3 Best Crappie Fishing Rods to Cover It All – Wired2Fish
Crappie fishing has become a real passion for me in recent years, thanks to good fishing, good electronics and good equipment available to crappie fishermen. I don’t like to fish with live bait and I don’t like trolling. So the idea of rigging spiders with 8 minnows or idling aimlessly for hours hoping to get through a pod of fish on Kentucky Lake never really appealed to me. So I learned how to brush cast, laydowns, rock spikes, dip brush with long rods, shoot the docks with short rods, and finally track them in open water with Livescope.
With so many ways to catch crappie literally 12 months a year now, anglers have a lot of questions about rods, reels, rigs, line, jigs, jig heads, weights and more. And there are dozens of rods on the market for crappie fishing in just about every way you can imagine, from spider rig, trolling, jigging, casting, pitching, shooting, dipping, pushing, pulling and more. So the space has become much more crowded and confusing for some people who just want to catch fish all the time.
I’ve spent the last year really narrowing down and refining my approach to being efficient with my time and putting fish in the boat every time I go. I hope my trial and error process will help other people make their crappie fishing easier too. I basically dialed up three rod sizes and actions that cover the whole range of crappie fishing for me.
Originally I wanted a 6 foot short rod for shooting docks. And without exception, it’s my favorite. Specifically, the B’n’M Sharp Shooter is my favorite for shooting docks. Put a 4 pound line and a 1/16 ounce jig on this setup and you can pull a jig out the back of the dock. But the short cane will do more than just get you under boats and dock walkways. When you’re fishing a visible piece of cover and want to hang back and shoot into the cover, the short rod and shot cast is much better than trying to whip a jig into the cover with a hand cast. I’ll shoot at visible flower beds, deposits, cracks in cliff edges, between weeds, and more. I shoot a lot in windy conditions where the wind catches a small light jig especially the higher it is out of the water.
A small short stem is convenient for tight spaces, precise placement and strong wind.
The Sharp Shooter from B’n’M Poles is featured here with their new 75 series combo which is an impressive between rod casting that can handle crappie distance casting, close pitching and even vertical jigging. And then the B’n’M Poles The Stick Long Jigging Rod is 13 feet of slab-snapping goodness. It’s comfortable, sturdy, and sticks to the crappie in a deep blanket. So if B’n’M Poles is your favorite or you’re looking for a solid, long-standing crappie company to get your rods from, this is a great 3-rod mix to handle it all.
Now that we’ve been able to study crappie behavior for a few years through Livescope, we’ve all learned how stubborn crappie can be. For the thousands of crappie I’ve caught, I haven’t caught at least that many. Which means I’ve seen fish come and stare at my jig and wander off the screen way more than I’ve seen them bite. Nature of the game now.
But when the fish get very stubborn, as they can in very cold weather, during fronts, in other seasons like spawning, a long rod that keeps you away from the fish, dip a jig deep in the cover and coax them with a long pause in their face. When they’re really deep in cover and not coming out to chase a jig, a long rod is a must. You can hang a jig 20 feet and let it swing down and toward the fish. It is therefore more versatile than just under the boat.
Learn to hold your jig very still just above the fish or just above the cover and let it relax and suck it in. Sometimes he’ll catch you some of the biggest fish around. 13-15 foot rods seem to be all the rage, but honestly I like 10 or 12 foot rods. Not too much to fight and can still keep fish a few feet away.
Most of the time, I’ll start by trying to catch fish with a range cast. Even with water temperatures of 37 degrees last winter, we were able to stay out of the way and slow our jig enough to catch big crappie casts hanging 40 feet away. I will calm down and cast to fish 15-25 feet away. And finally overcome them and the vertical jig. I will do most of this with a 7-8 foot spinning rod. I like a longer rod with a medium light action that gives me enough load and tip to fire a small 1/16 ounce jig.
Most of the time I can stall my recovery for a few seconds on a fish and get the commit. And when they’re really active, I can get really hot and heavy with the most aggressive 1/8 ounce per pound jigs. You can do almost anything with a good medium-light 7 1/2 foot spinning rod like the Jenko Trick Stick Light or the B’n’M Poles 75 Combo series or the Wally Marshall Classic series from Lew.
Shoot docks, dive shallow cover, cast at deep hanging fish, cast at submerged brush piles and stake beds, land fish, tight jigs at sluggish fish, shoot them, stalk them and catch them. Three rods is all you need to be effective in all the casting/jigging techniques I was able to use to catch crappie every month for the last year. Hopefully I can slip away this weekend and keep the streak alive.
You can find Jenko rods at Jenkofishing.com, SportsmansOutfitters.com or MidwayUSA.com
You can find B’n’M poles on BnMPoles.com.
You can find Lew’s Mr. Crappie rods at Lews.com, FishUSA.com, and MidwayUSA.com.