You Heard It Here First

The Crappie Masters tournament results are in from the Seminole County Florida Championship this past weekend, and I want to tell you about the folks who came in 13th place. While that may sound strange, the reason I’m dedicating this week’s column to Mike and Tracy Miller is because they ended day one in 38th place after a day of tight-lining, then completed day two in 22nd place using a variety of the same old tactics and then swapped over to a brand new tactic seldom seen in crappie fishing circles. They jumped 9 places breaking the top 15 and finishing among names that you regularly read about in Crappie World magazine.

What was their tactic? Pulling planer boards. Now part of the reason I’m so ecstatic about the Miller’s 13 place finish is because I received a care package from Bruce DeShano at Offshore Tackle a couple of weeks ago with several pairs of his new mini planer boards — the ones that I’ve been anticipating from this great company for close to a year. The second reason is that I wrote a feature about the use of planer boards about two years ago in Crappie World. When talking with several pros later about planer boards, I got only lukewarm responses about their potential. Now, with tournament results behind them garnering attention, they’re going to be hard to beat and even harder to get.

Here’s how Mike and Tracy Miller from Hermitage, Penn., turned their luck around using mini planer boards.

“Nothing was really working for us on the first two days,” Mike says. “It was cold, and the fish had gone deep. When the tournament switched lakes on day three, we found crappie staging in 4 feet of water along a shelf in clear water. We’ve done a good bit of walleye fishing using Offshore planer boards, and we happened to have contacted DeShano asking about a smaller version of the walleye boards. He sent us several pairs, and we had them with us.”

“There was no way we could get close to those fish without spooking, even using the longest rods we could find,” Mike continues. “We decided to run the boards out there across that shelf by pulling a double-jig setup with two 1/32-ounce jigs on each line. I’ll admit the boards take a little getting used to as far as setting up and getting fish in, but the bite was a no-brainer. The boards would wobble noticeably even when a small fish took the bait. A good fish would pull the boards down and backward, just like the walleyes do back home.”

The Millers maximized the use of the mini planer boards by setting their Humminbird to read 50 feet on each side of the boat. Then it was just a matter of getting the right depth and speed, and they were picking off the big prespawners.

Obviously, there’s more to talk about than I have room here, but Mike also told me he used a simple live minnow on a hook with great results — just like I’ve been telling people for years. Bruce is working on getting the mini planer boards out on the market but said it will take him some time. The best way to get them now is to contact your local Offshore Tackle dealer and have them order the mini planer boards for you. You can also read more about how to use planer boards and where to find a dealer at www.offshoretackle.com.

Phillip Gentry
pgentry6@bellsouth.net