Crappie Rod

[RyanDR]

Looking to get a crappie setup this year. I have a Plfueger President 6925 already I think I'll use. Never had a dedicated setup/lures for crappie/panfish before. Should I go light or ultralight? Any suggestions for a rod? I'd like to keep it on the cheaper side, so around $60 maybe. 

 

Thanks,

Ryan

[MIbassyaker]

I'm not exaclty a crappiemaster, but I do all right with a president 6925 on a 6' ml berkley lightning rod, which I think was $40 or $50. It does a fine job with small tubes, grubs, inline-spinners, and crankbaits, and doubles as my ned rig setup for bass.

[BassThumb]

7' light-power, fast-action is a good place to start. You can cast some light jigs with these, say 1/32 oz jig (or 4-5mm tungsten ice-fishing jig) with bait or plastic.

Some of those ultra lights are really whippy and have zero backbone for when even a 9" crappie dives for cover.

[Attila]

I hope that you don't mind, I'm going to repost a comment I made about the UL that I use from another sub forum.

For the last year I've used a 7'6" Daiwa Presso matched with an Abu Garcia Cardinal STX5.  I run 10lbs Power Pro w/ a 4lbs Seaguar InvisX leader and have made incidental catches of walleye up to 4lbs, bass up to 3lbs, and a 10lbs musky on it.  The rod handled flawlessly and was very sensitive to the changes in structure that my lures were running over.

I've been using light gear for a lot of years since an injury to the tendons in my hand, including running ML and light action rods for smallmouth while presenting lighter lures up to 1/4 oz in size and the Presso is the most sensitive rod I've had the pleasure of using so far.  I used it for 2 applications this past weekend; one throwing a small xrap and the other being slip float fishing some soft plastics for some pan fish and it worked well for both of these applications.

Perhaps the most important thing to consider in UL fishing is a real with a smooth drag that can handle the strain of a larger fish which you may come into contact with during your fishing exploits.  A longer rod, such as a 7'6", will also place less strain on the line that you use which makes fighting bigger fish easier when matched with a reel with a good drag system.

Sorry for going deeper than just the rod...I love UL fishing and can't seem to stop talking about it.

[Crestliner2008]

Been crappie fishing a long time now and have settled on the B n' M line of rods as my favorites. Take a good look at the 7' Sam Heaton's Super Sensitive. A fine spinning rod that will tackle every panfish species you target. The going rate is around $50.00 (check out Grizzly Jig Company) for this quality rod. And it's no wimp. I've caught some large bass, trout and northern pike on it as well.

And your 6925 will match up just fine. I use a 6920 myself, but I'm fishing with 2# test Fireline Crystal with a fluorocarbon leader. Attached you'll see what I mean about this rig tackling bigger fish.