If a crappie misses my jig, will it come back — and do they ever hit at the surface or under the hole?

Often, yes, as long as the fish was not pricked. Crappie feed in schools and competition works for you: after a missed bite, stop the jig and hold it still just above where the bite came, or let it fall slowly again, and the same fish or a neighbour usually takes it. A fish that felt the hook is gone, and a few lost fish can quiet a whole school. Surface feeding is real but minor — on calm, warm evenings and under lights at night crappie dimple the top for insects and tiny minnows. Under the ice they rise a long way to a bait held above them, a meter or more, but takes come up in the water column, rarely right at the hole. Always fish above the marks, never below.

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