What I prefer:
Short, ultralight rod in 5-6' range.
Small spinning reel spooled with 4 lb test. Lighter line with light rod allows for tremendous amount of sensitivity and also great for casting from shore!
Slip float setup (consisting of float, bead, sinkers, and slip knot)
1/16th oz jig head in various colours, rigged with 1.5" tube of various colours.
Make sure you carry with you different colour presentations as some days certain colours will work better than others.
Depth is very important as well. At times, fish are hugging the bottom, or they are suspended, or they are right at the surface. 1 word. EXPERIMENT. Give everything a try until you locate fish.
Techniques I prefer:
It is the action that triggers the crappie to strike. Keep your lure moving. If there is sufficient wave action, the float will take care of the action of the lure. However, during calmer settings, use different slow retrieves or twitches to move the lure.
Cast out and slowly retrieve it, as if the lure is moving at a constant rate, or use stop and go twitching.
When a fish hits, you'll notice that your float will move in an odd way. It will either go down into the depths, go up and float sideways, move to the the right, move to the left, move away from shore, to shore, etc. Once you see this, the fish has the lure in it's mouth and is on the move. You can now set the hook. With a gentle and NOT powerful motion, sweep the rod back and put tension on the line to set the hook. Not a lot of force is needed as crappie have really thin membrane around their jaw bones. Strong hook sets will literally rip their mouth open, and you'll end up losing fish.
Good thing to note is that crappie have mouths that typically orient in an upward fashion, this means that they usually consume prey that are above them. Make sure your presentation is seen.
