Thread: Tips on how to Spider-Rig

Great info from some great fisherman. Have to add the "Controled Hover" technique though! The technique is great for Illinois since we have the rod restriciton. It's an alternative to traditional spider rigging which usually involves slow trolling and covering lots of water. Tsherman and I hover over isolated brush piles. We go back and forth and milk it for 2-8 fish and move on to the next spot. If you can find a few spots withing trolling distance apart, you can jump from spot to spot and give a little time for the spots to rest. Lot's of good rod holders out there but I prefer the Bee ready brand. Expensive but worth every penny if you do a lot of rigging. Be careful though...Sprider riggin is adictive and may cause marital problems. Consider yourself warned

How many poles can you use in KY and MS?

Ky lake no limit. Ms depends on what lake. Big three in ms i believe 5 pole limit per person. Check with them boys on the ms forum.

Originally Posted by travish10

how many poles can you use in ky and ms?

grenada is a three pole limit, and sardis is 5 poles... havent fished the other two big ms lakes. im going to try them to this year. bucket list thing.. ooops "2012" i mean!

Oopps forgot grenada. Should of known! Only fished it 25 days this year. Brain fart!!

Luke and I spider rig every where we go, exception: during the spawn and late fall. The hover technique is also very effective and we won a tourney on sangchris doing that exact thing. As for the amount of rods, the corp lakes in IL allow 3, one with your name on it and the rest are a two pole two hook limit. What we have found is that if you are spider rigging generally you are targeting aggressive fish and using the biggest bait possible helps tremendously. Normally we throw on Bg strollrs or midsouth 2.5s. On several occasions either Luke or I would pull our poles thru an area and the biggest bait gets the bigger fish more often than not. Spider rigging allows you to figure out a pattern, locate fish and find cover water. We are actually a hybrid team because when we get on fish you might see me rign out the front and Luke vertical jigging 2 poles out the back or sides. Tim Benson has a great spider rig video with Russ out somewhere, maybe someone can post the link. Benson was a very very good fisherman.

Originally Posted by birdman

when spider rigging you are more than likely slow trolling, therefore, you are allowed 3 poles per person. I spider rigged on shelbyville a lot this past summer with great success. That being said, the best time to do this is when the crappies have scattered in the summer months and just roaming the flats chasing shad etc. I know a lot of people love to spider rig at sangchris as well. You can do it there year round and catch them, especially now when it sounds like they arent congregated into one specific location. Spider rigging can be very, very effective if used in the right times. 6 or 12 hooks is always better than 1 or 2 in the water..

As for the gear needed, I bought 2 driftmaster rod holder set ups, you can go to their website and look at them. It comes with a T-Bar and 4 rod holders and a floor mount. Dont just look into driftmaster though as there is lots of brands out there and many prefer different kinds. Heck, if your willing, you can even create your own. Rod wise a lot of people use 12ft minimum rods when spider rigging, 14ft are very nice and thats what many guides use because they are the most user friendly if you are not used to it. Down in Mississippi we used 16ft rods and fish were still spooking, iv saw 18ft rods and crappie24 says he wants 20ft ones. If your fishing shallow, I think the longer the better so you can get the baits to them before they spook. But if fishing deeper, 12 or 14ft rods would do just fine. I know we used Capps and Coleman rods. But BnM are Pro Series are very popular when spider rigging.

As for depths, just watch your graph. On shelbyville in the summer you can about guarantee the fish to be from 8-12ft deep in the summer over 15-25 foot of water. They are usually just above that first thermocline. In mississippi on grenada a buddy of ours who lives there and fishes it all the time says he has never caught a fish deeper than 10ft. Most of the time they are 3-8ft deep over however deep water. If your around here and wanting to fish in or around brush, just find out how high the brush comes to and set your depth there so you can troll right over the tops of the piles.

Most of the time we have used 1/2 oz egg sinkers on double minnow rigs when spider rigging and we troll at .03-.08mph. If your using jigs a lot of guys will use a 8th oz and a 16th or two 8ths and troll about .03-.05mph. Its all in what you prefer and a lot of it is just getting out and experiencing it and messing around. As always, watch others, see what they are doing and try and match their setups if they are catching them.

All in all its a fun and different way to catch fish. Its very effective at times and if you just want to sit back and relax this is a great way to do so... but sometimes its havoc when the fishing is good!

Birdman,

I just ordered 6 rod/reel combos that i plan on spider-rigging with... what type of line works best for this setup?

Take a look:

CRAPPIE RODS/POLE COMBO HI TECH TELOSCOPIC 16' W/REEL | eBay

i use 14 lb test. that way wen you get snagged you can just straighten out the hooks and not hav to re tie. crappie dont seem to care. alot of guys like the hi vis yellow. or greeen.