I keep hearing more and more about this technique but ive never done it.anybody out there doing it?if so what colors are working and what depths? and fyi fox outdoors report is covering this on the broadcast tonight if anyone is interested in it.thanks guys

You might want to try pushing them instead of trolling.

Pushing?

I haven't used them but I bought six various mini-crankbaits to try trolling for crappie. I am also going to try casting to shoreline and timber to see how they work.

Might be mid-September before I am on the lake again so I would be interested in hearing your report if you try them.

Well I bought some small cranks, I troll them behind my canoe when moving I have caught crappie on them. In my boat I never use em. ??? Just use to fishing in a different way.

EZ i will be using this style soon,and ill be reporting.hope your able to get on water asap sir.

There are several you tube videos on pushing and pulling crank baits for crappie.

CW

Just like spider rigging, just add weight rigged Carolina rigged style to keep it at the proper depth.

Your pushing the bait instead of pulling it .

Likes to drift small ones like the beetle spin push or pull

don't know much about all that but I did have a fella that fishes for bass tell me he wore out some nice crappie the other day on a deep diving large bill crank bait while he was trying to ketch black bass ,,,
and that's the second time he told me about ketchn them in deep open water when he wasn't trying to on a crank bait ....
so I think it might be quite possible ...told me the bait ran around 15 foot deep
hope that helps ...

So is the key is to pretend you are bass fishing and the crappie will hit your lures?

thank you guys for the feed back

If that was the case I'd have gallons of them in my freezer.

Grenada,

Trolling/pulling crankbaits is a very popular technique in Mississippi (home to the biggest crappie in the country) on the so-called "Big 4" reservoirs in North Mississippi (Enid, Sardis, Grenada and Arkabutla) and also on the Rez (Ross Barnett) near Jackson. I have done it many times myself in Mississippi and have caught nice crappie, largemouth, white bass, drum and even catfish on Enid Lake. In fact, I am thinking about testing it out this weekend on Ray Hubbard for the first time in Texas. Personally, I have had the best luck on Bandit crankbaits as the size, color options and swimming action while being trolled seemed to work best although that is not to say that I haven't caught them on plenty of other brands. I had the best luck on bright colors (pink, chartreuse) and shad-color imitations. You do lose some crankbaits when you get hung up but its a great way to stay cool in the summertime and catch some fish - rarely have I not caught something while using this tactic.

Also see:

http://www.ms-sportsman.com/details.php?id=639

http://www.crappie.com/crappie/mississippi/117660-pulling-cranks-101-a/

Hope this helps! Let us know how it works for you and what lake you test it on.

Jordan

Grenada, I'm curious to hear about the results of your crank bait fishing. I've had better luck when I focused more on where the fish are more than which bait and which presentation. I don't know a thing about trolling or spider rigging. So far this year I've followed the crappie from their scattered pre-spawn staging areas near their usual spawning locations out to the mid depth brush piles that they are hanging on right now. Where they go next, I'm still not sure. But I suppose trolling a crank bait is a good way to cover lots of water while you are looking for them.

Closest I've come is drifting jigs between 17' and 23' down using an 1/8 oz sinker to keep the jig at depth while the boat moved. When I caught a fish, I'd drop a buoy and go back and fish those locations. What I found were brush piles, ledges and contour changes that the crappie were holding on.

Good luck! And please post results, I'm always willing to try new tactics if it helps put me on fish when "the usual" stuff isn't working.