trolling for crappie!

I’m looking for tips for targeting crappie trolling this time of year up till MN walleye opener. I’ve gotten into them while trolling walleye gear on the St. Croix, frequently in the early part of the walleye season. They will hit big baits; my plan is to use light spinning gear with the smallest crankbaits available. I’ve got mini hornets, glass raps, jointed and floaters, husky jerks – all kinds of tiny baits I seldom use while trolling for walleye normally (unless I’m hand-lining… )

I remember reading an article some time back, anyone know of any articles on the subject? Is there a video on this site?

I’ve caught numbers of them on crawler harnesses and bottom bouncers on a few occasions(we weren’t really bouncing bottom, especially after we found we could catch crappies by raising off bottom a tad)… A little overkill using bouncers and 10′ wild rivers, but the WR’s came in handy when we boat this guy…

Mike

InFisherman has had some great articles on multiple rod crappie trolling in recent years ..check their website and good luck!

I used to troll for them all the time as a kid….just used them little Daredevils, the plain old red and white. Man that was fun Good luck

big G

Check this out…After reading this post…I kinda took a look. I wouldn’t mind giving it a shot myself. The time is coming. Trolling Crappies

I do good on a small lake pulling beetle spins. In the new bass pro cat they have some nice looking crappie crank baits.

Idling around you may find schools of crappies in open water before they move shallow. I use a slip float after locating them on my f.finder.

I like a Northland Thumper Jig with a small Gulp Minnow or a peice of a crawler. If you are able to put out more than two lines, or if the fish aren’t that deep, a mini planer board works great for small cranks.

It took me about 30 minutes but I found the post I was looking for. This post is from a fellow Kansan. He talks about pulling bandits, check it out. He also elaborates more on the topic through out the thread. Come to think of it I have not seen a post from Crappie Chatt in quite some time…

Ya, I haven’t heard a lot from Chatt much lately either. Wonder what he’s been up to….

I should really try pulling some of those around sometime. I’ve got a lot of Fat Free shads that I’ve fallen in love with, and they’re somewhat similar in size. I wonder if they’d work….