Thread: Spider Rigging vs Pulling Cranks

My thinking is pulling cranks gets a reaction bite even sometimes when the crappie are not in a feeding mood. Let's you go fast and cover lots of water if the fish are scattered. Spidering let's you concentrate on a specific area and keep baits right in front of em. If crappie are on a brushpile or stake bed, I'd rather spider rig em. If you want to pull cranks over brushpiles, have a row of several of em on a flat that doesn't change depth and make a long run buzzing the cranks just over the top of each one of the piles.

The pic of the sonar screen was from May 12 this year. I was long lining a 1/16 oz jig at 1.0 mph in 10 fow. Marking lots of fish. After an hour of long lining, I had 3 keepers. Switched to pulling cranks at 1.6 mph, 7 ft deep- same exact area. Marking same fish on graph. Couple hours later had a limit. The cranks & faster speed got a much better reaction bite than the jigs & curly tails.