MORE ON CRANKBAITING FOR CRAPPIE AND OTHER KENT DRISCOLL
TACTICS
How Driscoll Decides What Lures to Troll
 EDITOR'S
NOTE: Kent Driscoll of Cordova, Tennessee, has enjoyed
fishing for crappie for 30 years. He's fished in crappie
tournaments for 10 years, winning numbers of local tournaments,
several one-day tournaments and finishing third in 2000
and fourth in 2002 at the North American Crappie Classic.
Each spring and summer, Driscoll fishes the Crappie
USA Circuit, Crappiemasters and the new Crappie Angler's
Association, using a wide variety of tactics that produce
crappie all year long. Let's learn how Driscoll finds
and catches crappie.
Question: Kent, how do you decide whether to troll
minnows or jigs when you're not trolling crankbaits?
 Driscoll:
We let the crappie tell us what type of bait they prefer
on that day. When we first start trolling, we'll use
both minnows and jigs, and we'll use a jig tipped with
a minnow. Since we'll often have as many as 16 poles
out at one time, we can test on different poles various
types of baits to see what the crappie want on that
day. Many times when we begin trolling, we'll not only
be experimenting with minnows and jigs, but we'll often
have a crankbait or two down also. We actually have
had as many as 32-different baits in the water at the
same time because when I'm trolling with a partner and
fishing with both minnows and jigs, I'm using a Caps
and Coleman rig. These two fishermen are five-time national
champions on the crappie-fishing circuit. Their rigs
have a weight and two different drop lines so that you
can actually troll two baits at one time.
 On
the bottom of this rig, I'll put a jig on the bottom
below the weight and a minnow on the top of the rig
above the weight. I'll vary the color of my jig head
and the body of my jig. I'll tip the jig with a minnow
on some poles. When I'm fishing a new lake that I've
never fished before, or when I'm out searching for crappie
and haven't pinpointed their location or the type and
color of bait they prefer that day, I try to put a smorgasbord
with various colors, sizes and types of bait in the
water to let the crappie pick the type of bait and/or
the color of bait they want on that day and on that
lake. I'll also tip some of my jigs with Berkley Crappie
Nibbles. These Nibbles add scent to your jigs, and apparently
that scent helps the crappie to bite.
 Not
only are we fishing with a wide variety of minnows and
jigs, but we also have different types of jigs when
we're trying to find crappie. We'll use hair jigs, grub
body type jigs and triple-ripple style jigs. By giving
the crappie a wide variety of baits to choose from,
we can tell by the number of fish we catch on the different
types of baits we have out, what bait, what size, what
color and at what depth the crappie will feed. This
technique is called spider rigging.
To learn more about Mossy Oak Fishing Line, go to www.mossyoakfishing.com.
For more information about B'n'M Crappie Poles, visit
www.bnmpoles.com.
TOMORROW: HOW DRISCOLL TROLLS
MINNOWS AND JIGS
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