Crappie plastics

[DitchPanda]

What are your favorites? 

[throttleplate]

tiny crappie tubes in yellow, red and white and gulp minnows but be sure when you grab a new tube out of the package to separate the wigglies on the end because the factory cutter does a terrible job of cutting it 100%

[Team9nine]

Midsouth Super Jigs (tubes)

Kalin Triple Threat Grub (curlytails)

Big Diddy Pintails (shad style)

Bobby Garland Baby Shad (shad style)

[cdlittle]

Donkey Tail and Donkey Tail Jr hands down. I've never been skunked on those things. 

[JustJames]

1. Bobby Garland baby Shad and Shad swim’r is my go to, pearl white, chartreuse (I think I got more than 10 color of this type Shad and a few other brands.

2. Charlie Brewer slider is my second choice and caught a lot of slab for me, including PB at 2.5lb, Red/yellow tail, white, yellow

3. Hollow tube 1.5-2” also more than a few color combinations. I use tube when bite is tough and slow jigging along bottom.

 

[Bluebasser86]

3" power minnow, Bass Assassin Tiny Shad, Zman TRD. 

[DitchPanda]

9 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

3" power minnow, Bass Assassin Tiny Shad, Zman TRD. 

Stupid trd will catch anything. Tell ya what...today I caught a pretty big crappie...around 13 inches. On what you ask? A 1/2oz booyah double Colorado spinnerbait. That's an ambitious pan fish.

[Bluebasser86]

3 minutes ago, DitchPanda said:

Stupid trd will catch anything. Tell ya what...today I caught a pretty big crappie...around 13 inches. On what you ask? A 1/2oz booyah double Colorado spinnerbait. That's an ambitious pan fish.

If I caught 1 crappie Saturday, I caught 50, not a single one while targeting them. A majority were on a TRD, but I also caught them on a 3.5" tube, dropshot, and Rozante, only 1 that I would have even had to measure to see if it was a 10" keeper or not. 

[Catt]

Mr.Crappie Sausage Head

 

 

[plawren53202]

Swing 'Em In Bait Co. - Crappie, Fishing Lures, Lures (swingeminbaitco.com) Good dude, super responsive and working his butt off to build his business. I've had really good luck with the Slab Flapper in muddy water and the Slab Stinger in stained water. White/chartreuse and purple/chartreuse in more stained water and monkey cream (monkey milk) in less stained.

 

Of course the Bobby Garland Baby Shads are hard to beat. I just tried the morning dawn in the "Mo Glo" and it worked really well, hard to say if the glow in the dark thing is real or not.

 

My dad's go-to is the white/chartreuse in the Strike King Mr. Crappie Joker Joker® (mrcrappie.com)

 

Finally, with now using the Livescope so much, I have been experimenting with different jig heads that present a bigger profile that is easier to see on the Livescope. Same 1/16 and 1/8 oz. weights I've always used, but things like the Jenko Slasher Slasher Crappie Jig Heads – Jenko Fishing. Also using a double jig rig a lot, not for double fish attracting purposes but more to show up better on the Livescope. 

[galyonj]

On 5/7/2021 at 10:22 PM, cdlittle said:

Donkey Tail and Donkey Tail Jr hands down. I've never been skunked on those things. 

 

Loooove a donkey tail. That's my favorite small paddletail right now for any species.

[M Bruns]

Strike king lightning shad

[gim]

VMC makes some good plastics that are already pre-rigged with a small jig.  I prefer the flap tail version but there are others too.  I often start with a minnow under a float but once I get them dialed in I switch over to these and they work just as well without getting your bait stolen.

 

https://www.rapala.com/vmc/jigs/panfish-jigs/fgrj-flap-tail-jig/FGRJ+Flap+Tail+Jig.html?cgid=vmc-jigs-panfish&taglist=VMC|Jigs|Panfish Jigs#start=1&cgid=vmc-jigs-panfish

[cdlittle]

On 5/10/2021 at 12:58 PM, galyonj said:

 

Loooove a donkey tail. That's my favorite small paddletail right now for any species.

 

There's no other sub 2" plastic that is anywhere near as durable or has as much action. The tail is insane.

[Ratherbfishing]

I like the Strike King Jokers quite a bit.  And Berkley gulp minnows.

[galyonj]

2 hours ago, cdlittle said:

 

There's no other sub 2" plastic that is anywhere near as durable or has as much action. The tail is insane.

 

Absolutely. I've not used the Jr, but the full-size drives white bass nuts and I think they'd draw in big slabs.

[Finessegenics]

I bought some crappie plastics for the first time today. Honestly, they were meant to be trailers on my keitech tungsten guard jigs. Those jigs are tiny, and it was basically impossible to find a traditional “bass” trailer for them. Anyways, I tried the crappie plastics today for some panfish. I tried some on a 1/16 oz jig and annihilated some rock bass on them. Even had some smallmouth by-catch which I released instantly (closed season here). The Bobby Garland Slab Slay’r in 2” and 3” were my favourite. Just swimming or jigging them, they looked great. I could see the tail quivering ever so slightly and it just looked perfect for a crappie, or anything that swims really, to just slurp up. 

[cdlittle]

1 hour ago, galyonj said:

 

Absolutely. I've not used the Jr, but the full-size drives white bass nuts and I think they'd draw in big slabs.

 

The full size kicks like crazy too! 

[digitalvoid]

On 5/7/2021 at 9:22 PM, cdlittle said:

Donkey Tail and Donkey Tail Jr hands down. I've never been skunked on those things. 

Which do you prefer? I would assume the Donkey Tails would attract bigger fish such as bass and pike(not anything wrong with that) but might be more hassle than it's worth.

[Vilas15]

I've caught them on a crappie magnet and kalins crappie scrub, both on a slip bobber recently. Need some wave action to jig them. Lots of 12s and a few 13"ers.

[galyonj]

On 5/13/2021 at 10:33 PM, cdlittle said:

The full size kicks like crazy too! 

 

Yeah it does.

 

13 hours ago, digitalvoid said:

Which do you prefer? I would assume the Donkey Tails would attract bigger fish such as bass and pike(not anything wrong with that) but might be more hassle than it's worth.

 

Honestly depends. The big one -- at 2.8" -- is only an inch or so longer than the junior, and it looks to be a smidge bigger in diameter to fill out the profile. 

 

And crappie will hit much bigger than that if they've a mind to do so.

 

I think either'll work. The smaller one might get a few more bites. For $10 get both and see what happens.