Pulling Cranks and Trailers for Crappie

Pulling for crappie with crankbaits is a great way to catch a lot of crappie in the summer. I grew up mostly fishing for crappie with a bobber, gold hook and a tuffy minnow. Brush piles in the spring and then a little drift fishing that helped get those suspended crappie that were scattered throughout the lake. Crappie are structure oriented and that structure can be many things. Points, drop-offs and ledges often hold a lot of crappie. Read on to learn more about my secret weapon, the trailer on a crankbait.

In my search for hidden structure I noticed large schools of baitfish suspended in the deepest part of the lake. With these suspended baitfish were schools of crappie. I decided to try and catch some of these suspended crappies and hopefully have fresh crappie for dinner. I got my gold hooks out and bought some tuffy minnows and quickly found that most of the fish I was seeing on the depth finder were indeed crappie with a few white bass thrown in. The trouble was I was catching lots of small crappie and many of them were stealing my minnows which can get expensive when none of the crappie are big enough for the box. This is where pulling crankbaits for crappie became an idea for me.

Stay With the Shad

The problem with using minnows was staying with the constantly darting baitfish. I had observed that there were several balls of bait in the area, but trying to stay with one was aggravating. There had to be a better way. I finally decided I would try to troll for crappie with crankbaits through the area with the baitfish. With so many schools of baitfish it was more efficient to pull cranks throughout the area and pick up suspended crappie rather than try and follow bait balls around. It was also more relaxing for sure.

The Set Up

My set-up starts with an 8 hp kicker motor and GPS to keep the correct speed. I have found that speed is a factor when pulling cranks for crappie and you need a way to regulate it as current and wind will affect that speed more than you think. A GPS is the only accurate way to monitor your speed since it is not affected by those things. I have had crappie bite at 1 mph all the way up to 2.2 mph. You can use your electric trolling motor but at these speeds I just prefer to run the kicker to save the batteries. I start by locating schools of baitfish on the fish finder. They can be along the shore but you will find them suspended in open water. The depth can be 40 feet and the crappie may be at six. I let out enough line to get the crankbait back far enough that the crappie has time to recover. Planer boards can help get you more bites when the crappie is suspended just below the surface. By getting your bait to the side of the boat you will be pulling through fish that move out because of your boat as well as those fish unaffected by your boat.

My Secret Weapon

I started using a trailer on my crankbait more than 20 years ago. I got the idea, oddly enough , from my days when I lived on my boat in Alaska. We used something called a Dipsy Diver. It was used to troll herring for salmon. You connect your line to it and it dives to different depths depending on the amount of line let out. So, when I came back stateside and was trying to catch crappie I tried the same concept with a crankbait. I would tie a leader off the back treble hook and troll for crappie. It worked so well that it was one of the only “secrets” I kept to myself. The only problem I had was the line sometimes twisted on me and after a while of pulling without knowing that my leader had started twisting it was a mess. Now I have finally found an answer to this problem with the Trailer Treble for crankbaits. With the swivel in the middle of the treble hook, placed on the back split ring of your Slab Knocker Crankbait, the leader twist is eliminated and your bait will swim naturally.

The Depths

If you are dragging 8 and 10 foot running crankbaits through those crappie but are not getting bites then if the one rod with a 4 foot running crankbait begins to get bites the deeper fish may not be feeding and you need to change all your baits to a little shallower. I usually leave one rod with a deep running bait because those deep crappie might turn on and besides that I like to have a chance at a nice walleye while I am at it.

Rod holders are a must so you can test various depths and colors to narrow down the winning crankbait. When pulling crankbaits an ultra-light rod just isn’t enough. You need to go with a medium light at least and maybe even a medium weight rod with at least 8 lb test. I have landed many types of fish while pulling crankbaits to include some pretty big catfish so you want to be prepared for anything. Pulling for crappie with crankbaits has drastically reduced the small fish that was always stealing my bait or just too small to keep. It was a waste of my time when I could be catching keeper crappie. Pulling for crappie has allowed me to do that, especially when I added the trailer.

Experimenting

When pulling crankbaits for crappie you should experiment with colors and depths as well as speed and amount of line behind the boat, all of these factors can play a part in your success. When you are pulling cranks look for a color and/or depth that is continuously getting more bites and set up the other rods to match and have fun filling the livewell. Mark the locations or areas where most of your fish were caught. It’s likely these same areas will produce crappie year after year. 

Pulling Advantages

Crappie spend a lot of their time suspended over deep water. Sometimes they relate to cover like standing timber or stumps but often crappie are found to be cruising and relating only to baitfish. Whether the crappie schools are relating to cover or not, pulling crankbaits can be the best way to catch them when they suspend. Many times you stumble upon multiple schools of crappie. This is great because you can catch crappie from several different schools in a relatively small area.

The advantage of this of course is the fact that when you hook one crappie you just keep moving to your next school. This proves to be very efficient, much more so than having to circle back to troll through the same school each time you catch one. Another advantage is that when you catch a crappie out of a school they tend to scatter and it might take a couple of passes to get another bite. With multiple schools, the crappie will scatter but will have time to school back up while you catch crappie from the other schoolsThere are a few little tricks to pulling for crappie that will help you catch more crappie and I would be glad to answer any of your questions. Just drop me an email ken@ramblingangler.com with pulling for crappie questions and I will be glad to help. Pulling crankbaits with a trailer is effective during the entire season except maybe during the spawn. Pulling is very effective and can be used for catching crappie all year long.