Double The Pleasure, Double The Fun

Brian “Bro” Brohsdahl, a panfish guide in Minnesota, also created his own version of a dropper-loop for quicker, easier presentations to crappies both under the ice and in open water. He calls it the Bro Knot, and uses it on his “power dropper” rigs. It’s intended to place the bait, whether he’s using waxworms, minnows, or plastics, at the level he’s seeing fish on sonar. Similar to a drop-shot rig, a power dropper can be delivered immediately back into the strike zone in a hot bite, which he attacks with a minnow on a glow jig above a flashy rattling jig. In a tough bite, Bro goes with a bell sinker and tiny #16 to #18 caddis hooks (fly hooks) tipped with maggots on the dropper. The power dropper is designed for quick deliveries.

Tandems on Lures

Droppers can be attached to topwater lures and popper flies to pick off “lookers.” Make a noisy surface disturbance and active, shallow crappies will come for a look-see but won’t always bite. When crappies are deeper, droppers can be applied to crankbaits as well.

With surface lures and crankbaits, remove the rear hook and tie on a dropper. A surface lure can actually act as a double-duty lure-bobber. While it hunts bass or aggressive crappies on top, the dropper line can be up to 4 feet long, allowing an Aberdeen with a lip-hooked minnow or a light jig-plastic combo to drop slowly into the strike zone. Droppers on diving baits should be no longer than about 3 inches or tangles become problematic.

This is a good way to develop confidence in tiny plastics on 1/80- to 1/32-ounce jigs, as the flash and vibration of the crankbait draws fish to the jig. But remember to work slowly with constant pauses. Suspending baits are a big plus here, because the lure can be paused, allowing the hook or jig to settle a few inches below. Subtle twitches, slow pulls, and short, downward snaps of the rod tip can be deadly at that point when applying tandems.

Droppers on diving lures allow you to cover the top 8 to 10 feet of the water column with two very different presentations at the same time. For much the same reason, droppers on flylines are old news. In Ireland, it’s quite common to rig three flies on the same leader, especially when fishing still water for brown trout, using a series of line connections to create a tapered leader. Using surgeon’s knots or back-to-back uni-knots to connect two pieces of tippet, the angler simply leaves one 4- to 6-inch tag end off each knot to attach a fly. This also allows the angler to quickly determine which fly in the box is hottest at the moment, while fishing three different depths at the same time.

The same rigs work for crappies, with subsurface flies designed to catch them. Even simpler, however, is the popper dropper for crappies. Just tie a dropper to the shank of the hook on a popper or foam spider with a Trilene knot. Best to use bare hooks and plastics or sinking nymph patterns on the dropper. Jigs make casting more difficult and livebait tears too easily. For the same reason, leaders should be short—no more than 3 inches long.

Three flies on a leader should be a foot or more apart, and remember to put the heaviest fly on the end of the leader (bottom of the rig). Most nymph patterns that work for trout take crappies, but a tad more flash never hurts. During hot bites, it’s possible to hook three crappies at once. In fact, with most tandem rigs, multiple hookups become a common occurrence. But the main attraction of tandem rigging is the ability to present multiple baits or plastics, or combining those with hardbaits, to quickly zero in on precise depths and preferences.

Will it be marabou or plastic? Maggots or minnows? Tandems make such determinations quickly.