Sam Roberson’s cost per catch ratio is pretty amazing. He doesn’t spend a whole lot of money on fishing gear, but he has some tried-and-true favorites on which he depends for crappie fishing in deep water.
“I’ve always liked the original series Buck’s model B’n’M poles in 10 and 11 foot lengths,” Roberson said. “They are perfect for me. I like a rod that will allow me to set the hook hard, because when your bait is 18 feet deep there is some give in the line.
“I don’t want him to get away unless I tell him he can get away.”
Sam’s favorite reels are Mitchell Avocet spinning reels with 6- to 8-pound fluorocarbon P-Line.
He loves round jigheads because they bounce over wood structure better, and he prefers jigheads with sickle hooks.
He uses plastic skirt jigs exclusively, and favorite winter colors are blue thunder, penny back, black and blue, monkey milk, blue grass and glitter critter.
He does not use shiners, nor does he use crappie nibbles or attractant spray on his jigs.
But Roberson doesn’t employ any equipment until he spends some time checking out what’s below the boat on his Hummingbird 597 down imaging fish finder. He has checked out newer, fancier models, but he said the 597 shows him how deep the water is, where the shad are and an occasional crappie or two.
He takes it from there.