Great Lakes Finesse Marabou Jig
Entire books have been written about the effectiveness of marabou jigs on crappies. Great Lakes Finesse has lines of smaller profile baits designed to catch pressured bass in tournament situations. This 1/8-ounce marabou jig likely catches pressured bass and a whole lot of crappie. A huge hand-tied mass of fluffy hair hits the water and pulses with each lift, stop, and drop. Gamakatsu 604 hook with a bait keeper on the back, all on a powder coated head that can crash into rocks without chipping. MSRP $7
MODL Infinity Tool Modular Straps
Ever fill a backpack with tackle and gear, but need to bring along a couple more things like a net or a tackle towel and don’t have room in the bag? Lash it. Need to bundle up and store your anchor line on the boat? Bind it. Broke your rod holder or electronics mount and need something to hold it together in a pinch? Mount it. These straps are handy for a whole heck of a lot of everything while you’re on the water. Use it like a reuseable zip tie or duct tape. Keep a couple handy, just in case. Or use them for a dedicated purpose. Super stretchy and they won’t break. MSRP $19 for a 2 pack of 8 inchers.
Cold Snap Outdoors T2 Toothpick
When it comes to unhooking fish, a forceps or a pliers does the trick, but it often snaps flakes of paint off of tiny jigs or breaks hook shanks from small tungsten jigs which are more sensitive due to their tempering and formation at high temperatures. To protect your investment in those fine jigs, put a Cold Snap T2 Toothpick to work. The molded, slotted gap in these plastic hook retrievers can slide along the hook shank to pop the jig free. When you’re done, just drop the toothpick and the lanyard will retract back to wherever you’ve pinned it on a jacket or bibs. Perfect for ice anglers and open water anglers who need to get far into the mouths of crappies that suck in dainty jigs. MSRP $7
Clear Blue Waters Sliplock Bobber and Smart Stop Micro Bobber Stops
Sometimes, you swim a jig through a crappie school or towards a single fish by itself. The moment passes and you don’t get a bite, and you wish you could just leave it hanging in front of that fish. It’s at that point where you want to suspend that jig above the crappie on a bobber. But you don’t want to waste time re-rigging rods to thread on slip bobbers. The Sliplock Bobber and Smart Stop Bobber Stops is your quick solution. The bobber is designed with two sliding wall shafts on each end of the bobber’s stem, allowing you to slip line along the side and into the bobber. Just close each end, and you have attached a slip bobber without having to rerig. The same can be done with the Smart Stop Bobber Stops. Pinch the stops together with the applicator, and you’ve added a stop on the fly. The Sliplock Bobber also has a built-in small screw cap compartment for a LED battery light, so you can run this bobber setup for crappies after dark. MSRP $2 for a Sliplock Bobber and $6 for 24 Smart Stops.
CrappieNOW writer Scott Mackenthun has been writing about fishing since 2005. He is a fisheries professional, father, and avid angler when he’s not writing about his time on the water. He can be reached at scott.mackenthun@gmail.com
