Anyone troll for winter crappie? (other than spider rigging)

[TapOut64]

I'm curious to know if anyone has luck trolling for crappie during winter. I'm catching crappie 16'-20' deep in water that's 24'-30' deep spider rigging but on windy days I figure that it would be easier to troll. The lake I'm fishing has only black crappie which aren't real big on crank baits. I was thinking of 1/8oz jigs but am not sure how much line I would have to let out to get them down 16'-20'. Anyone have any suggestions on trolling for deep water winter crappie?

[Arkie John]

I think it's just a matter of presenting the bait at the deeper depths.

When I crank bait in the summer and late spring, I usually run 12-14 feet deep, give or take. But in the winter, getting a crankbait down to the 20 and 25 foot marks is not easy to do.

If I employ downriggers, I go for stripers!

aj

[Ken Jones]

Good, Luck trying to troll for crappie in the winter. There too deep. Down Rigger you might try. Two ounce banana weight might get you down deep enough. Remember they are sluggish this time of year. There not real active. Good Luck. My fish are between 50 and 60 feet down here in Idaho. I anchor over the top of them and have caught fish on every outting. One trip in november we caught 44 crappie. This month out we got 29 crappie and one yellow perch. Going out this coming friday after more crappie.

[J White]

Tapout, lots of folks round here side pull all winter, usually something
like two 1/4 oz jigs, give or take... They pull out line a foot or so at
a time, counting it out - you can figure out a number that gets you
the depth you want. No trouble to scrape bottom in 20+ while still
moving on at a pretty good clip. We did a bit of that last year except we
were going "normal" instead of sideways. Caught some up to 1 mph
even in January. But to be honest, spider rigging minnows has been more
consistant trip to trip for me lately.

[Charger]

Long line trolling works great all winter. We usually fish 15-30 feet of water, mostly with 1/8 oz jigs. Occasionally with 1/16 or 1/4, depending at what depth the fish are holding. You will just have to experiment with the length of you casts until you get used to it. My speed is between .8-1.0 mph. Again, you will have to experiment with your rig as far as speed and depth you want to fish.

[TapOut64]

Thanks for the feedback. I was curious to see if anyone used 1/4oz jigs, which I see that some do. I might just give that a try this weekend.

[luvpt]

We do it here all the time here in 50-60 ft of clear water. Rig your line like this: first slide a 3/8 oz worm sinker on your line; then tie on a 1/32 to 1/16 oz jighead using a loop knot; then put two or three #5 split shots on your line about 20 inches above the jighead (but below the worm sinker). Put the split shots on kinda loose so you can slide them up the line when you need to (like when changing jigheads). We drop this to the bottom (slowly to keep the jig from tangling with the weight) then give it two or three cranks off the bottom. Wintertime black crappie will rarely chase a bait very far. And when they do hit it will be extremely light ...you can see a light action rodtip move better than you can feel it. We keep the rods in the rodholders and pay very close attention to the rodtips at all times. You have to go Slooooow.....even sitting still they will hit it if you put it in front of them long enough. On our lake we may take an hour to go 75-100 yards while zig-zagging and changing directions frequently. If the wind is blowing hard we just try to keep the lines as vertical as possible. I don't know about your part of the country but that works very well here . . . . hope it helps.

[Gansett]

I really liked what luvpt said; however, I'm not sure that's really trolling--more like drop shotting while moving around a little. Not that it matters, it's only semantics. What matters is whatever catches 'em and luv is onto something. I was on the lake four days ago and not doing well at all. I decided to move from one place to another so I long lined trolled to that spot and before I could get there, bang, fish on! So, between what Charger and luvpt said, one of those techniques should work. I plan on trying them Thursday.

[TnT]

We troll in the channels in 30-40 foot of water all winter. I usually use 2-3 #4 split shots with a 1/16 oz jig head anywhere from .6-1.0 mph. Works goos for me.

[Ken Jones]

My suggestion if you are trolling for crappie this winter go to leaded line that will take you down in the strike zone. Or downriggers. Me, I never troll for crappie find them and anchor, when located.