Thread: What's your opinion

Dont have a lot of experience with crank baits for Crappie, I tried a few lakes pulling Bandits 200 series and only caught em on one lake, besides that I never done very well

Give them a try and post back on how they worked

Jimmy is the local crank bait expert for crappie in my book. I got caught up in the bandit blizzard but have only run a couple a few times w/o any luck. Like Jim said, let us know how it goes. Tune into the sippy and ark boards and see what the boys down south do, cause down there it's big business in the dead of summer.

#5 & 6 Flicker Shads work great.

I love to troll for fish but have not gotten into the "pulling cranks" for crappies yet. Let us know what you come up with. I think it is a great tactic for mid summer action over deep water in alot of our lakes.

I do reccomend inline weights with the little rubber stops. Put them about six feet up from your crank. It will help get the bait down a little bit deeper but, like walleye fishing in the summer, will also keep your bait and hooks from fouling due to floating vegetation running down your lines. Tends to get the vegitation to stop at the sinker instead of running to the bait. This can also be done with a rubberband half hitched or a pinch clamp.

Number 7 broke back Shad Raps. Caught a lot of Walleyes on them. Silver, Fire Tiger, seemed to work the best. Hot n Tots silver & black, and the silver with the fish bone pattern in green.

#7 shad raps for crappie? I use them for walleye but I thought they would be a little big for crappie

Originally Posted by royboy78

#7 shad raps for crappie? I use them for walleye but I thought they would be a little big for crappie

Roy, I'm not 100% on the number of the Shad Raps, but they are about 4" long and the Hot n' Tots are 1/4 ers.

i have been running youzuri's pin minnows. rapalas like a slow sinking & regular floating rapala's silver with black back not the deep diver style i am running about a 4 foot leader from a egg sinker bead to stop the egg sinker and a swivel to stop the bead. that is just to get then down for slow trolling them. also don't forget matzuo's minnows series baits they work good too.. don't forget you can run duel baits on these rigs in michigan on some thing like a slider or a spreader rig you may be aloud three rods per person but 6 lures are aloud. this is like a big school of shad and they will follow it the bigger the spread the better off you are you can run bandit 200 series too another good bait series but you need to buy the app called precision trolling's trollers bible . for most baits when done this way. and then you want to be just above them like if there holding 5 foot down you want to be 4.5 foot down. this is achieved with the reel for trolling steel head and walleyes called a line counter reel to be exact. they make a cheap one made by okuma called a magna pro 15 dx and 20 dx series. cheapest is about $50 retail. i am sure you can find them else were cheaper. but it is easier to just use egg sinkers and watch the sonar...