I use 10' - 12' B & M jigging poles and would use longer but in a 16' G3 Jon boat and just inconvenient to go longer for me. Spinning reels loaded with the equilivant of 4 lb test line but using 10lb yellow power pro braid and depending on the depth of the water I am trolling in, 1/16 to 1/4 oz jigs and roadrunners early in the season like February/March start out using hair jigs, Switch over to tubes, curlie tails, Bobby garland soft baits as well as other types also in diff. colors. If using the tubes of which I prefer I inject them with crappie nibbles, and troll them as far as I can cast them out of the boat, and speed is 0.8 to 1.1 mph on gps and concentrate running over flats, creek channels and junctions, brush and stump bed areas, in other words underwater structure. And when finding them, just work them over. You can troll shallow to as deep as the fish are using maps and depth finders. I am strictly a artificial bait fisherman and have not used live bait in the past 25 yrs or so.