You can catch summertime sac-a-lait by duplicating the techniques of this southern angler.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Kent Driscoll of Cordova, Tenn., has enjoyed fishing for crappie for 30 years, particularly on his favorite lake, Arkabulta, near Hernando, Mississippi. He’s fished in crappie tournaments for 10 years, winning numbers of local events, several one-day tournaments and finishing third in 2000 and fourth in 2002 at the North American Crappie Classic.Each spring and summer, Driscoll fishes the Crappie USA Circuit, Crappiemasters and the new Crappie Angler’s Association, using a wide variety of tactics that produce crappie all year long. Here, Driscoll explains how he finds and catches suspended crappie in the summer by crankbaiting.
We let the crappie tell us what type of bait they prefer on that day. When we first start trolling, we’ll use minnows, jigs and a jig tipped with a minnow. Since we’ll often have as many as 16 poles out at one time, we can test on different poles various types of baits to see what the crappie want on that day. Many times when we begin trolling, we’ll not only be experimenting with minnows and jigs, but we’ll often have a crankbait or two down also.
We actually have had as many as 32 different types of bait in the water at the same time because when I’m trolling with a partner and fishing with both minnows and jigs, I’m using a Capps and Coleman rig.
These two fishermen are five-time national champions on the crappie-fishing circuit. Their rigs have a weight and two different drop lines so that you actually can troll two baits at one time.
On the bottom of this rig, I’ll put a jig on the bottom below the weight and a minnow on the top of the rig above the weight. I’ll vary the color of my jighead and the body of my jig. I’ll tip the jig with a minnow on some poles.
When I’m fishing a lake I’ve never fished before, or when I’m out searching for crappie and haven’t pinpointed their location or the type and color of bait they prefer that day, I put a smorgasbord with various colors, sizes and types of bait in the water to let the crappie pick the type of bait and/or the color they want on that day.
I’ll also tip some of my jigs with Berkley Crappie Nibbles. These Nibbles add scent to your jigs, and apparently that scent helps the crappie to bite.
Not only are we fishing with a wide variety of minnows and jigs, but we also have different types of jigs when we’re trying to find crappie. We’ll use hair jigs, grub-body-type jigs and triple-ripple style jigs.
By giving the crappie a wide variety of baits to choose from, we can tell by the number of fish we catch on the different types of baits we have out, what bait, what size, what color and at what depth the crappie will feed.
The set-up
A guy in Mississippi where I like to fish used crankbaits for crappie for a long time. He showed a guy I knew who told me how to do it. Now crankbaiting for crappie is catching on because this tactic consistently catches more and bigger crappie.
The beautiful thing about crankbaiting is that no matter how hard the wind blows, you can fish this technique successfully. Wind is a major factor when I fish. Ten- to 20-m.p.h. winds are no problem because the crankbaits are running true, 100 feet behind you. If your baits bounce around in the water and don’t run a consistent pattern, you won’t catch fish.
I just want a natural wobble on my crankbaits — not an irregular wobble that may scare the crappie. Also, if my rod is wobbling or surging, then I know my bait isn’t running right, and I won’t catch crappie.
Reservoirs are the main type of water that works well for pulling crankbaits. In lakes that have current, there’s no real thermocline, and the fish don’t suspend in a thermocline like they do in reservoirs.
When I’m trolling for crappie, the rod in the No. 1 position, which if I’m sitting on the butt seat in the front of the boat will be the pole to the far left of me and the pole to the far right of me that’s being held by my two rod holders, is a 14-foot B’n’M Pole with 12-pound-test line on a baitcasting reel. Up the line, I put a 2-ounce egg sinker. Below the egg sinker, I’ll tie on a barrel swivel. Then on the bottom eye of the barrel swivel, I’ll tie a 4-foot leader of 12-pound-test line. At the end of the leader, I’ll tie on a ball-bearing snap swivel and then hook the snap swivel into a Bandit 300 series crankbait.
You need a crankbait that runs at least 8 feet deep. At the store, look on the back of the package to make sure the crankbait you’re buying runs deep.
Most of the time on this first rod, I’ll use some type of pink color. Some of my other favorite colors are plum/black, chartreuse/purple and chartreuse/blue.
If I’m fishing on a dark day, I’ll use a dark-colored crankbait. If the day’s clear, I’ll fish a bright-colored bait.
The colors I choose for crankbaits on these types of days are the exact opposite kinds of colors that I’ll select for jigs when I’m jig fishing on these same types of days.
The second pole on each side will be a 16-foot B’n’M Pro Staff pole spooled with 12-pound-test line and a Cabela’s Countdown reel. I’ll tie a Bandit crankbait on the end of the line with no lead, and I’ll let out 75 feet of line behind the boat before I engage the reel and start pulling these crankbaits. I want to have the tip of the rod at a zero-degree angle. Then the tip of the rod is just inches above the surface of the water.
The third poles on each side will be 14-foot B’n’M poles. I want the crankbaits on these poles on each side to run in between the crankbaits on my No. 1 rods, which are running straight under the boat with the lead, and my No. 2 poles, which are running crankbaits 75 feet behind the boat. Once again, I’m using 12-pound-test line and a baitcasting reel on these poles. I’ll let the Bandit crankbaits on these poles out 100 to 120 feet behind the boat.
This way, the crankbait on the No. 1 pole is swimming almost directly under the boat, the No. 2 pole has a crankbait swimming away from the boat, and the No. 3 pole has a crankbait swimming the farthest behind the boat.
And, because I’m using three different lengths of poles, I have each crankbait swimming in its own little zone and at various depths. The crankbait the farthest behind the boat, the No. 3 pole, will be swimming deeper than the No. 2 pole, and the No. 1 pole will be swimming the deepest of all.
The No. 4 pole on each side of the boat will be 12-feet long, with 12-pound-test line and a crankbait reel. I have a shorter line on the No. 4 pole because the crankbait on this pole is usually going right over the top of the brush. So, if these crankbaits get hung in the brush, I simply can let out line until the other crankbaits on either side of the boat run past the brush and catch the crappie that will be holding on either side of the brush. Then I can get over the brush and try and get the crankbaits free on the No. 4 poles.
I’m using various lengths of poles and different amounts of line to let out behind the boat or to fish under the boat to make a wide sweep as I troll the crankbaits and cover more water with more lures than anglers who troll only one or two crankbaits at a time. I also have different-colored crankbaits on each one of my poles.
Using this system, I quickly and easily can determine the depth of water that the crappie are holding in and the color of crankbait they prefer on that day. Once I know the color of crankbait they want and the depth of water that they’re holding in, then I can rig all eight of my poles with that colored crankbait and fish all of them in the depth that seems to be producing the most crappie.
What depths work?
I’ve found that the ideal speed to troll crankbaits for crappie in the summer months is 1.7 to 1.8 m.p.h. I obtain this speed by trolling with my 50-horsepower motor and not using my trolling motor. I determine the speed of my boat by using my GPS receiver. No speedometer I know of will give trolling speeds down to 1/10 of a mile per hour. However, the GPS receiver will break the speed down to those small increments.
I’ve learned that if I’m trolling at 2 m.p.h. or faster, the crappie have to be really aggressive and really hungry to chase down a bait that fast. If I’m trolling the crankbaits at speeds slower than 1.5 or 1.6 m.p.h., then I don’t get the action or the wiggle out of the crankbait that seems to attract the crappie.
Therefore, I’ve found that 1.7 to 1.8 m.p.h seems to be the best speed to produce the most crappie when I’m trolling crankbaits.
Another device I use to maintain the speed on my big motor when I’m trolling is a trolling plane. Most crappie fishermen, especially in the South, aren’t familiar with a trolling plane. This device primarily is used in the North by walleye fishermen to slow down the speed at which they troll.
The trolling plane is a flat piece of square aluminum that fits on the foot of your outboard and can be adjusted so that it blocks the prop wash in front of the propeller.
I use a four-stroke outboard motor, which is highly fuel-efficient, extremely quiet and very low on emissions. I use the Happy Troller trolling plate, an all-aluminum plate that’s extremely durable. I have modified this trolling plate by using a grinder to add two slots in the plate, which allows me to have three different angles on it. Most trolling plates have only one slot, which makes the trolling plate hold at a 90-degree angle to the propeller.
But the way I’ve modified my trolling plate, I can raise it up two more notches to increase the angle. Then I can gain a little more speed by having the prop wash hit the trolling plate at a greater angle than 90 degrees. The advantage to having those two extra notches on the trolling plate is I can adjust the speed of the boat, depending on whether I’m trolling into the wind or with the wind. Also, it allows me to adjust my speed to the force of the wind.
On an extremely windy day, when I’m trolling into the wind, I want to adjust the trolling plate up so that the motor gives me more thrust to combat the wind yet maintain my speed at 1.7 to 1.8 m.p.h. When there’s no wind or very little wind, I can adjust my trolling plate down so that it blocks the prop wash and slows the boat down.
Another advantage to the trolling plate is it prevents me from having to rev the motor up to a faster speed, which creates more turbulence in the water that spooks the crappie.
These are the techniques I use to keep my crankbaits continuously trolling at the same rate of speed in different water depths to cover a wide area when I’m trying to find and catch crappie. Try these trolling methods this summer on your favorite Louisiana reservoirs.
