Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Had a Crappie Saturday

Went out Saturday and pulled some Crappie Reaper Planer Boards with a friend. We ended up with 23 keepers from 11"-14 3/4". Water was 48 degrees, we were using hand tied junebug/chartreuse jigs.

My buddy holding a 14 3/4" slab!!






Seven weighed right at 12 pounds.

That's going to be some good eating. Congrats.

Good mess of fish, I'm planning on trying some boards soon.

Nice going.

That open water looks strange.

school me on how those boards work?

I hand make these boards from planing them down to cutting them out. I then prime, paint and clear coat.

The boards work great and are loads of fun.

My website is www.crappiereaper.com

Cold water crappies have the best meat. Good and firm.
Somebody is or did eat really good. Hushpuppies, homemade cole slaw and House Autry battered pan fried crappies.

Man O Man!!!!

Steve

Crappie Reaper planer boards are made to fish using jigs targeting fish that's suspended, staging up in creeks in a pre-spawn mode, mostly following bait schools and are not concentrated on specific structures. The theory is to put lots of lures in the strike zone and cover water (slowly, 0.7 or 0.8 mph). The advantage of using boards is that you can cover a lot of water they also really help line management when turning and keeping lines from getting tangled when you hook fish. These bright orange planers will disturb the surface and act as a front-runner with the bait typically 2 - 40 feet behind the board. With your wide coverage and separation of lines, you have the ability to turn 180 degrees in an acre of water. This gets you back to the action quickly.

Hope that answers some questions.

Below is a video I made just showing them running but I got lucky and was able to get a 7" crappie hitting a jig on a board at the very end. Not a great video shot with a iPhone.

how many jigs on each board? do you tip with minnows?

I usually only pull one jig per board but have pulled two before.

I have had customers that tip with minnows but I don't.

I guess the length of line from the board to the jig determines how deep it runs? You experiment with different lengths (depths) until you find the fish?

Yes we find where the fish are suspended then put line out behind the boards at different depths.

Say we are seeing fish suspended at 8-10ft. and we're pulling six boards. We will put jigs out at 5,6, 7 and 8ft behind the boards with different colored jigs.

Once we find what depth the crappie are biting we change all the depths to that one and put on similar colors.

Here is a picture a customer sent me last week. They are fishing on the St. Johns River in Florida using my Magnum boards.

Nice !!!

Tellico is on fire too. We had 26 or 27 last week all under a fixed float about 14 foot deep. But had to weed through tons of dinks. It was just like on Douglas when they get on those river flats.

I'd like to try the planner boards sometime.

Good job and good pics, looks like fun.

Interesting, im a newcomer to crappie fishing. Im finding in my advanced years that fresh water is seemingly easier on me than salt water.
So in view of that im starting to spend more time on the lakes
near where i live in Florida.
Im guessing the long rods used for crappie trolling wouldnt be
necessary using planer boards?
What would the ideal rod and rod legnth be for using these boards?

I use a 4'10" B-n-M for my shortest rods. I also use a 8ft B-n-M pro trolling rod for my second rod with Okuma linecounter reels. I usually pull two pair of boards. But I use these pulling crankbaits also where you need to know exactly how much line is out behind the board.

Any medium rod will work pulling my boards. A 6'6" medium rod will work great and I use Pflueger President spinning reels. The 6925 is a nice reel for crappie. I have all these on my website if you want to look.

Hope that answered your questions.

Nice fish! Had a good meal of crappie tonite. Unfortunately, here in the northland, boards could be challenging. Can you troll them behind a snowmobile?😀

Good stuff Jeff.....

Tony

Favorite freshwater eating fish! Great job...

Huh...never heard of them before. Looks pretty cool!