Crappie just may be the best game fish that could be imagined. With adult crappie averaging just under a foot long, and weighing from 2 to 4 pounds, reeling one in is a thrill for all anglers. And if you’re savvy enough to be using one of the best crappie fishing lures, it’s a thrill you can have regularly.
To help you decide which lure — or lures — might be a good choice for you, we’ve assembled a list of recommendations for the five best crappie fishing lures available today. Read on to find out more about lures that will help you hook your limit of crappie.
Our Top Picks
Best Overall
Bobby Garland Crappie Baits
Best Tube Lure
Berkley PowerBait Pre-Rigged Atomic Tubes
Best Spinner
Strike King Mini-King
Best Overall
Bobby Garland Crappie Baits
With 61 color options available, it’s easy to see why Bobby Garland Crappie Baits made our list of the best crappie fishing lures as the top overall choice for crappie anglers. With that range of color choices, you’ll be able to choose one or more Bobby Garland Crappie Baits for fishing in any type of water, from crystal-clear to murky.
You’ll also be able to choose one or more Bobby Garland Crappie Baits to handle the light conditions in which you’ll be fishing, from bright sunshine to partly cloudy skies to nighttime fishing.
Bobby Garland Crappie Baits come in a package of 18 lures, all ready for you to place a hook in them and get them in the water. Once in the water, these 2-inch lures, featuring a thin spear tail, will move in a way that is all but guaranteed to have you hooking crappie in no time.
Pros
- Movement through water is excellent
- Good for use in darker water
- Excellent for catching spawning crappie
Cons
- Lure colors may not be consistent
- Mold seam may split apart
- Overall durability may be an issue for some anglers
Best Tube Lure
Berkley PowerBait Pre-Rigged Atomic Tubes
Offering an array of colors, and coming in three weights — 1/16-ounce, 1/32-ounce, and 1/64-ounce — Berkley’s PowerBait tube-style lures deserve a place among the best crappie fishing lures in every crappie angler’s tackle box.
That multiplicity of choices is, in fact, a major reason that the PowerBait tubes earned a place on our list of recommendations for the best crappie fishing lures.
Another reason for putting the Berkley tube lures on our list of the best crappie fishing lures is that the lures come pre-rigged. For novice anglers, or even those more experienced in crappie fishing, that means not having to insert your hook into these lures. They’re ready to hit the water as soon as they’re out of your tackle box.
At the rear of your PowerBait tube lure, you’ll find a mass of short tentacles designed to attract crappie as the lure moves through the water. And of course, set right in the middle of those tentacles is the hook that will soon be hit by the crappie for which you’re searching.
Pros
- Excellent choice for young anglers
- Very attractive to crappie
- Does well when combined with a bobber for drift fishing
Cons
- May not be as long as some anglers expect
- May be too big for some fish
- Durability may be an issue for some anglers
Best Spinner
Strike King Mini-King
An intriguing spinnerbait that features its metallic disc spinner mounted away from the main body of the lure, the Strike King Mini-King is a fun lure for which to fish for crappie. Its design was what landed the Strike King Mini-King on our list of the best crappie fishing lures, but it also has a lot of other features.
For example, the Mini-King’s multiple-stranded silicone “skirt” produces motion that, like its spinner, is a cinch to attract crappie to your line. And at 3.25 inches long, weighing just ⅛-ounce, the Mini-King should be easy to cast and to move through the water as you search for crappie.
You’ll also have an array of colors from which to choose — white, chartreuse, black, and red — to give you a chance to catch crappie in a variety of water and light conditions with one of the best crappie fishing lures you can find.
Pros
- Good for catching crappie as well as other species
- Spinner flashes nicely in the water
- Can be used effectively year-round
Cons
- Spinner may be too close to hook
- Some anglers may have trouble casting lure
- Hook strength may be an issue
Best Crankbait
Rebel Lures Classic Critters
Rebel Lures Classic Critters come in a four-pack that provides you with good options for hooking crappie, and that’s why it makes our list of recommendations as one of the best crappie fishing lures available today.
In the Classic Critters package, you’ll find lures mimicking a grasshopper, a minnow, and other familiar features in crappie habitats. And what’s more, the package of lures provides you with options for topwater fishing, shallow-water fishing, and reeling across the water.
In short, Classic Critters prove that when it comes to the best crappie fishing lures, good things do come in small packages.
Pros
- Crappie are easily attracted
- Good for anglers at all levels of experience
- Multiple lures allow for experimentation
Cons
- May be too small for some anglers to use
- Hooks bend too easily
- Design could be better
Best Ice Fishing
THKFISH Ice Fishing Lures
If you go after crappie when you’re ice fishing, you need the 26-piece set of THKFISH Ice Fishing Lures, one of our recommendations for the best crappie fishing lures you can find.
Offering an array of lures in a wide range of colors, the lures included in the THKFISH set move in a circular action that’s likely to have you reeling in crappie in no time. And because they are specifically designed for low-light and dark water conditions, they’re a natural choice for ice fishing.
In addition, the weight of the THKFISH lures makes them a fine choice for bottom-fishing, whether in winter or at other times of the year.
Pros
- Different sizes help with targeting specific-size fish
- Good value for a nice assortment of lures
- Vibrant color combined with good weight
Cons
- Paint can flake off
- May be smaller than some purchasers expect
- Hook eyes may be painted over
Best Crappie Fishing Lures Buyer’s Guide
One thing you’re bound to learn about crappie fishing, if you haven’t learned it already, is that crappie are fickle when it comes to striking lures. If you fish for crappie in the same place for two days in a row, you’ll find that a lure that attracted them one day will be ignored the next day.
What that means in terms of shopping for the best crappie fishing lures is that versatility is key. So when you’re shopping for crappie fishing lures, understand that you’re shopping for more than one lure.
That’s why our list of recommendations for the best crappie fishing lures includes at least a couple of sets of lures, each offering different colors, different styles, and other characteristics. So when you’re shopping for crappie lures, be sure to seriously consider purchasing a set of lures.
Lure Weight
Another consideration when searching for the best crappie fishing lures is weight. Crappie prefer striking at lightweight lures, and you’ll find that many of the lures on the market will weigh well under ¼ ounce.
But that doesn’t mean you should limit your selection of crappie lures to those lower weights. In some instances, such as when you’re fishing on a windy day, or when you want a lure that will sink to the bottom of your fishing spot, you’ll need a lure in your tackle box that weighs in at around 1⁄4 ounce.
Other Considerations
Like other game fish, crappie will go for lures that resemble bait fish like minnows. There are a range of minnow-like crappie lures on the market, and whether you’re a serious crappie angler, or are just starting, you should have a minnow-style lure in your arsenal.
As a final note, you should understand that crappie are particularly attuned to the patterns displayed by lures. It’s entirely possible that a lure in your tackle box with one particular pattern will work great one day, but will be completely ignored the next. Buying the same lure in multiple patterns is a smart move.
Best Crappie Fishing Lures Frequently Asked Questions
What are some good basic techniques for crappie fishing with lures?
One rule that you should learn about fishing for crappie with lures is that the best crappie fishing lures will work even better if you move them through the water subtly. Whether you’re in a boat, or fishing from the shoreline or a dock, constantly jerking your lure isn’t a good strategy.
It takes a bit more patience, but your best approach to casting out a lure and reeling it back in is not to jerk it around, but to retrieve it slowly and steadily. If you think about it, that kind of movement likely will most closely mimic crappie’s usual prey.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t occasionally jerk your line to attract crappies’ attention. Or, as an alternative, try gently lifting and releasing your line in the water to create a movement for your lure.
Also, you can try simply stopping the retrieval of your line occasionally as you’re reeling it back in. Don’t create too much of a stuttering movement, as that could create a jerking action that won’t get you any bites.
Can Crappie Nibbles™ be used with lures?
If there ever comes a time when even the best crappie fishing lures in your tackle box don’t seem to be getting the job done, there is something you can do.
Adding dough baits formulated with ingredients designed to attract crappie, like Berkley PowerBait Crappie Nibbles™ or similar products from other manufacturers, to your lure can increase their effectiveness.
If you don’t want to go to the trouble of rigging your hooks with dough bait, you can try simply rubbing a dough bait along your lure to get the same effect.
What are the best colors for crappie lures?
When selecting colors for crappie lures, there are two factors to be considered. Both the clarity of the water and the sunlight conditions where you are fishing should factor into which colors of lures you choose from your tackle box.
In clear water, lures featuring natural tones of green, brown, and black will best mimic crappies’ natural prey. In murky water, you’ll have better luck with bright colors like neon green and pink, or with any fluorescent-colored lure.
As far as light conditions are concerned, sunny days are like clear water in that crappie likely will be most attracted to lures in natural colors. And just as with murky water, overcast days call for using brightly colored lures.
As a final point, night fishing for crappie calls for using any of the glow-in-the-dark lures available as some of the best crappie fishing lures. If you don’t have any glow-in-the-dark lures handy, a white-colored lure will be your best bet for catching crappie.
Wrapping up the Best Crappie Fishing Lures
So now that you’ve learned about the best crappie fishing lures — including our top-choice Bobby Garland Crappie Baits — it’s time to head out to your favorite crappie fishing spot and try your luck with one or more of them.
And if you’d like to learn more about fishing in Minnesota, you’ll find plenty of information, including the best lakes in the state for crappie fishing, elsewhere at Life in Minnesota.