Crank Baits for Crappies

When most people think of crappie fishing tactics, they think of small jigs and plastics either fished spider style or jigged on a single rod. Another technique that allows you to cover much more water is trolling crank baits on small inline planer boards. Offshore Tackle has been making reversible sided planer boards to the small boat angler for quite some time and even has a large presence on the major crappie tournament trails.

There are many styles of crank baits that will work for crappie but the most prevalent is a minnow imitator such as small stick baits in the 3" length. these can be pinned following a single split shot up the line or even on a snap weight depending upon the depth that is needed to be achieved.

Another minnow imitator that is popular are smaller sized Shad-Rap style baits. These allow a depth to be achieved without adding anything further to the line and makes the process easier if the fish will eat that style of bait on any given day.

Perhaps the most surprising crank bait that is effective on crappie is the smaller sized square bills. these can be minnow patterns, craw patterns, or just plain custom "hot" colors as attractors for reaction bites. These hot colors can also mimic the minnow or craw patterns and can often be trolled a little quicker due to the triggering effect they have on the more aggressive fish. A personal favorite of mine is a very bright chartreuse or orange and black craw pattern in about 3 differing sizes of small square bills. These baits can be dug right into sand and rock and even ripped through the tops of weeds with great success. Check our Lou's Lures for some great examples of these baits.

The next time you see a bunch of boats anchored for crappie and other panfish, try dropping your electric motor and trolling some inline boards with cranks following behind. You will be surprised at the results and will often find new spots to anchor on yourself on days when the fish are much too inactive to trigger with other means.

Good luck to all and stay safe.

Kevin

Custom Fish Replica..Tobin Lake Taxidermy

If you are looking to have your PB mounted you should check out Christian Hache of Tobin Lake Taxidermy. He does great work and is an avid member of the get hooked group. He has amazing skills and does exceptional work. He is from Saskatchewan but grew up on the east coast of Canada in a French community called Acadian Peninsula close to the sea and forest where he spent most of his time fishing. He has always liked doing art and discovered this passion about 4 years ago. He has great attention to detail and does an amazing job replicating your personal best. Check him out for your next mount. #gethooked

Tuning and Fishing Frogs for Bass

Fishing frogs for bass is probably one of my favorite ways to catch warm water bass. First off though, you need to make sure you are going to hook the fish, not get strikes and miss. Now, I don’t have any problems with live target frogs (my favorite) but I do have a lot of problems with hookups on “booyah frogs”, “spto”, etc. These lures still get hit, but I miss a lot of fish, first thing I do is I bend the hooks up a little bit so that they sit off of the body about 1/16 of an inch, then I boil them for about 1 minute in hot water. After this, they should be at about their peak performance. With a softer body and better angled hooks. Now, when picking out a frog, you want to get a frog that is taller than most, this is because with a larger body. It will force the top of the frog to squish more/easier than one with a skinny body. Ok, now that you have your frogs tuned and picked out, you need to know where and when to fish them. I typically throw frogs on hot and sunny summer or spring days. This is most effective because the bass are forced into the shade due to the warm water and their dark bodies heating up due to the sunlight. You should target pads, scum, or even docks with pads and Scum near by. That’s it, hope this helped you out.