Double The Pleasure, Double The Fun

When you hit the water, are you sure crappies are going to hit chartreuse, or will it be white today? Can you get away with the aggressive 1/16-ounce jig, or will it have to be a 1/100-ounce jig tipped with a single maggot? Will they be on minnows or waxworms? Plastics or small leeches? Hardbaits or blade heads? Blades or small jig-and-plastic combos?

No worries, mate. Use both at the same time. Double rigs are nothing new, but the possible wrinkles are endless. And everytime we write about tandem rigging, people send us more ideas on how they’ve been doing it. Some of those ideas are pretty hot.

Tandem rigs were first designed long ago, to provide more bang for every buck. Spreader rigs were commonly deployed for all kinds of panfish way back when, because catching two or three at once was not only possible but expected during a hot bite. Nothing has changed in that regard. But most importantly, tandem rigging quickly dials in a fisherman to any preferences crappies may have for size, color, weight, aggressiveness, bait type, or style of plastic.

The simplest tandem rigs involve droppers. Just tie a short leader to a spoon, bladebait, crankbait, popper, or to the shank of a jig, dropping a lighter jig below. Almost as simple are tandems that employ some kind of knot that joins two lines, or any knot that leaves two tag ends. Jigs of the same weight or varying weights are tied to the tag ends.

Just those two simple options have so many variables, it would require an encyclopedia to illustrate all the possibilities with every type of bait, hair, plastic, and feather known to catch crappies. But a relatively brief parade of examples can bring the point home.

Pro Rigging Options

Spider-rigging provides a lot of impetus for creating and playing with tandem rigs. Spider-rigging, of course, is a trolling technique that employs anywhere from 4 to 15 rods. With two baits, tubes, or other options on each line, that’s 8 to 30 hooks or jigs. The sheer number of baits deployed gives pause, and the number of depths covered can be staggering. With 12 lines out, every foot of the water column could be covered from top to bottom in 24 feet of water.

Ronnie Capps and Steve Coleman, perhaps the two most successful crappie fishermen in tournament history, utilize one of the simplest and most effective tandem rigs for spider-rigging. They tie a 3-way swivel to their 8-pound mainline. From one of the remaining connections on the swivel they tie a 12-inch leader to an Aberdeen hook, and to the final connection, a 4-foot 6-pound dropper, which holds an egg sinker 18 inches down (wrapped onto the dropper). About a foot below that, on the end of the dropper, they tie on a hook or light jig (1/32- to 1/16-ounce). About a foot below the sinker, they tie on another hook or a tube jig.

Todd Huckabee, a multispecies guide in Oklahoma, likes to probe vertically into brushpiles and timber with tandem rigs for crappies. “It gives you a chance to try two similar or different presentations at different depths at the same time,” Huckabee says. He uses his own knot, a version of a loop knot, to put two jigs on the same line without having to tie lines together. “It’s very quick,” he says. “You’re back in the water within a minute, which is important around wood. I also secure the bottom jig to a loop knot, so both jigs are on loops. That allows them to pivot around wood and brush. When I have clients that insist on tying their own tandem rigs, I notice that they’re snagged up a lot more often than I am.”