Crappie jigs

[IMADREAMER]

hey,
just wondering how everyone fishes their jigs. some of the jigs pictured here are pretty darn flashy, almost to nice to get wet. anyway,with all the glitz and glitter do you use bait or fish them plain? do you use scents or jellies? how about the fake stuff,like crappie nibbles or gulp? come on spill your guts...
thanks,
imadreamer

[deathb4disco]

I fish mine plain but will occasionally tip with a nibble. I just count the jig down to the desired depth and do a slow, steady retrieve back to the boat.

[CrappiePappy]

Dreamer ... I'm pretty much a jig slinger (95% of the time). I rarely use hair/feather jigs. I mostly use weedless jigheads (1/32oz & 1/16oz) and some form of plastic body. When I do use a marabou "jig", it's a chartreuse Roadrunner (1/16oz). Now, times do occur where I will use a marabou/hair/feather type jig .... but, it's mostly when I'm fishing an open patch of water, or on those rare occasions when I'm trolling. Since I rarely get to go fishing, I tend to go when the bite "should be" good ... so I don't employ much in the way of scents/Nibbles/live bait. But, I do have them with me .... just in case. :p

... cp

[gabowman]

As crappiepappy mentioned, trolling is another option (which is my favorite). I use jig heads with these on them and pull 'em behind the boat.

[IMADREAMER]

hey cp, so you're saying that you fish structure not open water.the reason for weedless jigs...i fish the miss.river and its full or trees , weeds and alot of structure too. i thought you guys that fish lakes down south fished suspended fish mostly. i thought lake fishing would be opposite of river fishing. cast out ,countdown, reel and set the hook, repeat,repeat etc. am i wrong ? maybe i need some enlightening...
thanks,
imadreamer

[IMADREAMER]

gabowman, since trolling is your favorite way to catch those crappie maybe you could give me a short tutorial on how you do it . rigs,boat speed, depth control,etc. i just really like to hear how your and everyone's faavorite techniques work...
thanks,
imadreamer

[kansasmedic]

90% of the crappie I catch are over the top of / in the middle of brush piles. I lower the jig to the desired depth / middle of the pile and twitch it / vertical jigging till I get thumped. I use alot of plastics w/ crappie nibbles.

[fishinRod]

if im using a jig under a bobber or just vertical jigging i usually use a hair jig or something like a beaver tail but when i troll i always use something with a tail that has action like gabowman showed. 3 things come into play......jig weight, boat speed, and line length.....for me, in about 20' of water i'll put a 1/16th jig about 75' behind the boat and just use the trolling motor on the lowest speed, sometimes just bumping it if there is a breeze pushing me, keep an eye on your depth finder and pay attention to what happens when you get into shallower water....its totally trial and error, speed up, slow down, let out line, bring in line.....and im not a big fan of having umpteen rods out either, one in my hand one in a holder is about it

[Gator Bait]

OK...I'll ask a stupid question. When it's said "count the jig down to desired depth" how do you figure it?
I'll throw out another. If you don't have a line counter reel how do you put out 75 ft to troll? I would guess throw a few times on land and measure off the distance to see about how far an "average" cast is and go from there? In other words how do you troll a certain depth, or know how deep you are with a given weight jig?

[deathb4disco]

OK...I'll ask a stupid question. When it's said "count the jig down to desired depth" how do you figure it?

Not stupid.

The rough guide I use is one foot per second with a 1/32 oz jig and 4# line. If you want to get really accurate, go to a swimming pool and measure it. I'm way too lazy to do that, though.

The most important part about the countdown method is being able to fish the same depth every cast. So, if I countdown to "one thousand eight", it's not that important to me whether I'm fishing at exactly 8' deep. What's important is knowing that I can return to that exact depth just by counting down to "one thousand eight" again.