Posting for an ole friend, help needed.

[gcromer]

Sam asked me to post this since I couldn't answer his question. I hope someone on the main fourm here can. I hang out on the SC fourm and it's been a few years since I've been here.
Gerald K4NHN
Cayce, SC

Hi, Gerald. I went fishing by myself at Tablerock yesterday and toward the end of the day I got outfished, bad. That's what I get for not keeping up with the times and new methods, I guess.

No one was finding crappie up in the shallows (64 degree water temp, I don't know why not), and I was fishing an area just outside a shallow spawning cove. Pea gravel bottom, a few brushpiles and flooded tree trunks, depth 15 to 26 feet. Yeah, I know there's nothing that deep in your S.C. swamp - but this was just off the main lake channel where it's 46 feet deep.

Anyway, it was windy and I was dragging and casting my usual swimming minnow jig around on a 3/32 oz. jighead, you know how I fish, and it was SLOW. I was getting a bite maybe every half hour and more often than not the crappie would be less than 10" and I'd have to throw it back.

Came along a big fiberglass bass boat, two young guys in it, and they were acting like they were in a bass tournament - fishing like they were fighting fire. They're both standing up, and at a distance I thought they were bass fishing at first - they were working so hard it was like they were throwing spinnerbaits, just casting and reeling as hard as they could, bang bang bang. At a distance I could see there were TWO things on each of their lines so I was thinking Carolina rigs for bass with a big sliding sinker a couple of feet up from the soft lure. Nope, that wasn't it - they were reeling way too fast for bottom rigs like that, and they were reeling with their left hands meaning spinning tackle.

Thing is, they were catching at least one fish a minute between them. They didn't fool around babying them either, they just swung them in at waist height, lipped 'em, and measured. They were crappie of course and more than half got thrown back but they were keeping a lot too. So they were catching fish about 30 TIMES faster than I was and I'd been there first and worked their spot a lot before they got there (they were throwing to a brushpile).

It got time to leave and I pulled near them on the side they weren't fishing and told them that for future reference I'd sure like to know what they were fishing with. One fellow held out his rig and said he was fishing with "red and chartreuse and black and chartreuse". I thanked them and went on.

I only got to see from about 35 feet away, but he had TWO lures on - one about two feet above the other. They looked like they could have been swimming minnow jigs on jigheads but I couldn't see that clear. They were colored real bright, in the colors he named, and it kinda looked like they were striped front to back. The top lure wasn't on a dropper or a swivel that I could tell, it was just in-line on his line.

One of my problems was color, I guess. I'd mostly stuck to just a white jig on that trip and maybe the crappie were being pickier about color than I'd guessed. I don't have any swimming minnows (if that's what they were) in any such color combinations, though.

Those two lures on one line - do you think they were swimming minnows on jigheads? If so, how do you rig that without it getting tangled? Would the bottom lure be on a jighead and the top one on an unweighted hook. I obviously need to catch up with the times and figure out how young guys like these are tearing 'em up.

Gerald, if you don't know the answers I'd appreciate your copying this over to crappie.com. I haven't posted there for so long I can't remember whether I'm "Sam" or "Ozark" there and I sure can't remember my password. I'll get that fixed, but in the meantime I'd sure like to figure out what those guys were fishing with and how it was rigged. Thanks!

[CrappiePappy]

Hey, Gerald ....

My first thought is that they were presenting 4 lures to Sam's ONE. Also, depending on the water clarity, their "bright" (contrasting colors) lures may have been a better trigger than Sam's white one.
I experienced that same thing down at Barkley Lake, back a few decades ago. Slabs were nailing my pink Roadrunner, at almost a 3:1 rate over my two partner's white Roadrunners !!

My best guess would be that the two young fellers were using tube jigs or jighead/plastic minnow bodies ... broadcast casting the area, looking for a reaction bite. Sam may have been giving the fish too long a time, or too much a chance to look over HIS jig ... whereas the young guys were covering water faster, presenting more bait options, and using the speed of their retrieve to force the fish to instinctively grab at the fleeting bait without taking the time to look it over.

... cp

[papasage]

sounds like they wer using 2 curly tail like kline 1/16 headtied on with a loop knot about 18 in apart . same setup as longline trolling . the size head depends on the depth you want to run . most longliners use 1/16 or 1/8 some time they just add a split shot to go deeper or just slow the retreve.

[skeetbum]

Simple rig. I have a video on you tube that shows how to rig this, and anything can be used as the second bait. Look up "Crappie double rig with wooly bugger". I ust the Bobby Garland Baby Shad bodies a lot in recent trips, when I don't use one of my hand ties. It contains knots and all Good luck.......Skeet.

[Tony McCall]

Those are my two favorite color combinations! We often rig up in tandem, one jig separated from the other by about 18-24", especially when we aren't sure what depth to fish.

[Sam W.]

Thanks, guys, for the good information. skeetbum, I'll watch that youtube video. I've been going about twice a week to Tablerock Lake here in SW Missouri, but haven't really hit the spring crappie good yet. I'm going again Wednesday, to Bull Shoals this time, and I think I'll rig a pole with that tandem rig and experiment with colors and a faster retrieve.

Gerald, thanks for posting my question here - that got some good info back and I knew it would. Turns out, I remembered my password but I'd forgotten my username. All squared away now.

[Rock Crusher]

I like to use a 2" curly tail grub that is black and chartreuse, back on one side and chartreuse on the other, so the tail flashes and it spins. Man this is deadly on crappie and bass!! I filled the live well last week using those!