I love eating panfish, and since stripers have pretty much cleaned them out of Castaic and Pyramid, and Piru has quagga mussels, I headed up to Lake Lopez for a couple days of camping and crappie fishing. I'm posting here because I think that's still Southern California.
The first day I tried a few spots near the marina for nothing, then moved up the lake and found them in 20 feet of water. They wanted the green jig with a crappie nibble...tried a bunch of other stuff but that's what they wanted. The problem was, they were all small...8 inches or less...still fun though and good eating, so I caught a bunch, kept the "bigger" ones, filleted them and packed them in ice at the end of the day. I noticed while cleaning them that they were mostly males, and the one female I caught, still a little one, was in a little deeper water.
So the next morning, I tried the same spot that was best the day before, but a little deeper, hoping I'd find the bigger females there...I caught a bunch of little crappie there too, along with a nice smallmouth that wanted a crappie jig. I let the smallie go, and when I cleaned the crappie, I found out that I had guessed right...they were mostly females, but still small! I never found the bigger ones...no pics since little crappie don't excite very many people, but they sure do fry up nice...so nice that I don't mind filleting a bunch of them.