Looking to buy a few rods for spider rigging. Need some advice.

[fieldstream13]

Looking to get a rod holder and a few long rods to hang over deeper water for spring and summer fishing. How long of rod should I get. Will 11' rods work for this? Any tips would be appreciated. I have never done this type of fishing. Always swimming jigs the old fashion way of jig and cork. But looking for additional options when necessary.

Thanks.

[Tom 513]

You are probably gonna get a lot of opinions, I just got into spider rigging this Spring, and did as much reading as I could before I spent any money, it seems a 14ft pole is the norm and pole holders are a preferance kinda thing. I ended up buying a 4 pole Cumberlandcrappie.com 360 T bar for My Tracker and went with 4- 14ft Southern Crappie poles, they are reasonably priced at $42 and are made of a carbon/kevlar mix, I have pulled in some big channel cats when pushing minnows, big enough that the pole about doubled over with out any damage( this comes in handy when You get hung, lol) if You ask Me , dont spend much on Your reels, all You need is something with a decent drag, I bought cheapo discontinued spinners for cheap and they have served Me well. I am sure plenty will offer there advise also, this is just what I like and has worked all year for Us. I use a B@M 10ft ultimate for vert jigging and dock shooting too.

[CrappieCrazed]

Dave, also post this in the ky section........ Ky lake has a lot of folks that use this method. Id say a lot more than most on the ohio site??

[Alboy79]

I've got 11' B&M rods, my wife and i got them on a sale that made swallowing the cost of spider rigging easier to swallow.
I picked up Abu Garcia Black Max II baitcasters on ebay for my reels. They werent as cheap as i could have gone, but with the price i paid, they were cheap enough to make the purchase worth it.
I have SpyderLok rod holders. Im new to spider rigging, but SpyderLok had a great following and fantastic customer service. It was an easy choice to make for me. The product was fantastic when it showed at my door(only a couple days after ordering, i like fast shipping).


With the shorter than most rods, i mounted my rod holders as far forward in my boat as i could to get every extra inch out of the poles. Just make sure you clear the trolling motor when setting things up.

[crappiemax]

I've been using Hi-Tek rod holders for the last 4 or 5 years. At this point I only have them on the front of the boat but I plan on adding a 2nd set in the rear of the boat before our spring Ky Lake trip in April. The only reason I haven't put them on yet is I need a special height for the rear holders so before I order I'm trying to figure out what will work best. He's a link to check them out.
Home

I went with Hi-Tek because the owner is a member/sponsor of this site and he does have a quality product and is easy to work with.
I went with the 2 rod holders and have 1 holder mounted to each side of the boat. Even in lakes where I can fish unlimited rods, I normally will only fish 1 or 2 rods per side. I have no interest in managing 4 rods per side.

For rods I use both 12' B&M jig poles or 12' Wally Marshals. I do prefer 12' for rod length but I do have a 10' I use sometimes. For reels I use inexpensive spinning reels. Since I fish jigs most of the time I'm used to using spinning reels and don't really see an advantage to using casting reels but to each his own. The reel is only there to hold line so IMO the type is what ever the user prefers.

I'm not a fan nor an expert of tight lining. I'm not trying to offend anyone but to me it's boring, honestly I'd rather fish any way else. When I do it, it's more of a side line to anything else I happen to be doing. If I have my long rods out, I will normally have a jig rod in my hand swimming jigs. I guess I'd rather feel that tick than see that twitch.
When I do have the long rods out I will normally have floats attached to them about 80% of the time. I feels the floats allow me a little more freedom from staring at the rod tips. I use a little bigger float than most but it's a slim design and I weight it down to add stability while I'm pushing it along.
If you'd like to see or even try my set up stop by the next time you see me at the lake and we can make it happen. EFslabs added Hi-Tek's to his boat last year so I know he liked them too.
If you bring a cordless drill with you I have a couple of extra bases you could mount in your boat and see how they actually feel mounted in your boat just let me know.

[Tom 513]

Something else You may want to consider when buying Your poles, is what length will fit on Your boat without having to buy a holder or break them down each time You use them, mine fit perfectly on My 17.5ft boat, just a little food for thought!

[old reeler]

I fish 12' Wally Marshall- like them a lot- seem to have the right amount of stiffness and sensitivity. My fishing partner uses 14'- I just think its a hassle to have a 3 piece rod. I fish out of a 17 Triton aluminum boat and they (12') lay nicely along the side- get to where I want to fish drop them in the Driftmasters and let's go fishing. I believe if I fished a lot of very shallow areas I might consider longer poles but fishing 15-20' depths I don't think I'm spooking any fish with my "shorter" poles

[BuckeyeKdog]

Ohio is not really a spider rigging friendly state (2 rod/person limit) with that said, I bought a handful of rods from Pro Angler Tackle Rods
that I really like for spider rigging. I have 2-12', 2-14' and 2-16' although usually only have enough bodies to use 4 rods and when I do will usually use the 12' and 16'.

As far as rod holders I made my own because I could not find any that I really liked for my preferred spinning rods, They arent anything fancy but they hold well and rod cannot be pulled out by the occasional rocket propelled striper or deep diving catfish.

[CrappieCrazed]

Ohio is not really a spider rigging friendly state (2 rod/person limit) with that said, I bought a handful of rods from Pro Angler Tackle Rods
that I really like for spider rigging. I have 2-12', 2-14' and 2-16' although usually only have enough bodies to use 4 rods and when I do will usually use the 12' and 16'.

As far as rod holders I made my own because I could not find any that I really liked for my preferred spinning rods, They arent anything fancy but they hold well and rod cannot be pulled out by the occasional rocket propelled striper or deep diving catfish.

buckeye dog, yeah dave and I know there is a 2 pole limit per person. I actually spider rigged with just two poles a little bit last year. I personally found it to be a boring way to fish BUT Dave (original poster) and I fished a lake today that is a crystal clear lake and crappie have moved very deep. we found them but throwing jigs like we normally do at our other home lakes was very hard to do that deep (we couldn't get them to eat). we were figuring that spider rigging slowly with minnies today would have been much more productive. not sure about that but that's why we are thinking about getting into the drifting.

[liprippersc78]

B&M and Ozark are supposed to be the best rods out there for this. With that being said with my budget and having 3 kids and all I found that Grizzly Jigs have pinnacle limit rods 4 for $60. I you can get 8, 10, or 12 foot rods with that deal. Nothing fancy but I bought some and I really like them. Like others have said, you really don't need to spend alot on the reels, i use spinning reels. I have found that alot of the mini crappie bait cast reels that are cheap are exactly what they are, cheap. Line will get behind housing into spool which is a nice little mess. I found a Grizzly one that is decent and is about $22. I think i am going to stick with spinning from here on. It seems to me that alot of the rod holders are made for bass boats and low sitting boats. I have a deep v and i made my own rod holders, advantage to working in a fabrication shop with some good welders! I know we are in Ohio and spider rigging is kind of discouraged by the 2 pole limit but if you have 4 people on the boat you can kind of do it anyways! We do pretty well and we always do a spring trip a little further south. Cant wait to get back to Kentucky Lake! Good Luck!