Our redears are spawning anywhere from 16" to 3' deep of water on our lake. A rock&sand and substrate seems to be preferred. While most of our beds are in relatively shallow flat bottom I have noticed a few deeper beds where small rock is readily present. They are not shy on our body of water leading up to and during the spawn. It was such a slow warmup this year our lake stayed cleared longer than it usually does though (I'm still waiting on our bloom). I walked around yesterday afternoon and it is evident on our body of water the vast majority of the panfish are done spawning now.
We first introduced redears into out lake in 2013. It was not until last year that we noticed respectable #'s of spawning fish on beds. We now have a sustainable population of redears. They have actually taken over some of the best past bluegill spawning grounds.