Roamers and Spider Rigs and Crappie Oh My! By Brad Wiegmann

[Slab]

For the next couple months Beaver Lake crappie guide Payton Usrey will be chasing roamers and spider rigging crappie fishing. It’s two proven methods that will put limits of crappie in his livewell for his clients. Nevertheless, Usrey will still have to decide when, where and which technique he will be using.


Usrey noted that early in the year crappie on Beaver Lake will start moving up into the river arms and major feed creeks searching for bait fish and spawning areas. Warmer water temperatures will also influence this migration. As long as the river arms don’t flood out fishing for crappie will be excellent.


Depending on the technique and how the crappie are reacting Usrey will either cast or pitch to roaming crappie. “Casting a 7- foot B’n’M Poles 75^th Series combo or a 10- or 14-foot long B’n’M Poles Diamond Series jig pole,” Usrey continued, “The longer length of the Diamond Series lets me either pitch or drop the jighead or minnow in face of the crappie. Crappie will want a slow presentation or dead stick a jighead right above or in its face to get them to strike.”




Key areas Usrey focuses on for roamers depend on which area of the lake he is fishing. On the mid-section of the lake where the water clarity is clear, Usrey will fish in coves up to 70- to 80-feet deep or around boat docks with crappie under. These are usually big black crappie that are in schools feeding on shad. In the river arms he is fishing for white crappie on the flats, bends and ledges in shallower water than the mid-section of the lake.


“One thing that I do is to adjust my Garmin livescope according to the depth and strike zone,” Usrey continued, “I will search and cast for crappie making 20 foot casts with the forward range at 30 foot out. Once, I start seeing them and catching them I will zoom in bring the screen’s bottom range up to 15 foot from 20 feet. This gives me the best image possible for seeing crappie.”




As for lures Usreys favorite for catching roamers is Bobby Garland Slab Hunt’R. “The Bobby Garland Slab Hunt’R is a cool segmented lure and is my go-to lure when fishing roamers. Any of them that have chartreuse will flat out catch them on Beaver Lake,” Usrey went on, “It’s a big bait, but I will adjust the length according to what size the crappie are wanting to bite. The segmented body makes it easy to just clip-off a section and make it smaller. At time’s I will end up with a really small size of Slab Hunt’R, but if that’s what it takes to get them to bite, I will do it.”


Catching roamers and learning about Garmin live sonar is easy to do with one client or two sharing time casting to crappie, but Usrey will shift gears to spider rigging with two or more clients in the boat. “When I’m spider rigging I can get out 8 B’n’M Poles Bucks Graphite Jig Poles that are 16 foot long with a double drop,” Usrey went on, “More fishing poles mean more action and catching more fish. We are not casting to them when we are spider rigging, but I’m controlling the boat to keep the double drop rigs in the strike zone.”


His double drop is made with gold, bronze or sometimes a red hook and he pre-rigs them up so it’s easy to just tie or change to another one quickly. “I tie the first #2 hook on and than 10-inches down from there a ½-ounce barrel weight, swivel, and a 10-inch leader to the bottom Bobby Garland Mo Glo Jig Head,” Usrey continued, “On the Mo Glo Jig Head I will rig on a Bobby Garland Minnow Mind’R in the silver fish color pattern. The split tail of the Minnow Mind’R is designed to allow anglers to tip it with a live minnow adding color and flash to the live presentation.”


Normally, Usrey will fish flats near feeder creeks in water depths of less than 25 feet at the most. His goal is to position the spider rig baits above or in the nose of the crappie to get bites. One other thing is he will troll over the top of brush piles to get strikes that are marked on his GPS especially if the crappie are hanging tight to cover and not wanting to move far to bite a bait.

[SuperDave336]

Good article. Thanks for sharing

[Ketchn]

Good read

[Quailtail]

Very interesting and some great information shared.

[DockShootinJack]

Good read

[Lund]

Great read! Thanks!

[ToddBurris]

Thanks for the informative read…look forward to more like it.

[BuckeyeCrappie]

Good information here! Thanks for sharing