover, find the crappie. Black crappie slab up around the brushy island edges and the weedy back bays, hanging just off the wood and vegetation to pick off minnows and young-of-year panfish.
Small jigs and minnow imitations worked along the vegetation lines are the honest approach. The season never closes in FMZ 16, but the shallow-cover bite peaks when the fish push tight to the islands and offshoots through spring and early summer; as the shallow, wind-mixed reservoir warms, they slide along the weed edges rather than chase depth this lake doesn't really have.
Crappie share this cover with largemouth and pike, so expect company on the good edges. No bathymetry is published, so read the visible weed and wood lines.
Structure
The submerged wood and weed edges scattered through the flooded valley — the cover black crappie (~7% of the 2017 sport-fish community) relate to, best in spring and early summer when the fish push shallow.
Regulations
This is a summary, not the legal regulation — confirm current rules with the official source before fishing.