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Besides a fishing pole, pliers are one of those things you’ll reach for often when crappie fishing. I’m constantly using them for dehooking fish, crimping weights, or cutting fishing line. Let’s briefly discuss the features that make the best pliers for crappie fishing. Then I’ll list the best fishing pliers by budget, so you’ll know exactly what to purchase.
Your crappie pliers should handle the following 5 tasks.
- Hook Removal
- Cutting Fishing Line (Including Braid)
- Pinching and Opening Sinker Weights
- Pulling Knots Tight
- Bending And Straightening Hooks
Below are the 4 Features a crappie fisherman should look for when purchasing pliers
- Size Needs To Be A 7-8” Needle Nose Design
- A Useable Line Cutting Feature
- Corrosion Resistance
- Affordable
1. Crappie Pliers Should Be 7-8” Long And Needle Nosed
When it comes to removing hooks from crappie, or working with weights, you don’t need a long tool. But, you also don’t want a stubby pair of pliers. I find that a 7-8” set of needle nosed pliers is a perfect size for crappie fishing.
You’ll also want your pliers to have a “straight nose” as opposed to a bent nose. Bent nosed pliers are for removing hooks from deeply hooked fish. I don’t find that a crappie’s throat is deep enough to warrant that style of pliers.
You’ll notice that some modern fishing pliers have an included split ring tip on the end, as shown in the image below. I don’t find that this style of tip interferes with day to day use, and it’s a nice feature to have if you ever need it. It actually sort of helps you lock the pliers onto a hook when you are trying to dislodge it.
2. Good Line Cutting Ability
Most any good pair of needle nosed pliers with a cutting feature should be able to handle mono and flouro. However, the cutters on a cheaper set of pliers may not hold up for long if you’re doing a lot of cutting. Also, the cutters on cheaper pliers don’t handle cutting braid all that well.
A better option is a set of pliers with carbide cutters. This is a pretty common feature on most modern day fishing pliers.
In the past, I’ve always kept a separate set of fishing scissors to handle cutting braided line. That’s what you’ll probably want to do if you go the cheaper route for fishing pliers.
These days, I prefer to kick in a few extra dollars for a more modern style of fishing pliers with a carbide cutter.
If you use braid in your crappie setup, like I do, I think you’ll certainly like having the more advanced cutting feature. Regardless, if you use braid or not, I think you’d enjoy having the carbide cutters. They just work better.
3. Fishing Pliers Should Be Corrosion Resistant
In the case of crappie fishing, your gear isn’t going up against a harsh saltwater environment, but it’s still going to get wet. Your crappie fishing gear needs to be able to hold up to a moisture rich environment.
I started out using “normal” cheap needle nose pliers only to find that many times they were seized shut when I needed them. You can usually bring pliers back to life with chemicals and elbow grease, but that’s a real pain.
Instead, you want something that’ll actually hold up for a while. There are several ways that pliers get a level of corrosion resistance. They could have some sort of coating, be constructed of stainless steel, or better yet, be made of aluminum.
I have steel pliers that are simply coated or plated with a protective material, and I like them just fine. They just don’t hold up quite as long as some type of alloy.
Ultimately, I prefer aluminum construction over other options. Aluminum cuts down on the weight of the tool, and is the least likely to corrode. The trade off is that they are more expensive, and you give up some strength. I find both of these trade offs to be acceptable in my case.
4. Affordable
First of all, I’m not personally a huge believer in premium pliers for freshwater fishing. With that said, I don’t fault those who are.
I tend to be rough on my gear, and I’ve lost more than one pair of pliers overboard, so I tend to go cheaper when it comes to pliers for crappie fishing.
I like to get cheaper pliers so that I can afford 2 pairs for my boat. Handing a pair of pliers back and forth when you really get on the crappie is irritating. Instead, I like to have a pair in the front, and another pair in the back of the boat.
Regardless of your own preferences, I hope the following breakdown can quickly point you to the best crappie pliers to match your budget.
Crappie Pliers Are Available For All Budgets!
Cheap Needle Nosed Pliers
If you want to go super cheap, you can pick up some regular needle nose pliers from Harbor Freight or Walmart and roll with that. Just know that before long you’ll definitely have issues with rust. Honestly, this will work just fine for a while. If you have problems, you can just buy another cheap pair and move on.
After having gone the cheap route several times myself, I no longer prefer to do so. You always end up with a pair of rusted shut pliers, when you really need them.
Decent “Fishing” Pliers
A much better option is a standard set of needle nose fishing pliers. Typically, “fishing pliers” have some sort of coating to limit rusting.
These can be picked up very cheaply at places like Walmart, BassPro, or Academy Sports. I’ve used these successfully for many years. Several of the larger fishing brands, such as Rapala and Berkley sell versions of these. The most noticeable negative is that the cutting feature doesn’t hold up very well on these style of pliers.
I had known for quite some time that there were better options, and recently I decided to go ahead and start upgrading some of my old equipment. That’s when I decided to purchase a couple pairs of modern fishing pliers that I discuss next.
Some decent “fishing pliers” options
- Berkley 8″ Straight Nose Pliers (Academy Sports)
- H2O XPRESS™ 8″ Pliers with Sheath (Academy Sports)
- Rapala Stainless Steel Pliers (BassPro)
- Rapala Fisherman’s Pliers (BassPro)
Best Pliers For Crappie Fishing
In my opinion the best route is to spend a little more to get something similar to the two pliers I personally purchased below.
Modern fishing pliers like these have good cutters, an included lanyard and sheath, a good level of corrosion resistance, and are internally spring loaded. They have other miscellaneous features as well such as crimping slots.
I bought an aluminum pair and a coated stainless steel pair to equip my boat.
I was honestly quite surprised how well these cut braided lines. No tension was necessary to consistently get a clean cut.
Two pair of modern fishing pliers that I purchased
Premium Pliers
There is yet another level up. You can spend as much as $50 to $350 on a fancy pair of fishing pliers. But, I can’t in good conscience recommend buying such a thing for crappie fishing. It just doesn’t make any sense.
Imagine how painful it would be to drop a $100 pair of pliers in the lake. Those are just not for me, and I’m guessing not for the typical crappie fisherman reading this article.
Below are a few examples of the premium options on the market.
Some examples of premium fishing pliers
- Gerber Magniplier
- Bubba Fishing Pliers
- Van Staal Pliers
Some Pliers To Avoid
There are a few styles of pliers I personally would avoid for crappie fishing.
Don’t buy these
- Multitool
- Long Pliers
- Rope Wrapped Pliers
- Bent-nose Pliers
Multitools – I don’t like a multitool for my primary set of fishing pliers. They are good at a lot of things but not great at any particular fishing use. They also have lots of moving parts to get corroded.
Long Pliers – I also don’t like really long pliers. Keep them around 7-8” for most efficient use. The longer they are, the more cumbersome they get.
Rope Wrapped – You should avoid those terrible rope wrapped handled pliers that I still see for sale. I once bought a pair and hated them. Eventually the rope started coming loose as can be seen in the image at the top. They were never comfortable, even before the rope started coming off.
Bent Nose Pliers – I would personally avoid bent nose pliers as well. Those are generally used for larger fish that get deeply hooked. I have not found they are needed for crappie.
Conclusion
Most any set of corrosion resistant 6-9” needle nose pliers should work fine for crappie fishing.
After much research, below are the 2 best pliers for crappie fishing that I could find at an affordable price. These check all the boxes for a good affordable pair of fishing pliers. Good luck finding your own pair!
Now, go buy yourself a crappie set of pliers 😉
Augustus Clay
My stainless steel KastKing pliers and my aluminum Piscfun pliers. Click on the images above to check prices on Amazon.
If you’re gearing up for crappie, you might be interested in my breakdown of minnow buckets here – Best Minnow Buckets For Crappie Fishermen or head on over to crappie.com and read to your hearts content.
