A New Twist To An Old Tactic

I guess the saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” has its applications when it comes to crappie fishing. I’m forever intrigued when tried-and-true tactics for specific species of fish are applied to fishing for different species of fish, especially crappie. In evidence of this, I’ve written articles about using umbrella rigs and planer boards for crappie.

A few days ago I was reading the box scores of a crappie tournament. If you know where to look on the Internet, some clubs and trails post not only who won and what their weights were but also how the winners caught their fish. I’d seen mention of pulling inline spinners a couple of times in the past, but what really caught my attention was an advertisement by Lindy Tackle with Todd Huckabee holding up a big slab with an inline spinner rig in its mouth.

I’ve never caught a walleye in my life, but I know the inline spinner rig is murder on deep-water walleyes. Apparently somebody at Lindy — folks who have caught plenty of walleyes — decided to put the inline spinner to a new test and came up with the Flicker Spider Rig.

The Flicker comes pre-tied and is designed very similarly to a dual-hook rig for tight lining but incorporates an innovative cross-line swivel in place of the popular three-way swivel and adds a clevis and small Colorado blade complete with beads ahead of the top hook. The rig comes in five different weight options from ¼ ounce up to 1 ounce. The Flicker was introduced at the ICAST show earlier this year but has not made it to major retailers yet. I called Huckabee to get the lowdown on how they worked.

“These are great for deep slow-trolling,” says Huckabee. “I’m using them on Eufaula now while crappie are holding along the first drop and raiding the shallows feeding on threadfin shad getting beefed up for winter.”

The Oklahoma guide and Lindy pro-staffer fishes the Flicker in spider-rig fashion, pushing six rods from the front of the boat. He matches the hatch with a threadfin-sized minnow on the rig but says they’ll work well with a jig skirt on the hook for those days when crappie turn up their noses at live bait. The added flash of the blade is a big key to getting bites. Huckabee says the rigs, along with Lindy’s version of the standard pre-tied spider-rig, should be available at major retailers in December.

Remember, it doesn’t cost anything to set the hook.

Phillip Gentry
gentry6@bellsouth.net

Trolling Crankbaits Is Not Just a Summertime Tactic

I’ve got to admit that I love trolling crankbaits for crappie even though it’s a tough situation for me. Here in the East, most of our lakes are deep, clear and full of cover-loving black crappie. As you know, trolling crankbaits usually is a tactic for suspended white crappie in murky water. I catch fish, but they’re usually 3- to 5-pound stripers or hybrids.

My 12-year-old son, Will, and I had the chance to meet up with Kent Driscoll of B’n’M Poles this summer at Mississippi’s Sardis Lake, and we had a blast trolling crankbaits. Kent knows his stuff and we caught some slabs on a hot day that Kent considered just average. Kent said the hotter the weather the hotter the tactic got.

It was with surprise that I opened the latest newsletter from the Magnolia Crappie Club and discovered that the first two places in the club’s October tournament at Ferguson, an oxbow lake full of cool Mississippi River water, was won by trolling cranks. That prompted a call to MCC’s president, Brad Taylor, for an explanation.


Brad admitted he was caught short, too, placing sixth using tight-lined minnows. Jim McKay and Tommy Moss took first, and writer Paul Johnson and Gil Woodis took second — all on crankbaits.

“It’s a suspended-fish tactic, not just a summertime tactic” was Brad’s explanation, indicating the crappie at Ferguson were suspended, chasing migrating shad and not really relating to any specific structure. That’s the same pattern for summer fishing except during summer they’re suspending in the thermocline to avoid the heat and bottom predators. Brad summed it up by saying that trolling cranks for crappie was still a largely undiscovered art. I tend to agree with him. I just wish somebody who has figured out how to do it in clear-water lakes would let me know. Somebody send me an e-mail.

Phillip Gentry
pgentry6@bellsouth.net