Thread: Trolling spinners

Definitely. Just like slow rolling the little safety pin spinners, speed has always been the key for us. Rather lack of it. Just enough to control the boat and only enough to keep the spinner rotating. Also small and a quiet boat. It also pays to have a number of spinners out at the same time. In line with size 0 spinner blades, trailing a tiny GULP ALIVE leech on a size 6 or 4 hook has saved the day several times for for us when crappies just went close mouthed for us with anything else. This also works when you have just enough breeze to spin the blades on a controlled drift.

For us cranks and spinners never worked very well together, the cranks need more speed than is productive with the spinners. You defintitely need a good swivel up the line from the spinner to avoid line twist, and that may be all the weight you need to add on finer lines as well.

Trolling the Original Rapalas works great too. We taken crappie trolling the stick raps for walleye on a lot of occasions and the crappies have hit on the sticks up to and including the #13 size.

Originally Posted by CTom

Trolling the Original Rapalas works great too. We taken crappie trolling the stick raps for walleye on a lot of occasions and the crappies have hit on the sticks up to and including the #13 size.

Very true and conversely it is not at all uncommon to take walleyes when fishing for crappies.

no1son

Can you tell me more about the spinners? Sounds like you are talking about running multiple blades in line on a rig. Can see where several rods out the back set as a group would make a lot of flash and vibration. Like a AL rig.

Can you explain or point me in the right direction in reference to the way to rig several blades on one line that you know works best? At the end on this setup I could attach a jig tipped with a plastic or something. Am I on the right track or would I have a mess in the making?

Pictures and what brands works best. I have no clue on this subject. Hope to have it figured out by the time spawn is over.

A single spinner trailing a single hook dressed with a small minnow, what we call a panfish leech etc. Plastics would work as will the smallest of the GULP ALIVE minnow baits and leeches. I prefer a metal shaft, which in this case is a short one. The only one I know about is from Lindy/LittleJoe called Little Joe True-Spin Spinner. Google up the name and look at the images. There is nothing complicated about this rig. Plus you can carry it without taking up any kind of space in your tackle box.

I fish these on .006" and .008" diameter copolymer and all it takes to get them down deep enough is a tiny split shot which I normally put up the line a good foot to 16" just ahead of the swivel. This is spinner, so without the swivel you will twist your line badly. I trail a #4 or #6 circle hook, NOT a jig, on the keeper system of the spinner. An octopus hook would work as well. Another variation is to trail a smaller streamer or a hook with just a scant dressing of short bucktail. That is what we used to call a "killer rig". We always added a small minnow to the streamer. I carry both nickel and gold and it is a tossup which I prefer. For me this is a backup technique for when plastics and tiny jigs don't connect. I prefer drifting, casting and vertical jigging, but troll to hunt if nothing else connects.

For that matter you can just as easily troll RoadRunners or BeatleSpins, they will also take crappies on the troll and are much more commonly available. Little Mepps or Panther Martins will also work. IOW the so called trout size.

This is Minnesota so we get one line and one hook per fisherman on open water; so trolling with a couple of other fisherman adds to the effect, but this is not a fast troll; so flash is minimal, just so long as it is there. We want just enough speed to keep the spinners turning. We also fish this pretty shallow; I never weight this with more than 1/32oz. I also troll slower than most people and normally fish smaller waters than a lot of folks so I can target trolling passes pretty closely and still cover the water.

Thx no1, you have the wheels turning and I have time to make up the rigs you have described. Like hotrod1 said about after the fish come off bed and the heat kicks in this could be a "killer rig" down here as well. We can fish multiple rods and I'm now looking to Jann's Netcraft for blades and other items needed for this project.

I understand your description and I'm thinking of adding to this with multiple blades per rig for a larger profile, vibration and flash. These rigs could be made up and attached to a swivel as you spoke of. This way they could be stored to have them on hand when a replacement is needed. Thanks again for the information. I'll post some px of the rig if you could tell me what you think or something you see that may need to be changed with a simpler way of doing it.

When they are hungry, they don't know how big they are - I fished a private farm pond with my friend a couple years back that was supposed to have BIG northerns when they owner last fished it 10 years previous. Needles to say, our minnows never hit the bottom without being crushed, and when I decided to have some fun casting some BIG spoons, I was pleasantly surprised when I had a spectacular crappie on the mammoth thing two cast in a row. After that second cast, I ignored the pike and had a field day with monster crappies hitting things that proportionally didn't make sense.

Hotrod is killing me talking about being mid spawn - I just waded in 2' of snow to get to a flag pole for some raising/lowering practice for my cub scouts...well, we have the Fly Fishing expo is coming up next month, then the Sportsman show to get us warmed up in March for "wet" water.